A Semi-Online Kinda Life

What do you do when you have to make a decision? How do you calculate the risk or reward of a particular situation? What factors do you consider?

I don’t know what your answers are, but I know that none of them can be explained as a simple on/off statements.

If you want to check the weather before a vacation, do you always check the same source? What if you are planning a barbeque for your family?

Would you always trust one weather app? What if it tells you it won’t rain, but it does?

How bad does the weather need to be before you consider it too dangerous to drive? Is your calculation different for yourself versus your family?

There are a lot of questions about the weather here, but the point is that even something as simple as going outside on a particular day can require multiple subjective decisions based on the person and the situation.

You cannot make a simple statement like “if it is raining, I do not drive”. Or maybe you can, but that will never be true for everyone. There is no switch you can flip that determines if the weather is going to interrupt your plans.

What does this have to do with anything?

Well, the inspiration for this article came from someone else writing about gender identity who pointed out the explicit truth that “nature is not binary”.

The other article (who I would cite if I could find it) pointed out that humans invented the idea of things being “binary” and the first thing on the list of inventions: binary code.

The concept of binary code is born out of logic. The 0s and 1s represent switches, specifically on/off switches. Using this information, computers can be programmed to make complex decisions.

But is the computer making the decision or is it the program itself? The algorithm, if you will.

What comes first in the decision tree: the temperature outside or the humidity?

Any computer system or artificial intelligence is going to rely solely on what the computer can be taught to logically work out. It cannot alter its programming to adapt to new information. It can only use the method it has been given.

As a child, a computer was nothing short of unimaginable. Today we are building giant monstrosities called “data centers” built simply to run a huge series of on/off switches that we are all perfectly capable of doing for ourselves.

Artificial intelligence is not some “savior of mankind”. It is not even equivalent to a human making a prediction about the weather.

Your brain can process more information than any of those data centers and much, much faster. You just need to have the information in your brain to access.

What is faster? Calculating a tip for a meal yourself or using your phone as a calculator? Can the calculator take into account the service of the waiter or is it purely giving you an answer based on what you determine to be a “fair” tip?

I keep asking questions to demontrate the point that you do not need a machine to do the work for you. You choose to use the machine because it is faster or more convenient.

There is nothing that a computer can do that a human cannot.

There is a problem in physics known as the three-body problem. Basically, you can track the force between two masses somewhat accurately using Newton’s Law of Gravitation, but the moment you try to do the same thing with three masses, everything becomes chaotic.

Humans have had little success with this problem and ZERO computers have ever been able to solve it.

Why? Because a computer can only do something after a human has learned how to do it. If the action cannot be simplified to logical on/off switches, then a computer will never be able to do it.

A computer might be used to calculate the result of a three-body solution, but the actual answer will need to come from a human making changes to the way we understand gravity.

Newton’s theory of gravity works well enough, but it is not exactly how gravity works. Einstein showed this when he showed that light with no mass is still bent by a gravitational field.

While both theories are useful, there are still some fundamental flaws. The theory is not perfect, but every time a computer uses one of these theories it can never know that there is still something different going on.

How much of your life have you given up to the computer? Do you let it make decisions for you on the weather?

If you asked a computer about gravity, it will mention Newton and Einstein, but will it mention any flaws that exist in those theories?

If you hunt for MAGA talking points online, are you going to find conflicting information?

We live in a semi-online state in our lives. At every moment we are connected to one another and a huge trove of extraneous information. Every idea a human has written down (and plenty they haven’t) have a dedicated space on the internet.

Each day we fall deeper into that connection and give up more of ourselves to the internet. We sacrifice individuality for convenience.

If you want to learn to play guitar, most would buy a guitar and immediately go to YouTube for videos. Instead, you should buy a guitar and play it until your fingers bleed and never let anyone tell you how to play.

No YouTube video taught me to play the drums because it did not exist. I had a drum kit and the written score for Metallica’s Black Album. I did what I thought was right and over time I actually learned to do it for myself.

I tell my students not to get help for their homework. I tell them to make mistakes until they figure it out and they will remember more. The ones who listen always tell me I am right.

You don’t NEED a computer. You don’t have to exist online at all times.

I have seen a video recently of a young man discussing how having cameras constantly running has deterred kids from dancing. They are afraid of something embarassing being plastered everywhere on the internet.

This confused me because if you are from my generation, you likely feel like no online video of you dancing is going to end your life. Because you know that in real life, people don’t care how you dance.

I have seen this first hand. Go to a metal concert with me and you can just about guarantee the mosh pit is going to find us. With that in mind, when my pregnant wife and I went to a show, we got a table away and up above the crowd.

The show is kicking ass and I look on the floor and everyone just looks frozen. Phones out everywhere, people just standing there, and absolutely no one enjoying themselves. The old guy on the balcony and his pregnant wife were moving more than the kids. They couldn’t even get a real mosh pit started.

We live through our phones and we forget about real life. We forget that things like dancing aren’t about what other people see. It is about how it makes you feel.

Has Footloose not made its way through the generations? Yeah, there was Kevin Bacon and tractors, but the movie had a point too. Those kids wanted to dance because it made them feel alive.

Younger folks today are missing out on what it means to exist without a phone dragging you down.

I write about our connection to computers often because I believe we have misused them for entirely too long. We have given them too much power over us in all facets of our lives.

In education, children are introduced to a tablet or computer before they are ever introduced to a pencil. High school students use the internet and A.I. to complete assignments. College students use those same programs. At what point does the student ever learn to do things without the computer?

In economics, cryptocurrency has taken hold of large amounts of assets. What is cryptocurrency without a computer? What are financial transactions without a computer? If you took the bottom 90% of the country and multiplied everyone’s bank account by 10, what changes? Money itself is barely a tangible thing at this point.

In politics, social media websites have allowed for the spread of lies and false support for terrible ideas. Remember all the oversees accounts Musk unmasked? Every site is an algorithm that feeds a particular mind extraneous information.

If you think Elon is the greatest, you use X, where you are fed all the disinformation you want to feel better about yourself.

If you are a diehard MAGA, your mind poison is Truth Social, where you can blow your orange godking any time of the day.

If you want to avoid the “drama” you land on Facebook or Instagram, so you can watch every little thing your favorite celebrity or “influencer” is up to.

Politicians use the internet to solicit donations. We are sent text messages, emails, videos, and every other possible electronic method. Yet, they can never seem to use that same access to better represent their constituents.

Trump is happy to ask people for their money in an email, but he never wants to hear anyone else’s opinion on any topic. Sadly, this is true for most politicians.

In healthcare, the internet is the first place you go if you have unexpected symptoms or something is wrong, rather than going to see a doctor. The internet is also the home of vaccine denial, as any decent scientist who isn’t being paid will tell you that vaccines are safe and effective. Health care claims are run through artificial intelligence for approval. Phone calls are run through computer and A.I. systems.

There is no moment in our lives where we are not tied to some computer system that is making decisions in the place of humans.

Do you decide what to read on Substack independently or do you scroll? Does the rankings on Netflix determine what you watch or do you choose what you want to watch each time? Be careful with these, the line may be a little fuzzier than you think.

Overall, the point I am trying to make here is we need to recognize and come to terms with our addiction to computers. We have to remember what our lives are like without them.

If we really want to boycott something that will make a difference to everyone, let’s all boycott our phones and the internet for a day. Find a way to live your life offline for 24 hours.

Their ad revenue would crash and every one of us would discover what life can be like when you are making decisions for yourself.

• Dr. C

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