Tag: optimism

Ne Obliviscaris

How accurate is it to say that you will never forget something?

Obviously, not terribly. After all, “never” and “always”, being infinite, are not generally applicable on a human timescale. And, even if we assume that forgetting can only occur by the act of a living person, the nature of human memory over extended time periods makes “never forgetting” a rather unfulfillable promise.

This week represented a fascinating, if bittersweet, milestone for me. As of this Wednesday, I have been disabled for a majority of my life. The dramatic saga of my diagnosis was one such event which I have committed to “never forgetting”, even though I know that this task is impossible. In some respects, I feel as though I have already failed at this task. Promises made to me and to myself about not letting this label define me or limit my grand endeavors have proven impossible.

They tell you, when you’re dealing with a disability or a chronic disease, that you can’t let it define you or limit your options; that meeting a certain medical or legal definition doesn’t make you any different from your peers. While the thought is nice, I have increasingly found that mindset to be idealistic and impractical. Having your options limited is pretty much the definition of disability, and accepting that isn’t pessimism, it’s being realistic.

Whenever I take an unmodified psychiatric assessment, it always flags me for possible risk of depression and/or anxiety, with a healthy dash of obsessive-compulsive and paranoid symptoms. This is because I answer honestly on questions like “I feel different from my peers” and “I am sick a lot”. The fact of the matter is that I am objectively different from my peers because my body does not function within normal parameters, and I am sick a lot for the same reasons. Devoid of context, these statements might indicate a problem. Upon explaining that, yes, I do experience great everyday stress, because I have to cope with artificially supplementing missing organ function, most doctors agree that my apparent pessimism is completely justified, and in fact, represents a mostly-healthy means of coping with my present situation. After all, it’s not paranoia if your statistical chances of dying are vastly increased.

As for the issue of defining myself, it is my experience that people generally define themselves by the struggles they encounter and how they meet them. For example: if a person’s lifelong struggle is to climb Everest, I do not see why they should not describe themselves as a climber. For my part, my greatest struggle by far is staying alive and keeping my body from annihilating itself. This may seem relatively simple as a life struggle to the perfectly healthy and the uneducated, in the same way that climbing an oversize hill may seem like a simplistic goal for someone unacquainted with proper mountains.

To me at least, having someone tell me I can’t let my illness define me tells me that person has never really had to deal with serious health problems. Because taking proper care of oneself is a defining struggle. I am proud of the fact that I have managed to keep my body alive despite several key systems giving up on me. I am proud that I have managed to keep myself in a state that I can actually participate in life, even if my participation might be different from others’.

And yes, I understand that what is meant is that I ought not let my issues engulf the entirety of my existence- that I ought to still have non-health goals. But trying to plan goals completely independently of my health is setting myself up for failure. No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I will it to be so, I cannot change my basic physiological requirements. At best, I can try to make my personal and health goals work in harmony, but this does require me to let my disability set the boundaries of what challenges I undertake.

Yes, I can still run a marathon. But I couldn’t step outside and do it today. Not only would I fail, but if I persisted against medical advice, I might even die trying. Dealing with my health means I have to plan and make compromises. I can’t be completely single-minded about these kinds of goals because my health requires constant focus. Lying to myself, or having others lie to me, doesn’t help, and only increases the chance that I’ll feel worse about my situation. Accepting this, in effect, letting my disability define my boundaries and dictate my life, is the only way I will ever be able to move beyond it and start accomplishing other goals.

Revisiting the Future

A little less than three years ago I was on a seven day cruise on the Disney Fantasy. It was New Year’s Eve, and our ship had just passed into the Bermuda Triangle. The live show that evening featured the tribulations of a trio of teenagers coming to grips with the fact that they could no longer reasonably claim to be mere children, and would soon have to enter the dreaded “real world”. It struck a chord with me, even though I was still a couple years younger than the protagonists, and graduation seemed far off. Still, it was the first time that graduation, and the world beyond it, truly struck me a genuine, personally relevant concern.

Despite little of immediate, lasting consequence occurring on that particular cruise, I have nonetheless come to consider it something of a turning point in my life. About this same time, it began to become undeniably apparent to all interested parties that the school’s strategy towards my disability of masterly inactivity would most likely not be sufficient to assure my timely graduation. At the same time, I began to solidify my own doubts that the school administration would prove capable of overcoming its bureaucratic inertia. In short, it became clear that following the “normal” path would not end with my triumphant graduation and ascension to the most prestigious colleges with a full scholarship, etcetera, etcetera, as I had previously planned.

Shortly after we returned home, I began to receive fliers from various academic institutions. I chuckled at this, feeling appropriately flattered that they would deign to waste the cost of postage on one such as myself, yet nevertheless regarding their outreach as premature, and not of genuine concern. After all, with the delays which the school had made in processing various transfer credits from my online classes, it was suddenly unclear what my graduating year ought to be listed as. How could I give serious consideration to such far-off problems when I could not even confirm my graduating date?

My eighteenth birthday, which I had previously imagined would mark the milestone of my victorious conquest over public education, and the commencement of my proud campaign into the “real world”, was spent, like so many other days of my life thus far, in a hospital bed, struggling for survival. Although I knew that such an occasion ought to merit some manner of recognition and self reflection, given my circumstances, I was too preoccupied with the difficult task of evading imminent death to give much thought to the future. I promised myself, as indeed my parents promised me, that once I had recovered, and these temporary troubles with my schoolwork had been dealt with once and for all, that we would have a grand celebration for my birthday. Nothing came of this promise; indeed, I have not had a proper birthday party with a guest list and presents since.

The last day of my fourth year of high school was bittersweet, to put it mildly. On the one hand, summer meant a welcome reprieve from the daily stress of regular classes (by this point, most of my actual academic progress was being accomplished at home with the assistance of a tutor, and this would not change), and a temporary truce between myself and the administrators who, during the school year, sought to harass me daily over my apparent lack of progress. On the other hand, it was the last day I would see any of the friends I had made in school. They, unlike myself, had been able to keep their heads down, and stick to the normal path. They had graduated. All of them were college bound, and excited about it. Despite my efforts to be empathetic, I could not bring myself to subject myself to attending the graduation ceremony that I could not participate in.

Shorty before that day, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to remain in high school for an indeterminate period. Neither I nor the administration could come up with an estimate for my completion, owing to missing or misplaced records on their part. Guesses ranged from three months to four years. With no new data, and a history of disappointment, I gave up on guessing. With no graduation date, I could not make plans for college. With no plans, I had nothing to look forward to. Working mainly from home rather than subjecting myself to the degradation of school, the days and weeks began to meld together. With no real future to look forward to, I gave up on the future altogether.

This may sound like a purgatorial dystopia. And indeed, it was. I joked about this much with my friends over text messages. Yet I would be remiss if I didn’t last say that it was also quite liberating. With no change from day to day, I could stop worrying about anything beyond the present moment. After all, I had total job security. There was always plenty of schoolwork to ensure that I never had energy to make use of any free time I might have. There was no petty social drama; no conflict of any kind. So long as I had no expectations, I could never be disappointed. It was a dystopia alright, and a perfectly executed one at that.

Yet, within the last two weeks, something has changed. Last week, my special education case manager contacted me regarding some manner of questionnaire meant for outgoing seniors. My natural response was and remains to ignore it. If it is important enough, they will get it to me another way, and if it isn’t, I’ve just saved myself a great deal of effort. Still, this bears relevance if for no other reason then because it is the first time which they have recognized me as a senior, and on track to graduate. The same week, I received a mass email from the guidance department (where they got my address in order to spam me remains a mystery) regarding generic scholarship offers. Suddenly, it seems, my tranquil little dystopia is under siege from the “real world”.

After years of doing my utmost to avoid imagining a future outside of a weather forecast, I am suddenly being made to explain my life plans. A younger, pre-cruise version of myself would be excited. Things are back on track. Things are getting back to normal. Except, things can never go quite back to normal. Trying to relive past fantasies is a fool’s errand, and trying to navigate the coming future by the plans a different me made many years ago, or by whatever cookie-cutter claptrap the administration may find in their self-righteous self-help books, will only end with me facing the same problems as now five years from now.

Imagining a realistic future which is completely independent from both the administration and my own childhood fantasies is both difficult and daunting. Indeed, given the nature of my disabilities, and the apparent track record of my forecasting abilities, it begs the question whether a future plan which extends beyond my next quarterly hospital visit is even knowable in any meaningful capacity. Given that I cannot say with any absolute confidence that I will even still be alive in five years, does it really make sense to speculate on what a life for me might look like?

Coincidentally, on that same cruise which seems simultaneously so recent and so distant from me, I saw for the first time the filmic adaptation of “Into the Woods”. While I shall endeavor to avoid spoilers, suffice it to say that the theme of planning for the future, and having said plans go awry does come up. Indeed, one of the songs, arguably my favorite of the lot, focuses on the dilemma faced by one of the protagonists when pressed into a snap decision which has the potential to radically affect her entire future. The conclusion she reaches is to avoid the dichotomy altogether, and to keep her options open rather than back herself into a corner. It turns out to be the correct decision, as both alternatives collapse in the long run. This is interesting advice, which I think I shall endeavor to apply to my own like situation.

So, what can I say about my future? Well, I can say that even though I may not be absolutely confident in a specific graduation date, that I will most likely graduate from public school in the next year or so. I can say that I would like to continue my education and attend university, even if I do not yet know where and precisely how I will make attendance work, or how I will be able to apply given the problems with my transcript. I can say that I intend to travel and learn about other places, people, and cultures, as traveling and learning have had an undeniably positive impact on my life thus far. I can say that I intend to continue to write and speak about my experiences.

But perhaps most importantly, I can say that my path will not be the “normal” one, and as such, it is perfectly acceptable to not have every detail planned out. Just as I can learn without a grade, and have a positive role without having a neatly defined career, so too can I have a future without having a plan.

Pyrrhic Pizza and NerdCon: Nerdfighteria

I am never quite sure what to expect when going to NerdCon, and I am always surprised. The abundance of inside jokes and references is a high entry barrier to most. Even I, who am as well versed in the popular subculture as any, still find many things that are utterly incomprehensible to me.

There is also something distinctly paradoxical about NerdCon. Allow me to elaborate. The stated purpose of this event is a celebration of the community which has made its mark by combining the constructive spontaneity of the Internet with the mild antisocial tendencies of nerdiness. Contrast this with the strictly planned, hierarchically organized nature of commercial conventions. The idea of NerdCon is a celebration of and party for introverts and the socially inept. It is an oxymoron.

The brothers Green repeatedly stated that they believed that all they had done was to set a date and location, and that we, the attendees, had made it an event. Of course, they said this from atop a massive stage, with spotlights and cameras trained on them. It was strange, and thought provoking. Yet even more strange and thought provoking was seeing these people who I recognized from the internet and television in front of and around me, not as polished symbols, but as ordinary human beings.

The night of the concert series, I managed to meet up with some people whom I had previously chatted with online. It was strange to think that they, like myself, had come from faraway locales in order to attend this event, with minimal expectations; and had congregated together to meet each other people whom they only knew based on sparse text-based interactions. We were all immediately friends, even though none of us had ever met. I was continuously self-conscious of this, since I have never had much luck with friendship. It seemed, however, that all the little details which I had anxiously obsessed over were ultimately far less important than the simple fact that I was here. We were all here, together, all else be damned.

That evening before the concert, we elected to go out for food together. Our first choice was the Cheesecake Factory attached to the shopping center connected to the convention center. We were dismayed to discover that the wait was longer than we had until the concert. After we idled around for some moments, unsure of what to do next, a man who worked at the shopping center suggested an alternative. We set out, exiting the mall and heading out into the warm rain of downtown Boston towards where we had been assured that there would be restaurants with a far shorter wait time.

The first eatery we saw which would accommodate our group was a Pizzeria Uno’s. Four out of six of us were wearing our Pizza John t-shirts, we took this as a good omen, and went in. The wait to be seated, we were told, was no shorter than that of the Cheesecake Factory. At this point, two members of our group opted to split off and head back, reckoning that if a long wait was going to be necessary in any case, that they may as well go with their first choice, and also hoping that a smaller table might be more forthcoming. The larger portion of our group inquired as the possibility of a to go order.

We were told, at first, that it would be no more than fifteen minutes. After a brief conference, we elected for a single large cheese pizza. I gave my name, and we settled in for what we expected would be a short wait.

What was fascinating about this time estimate was that it seemed to remain constant regardless of our wait. That is to say, the estimate remained precisely fifteen minutes at the time we ordered, then ten minutes later, then twenty minutes after that. In the same way that a cure for all major illness has remained ten years away for the last four decades, it seemed that our Pizza would forever be fifteen minutes from completion.

At the forty minute mark, I began to despair. It wasn’t that I was exceptionally invested in the our pizza. I hadn’t yet paid for it, and so I had nothing truly to lose. There was the matter of my medically necessitated diet, which was fairly unambiguous on the fact that I would have to eat something, but this was still of secondary concern, even though it was probably the largest actual threat at the time.

Much as I enjoy traveling when I am able, my medical situation means that I am primarily a homebody. On an average day, I interact with the same four or five people (all family and tutors) and cover an area of approximately one hundred square meters. I write approximately four thousand words (average is about one thousand) and speak about three thousand (average is about sixteen thousand), owing mainly to a complete lack of social interaction. All of my friends are either away at university, or off working in the mythical “real world”, while I am left to contend with making the square peg of my medical situation fit into the round hole of my public high school’s graduation requirements.

Being acutely aware of my own isolation and corresponding utter lack of social experience, my greatest concern during the pizza debacle was that it might negatively color the impression of me of these people whom I so desperately wanted to call my friends. I feared that because I had been the person to actually place the order and put down my name, that this resulting fiasco would be my own shame. I feared, and indeed, expected, the immediate and harsh reproach of my comrades for this unmitigated failure to provide.

The scolding never came. The pizza eventually came. I paid at once, leaving a meager tip which I considered quite merciful given the extreme wait. I kept waiting the criticism which I fully expected. I waited to be torn into. Instead, the others tore into the pizza, anxiously attempting to scarf down an appropriate number of carbohydrates in the ten minutes remaining before the concert began. There were smiles all around. The pizza was good, if late. The only complaints were against the restaurant, not myself. The others were eager to give me cash for their share, and we made it to the concert on time.

At the concert series, Jon Cozart performed his piece “YouTube Culture” decrying the personality-cult nature of many modern online communities. The image of an internet celebrity as himself making bank on a song decrying such structures seemed both startlingly ironic, and completely apropos, given my earlier thoughts on the paradoxical nature of NerdCon itself.

There was a pervasive feeling, at least among myself and those with whom I interacted, that we were experiencing something special. It was a feeling as though, by reaching a critical mass of interesting, intelligent, and thoughtful people, we had ignited some sort of chain reaction. There was optimism in a way that I haven’t really felt since the new year, and I was reminded of the great World’s Fairs of yesteryear, when the planet’s great minds would all congregate and unveil their collective vision for the future.

There were sad moments as well, such as when John Green brought up the late Esther Earl in his speech, and was compelled to leave the stage because he broke down crying. There were reminders that they were many who had wanted to but could not attend for one reason or another. But even these were tempered by optimism and hope. Esther, we were told, received joy in her final days from gatherings of friends such as this, and those who could not attend were present in spirit, aided by live commentary and occasional streaming from us. The tone was overwhelmingly positive.

The last time I attended NerdCon (NerdCon: Stories in 2016), it turned out to be an inspiration for me, in part spurring the creation of this very blog. I do not yet know what the result of this year’s attendance will be, but I can state categorically that I left with a far better feeling about the world than when I arrived, which, I believe, makes this year’s attendance a victory.

Statistically Significant

Having my own website (something I can only now scarcely say without adding exclamation points,) has unlocked a great deal of new tools to explore. Specifically, having an operational content platform has given me access to statistics on who is reading what, who is clicking on given buttons, and where people are coming here from. It is enthralling, and terribly addictive.

Here are some initial conclusions from the statistics page:

1) There is a weak positive correlation between the days I release new content and the days we get more views. This correlation is enhanced if we stretch the definition of “day” to include proceeding twenty-four hours, rather than the remainder of the calendar day on which the content was released. This suggests that there may, in fact, be people actually reading what I write here. How exciting!

2) Most visitors register as originating from the United States. However, the script which tracks where our referrals come from paints a far more diverse picture. This could be a bug in the monitoring software, or people accessing the site from overseas could be using proxies to hide their identities.

3) The viewership of this blog is becoming larger and more international as a function of time.

4) More referrals currently come from personal one-on-one sharing (Facebook, web forums, shared links) than stumble-upon searches.

5) Constantly interrupting one’s routine to check website statistics will quickly drive on stark raving mad, as well as suck time away from writing.

These are interesting insights, and worthy of understanding for future posts. Of course, the immediate follow-up question is: What do I do with this data? How do I leverage it into more views, more engagement, and more shares? How do I convert these insights into money of fame or prestige? The idea seems to be that if a thing is being shared, there has to be some value coming back for the sharer aside from simply contributing to public discourse.

While I will not deny that I would enjoy having money, fame, and prestige, as of now, these are not my primary goals in maintaining this blog. If I do decide, as has been suggested, to follow the route of the professional sharer, soliciting donations and selling merchandise, it would not be in pursuit of Gatsbyesque money and status, but merely so that writing and not starving may not be mutually exclusive.

It is still strange to me that I have a platform. That, in the strictest sense, my writing here is a competitor of Netflix, JK Rowling, and YouTube. I am a creator. I am a website owner. I have a tendency to think of those aforementioned entities as being on a plane unto themselves, untouchable by mere mortals (or muggles, as the case may be) such as myself. And in business terms, there is some truth to this. But in terms of defining the meaning of “artist”, “creator” and “writer” in the twenty-first century, I am already on the same side of the line as them.

I suppose the heart of the matter is that, setting aside that those entities actually have professional salaries, there is no intrinsic difference between either of us. They have platforms, and I have a platform. They have an audience with certain demographics, as do I. They receive value from the distribution of their work, and I do for mine (albeit in different forms and on different orders of magnitude).

Growing up, I had this notion that adulthood conferred with it some sort of intrinsic superiority borne of moral and cognitive righteousness, and conferred upon each and every human upon reaching adulthood. I believed that the wealthy and famous had this same distinction one step above everyone else, and that those in positions of legal authority had this same distinction above all. Most of the authority figures in my life encouraged this mindset, as it legitimized their directions and orders to me.

The hardest part of growing up for me has been realizing that this mindset simply isn’t true; that adulthood is not a summary promotion by divine right, and that now that I too am a nominal adult, that no one else can truly claim to have an inherently better understanding of the world. Different minds of differing intellectual bents can come to differing conclusions, but people in power are not inherently right merely because they are in power.

I am not a better or worse human being merely because I happen to have the passwords and payment details to this domain, any more than Elon Musk is an inherently better human for having founded Tesla and Space-X. Yes, the two of us had resources, skills, and motivation to begin both of our projects, but this is as much a coincidental confluence of circumstances as a reflection on any actual prowess. Nor are we better people because we have our respective audiences.

In this day an age, there is much talk of division of people into categories. There are the creators and the consumers. The insiders and the outsiders. The elite and the commoners. The “world of success” as we have been taught to think about it, is a self-contained, closed-loop, open only to those who are worthy, and those of us who aren’t destined to be a part of it must inevitably yield to those who are. Except this plainly isn’t true. I’m not special because I have a blog, or even because I have an audience large enough to draw demographic information. There is nothing inherent that separates me from the average man, and nothing that separates both of us from those at the very top. To claim otherwise is not only dangerous to the idea of a democratic, free-market society, but is frankly a very childish way to look at the world.

Discovery, Ho!

I like the feeling of discovery. Being able to create new things is awesome, but it’s also great to find new things that other people have made. I enjoy the sense of exploration in learning about new phenomena and places. This joy of discovery is the main reason I love learning in general. Even when, for example, in the field of history, there is very little “new” to be discovered, there is still the possibility of unearthing a novel correlation or interpretation that can challenge the way we understand the world around us.

This week, my attention has fallen on the online scavenger hunt being arranged by John Green of Vlogbrothers (and many other things). The actual experience is very spoiler-heavy, and so I will do my best to avoid giving too much away for anyone who is interested on following through. The place to start is the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel. As of writing, the latest two of John’s videos (but not Hank’s, who allegedly, is just as clueless as the rest of us) are a part of the puzzle. There are plenty of hints in the comments section, but be warned, there are also spoilers.

The project is early enough that it’s not entirely clear what the endgame is here. There is much speculation, and circumstantial evidence to support it, that this whole charade is a build up to the release of a new book. Others have suggested that this is a fun side project to bring the community (known affectionately as “Nerdfighters”) closer together.

What is apparent so far is that the main nerve center appears to act as a sort of “virtual speakeasy” for dedicated followers, with the answers to the weekly riddles serving as passwords. This is a neat idea for a community as large as Nerdfighteria, as it acts as an effective barrier to spammers, trolls, and complete outsiders, while not being exclusionary to those who are genuinely interested.

Of course, debates over “spoiling” the passwords for others, particularly in the YouTube comments of the videos where the riddles are provided, have already sprung up, with strong arguments both for and against making it easier for others to find and gain access. Riddles have been criticized for being too region-specific. Current members are already looking to the future with dread as more and more Nerdfighters crack the puzzle and start pouring in.

More than anything, however, is a sense of excitement. Some are merely excited to have cracked the puzzles. Others are excited for the possible release of a new book, or else to determine where the remaining riddles, and the ongoing series of cryptic hints by John and his co-conspirators, lead. Still others, such as myself, are merely excited to be present. To take part in this massive story, wherever it leads, and to share it with like-minded community members.

The atmosphere is reminiscent of that of yesteryear’s NerdCon: Stories, arranged and attended by much the same group. Recounting that experience on this blog has been on my list, and given these new developments, will likely be moved up in my priorities. Suffice it to say, however, that the feeling is good, if somewhat strange. There are plenty of casual obscure references which I do not understand, and plenty more that I do. It is clear that, even this early, there is a solid sense of community, something which I find welcome and refreshing with all the talk of being divided going on in the world.

I do not know what will come next in this project. But I am excited to find out. In the meantime, Don’t Forget To Be Awesome.

Engineering Equality

If you didn’t know already, I occasionally advocate for causes I believe in. More rarely, I go so far as to actually volunteer to go meet with people. I am not exactly a people person, so I take these kinds of engagements quite seriously. One particular role I have played is acting as an effective salesperson for the Nightscout Foundation. Amid other things, one of the activities I do is show people how to build little battery powered LED lights from off-the-shelf hardware components. It’s meant to be a proof of concept, as our foundation is a maker-movement DIY group. The notion is that if you can assemble a simple LED with a little instruction, you have all the qualifications to go on and build anything. If you can build this, you can engineer your own solutions to your chronic illness.

For the adults and those who are interested in our foundation, it provides a great segue into talking about building your own treatment setups. For the kids and the casual observers, it’s a great feel-good moment and a pleasant memento. But being a DIY engineering project, even if a relatively simple and small scale one, has inspired a great variety of reactions in a great variety of people.

Some you might expect. For example, kids tend to be more enthralled with the idea of a fun project than the adults, who are by and large more interested in free stuff. These are trade shows where we’re presenting, after all. Some are a bit less expected though.

For one thing, I’ve distinctly noticed that some of our oldest visitors also seem to be the most interested in building something themselves. I had one elderly lady at the American Diabetes Association conference. She had a walker and wore an eyepatch on one eye, a pair of thick glasses over both. Her hands shook as she tried to grip the components. In her place, I might have well given up. Yet she persisted in doing it herself. Seeing the LED bulb light up, she herself lit up to match.

At the same conference was a man in a wheelchair. His hat proclaimed he was a Veteran of several different conflicts. He did not seem awfully happy to be at that particular conference on that day. Yet he was overjoyed to be able to build a simple little gadget, which he used to decorate his own wheelchair. After completing his first one, a red bulb, my mother pointed out that he ought to build a green bulb one as well, for port and starboard on his wheelchair. He agreed wholeheartedly. I don’t think I have ever seen a man more proud of his wheelchair.

Another demographic trend which I have noticed recently, which I would not have expected but perhaps should not be so surprised at: I have noticed that while children of both sexes participate in roughly equal numbers, on the whole, the girls have seemed more interested. It’s hard to quantify and difficult to explain, but I see more of that familiar gleam – that hope – when I give my whole spiel about being able to build anything.

This is of particular interest to me, because this anecdotal experience seems to be in line with some of the larger picture about STEM-related skills in American students. The data, which admittedly is still quite limited, has suggested that young girls may actually be better equipped in terms of scientific than their male counterparts, at least at a young age. This, despite overwhelmingly male-dominated workplaces in STEM fields.

There are of course other possibilities. Perhaps girls at trade shows are simply more interested because it is an arts and crafts project as much as an engineering one. Perhaps they see other people wearing their LEDs and don’t want to miss out on the latest fashion. But I don’t think so. Also, it’s worth nothing, none of these scenarios are mutually exclusive.

If this pattern is true, then it points to some very dark truths about our society and culture. It suggests that not only are we shortchanging women, and likely also many other traditionally marginalized groups, but from a technological development standpoint, we are robbing the world of their opportunity to improve life for everyone. Still, I remain hopeful. We can’t undo the past, and we can’t change our social order and culture overnight, but we can set a positive example and improve outreach. For my part, I intend to continue my work promoting DIY engineering solutions. Do It Yourself is, after all, completely gender neutral and inclusive.

The truth is that the solution to achieving genuine equality- between genders, ages, races, and all the other things that divide us – lies in enabling those that are interested and able to access the necessary resources to advance both themselves, and humanity as a whole. The solution to equality lies not in legislation, but in education. Only by encouraging self-motivated DIY engineers can we expect to achieve the egalitarian dream that we have for so long been promised.

Scientific Optimism

This past week I had the honor of attending Neil deGrasse Tyson’s 2016 Year in Review lecture alongside several comrades from our local astronomy club. While I’m not sure I can genuinely say I learnt anything I didn’t already know, it was nonetheless engaging to have the major successes and failures of the past year presented by one who has played such a large role in moving science into the popular vogue.

Science in pop culture was, in fact, one of the main topics of the lecture. The consensus reached was that while there remains a great deal to be done in terms of science literacy, being able to inspire people to be excited about scientific discoveries in the same way that people become excited about new blockbuster movies or the Oscars is a major step in reinvigorating the zeitgeist which enabled such massive leaps in scientific exploration and discovery of the 1960s and 70s. The photo above is from one such effort- Tyson’s cameo appearance in Zoolander 2.

There were, of course, less optimistic moments. Astrophysics has not been exempt from the slew of deaths that 2016 hath wrought, and concerns about the political situation, in particular the election of new leaders who have publicly denied scientific consensus on issues such as climate change and the origins of the cosmos, were overtly mentioned.

“Florida is basically at sea level, so Florida will be the first to go.” Tyson said in response, citing the elevation and terrain of the state in relation to rising sea levels. “That’s where his golf courses are. It’s going to be pretty hard for him to swim from hole to hole, and say it’s a Chinese hoax.”

While not exactly reassuring for the short term, this reflects the kind of quiet optimism that dominated the talk. It was reiterated that it does not particularly matter whether or not politicians deign to believe in scientific fact. Those who refuse to believe in observable phenomena will continue to be proven wrong. So long as they do not attempt to legislate their wrongness, or to use it to supplant the facts, he stated, we need not be particularly concerned with what others believe.

I have strongly mixed feelings about this attitude, as I fear it breeds complacency and elitism of the kind that has contributed to the political divide in this country, and which has been blamed partially for the rise of the “alt-right” and “post-truth” enclaves. In point of fact, I had the opportunity to discuss this point with a former member of the Clinton campaign shortly after the results of the election. I was adamant that it did not particularly matter the religious beliefs of those who had been elected; that it was their duty to govern based on the facts, and not what people claimed they wanted.

“That attitude is why Trump won.” He stated solemnly.

While I appreciate having faith that the scientific process will prevail, I think faith that people will always accept results is misplaced. Whether or not there is an objective truth to the universe one way or another, the fact remains that human observation and understanding of reality is colored and limited by our individual perceptions of reality. If human understanding, therefore, is limited by human perception, it is critical that we ensure that human perception is up to snuff.

While it may not be necessary for an absolute consensus on all subjects, if human progress is to be made most efficient, then it is necessary that enough people have an understanding of the facts to both make informed decisions on a political and social level, and to ensure the timely application of new discoveries on a technological and industrial level. In other words, in order for science and technology to genuinely improve our lives, it is required that they be widely understood enough to be applied. Prospective entrepreneurs need to be aware of technology in order to exploit it, and investors need to understand what there is to be gained by putting capital into cutting edge fields.

This, interestingly enough, was also touched upon in the talk, albeit not directly, when discussing the Nobel prizes awarded this year. The prizes awarded in physics had something to do with the geometric patterns of ultra-thin sheets of carbon; something which seems to most of us quite arcane and esoteric. To someone making a living in construction or farming, or even law or medicine, this work has no apparent application, and indeed might seem like a waste of effort to pursue; certainly not something work winning a Nobel prize over. Professor Tyson explained that this was precisely the same position that quantum physics was in through the first half of the 20th century. In contrast, today roughly a third of the world’s GDP relies directly on the discoveries of quantum physics.

In a perfect world, the truth would be easily recognizable when seen for the first time, and scientists and their followers could rest secure in the knowledge that their discoveries would be disseminated and understood without conscious effort. Unfortunately, we do not live in such a world. While I do fully expect that science and technology will continue advancing regardless of the sociopolitical climate, it remains paramount that we continue our efforts to ensure that the largest number of people are educated to a level to understand and participate in mankind’s drive for advancement. The battle for hearts and minds today is not merely a matter of determining research funding for the next four years, although this is certainly relevant; it is a matter of determining who will be in a position to make tomorrow’s next great discoveries and breakthroughs. It is in the interests of all humanity for that number of people to be as large as possible.

In closing, I would like to mention a brief incident which transpired towards the end of the event. Having finished with the main lecture, the floor was opened up to questions from the audience. A flamboyantly dressed man took the microphone, stating that he had “travelled over many thousands of miles” to present Dr. Tyson with a disc containing evidence he had collected while crossing the Nevada desert, of something in the sky “unlike any system we’ve ever seen”. The room was silent as the man explained that he had taken the evidence to various news outlets, and to NASA, all of whom had turned him away. Ever the scientist, Tyson explained that, while skeptical that such an alien phenomenon as the man seemed to imply would not have also been noticed by many others, he would nonetheless accept the disk and review it.

After the whole thing had finished, the astronomy teacher who had been with us asked us what we had taken away. My response was unequivocally that, should it come to pass in two weeks or so, that an announcement is made from NASA or the like regarding the discovery of extraterrestrial life, we would know that the man was right, and we would all have been present for a critical moment in scientific history. That notion is perhaps more inspiring than anything else that evening; that such a discovery could conceivably be made within our lifetime, and that, by being up to date and educated, we might be able to share in the new discovery. This is why I feel science literacy is critical to our future – because it will enable such terrific discoveries, and increase the likelihood that they will have a positive benefit on all of us.