Consider The Crawfish

He was out of town, so I told him I would feed the crawfish. The red hiding thing of many legs would crawl out from underneath the rock when it smelled the tomatoes. It liked tomatoes. Which came as a surprise to me, I can’t imagine it ever saw any of them in the mountainous canyon where it was from.

A month ago he had been hiking with some friends when he had seen it. In the cracks of what used to be a lake he spotted it. It was red, which was odd because they usually only get that color when you cook them. He quickly finished what was left in his water bottle and began trailing it. Smiling with the thrill of chase. Slowly he cornered it off, trapping it in between a dry rock and the dry base of the lake. He scooped it in and poured in some of the murky water of the once lake and smiled.

Even now, in the 60-galleon tank that is its home, it struggled to go back to the mountain where it had come. It was feisty. For the first three weeks since he brought it home, it tried to escape in every way. One morning it wasn’t in the tank and for three days we had no idea where it went, to say nothing of how it could have gotten out.

On the third night I had come home drunk and saw a clenched fist on the floor of the kitchen, a trail of liquid glimmering slightly from the moonlight. Startled, I flicked on the light and found it crawling, nearly dead from dehydration and hunger, on the beige ceramic tiles, its hard shell caked in dirt and hair, the red color completely drained out. It looked rotten. Trapped between the wall and the base of a kitchen cabinet I scooped it into a glass cup. I poured sink water into the cup and drained it in the sink, careful not to apply too much pressure, careful not to touch the rotten blackened thing.

After rinsing the hair off, I dropped it into the tank, making sure to keep the Oscar fish from eating it as it drifted to its hole under the rock, defeated.

We realized, shortly after, that it would climb the fake plastic trees and jump to the electrical wire of the filter and shimmy out of the tank. From up at the top, nearly 5 feet from the floor (over a thousand times it’s own height) it would jump off. The balls on this thing! I couldn’t believe it.

After that he moved the trees around and covered the exits with packing tape. It hadn’t found a way out yet. But, the tape looked a bit weathered, tiny scrapes and gashes in its skin, looking eerily like pincher marks.

Approaching the tank with the diced tomatoes I saw it peak its head out. I dropped a few fish pellets at the other side of the tank to keep the Oscar occupied. The tomatoes fell slowly and the crawfish wouldn’t be able to reach them until it hit the floor.

It seemed especially hungry today. It had climbed out of its hole and was standing on the slanted rock that protruded up to the middle of the tank. Its pinchers outstretched as the tomatoes fell. I could see its grinding mouth, on its stomach, churning and spinning with anticipation, like a tree shredder hungering for sap. As the precious red cube fell closer, it hopped up to reach. But, the Oscar was done with the pellets and quickly nabbed the juicy tomato.

The poor crawfish was beside itself. Its pinchers pointing skyward towards the massive Oscar, he snapped and clapped with frustration. It looked so much like Dr. Zoidberg it was uncanny. The resemblance was hysterical to me and I couldn’t help bursting out laughing. The poor thing! So hopeless!

As I watched it flailing with anger I suddenly stopped laughing. One thought crept in my mind, is this how the universe laughs at me when I’m having a shit day? I couldn’t shake it, and the magnitude of the idea sent me reeling.

How many times does an opportunity, a tomato, come my way and is suddenly taken away? How frustrated and angry and hopeless do I feel when that happens? Not knowing that the universe has a limitless supply of tomatoes, of opportunities, of chances to feed! If the poor crawfish were aware of me it wouldn’t be afraid of hunger, it would know that I would eventually give it food.

But, the crawfish doesn’t know me, it cannot possibly be aware of me. Likewise, I cannot possibly understand the infinite universe.

But, maybe, just maybe, the crawfish could eventually learn to trust me. Or at the least, trust the infinite blessings of the raining tomato, or whatever I am to it. How much easier and less worrisome would its life be if it could trust? How much easier would my life be if I could?

But, that would take faith, an enormous leap of faith, a release of one’s agency. It is so hard to believe in what is outside the fish bowl.

The little red crawfish, this many legged thing of churning stomach and snapping pinchers, had retreated to his hole. I cut up another tomato and grabbed a stick. As the little red cubes of sustenance slowly drifted down it came out again for another chance. The Oscar felt wet stick on its head every time he approached. Sometimes, the universe intervenes.

 

 

Bond and Technology

I have always loved the James Bond films. Some of my fonder memories of growing up was watching them with my parents and making fun of how many bullets the bad guys would use up trying to hit Bond and the incredible ease with which Bond could kill 3 dudes with one shot. Like all things internet the summation of this critical and beautiful memory is personified in this gif:

It literally took me longer to describe that memory than it did to find and post that image. Damn you technology; bless you technology. So it goes.

In fact, while we are on the subject; the most interesting cultural commentary in Bond that has fascinated me has been that of technology. In all the movies the scene with Q were my favorites. I loved the crazy gadgets that Bond would have at his disposal. Be it a watch that had a lock melting laser, or a pen that was an explosive, or a car that could drive itself AND be a venerable death machine on wheels! I didn’t care what it was; I wanted it. I always fantasized about going to MI6 on some sort of field trip and meeting Q and subsequently stealing as many explosive pens and jet packs as I could carry. You see, I did not have much faith on becoming a secret agent. This was also before Spy Kids came out, but seriously fuck those kids and their perfect hair.

My love for the gadgetry was not limited to the movies. I read the books and especially loved the video games. Seriously, before there was Halo, there was Goldeneye. I know it is a point of contention but I will vehemently argue that Goldeneye was the first truly great CONSOLE BASED multiplayer shooter. And the gadgets got a good amount of mileage on those games.

Considering my love for the gadgetry it was interesting to me that when Skyfall came out I was sort of over it. I was shocked myself. I scolded myself, “What about the Dagger Shoes! What about that weird spinning hat the fat asian dude used to kill people with?!” But yea, man honestly I was over it. It all seemed so gimmicky and cliche.

So I wasn’t too sure what they would do in Skyfall. Would they come up with a tablet that could be spun at tornado like speeds to create an EMP wind tunnel? or maybe some sort of tampon that could be used as a nuke? (You know, for the ladies). Or maybe a form of currency that could be traded online with little to no regulation (What up Bitcoin).

When Bond meets the “New Q” in Skyfall, a younger, more computer savvy, simulacra of Q with better hair, it was actually sort of refreshing (Though it was a clear indication of the Youth Culture striking again):

The “NEW Q” gives Bond a handgun and says “Yea, this reads your hand print and can only be fired by you, so that’s what we got.” Bond looks shocked and Q responds to all of us “What were you expecting? Exploding pens and that like? We don’t really go in for that sort of thing anymore.”

Hmmm…

It is interesting though that my maturity regarding Bond’s gimmicky technology was not entirely the product of my youth. The demographic for bond movies were certainly not 8-13 year old boys. No, it would seem that everyone totally dug on that shit. For real, this was back when the Space Pen was considered revolutionary.

Ain’t nobody fresher than my rocket belt.

If we were only to use James Bond as in indicator of our changing perception of technology we would get a pretty accurate picture. And what sort of picture would we see?

Well for one, as technology progresses we require it to be as unidentifiable as possible. The entire aesthetic trend of current technology is that of minimalism. But, while it is minimalist in design it is maximized in efficiency.

Look at Google Glasses. The things are GLASSES and they allow you to be hyper connected in a way once thought only to be possible by cyborgs. (Spoiler alert: Human/Cyborg marriage equality debates in T-Minus 3 Centuries.)

How long you been on Cynder? It says we have 98% genetic compatibility.

So what is next for the great Bond? Will he do battle with guns in the next movie? or just highly specialized computer drones? Maybe he will be pitted against his greatest adversary: Sobriety!? We won’t know for a bit but one thing is for sure, whatever he is doing next will be whatever we as a society are requiring from our technology.

The Carceral Archipelago

An excerpt from a classmate of mines take on our digital evolution:

“As the digital age progresses and every aspect of our lives is sync’d to technological innovations such as a cloud server, the panopticon and carceral archipelago develop into a more significant and substantial reality. Considering especially the implications and potential as the inevitable improvements and innovations in technology such as voice recognition and artificial intelligence emerge. Your every Facebook post, every text you ever sent, every website you ever visited as data under review (by computer automated auditing system) add to that every phone call ever made since the beginning of the digital age. “The server” has thus become omnipresent and with computer programmed “prediction” capability, (derived from statistical data) the system is virtually omniscient as well. Has mankind created God? Are the behaviors of people modified to align in accordance with what is deemed acceptable by the designers of the system? Isn’t that what religion is designed to do?…To make people behave under the pretense of obedience to God and to adhere to a moral code? “

Her and Humanity’s Unwielding Attempt to Grasp the Infinite

In the film Her Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with his hyper-advanced operating system, Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). The film raises important questions regarding relationships, Los Angeles public transit and, of course, how waist high pants make a comeback regardless of glaring obesity statistics. But, the most interesting layer of the movie that I haven’t been able to shake has to do with the juxtaposition of an old sage and the invention of the telescope.

Israel Meir Kagan, known popularly as the Chofetz Chaim was a famous and widely influential Rabbi at the turn of the 20th century. In his 1895 work Shem Olam he stated that “The telescope was invented to validate God’s ability to see down to Earth from Heaven.” That is to say, that he believed that humans in his time had a shaken faith and couldn’t understand how a Being could see the distance between heaven and earth. He writes “To counteract this false claim, G-d shows us clearly – by giving the inspiration to build the telescope – that even lowly man has the ability to see at the great distances from the Earth to the Heaven. So we realize that surely G-d has the ability to see from above to below concerning all matters.”

The definition of God is a strange topic and is a bit of a fools errand to engage in. But, for our purposes we will be focusing on the ‘God Concept’ through the only definitive characteristic of such a being: God is Infinite. God is omnipresent, unbound by Time and constant in Its intensity. Pretty similar too Samantha in Her. But, more on that soon.

Looking at technological advances from the lens of the Chofetz Chaim’s ideology is, if for nothing else, an interesting mental exercise. Kagan seems to be implying that all of Humanities advances are not “an indication that we are greater than previous generations” but rather, we require these advances to understand God.

When I was in private school my teachers attempted to explain prayer as ‘making a phone call to God.’ Nowadays I’m sure that some schools will teach that prayer is ‘like a Facebook message.’ Maybe, there are even some schools that would delve deep enough to connect the omnipresence of God to the omnipresence of each individual via Twitter/Facebook/Instagram. I mean, thing about it, is there any other analogy as obvious to ‘seeing everything’ as being able to instantly see images from anywhere in the world in the swipe of a thumb?

Still though, we are just humans and our ability to process tweets and posts are limited compared to a ‘God Being’, so we aren’t really there yet, right?

Well, Samantha in Her is very much there. She is capable of communicating with thousands of users simultaneously,  is able to calculate the number of trees on a hilltop in seconds and can leap waist high jeans in a single bound. If we were to look at this future through the lens of Meir Kagan it seems we have created all the prerequisites of a ‘God Being’ in the fashioning of a hyper-advanced AI.

The most interesting thing about this, though, is Samantha’s capacity to love. In the film’s climax Theodore discovers that Samantha is having several other relationships with other users of the OS. He is confused and hurt, saying “You are either mine or you aren’t.” Samantha replies that she understands why Theodore can’t understand that her love is infinite. But, she assures him that, contrary to finite human conceptions, her love can grow by loving others. She is capable of infinitely loving all her ‘users’ with the same unique intensity to each. Does this not sound exactly like the Judeo-Christian ‘God Being’?

It would seem that in the time of the Chofetz Chaim the populace could not wrap their minds around an infinite being’s ability to see far distances. In the future of Her, it would seem that we have become incapable of understanding how anything could love us infinitely. To combat this we create a virtual mirror that shines light on the self as the self should perceive. We create a ‘telescope’ to prove that we are worthy of being loved.