<div class="ck-content"><h3>From Evolution to Television</h3><p>TL;DR (too long; didn't read) summary: <strong>Television/video/streaming etc. are all extremely bad news, shoving artificial data in your brain. Avoid at all costs!</strong></p><p>Still with me? OK. You probably never head the term “artificial data” before. I just did an Internet search. It is not a common term. Maybe I just coined it. I should see if I can register a domain. :-) </p><p>But you've all heard of “artificial flavors”, right? </p><p>We all know the difference between “artificial flavors” and <i>natural</i> flavors. Artificial <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/question391.htm">means</a> “chemicals produced in a factory that try to fool us into thinking something tastes like cherry”. Natural means “crushed a cherry and got cherry juice.” Artificial also means, it turns out, “fills our bodies with poisons that cause disease, misery and death.” </p><p>I avoid artificial flavors. I avoid processed (artificial!) foods. I bet you're trending the same way. We know instinctively that “artificial” (manufactured by humans in a factory) isn't particularly good for us. But it sure can be convenient and cheap! </p><p>Yet of all the artificial things we consume, artificial data is by far the worst. And for the most part, we don't even notice that we consume it and that it is affecting us - badly.</p><p>To understand what artificial data is and why it is so horrifically bad, we should first get familiar with <i>natural data</i>.</p><p>For millions of years, humans evolved, survived, reproduced (rinse and repeat)…and the way that worked, roughly speaking, is that we used our eyes, ears, nose and many other parts of our body to ingest data from the world around us. This natural data was fed directly into our brain. Our brain (the unconscious part of it, I would like to point out - which means the entirety of our awesome brain which is not the conscious part) - our brain then detected <i>patterns</i>, and used those patterns to predict what might happen in the future.</p><p>This allowed us (and, of course, billions of other creatures whose brains work in the same way) to come up with strategies for survival and reproduction. The data ingested through our senses was, in other words, depended upon, implicitly trusted, and accepted as the true reflection of the world around us. </p><p>Perhaps it can be summed up as: Truth in, propagation of the species out.</p><p>Then came radio. Then came television. Then came smartphones. Then came “virtual reality.” And here comes “AI”.</p><p>All of this technology feeds data (<i>artificial</i> data) directly into your brain. You sit in front of the TV (or smartphone, or screen generally), and sight and sound go rushing in through your data acquisition organs. And here's the thing: once it's in your brain, it's not any different from the natural data you received walking in the woods (or running away from a predator). Our unconscious can't distinguish.</p><p>Yet it is, in fact, deeply, disturbingly different. Natural data reflects the world around you, which has no inherent purpose or intention. It just “is” and each of us then draws conclusions from that data. Artificial data, by contrast, is intentional and pre-patterned. The conclusions that the creators of this data want you to reach are embedded in the data itself. A movie manipulates you emotionally to the desired state. An advertisement fills my brain with the urge to buy something (and that's all I'll say about ads right now, besides: they are a deadly cancer running throughout human societies).</p><p>The more you spend your time in front of screens <i>watching something </i>(reading isn't as bad, podcasts not as bad but still problematic), the more you are filling your brain with someone <i>else</i>'s idea of what you should be thinking about, <i>how</i> you should be thinking about things. And the more you watch television, the less you are living your own life. When you settle in to watch a movie or binge watch a series, you are literally turning yourself off and opening your brain wide for someone else to take up occupancy. Your brain is being colonized. Ugh.</p><p>I can hear some of you saying right now: “But YouTube is great! If I need to learn how to fix my busted lawnmower, I can watch a video and get it <i>done</i>!”</p><p>Yes, sure, there's no problem finding benefits from any particularly technology. The problem is that the negative impacts of every single technology outweigh the benefits (especially if you include the negative impacts on non-humans).</p><p>I have removed television from my life (OK, full disclosure: I am a “social watcher” - I watch it when hanging out with my family if they are watching something. But oh the ads!). I have developed an aversion to watching videos on my phone or computer. The result? I spend more time thinking about the world around me and what I can do to save it (among other things). I am not manipulated emotionally by a stranger with intentions that have nothing to do with me (and wow, when I do watch TV I can <i>feel</i> the manipulation and highly resent it).</p><p>This is a long rant. I will stop with this final suggestion: Try not watching television or video at all for a week. Take a break from podcasts for a week. Can you detect any changes in yourself? Are you doing/thinking anything differently?</p><h3>Favorite Recent Event</h3><p>A dozen UNC dental students did their annual volunteer day at Lively Preserve in Durham (an <a href="https://ellerbecreek.org">ECWA</a> preserve). Lively is a small preserve, not open to the public. Which is a good thing, because it is a big mess. Wisteria crowning 50 foot tall trees (and of course all over the ground). Big section of paper mulberry, some of those dozens of feet in height. </p><p>Well, this was one excited and dedicated group! They tore into the wisteria (we ignored the paper mulberry - that's going to take a commercial removal operation), cutting many massive vines. Which you can see from their “trophy shot” below. That was a great morning!</p><p>You can see <i>all</i> the photos from that event <a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18x1LS1xY2K3qYF7sBTYzR6V9jGOX93kT">here</a>.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1cIiM6fOMm4tSMp4cczGTGWC4KtbvxKDf" alt="Big privet came down" width="600" height="400"></div></div> |