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New World Reader Volume 1 Issue 7
The New World Reader
An Electronic Magazine of Future, Fiction, and the Human Condition
June 1995
Vol. 1 * No. 7
This month's quote: "I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I
can't stop eating peanuts." -- Orson Welles
Contents-
From the Editor: The Open Connection and Open Democracy
Communications: More Reasons to Colonize Space--the debate continues
Feature Article: The Vast and Violent Wasteland by Jack Lang
Diagnostic Commentary: The Novel Experience by Thomas Newland
Books: Danford Hall reviews "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television"
___________
From the Editor: THE OPEN CONNECTION
In last month's editorial, I argued that globalism could never lead to a
desirable World Government. Such authority concentrated in a single body or
even a sprawling bureaucracy would not be conducive to the well-being or
happiness of individuals. The idea that World Government can be just a bigger
goverment, one that unites and governs nations, is not an innovative view of the
world of the future. So, if the world will not be governed by some body
analogous to a congress or even a three branch governing system, then what might
the global community be like in the 21st or 22nd century?
Democracy has proven itself to be the most humanitarian form of government,
albeit not perfectly so. The problem with democracies today is that they are
psuedo-democracies or republics in which representatives govern instead of the
body of citizens itself. A true democracy, where everyone participates in the
governing, may seem only possible in a small group. Perhaps, democracy today
only works at the community and organization level. When we get into
complicated relationships of thousands of people, true democracy becomes
intractable. A true democracy involving the total population of a nation seems
an impossibility.
A republican form of government, where a few are given the power to make
decisions for the many, is a pragmatic compromise of democracy. It is simply
not possible to consult everyone on every issue in order for some consensus to
be reached. We delegate authority to a handful of people and they spend their
time worrying about how to vote on issues which come up. The populace lives by
those decisions, at least until they elect new people to come in and over turn
what was done by a previous batch of lawmakers. But would it be possible to
somehow implement a true democracy with the assistance of today's advanced
telecommunications and information technology?
This is an interesting question to entertain in the abstract, but a more gritty
question begs asking: do people want to be bothered with the responsibility of a
true democracy? If a true democracy could be instituted, would people be
involved in it? Certainly not everyone would be involved all the time, but
enough people would probably participate that decisions could be made and the
country could run itself. More importantly could the entire world be governed in
such a way?
What I have been calling a true democracy, let us call Open Democracy. The
central idea of Open Democracy is that everyone may participate in the decision
making of the world on any level through the medium of the Open Connection. The
Open Connection is a network of computers much like the Internet hooked together
by the most advanced broadband telecommunications links. It connects everyone
in the world to everyone else. The Open Connection is much more; it is also an
information system complete with all the data that anyone would want or need to
know about any subject in the world. The information is classified, indexed,
and arranged for ease of use. If there is something you want to know, within
seconds the fact will be available. Most importantly the Open Connection is a
decision making engine. At the community, town, county, state, national, and
global levels people can be involved in all the governing decisions which affect
them. Voting and submission of ideas and suggestions can be done via the Open
Connection.
Though the details of Open Democracy need to be worked out, it would seem that
in the future such a method of self-government is possible. When we look to the
next century, perhaps it is misguided to look toward the United Nations or NATO
for the assurance of world peace. The realization of Open Democracy begins by
looking first at our communities and tending to their well-being. Those
communities are not necessarily our neighborhoods anymore. In the Open
Connection communities transcend time and space.
Trevor Austin, Editor of NWR
__________
Communications
GOOD INTENTIONS BUT ALL THE WRONG REASONS
A response to Randal Duff's article "The Final Frontier" in NWR 1.6
by Aston Goodenough
A senior scientist at the American Biotechnic Institute
Mr. Duff's article which appeared in the May issue of NWR addressed an important
topic--the pragmatic reasons why we should invest in a full program of space
colonization. He quite correctly pointed out that it is not the scientists, by
in large, who need convincing, but it is the public we must convince if such
ambitious and expensive programs are going to be brought about. We can fully
expect the public to ask the question: "What are we going to get for our
investment?" Several arguments have been used to answer this question when
justifying big science projects, one of which is the "spinoff" argument. Duff
employs an interesting approach when trying to convince the public that it needs
an active space program with a clear goal of colonization--he uses scare
tactics. He implies that the world will come to an end as we know it unless we
do something quick to ensure the availability of resources and to avoid the
devastation associated with overpopulation. Nice try, Duff, but your argument
won't stand up to the facts.
On the question of the availability of resources, Duff states that "our
technology is based on the consumption of natural resources for its sustenance.
The Earth does not hold an unlimited supply of resources, thus eventually all
Earth's available resources will be consumed." I must strongly take issue with
this statement. Had Duff taken the trouble to look up some facts before making
sweeping generalizations such as this, he would have realized that this argument
is not very convincing. If the threat of the depletion of all of Earth's
available resources is to spur us into a new era of space exploration and
conservation, then we should ask the obvious question: "When will those
resources be depleted? How much time do we have?" If the clock is ticking, we
should read the dial and see what its telling us! I did a quick little search
for some numbers to see if Duff's concern about resource depletion was
warranted; this is what I found. Aside from a few notable exceptions (which I
will discuss) we do not need to worry about running out of nonrenewable
resources for another four million years at the present rate of consumption.
Supplies of carbon, silicon, calcium, and nickel will be seriously depleted two
hundred thousand generations hence. I could rattle off a long list of other
elements important to our present technology, but I assure you that at present
rates of consumption these other elements will be with us on the order of
another billion years.
Now, let's look at some resources that will be gone much sooner. I assume that
Duff had in the back of his mind that the Earth's oil reserves would be depleted
very soon, and perhaps it is this that he was thinking about when he made his
sweeping statement. But even oil is not something that our children need to
concern themselves about. At the present rate of consumption the world's oil
reserves with be depleted in approximately 2,500 years. Does Duff expect us to
rush out immediately and start building space stations because we might run out
of oil in two and a half millenia? Perhaps Duff was concerned with our supply
of phosphorous, which is important as an agricultural fertilizer; it will be
gone in approximately 1,300 years. One would think that by then we might have
some obvious alternatives to the shortages which we will encounter?
Duff makes another slip; he discounts the "economic" argument of space
colonization as he balks at the all too incredible price tag. What possible
gains could we make that would offset the gigantic investment which space
colonization represents? Duff comes so close here to the answer, but he can't
seem to swallow it and opts for another scare tactic. He asks if a good enough
reason to venture into space would be "to avoid the possible extinction of the
human race?" I must assume that Duff is anticipating his fears about
overpoplation which he addresses at the end of his article. I will say a few
things about our extinction and the problem of overpopulation.
The two problems are unrelated. The extinction of the human race is inevitable
even if we managed to postpone it until the heat death of the universe. I will
be proud of our species if it does endure that long. The best way to avoid
extinction is not to build weapons of mass destruction. Our consumption of
resources will never lead to our extinction. Duff misses the obvious probable
cause of the end of the world and substitutes his pet crusade for it. Next,
Duff's fears about overpopulation are unfounded. It has been shown in more
places than one that these neo-malthusian arguments just don't hold up to a
thoughtful analysis of the causes of overpopulation. Briefly, let me state what
the cause is. Currently, there is a disparity between human instinct and
technology. Medical science has progressed so far that we now live in a
healthier world where the average life expectancy is increasing. In
underdeveloped nations, the ones with the population problems, they have simply
not learned yet that they do not need to over-produce children to replace the
existing generation. The problem of infant mortality and death from disease is
on the decline. Once, perhaps in a few generations, these nations have realized
that it is not in their best interest to over-produce children, they will stop
doing so. Even if it is well into the next century before we see a turn around,
we need not worry about feeding a population of 10 billion. Given the world's
supply of arable land and present day farming techniques, this planet could
easily support 50 billion people. Yet again, Duff's alarmism is unconvincing.
Lest I be accused of tearing apart another's argument without contributing to
the debate, I will suggest an argument that would have been convincing. Duff
did not mention one particularly important resource that will actually be scarce
by the middle of the next century. If the Earth is to support 10 billion people
and ensure them some standard of quality of life, we need to supply the world
with electrical power. How can we supply power to the world of the next
century? If you are thinking fission or fusion, then think again. It has been
shown by scientists such as the late Gerard O'Neill, that we simply cannot build
enough fission power planet and if we could, we simply wouldn't want to because
of the potential health hazard. There are arguments against relying on fusion
that I won't go into here, but the most convincing one is that the technology is
still not developed enough to build our future hopes on it. The answer to the
up-and-coming power problem is solar power satellites. These satellites would
orbit the Earth, convert solar energy into microwaves and beam it down to
rectennas where it could be converted into electricity and distributed. The
construction of the satellites will require the presence of space colonies to
house the people who will build them in Earth orbit from resources collected
from the moon. It would be impossible to run such an enterprise from the
Earth's surface. The launch costs would be prohibitive. I don't have enough
room to go into all the details but if anyone is curious about this topic I
would direct them to an article by Gerard O'Neill in Physics Today in the
September 1974 issue. There is also a very nice book by T. A. Heppenheimer
entitled "Colonies in Space" which gives a relatively non-technical overview of
the solar power satellite project.
I agree with Duff that we should get our space colonization program going, but I
agree with him for a completely different set of reasons than he proposes.
Randal Duff Responds--
I am glad that Mr. Goodenough agrees with me on my aims at least. In response
to his complaint that I employ scare tactics to convince my readers that my
arguments should be attended to, I must decline to comisserate. My position,
simply put, is that we should look into alternatives to our present course. I
believe that a thoughtful review of my aritcle in last month's NWR will show
that I was more interested in demonstrating that a consequence of our present
technological growth will result in negatives effects. As to the ambiguity of
the time scale which governs the advent of these negative effects, I make no
apology because regardless of whether we deplete our resources or pollute the
biosphere, we will need to move in a new direction by the middle of next
century. We might have plenty of oil in fifty years, but will we have clean air
to breathe? Will we have an ozone layer to protect us from the sun's harmful
rays? Will global warming melt the polar ice caps enough to cause catestrophic
flooding? These are questions which cannot be ignored.
As for Goodenough's implication that the global population problem will take
care of itself, I answer that this is not so. He is forgetting that even before
the advent of modern medicine the population growth in nineteenth century Russia
was incredible and completely due to overproduction of humans. We cannot simply
ignore population growth and trust that it will straighten itself out.
Something must be done and done quickly. Some estimates show that even if we
implement birth reduction techniques now, the worldwide population will not
level off until the middle of the twenty-second century at somewhere around 15
billion souls. This is some serious population inertia that we have built up,
and if we don't start applying the brakes, we will suffer.
Also, there is an inaccuracy in Goodenough's conclusion that Earth can support
50 billion people by employing all of the available arable land and modern
farming techniques. The fact is that we are only using about 25% of our arable
land and even with modern farming techniques we cannot prevent crop failure,
drought, and disease. I estimate that we will be pushing our ability to feed
the world if the population reaches 15 billion. As the world gets more crowded,
we can only lose more of our arable land mass. People will not live in deserts.
The available energy question is a good one. Goodenough only mentions one
possibility. He contends that a good economic argument can be made for building
solar power satellites, but there is a technological limitation to how cheap
such energy can be. When we factor in economics, we find that people want to
pay the lowest price possible for something. Beaming energy from the Sun in the
form of microwaves to the Earth is a charming idea, but people won't pay for it.
If we are going to convince people to invest in space, then such an "economic"
argument is a weak one. People must be enlightened to the greater good before
they can make such sacrifices. I am convinced that my article demonstrated that
pure self-interested pragmatism can have devastating effects on generations to
come.
*****One more thought on "The Final Frontier"*****
In response to the statement-- "The Earth does not hold an unlimited supply of
resources, thus eventually all Earth's available resources will be consumed."
NWR Reader, Chris in Dallas, writes:
For 3 BILLION years life existed on this planet with "limited" resources. Now,
man in a hundred, is arrogant enough to look at other planets for resources
instead of pausing to reflect on the devastating and avoidable destruction of
the only really worthwhile thing in the whole universe.
__________
Feature Article: The Vast and Violent Wasteland
By Jack Lang
If you have watched television recently, you are more likely to engage in an act
of violence. Last night, I watched a report on the effects of watching
television on the PBS news show Frontline. The report made a very good case
that the violence depicted on television does encourage aggressive behavior in
young children who watch many hours a day. The Frontline producers installed
(with permission) video cameras in several homes in order to observe the viewing
habits of typical families and individuals. What I saw was startling.
Certainly, the shows which these people watched were violent, but I was more
shocked by their use of the television than by the shows they actually watched.
In most homes, the television is on whenever someone is in the house whether
they are paying attention to it or not. The Frontline reporter aptly described
the television as a fireplace in a winter cabin: it was always on. Not having
anything else to do with their lives, people search in vain for some diversion
on the television; all they find is a vast and violent wasteland. What has this
technology done to the lifestyle of the typical American? Simply put--these
people are waiting to die.
I am no enemy of television. My personal viewing consists of four weekly, hour
long dramas. So I will not make an impassioned appeal for the elimination of
television. Rather, I wish to present a few rules for the proper use of
television.
If television is violent and leads to a lifestyle degradation when abused (by
viewing too much and too casually), then why isn't the answer to this problem
the quick and speedy elimination of television. Aside from the practical
impossibility of this suggestion (namely, the television industry generates
copious amounts of revenue) television can be used in a healthy, productive, and
regenerative way. The key to understanding the positive side of television is
noting the difference between active and passive forms of entertainment.
Any pastime which is experienced passively is dangerous. Television is not
necessarily passive entertainment; the Frontline documentary showed, however,
that it is not uncommon that television viewing is done passively. To
experience anything in a passive way is to leave the higher reasoning faculties
of the brain idle while the senses and emotions are stimulated. The most basic
reason why passive entertainment is bad in large quantities is that if the
brain's higher reasoning faculties are not used they will atrophy. The most
alarming reason (which was the main concern of the Frontline documentary) is
that when acts of violence are experienced passively as entertainment, the
violence looses its horror and reality. To employ a buzzword, people become
desensitized to violence. When they see injustice, they are not outraged, they
are merely entertained. The emotional and physical pain of death is
trivialized.
With a little work, it is possible to get the higher reasoning faculties of the
brain going even while watching television. This takes some concentration at
first, but once you get the hang of it, it should come as second nature. The
active viewer demands more from television than sensory and emotional
stimulation; they want meaning. Not every show is designed to be viewed
actively. This means that the viewer who desires to actively engage their
entertainment must choose shows carefully. The vast amount of trash television
which is broadcast is depressing, but I have found a large number of shows which
can be engaged actively. When viewing actively, a person asks questions of the
show and the characters which the show presents. What are the motivations for
the actions of this character? What truth does this demonstrate about human
nature? How could have this situation been played out differently to avoid the
necessary conflict of the drama? Or should this conflict be avoided? Are
higher principles at work? The active approach to television could be called
the literary approach inasmuch as it resembles and approaches the level of
activity a reader must put into a book.
One thing that television will never teach us is how to use our imaginations. A
criticism of television is that it shows us the images, and we do not need to
manufacture them in our heads. Again, the less we use our imagination, our
ability to form sharp, clear mental images of things diminishes. Perhaps our
ability to image is connected with our use of language and thus to our humanity.
To engage the mind in a television show is to participate actively with the
artists who created the show. Active participation requires concentration. I
have found that it is best not to eat while watching television (for one reason
my wife says this leads to obesity). Ideally, one should not be interrupted by
commercials. Advertisements are the enemy of an active viewer; they are
distracting nonsense. I have instituted the practice of never watching a
television show when it is broadcast, even if I am at home. I record the show
on my VCR, then watch it at my leisure. In this way I am able to fast forward
through all the commercials with a maximum of fifteen seconds delay in the
action of the show. This provides a semblance of continutity in the action.
Since most hour long shows on commercial television are a maximum of forty-eight
minutes in length, recording the show saves me at least twelve minutes which
would have been wasted otherwise.
I began this article by pointing out that television on the whole is the medium
of violence. The television brings violent acts into our homes in a safe and
controlled manner. This is not an evil in and of itself. The evil of
television violence only surfaces when it is combined with passive viewing
habits. An active viewer will never become desensitized to the violence,
because the active viewer remains humane while watching and is capable of
judging what is terrible and horrible about what he sees. The passive viewer
simply sees dispassionately and without empathy for the suffering and pain which
attends violence. Passivity leads to the degradation of humanity. To be a
passive viewer is to become willfully sub-human.
The solution to the problem of television violence is not letter campaigns or
censorship, but the education of viewers in the art of active viewing.
__________
Diagnostic Commentary: The Novel Experience
by Thomas Newland
The novelist writes from experience. The font in which the writer dips his pen
is the wealth of personal experience. Many years ago when I was working on a
degree in philosophy, I had the opportunity to spend some time in Greece. My
plan was to travel the rural part of Greece and end my trip in Athens. Not
wanting ever to forget this experience, I recorded my journey in a composition
notebook. Each night I would describe in fantastic detail what I saw, smelled,
felt, and thought. I traveled alone and had much time to myself and my
thoughts. The sharp landscape and ancient surroundings awakened in me a dormant
imagination. I tried to imagine the ruins, remnants of an ancient civilization,
as being alive and populated. When I walked the streets of ancient Delphi, I
could see, smell, and hear the presence of the people. My newfound poetic
imagination allowed me to understand the gods. I came to a promontory above the
city: below me was Delphi and further down gleamed the ruins of a temple, and
still further below that a deep blue green valley stretched miles to the sea.
Thrusting up on my left were two grey mountains separated by an immense cleft.
Above it, the eagles circled. Instantly, I knew why the Greeks had proclaimed
that Delphi was the center of the world. Being there, it made perfect sense to
me.
In a few days I returned to Athens and began a two week, whirlwind tour of
Europe. I couldn't get Delphi out of my mind. The experience grew. Meaning
layered upon meaning. I felt compelled to try to capture what I had experienced
in Delphi. It took me another year or so, but I turned my journal of my trip
through Greece into a piece of fiction. I suppose this fictionalized account of
my journey could be called my first unpublished novel. The events of my novel
hardly bear any real resemblance to my actual experiences in Greece, which were
pretty boring in themselves (consisting mostly of walking around and staring a
toppled down buildings). But the experience of Greece is what brought this
spontaneous creative effort out of me.
In the meetings of the Diagnostic Society this summer, I have been reading my
Greece novel to the group. In the discussions, I have discovered more about my
trip than I ever before realized. My Greece novel is certainly a work of
fiction, perhaps even an attempt at wish fulfillment, an account of the trip I
wish I had had. But that is what fiction and the novel is all about: reshaping
of existence and the bringing into being of novel experiences.
__________
Books
Review of _Four_Arguments_For_the_Elimination_of_Television_
by Danford A. Hall
This book, "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television," which was written
by Jerry Mander and published in 1977, is even more persuasive, after an
additional 20 years of television, than the arguments were at first publication.
Jerry Mander (almost certainly a pun-intended pseudonym) was a very successful
executive in the area of national television advertising; therefore, he had a
special vantage point from which to view the effects of television. His
conclusion, strongly argued in the book, is that the effects of television are
so pernicious that this medium should be eliminated. You need to understand that
Jerry Mander is not arguing for some kind of government control or industry-wide
self-regulation: He is making an absolutist argument for the elimination of
television. If Jerry Mander believed that the situation was that bad in 1977,
before MTV, the sewage of cable television, etc., then one can imagine the
increased importance of these four arguments.
In these dwindling days of the second millennium, we have seen "patriots" bomb
the federal building in Oklahoma City, because they believed that the US
government is on a path to total autocracy and one-world government. To most
thinking people such paranoid ideas are foolish. I believe that Jerry Mander
would side against the patriots also; he does argue, however, that television
sets up "Eight Ideal Conditions for the Flowering of Autocracy." Mander's four
main arguments are solid and rhetorically sound; nevertheless, as the reviewer,
I want briefly to present four of the "eight ideal conditions," and as you read
them, judge for yourselves: are they more fulfilled in our society today than
they were when Jerry Mander first published them?
1. "Eliminate personal knowledge." Television filters experience and gives us
the sense that we have experienced many things that we haven't. If you take a
group of elementary school children to the zoo, many of them will express
boredom. They have already seen all these dumb old animals on TV. On an adult
level, how many of us now yawn and turn away as a TV program on violence and our
society, shows us for the millionth time the video of a deranged person shooting
at Ronald Reagan. We respond like we have been there and seen it all first hand,
but we haven't.
2. "Eliminate points of comparison." Observe how television chooses to represent
regular, everyday Americans. The sitcoms (not counting the ones designed to get
laughs by showing the "humor" of people living in abject poverty) and other
programs show a very affluent society, where everyone lives in mansions and has
several BMWs. Think of the child in the ghetto watching this display. The child
has no basis for comparison, so she believes that most other Americans have
fulfilled the American Dream of Materialism, and somehow her family was passed
by or unfairly excluded.
3. "Separate people from each other." Television does this task effectively.
First, people don't have to go out to be entertained when they can sit right at
home and watch the box. But worse than that, secondly, as the family watches TV
they are not interacting. They are each having a separate experience, cut off
from developing social skills and a sense of community that must be in the home
before we can have it again on the streets of our neighborhoods.
4. "Centralize knowledge and information." Television does this dirty deed
better than most of us realize. Do you see any real differences between the
stories and their slant on any of the major networks that deliver news to us? We
don't hear about many instances of corporate abuse of people, resources, or the
environment. Why? Because we don't want to offend the sponsors. Occasionally,
when a corporate blunder like the Exxon Valdez or exploding Pinto cars occurs,
the media can't turn its back. We don't hear about the mistakes and self-serving
decisions of many politicians, because the news reporters don't want to loose
access by reporting damaging information. Another example of this centralizing
of knowledge is who owns and controls the networks. Rupert Murdock, billionaire
publisher and media magnate, is interested in buying CNN. He already controls
information spigots world-wide, and if CNN was added to his conglomerate, most
of the world would only see, read, or hear the news that Rupert Murdock and his
executives want us to receive.
The real problem with Jerry Mander's book is that it would be as impossible now
to eliminate television from our lives as it would be to eliminate automobiles.
It simply won't happen; however, once you read this book, you will never see
television the way you did before you were exposed to Jerry Mander's "Four
Arguments for the Elimination of Television" .
__________
NEXT ISSUE: SHAPING THE NOOSPHERE--Expanding Frontiers on the Internet
NWR Information
Subscriptions to NWR are free via e-mail. Send a note to SubNWR@AOL.COM
requesting to be put on the mailing list. Also current and back issues of NWR
are available via FTP at FTP.ETEXT.ORG in the directory
/pub/Zines/NewWorldReader. NWR can be read on the World Wide Web at
http://goodrich.phys.lsu.edu/nwr/nwr_index.html.
Contributions should be sent electronically to NEWORLDR@AOL.COM. Essays and
Scientific Currents should be 1000 words or less; book and journal reviews and
letters 500. Short stories up to 5000 words in length will be considered.
Donavan Hall, Publisher
Danford Hall, Senior Editor
Trevor Austin, Editor
Jack Lang, Managing Editor
Adam Fisher, Religion Editor
Ed Blakely, Politics Editor
David Branson, Copy Editor
Red Drake, Subscription Coordinator
Denise Hall, Editorial Assistant
Desmond Astor, Special Corespondent
copyright, 1995 FMI Publishing
