Can anyone save us?

And so, it would seem we've come full circle. When we reflect back upon the last few posts, we see that none of the disciplines or institutions that we might expect to come to the rescue can or will.

Science is capable of developing deep, insightful and helpful knowledge, but if we ignore it, we do so at our own peril.

Technology can solve lots of problems, but not all problems, and it is up to us to help it decide what's worthwhile and what is not.

Politics has become beholden to special interests, but it is we, the populus who have reneged on our responsibility to get involved and keep their noses to the wheel.

It should be clear that "the market", as it is currently practiced, is simply a degenerate extension of the political sphere. Money can never be the measure of anything, but we have essentially turned it into a god in its own right.

Turning the "religious" corner, we see that Jesus showed us the way, and he admonished us to follow suit, but we've chosen to ignore that.

And God, if He exists, according to His own accounting, told us all that if we don't do it, nobody else will.

This is where is all comes together. Regardless of whether we're religious or not, believers or atheists, in the end, we're all in this together. Regardless of what we may think is true and right, at bottom, we're all in this together. When all is said and done, there is no outside force, power or agency that can, or will, suddenly step in and snatch us from the jaws of destruction.

No, if anything at all is to be done or can possibly be done, we have no choice: we -- you, me, our families, everyone we know and don't know -- are the only ones who can do anything at all.

We have already raced past the crossroads, but it may be that we can backtrack far enough to take the other road. Whether we do or not doesn't depend on anyone or anything other than ourselves. As Pogo put it so aptly so long ago, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

If this enemy is to be defeated, however, only we can do it. Who's up for the challenge?

Can God save us?

This is the trickiest question of all. I mean, after all, the Big Guy (according to the legend) put us here, so he can take us out anytime He pleases (which he did once, according to the text: see the Story of Noah), and according to the believers, absolutely everything is in His hands. The atheists and non-theists among you will quickly retort, quite consistently, that He doesn't exist, so He isn't going to be doing anything. That may or may not be true. We cannot know for sure. Regardless of what you believe (there is or there is no God), it is simply a matter of belief. You can't prove it one way or the other. So, in one respect, this simply removes God from the equation.

There are a lot of people who believe in God or some kind of god or gods or the like. Truth be told, it is the majority of humanity. For that very reason, we cannot simply discard the God question out of hand. For that reason alone, it deserves to be taken seriously, regardless of how intolerant militant atheists can be. I certainly don't agree with a lot of people, but I do try to make an effort to understand why they think what they think and why they believe what they believe, and I am extremely hesitant to tell them flat out that their full of crap. (Unfortunately, this seems to be the preferred argumentation modus of our militant-atheist friends.)

Given the large sphere of influence of and my own upbringing within the Abrahamic Traditions, I'll restrict myself to that one perspective. (I believe, however, that mutatis mutandis everything I have to say applies outside this context as well, but that's another blog for another time.) We are told in the Good Book, Part I (Old Testament), right up front (1st book, Genesis, Chapters 1 & 2, in particular the latter) that we (that is, humankind) were put here to be the caretakers of this world. We might have screwed up and got kicked out of headquarters (the Garden of Eden), but we weren't fired; we still had the job, we just had to do it out here where all of us all. We're doing a pretty sorry job of it, too.

Granted, even God got fed up and washed the slate clean (literally), but He told us he wouldn't do that anymore, and from then on out -- according to the text -- he repeated sent this, that, or the other guy (or gal ... there are lots of stories in the Bible in which the female plays a decisive role) to remind us of what we actually should be doing. But, He told us flat out, He wasn't going to intervene so directly. The way I read the text and see the big picture, then, we've been passed the buck. The way I see how things have been developing, especially in the last couple of hundred years, though, we want to pretend like we don't have it ... never heard of it ... and that's why we are in the straits we are in. We've lost sight of our job description. We're not doing our job.

Can Jesus save us?

OK, OK, it's quite obvious how my Christian brethren will respond to this one: with a resounding Yes! or He already did!, but unfortunately, we have not evidence for that. They may be right, but if they are, it's a guess. I know they like to pull in the Bible (in this case, the New Testament) for "proof", but you can't declare that the Bible's the Word of God, then use the Bible to prove that it is. That's called circular reasoning. Now, if you want to tell me that this is what you believe, then I'm behind you 100%. You are free to believe it, but always keep in mind, it's a belief, not a proven truth (or Truth, for you metaphysicans out there).

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of the guy. I'm not all so keen on many of his followers, but what he had to say and the example that he set is precisely what I would expect from a guy in his position. When we look at what the Gospels (those are the first four books of the New Testament for those of you not so familiar with the source texts) have to say, I'm not sure that his death is so much more important than his life. I read it the other way around.

It was Jesus' forerunner (Wegbereiter, in German; that is, literally "path preparer"), John the Baptist, who put it best: "Metanoeite, metanoeite, the Kingdom of God is at hand." (I threw in the Greek word there, because there's no one single, best translation of the word. Coming in from the Latin, we end up with "repent". That is obviously a loaded word, especially for non-religious types (and there is no reason to think that Jesus -- or John, for that matter -- intended to exclude anyone at all). Luther translated it better, in my humble opinion: "turn around" (in German, kehr um (and this fits well with things that Jesus did say later about the Kingdom of God, namely that it was near, at hand, and well, within you). But, when we look at the Greek word itself, apart from any theological or Christological interpretation schemes, the word simply means "change your mind" or, said differently, "change the way you think".

This is consistent with everything else that Jesus said and did. He spent his time with the outcasts of society instead of condemning them and persecuting them; he spoke truth to power; he healed the sick, even when he wasn't supposed to; he fed the hungry and told us to do likewise. This was a guy who practiced precisely what he preached, much unlike just about every one of us.

It would seem that Jesus' mindset was more of I-showed-you-how-now-you-do-it, but it's not clear to me that this message got through. And, if you're not part of the Christian club, well, as far as they are concerned, he's not concerned with anyone who hasn't signed up, much to the contrary of how he actually acted when he was here.

For that reason alone, I think it's doubtful that he'll be rushing in with an angelic cavalry to save the day. And that, it seems, just leaves us with his "Dad" (as he called Him). Next time.

Can "the market" save us?

The answer here is more than obvious: of course, it's no. The market has never been in the business of saving. It's all about the money, and as we all know, money is the root of all evil. Those with enough cash to spare of capture and co-opted the politicians, and the players in the market, the global players, if you will, are all about growth at any price. The market as we understand it these days and the way it is portrayed by its loudest and most enthusiastic proponents is about gaining market share (always at the expense of others), growing (through destruction or assimilation of the competition), and attracting ever more investors; that is, attracting more and more money.

The purpose of business is business, opined Milton Friedman; and the purpose of business is the maximization of profits responded his acolytes. Yes, this is a quasi-religious rite that is played out each and every day in the global market place. I think it's obvious to even the most casual observer that if your primary raison d'être is accumulating money (or wealth, for you purists) than everything, and I mean everything else is secondary, is subordinate, to that purpose. Saving the world, securing the future of humanity . . . those may be noble and inspiring ideals, but they have absolutely nothing to do with “the market” and what goes on there. Friedman went so far to assert that business was wrong to even include social responsibility in its vocabulary. That was for others to worry about, not something that should be detracting business from its true and only purpose. No, business, “the market”, can't save us because it has said straight out that they have no interest in doing so. It's not even remotely part of their mind-set.

Well, science, technology, politics, and business – all players in this world can be counted out. And if nothing in or of this would can do it, it would seem that, in desperation at the least, we need to turn elsewhere to perhaps find our salvation. Where might that be?

Can politics save us?

This is not a trick question. I'm serious. Well, at least I'm serious that the question has to be asked. The role of politics in modern society is – or at least should be – to provide a safe and secure framework within which individuals and groups can live and prosper. Not only should politics ensure that science has the means and wherewithal to pursue knowledge, but also that technology can take the results of science and apply them in ways that benefit all of us. Unfortunately, that's not what they do.

Of late, they have been spending inordinate amounts of time and money on waging wars (both physical, such as in Afghanistan, and moral, such as the War on Drugs), spying on their own citizens (in the name of fighting terror), serving their own interests (the infamous “political revolving door”, their special salary, health care and pension benefits), and fighting amongst themselves (election campaigns, coalitions/oppositions). The little bit they do here and there for the safety, security and well-being of their citizenry is not worth mentioning. Things like a social safety net, livable wages, safe working conditions, and more should be of more concern to them. But it isn't.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things, precisely that which science is telling us and technology is doing nothing about should be high on politics' agenda – such as, setting limits on pollutions, ensuring alternative energy sources and technologies are developed, strengthening the educational system, etc. – but it isn't.

No, it would appear that their mind-set has become one of self-satisfaction and self-serving. The concerns of “the people” take a backseat to financial and economic interests. And that, of course, will be our focus next time.

Can technology save us?

Technology is science's little brother. Big brothers are older, wiser, more imposing, but harmless. Little brothers are all about action, excitement, dynamism, and adventure. And this is precisely why technology can't save us either.

This is not to say that a lot of people don't put a lot of faith in it. Look at all the technological advances we've made, especially in the last century or so: we've gone to the moon, we are exploring outer space, we have amazing prosthetics, we can clone sheep, not to speak of the wide range of miraculous drugs we've invented. But we've also developed nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, we make environmentally unfriendly plastics, we pollute, misuse, destroy, and exploit on a global scale. When we step back and look at the big picture, when we draw up accounts, the ledger is seriously weighted on the negative side. Our standards of living are in general higher, but we suffer from more diseases, have slain untold masses, and are wrecking the environment at a record pace. How is that going to save us?

It's not. Technology is about bigger, better, faster, smarter, newer, snazzier . . . the list goes on. There are pills, machines, gadgets, replacement parts, vehicles, computers and Lord knows what-not to still be invented. The technologist will tell you that technology on the whole brings a lot of good with it, but technologists aren't the ones to point out what they're getting wrong. To them, to be fair, it's imply a matter of finding another innovation, another solution, then the problem's solved. The problem with this way of thinking, though, is that history doesn't bear it out. Ever since we learned to deal with fire, the technological path has been an exceedingly costly one in spite of all the alleged benefits.

No, it's not in the technological mind-set to save us. Granted, they might like to, but they aren't doing it, and in the end, that's all that matters. But what if they were better directed?

Can science save us?

Science can't save us. Well, that's the short answer. And if I already knew the answer, why even ask the question? The answer is that it's not just about whether, it's also about why. So why is it that science can't save us?

First, it is simply too ideologically burdened (it aims to describe, not explain, and certainly not to solve), it has a overly strong materialistic bias (except for a certain class of physicists), and it is far too concerned with itself. Second, science is mostly about knowledge, I suppose ... well, at least it used to be. We would know things, like how the world works, why the sky is blue and more recently that matter and energy are conserved, but who cares? Yes, that's the third reason. What do you do with knowledge? Most of it sits on the shelves of libraries, a lot of can be found on the Internet these days, but what do you do with it. The true scientist really doesn't care. The main thing is figuring it out. To the scientist, just about everything else is simply uninteresting.

There we are. Science is telling us that we hurtling toward The End. It can say, “Hey, you'd better stop burning fossil fuels or creating so much pollution.” but it's not their job, and they certainly don't see it as their job, to tell us how to solve the problem. They only answer questions they ask themselves. Other people's questions are for the most part, distracting.

No, science can't save us. It's not in its mind-set. So, if science itself isn't going to jump in and help, who can or will. And this brings us to technology, which we'll look at more closely next time.

Can we still hope?

To me, its quite obvious that the world's going to hell in a hand basket. This isn't just my youthful pessimism. As I pointed out just a couple of blogs ago, we may have already passed the Point of No Return environmentally. The climate-change deniers will tell you it's all a load of nonsense, the tree-huggers will tell you it's a done deal, but serious science tells us we're damn close to the precipice. You can believe what you want, but I'm going with science. At the moment, it's the most reasonable. Let's face it, primarily because of the deniers and the neo-liberal growth addicts, we're destroying the world faster than the rest of us can keep up. I think it is not unreasonable at all to start thinking about The End.

I mean, who's going to save us? (And this is assuming that we're worth saving at all.) The End means different things to different groups, of course. So-called Christians (especially the born-agains and evangelicals) have one idea about it, and materialists (especially the militant-atheist types, like Dawkins) have quite another. Personally, I think they're both in for a surprise.

There are a number of possible “saviors”: science, technology, politicians, Jesus, or God, just to name the most often mentioned and obvious ones. Maybe the right people in these various areas or the right miracles at the right moment could make the ultimate difference. Maybe ... perhaps ... I don't know for sure. It's something worth thinking about though, so I think that's precisely what I'll do.

In the next couple of posts, then, we'll take a look at the various possibilities, one by one.

Boring and uninteresting

You don't have to be paranoid to know everyone's after you. Paranoia, at least this side of a formally diagnosed illness, is simply a feeling. I say "simply" knowing full well that it's much more than that. Truth be told, I tend to think that what we feel is often more significant and important than what we know.

I know that there are lots of folks who "feel" that they can't live without their personal technology (laptop, smartphone, tablet, etc.) and there are a whole lot more who feel that they have nothing to hide. After all, most of us lead such boring and uninteresting lives that ... well, who really cares whether I was at the movies or the mall last night, or whether I stopped in this fast-food joint as opposed to that one? In general, I agree. Who cares? More specifically, I would say that eventually, the wrong people.

Information can be a powerful tool, or a powerful weapon. As my friend Julius used to say, abusus non tollit usus; that is, just because something is abused or misused doesn't make the thing itself bad. In this regard, information are like guns. They can be very helpful and provide a lot of "feeling safe". But, in the wrong hands at the wrong place at the wrong time, they can be deadly. You just have to know that about guns, and the same holds true for information. What is more, if you have a gun, chances are very high that you are going to use it at some point, willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously, seriously or frivolously. And the same thing holds for information.

Personally, I'm not all that comfortable with third parties -- be it the government or the shop around the corner -- having, storing, and what's even worse, manipulating my personal data. I'm not paranoid. I know they have it and I know they use it, but I'm not convinced they need it. It's at this point that too many people say, "Well, I've got nothing to hide, what does it matter?" or "Who could possibly be interested in my boring life, so who cares?", but I'm a firm believer that if you don't need it, you needn't have it.

My point is that it is data about me. All the little bits and pieces than everyone is collecting is being shared with everyone else who is interesting in collecting, and the next thing you know, others know more about me than I do, and they're not willing to tell me what they know. At that point, I say it's time to rethink this data or information-collection thing. If it is information about me, why shouldn't I have a right to know what it is and what's being done with it? If they are using this information, say as a corporation, to generate profits, why am I not receiving royalties? If it's the government, why shouldn't I know what they have and who has it and what it's being used for? In other words, when do the rest of us find out what apparently so many others already know?

Like I said last time: I'm not saying we need to opt out of society or go into seclusion. I'm not saying that we need to fear either corporations or government, but we do need to be aware, and since we are involved, I believe we have every right to know. What I'm making a pitch for is more personal involvement and awareness. It is personal, so let me be personally involved.

At least you should know

While most of us like to think we're hard-boiled enough to know what's happening, the real fact of the matter is that most of us are still quite naive. I'm not saying naivité is a bad thing, but too much of anything can be less than good in the end. By the same token, knowing a whole lot of little things and not putting them all together can be just as bad. Technology, though not bad in and of itself, can be used to do lots of things that aren't in our best interest. Quite often, little "perks" are included to distract us from the bigger issues.

For example, collecting bonus or payback points or whatever they're called just tell retailers more and more about our purchasing decisions. The "old" system of figuring out what you bought and offering you discounts on name-brand products is really old. Since you voluntarily give them your information, they can link you to what you buy. The next new twist will come, I believe, when they've refined face-recognition. Anyone who has been tagged in a Facebook picture has their face charted and plotted, but this is perhaps the harmless side of the passport photos that are required these days. Frontal shots without smiles are required now not only for passports but also for driver's licenses and other identification documents. Why, because it makes it easier for the face-recognition software to work and refine.

There are two aspects of this I find interesting. On the one hand, they (whoever "they" are, it doesn't matter) know what we look like. They don't have to know our name, that's secondary. Anytime you are "seen" by a video surveillance camera ... and these are popping up everywhere, though in some countries (e.g., the UK) more than others (e.g., Germany). It is becoming ever easier to recognize you. On the other hand, a number of retailers have installed cameras to monitor what customers actually look at. Do you scan the top shelf in a grocery store before taking something off the bottom? Do you tend to pick from the middle? In neutral terms, "they" are merely trying to determine you search behavior ... or whatever. It won't be long till retailers know who you are and what you generally look at as well as buy. We're all going to be receiving more offers than we might like.

Smartphones have taken on new dimensions as well. In addition to GPS tracking and signal triangulation, newer models register how many steps you take, in which direction, how often you take it out of your pocket or purse and more. This is all getting transmitted to "someone". Some have incorporated face recognition so that they not only know how often you look at it, but soon they will also know to whom you are showing it as well.

Now think about it all for a moment. Think about the different pieces of the puzzle, and you quickly realize "they" know a lot more about us and what we do than we like to think.

Am I trying to instill fear or get you to stop using your phone? No. We can't live without our devices and they can be very useful too. What we need to think about, however, is what kinds of information do they need to know about me, individually. How much of this should "they" be allowed to collect? How long should "they" be allowed to store it? At what point is my privacy (and security) being violated? These are more relevant and important issues than you might think, and if you are interested at all in either your privacy or security, you may want to give it all just a bit more thought.

Just a techno-game?

I'm sure there are any number of you who immediate responded to what I've been advancing that this is what you've been saying all along. The Internet, the Web, changes everything. Free access to information and the wider distribution of technology is going to save us all. Actually, it isn't. It's not even about the technology. It's about what you do with it. TPTB, of course, are trying to bend it to their advantage, and there are lots and lots of folks going along, but the momentum is actually with the rest of us.

Yes, it is becoming more and more difficult for TPTB to keep things secret. Yes, there are more and more people communicating with each other. And yes, much too much of this communication takes place simply via the technology. But that is changing. There is a growing number of people who are using the technology simply to find new ideas and then are communicating them in good old-fashioned manner -- that is, face-to-face -- with people in their communities. We learn about the power of mass movements on the Internet (for example, Occupy or Arab Spring) and we start wondering if that wouldn't work in downtown Topeka or in Dresden or in Milan, or in Smalltown or Kleinstadt. We become aware of the massive influence of huge international corporations, how politics here, there, and everywhere are more or less corrupt and we start asking ourselves if it is worth the effort to get involved at all. We start to see that while the problems of the others are not exactly the same, they are terribly similar, that there are analogies than can be made, and that maybe, just maybe, the others are more like us than we thought. We ask ourselves whether what they've done maybe we could do too.

Obviously, I'm not talking about mass movements (yet) or mind-changing attitudes (yet) or illuminating insights (yet). I'm merely pointing out that in addition to the widespread apathy that so many complain about, there are a good number of people, everywhere, who are simply acting as if the system as it is and the mainstays of that system (that would be TPTB) don't matter. They don't want to fight city hall nor do they want a new herd of do-nothing politicians in Washington or Paris or Berlin. No, they simply want to get on with their lives the best they can and they are finding others of like mind and interests, not halfway around the world, but down the block, if not simply next door.

There is a growing number of people who realize that here and now is more important than then and there, that we should have more say in what affects us directly. There is a growing realization that if my neighbors are doing OK, I'm probably doing OK, too. That there is more than enough to do right here where we are that has a bigger impact on their lives than hollow political promises and self-centered and self-interested entities far away.

The upside to our modern communication technologies is that we can be inspired by the successes of others who may be far away, and we can also learn from the mistakes and failures that others make. This access helps us realize that we are not alone with our problems, but the only ones that can solve them is us. The downside is that we might think that we can use these technologies to affect things far away, but we can't, nor should we. We humans were built and programmed for small-scale, near-environment success. We can handle groups of probably not more than 150 individuals, our families counted among them. But, we have larger overlaps between our groups than we realize, but we're awakening to that fact as well.

Maybe small is beautiful after all.

On the road again

I just got back home again. I had to travel to Turin for two-and-a-half days for an EU project meeting. Sometimes I think I'm getting too old for this.

Some of my colleagues, and everyone who does travel much think I'm mostly on vacation. I'm not. Anyone who does travel regularly knows what a hassle it is anymore: worrying about missing train, plane and bus connections; those incessent, silly, ineffective security checks conducted by unmotivated individuals who are more than overworked and underpaid; the unexpected surprises at the hotel, including what's for breakfast (which can vary considerably from country to country ... Italy tends toward sweet); very often eating alone, and the mere living out of a suitcase, well, it's not precisely my idea of fun.

As usual, it was get into town in time for a late dinner; meetings all day, regardless of the weather; the whole project team gets together for dinner; and meetings the next day and out to catch the bus to the airport. Sightseeing: none. Free time: none. Simply enjoying the ambience of a foreign city: none. Getting some insight into the local customs and culture: none. My question is, what is so vacation-like about that? Oh, right, I wasn't in the office.

With smartphone and internet access everywhere, I'm also expected -- whenever -- to check my work mail and return calls and well, do more or less what I would do if I were in the office. Too often, though, this takes place after normal working hours. After all, if I'm in a meeting, I simply find it impolite to be taking other calls and working my mails when I'm supposed to be paying attention, contributing, and ... you all know the drill.

So, my question is: what's so great about work in the modern world? And, also, why, if computers are supposed to be such productivity enhancers and labor-savers why is it that I find myself simply working more and enjoying it less?

The answers are actually quite obvious: computers are neither productivity enhancers nor are they labor savers; ubiquitous internet and mobile phone access are neither either. All these "conveniences", these "technological advances", these "innovative work practices" are, in the end, are ways to keep me chained to my work for longer hours. Productivity overall might have increased, but in many cases, I'm sure that productivity pro hour has declined.

Yes, I was on the road again, but I'm feeling a lot more like roadkill than the happy traveler.

Those still haunting Brussels blues

Don't worry, you'll be off the hook soon. I promise: this is the last reaction from Brussels. And yes, I managed to find my carbonnade, and Belgian beer is still excellent, so there are still things that are right with the world. But, still ...

Just missing the motivation boat is not the only blunder that "the industry" has allowed itself. There was the constant drone at the conference that not enough women were getting into the industry. One large, international telecommunications company gave us samples of one of their latest marketing gags: nail polish; one a light green (Mint) and one deep magenta (an important color for the company). (I need to add here, that MINT is the German form of STEM, not everything translates perhaps as well as we would like.). I have a bottle of each on my desk right now. I'm still marveling at them. This is how you attract young girls to become interested in getting into telecommunications, I suppose. I'm glad to see that in our emancipated world today, old stereotypes have been eliminated so completely. It just goes to show you, though, just how out of touch organizations can be.

It amazes me how out of touch most organizations are. I'm not picking on any one in particular; the one just mentioned is merely an example. The young are not, at least as far as those at the conference were concerned, all that motivated by glitter, glamor or even so-called prestige. Another young participant stated quite clearly in the plenum that the companies up front talking the loudest and making the biggest pledges were simply not offering him the opportunity to follow his technologically relevant bliss, the were more of a hinderance than a help. This is in harmony with the notions I mentioned last time. What is driving the young technologically savvy these days is being able to do one's own thing together with others while remaining true to what is good and right and that benefits others (that's the real "Hacker Ethic"), and that is, I'm afraid we all realize, antithetical to the maximization-of-profit ideal that so many -- particularly these large, globally active, mostly American corporations.

It is quite the dilemma, I will admit. Most people, the vast majority of people, inside or outside this industry, here in the West, work for companies that are small or tiny. Too often, they are simply looking to survive while the really big players are wallowing in their wealth. This means that what's making the world go round is not their riches, it's the blood, sweat and tears of the little guys. But it is there that the ideals that seem to resonate with the young people seem to be.

You can make it about technology, and you can make it about growth, and you can make it about money, but that doesn't make it real. If you want to attract youth to the the hard, tough, demanding world of STEM, don't try to make it fun or attractive or lucrative. Make it worthwhile. Go ahead. I dare you.

Those haunting Brussels blues

No, I'm not obsessed, either with Brussels or the blues, but I do have a bit of this and that I have to work through yet. Here's another notion that's been haunting me for the past couple of days: STEM.

Once you get even a little close to any kind of bureaucracy, you start getting overwhelmed with acronyms and abbreviations. I guess bureaucratic days are so full that they just don't have time to speak in full words. STEM stands for "Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics", and it alludes to those disciplines of learning and study that we need to emphasize if we are going to remain competitive as an economic area and if we are going to advance as a civilization (whatever that means). We simply don't have enough people getting into these areas and over the day-and-a-half in Brussels there was a lot of urgent debate and a lot of wringing of hands, how we were going to accomplish this. I don't know about you, but I find the whole issue rather odd.

STEM is supposed to be about hard science, mathematically rich disciplines of technology (whereby I think IT is most often meant, as if there weren't any other kinds) and engineering. I suppose it's only physicists, mathematicians, technologists and engineers who get anything done. OK, it is an American neologism. I suppose that explains a lot more than we might like to think. Young people are apparently not all excited about entering these fields. They are perceived as too hard, too demanding, too complex, or are they simply uninteresting? The surrounding discussions remind me of those I've heard from church representatives regarding the lack of attendance and participation of young people in church. Their answer is make it more "attractive": more singing, dancing, role-playing, play-acting ... whatever, so that it will be "fun" to go to church. Yes, if we could only make STEM more "fun", then wouldn't young people flock to it in droves? Well, to be honest, no.

The world in which we're called to work these days is anything but fun. Employers think that so-called smart technology can make you accessible 24/7, so now your employer has access to you 24/7. If you come up with a good idea, it belongs to the company, not to you. When you enter the workplace, you leave your conscience at the door and sell your soul. I, for the like of me, can't figure out why young people aren't lining up for that. By the way, once your current skill set is no longer productive, you're out, and by the way, we're not going to pay for your development, personally or professionally, you have to do that on your own, especially on your own dime, and by the way, I'm going to pay you well, but not nearly enough to make repaying those student loans too easy; nothing worth anything should be obtained too easily. Yes, that's the world I'm inviting you to, so why aren't you beating down my door to get it? Yeah, I don't understand it either.

One young panel participant near the end said that he got into technology because of three concepts he had gleaned from the book The Hacker Ethic which he referred to as freedom, challenge, and impact. I took this to mean that he was driven by wanting to do things that may not be easy but needed to get done in such a way that others would benefit and, as is often stated so blithely, that the world would be a better place. I found it fascinating that the motivators weren't anything related to STEM. Those things are just means to a much bigger -- may I say, softer -- end.

I really have to ask myself. Who's not getting it?

Brussels blues deja vu

It was an interesting day-and-a-half, not exciting, not surprising, but interesting nevertheless. There was a lot of "high-level dynamism", as it was called, or hot air, as it could be understood, and there were a lot of serious and sincere individuals who showed quite clearly that they wanted to find a solution to a problem ... unfortunately a problem that probably does not exist.

The real problem as I see it doesn't have anything to do with a skills gap or getting more people into work. It's about big IT companies pitching their wares so that they appear more important than they really are. The biggest round of applause of the day went to a question from the audience asking why the big-company certification programs are so expensive. The answer was that we get national governments to pay for them, so it's not an issue. Not an issue? Our tax euros are at work again, giving money to people who don't need it for a problem that probably doesn't exist. Or, how about the day before when an economist in the crowd merely asked what's the answer to the supply/demand equation? No response. You can't expect the "industry" to make things more attractive to potential employees, just because they are needed. No, I didn't think so. It would appear we're seeking solutions to a problem that doesn't really exist.

Throughout the day-and-a-half, I heard of project after project that was being implemented and what unmitigated successes they were. But we've still got a problem. The participants were allegedly key players in the technology revolution that changes everything, but none of these projects had been heard of by others, so I have to ask who's using the technology for what? This topic has been on the table for at least 15 years, it was interrupted once when the "industry" imploded (remember that dot.com thing?) and once they got their bearings again, they started crying wolf that without qualified personnel, the industry in Europe was doomed, Europe was doomed. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being told that if we didn't do what they wanted this time, there would be hell to pay. And I suppose there will be.

For me, one of the most telling moments of the conference was when a well-placed individual from one of the largest high-tech companies in the world, and particularly in Europe, stated with unmitigated candor that in his company alone, within the next two years, over 10,000 people were going to lose their jobs if they did not re-skill. Yes, there is a skill gap, in this company at any rate, and it was also clear, that this company didn't feel the slightest necessity at all to do anything about their own employees. They are their employees, I suppose, when they are helping deliver profits, and they're on their own, when it looks like they won't be able to.

Yes, the next round of give-me-what-I-want has kicked off. Now, who is going to rise to the challenge? Who's going to make the necessary sacrifice? We know who isn't, so now it's up to either government or potential employees to react. Do we have what it takes? I hope not.

Brussels blues, redux

Perhaps I shouldn't be blaming the technology. Perhaps the real source of my aggravation is not the industry looking for a handout (I mean, they could say "no", but who says no to a free lunch), but rather the unmitigated nonsense that passes for rational argumentation. There is more at stake here than just "jobs". Although it may not seem so at first blush, the issue lies much deeper.

Over the past few years, I've been involved in a number of IT-industry-related projects, all of which have been funded by the European Commission. We have received funding for these initiatives because they have sought to narrow the gap between skills that are needed in the industry and those that potential employees are in possession of. It's been a matter of providing people with the right knowledge, skills, and competences for the positions that exist and will exist in the industry. Sounds noble, I know. And it is, in a sense, but the longer I deal with the matter, the more I am coming to believe that the cure is worse than the illness.

The big general push, both here in the EU and in the US is getting the right people in the right jobs. Across the board, people are pushing for a closer cooperation between education and industry so that the matches are better and more long-lasting. Both here and there, a lot of criticism has been raised against the education sector, be it public schools, vocational education and training, or (so-called) institutions of higher learning: find out what industry wants/needs, and give it to them. And that, my dear friends, is precisely the problem.

The key word describing this is "employability". We have to make people more "attractive" for the employer. Why? No, I don't want to hear about how the employee will be more productive. Employees have been more productive than ever for the past 40 years and all they have to show for it is higher rates of unemployment, lower wages, and highly exaggerated management compensation. No, I don't want to hear how the employee will deliver higher quality. Insisting that one person do the job of two, insisting on unpaid overtime "to get the job done", to push for ever higher margins all have nothing to do with quality. The customer gets the quality that is possible at the lowest cost of production, period ... at least that's how it works in consumer markets. So that's not it either. No, I don't want to hear about how the highly skilled workforce is what drives the economy forward. High-skilled means higher pay. High-skilled means the worker knows what s/he's doing and when you're cutting corners. High-skilled means ... well, trouble.

Oh, I hear what industry says they want, and they want lots of it, especially if the government is willing to subsidize it so they they don't have to pay for it themselves, but at bottom what they want are ready, willing, and ably conforming drones to do what they're told and to go away when they are not needed any longer. We might say it's about training and education and skills and competences, but what it's really about, in the end, as always, is money.

Thinking even more about learning

If we accept that Carr may be onto something, then we must ask ourselves what behaviors, what learning the Net supports. It would appear that it is largely behavioral: the successful following of a link, the Facebook 'thumbs-up', the signal tone indicating an incoming SMS … all of these are positive reinforcements that Pavlov and, in particular, Skinner could be proud of. This point needs to be explored in more depth, but we would be remiss to dismiss this all as the jaundiced view of a luddite. Carr's point is that we are, in fact, rewiring our brains, and that this rewiring favours certain mental functions and capacities. If he is right, our understanding of education may be in need of revising … or saving, depending on how one looks at it.

Roszak, as we saw, made the case that it was our revised notion of "information" that makes the Net possible, and it is this notion that is undermining the institution of education itself. Carr is indicating that there is a body of sound, scientific, neurophysiological evidence to support Roszak's contention. It would seem worthwhile, then, to at least devote part of the time searching the literature to establish a foundation upon which a position can be taken, for if Roszak and Carr are correct, we may be in the process of undoing our understanding of the notion of education without even realizing it. We need to make a distinction, of course, between what the Net does best and what the Net can be used for. A shoe is not a hammer, but in a pinch it can be used to pound in a nail. A hammer may be better for pounding in nails, but if the window is open and it is breezy outside, it functions very well as a paperweight. In other words, it is not the tool in and of itself that determines its "best" use, rather it is the situation, the context, and the intent that best determines what is best. I believe we need to take a similar approach to the Net and technology-enhanced learning.

In terms of design, what works may be a reasonable enough approach. What is optimal may not be a matter of absolutivity but of relativity. In design, awareness of consequences and side-effects may be as important as knowledge about design itself or about the technology platform on which the learning is supposed to take place.

References
Carr, N. (2010) The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, New York & London, W.W. Norton and Company.

Roszak, T. (1986) The Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computers and the True Art of Thinking, London, Paladin Graftin Books.

Thinking some more about learning

In reading Nicholas Carr recently, it became clearer to me that we need to look more closely at the relationship between learning and technology, in particular learning and the technology of the Net (hereafter used to refer to both the internet and worldwide web as we find them today).

One of the reasons for introducing technology-enhanced learning into the educational system was to take advantage of whatever it is that the Net has to offer. What is this? Carr maintains that it is not what we think it is. He believes that there is a growing body of evidence that indicates that our ability to understand is being challenged by the Net. What does this mean? Understanding is our ability to give meaning to the world around us, to our lives. It is a matter of establishing a frame of reference against which (hopefully) sound judgments can be made. These judgments may be about which smartphone to buy or about whether we invade a foreign country.

Every judgment we make has, to be sure, a factual component, but I suspect it has a moral component as well. (Which smartphone, or whether a smartphone says something about the buyer's view of the place of such technology in their lives and its potential impacts, say, on the environment. This is much closer to the moral dimension but is certainly not in the forefront of the buying decision. Where is should be is another issue that will have to be discussed elsewhere.) Understanding, hence meaning, is what makes our lives worth living, and so long as we have a why, as Nietzsche noted, we can endure almost any how. It is not a mere intellectual game, a cocktail-party sport, to consider what the world might become should we no longer have a basis for making a why-judgment.

The Net demands that we make many, quick decisions. Hyperlinking demands that we decide, at a minimum to-follow-or-not-to-follow. (That has become the question, but who cares any more about the Prince of Denmark?) This constant decision-making overloads the pre-frontal cortex to such an extent that the brain is more involved in deciding than it is in transferring material from working to long-term memory. If we do not do this, we no longer understand, for the underlying schema upon which, or against which background, long-term, life-relevant decisions are made is undermined. It atrophies. As Carr puts it, we become "mindless consumers of data" (p125). I'm not sure this is what we want going on in the classroom.

Reference
Carr, N. (2010) The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, New York & London, W.W. Norton and Company.

Thinking about learning

Learning situations are especially complex. Everyone involved has his or her own predispositions, needs, wants, desires, experiential background, schooling, social environment and more, all of which impacts learning. Learning, we may say, is that process, in which the individual is changed (or is different at the end) in some way, be it in terms of knowledge, skills, competence, values, or their view of the world. In order to compensate for the variability of the individuals involved, a clearer understanding of the learning process itself can be helpful.

What is learning? How does an individual learn? What factors impact learning or influence learning? How are we able to take what we "learned" in one situation and apply it in another (transfer)? What roles does the mind or brain play in the process? These are the types of questions that a theory of learning should answer.

All theories are based upon certain assumptions that we make about the world around us. These assumptions are based on a number of factors, such as culture, language, or zeitgeist, among others. These assumptions sit deep and are, for the most part, self-evident, given, and unquestioned. For example, behaviourism, the dominant learning theory in the first half of the 20th century, postulates (assumes) that all learning manifests as observable and measurable changes in behavior. Cognitive learning theory, the most dominant theory in the second half of the 20th century, by contrast, attempts to explain learning in terms of brain-based processes, which are often compared to or measured against computers, an assumption which in turn is based upon a certain understanding of the notions of information and data processing. Constructivism, which is currently very much in fashion (in a variety of flavors), takes the view that the learner him/herself is actively involved and engaged in constructing his or her ideas and concepts, whereby language, culture, and experience all play significant roles in the learning process.

Unawareness of these underlying assumptions can lead us to conclusions that may not be as generalizable as we first thought. We cannot say that behaviorism is "wrong". There is a considerable body of evidence that documents that it works. We cannot say that cognitivism is "wrong", for here too there is much evidence that in certain situations and under certain conditions it works. The same applies to constructivism. What we can conclude from this is that there may not be one, encompassing theory of learning, or, it may be that certain theories are more applicable to specific types of situations or types of learning, whereas others apply in other contexts or situations. In other words, these may not be mutually exclusive theories, but could even be complementary. Unfortunately, we do not have enough evidence to know which might be applicable in which situations, but based upon the evidence that we have, it should be possible to make reasonable conclusions in this regard in relation to the given material, the given situation, and the goal that is intended to be reached.

Technology and education

Neil Postman draws support for his views on re-valuing education from Theodore Roszak who advances the idea that the educator's love of technology is in essence the undermining of the institution s/he wishes to strengthen. By exploring the folklore of computers, that is to say, "the images of power, the illusions of well-being, the fantasies and wishful thinking that have grown up around the machine" (Roszak, p9). His attention is directed to the fact that the Information Age has "now entered the educational curriculum in an aggressive and particularly insidious way which could distort the meaning of thought itself" (p10). He goes on to say, "The burden of my argument is to insist there is a vital distinction between what machines do when they process information and what minds do when they think' (p11). In fact, "If educators are finally swept into the cult [of information], we may see the rising of a generation of students seriously hampered in its capacity to think through the social and ethical questions that confront us as we pass through the latest stage of the ongoing industrial revolution" (p12).

Whereas the push of computers into the classroom was in the ethereal and evasive notion of "computer literacy", we have since then come to be convinced to a large extent that there now exists a generation of 'digital natives' (Prensky, 2001a, 2001b) who, having grown up with digital technology, now show a natural affinity for it, an affinity that is not shared (and sometimes implied not developable) in those born prior to 1990 or so. While there is little evidence to support Prensky's claim, there is a growing body of evidence that this generation does not exist, at least not in the form Prensky envisions it (see Kennedy, et al., 2007 among others). Nevertheless, it remains one of the most widespread and insistent notions circulating in educational circles.

It remains to be seen just what the computer in the classroom is good for. Experiments with programmed instruction, drill and repetition and the like have not brought the results originally promised by their creators. In fact, Roszak argues convincingly that the oft touted simulation, considered one of the more recent and even more powerful e-learning possibilities, may in fact do more harm than good by depriving the learner of the experience of both failure and the complexity of interaction with the real world. He is realist enough to know that the vast majority of education-leavers will not be entering the highly paid, exclusive segments of society, rather they will, like their forebears, be forced into marginal employment and socio-economic status. He insightfully points out:

"One might almost conclude from this fact that what the young most need to defend their interests in life is an education which will equip them to ask hard, critical questions about that uninviting prospect. Why is the world like that? Who made it that way? How else might it be? There are subjects that, when properly taught, help people answer those questions. They are called social science, history, philosophy. And all of these are grounded in the sort of plain, old-fashioned literacy that gives inquiring minds access to books, to ideas, to ethical insights, and social vision." (p72)

We have some serious re-thinking to do.

References
Kennedy, G., et al. (2007) "The net generation are not big users of Web 2.0 technologies: preliminary findings", ICT: Providing Choices for Learners and Learning [online], Proceedings ascilite Singapore 2007, http://routes.open.ac.uk/ ixbin/ hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=routes &_IXSPFX_=g&submit-button=summary&%24+with+res_id+is+res19981 (accessed 2 February 2010).

Postman, N. (1996) The End of Education, New York, Vintage Books.

Roszak, T. (1986) The Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computers and the True Art of Thinking, London, Paladin Graftin Books.

Prensky, M. (2001) "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants", On the Horizon, MCB University Press, vol.9, no.5; also available online at http://www.marcprensky. com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants %20-%20Part1.pdf (accessed12 January 2009).

Prensky, M. (2001b) "Digital natives, digital immigrants, Part II: Do they really think differently?", On the Horizon, NCB University Press, vol.9, no.6; also available online at http://www.acpinternational-dc.org/articles/digitalnatives2.pdf (accessed 13 February 2009).