David Zach, futurist

Laptops vs. Lectures: Let's Ban Lectures! — Datamation.com

One science professor achieved minor YouTube fame recently when a video surfaced showing him freezing a student's laptop in liquid nitrogen, then smashing it on the floor. The professor commanded: "Don't bring laptops and work on them in class!" (I wonder how many university students watched that video during class.)

Click below to read the full article.

via itmanagement.earthweb.com

I got a bad feeling about this. Let me see if I have this straight. If kids no longer know how to deal with the basic educational method of lecture, that is lectures ... they should get rid of lectures. Have we gone completely mad?

Sure, entertainment is fine, but at some point, it's not about being entertained or holding on to their attention with tricks. The students have to learn to pay attention. It's a skill like anything else and it's another endangered species no one seems to care about. Learn to concentrate. Not multitask. Focus on one thing at a time. 

(There's a great PBS video called Digital Nation - the first part takes a bunch of proud multitaskers and then empirically shows them how absolutely terrible they are at everything they think they're good at. Marvelous!)

I think the continued customization of the world is leading towards a world that will demand customization for everything. And when it doesn't exactly match expectations, they attitude will cause the person to either be less productive or less attentive — probably both.

Call it "division by design." The better the design and the better our appreciation of great design, the more likely people will reject things that are not great design. I see a lot of companies putting a lot of time, money and attention into making sure that work environments are designed exactly right so as to encourage productivity and happiness in workers. My question is: How exactly do you design for happiness when happiness is such a fluid thing, especially amongst younger workers whose definition of happiness probably changes from day to day? It's a disturbing thing as well when more organizations are buying into the foolish notion that people have a right to be happy instead of a much saner (and older) notion that we have a right to pursue happiness.

Get your heads out of your personal computers and your interpersonal computers. Pay attention. It's not about you, it's about knowledge and the world. It was here first, it doesn't owe you a thing. If you're part of a generation that prides itself on being so open-minded, then be open-minded about something other than the stuff you already agree with. You perhaps forgot or sadly never learned that the entire world with one minor exception is something else other than you. Focus your attention outside of yourself and when it school it means putting it upon books, lectures and your notes. 

Pick up Maggie Jackson's book Distracted. It's subtitled The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. Seriously. We are distracting ourselves into a society that cannot pay attention and in effect cannot produce nor defend anything of value. Good luck with that. 

Modern Times Poem by David Zach, Futurist

I keep getting request for this poem that comes near the end of my talk. I did not know it was a poem, but if they're going to call it that, who am I to resist? (Find a handout poster of this here.)

This is about the world that we give to our children. They are not fooled (like we are) and they see the world for what it is. Just as children are often not fooled by magicians, too often we are. The magicians of today are everywhere, constantly distracting us from what we once knew to be vital. 

Why do we treat unhappiness in children as the most frightening of diseases and must be treated with medications?

When everything is possible, is that a sign of a world that is vital, optimistic and hopeful - or is it a sign of a world that is tired and wants to sleep? 

We are modern, we are distracted, we are clever. 

Children are the message we send to the future. What are we trying to say?

Modern times

  Nothing can wait.

Nothing can satisfy. 

Nothing can last.  

No one can be unhappy.

No one can be judged.

No one can be trusted.

Nothing is hidden.

Nothing is forbidden. 

Nothing is certain.

Everything is a need.

Everything is a choice. 

Everything is possible. 

China, Classical Music, Education & Real Futurists

I love stories about China and how they'll take over the world. Maybe they should. Police states are a bit of a bother, [Please watch the fascinating and frightening movie The Lives of Others.] but at least the Chinese parents seem to insist that their children gain some discipline and learn a lot more than just to feel good about themselves. This article in Asia Times addresses the question of China's Six to One Advantage with 36 million children learning piano compared to only 6 million here in the US. Perhaps they do have a few more people, but numbers are numbers and as a state entity they have this dominance which will go far beyond musical notes. 

Bruce Sterling said that Real futurists have children. This might be applied to those best prepared for strategic thinking and long-term planning as well. 

A School Designed for Children

This is an article handout that I wrote a few years ago in response to the closing of an absolutely amazing school. Why? Because it was designed with children in mind. Stunning concept, I know. Download schoolforchildrenzach_1.pdf

The World Question Center: Changing Minds

What have you changed your mind about? This is the question asked of a lot of scientists and thinkers (apparently someone put futurists into that category . . . ) and the answers are exceptional. The combination of curiosity and humility are absolutely necessary for the notion of progress with factual things.

Once I read that the notion of "I might be wrong" is essential to a democratic society. If I can admit that I might be wrong and thereby you might be right, I guess I'll let you live. I don't think I'm wrong about this . . .

I particularly liked the essay from Stewart Brand talking about how Good Old Stuff Sucks. Nostalgia for old things often leaves us with stuff that just doesn't work as well as the new stuff. My kitchen, bath and technology are almost all new. My art and most of my furniture is all old - my comfy sofa and my bed are new.

Let's be practical about what we're going to bring forward from the past. My antique lamps (all of my lamps are from the 20s and 30s) have all been rewired - and some of them have been re-plated (for the antique purists, this is sinful, but I prefer aesthetic and utility to having something authentic that looks like junk). I have an old phone from 1933 designed by Norman bel Geddes - that has a dial and a bell ringer, but I also have a modern 5.8ghz phone with a headset. The old phone works and I use it from time to time, but it's more there for looks, when I'm wanting to have a conversation more than a few minutes, I put on the headset. For those chairs that I have that are old, all the cushions have been reupholstered. My dinnerware is all old, my dishwasher is new.

This relates to my notions of innovation. I used to call my company Innovative Futures - as in, we got this future by continually innovating upon what has come before us. Some futurists believe that the past is just an anchor. It isn't. It's a rudder, or to keep with this entry's metaphor, the past is more of a workshop. There are lots of resources and tools (and art) that's old, but it still has value. We have to ask the question of how will we use the past, even protect the past so that we keep the best of it? How does the old mix with the new? When is old appropriate, even desirable, and when is new more appropriate?

As Stewart Brand notes, old boats and old windows leak and are a constant pain to repair. (Three years ago I sold a 1982 Datsun 280zx, my own personal little money pit - now I have a 2006 Toyota Prius, I miss the t-tops, but I really like my high tech car that ALWAYS works.) I want to see old buildings renovated and I want to see old ideas renovated. I want to see old art appreciated. I want new art to run through the mill of objection to determine if it has any long-term merit. Art is a great example of just because it's new doesn't mean that it's good. A lot of new stuff sucks too.

Futurist Toffler on the Future of Education

As I am away with my siblings and mom for Christmas, this will be a short post, but to a very good article. Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock (see previous post) and one of the more respectable futurists takes on the future of education with Future School: Reshaping Learning from the Ground Up. Any article from someone who has thought about education so much for so many years and when asked of what must be done with education, responds, "Shut down the public education system." - Well, I think more of us should pay attention.

Also note the two pages of comments from readers responding. Apparently this educational issue is more complicated than first thought.

G. K. Chesterton once asked why are the educational policies always younger than the children themselves. Very good question.

UAUI: Universal Access to Universal Information

This from Geek.com - a favorite site for those who seek to be geek - or a virtually unlimited number of tools, gadgets and other stuff that you didn't think possible. It's a fun site.

They have the MySky GPS Sky Tracker. Using GPS, magnetic pole measurement, etc. they have this phaser-looking device that you point it at stars and lights in the sky and it tells you what it is. It costs $399.

I remember seeing in 1974 the movie Zardoz staring a rather young Sean Connery in some distant time in the future. So it was a dumb movie (though I seem to recall delightfully seeing more of Charlotte Rampling than I had expected) but there was one part of the movie that stayed with me: Connery's character, Zed, had gotten a ring that he could simply point at something and say "What is it?" and the ring would answer. That's essentially what this thing will do. If it works for stars, why not for trees, flowers, rocks, sounds, or even people.

In my talks I bring up the notion of Universal Access to Universal Information. This is it and the technology is available now, is relatively fast (not fast enough for geeks, but I'm talking about the rest of you here) and the applications of connecting information are coming to the marketplace.

So at a national meeting of the American Institute of Architects here in Milwaukee I just had a conversation with a few architects and executives (I crashed the party, but I used to be on the board of AIA-WI) and they were quite excited about a new database of some 40,000 photographs of buildings throughout the US.

Hmmm. Let's think here for a minute. What if we ignored all those stars that are at least a lifetime away from here (at least for now they are) and focused on the buildings that are just around the corner. Suppose we had access to those buildings inside of a device like this (or gave the device WI-FI access to the net) and kept the GPS and magnetic pole positioning. Could we someday bring to a hand-held device a complete architectural guide - that could give information on style, materials, architect, age, construction firms, previous buildings that occupied the site, current tenants, and truthfully, anybody at all can imagine what else these devices could offer.

It's a small baby-step-leap-of-imagination to know that this sort of device/capability will be available for all sorts of things. What if we put RFID tags into millions of locations, that could cooperate with the Sky Tracker, so we could easily find anything and once we find it, we could find out all about it.

The only impediment is (lack of) imagination and maybe some copyright issues.

Camille Paglia on the Future of Art

Paglia explains in Arion, a publication from Boston University, how a renaissance in American art can only happen through religion. She said that and she's an atheist. She's either bi-sexual or a lesbian (that's vague), a libertarian, pro-choice, a Democrat and she knows more words than you and me combined. She's also one of the sharpest cultural critics alive.

In Art and Religion in America, (PDF found here.) she explains the arts have been at the center of the cultural war between the left and right. As is her style, she criticizes them both for their failures - the right has mostly not engaged in art and the left has obsessed about it and often reduced it to self-absorption. I strongly agree with her that now is certainly not a high point for American art and that the real genius of America is in her technology and business arena. Seems a bit of a waste not to spread the genius out a bit more.

She writes: Great art can be made out of love for religion as well as rebellion against it. But a totally secularized society with contempt for religion sinks into materialism and self-absorption and gradually goes slack, without leaving an artistic legacy.

The article is rather long-winded and she seemingly explains the entire history of America and art. Closer to the end she gets into the rise of modernity and slipping of religious influence on art, except perhaps using religion as something for artists to attack to show they were free from it. (To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg) It was interesting to see how many former Catholics played a part in the attacks on religion through art, from Serrano's Piss Christ to Maplethorpe's bizarre sadomasochistic photography.

She concludes by saying that conservatives need to get over such things as their fear of nudity in art (Europe could teach us a few things about that, as could a tour of the Vatican) and the left needs to start recognizing the fuller costs of secularism and reducing most things down to economics along with our tremendous spiritual poverty that leaves us facing a soulless future.

G. K. Chesterton makes a point about all of this sort of thing, quoting the artsy hero Oscar Wilde who said that we don't appreciate sunsets because we can't pay for them. GKC countered that we can pay for sunsets; we can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde. One suspects that Wilde, who converted to Catholicism on his deathbed, would have eventually agreed.

The Miracle of Compound Interests

In the magazine Design Intelligence, there's this: Who’s Worried About Technology? about the coming of age of Gen X & Y and how they're fitting into the world of architecture and design.

No strangers to technology (they were in the crib together and have never been apart since) they've never quite bought into the notion of the importance of pencils, except for perhaps as objects of elegant, retro design. They've got electronic tools of collaboration now.

No strangers to collaboration, they'll find the current obsession with teamwork may actually be easier for them than those who just like to talk about how important it is.

If you play on the net in networked games, there's a really good chance that this behavior will translate into how you'll eventually work. Carl Jung said that Play is the work of children. With the modern workplace obsession with having fun, who's going to tell these young workers to leave their play attitudes and playthings behind? As the article correctly points out, more often than not, they've got ideas just waiting for the technology and the management structures to catch up to them. We've always had ideas in advance of the tools to make them.

A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?
Robert Browning

But now, just like with the miracle of compound interest, we've got an opportunity to deal with the miracle of compound interests where lots of ideas are coming together and new tools and toys are being created everyday. Ideas are naturally promiscuous, they just love to cross-fertilize and only a Church Lady Academic Culture tries to restrict them into separate categories. Creative people with ideas should be encouraged to indulge their curiosity into more than one realm and that can certainly advance innovation and design. My sense is that most innovation comes from combining ideas over time.

If there's one thing that the net and the google metaphor is helping to break down it's the separation of disparate ideas. If we want people to collaborate, shouldn't we let ideas collaborate as well?

Of course this will affect everything beyond architecture and design, but those types of firms may feel it even more because it's such a natural fit. Some of them are easily prepared because they've created dynamic and fluid organizations. Those with traditional partner pathways may find themselves to be a hard sell.

Creative types often believe themselves to be open, free, expressive and more creative than those who are not referred to as creative types. Reality often shows that these people are open, free and expressive with things that make them comfortable. This is a universal human behavior that life can help us to overcome, but when someone tells you they're open-minded, confront them with something they disagree with. Few things snap shut quicker than an open-mind made uncomfortable.

Banning Legos as bad capitalist tools

The American Thinker has an article by Clarice Feldman on how Legos (yeah, those childhood building blocks) "were capitalist tools that interfered with the childrens' education, banned them and then reintroduced them with new rules after the children were indoctrinated with what the school considered correct values . . . " Riiiight.

Here's the article that the teachers wrote about their experience in improving their classroom, Why We Banned Legos. This is posted in Rethinking Schools, a self-righteous little left-wing rag published here in Milwaukee. I might be wrong, but I think they're not an off-shoot of The Onion. These people apparently believe in what they write here, though I'll agree with them on the absurdity of the No Child Left Behind Act, but its absurdity is matched by the absurdity that the educational bureaucracy had already put in place.

This is what happens when people are too busy to take an active interest in the things around them. The most important things are taken over by experts and in their closed-loop little world, all of their thoughts make sense, especially it if means full employment for them and theirs. It's articles like their Banning Lego thing that makes sadly happy that I don't have children.

Were they correct in pointing out that problems arise when there are such things as private property, limited resources, restricted use, etc.? Yes, they were correct. I think they just might have missed the fact that the problems arising from their political and economic beliefs are worse.

G. K. Chesterton wrote in The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare that "The best way to destroy utopia is to try it." When it's a government subsidy, utopia isn't so quick to fall.