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Sometimes I wonder if we would be better off with some mandatory complexity. Most people simply don't appreciate the miracles they see around them every second

Sometimes I wonder if we would be better off with some mandatory complexity. Most people simply don't appreciate the miracles they see around them every second of every day. Miracles that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. Miracles that happen everyday on a consistent basis. Miracles that they curse and abuse. If people could just see and understand how complex one Google query actually is then maybe the world would be a better place.

snprbob86 16y ago
Google has two courses for Nooglers (I believe they were called "Life of a Query" and "Life of a dollar") which cover the search process from the perspective of both a user and advertiser down all the common branches, all the way to the metal, and back to the user. Despite being a strong engineer, I recall thinking "computers are magic".
- Psyonic 16y ago
  Those sound interesting. Can't wait til September :)
thaumaturgy 16y ago
Absolutely. It is for this reason that I vociferously advocate that all cars return to using carburetors in place of fuel injectors. If you had to spend a few hours once a month adjusting your idle screw and WOT switch, you would appreciate all of the miracles in your car's engine. All sarcasm aside, let's not forget that technology is not an end unto itself, it is a means to an end. It needs to help people accomplish things, not hinder them.
- todayiamme 16y ago
  That's true and my concept is terribly wrong, but there is a problem at work over here. To quote Carl Sagan; >>>We have designed our civilization based on science and technology and at the same time arranged things so that almost no one understands anything at all about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster.<<<
  - thaumaturgy 16y ago
    That I can agree with, but I think the fix is in education.
    - jacobolus 16y ago
      The problem is that education must be at such a massive scale that it's hard for one person to make an impact beyond locally. Just designing a curriculum doesn't work, because if teachers don't understand the pedagogy it won't ever get taught. With the current trend away from critical thinking and towards high-stakes testing, with the scary "anti-elitist" (anti-science, anti-empiricism) tendencies of broad swaths of the Republican party fundamentalist christian base which exert tremendous pressure on primary candidates & the textbook choosers in large influential states &c., and with the increasing involvement & influence of very large businesses in education whose bottom line is not necessarily closely related to the quality of instruction, it’s hard to see where proper science education is going to slot itself in. One of the big reasons I spent a year working as an intern for One Laptop Per Child is that I strongly believe that getting as many kids as possible even a bit of exposure and experience with programmable computing environments (and ideally then also with some simple hardware hacking such as plugging various sensors into the audio in jack) is a sure way to plant the kind of approach to problems that is required to understand modern technology or work in science. * * * It's somewhat off the subject, but I've been reading Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle, and it’s truly wonderful to see his mind at work. Not only is he constantly carefully observing the culture, geology, weather, flora/fauna, fossil record, etc. that he comes across on the trip, but also for nearly every observation he provides at least a speculative hypothesis and references various other people’s theories which are supported or contradicted by the observation in question, and also usually suggests further experiments or observations which would test or corroborate the hypothesis. (Occasionally there’s even a footnote explaining that his hypothesis at the time was later shown to be false.) It’s the scientific method as clearly and purely as I’ve ever seen it working, and the result is that nearly every page has some kind of insight. I’m left with tons of my own questions in response, even in subject areas I’m not especially experienced in and don’t usually think much about, and the reading is quite exciting, even apart from the amusing situations he finds himself in. I don’t know what the best way is to provide that kind of spark to children, but I’m completely sold on the notion that it’s desperately needed, and the most important thing a school could teach.

snprbob86 16y ago

Google has two courses for Nooglers (I believe they were called "Life of a Query" and "Life of a dollar") which cover the search process from the perspective of both a user and advertiser down all the common branches, all the way to the metal, and back to the user. Despite being a strong engineer, I recall thinking "computers are magic".

Psyonic 16y ago
Those sound interesting. Can't wait til September :)

thaumaturgy 16y ago

Absolutely. It is for this reason that I vociferously advocate that all cars return to using carburetors in place of fuel injectors. If you had to spend a few hours once a month adjusting your idle screw and WOT switch, you would appreciate all of the miracles in your car's engine. All sarcasm aside, let's not forget that technology is not an end unto itself, it is a means to an end. It needs to help people accomplish things, not hinder them.

todayiamme 16y ago
That's true and my concept is terribly wrong, but there is a problem at work over here. To quote Carl Sagan; >>>We have designed our civilization based on science and technology and at the same time arranged things so that almost no one understands anything at all about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster.<<<
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  That I can agree with, but I think the fix is in education.
  - jacobolus 16y ago
    The problem is that education must be at such a massive scale that it's hard for one person to make an impact beyond locally. Just designing a curriculum doesn't work, because if teachers don't understand the pedagogy it won't ever get taught. With the current trend away from critical thinking and towards high-stakes testing, with the scary "anti-elitist" (anti-science, anti-empiricism) tendencies of broad swaths of the Republican party fundamentalist christian base which exert tremendous pressure on primary candidates & the textbook choosers in large influential states &c., and with the increasing involvement & influence of very large businesses in education whose bottom line is not necessarily closely related to the quality of instruction, it’s hard to see where proper science education is going to slot itself in. One of the big reasons I spent a year working as an intern for One Laptop Per Child is that I strongly believe that getting as many kids as possible even a bit of exposure and experience with programmable computing environments (and ideally then also with some simple hardware hacking such as plugging various sensors into the audio in jack) is a sure way to plant the kind of approach to problems that is required to understand modern technology or work in science. * * * It's somewhat off the subject, but I've been reading Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle, and it’s truly wonderful to see his mind at work. Not only is he constantly carefully observing the culture, geology, weather, flora/fauna, fossil record, etc. that he comes across on the trip, but also for nearly every observation he provides at least a speculative hypothesis and references various other people’s theories which are supported or contradicted by the observation in question, and also usually suggests further experiments or observations which would test or corroborate the hypothesis. (Occasionally there’s even a footnote explaining that his hypothesis at the time was later shown to be false.) It’s the scientific method as clearly and purely as I’ve ever seen it working, and the result is that nearly every page has some kind of insight. I’m left with tons of my own questions in response, even in subject areas I’m not especially experienced in and don’t usually think much about, and the reading is quite exciting, even apart from the amusing situations he finds himself in. I don’t know what the best way is to provide that kind of spark to children, but I’m completely sold on the notion that it’s desperately needed, and the most important thing a school could teach.