Musings of Old Man Joe

There and back again!

science

Your own personal pandemic

By 5 Comments

Photo by ̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺ͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩ 🅴🆁🆁🅾🆁 𝟺𝟸𝟶 ̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺̺ͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩͩ on Unsplash

I met with a family member recently on a visit who I have not seen in many years. He is much younger than me with that youthful enthusiasm that comes with a certain age. During our conversation it became apparent that he has decided that he isn’t going to wear a mask on public transport any more. He explained he just wants to get back to his normal as soon as he can.


My covid and lockdown experience has been mine & can be very different from anyone else’s. My age and experience in my life have moulded the way I react to things. This is of course not news but seeing another person share what they are taking from this makes me think.
I am lucky and I know it and appreciate it every day, I am grateful and count my blessings. I also try to make sure I am making the right decision and not the most convenient one.


When I explained to my family member that I will be doing things in a different way and that I have lost friends due to the pandemic I saw his eyes take on a look. I don’t think he has lost anyone and for him this is all about the change in life style and the lockdowns.
It made me think about how even through a global pandemic our experiences of said pandemic can be so different.

Because I live in Ireland the worst of my pandemic is over, due to such a large vaccination rate in the country. Then of course you have people in the southern United States who are going through the pandemic afresh as they have people who for what every reason would prefer to die than get vaccinated and live. I feel sorry for the people who could be moving on and the medical staff who have to go through this still when it didn’t need to happen, their pandemic is very different from mine.

Opening up early to save the economy has not worked pretty much anywhere it’s been tried. The virus doesn’t care about the economy and when you have to lock down again because you have no choice the lesson should be learned. I know these times will pass but I do hope that people truly learn from their experiences that the choices we make do matter.

First Harvest

By 6 Comments

Six tomatoes from the garden
First Harvest

So exciting news is we have our first harvest of tomatoes, we have never grown anything before that lived long enough to actually eat. And with the world still in the grips of a virus that has changed so much it’s cool to have something nice to talk about.
I learned from YouTube that you can pick them while they are still green and they will ripen over a few days. So I have left some to ripen on the plant and picked a couple of green ones to see how they are and which is better, if anything is better or not. I am pretty sure they will be awesome we are so looking forward to salad with lunch.

Update

So it’s been a week since I started this post and we have had a few tomatoes that ripened and they are so yummy. It’s so nice to have something so fresh. As for the ripening thing it’s so true you pop them in a paper bag or just wrap in paper and pop them on a window sill and give them a few days and they turn a beautiful red colour.

Latest Batch

This whole thing has made me (who is not a person who grew up on salads), meat and potatoes were my roots. But I am happy to be eating the fruits (pun intended) of our labour. If we had a veranda or any outside space in the States I am sure we would have tried this years ago, alas we didn’t have the space. It was jarring for Susan & myself to move across the planet during a pandemic with cats and dogs. I am so lucky but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard, many people have gone through so much since march 2020. The sad part due to misinformation so many people who could be safe are still at risk because they aren’t vaccinated. Please remember to get news from a news source and medical advice from a doctor, not Facebook!

Peace!

The Future of Creativity

By 1 Comment

Creativity is a wonderful thing.  It gives us art, music, poetry, photography, gardening, and the list goes on. Creative people come in all shapes and sizes and in all temperaments.  They can be rude, humble, obnoxious, or shy.  They can be also be depressives who will go without shelter and food, simply to be able to express themselves creatively.  It gives their lives meaning.  I am not saying that all creative people suffer from depression.  I am saying that a lot of the artists I know do have a dark side, and this is reflected in their work.  

Does it help to have some level of depression to be creative?  Does the function of creativity lead a person to depression, or to depressive thoughts? Are we, as humans, attracted to the chaos and drama that can come with social non-conformity?  Is it the dark side of existence that we wander toward, to feed our creative minds?  

It’s part of our wiring as humans to have good days and bad days, and how that looks can depend on external factors, such as, where we live, how we look and our status in society.  Does the way we are raised provide us with different tools when dealing with depression?  When we as a society get to the stage where we can change our DNA, eradicate things like depression, are we not only changing the chemistry of our brains, but also altering the parts of our mind where creativity resides?  

What could be the function of depression as it exists with so many of us?  Does it have a function or is it just a chemical imbalance, a mind fuck, if you will?  And if, in the future, we can remove the genes that gives us these dark feelings, should we do it?  Will it create a happier society?  Is it moral to allow people in the future to be afflicted with depression if they don’t have to be?  When our genes are changed, and people have a bad day, how will they react when sadness should be the resulting emotion?  Will we be like the Eloi from H.G. Wells, “The Time Machine” (spoiler alert), devoid of emotion with a certain apathy, as they are in fact really just a food source? 

In the future, when we can gene sequence humans to be whatever we need them to be, what will creativity look like?  What is the future of creativity in a world without depression? And even scarier, will it be humans or AI that are the creatives?  

I am writing this in a café, drinking a coffee.  How long will it be before the first blog post written by an AI is posted?  Will it be about what it is like to work and live with humans?  Will it be funny?  Sad? Will it feel like a threat to other bloggers?  Will the AI truly appreciate all of the likes and comments?  

In the future, will creativity be considered an emotional plus or an impediment?  Will the darker side of creativity be considered an abnormal way of thinking and be judged as detrimental to society?  I personally think that, as people, we would find Utopia boring and probably start killing each other, taking drugs or just staying drunk all of the time, even more than we already do.  

Some of the greatest people I have met are often quite “off”, not what would be considered normal.  They have an edge that makes them interesting and fun to be with.  Some may call them crazy, but that is just personal interpretation.  Different people have different normals; that is what makes interesting conversations and relationships.  

So, what is the future of creativity?  We shall know quite soon.  

Of course it’s true, I saw it on the internet!

By 4 Comments

Sharing what?

I remember when I was living in Ireland and reading the news I would be able to watch and listen to Irish news, English news and read American news. It was great to get a perspective rather then just one news source. it’s something I will say to anyone today is read alternate news sources so you don’t exist in a news bubble.

What has happened since the 1990’s has been a revolution in social media. What I believe this has done is create a world where we/us are able to exist in a bubble we create and due to a algorithm set up by Google and Facebook we are fed articles and media to prop up the story of belief we are trying to prove to ourselves, whether it’s a fact or not.

So let’s look at say ten years of social media has achieved for us, are we particularly more sociable than we were before we had these things. I would say probably not, it’s true to keep in touch with loved ones is cheaper and easier than it was ten years ago. Is the quality of the social experience better?

I think the worst part of the whole thing is the deviation from facts, the way we no longer use trusted sources for our information. These are for myself trusted sources.

  • BBC news
  • RTE news
  • NPR news
  • Any Times newspaper

I know there are many more but my point is to read multiple sources to get a better picture. And avoid news posted on social media that is not from a trusted source. And remember opinion pieces are just that, somebodies opinion. What happens when you don’t rely on trusted sources for news?

  • Anti-vaccinations
  • Brexit
  • Alt-Right
  • Anti immigration
  • people actually don’t believe in climate change
  • Trump

I am also wary of local stations after this report on Sinclair came to light!

It’s amazing to me that in the age where we have more knowledge at our fingertips than any time in the history of our planet, that so much crap is shared and believed. The Russians from 2015 started a media campaign to influence the election in the United States. What I wonder about is why did the Russians not only want Trump to beat Hilary Clinton (who was maligned badly by the Russians through Facebook), but they also picked him among the other GOP candidates for President. As a failed business man he couldn’t get credit in the United States so it was Russian banks that financed his business schemes. Which is why the sanctions were not popular to the Trumps. Trump is a conspiracy theorist who can do great damage in the oval office, maybe that was the plan overall, to destroy the united states from the inside.

The us against them is straight out of the fascist playbook, which is also propagated by the algorithms of Facebook and Google so we see only what we want to see be it fact or not. In society today there are points of contention that were not in existence thirty years ago. This is due in part to the internet and outlets like Fox News that has led to the creation of radical views through social media.

Apple has recently opened it’s news app, I am not an Apple fan boy although I use and love their products, I try to keep an open mind to these things. But to create an app which will give us news from real sources is genius and my hope is that they will at some point allow sharing to social media to counter the effect of fake news from Russia and propaganda from Fox News & the Sinclair Group.

Peace!

perplexed

By 7 Comments

Those that have been so kind to read the few words I post on here, as I am studying quite a bit & the old life thing going on I don’t have too much time to post.
I have found it difficult to put into words what I see politically and globally with what is going on.

Last night I was watching the series by James Burke entitled “The day the universe changed!”

We are back in 1984-1985 and the cold war is still up and running, the threat of nuclear war still looms & the world wonders what the future will hold.
We all know the mission to the moon was a pissing contest between Russia and the United States. With a side mission called scientific discovery. I was about 9 years old when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon & got to dress up as a spaceman in my class.

When I was in my teens I would read boys books about time and space and the future science will bring. It was exciting and full of hope for the future. Western countries stood for freedom of expression and movement, the idea you can make it if you try! The United States was by far the biggest economy so it was felt the best opportunities were there, not that it was any more free than any other western country.

Russia & China being the opposite of freedom, no freedom of movement and being told what you can and cannot do was not the way for the future of society, if we were to go to space and beyond!

Of course times change and the cold war ended & we left the moon and didn’t go back because we won the contest. The funding for science dropped because funding was never really about the science. Time moves along and technology moves into the mainstream. So there is money to be made, and today we have the web (light & dark). We have access to more info than any humans since the beginning. This was going to be the new dawn of humankind.

But of course the dark side was always possible, and with the availability of knowledge was the availability of crap, social media, fake sites, scams, identity theft, click bait, Fox News!

The Russians discover they can fight a media war because people aren’t equipped to filter, and they don’t know where to get news they can trust.
Trump calls any story he doesn’t like fake news because it doesn’t stroke his ego. News media continue to give time to stupid people to give the impression of being fair. People begin to believe the stupid people because they are getting exposure.

And then there was this!
THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT AND THE RISE OF AMERICAN FASCISM 

Before the 1970’s the christian right was part of the rest of the united states, probably just as happy with the moon landing and what science might bring for the future. A baby wasn’t a baby until it was a baby, not today when some consider a few cells to be a baby. But things changed and it may change what was once the bright future of the United States.

For some the multi-diverse idea of society breaks what they consider the mold from their youth. It was a fiction but real enough to them, and they feel it is gone & want to rekindle the past. They have been deceived into thinking it can come back. Society and business moves forward because business in the end wants to make a profit. The old industries are no longer really viable but they have been told the reason is immigrants, unions, the other side selling jobs overseas.

Business did move overseas, but it was purely for profit, and cheap labor. But another  reason not mentioned too much was due to technological advances. Now we have people being voted into government who don’t believe in science, who want to make the United States a purely christian country, which goes against freedom of religion. I believe in freedom of religion, you should be able to practice what ever religion you choose. But do not try and impose your religious beliefs on me. If you take away my right to choose, I may as well be living in 1985 Russia or China!