Michael C. Goodwin's Blog, page 21

Boomer Bust

My generation, the baby boomers, (those born between 1948 and 1965), have come under a lot of fire and criticism lately from the younger generations, and not without good cause. It is now felt that we have squandered the future economic security of this nation for everyone else but our generation. Starting in the 80s, Regan era deregulation and tax cutting, gradually weakened the robust country that the boomers inherited. Constantly borrowing money to fund wars and social programs for ourselves, we have raised the national debt to incredible levels, leaving future generations the problem of how to pay it all off. We have allowed the country’s critical infrastructure to degrade, and the public education system to deteriorate, forcing students to go deep in debt to fund the ever increasing costs of a college education. We won’t even get into the disastrous consequences that the housing and tech bubbles exploding on our watch created, due to deregulation and relaxing the laws that kept watch on these potentially dangerous things.

And let’s talk about that huge elephant in the room, the one that everyone in our generation completely ignores, climate change. Yes, climate can be thought of as an important part of the fabric of the economy. It has also seriously degraded over the last 40 years. We knew about the dangers of continuing to burn fossil fuels way back then, but hey, it won’t be a problem until after we are gone. It is our ultimate failure and the one I am most deeply ashamed of, and the one that now, will be the most expensive to fix.

Though it is not going to get fixed, not any time soon. The boomers control the political process and it has now degraded into keeping the status quo for themselves. They have resorted to all kinds of strategies to maintain their political power and the horrifying consequences of this is now evident in the current administration and its frightening discriminate policies towards to anyone who opposes them. So have the boomers doomed American civilization? Let’s talk about that. (Below, young boomers, my sister Linda, me and my sister Debbie, Easter, 1958).

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My parents house

I recently spent a bit of time at my parents old house waiting while the estate agent gathered things together that might be interesting to someone. So I prowled around the place checking for any last bits of personal papers or mementos that belonged to my parents. The place was a mess, all the drawers, closets, attic and basement emptied of the things that they used and tossed in boxes for people to pick through. We were very much a middle class family, the kind that evolved in the 50s during that era of post WWII prosperity. The furniture is old and not very stylish, but comfortable and well used. This house and all its goods made up a working household, a place which functioned daily, providing the means for sleeping, eating, resting and playing. It now stands mute, cluttered with those things which we used every day, not filling their function anymore, a machine that has slowed down and stopped, no longer useful and unnaturally quiet now. There is no chatter of children or the murmur of our parents, the rattle of breakfast being prepared, showers, getting dressed, eating and the rush to catch the bus for school. The evenings with the squawk of the TV in the background, doing homework, helping with the dinner preparations and cleaning up afterward. In the summer, picking fruit from the orchard, and the assembly line precision of pitting, cleaning and cutting the fruit, putting it in jars and boiling it for preservation. The holidays with visiting relatives and cousins to run around the house and play with. Birthdays with outdoor cookouts with everyone gathered around a large table made out of a big piece of plywood set on sawhorses, groaning under the weight of all the food and deserts, a yard full of laughter and noise. That is all gone now, the estate sale, which is just a garage sale with an auctioneer, was starting and so began the final step to completely cleaning out the house prior to selling it. The whole place will just be torn down and discarded, like the rest of my parents generation, finally forgotten. (Below, the garage at my parents, everyday things that we used).

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The 50s Future

As I was growing up in the 50s, television was in its infancy. There was no color, the screen was not very big and the image was a little fuzzy, but I was entranced. My future was set by TV, I became an artist because of it, I was an eyewitness to the history of the time, I was informed. In that decade of postwar prosperity, my family acquired a fair sized house, my siblings, an automobile and of course that TV. One of the many magical things it did, was to show me the future. My favorite program was Disneyland, the anthology TV series that featured an amazing range of animated and live features. Every program was introduced and narrated by Walt Disney himself. In the mid to late 50s there was a series of shows featuring science fact. An early show, Our Friend the Atom explored the promise of atomic power and the boon it would be to human kind. Following on that successful episode, Disney developed a trio of space programs. Animators working with NASA scientist Wernher Von Braun and others, created Man in Space, Man and the Moon and Mars and Beyond. The most fascinating program was Mars and Beyond. Starting with cavemen seeking to understand their surroundings and the sky, it moved throughout history to the present with a what a trip to Mars might be like and the possibilities of what could be found there in the way of life. I was hooked, I became an intense fan of the very infant US space program and of space science in general. That gave way to a lifelong mania of science fiction and the possible future of humanity among the stars.

Another early show was Magic Highway U.S.A. In the mid-fifties the US was just developing a interstate highway system and Disney wanted to explore the future of that vision. The show imagined that every possible convenience would be available to the traveling populace, without having to leave their vehicles or the highway itself. Also, that every shape and size of auto, depending on your needs would be available to purchase. Disney also developed a futuristic transportation system for a World’s Fair exhibit and some of the first animatronics and robotics and explored the promise of electricity in enriching our daily lives.

One of Disney’s greatest vision was the idea of a future city that people could actually live in. It was to be a self sustaining town with every urban convenience. The Community of Tomorrow never got built after Walt died. But it eventually became Epcot and DisneyWorld. When I finally got to visit Disneyland for the first time, I was in my later 20s and married. But I still loved it, I was a breathless kid again in that magic land of fantasy and our possible futures. (Below, My sister, Linda, (a cousin?), and me under the Christmas tree in 1955 or 56, next to the family TV.)

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To Hell in a Hand Basket

In cleaning out my late parents belongings, I have found that my mother saved everything. I was surprised to find that she had many, many things that I left behind when I went away to college and then to a working life. My father was even worse, it took a very large trash bin to hold the contents of the basement and his workshop when we finally went through it. I am fairly certain that it was because they grew up during the great depression and then WWII. Times were uncertain and the future looked grim, materials and supplies were scarce and costly, so it was necessary to keep and reuse things.

My mother was fond of saying that the world was going to hell in a hand basket. When I was very young I never knew what she was referring to, but of course, it was scary and it did not sound good. Again that sense of living through hard times and dealing with an uncertain future. As I grew up I learned that the phrase was a rather generic way of saying that we are all headed for disaster. In looking for the origin of this saying, there are references to the French Revolution in which many heads were cut off by the guillotine and hauled away by a hand basket. The rich aristocrats who were most notably, the victims of this, were certainly headed to hell because of their evil exploitation of the poorer masses. Sounds good to me actually.

In my own way I grew up with a modern insecurity, the Cold War. In which the evil commies were determined to destroy the fortress of democracy and capitalism with nuclear annihilation. So I can understand somewhat how my parents felt about the world. As a child of the 50s and 60s I did not grow up with the material insecurities that my parents did. We had plenty of everything, or at least it felt like it. We just had to worry about those atomic bombs dropping on us elementary school students cowering under our desks.

In our modern times there is a manufactured sense of chaos in order to prey on our insecurities. The government tells us that everyone and everything is out to get us and we need to trust them to protect ourselves. I am not sorry to say that this kind of nonsense does not fly anymore. The world may be going to hell in a hand basket, but you do not get to scare us into blind submission, we are much smarter then that. (Below, me with my much appreciated Lionel train set, Christmas, 1959.)

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The Time Machine

My parents left me a time machine. You wouldn’t know it to look at it, but it definitely was one. It consisted of 10 cardboard boxes and it was scattered all over their house. When we cleaned out the place after they died, we found some boxes in the basement, some in their rooms and some in the attic. As the eldest child, it was decided that I would take possession of the boxes and sort it all out. I lugged them home and upstairs to my studio, then proceeded to examine the contents of the boxes and try to put things into some kind of order. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t easy at all.

Photographs are moments frozen in time. And there were thousands of these moments, many thousands. I couldn’t possibly keep all of these photographs, I have no room for my own things these days, but to throw them all away felt like vandalism. I have found that the past is difficult to revisit. Most of these photos I have never seen, me as a baby, growing up, moving to Utah and getting older. Things my parents did before they were married. Their brothers and sisters, living through the depression and WWII. There were also many other personal things that I thought were long lost, but preserved and kept by my mother. Some painful to see again, bringing back memories. traveling back in time to those earlier days of my life.

Thankfully those 10 boxes are now down to 2, and that is the good news. The bad news is that my sister has texted me and said she just found 2 more boxes. (Below, Me at age 2 with my mother and father, taken in 1953.)

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The time machine

My parents left me a time machine. You wouldn’t know it to look at it, but it definitely was one. It consisted of 10 cardboard boxes and it was scattered all over their house. When we cleaned out the place after they died, we found some boxes in the basement, some in their rooms and some in the attic. As the eldest child, it was decided that I would take possession of the boxes and sort it all out. I lugged them home and upstairs to my studio, then proceeded to examine the contents of the boxes and try to put things into some kind of order. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t easy at all.

Photographs are moments frozen in time. And there were thousands of these moments, many thousands. I couldn’t possibly keep all of these photographs, I have no room for my own things these days, but to throw them all away felt like vandalism. I have found that the past is difficult to revisit. Most of these photos I have never seen, me as a baby, growing up, moving to Utah and getting older. Things my parents did before they were married. Their brothers and sisters, living through the depression and WWII. There were also many other personal things that I thought were long lost, but preserved and kept by my mother. Some painful to see again, bringing back memories. traveling back in time to those earlier days of my life.

Thankfully those 10 boxes are now down to 2, and that is the good news. The bad news is that my sister has texted me and said she just found 2 more boxes. (Below, Me at age 2 with my mother and father, taken in 1953.)

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Revolution #2

“Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup,

They slither while, they pass, they slip away across the universe.”

(The Beatles, 1968)

I have had to deal with changes in my work due to computer advances all my life, it has left me somewhat skeptical of the future when someone says things are going to again change dramatically and soon. Just like the digital revolution changed my work in art and graphics, artificial intelligence is on the horizon and ready to once again change the way we work and live. Artificial intelligence (AI) will (and does) make machines (computers and robots) possible to learn from experience as they do ordinary tasks, adjust to new input and build on their experiences much like a human does. It makes them smarter and better able to do things faster and faster and to find new ways to do things based on data collected along the way.

“Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,

possessing and caressing me.

Jai Guru De Va Om

Nothing’s gonna change my world

Nothing’s gonna change my world.”

So what is AI actually going do to us? Consider something that can try a thousand solutions to a problem in a moment, pick the best way to do it and then go on to the next thing, remembering all of the wrong ways and then passing the information on to a newer and faster machine. A recent survey of AI experts predicted that AI will outperform humans in all tasks in just 45 years and could take over any job in the next century. Such as? Machines will exceed humans in language translation in five years, writing high school essays in eight, driving a truck in nine years and doing most retail service jobs by 2030. Another 15 years will find AI capable of writing a novel and working as surgeons. AI and AI enabled robots are expected to replace 800 million jobs globally by 2030.

So despite what the Beatles said, something is gonna change our world and soon. I am not sure how to feel about that. I have been a science fiction fan and futurist all my life and have welcomed most technical changes even though they have constantly forced me to learn new things from the time I graduated from college. So I predict more of the same for anyone alive today. I have always been fond of the Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times.” Interesting times are definitely coming. We have a tiger by the tail and the only way for us not to be eaten is to never let go. Machines can learn, but so can we. (Below, my first real computer in 1981)

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Revolution #1

“You say you want a revolution

Well, you know

We all want to change the world.

You tell me that it’s evolution,

Well, you know

We all want to change the world.”

(The Beatles, 1968)

When I graduated from college with my two art degrees in very traditional areas of the art world, I had no Idea that I was on the edge of major changes in how things would be done graphically. Soon after, when computers started showing up, people began talking about the digital revolution that was coming. I had no real idea at the time as to what that meant. Later I learned that art, photos, video, words and music could be reproduced electronically on the computer and that it could be processed, altered, copied endlessly, and mixed together in ways that no one had ever imagined before. Instead of drawing in pen and ink or pencil on a piece of paper, you would work on a computer screen and then change or add to it as you worked. Photo retouch became less of an art with paint and brush and more of moving a mouse around to adjust the image. Color could be added at a stroke without the labor of mixing and painting from tubes of medium. Photographs could be instantly developed straight from the camera and sized and then moved on to a page with words and art then pushed around in a way that you could see the results before it was printed out.

“You say you got a real solution

Well, you know

We’d all love to see the plan.

You ask me for a contribution,

Well, you know

We’re all doing what we can.”

Having started in graphics when it all began to change, it was fairly easy to keep up with the simple programs of the time. Everyone had solutions to the problems of producing newspapers, magazines and books and we all learned how to use them. On computer I could do three times as much work. Instead of having to draw things out in pen and ink, I could draw them on the screen. Instead of having to typeset the text and then cut it, wax it and paste it on a layout board over my drawing, I could do that digitally. Instead of having to cut overlays for grayscale or color I could indicate where it was to appear on the computer drawing just by clicking on it and then printing it out in one completed piece, and later copied to a layout program with a whole page at a time.

I have not touched pen and ink or cut an overlay for more then 30 years and I doubt if I would be any good at it if I were to try now. A lot was lost then and other things gained. So was it worth it, this digital revolution? I try to think of the computer as another tool like a pencil or a brush. One that I probably rely on too much these days when my hands are a little too stiff to do fine detail work with paint and brush. All in all, it is a lot cleaner without the paint and ink all over my hands and clothing. But wearing things like that, (photo below, at my first art job), it probably could only make them look better.

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It is already too late

With the modern industrial age, (beginning in 1850 or so), has come 250 years of an unprecedented economic boom that took us from coal and wood fired steam powered engines to coal, gas and oil electric generating plants that power everything we use to live our affluent, comfortable lives.

The bill for all of this modern comfort is now coming due. We continue to ignore the possibility that when the planet warms up too much, the consequences are going to be enormous and very dangerous. The current US military budget is a staggering $700 billion each year. We are going to need that and much more just to combat the negative climate effects that will sweep our planet in as little as 30 years. And yet here we are, blissfully telling the rest of the world that we will do nothing to help and to mind their own bloody business. It is all one planet and we will have to cooperate at some point in the future, or all go down together. It is really simple math, add more CO2 to the atmosphere and we will trap more heat and get warmer. There is absolutely no way around it. If you add heat to water, even a little at a time, it will eventually boil. So what is not to understand? Our weather is heat and cold driven, warmer air at the equator rises and flows to colder areas of the planet. The rotation of Earth spins the air and it mixes and ripples across the surface in seasonal changes of warm and cold. Spring, summer, fall and winter, it is all easily understood. However, keep adding heat and you will disrupt the normal flow of things. When everything is heat and little cold then we will have bigger disruptions in the normal weather patterns, I don’t think that I have to belabor the point. Many people still think that there is some vast conspiracy that is ongoing to force us to use more efficient means of powering our lives. Solar, wind, water and other non-polluting sources are bad for us? Let’s break a few things down for ordinary people. Warmer and dryer climate will mean more wildfires, less forestland for people who simply enjoy being outdoors and less wildlife habitat for hunters to use. All the best areas will be bought up by the rich and restricted to the public. There will be less water for fishing and other water-based recreational activities. Less snow will restrict winter activities and make it more expensive to use what little is left for everyone else. We dump a lot of water on our lawns out here in the west to keep them green during the summer, what will happen when we need all the water for a larger population and for growing food?

I really hate to be the grumpy old man complaining about the kids on the lawn, but when there are no more lawns, and no more water, I won’t have to say much about it, will I? Actually, it is already too late to stop the beginning effects of all this, but not entirely too late to save us from a real and very unpleasant future. I will probably not be here in another 30 years, so why should I care? I simply do not want to be one of those people that everyone will talk about who could have done something and didn’t, I want to be known as someone who really cared about the future and the quality of our lives in it. (A part of an old painting of mine of a very dry planet).

Reading your writing

Writers have a love-hate relationship with their work, or so I have read. I do myself. One day I would love what I have written, and on another day I can’t believe that I ever thought I could actually consider myself an author. The first four years I began writing, I finished three rather long novels. Since then I have slowed down considerably. The problem was time. I used to write during my lunch hour at work every day, I got a lot done during those years. But, after me and 20 fellow workers were gotten rid of from where we were employed, I got out of the writing habit. I also took up other things that made it difficult to write, painting museum exhibits for one. And I got to thinking that my writing was garbage. Of course, I never had the time to actively promote my work and my first published novel suffered from that in particular, which fed my negative belief. So, after working at other things and hardly writing anything over the last three years, I thought I would revisit my first couple of novels and sit down and actually read them again. Three years is a pretty good chunk of time and I should be able to view my work with fairly fresh eyes. It has been interesting, I have been enjoying my work, I feel that the writing is not all that bad. I am only partway through the third novel but I feel that I am doing quite well now. Still, this is not a good test, a writer just simply cannot be dispassionate about his own work. I am actually enjoying the story and looking forward to the rest of it. So how does one evaluate his (or hers) own work honestly? The answer is that you can’t, your own ego is smashed together with your creative thought process and you are liar if you think you can be objective. At least I can’t be objective. Writing comes from various parts of your experiences, history, habits and concerns about the universe. It is based on people who you have known, how you have been treated by them and how you treat others. It can be influenced by what you like to eat, how you get excited by and react to a myriad of stimuli from books to movies and TV, plays and concerts or just the annoying fellow-worker who likes to hum stupid songs. It is part of your whole being and you cannot step outside that and look back in, unless you are a split personality. I suppose you just have to trust yourself and realize that not everyone is going to click with your point of view. Still it would be nice to sell a few books somewhere along the line outside of your own family. (My cover illustration and redesign for my first science fiction novel).