I love the idea of you writing some sci-fi, Packy. I know some people may complain that they come to Not Boring to read about companies and find alpha, but I come to Not Boring to expand my thinking. Reading sci-fi certainly does that, so I appreciate you giving me a condensed version of a sci-fi story this Thursday morning to jump-start my creative thinking.
this was a very refreshing short story to read - of a world that can easily be and maybe even sooner. i loved the contrast between Dev and Maya and how they work together without animosity (that they probably lost somewhere in their teenage years).
the sound effects are also really interesting and the pictures make it read like a movie. i think this is a wonderful idea for a film and it would be amazing to watch. i would also love to read comics of this genre if you ever think of going that way 😅
“inequality had taken on deeper, more metaphysical dimensions, too.... The Idea Olympics inspired a shift in culture, away from the passive consumption of the past and towards active participation in the world”
Very beautiful. I don’t know if your vision of the future is “right” -- or even what that would mean. But I am glad you are continuing to wrestle, and worry, and dream.
That is what makes us human, after all. May we never forget.
I can neither applaud or support, condemn nor criticize compositional liberty! We all can enjoy, disagree, read, write whatever we want! I found your composition provoking in that it compelled me to ask why such a character would even think what she did in 20-30 years from now.
Is our evolution that slow? Would it take that long for us to realize how stupid we're being? BTW, I bet good money, most people think "stupid" is an insult when it is in fact not! It's just that we forgot its root and what it really means...
I found the story a return to the idea that feelings are what drive Maya and Dev; feelings of insecurity, fear, of a longing for satisfaction, satisfaction rooted in emotion, not in liberation from our physical bodies. I found the underlying tenets in this story to be about "finding meaning" and I wondered: "How could Maya find an abundance of meaning in idea re-compositions...? After all, the "creative" (?!?!) process Maya undertakes is NOT creative, nor ORIGINAL at all!
Like productivity, total or per capita, ORIGINAL creativity over the past 40+ years, especially in the past 10, is rare. The vast majority of "creativity" is in fact UN-original & caters to the "attention" economy! Young or old "creatives" are simply re-painting age-old concepts using shiny new pixels, blogs, videos & podcasts.
Here's what most "creatives" call a creative process
List some number of existing ideas (say 500). I start crossing them producing a layer 1: e.g.: a "car that can snorkel", or a brain that paints, etc... many of those layer 1 ideas might sound stupid but the point of listing them is just a starting point. Layer 2 compounds Layer 1 ideas further. For example, a "car that can snorkel and takes pictures", etc... Layer 3 would combine yet more Layer 2 ideas with others from the list, etc...
That's all Maya ever did in her brain. That's the supposed "creative" process inside a human the vast vast majority undertake; And because we humans have limited capacities for short term retention (even the best of us), after 2-3 layers of very limited re-compositions, we filter which of these we think are good & dismiss the others! And we certainly don't start with a list of 500, nor carry that many forward: We reduce, re-compound until we think we're happy with what we have and consider it as ORIGINAL. It is very likely UN-ORIGINAL.
Machines/AI can perform this very UN-ORIGINAL process ("layer compounding") with a far larger list, keep many more ideas deep into Layer 29 (as an example) & decide later how to distill based on the criteria of what and why it would be useful/practical and how to get started. Those machines/AI models are only limited by how much computing resources they have; which is vastly greater than any single human brain. Even the idea that springs to mind now of combining multiple humans in the "Olympics" to re-compose ideas and re-layer ideas to expand on the limitations of one is not really new; For that matter, if you pit three machines in the future, they'll outdo a 1000 human compositions by many orders of magnitude. The machines will always be better at the Idea Olympics than we will be in because this concept is a LINEAR (or sub-linear) IDEA progression. It's UN-ORIGINAL THOUGHT, and I always find it short-sighted to consider UN-original "creativity" as humanity's purview alone.
But what is ORIGINAL THOUGHT?
ORIGINAL thought goes something like this: A Homo Sapien is gathering 3 large melons & sees a potential mate; decides to share; neither have concept of numbers at this point; suddenly the giver realizes they gave more than they kept & instead of reacting emotionally (taking back, fighting, sad/remorseful (even inside their mind)), the energy they have generated INSTEAD is expressed in the sand with their finger; they don't sink in their emotions, they look upon it positively; what did their finger do? They asked a question (they didn't recompose?); there's a symbol for the two they gave & the one they kept. Suddenly they think (however "thinking" is represented) in their brain: TWO and ONE. That notion of a representation of a number is ORIGINAL THOUGHT. That Homo-sapien goes to tell his/her/their/pronoun of choice (goodness!) friends about a number system, ONE, TWO, THREE... Most ignore! Over time, if the grouping finds utility, they might go back & decide... Hmmm, let's use this representation. It's an idea that didn't even exist before but has now been borne.
And where did it come from/how did it come to be? It wasn't borne of feelings, of looking INSIDE. It was borne from trying to get OUTSIDE of the situation that human is in; not remain confined or bound INSIDE it. Did Maya remain inside? Or did she go outside? ORIGINAL THOUGHT doesn't ask "Why?" "Why" tries to find meaning from the INSIDE. The question to ask is: "What is this really?". "When is this?", "Where is this?"; and then "How" comes later... But "Why"! "Why" begs for meaning. Meaning re-frames back INSIDE! And "INSIDE" doesn't help generate creativity...
There in lies the issue; it's become increasingly rare, and harder to find truly original THOUGHT & creativity anywhere outside of the pure sciences, because we devote so much energy to cater to the subset of our weak emotions that engage fear & physical pleasure (in the form of envy, jealousy, pride, profit, etc...). And why do we that? The desire for "attention"; that economy, individual or communal, which drives the need for not just profit, but now, excessive profit beyond one's needs to satisfy an emotion. Emotions are good for physical survival. Are we going to evolving beyond that?
It seems like humans are consumed by these emotions!
Maya and Dev are trying to find "meaning". The "Idea Olympics" is LINEAR. But if the Idea Olympics does happen, it may lead to the realization that we need to spend more time outside of ourselves and our emotional needs (even for satisfaction). I hope we all start doing that sooner than 30 years into the future; bc the way we're going now reminds me of the "bird & sugar" experiment: Those birds will just keep coming back for the sugar until they kill themselves instead of abandoning the sugar and leaving the experiment to go build a nest and mate. They could leave at any time. But they've been self-conditioned not to; their biological systems have been hijacked by their new found source of energy (their equivalent of "excessive profit").
I can’t wait to live in the world where the Idea Olympics is a reality. We’ll need to see if “trusting the process” with these Embiid-led 76ers pans out though :)
I love the idea of you writing some sci-fi, Packy. I know some people may complain that they come to Not Boring to read about companies and find alpha, but I come to Not Boring to expand my thinking. Reading sci-fi certainly does that, so I appreciate you giving me a condensed version of a sci-fi story this Thursday morning to jump-start my creative thinking.
"She rarely drank, but when she did, she drank like Hemingway..."
Say less. Wife material.
this was a very refreshing short story to read - of a world that can easily be and maybe even sooner. i loved the contrast between Dev and Maya and how they work together without animosity (that they probably lost somewhere in their teenage years).
the sound effects are also really interesting and the pictures make it read like a movie. i think this is a wonderful idea for a film and it would be amazing to watch. i would also love to read comics of this genre if you ever think of going that way 😅
LOL that this output could have easily come from a 1970s science fiction pulp magazine.
Progress!
“inequality had taken on deeper, more metaphysical dimensions, too.... The Idea Olympics inspired a shift in culture, away from the passive consumption of the past and towards active participation in the world”
Very beautiful. I don’t know if your vision of the future is “right” -- or even what that would mean. But I am glad you are continuing to wrestle, and worry, and dream.
That is what makes us human, after all. May we never forget.
I can neither applaud or support, condemn nor criticize compositional liberty! We all can enjoy, disagree, read, write whatever we want! I found your composition provoking in that it compelled me to ask why such a character would even think what she did in 20-30 years from now.
Is our evolution that slow? Would it take that long for us to realize how stupid we're being? BTW, I bet good money, most people think "stupid" is an insult when it is in fact not! It's just that we forgot its root and what it really means...
I found the story a return to the idea that feelings are what drive Maya and Dev; feelings of insecurity, fear, of a longing for satisfaction, satisfaction rooted in emotion, not in liberation from our physical bodies. I found the underlying tenets in this story to be about "finding meaning" and I wondered: "How could Maya find an abundance of meaning in idea re-compositions...? After all, the "creative" (?!?!) process Maya undertakes is NOT creative, nor ORIGINAL at all!
Like productivity, total or per capita, ORIGINAL creativity over the past 40+ years, especially in the past 10, is rare. The vast majority of "creativity" is in fact UN-original & caters to the "attention" economy! Young or old "creatives" are simply re-painting age-old concepts using shiny new pixels, blogs, videos & podcasts.
Here's what most "creatives" call a creative process
List some number of existing ideas (say 500). I start crossing them producing a layer 1: e.g.: a "car that can snorkel", or a brain that paints, etc... many of those layer 1 ideas might sound stupid but the point of listing them is just a starting point. Layer 2 compounds Layer 1 ideas further. For example, a "car that can snorkel and takes pictures", etc... Layer 3 would combine yet more Layer 2 ideas with others from the list, etc...
That's all Maya ever did in her brain. That's the supposed "creative" process inside a human the vast vast majority undertake; And because we humans have limited capacities for short term retention (even the best of us), after 2-3 layers of very limited re-compositions, we filter which of these we think are good & dismiss the others! And we certainly don't start with a list of 500, nor carry that many forward: We reduce, re-compound until we think we're happy with what we have and consider it as ORIGINAL. It is very likely UN-ORIGINAL.
Machines/AI can perform this very UN-ORIGINAL process ("layer compounding") with a far larger list, keep many more ideas deep into Layer 29 (as an example) & decide later how to distill based on the criteria of what and why it would be useful/practical and how to get started. Those machines/AI models are only limited by how much computing resources they have; which is vastly greater than any single human brain. Even the idea that springs to mind now of combining multiple humans in the "Olympics" to re-compose ideas and re-layer ideas to expand on the limitations of one is not really new; For that matter, if you pit three machines in the future, they'll outdo a 1000 human compositions by many orders of magnitude. The machines will always be better at the Idea Olympics than we will be in because this concept is a LINEAR (or sub-linear) IDEA progression. It's UN-ORIGINAL THOUGHT, and I always find it short-sighted to consider UN-original "creativity" as humanity's purview alone.
But what is ORIGINAL THOUGHT?
ORIGINAL thought goes something like this: A Homo Sapien is gathering 3 large melons & sees a potential mate; decides to share; neither have concept of numbers at this point; suddenly the giver realizes they gave more than they kept & instead of reacting emotionally (taking back, fighting, sad/remorseful (even inside their mind)), the energy they have generated INSTEAD is expressed in the sand with their finger; they don't sink in their emotions, they look upon it positively; what did their finger do? They asked a question (they didn't recompose?); there's a symbol for the two they gave & the one they kept. Suddenly they think (however "thinking" is represented) in their brain: TWO and ONE. That notion of a representation of a number is ORIGINAL THOUGHT. That Homo-sapien goes to tell his/her/their/pronoun of choice (goodness!) friends about a number system, ONE, TWO, THREE... Most ignore! Over time, if the grouping finds utility, they might go back & decide... Hmmm, let's use this representation. It's an idea that didn't even exist before but has now been borne.
And where did it come from/how did it come to be? It wasn't borne of feelings, of looking INSIDE. It was borne from trying to get OUTSIDE of the situation that human is in; not remain confined or bound INSIDE it. Did Maya remain inside? Or did she go outside? ORIGINAL THOUGHT doesn't ask "Why?" "Why" tries to find meaning from the INSIDE. The question to ask is: "What is this really?". "When is this?", "Where is this?"; and then "How" comes later... But "Why"! "Why" begs for meaning. Meaning re-frames back INSIDE! And "INSIDE" doesn't help generate creativity...
There in lies the issue; it's become increasingly rare, and harder to find truly original THOUGHT & creativity anywhere outside of the pure sciences, because we devote so much energy to cater to the subset of our weak emotions that engage fear & physical pleasure (in the form of envy, jealousy, pride, profit, etc...). And why do we that? The desire for "attention"; that economy, individual or communal, which drives the need for not just profit, but now, excessive profit beyond one's needs to satisfy an emotion. Emotions are good for physical survival. Are we going to evolving beyond that?
It seems like humans are consumed by these emotions!
Maya and Dev are trying to find "meaning". The "Idea Olympics" is LINEAR. But if the Idea Olympics does happen, it may lead to the realization that we need to spend more time outside of ourselves and our emotional needs (even for satisfaction). I hope we all start doing that sooner than 30 years into the future; bc the way we're going now reminds me of the "bird & sugar" experiment: Those birds will just keep coming back for the sugar until they kill themselves instead of abandoning the sugar and leaving the experiment to go build a nest and mate. They could leave at any time. But they've been self-conditioned not to; their biological systems have been hijacked by their new found source of energy (their equivalent of "excessive profit").
I can’t wait to live in the world where the Idea Olympics is a reality. We’ll need to see if “trusting the process” with these Embiid-led 76ers pans out though :)
Thanks for the inspirational short story, Packy.