No Such Thing As An Irrelevant Skill

Following up (somewhat tangentially) on my recent post on "fascinations", the article Many of My Most Useful Skills I Owe to Serendipity on the (excellent) Slow Leadership blog makes a few statements I can quite thoroughly agree with:

Serendipity is not only an essential input to creative thinking, it often serves up unexpected benefits elsewhere. There’s no way of knowing in advance precisely how — and whether — anything you learn or become interested in will benefit you. Yet sometimes you find yourself needing idea or technique and there it is; right from an area of interest or learning you undertook years ago with no thought it would ever be useful.

And I especially like this part:

Learn all you can about anything that interests you. Never mind if it’s “useful” or “relevant.” It’s all relevant. If you’re passionate about cats, or cars, or canyons, learn all you can about them. If you love hiking, learn all you can about the sport and the places you hike through. Keep adding to your learning. One day — you won’t be able to predict when, so don’t worry about it — it’ll be exactly what you need the most.

(The whole article is worth reading, I just figured I'd share a few quotes here, as someone who has gotten a ton of unexpected benefit from simply being fascinated with things).

Neither An Immortal Robot Nor A Cheerful Jumper Into The Abyss

(A bit more commentary on some stuff that's been running through my head as of late...)

Consider the following:

- I feel out of place in groups where people seem literally convinced that they personally are likely to find some way to "live forever" based on the fact that some cool stem-cell experiments seem to be panning out.

- I feel equally out of place where people are expounding on the benefits and virtues of actually "going gentle into that good night" (i.e., not engaging in "heroic" lifesaving measures for elderly patients). (Or when people are claiming that merely wanting to partake of rejuvenation medicine is a sign of hapless and hubristic vanity.)

- I'm against pathologizing old people for being old, but I'm very much for finding better ways to stop old people from dying of cancer or heart disease or basically anything identifiable that kills them already.

- I'm terribly weirded out by people who seem to think non-infinite lives are somehow meaningless (and yes, there are a few, both religious and non).

- I'm also annoyed when people express the idea that taking measures to (even if only by a tiny margin) potentially maximize one's long-term survival odds is a sign of undeniable pathological narcissism.

- I don't think wanting to live another 100 or even 200 years is any more morally wrong than wanting to live one more day, no matter how old you are -- and yet, I do worry about the character of people who seem overly fixated on their own survival above all else.

- I think it's kind of goofy and crackpottish to believe that you are personally going to live forever in a nearly-indestructible "uploaded" form, but I'm totally okay with the idea of cryonics, and am considering signing up myself at some point (I figure even if it doesn't work, it's a cool science experiment!).

Now, of course I don't feel like there's anything wrong with the position(s) I hold here, otherwise I'd hold different positions. But still...I keep feeling myself running up against weird pressures to either jump on the Live Forever In A Robot Body! bandwagon, or on the Just Lay Down And Die Gracefully! bandwagon. And I don't have any desire to jump on either. Hopefully I can keep going along the way I've been going, picking and choosing my projects accordingly, because the only thing I've really ever found that "works" for me in areas like this is the "salad bar" approach!

I still volunteer with the Methuselah Foundation, and plan to keep doing so, as they're doing a lot of practical work that I see as having the potential to benefit many people. It's pretty clear to me after having been acquainted with them for several years even before becoming a volunteer that they're legitimate (the fact that they've got actual research programs going on at major universities is a big positive sign as far as I'm concerned).

But I'm finding in general, I have to be very careful in evaluating any group or person that claims to want to address actual age-related problems scientifically and ethically. There's so much crackpottery, opportunism, and sheer overly-wishful thinking out there that it's practically impossible to be too careful.

Is Aging Itself A "Disease"?

Nowadays, there are a lot of people (perhaps even a majority!) interested in mitigating common age-related health problems. Very few people would answer "Yes!" if asked, "Are you looking forward to experiencing heart problems, increased susceptibility to infections and cancer, and eventual death?" However, most people also accept certain things as inevitable or at least highly probable, and may strongly object to the characterization of the aging process as a "disease" in and of itself.

I'm going to get into what might be considered "nit-picky semantics" here, but considering how many arguments occur over terminology and its implications, I'd much rather err on the nit-picky side than on the side which assumes everyone uses particular terms the same way and attaches the same associations to them. So hopefully you can bear with me as I hash through some definitional complexities and controversies. My intent here is not to "play word games", but rather to attempt to synthesize some of what I've learned as a result of participating in longevity advocacy with some of what I've learned through engaging with disability rights and advocacy.

In one sense, I understand what is meant when referring to aging as a "disease" -- basically, the term aging is sometimes invoked as shorthand for the set of bodily processes that eventually result in greater vulnerability to actual illness (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.) and consequent death.

However, I now recognize as well why the rhetorical device of "aging as disease" bothers some people. To some, calling aging a "disease" implies that there is something "wrong" with old people as they exist today, and that us younger folks all ought to feel sorry for these poor, sick individuals. I know that not everyone has this interpretation, but that interpretation does exist, and I believe it to be a rather problematic one. I guess I've just gotten sensitized to the problems that can stem from purposely framing something as wholly pathological in order to prompt a sense of urgency.

I mean, yes, I'm all for looking for ways to protect people from (and treat) things like heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, etc. I don't think anyone is against research in those areas, except perhaps for people who advocate human extinction (or at least a drastic drop in population) for ostensibly environmental reasons. But I don't think trying to re-define all older people as "sick" simply because they are old is going to actually help older people. I've learned through autistic advocacy and disability rights discourse that "pity campaigns" actually tend more to create a worse world for the folks they claim to want to help -- pity is very close to disgust, fear, and resentment on the emotional palette, making the very idea of trying to create more pity seem terribly wrongheaded and potentially damaging.

When I think of people like, say, my paternal grandparents, I do not see how pity would be of any use to them -- and in fact, I'd be personally insulted if anyone tried to pathologize them on mere account of their age. Do I want them to have access to top-of-the-line medical care? Of course! Do I want them to live the longest, healthiest lives possible? Absolutely, and I'm sure they'd agree! But neither of these things necessitates the re-framing of their entire demographic as "diseased".

Now, you might say, "But Anne! What about all that militant anti-aging stuff you used to write? What about your comparisons of aging to other diseases that kill people? Have you morphed into an apologist for ill health and (gasp) death? Have you given up on fighting the good fight, or what?"

And the answer to that is, in a word, no. My underlying opinions haven't really changed at all over the past two years or so.

Two years ago, I thought that longevity medicine was important on the basis that people don't stop being valuable and worthy of life once they become senior citizens -- and I still believe this wholeheartedly.

Two years ago, I thought it was odd that so many people were upset at the deaths of their beloved grandparents, yet perfectly willing to say, "Well, you know, the older generation has a responsibility to stop using up so many resources at a certain point!" -- and I still find positions like that to be rife with cognitive dissonance.

What has changed is my preferred approach to the subject of longevity and longevity medicine. No, I haven't gone all wishy-washy and "politically correct for political correctness's sake" -- I've just seen (over and over and over again) via engagement with disability rights that even when it comes to things that are often (or always) fatal, and which cause people massive amounts of actual pain and suffering, pity campaigns are a distraction at best and downright dangerous at worst.

I realize that not everyone has the kind of experience, reading background, etc., such that they'll "get" what I'm saying here. It's kind of a tough concept, and I am absolutely not saying this whilst looking down my nose at the "plebes" -- I am saying this from the standpoint of someone who quite naively started out thinking it was perfectly fine to speak of "defeating aging" and "battling aging", but who has since reconsidered following observation of where that kind of thinking tends to lead.

And where it tends to lead is a place where a whole slew of people who might have been perfectly happy going about their lives are suddenly put into a public category of People To Feel Sorry For. And the world is definitely a less welcoming, more ominious place when you're walking around knowing that people feel sorry for you on account of the demographic you belong to.

On Fascinations. And more Vorlons.

I have a long history of getting really really interested in particular things. I never really know what's going to trigger my uber-fascination circuits -- in early childhood I had a thing about assistive technology (no idea why), followed by a very intense Star Wars obsession (I was actually banned in 5th-6th grade from doing any more Star Wars related projects because until that point I'd somehow manged to work Star Wars elements into every assignment!).

Later, I got heavily interested in "four dimensional space" (a favorite book in high school was The Fourth Dimension, by Rudy Rucker), and was also generally fixated on anything to do with "the nature of the universe" (particularly string theory and Grand Unified Theory ideas). And in college, I got very interested in longevity and related matters.

I generally had 1 or 2 "major fascinations" at any time as a child. As an adult, I find I'm able to maintain 3 - 5 quite comfortably, though I tend to delve deeply into one at a time for weeks or months on end.

And in addition to the major fascinations, there are always various lower-key but still significant fascinations operating in the background -- e.g., ingredients labels, electrical outlets and plugs, aluminum foil, duct tape (and duct tape wallets!), Lego, various video games (though I'm not currently playing any), etc.

Altogether, the capacity to get really really fascinated with something, to the point where I end up exploring it from every possible angle I can find, memorizing facts about it, having the urge to squee with delight when I see something related to it is one of the thing I like most about being alive. It's one of those things that, while it definitely got me into trouble as a kid every so often (and which can sometimes make transitioning between tasks and activities difficult even now), I would never ever want to give up.

Soo...I promise this isn't going to turn into the "All Vorlon, All The Time" blog or anything, but this evening seemed like as good a time as any for a wee bit of fangirl indulgence.

I've been totally fascinated by the Vorlons since watching the very first episode of Babylon 5 a few months back. It's difficult to explain precisely what fascinates me about these particular fictional aliens -- I mean, they're definitely a key element in B5's mythic story arc, but there's much more to it than that for me. It's really the whole package, I guess -- ridiculous-yet-somehow-awesome encounter suits, living ships, terse conversational style, and a questionable but (in the context of the B5 arc) intriguing ethical system.

Now, none of this should be taken as an endorsement of actions taken by Vorlons in Babylon 5 -- I don't need to agree with everything someone (or something) does in order to be fascinated by it. As a species, the Vorlons were actually kind of arrogant, in the sense that the ocean is kind of wet -- though without getting spoilery, I will say that it was clear that not all Vorlons had the exact same personality or perspective (particularly with regard to the "younger races", which in the show included humans). I will also say that for a character that wasn't even in all that many episodes, and who spent most of his limited screen time wearing a sparkly black shower curtain, the series' primary Vorlon (Kosh) managed to project quite a strong individual personality. The whole thing was just really well done, and it was a joy to watch throughout the series.

Right now, I'd say Babylon 5 is a "major fascination", with Vorlons presently being a minor but significant sub-fascination. Welcome to my brain. Below are some of the fruits of this fascination. I am having so much fun with this. :D

My very first Vorlon drawing.


The Duct tape wallet, with drawing attached.


A Vorlon action figure I ordered from Amazon. I was very happy to find one, but not too happy with the "flat" color scheme.


Enter the acrylic paints! I did some Web searching prior to visiting the local hobby shop, and discovered that custom action-figure painting was actually a fairly well-established Thing People Do. So while I was initially apprehensive about potentially making a mess of my precious plastic Vorlon, I decided to take the paint plunge -- and I am really glad I did, because it was a lot of fun.


The "Before" (unpainted) and "After" (painted) picture.


Now I can take moody Kosh pictures! *skulk*


Obsess much?


And I even have a t-shirt now!


I took my basic drawing (the one I initially did for the wallet), photographed it, played with the color scheme in GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), and created a design which I submitted to zazzle.com, who printed my shirt and mailed it to me. In case you can't read it easily, the text on the shirt says, "Understanding is a three-edged sword". Whee!

The Methuselah Foundation Presents: Aging 2008

Are you interested in learning more about DNA in aging, telomeres, novel and potential approaches to cancer, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine?

Are you curious about longevity medicine in general, along with its various social, funding, and policy aspects?

If so, you might want to consider visiting Los Angeles, California next month and stopping by the UCLA campus for what promises to be a fascinating educational experience.

The Methuselah Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to research and advocacy in the area of longevity medicine, is sponsoring Aging 2008, a free public symposium to be held at UCLA on Friday, June 27, 2008.

The welcome reception for the symposium opens at 4:00 PM. Speeches by various scientific and medical professionals will begin at 5:05 PM. Speakers include:

* William Haseltine, Haseltine Global Health
* Bruce Ames, Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute
* Michael West, Biotime Inc.
* Daniel Perry, Alliance for Aging Research
* Gregory Stock, UCLA and Signum Biosciences
* Steve Burrill, Burrill and Company
* Bernard Siegel, Genetics Policy Institute
* Aubrey de Grey, Methuselah Foundation

As noted above, Aging 2008 is free and open to the public -- however, you and any guests should register in advance in order to assure your spot.

For those who really want to get into the heavy science of biogerontology, the scientific conference Understanding Aging: Biomedical and Bioengineering Approaches will follow Aging 2008 and last through the weekend of June 28 - June 29, 2008. Registration for Understanding Aging (which is not free, but which is a great opportunity to peek in on the latest and most intriguing biogerontological research to date) must be submitted by June 5 in order to meet the lower-cost Early Registration deadline.

It will still be possible to register June 6 and later, however, those requiring on-site lodging accommodations will pay an additional $200 -- so if this sounds both interesting and feasible to attend for you, register promptly!

(Also note that abstracts are still being accepted until June 5, so if you've been pining for an opportunity to showcase your biogerontology paper, you've still got some time left to submit it.)

Chaos and Aesthetics Survey

Passing this along for my friend Dora, who is currently working on a dual masters' at Portland State University in Systems Science and Computer Science. She's taking an Artificial Life class, and the survey is for a project in that class.

The text below is adapted from an e-mail she sent out; I figured at least a few Existence is Wonderful readers would be up for helping out a grad student via looking at nifty patterns!

---

Chaos and Aesthetics Survey

This survey is designed to examine the relationship between chaos and aesthetics. This is part of a project in an Artificial Life class in the Systems Science Graduate Program at Portland State University.

The survey consists of 15 different abstract images which you will be asked to rank on a scale of 1 to 6 based on your first impression or gut reaction of how beautiful, interesting, or appealing the image is to you.

The survey is completely anonymous, and nothing (including IPs) will connect you to your answers. No information will be collected other than the value you assign to each image.

The entire survey should take about 10 minutes to complete.

To take the survey, please go to http://uncivilization.net/hidden/eocsurvey_form.html

The results of the project will be posted at http://uncivilization.net/eocsurvey/results.html on June 6, 2008.

For more information, please contact Dora Raymaker at draymake @ pdx . edu.

Actual Disasters, A Conference Announcement, Shady Autism "Gurus"

Okay, there's a lot going on right now -- here are some links and notes on matters that have managed to grab my attention recently.

(1) An online friend recently pointed out a way to help the people affected by Myanmar cyclone, and I figured I'd pass along the link.

The International Burmese Monks Organization is partnering with Avaaz.org to, per their web site, "provide direct support to the people of Burma". Apparently (and this is something I didn't even know until yesterday personally), the country's junta military is restricting direct distribution of international aid.

I can't even fathom how any person or group could possibly be thinking of whatever weird power agendas they have going at a time like this over and above people's lives, but anyway. Right now the monks and nuns in Burma represent a channel through which concerned members of the international community can maximize the chance of their donation actually helping the citizens in direst need. You can read more about the monks on burmesemonks.org, and donate via Avaaz.org. I know there's no way to reclaim the lives lost so far, but there's at least some opportunity to help prevent further deaths in the aftermath of the disaster.

(2) Regarding the Sichuan earthquake: my employers are doing a matching-donation thing, so I'm most likely going to go that route personally -- however, I only found out about that opportunity by spotting an inconspicuous sign on a bulletin board outside the cafeteria. If you're currently employed, you might want to ask around/investigate to see if your company is doing anything similar.

Additionally, anyone can donate to the American Red Cross, who are also working on coordinating relief efforts with the Chinese Red Cross and routing supplies to the earthquake victims in China.

(3) H/T to Robin Zebrowski for noting this on her blog: apparently, a conference entitled Cognitive Disability: A Challenge to Moral Philosophy is being held from September 18 - 20, 2008 in Stony Brook Manhattan, New York, USA.

From the conference web site:

The realities of cognitive disability pose a significant challenge to certain key conceptions philosophers have held. Philosophers have conceived of the mark of humanity as the possession of rational cognitive capacities. They have traditionally extended the mantles of equality, dignity, justice, responsibility, and moral fellowship to those with these abilities, whom they speak of as "persons." What then should we say about those with severe cognitive disabilities? How should we treat these individuals and what sorts of entitlements can they claim? Should we grant the arguments of some philosophers who want to parse our moral universe in ways that depend on degrees of cognitive capacity, not on being human? How do claims for the moral consideration of animals bear on the question? Is it morally acceptable to consign some human beings to the status of "non-persons"? Philosophers have rarely faced these questions squarely and systematically.

Speakers include public intellectuals such as Michael Bérubé, Ian Hacking, Martha Nussbaum and Peter Singer. The conference will explore philosophical questions about three specific populations—people with autism, Alzheimer’s disease and those labeled “mentally retarded” —and will raise ethical and foundational questions on regarding both theoretical and practical matters.

I'm nowhere near New York, but seeing as the conference specifies that they "...also welcome those with cognitive disabilities who would benefit from and could contribute to the discussion.", it would be super cool if some autistic or other self-advocates could attend. There are so many cans-of-worms (fractal cans of worms, even!) in the description of the conference alone that it would not behoove me to get heavily into them here, but suffice to say that I have problems with assuming that in order to be considered a "person", one must be either genetically human or possessed of some specific (usually status-quo mediated) ability set.

Hence, I was very pleased to see Anita Silvers on the list of speakers, as she is awesome when it comes to human-difference stuff (I saw her present once and her paper was called "The Right Not To Be Normal As The Essence of Freedom" -- how cool is that?). I mean, I know Peter Singer is pretty gung-ho for animal rights and helping the poor and all, but frankly he scares the heck out of me with his utterly matter-of-fact disregard for the value of the lives of disabled humans.

The entire discourse in this area needs a lot of work -- right now, it's still sadly far too dominated by what amounts to the trumpeting of neo-eugenics on one side, and simplistic creepy religio-moralizing about "human exceptionalism" on the other.

As Robin Z. eloquently commented: "I think it’s past due time that people started having to contend with their views of morality (and ontology, and metaphysics) that presume cognitive (and physical) outliers are exceptions to the rule instead of equally valid members of the group that demonstrate and define the rules." Hear, hear!

(4) Joel Smith has written a good post on the problem with "autism gurus":

Autism seems to attract a disproportionally large number of “gurus”.

For instance, we have doctors peddling their “detoxification” treatments - which require exact adherence to the wisdom of the guru, uh, doctor’s orders (you’re not supposed to notice that few of the doctors peddling detoxification agree on how to do detoxification, nor do most mainstream doctors think there is a shred of support for detoxification of autistics as a treatment - the GURU’s wisdom is what is important, and it must be done exactly his way!)...

...The problem with all of this is that often the gurus, although they may truly believe they have a gift, are full of the very same feces they seek to eliminate. Good intention is not the same as truth. So while I believe that many of the gurus truly are sincere, I also believe them to be wrong. And I have a message for parents, teachers, staff, and others who want to know the deep secrets of understanding autistic people:

THERE IS NO SECRET KNOWLEDGE TO BE LEARNED. You don’t need to know the dark secrets of the depths to interact successfully with autistic people.

Good stuff, Joel -- "gurus" in general make me VERY nervous, regardless of what they're pushing, so I'm always glad to see attention being drawn to the problem of folks who see themselves as the Savior[s] of Mankind (for a fee, of course).

(Also, a request: please read carefully and spend some time thinking about this stuff before commenting if you're going to comment -- I've had it up to here with the Jerking Knee this week...)

Confessions Of A Non-Driving American

As a youngster, I always took it as a given that I'd get my drivers' license someday.

In December 2008, I will turn thirty years old. I still don't have a license. This no longer bothers me in the least. But it certainly seems to unnerve others, as I often find myself in the position of being expected to justify and explain my indefinite non-driverhood. Apparently, according to some, non-driving Americans are somewhere on the rarity scale between the Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat and the Yeti.

But contrary to popular opinion, no, we are not mythical beasts. Plenty of people don't drive, and yes, some of us live in the good old US of A. Non-drivers include children 16 and under, elderly persons, blind persons, neuro-atypical persons (though neuro-atypicality certainly doesn't necessarily preclude driving), urbanite hipsters, skate punks, exercise enthusiasts, farm workers, and others who just plain don't like driving.

In other words, despite the car-obsessed culture we North Americans live in, not all of us drive. And while some of us may want to drive, not all of us do. And it's high time we had our say.

So here's my story, for what it's worth.

First Attempts

The first time I attempted to operate an automobile, I was about sixteen. I don't remember much about that attempt, except for the fact that it didn't last very long. Nobody was injured, but I seem to recall someone yelling "STOP!" after I'd gone a few clumsy feet in the driveway.

I didn't attempt driving again until I was eighteen, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, I didn't need to drive in order to get anywhere I needed to go; my high school and the public library were within walking distance, so even though I sometimes got a ride with someone, I wasn't stranded when I didn't have a ride.

For another thing, I didn't see the point of trying for a license when I couldn't afford a car -- I had no expectation that my parents would buy me one (and it bugged me to hear other teenagers talking as if they were somehow "entitled" to cars), and I didn't have personal funds sufficient to buy one myself, let alone deal with insurance and gas and maintenance.

And finally, I simply wasn't all that interested in driving, as I was plenty busy with school, and my hobbies (reading, art, computer games) didn't pose heavy transportation demands.

But one day, my stepmom randomly asked me if I wanted to try driving again. I accepted this offer, and managed to make my way slowly around the parking lot of the local junior college in her tan minivan. I don't think I did too horribly, but it wasn't exactly an experience I was compelled to repeat soon afterward; it was very mentally exhausting. And soon I got caught up again in other things that didn't involve driving or attempting to drive, and the whole idea of doing so simply fell off my radar.

Round Two

Fast forward another three years or so. I'd transferred to university after completing my general education requirements at two local junior colleges, but I was home on summer break working as an engineering intern (at the same company I now work for; they hired me on after I graduated). My parents were starting to get concerned about my non-driving status at that point, judging from their repeated and pointed suggestions that I get my learner's permit. Eventually I guess the nagging got to me, as I went down to the DMV one day and passed the written test, thereby qualifying myself for behind-the-wheel instruction.

The day the driving instructor showed up in the little gray automatic with the extra brake was the first day I actually went out on a real road (as opposed to a driveway or parking lot). I was 21 years old, and still more or less optimistic that all I needed was a bit of practice in order to become a skilled, safe driver. So practice I did. And within a few hours of instruction, I was definitely a bit better than when I'd started at controlling the car. I was able to start it up, make it go straight, and steer, (albeit somewhat clumsily) around curves in the road.

The instructor had me drive on residential streets for the most part, which weren't too bad, though I had some trouble whenever there were other cars in the vicinity, as I found it very difficult to predict their behavior and judge where they were in relation to the car I was in. There were several incidents in which the instructor either had to slam on the extra brake (which I didn't find overly discouraging, as I knew the pedal was there for a reason) or grab the wheel from me in order to avoid Massive Crunchy Death, but I pressed on. We tried going up a really twisty mountain road at one point, and I actually didn't do too badly there, as there were very few other cars and the ones that were present seemed to be driving carefully and fairly slowly. And a few times, I ended up on the freeway.

The freeway experience was probably the biggest eye-opener of all with regard to what the demands of driving actually were. I actually liked driving on the freeway in some respects -- the "going really fast in a straight line" part was exhilirating, and several times I had to be reminded to note the speed limit. I also appreciated the "no stoplights" thing (as it meant less fiddling with the controls while simultaneously trying to pay attention to the road). But when it came to steering, merging, changing lanes, entering, or exiting, I was pretty well flummoxed. It became apparent to me fairly early on that freeway driving required a lot in the way of rapid responsiveness, and that even tiny movements of the steering wheel could have major effects on the car's trajectory when said car was careening along at 80 MPH.

I obviously didn't end up crashing and dying, but frankly I still chalk that up to luck and the presence of the instructor. But I finished my six hours (or whatever it was), and got the little permit certificate. I was pretty proud of that, and still figured that all I needed was more road practice.

After finishing up with the driving instructor, I mostly went out on the road with my dad. I could tell he and my stepmom were doing their best to help and encourage me, but at the same time, I also felt really pressured -- they would randomly quiz me on things like three-point turns (using napkins to represent cars) during dinner, and I was not very good at answering accurately in real-time, which frustrated both me and my parents alike. Once they had me drive the lot of us to the pizza place, and not only did I end up "drifting all over the road like a drunk", I also over-shot the driveway to the parking lot, and was in tears by the time we actually reached our destination. Another time, I was out driving with my dad, and he had to prevent me from driving through another car -- basically, we were at a green light (which my brain took to mean "go"), but the car in front of us wasn't actually moving yet.

Sometimes I seemed to do okay, but gradually I started noticing that I was really only "okay" when I had the whole road to myself. Any other large, moving objects, and I'd suddenly become exceedingly confused -- it was almost like the presence of even one other vehicle would break the whole scene around me into little pieces, which I then had to scramble to figure out the significance of. I'd been vaguely aware of this when I was driving with the instructor, but I'd not figured it to be anything unusual; I still figured at that point that everyone processed visual data the same way I did, and that if other people could drive, there was no reason I couldn't learn as well.

But the more I went out on the road, the more it became clear to me that I wasn't getting any better at dealing with multiple random moving variables in my visual field. Sure, I was getting better at manipulating the steering wheel and signal lights, but I was also still regularly forgetting which pedal was the gas and which was the brake, and just generally not dealing well with any outside motion or unpredictable situation on the road.

I began to dread practice sessions, but I tried to maintain some semblance of enthusiasm. Not only had I been culturally conditioned to think that I "needed" to drive in order to be a respectable adult, I also figured I'd be a huge disappointment to my parents if I didn't drive, and I felt very guilty about being so poor at it. I got plenty of advice from various people on what my "problem" supposedly was: that I was "just nervous", that I still hadn't gotten enough practice, that I wasn't really trying, that I was "relying too much" on other modes of transportation, etc. None of those explanations really felt right, but I couldn't articulate what was actually going on, so I vacillated between feeling ashamed of myself for my "laziness" and trying to ignore and push the idea of driving out of my mind altogether.

I tried driving a few more times when I returned to university after summer break -- my very patient and supportive boyfriend Matt was plenty willing to lend me vehicular access for practice purposes. I drove around in the school parking lot a bit (though that was kind of unnerving, as there was a pen of goats at the edge of the lot!), and drove once or twice from Matt's apartment to mine. But then I got busy again with school, and driving fell off my mental map again until after graduation.

Third Time's The Charm?

Fast forward again, this time to 2004. I'd graduated college the previous year, and Matt and I had moved into a small apartment in Santa Clara following my getting hired on permanently at my job. I started having more contact with my family again, as they're local to the Bay Area, and once again, I started feeling ashamed and angry at myself for not having a license. I was 24ish and decided that I would get my license once and for all before turning 25 -- no more excuses, no more procrastinating.

Finally, I figured, I was really and truly ready. I had a patient and willing licensed driver to help me (Matt), a cute shiny new Ford Focus to zip around in, and plenty of wide streets and parking lots to practice in. I marched into the DMV and renewed my expired learner's permit, and prepared for my first parking-lot re-acquaintance with the driver's seat.

And...I did okay in parking lots, as usual. Not great, but okay. I then went out on the road with Matt, where I noted the same phenomena as I'd experienced in the beginning of my quest to become a real driver: being "fine" on straight stretches of road with no other cars, but randomly forgetting how to use the controls in the middle of navigating an intersection, and not reacting in safe or appropriate ways to unexpected events or moving objects in my visual field. And don't even get me started on those unprotected left turns -- without fail, it always looked to me like the cars going in the other direction were coming straight at my front bumper, which led to no end of dangerous overcompensation on my part.

But I felt better. Less like a failure. More like someone who was actually growing up, who was actually "trying".

The only problem (well, aside from the obvious safety issues that entered the picture every time I ventured out onto the road) was that after every session, I'd come home feeling utterly brain-dead. I would return to my apartment after less than an hour of driving practice end up doing nothing for the rest of the day beyond clicking random Internet links and wandering around the living room in circles.

It would have been one thing if I was actually becoming a better driver. But I just wasn't. And I wasn't doing much of anything else aside from work and household chores, either.

So eventually, after much internal deliberation, I decided that my energies would be spent better elsewhere than trying to get a drivers' license.

Realizations and Trade-Offs

It's worth noting how dysfunctional my overall self-image was at the time I was most concerned with trying to get a license.

For a while after deciding to cease my attempts at becoming a driver indefinitely, I second-guessed myself relentlessly:

Maybe I stopped practicing one session too early -- maybe another hour on the road and it all would have clicked!

Maybe I just need to find the right book or Web site or teacher -- maybe if I keep looking a little longer, I'll find something that will work for me.

Maybe I AM just too lazy. Maybe everyone who learns to drive goes through the same thing I've been through and worse, and I'm just weak-willed and making excuses to cover for it.

Those "maybes" (and plenty of others) danced in my head for months. Even though I knew I'd made the right decision (for the sake of my personal safety and productivity in my non-work life), I was still concerned that I was going to be a "burden" forever, and that people were always going to end up feeling "pressured" into driving me around. I thought of the well-intentioned people who'd been telling me since I was a teenager that I ought to be able to drive because I was supposedly "smart enough" to do so; I felt like I was almost assuredly letting them down.

But: the fact of the matter was that even after several years of on-and-off practice, I still couldn't get behind the wheel and consistently keep track of what was going on. There were moments -- brief moments -- wherein I felt like I was truly in control of the vehicle, but it only ever took one too many moving objects outside, or someone honking the horn, or a bird flying by, etc., to throw my brain completely off-track.

And by "completely off-track", I mean "totally unable to process any incoming information in a manner meaningful to driving".

My hearing is very sensitive. I'm sure this helps me appreciate music; I wouldn't trade it for less acute hearing if I could, any more than I'd poke my eye with a stick to reduce the painful glare of the sun. But it also means that car horns (and worse, car alarms) fill my entire skull with a hot, opaque red-blackness that effectively blocks out everything else in the universe.

My visual information-processing system works atypically. I didn't know until just a few years ago that not everyone saw things the way I did. I had no idea that it wasn't "normal" to see the world as raw shapes, colors, and patterns as opposed to readily-recognizable "macro-objects". I didn't have a clue that most people could look out their car windows and instantaneously parse out what shapes were attached to other cars, which were attached to trees, etc. -- for me, this process has always been at least semi-conscious and also energy-intensive to maintain.

And...cognitively speaking, there's something about my overall brain functioning that makes safe driving totally unsustainable for me. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but as near as I can tell, my brain does a lot of "buffering". That is, I take in a lot of information all the time, and rather than immediately making automatic assumptions about its significance, I sift through it slowly and painstakingly.

This sifting process is part conscious, part unconscious, and while it definitely contributes to my ability to absorb certain kinds of knowledge like a sponge (and to learn certain skills very very thoroughly), it also means I have periods wherein my motor, speech, and other "basic" skills aren't 100% reliable.

For example, I've written before about how walking into an unfamiliar place feels rather like walking into a kaleidescope to me -- sometimes I literally freeze in place when hit by a barrage of visual input, whereas other times I sort of dart off (not necessarily voluntarily) into a corner or other location-shape that feels instinctually "safe" to me.

Mind you, this isn't a terrible thing as far as I'm concerned.

I think there's definitely a place in the world for people who process information the way I do (just as there is for people who process information in other ways), and overall, the universe (at least the parts of it that are accessible to me) looks stunningly beautiful most of the time from behind my eyes.

But it's not the greatest thing in the world when it comes to being able to drive safely. I can deal with it while walking, or even biking -- but in a car, everything is going way too fast for any of my compensation mechanisms to kick in.

One can't get away from trade-offs, at least not in this reality.

And given that fact, most (if not all) people are going to run up against situations in their lives where they have to choose between accepting some aspect of how they are configured and making the best of it, or continuing to fight to "overcome" that aspect.

But How Do You Get Around?

Believe it or not, there are ways to get around even when one lacks a drivers' license.

Right now it works out that my place of employment is on the way to Matt's, making it quite convenient for us to car-pool every morning and afternoon. He's assured me that he doesn't mind driving me, and since he's not a passive-aggressive liar by nature, I'm compelled to believe him. And if he couldn't drive me for some reason, I could ride my bike, take the bus, or possibly even rollerblade. I'm not "dependent" on him for rides to work; it's just convenient given our circumstances right now, and if I had to, I could certainly find some way to effectively commute.

I also presently live within easy walking distance from the bank and several basic stores where I can purchase water, food, and even underwear should the need arise. I can take the bus to any doctors' appointments I might have if need be, as the routes run by the local Kaiser facilities. I can even take the train to San Francisco if there's something worth seeing there. And I don't even live in a particularly urban area -- I'm smack in the middle of the South Bay suburbs.

This is not to say that transit is perfect around here -- there are some locations between which no convenient transit lines seem to run. I occasionally have to visit a lab in Fremont, CA for EMC testing, and if I were to take transit between here and there, the trip would surpass two and a half hours (whereas it's only about 20 minutes or so by car).

This makes me "dependent" on getting rides from co-workers when I have lab work to do, and at first I was embarrassed about this -- but then I realized that nobody even thought to question the fact that I also needed help with lifting and moving heavy equipment. If it's okay to need help in one area, why not in other areas as well? It would make just about as much sense for me to feel guilty about needing rides to the lab as it would for needing help carrying a 70-pound power supply -- which is to say, no sense at all. Plus, the reason my company sends me to the lab in the first place is because of my engineering knowledge -- knowledge that is not in any way affected by whether or not I can drive.

Bottom line: everyone has areas in which they need help, and areas in which they can help others, and there's no reason for anyone to be ashamed because their skill set isn't typical of their culture. And if people truly want to their cultures to become more inclusive, more flexible, and more capable of fulfilling the basic function of civilization at large (enabling all citizens to access food, shelter, and opportunities for self-determination and creative contribution), services like transit are major areas to pay attention to.

Acceptance Is Acknowledging What's In Your Toolbox, Not "Admitting Defeat"!

Faced with a trying situation, it is reflexive for people to ask themselves, "What could I have done to prevent this? What caused it? And how might I prevent similar situations in the future?"

There's nothing wrong with asking these questions, just as there's nothing wrong with acknowledging a difficulty or admitting that something is bothering you. And of course, each of us has our own ambition(s) and goals and projects, which necessarily entail the honing of existing skills or the acquisition of new skills.

But: the idea of sitting there being mad at what "could" have been prior to my birth no longer makes any sense to me. I used to go around feeling several sharp and conflicting flavors of angst about all the "what-ifs" and "might-have-beens" that I saw as having affected my life, but nowadays I'm seeing how counterproductive that sort of thing can be. I mean, it's one thing to look at the circumstances of your life and try to figure out the various ways in which you could improve certain aspects of your existence, but it's quite another to obsess over every little thing that could have conceivably contributed to any difficulty you presently experience.

What's strange to me, I guess, is how often I observe people coming to the conclusion that "working with the available materials" (where the "materials" in question are the various factors that have gone toward shaping you as a person, in conjunction with your past and present life circumstances) is tantamount to "admitting defeat".

I find it difficult to even write this, because of how often this kind of statement gets interpreted as meaning, "Nobody should ever bother doing anything to improve themselves or their circumstances", and how often notions like "acceptance" are seen as expressions of untoward "relativism" and calls for effective stagnation. I don't mean anything like that, though, so hopefully this explanation is clear enough on that front.

What I do mean is that it ought to be possible to be a psychologically and emotionally healthy person with dreams, goals, and ambitions -- while at the same time being someone who doesn't view themselves or the rest of the universe as a pathology waiting to be cured, or a broken machine waiting to be fixed. Explored, tinkered with, and played with, perhaps -- but not pitied for what it is not.

So, no, I'm not interested in practicing driving again right now. I'm not interested in advice or well-meaning "encouragement", or suggestions as to the deep, underlying psychological factors that might be "limiting" my driving prowess. I've received enough of that to last a lifetime already, thanks, and I've got plenty of other things I'd rather be doing with my time.

And frankly, I'm plenty willing at this point to start extolling the benefits of cutting down on car use in general.

I don't expect that autonomous personal vehicles are ever really going to go away completely (as even a well-designed transit system would have difficulty accommodating people who needed to pick up a pallet of planks or cinderblocks at the hardware store, or a new sofa). But you'd have to be pretty clueless to think that present-day automobiles (and the roads they drive on, and the traffic situations they create) aren't dangerous even for good drivers.

I'm actually regularly shocked both at the sheer number of accidents (and accident residue) I see on the roads around where I live, and at peoples' callous disregard for their own lives and the lives of others. I literally saw a guy a while back driving an SUV while talking on a cell phone with one hand, smoking a cigarette with the other, and reading a map with his eyes. (I don't even want to know what he was using to steer with...).

And then there's the whole environmental-impact thing to consider: I used to worry about being a "burden" due to not having my own car, but now I'm figuring I'm probably saving some carbon via my carpooling/walking/biking/bus-riding lifestyle. I try not to be judgmental, but seriously, Hummers? In the suburbs? Please.

All in all, I'm really hoping to see the day when more folks wake up and realize this and promptly build cool, safe, robot cars hooked into GPS units for route planning, and powered by solar panels and biodiesel.

And that monorail is long overdue.

(Hey, a non-driving girl can dream, right?)

From The Lurker's Guide

(h/t to commenter Xuenay for nudging me there...)

If you decide what you want, before you know who you are, you're likely to get something that will destroy you; if you know who you are, you can then ask for something that will be of greater use to you.

- J. Michael Straczynski, commentary on the Babylon 5 episode Comes the Inquisitor

There are various ways to interpret the above quote -- I interpret it several different ways (and across several minor variations) simultaneously.

Definitely thought-provoking, at the very least. And no, the quote is not meant to imply (in any valid interpretation I can think of) that it is possible to really "know who you are" to 100% absolute, fixed certainty; if you're reading it that way, you're missing the point, as we humans are not 100% absolute and "fixed" in our configurations in the first place.

I think that's sort of part of the point.

That, and the fact that there are degrees and gradients as far as these things go.

I'm also reminded to some extent of the notion of Naming in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind In The Door.

*goes off to ponder some more, and then sleep*

Babylon 5: More Fun Than A Barrel of...Vorlons?

Babylon 5 is my most recently-acquired science fiction obsession. I'm about halfway through watching the fifth (and final) season on DVD, and have been enjoying every exciting and thought-provoking minute of this excellent series.

I actually watched the first few episodes with my dad back when the show premiered in 1994, but couldn't get into it at the time. I was bitter that Star Trek: The Next Generation (which had been my favorite show) had just been cancelled, and the early episodes of Bab5 just felt too much like "bizarro Star Trek" for me to be able to appreciate them on their own terms. Plus, in all honesty, I simply couldn't make head or tail of most of the dialogue in the show -- I guess I just didn't have the context as a fifteen-year-old to understand what was going on.

So, years passed, and eventually Babylon 5 faded away into long-term storage in my brain. I didn't give it much thought again until just a little while ago, when some friends brought Bab5 up and asked if I'd ever seen it. I told them that I'd not been able to get into it as a teenager and had also heard that the first season was fairly high on the cheese stick, and was summarily informed, "Oh, it gets much better! You'd really like it!" After hearing this sentiment repeated by several other people, and after learning as well that the series was basically one big long story arc (I love long story arcs), I decided to give it another try. And let me tell you: I have not been disappointed so far.

The first season was a bit rough in some respects, but since my standards going in were so low, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. Not only that, but I noticed during the opening credits of the very first episode that Harlan Ellison (one of my absolute favorite authors of all time) was the conceptual consultant for the series -- that alone made me figure the series was worth a careful watch, as Harlan Ellison is well known for being quite persnickety about quality in fiction, and parsimonious as far as what projects he'll actually put his name on.

This second time around, I found myself much better able to understand the dialogue and the situations presented in the show, and I became intrigued fairly early on by the characters (especially the Vorlon ambassador!). I also really liked the fact that the show begain with its story already "in progress" -- that really made me want to figure out how all the characters (and the station) had gotten to where they were.

Aesthetics and Aliens (and did I mention Vorlons?)

Aesthetically, the show seems to have aged incredibly well for a sci-fi series. The opening and in-show computerized graphics (particularly in the first season) are a bit blocky by today's standards, but definitely impressive for their time, and they got a lot better as the seasons progressed.

The costumes are also something of a relief, frankly, if you've seen as much sci-fi as I have, as there's nary a spandex jumpsuit to be seen -- people, whether civilian or enlisted, dress like actual people. The alien makeup is also quite decent, particularly in the case of the Narn (green-skinned reptillian-looking marsupial-people) -- the only thing that took some getting used to was the Centauri hair, but even that didn't faze me after a while.

And then, of course, there is the Vorlon Encounter Suit, worn by the reclusive and cryptic Ambassador Kosh. I am actually kind of freakishly obsessed with Vorlons right now (or, more properly, Vorlon aesthetics, communication, and technology -- I'm not too keen on Vorlon politics, but I won't say more about that here as I'm attempting to keep this relatively spoiler-free). I downloaded a whole bunch of .wav files to my HP Jornada 720 (tiniest of tiny computers) so now if I really wanted to be a pain, I could walk around communicating mostly in electronic-sounding monosyllables and the occasional "IMPUDENT" or Kung Fu-esque phrase (such as "Understanding is a three-edged sword.").

I also drew a picture of encounter-suited Kosh and worked it into a duct tape wallet design, so as of today I am the proud owner of a custom-made duct tape Vorlon wallet (see below).



(I'm guessing that's worth at least 50 Nerd Points. :P)

The presence of extraterrestrial sentients is common in science fiction, and it is always interesting to see how different stories and fictional worlds treat their nonhuman residents. Like many sf fans, I've got a laundry list in my head of things I look for whenever aliens are introduced -- e.g., if they speak English, how does the story account for that? Are they humanoid or non-humanoid? How did humans encounter them? How was communication first established? And so on. Babylon 5 opens after humans have already had contact with various alien races for a number of years, meaning that there was presumably time for members of those races to learn human language, and vice versa. There are also occasionally aliens presented who seem to understand human language but not speak it -- due to anatomical incompatibilities, culture, politics, etc.. Here we usually see a device of one sort or another introduced to "translate".

One thing I really rather liked in this regard was (surprise!) how Vorlon communication was presented -- Vorlons are radically different from humans in some very significant ways, and in terms of sci-fi tropes they'd certainly be considered a very technologically advanced people, but they cannot actually articulate human language, and must employ translation devices in order to do this. I really liked seeing that because whether intentional or not, it was a neat little subversion of the whole "human speech is the triumph of evolution" thing I see so often here on Earth in real life. Regardless of what you might think of the Vorlons from a moral standpoint, I don't think anyone could reasonably argue that they're somehow "suffering" because they can't speak English without assistive technology.

And in addition to having an atypical inter-species communication mechanism, Vorlons are also socially unlike typical humans in many respects. While they certainly share many of the same fears and ambitions as humanity-at-large (albeit on something of a different scale), they're not so much into the small talk, to the point of it being highly amusing whenever humans and Vorlons try to have a conversation. You really need to watch the series to get the full effect, but from the looks of it, talking to a Vorlon is a bit like talking to the combination of a robot, a Magic 8 Ball, and Yoda.



Other species (notably the Narn, Centauri, and Minbari) are all much more humanlike both in their social presentation and linguistic faculties; they have their own languages (and accents, though the accents aren't really consistent and seem to often reflect the accent of the actor(s) more than anything else, at least when it comes to minor characters), and sometimes you see them speaking their own languages, but mostly they are shown conversing in English. Their societies are presented as being somewhat monocultural in the usual sci-fi sense, but at the same time, there's plenty of intra-cultural disagreement to be seen, and Bab5 is definitely a cut above a lot of shows as far as minimizing the "every alien is a walking stereotype" issue.

Story and Plotting

Plot-wise, Babylon 5 manages to be both fast-paced (in the sense of there always being something going on; there aren't too many "lulls" in the series) and thoroughly "fleshed out" with regard to details. It really is the kind of series that you have to start at the beginning and watch in order all the way through, as later episodes play heavily on earlier ones, and in order to know what the characters are going on about, you really have to have "been there", so to speak. This is a huge element of the show's appeal to me, actually: I'm kind of a nut for what are colloquially known as "nit-picky details", and Babylon 5 promises vast rewards here for those willing to exercise their observational faculties and long-term memories a bit.

Another appealing element of Bab5 is its character development -- that is, when decisions are made, things change as a result and don't just magically snap back to the status quo at the end of each episode. Characters are shown dealing with the ramifications of their choices and actions and experiences over the long term, and you can see them changing and growing and reacting differently to new situations.

Additionally, as much as I still maintain affection for Star Trek, Babylon 5 seems to me much more realistic in the way it portrays events as progressing and problems as being dealt with. Rarely is any solution neat and tidy, rarely does everyone agree, and rarely are the results of even the most well-thought-out and well-intentioned plan "perfect". Still, the show also manages to avoid beating the viewer over the head with constant defeat in an attempt to portray "gritty realism"; the Bab5 writers and creators seem to have done a better job than most at maintaining a balance here and also showing how the same outcome can spell positive consequences for some and negative consequences for others.

Babylon 5 also has an extremely rich philosophical thread running through it, a thread quite close to a lot of what I personally consider rather a neat way to look at existence. I won't get too much into it here, as it's really something that ought to be seen in the context of the story, but I will say that the way the story explains life, consciousness, time, and meaning is a beautiful thing to behold.

The Scientific and the Fantastic

Babylon 5 seems to walk the line between hard sf and science fantasy, sometimes edging more into one side than the other, but altogether maintaining a decent overall balance of realism and pure myth-metaphor-made-manifest.

The show's more realistic speculative elements are found primarily in the depictions of Earth and Earth culture -- Earth's ships look bulky and boxy just the way you'd expect human-government-commissioned spacecraft to look in a spacefaring future two hundred and fifty years down the timeline. Earth has also colonized Mars at the point the story takes place; the Mars colony does actually look like something that could presumably happen, as it doesn't employ anything really ambitious like mass terraforming, but rather presents a bunch of climate-controlled domes.

Also, I really really liked the fact that people were still shown using paper and pens in the future -- honestly, does anyone really believe that the future will be paperless? Or that someday there won't be any demand for a zero-power-consumption writing medium? Sheesh!

The medical technology was one thing that stuck out to me as fairly "primitive" -- aside from some newfangled and oddly-named medications and the capacity to treat the injuries and illnesses of a variety of nonhuman extraterrestrials, the medical lab on Bab5 doesn't really seem much better off than the average (assuming we're talking about an industrialized nation) Earth hospital today. People seem to die of the same things more or less at the same frequency that they do on shows that take place in the present day (i.e., stab wounds), which certainly isn't a totally unrealistic potential outcome for the year 2258, but I guess I was just kind of surprised to see so few "sick bay tropes". They don't even seem to have those little laser-y things that knit broken skin and bone back together in seconds. And as far as longevity goes, human lifespans seem to have increased somewhat on average per the Bab5 timelines, though quite modestly. The notion of living to 100 is discussed on Bab5 about as casually as living to 70 is today.

Then, in addition to all the fairly plausible stuff, we have the Plot Devices, which sometimes take the form of actual devices and other times take the form of quasi-supernatural phenomena (though thankfully no midichlorians!). There is no "warp speed" in the Bab5 universe, but there is such a thing as "hyperspace", through which ships can travel to cover long distances in short enough periods of time to make skipping across the galaxy a practical endeavor. Ships enter hyperspace through "jump gates" (which do exactly what you'd expect), or in the case of sufficiently powerful ships, "jump points" created by said ships.

We also see telepathic humans (and nonhumans), suggestions of something like reincarnation, time travel, and a few examples of prescient ability in some life forms (though in Bab5, the future is definitely presented as malleable; when people "predict the future", it's more a statement of "this will happen if nobody does anything to change how things are going now" than a statement of "this is going to happen and there's nothing anyone can do about it", with a few notable exceptions).

/end fangirl rambling

(oh, one more thing: in light of this recent upsurge in B5 fangirldom on my part, I've been enjoying The Babylon Podcast tremendously...check it out if you are similarly inclined!)

Like It Or Not, Everyone Needs Stuff

The quote below from Whose Planet Is It Anyway? caught my eye today:

What's such a big deal, anyway, about the simple fact that it costs money to educate us [autistic/disabled/atypical/etc. people] and to provide the services and products that we need? Guess what, the same is true of your family, pal. The only difference is that society has categorized your family's educational and other needs as "normal," while arbitrarily excluding others from that privileged caste. You're no more deserving and no less expensive than anyone else—you just have the home field advantage.

Read it, folks. And if you don't get it, read it again.

Bottom line: Everyone needs resources to survive. Yes, even really really rich people who meet or exceed contemporary standards of attractiveness. We all need to eat, sleep, breathe, and excrete. We all need protection from the elements and other dangers that would otherwise threaten our vulnerable meatbodies. And we all ought to have access to appropriate opportunities for education, cultural participation, and enrichment.

There is no way around using resources -- for anyone. And I have had it up to here (places hand at forehead level) with people making alarmist claims about the "cost" of caring for or educating one group or another. I get that stuff and time are both limited, and I also get that practical factors will invariably come into play as far as figuring out how to distribute resources. But there is no good reason to presume that because a given person or group has nonstandard needs that the mere existence of that kind of person constitutes a "crisis".

If there are really THAT many people with atypical needs, maybe that ought to be taken as a sign that something is wrong with the way our society is structured -- NOT that the world has been inundated with supposed "defectives".

I will consider it a good day indeed when the supposedly-inclusive "we" so often invoked in discussions of what "we" need to do about autism or anything along those lines actually includes the people being talked about.

"We" are not interlopers in "your" society -- society consists of all of us, and it seems hideously wrong for some to sequester themselves off in some kind of "well, we're okay!" bubble while the rest are assumed to be nothing more than parasites or interlopers. Like it or not, different people have different needs. If you don't like that, fine -- but at least come clean with the fact that you don't like it, rather than couching your assertions in the language of "helping".

And finally, I'm all about trying to find ways to use resources more efficiently. Sustainability is a growing concern of mine, and I do not deny the fact that resources are limited (in the absolute sense that the universe contains a finite amount of matter and energy; I'm pretty sure that there's more than enough "stuff" on Earth to quite comfortably support the existing population, and that distribution problems are primarily political and logistical in nature as opposed to functions of absolute scarcities).

But I do not think it is necessary or ethically responsible to invoke the widespread devaluation of people with atypical needs as a "sustainability strategy".

It's hard to fathom sometimes how people who by all marks and measures seem to fancy themselves "intelligent" and "civilized" persist in perpetuating what amount to the lowest forms of common barbarism, however dressed up in the verbiage of "compassion" and "progress" they might be.

---

PS: I'm not interested in any comments along the lines of, "But you don't understand! Some people do cost more than others to care for, and we can't ignore that fact!"

I'm not suggesting that fact should be ignored -- I'm just saying that the issues around that kind of thing are more complex than a lot of people seem to think they are, and I'm also trying to encourage people to think in terms of how social and cultural structures might be changed so as to be more flexible and inclusive.

I can't imagine that humanity has exhausted its creativity in this regard yet, which is why I'm rather confounded by the seeming emphasis these days on trying to alter or "prevent" certain kinds of people -- people who themselves have asserted that no, they are not "suffering" for the mere fact of being configured the way they are. To me, it seems terribly defeatist to presume that "oh well, we can't change the world or fight prejudice anyway, so let's just try and mold people according to the status quo and all the prejudices it currently contains." I mean, talk about an unimaginative approach!

More Robot Art!

Well, more of a robot/zombie comic, but comics are still art!

Anyway, below is the comic itself: it's really cute, and was drawn by my friend Margaret, who amazes me with her mad graphics skills. It is posted here with her permission.



(The little robo-guy at the beginning of the comic is named Jim. Read more about him here!)

Descriptive, Not Prescriptive

A while back, I was involved in a BBS discussion about computers and gender (in the context of whether the notion of "female-friendly design features" was a logical one).

Initially I was rather annoyed with the very premise of the discussion, as when I think of "female-friendly design features", my mind cynically goes straight to pictures of pink Barbie-themed laptops where you can play "shopping games".

But it turned out that (and I'm paraphrasing heavily here, since this discussion happened a while ago) the person who started the discussion was actually just referring to design features that might actually be functionally useful for a statistically significant percentage of women. Such features might include, say, a smaller keyboard to accommodate smaller hands. In other words, she wasn't talking about making computers pink, or pre-loading them with "Magic Makeover" software or anything else relating to cultural stereotypes -- she was just talking about perhaps implementing design variations and options that at least some women might benefit from.

Now, I'm still vaguely skeptical about the need to "gender" these features in the first place, as there are always going to be people of every gender (and I say "every" because gender isn't exactly binary) who find certain device options useful per their individual characteristics. But at the same time, I do see it as potentially useful to look at what groups are using (or not using) particular devices, and why. Sometimes, things end up getting designed with all kinds of built-in assumptions about who is going to be using them -- and consequently, people the designers didn't have in mind have more difficulty using those things, or have a sub-optimal experience while using them.

So in a sense, I guess I'm okay with considering gender as a design factor when the consideration is geared toward making devices (or offering services) that a wider variety of people can benefit from. As the person who started the gender-and-computers discussion noted, there are ways of accounting for physical and functional realities different people face that are descriptive, not prescriptive.

Descriptive Versus Prescriptive

I want to explore the concept of "descriptive versus prescriptive" a bit here, as it's a distinction I've been finding tremendously useful lately in thinking about labels and how they are employed. In the aforementioned discussion about computers and gender, I initially jumped right to the conclusion that "female-friendly design features" must refer to silly, stereotype-reinforcing aesthetic elements.

I remember as a kid being tremendously irritated by things like the fact that bicycles in catalogs advertised as being "for girls" were almost invariably PINK, covered in hearts, and emblazoned with ridiculous phrases like "Pretty Lady" or "Princess Sunshine". Not only that, but they often had white tires (as if they didn't expect girls would even dream of riding through mud puddles, etc.).



(Me, I was all about riding the BMX through the dirt.)

Eventually, as a result of seeing so many things I had no interest in presented as being "for girls!", and being occasionally chastised for daring to wander outside the boundaries of certain stereotypes, it got to the point where I started to wonder if I even was a "real girl". There was so much I was apparently "supposed" to be that I just plain wasn't, so my natural reaction was to wonder if someone had stuck the wrong tag on me at the factory, so to speak.

So, even though I was definitely what you might call "socially oblivious" in some respects, I was very aware of stereotypes and how they tended to be "enforced" from a fairly early age. I couldn't really not notice them, as I ran up against them constantly in pursuing my interests and trying to express my actual preferences.

Nevertheless, I can now see that pretty much everything that bothered me about gender-related stuff as a kid was rooted in gender (and gender stereotypes in particular) being applied prescriptively. I think I figured this out on some level (though not the linguistic level, as I couldn't have described it in this way back then) when I was maybe ten or eleven -- at that point I stopped doubting the fact that I was actually a girl, and decided instead that the problem had to do with the assumed definition of "girl" being too narrow.

In other words, girl was a fine enough descriptive term for someone with my physical features and chromosome configuration, but there was absolutely no reason for that term to limit me as far as what activities I could try out, or as far as what things I could be interested in.

And...that's how I've tended to approach labels and associated concepts ever since.

Looking Back, Moving Forward

Last May, I was interviewed by Dr. Michio Kaku for a BBC special entitled Visions Of The Future.

It was a really weird experience -- exciting in some respects (as I got to talk about physics briefly with Dr. Kaku at one point when the cameras were off!), bewildering in others, and altogether not exactly the kind of thing I figure characterizes my day-to-day existence.

Below is a Youtube clip someone posted of the segment I appeared in. My bit starts (at about 4:14 minutes into the clip.



It's really, really weird to watch. Really weird. I actually only just watched the full clip this evening for the first time! Even though the BBC people sent me a DVD of the Biotech Revolution portion of the Visions series a while back, I've felt so strange about the whole thing that I've had to muster up a lot of willpower just to watch the full 2 minutes (or thereabouts) of my interview.

(And the main reason I've posted it here is because, well, I figure I might as well point it out myself than deal later on (potentially) with random other people pointing it out and asking me about it. I don't know if that's an autistic thing or an introvert thing or what, but there you go.)

So, now I've watched it, I figured this would be a good time to discuss it a bit and also get some relevant stuff out of my system that I've been trying for a while to put into words.

First of all, I still have no clue why they wanted to interview me (of all people). The BBC people basically found my blog, thought it was interesting, emailed me, and asked if it was OK if they sent Michio Kaku over to ask me some questions. After confirming that it wasn't someone trying to play a practical joke on me, I accepted, and everything else went by so fast I scarcely had time to catch my breath and figure out what the heck was actually going on.

Believe it or not, whether to agree to be in the piece was a really tough decision for me -- not because I was nervous or anything, but because I didn't feel like I was "notable" enough for something like an actual TV series where they were interviewing real scientists. I had to rack my brains and do a lot of reading and e-mailing before I was satisfied that nobody thought I had some kind of "credentials" I didn't actually have (they didn't, but I'm still glad I checked).

I also had to determine whether I wanted to deal with whatever level of "exposure" came about as a result of appearing in the series. I might not be shy (in fact, I'd say I'm pretty darn un-shy) but I am an introvert by nature and have never had any desire to seek some kind of permanent place in the spotlight. In particular, I didn't want to end up in a position of not being able to get away from certain kinds of overwhelming attention.

So, after all that, I ended up deciding to do the interview. I figured that not only was it an opportunity to experience something rather unique, it was also a way to actually participate in something that reminded me very much of the science-y shows I used to watch and enjoy as a child. As I wrote back in October 2007:

Overall, the description of the "Visions of the Future" series reminds me a lot of all those "Gee Whiz, What If This Happened?" speculative science shows I loved to watch as a youngster. That's one reason I thought it was a neat thing to participate in -- I remember watching an "invention" show called Beyond 2000 (lated renamed Beyond Tomorrow) over a period of several years, and I'm a bit of a "retro-future" enthusiast in that I love mining the Web and old basement boxes for magazine articles purporting to predict the Amazing Developments Just Around The Corner.

The interview itself actually took several hours to film -- I'm pretty sure that's usually the case with TV stuff, as they like to take a lot of film and then condense it down to "sound bites". But I'm not exactly Sound Bite Girl, so I'm sort of amazed at the fact that they managed to get even 2 minutes of usable content. When I'm expected to speak "off the cuff", I tend to either shut down (especially if I'm being asked about something I haven't done much thinking about), or ramble. I also rely heavily on memorized phrases, much moreso than I do when I'm writing; that's just how my brain works.

This interview is actually a fairly good example of that: I was kind of cringing while watching when I heard some of what I was saying, because frankly it sounds kind of facile. (The only thing I said that I'm glad I got a chance to say was that people shouldn't consider self-modification some kind of big, bad, evil thing likely to create wars and excessive factioning -- we already have those things, after all, and it's doubtful that more physical and neurological diversity would lead to new (and perhaps superlative) forms of conflict.)

I also inwardly went "argh!" when I heard myself referred to as "one of [transhumanism]'s most vociferous proponents".

I know, I know: make the bed and lie in it and all that, but honestly if I'd had any awareness last year of the wacky can-of-worms the word "transhumanism" actually was, I'd have avoided using it to describe my views.

I don't have any desire to warp time and go back and change anything, as I care much more about incorporating learning experiences into my mental repertoire than I do about "not looking silly", but I do have a desire to avoid baggage. So, at present, I am not using the word "transhumanist" to describe my own views.

Frankly it has more baggage attached to it than I'm currently willing to deal with.

All I ever really hoped (and all I thought in the beginning) was that being a transhumanist just meant having the same set of interests I'd already had since childhood (a sort of science-fiction influenced fascination with neat gadgets and very long potential lifespans and such).

I thought the term was something basically neutral and harmlessly descriptive, perhaps along the lines of "geek" (as it is presently used, not in the chicken-head-biting carnival sense).

But eventually I came to realize that it was more than that (in the sense of being cumbersome), and also less than that (in the sense of being vague to the point of ridiculousness).

Frankly, it's a lot easier to just explain what I do actually think than to attach some weird ideologically-tinged word to myself and have people in turn attach all kinds of assumptions about what I must think based on my use of that word.

I mean, as much as plenty of transhumanist-identified folks are probably (like me) just sci-fi geeks with a parallel interest in ethics and technological innovation, there are enough going around proclaiming things I most assuredly do not agree with that I'm not comfortable calling myself a transhumanist.

I'm not going to get hysterical if someone else calls me one -- as I'm guessing that could very well happen just on the basis of learning that I believe people should have the right to modify or not modify themselves per their own dreams, aesthetic preferences, goals, and desires -- but neither do I "claim the label" or embrace it.

That is my choice, and I sincerely hope that those who may have communicated with me in the past back when I thought the "t-word" was a reasonable one for me to use will respect the fact that there are always going to be people who try something out for a while, accept that it isn't for them, and move on.

There are some labels I do accept, so this isn't about trying to claim that I'm somehow "indescribable" in any useful sense. But the fact that I can see utility in some labels (when they are used descriptively) does not mean I am somehow obligated to embrace any label in particular -- much less in the "prescriptive" fashion that ideological labels in particular like to assert themselves as encouraging.

So, that's where I'm at now. And I'm quite enjoying being plain old Anne Corwin -- a randomly silly philosophically-inclined long-winded writer autistic geekgirl longevity advocate sci-fi-and-robots fan, among other things -- as opposed to, "Anne Corwin, Trans-Humanist". It feels much more "right" this way, somehow, and I look forward to seeing (a) where the future takes me, and (b) what all of us manage to make of it.