tag > FFHCI
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Re-enchant the world!
A growing selection of ideas, links, books & media, exploring the topic of re-enchantment.
Books:
The Re-Enchantment of the World: Secular Magic in a Rational Age:
https://www.amazon.com/Re-Enchantment-World-Secular-Magic-Rational/dp/0804752990The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life:
https://www.amazon.com/Re-enchantment-Everyday-Life-Thomas-Moore/dp/0060928247/The Re-Enchantment of the World: The Value of Spirit Against Industrial Populism:
https://www.amazon.com/Re-Enchantment-World-Industrial-Philosophy-Aesthetics/dp/1441169253/Presentations:
Narrative re-enchantment as world re-enchantment:
https://www.slideshare.net/SebastienPoulain/narrative-reenchantement-as-world-reenchantement
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"The Charkha And The Cow" - by Aravindan Neelakandan:
https://swarajyamag.com/magazine/the-charkha-and-the-cow"Gandhi combined in the spinning wheel 3 components he valued most: respect for human component, technological transparency, decentralisation".
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Bitcoin’s energy use got studied, and you libertarian nerds look even worse than usual:
https://grist.org/article/bitcoins-energy-use-got-studied-and-you-libertarian-nerds-look-even-worse-than-usual/The first peer-reviewed study of bitcoin’s energy consumption confirms fears: Bitcoin’s energy consumption is growing at 20% *per month* and is effectively erasing decades of progress on renewable energy.
Comments by vakibs:
Bitcoin is another step in the accelerating entropy of abstracting real objects into virtual pieces of information, breaking that information into pieces & revirtualizing it. What will it do to the ecosystems in the real world? What does entropy do to the real world? Surprised?
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"Any Sufficiently Advanced Civilization is Indistinguishable from Nature" - by @livingarchitect: https://www.nextnature.net/2012/02/any-sufficiently-advanced-civilization-is-indistinguishable-from-nature/ #FFHCI
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Watching this great documentary about the water shortage emergency in Iran brought up many ideas & feelings. Here some reflections on Water:
Water is the basis of life on planet earth. Water scarcity is the lack of freshwater resources to meet water demand. It affects every continent today. One-third of the global population (2 billion people) live under conditions of severe water scarcity. (Wikipedia). What has lead to this situation and how do we move forward?
This comment by an Iranian farmer who lost his land still rings in my head:
"Technology created the illusion of abundance for 60y. We build our society on it. Now it all collapses."
An engineer, commenting on the massive water crisis in Iran.
"We were so proud of our engineering skills, but we lost track of reality and evoked the crisis ourselves"
Humans used to go to where the water was. Today, Water must go to where Humans are. The Iranian water crisis poignantly brings to mind the observations Lewis Mumford made over 40y ago, about the dangers of "megatechnics" and the myth of the machine.
In the act of 'conquering nature' our ancestors too often treated the earth as contemptuously, under the delusion that the losses did not matter, since modern man through science and invention would soon fabricate an artificial world infinitely more wonderful than the one that nature had provided - an even grosser delusion ― Lewis Mumford
Water will very likely be the main source of conflicts in the 21st century. Hydro politics is a tremendously important topic (even more than oil), yet not often discussed.
"There is a motto in hydro politics that states that the countries upstream are using the water to get more power. The countries that live downstream, use their power to get more water " - Hojjat Mianabadi
Area shown in the image is running the risk of desertification in our lifetime 
"Water is both a human & natural phenomena, closely linked to human activities. It is generally assumed that a water emergency leads to conflicts. But experts say lack of water can also lead to more cooperation. It is up to us what we choose, conflict or cooperation" - Hojjat Mianabadi
Our planet is gifted with Water - a truly magical thing in our solar system. Let's make sure we choose cooperation over conflict and preserve this natural wonder for future generation.
Comments by Vakibs in reaction to this posts on Twitter:
We forget that rivers are flimsy goddesses who step in a land on their own accord, and whose favours can change literally with the wind. The data is clear from history. Many civilizations perished into the desert when they did not treat water with the sacredness it deserves. But some survived all through the ages, as the rivers are pleased with how they are being treated by the people.
Massive dams, especially upstream, which block the nervous system of a river, will cause her to abandon her current home in the riverbed. It may be a matter of decades, but it is mere seconds in the geological timescale. The people upstream may be thinking their greediness is paying off. But it will be a very short time before the desert encroaches there too. The rainfall patterns will change with the wind. Rivers ought to flow till the sea. It is a connected system.It is urgent time for global culture to re-connect with the sacred river, water and ocean gods and spirits. The technocratic irreverence for all things sacred is ultimately a form of necrophilia, which directly yields climate change and mass extinction. It is time.
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Studies show that children are better at identifying Pokémon characters than real animals and plants: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/30/robert-macfarlane-lost-words-children-nature #FFHCI
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BonsAI - "a smart bonsai plant integrated with artificial intelligence technology":
http://www.japantrends.com/bonsai-smart-bonsai-plant-artificial-intelligence-technology/BonsAI can also move around, searching for sunlight by itself. When it reaches light, it lights up the LEDs integrated into its pot to show its pleasure.
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A conundrum of our times: To solve many of the pressing global problems, we ought to do *less*, not *more*.
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My favorite #ML project of the month. A real world example of how computation can help reduce climate change related pressures and a case study for #FFHCI:
AI helps grow 6 billion roaches at China's largest breeding site: https://www.cnet.com/news/ai-helps-grow-6b-roaches-at-chinas-largest-breeding-facility/
"The system ensures an optimal growth environment for the cockroaches, which are eventually crushed to make a "healing potion" that cures ailments like stomachache"
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Birds get their internal compass from this newly ID’d eye protein - ‘Sixth sense’ lets zebra finches and European robins navigate using Earth’s magnetic field: #FFHCI
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/birds-get-their-internal-compass-newly-id-eye-protein -
"The use of plant models in deep learning: an application to leaf counting in rosette plants": http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/pmdl.bmc2018.html. #ML #Generative #FFHCI
From the creator of the "Algorithmic Botany" book: http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/
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Flora Robotica - a self-organizing bio-hybrid system:
Research Paper: flora robotica – An Architectural System Combining Living Natural Plants and Distributed Robots: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1709.04291.pdf
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'Catastrophe' as France's bird population collapses due to pesticides. "populations in have fallen by a third in 15 years": https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/catastrophe-as-frances-bird-population-collapses-due-to-pesticides #FFHCI #Ideas
All the 'innovation' in machine learning, robotics, blockchains and [insert your tech buzzword here] are completely meaningless, if humanity fails to address environmental challenges NOW.
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'Catastrophe' as France's bird population collapses due to pesticides: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/catastrophe-as-frances-bird-population-collapses-due-to-pesticides "populations in have fallen by a third in 15 years" #FFHCI
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"Amazon deforestation is close to tipping point": https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180319124212.htm
"Deforestation of the Amazon is about to reach a threshold beyond which the region's rainforest may undergo irreversible changes that transform the landscape into degraded savanna with sparse shrubby plant cover and low biodiversity. Deforestation rates ranging from 20% to 25% could turn the hydrological cycle unable to support its ecosystem."
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"Tracking all members of a honey bee colony over their lifetime": https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.03192v2
Yet another idea for the #FFHCI (flora-fauna-human-computer-interaction) toolkit.
