Book Review: "Soonish"

In this seemingly turbulent and continuous era of social, political, economic and cultural change being wrought by globalization, it is easy to forget some of the more positive developments going on all the time by individuals pushing the frontiers in their specific fields or areas of work. That is why I chose this week to take a look at the 2017 science book Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything. The result of a collaboration between noted scientific researcher Kelly Weinersmith and cartoonist Zach Weinersmith, Soonish provides a plausible, humorous and accessible narrative on ten emerging technological fields that they believe will provide the most positive benefits (and in some cases, potential pitfalls) to humanity within the next fifty-ish years.

From the title onwards, the Weinersmiths make it clear that the ten technologies they will be looking at do not have a concrete timeline for introduction to the wider market and world, nor do they have a crystal ball that shows with absolute certainty that these technologies will not have any downsides. However, that does not prove to be an insurmountable obstacle for a book that seems to follow a wider pattern of future prediction literature, but stands out by first explaining to the audience why (despite educated guesses by experts in many fields) technological development is hard to predict. Some technological advances aren't necessarily linear and require many different fields to develop in ways that provide the necessary pieces to advance those technologies. Moreover, all technologies can be used for good or for evil purposes and (more importantly) ultimate success in an era of globalization requires that a new product have a market (and necessarily makes itself as appealing as possible to a progressively wider pool of potential consumers). Lastly, not all overly optimistic predictions take into account the other technical, economic, social, or political variables that challenge the emergence of some technologies over others (i.e. all technology is the product of its time).

Now that we have gotten through all the helpful disclaimers provided in the book's introduction, we'll get to the predictions of the fields the authors see advancing in the coming years. {While I could get into detail about all the obstacles about each field, I chose to focus on the potential impacts these technologies would have on our way of life rather than the necessarily huge technical and economic challenges that would need to be overcome}. Now, without further ado, the ten fields highlighted in Soonish are:

1. Space flight/access (frontier: space)
2. Asteroid mining (frontier: space)
• Overcoming the huge cost barriers (i.e. fuel use, the use of a special type of metal for a space elevator or the development of asteroid harvesting technology) would mean that humanity could realize a space civilization like the type we see in the Star Wars or Star Trek sci-fi franchises, from space colonies and tourism to asteroid mining by being crafty about getting into space and staying there. Most likely, future space colonists would need fuel-saving and asteroid harvesting technologies in order to protect themselves from the harsh environment that is the vacuum and survive there. Therefore, conflicts over space law and between nations could emerge, as whoever first figures out how to get to and live most cheaply yet well in space has the bigger power advantage (despite the fact that current international space law says that no nation can make a sole claim on space).
3. Fusion power (frontier: Earth and beyond)
• Fusion power: the ultimate solution for humanity's energy needs with minimal environmental impacts (but significant maintenance, like any other power plants). Energy is the ultimate currency. Here then, overcoming the scale problems of fusion reactors would mean that humanity would have access to cleaner and more unlimited energy that would then power new technologies (space ship engines anyone?) and economies without emitting the pollutants driving dangerous climate change.
4. Programmable matter (frontier: Earth)
5. Robotic construction (frontier: Earth)
• As for programmable matter and robotic construction, these fields to me have the most implications for the reduction of worldwide poverty by providing access to cheaper or more versatile materials that can go towards things like affordable (yet open to personalization) housing. This might change the geopolitical balance by making it easier for poorer countries to literally build a foundation for future prosperity and growth. It might also make refugee situations easier by providing housing and sanitation lacking in such turbulent times. Additionally, getting past changes in housing and consumer protection laws, new architectural wonders are possible using anything from swarm robotics to 3D printing.  
6. Augmented reality (frontier: Earth and beyond?)
• Notwithstanding enormous privacy issues that would need to be addressed with these technologies, augmented reality (AR) has the potential to revolutionize everything from art to entertainment to education and job-training/aids. In terms of education and job-related applications, augmented reality could help teach more abstract concepts in accessible ways to helping workers more accurately and efficiently train (by providing visual guides) and retain information relating to complex procedures (such as surgery in both clinical and emergency settings). Essentially, AR has the potential to acquire more complex skills in less time and could be a huge economic boost.
7. Synthetic biology (frontier: Earth)
8. Precision medicine (frontier: Earth)
9. Bioprinting (frontier: Earth)
• These above fields at the intersection of biology, big data and medicine give us things like genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) and progressively cheaper gene sequencing and targeted treatments. Further developments in this technology and safety can save medical companies, medical professionals and patients both time and money from the drug development to treatment stages (although concerns remain about the accessibility to on-demand organ replacements and gene therapies to less socioeconomically well-off populations). 
10. Brain-computer interfaces (frontier: Earth)
• This was the field with the creepiest implications for me. If we could figure out all the health, privacy, social and economic obstacles related to such technologies (such as being subject to a computer given the discretion to make its own decisions), there are huge possibilities in terms of communication between large groups of people (think a hive-mind-like set-up) and in the treatment of mental and physical diseases (from depression to Alzheimer's). 

In conclusion, I would recommend this to all readers who need both a dose of positivity and a means to indulge their nerd sides in a funny and refreshing way.

Works Cited:

Weinersmith, Kelly, & Weiner, Zach. (2017). Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything. New York: Penguin Press.

Book Review: Ta-Nehisi Coates's "We Were Eight Years in Power"

While trying to be more optimistic for our country's future in the spirit of New Years, I nevertheless find myself (as I did in writing my previous review on a book probing the potential mental health problems of our current president and their dire implications) questioning how much effort it will take by all of us to overcome our collective present and historical sins to fully achieve the ideals we enshrine in our Constitution. (Note that I didn't say that we would never overcome such obstacles, just that it will probably take a concerted, no doubt multi-generational effort to make corrections to right these wrongs.) This internalized questioning intensified for me as I considered Ta-Nehisi Coates's 2017 work We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, a collection of eight essays written from 2008-2016 (one for each year that President Barack Obama was in office) in the Atlantic Magazine.

This publication was not a book in a traditional sense, as We Were Eight Years in Power concerns eight loosely connected essays whose common uniting thread was that of the unflinching criticism of a deeply concerned citizen (in the vein of a true, dialogic patriotism as espoused in What Unites Us) of his country over issues connected to race and identity politics. Making up for the sometimes all-over-the-place narrative in the publication, Coates provides a notes section preceding each of the eight essays, providing the reader with helpful context and revealing the writer's own evolution in how he handles his craft and his simultaneous evolution of his views concerning race in America as he is exposed to differing strains of black (and white) intellectualism on the latter topic (including President Obama's own unique synthesis of black and white thought).

Personally, when reading this collection of essays, I found it most helpful to focus not on the different intellectualisms presented against the author's personal experiences, but how the author sought to find a more realistic middle ground for each of these schools of thought that would present potential problem-solving avenues. The opening essay chronicles a form of conservative, pick-one's-self-up-by-the-bootstraps school of thought, espoused by prominent members of the African American community from Bill Cosby to Malcolm X that derided the disproportionate poverty, violence, rampant drug use and single-parent households plaguing the black community in modern America, while ignoring the exploitative history of slavery and a legacy of other structural conditions (e.g. discriminatory housing/lending policies and mass incarceration). Strains of thought like this, that espouse a form of black nationalism in accompaniment with the bootstraps ethos of American thought to Coates allow those of us who are complicit in this awful history of exploitation off the hook to retreat into our various narrative spaces of existence (i.e. echo chambers) while blaming those same victims of a system designed to inhibit their advancement. Coates writes:

"...All of us dream of some other time when things were so simple. I know now that that hunger is a retreat from the knotty present into myth and that what ultimately awaits those who retreat into fairy tales, who seek refuge in the mad pursuit to be made great again, in the image of a greatness that never was, is tragedy." (Coates, 2017, p. 10)

Not only do I find this quote relevant not only in his critique of conservative and nationalist African-American strains of thought, but also in the larger context of the motivating forces Coates sets up throughout the book (i.e. the resistance to a black president) that culminate in the election of Donald Trump to the presidency in the 2016 election. One of those forces moving to oppose black intellectual traditions are various strains of white intellectual traditions concerning African Americans, most of which still treat blacks as second-class citizens to Coates from overt racism to more subtle forms of patronization and discrimination based on stereotypes forged by extremely limiting structural conditions. To make this point, he cites the example of former liberal senator and social reformer Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who believed that the solution to the woes of the American city was to design social policies that supported black families (traditional nuclear-heterosexual-families) in the patriarchal mold in the hopes that stable employment by black fathers (instead of by female-headed single-parent households) would reduce both crime rates and serve to lift the African-American community up at the same time.

Coates acknowledges that Moynihan's heart was in somewhat the right place but that his report concerning the plight of black families failed in its aims to promulgate bipartisan social programs because of its "omission of policy recommendations" and "implication that black women were obstacles to black men's assuming their proper station" (p. 229). These strains of thought, in the vein of the liberal tradition of social reform look quaint in comparison with new policies that promoted mass incarceration and continued various forms of housing and employment discrimination that Coates notes is merely the continuation of bondage in a more de facto form by insidious racial forces still at work in the United States today. These same forces were at work under a president whose election simultaneously evoked in some fears of the country moving away from its preordained status as a whites-only nation and also pride among broad swaths of the population who saw the country as capable of overcoming its racially charged past in the extension of constitutional rights to broader segments of the population.

Ultimately, the American tragedy of the subtitle is to Coates that the country has appeared not to have learnt the lessons of the past and attempt to redress the structural conditions (so as to better achieve the egalitarian ideals of its founding charter) that have held back not only African-Americans but also women and other minorities in the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016. At the end of the day, Trump's election was an extremely prejudicial answer to the Obama administration (which was already forced to walk a tight-rope between more critical branches of racial justice thought and the more moderate embrace of black conservatism so as not to alienate the white voting bloc) in that it merely revealed the ways in which white supremacy is able to function in a presumably democratic, pluralistic society by making people of one group fear the advancements of another group. Like Coates, I regard the economic components of Trump's election in that the white working class pushed Trump into office because he'd bring back their economic prosperity as marginal at best, allowing one to disavow complicity in continued suffering of many groups of people in favor of retaining "the moral high ground" of a "biological" or "divine" nature (Coates, 2017, p. 366). In consideration of his perspective in We Were Eight Years in Power, I've come to see that America is hurting itself by continuing to embrace such egalitarian national narratives while preserving deep structural and other obstacles to the advancement of minorities.

Feel depressed yet? Coates is blunt about his view that the chances of redress are bleak in the current moment (as he is in the rest of the book with his simultaneously blunt and elegant prose). Yet, he views that the 2016 election outcome wasn't set in stone and that it is not the time to panic about "the end of history" in the Trump administration's destructive tendencies towards governance (p. 366).

All in all, it's going to take a lot of work to set things right and it's better to make progress in the right direction than none at all. See, there's always a light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dark that tunnel may be. Coates sees that light despite everything, but knows we won't reach it if we don't even try.


Works Cited:

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. (2017). We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. New York: One World Publishing.

Book Review: Bandy Lee's "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump"

What happens to a country and the world at large when their leader, possessed of immense social, political, economic and military power (i.e. enormous nuclear arsenal as well as conventional forces), may be dangerously mentally ill? (So much for starting off 2018 on a positive note, right?) What happens when, in this same situation, mental health experts are not allowed to diagnose a figure from afar and that our political system is additionally made vulnerable due to a lack of "intellectual or cognitive standards for being president" (Lee, 2017, p. 16-17)? This is the central dilemma around which law professor and practicing psychiatrist Bandy Lee's 2017 collaborative publication The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President focuses most of its energy.

Before going further, I wish to clarify a few terms introduced above. In the mental health profession, there is a rule that constrains these professionals from diagnosing a political figure that has not been consensually subjected to the normal psychological evaluation procedures. Termed the "Goldwater rule," it is meant to both protect these professions from ethical vulnerabilities stemming from the potential for professionals to damage the public credibility of mental health experts as a whole by misusing their expertise for various reasons, such as nefarious political manipulations (Lee, 2017, p. 17). Moreover, the Constitution remains silent on any mental health standards for a prospective president in the spirit of keeping the eligible pool of citizens as broad as possible, key to a democratic society striving to be as representative as possible while respecting an individual's boundaries and rights. The only case in which mental health professionals can detain a person against their will in the United States (in violation of their individual rights) is if that individual demonstrates a considerable danger to themselves or others due to mental illness. This legal authority vested in these professionals is used fairly often in the general population in conjunction with the criminal justice system, but requires a high burden of proof as a safeguard against abuse.

The 27 contributors to this volume seek to prove the dangerousness of our current president by drawing from indirect data about both the president and his administration from news reports, press releases, interviews, books and the like and speaking as concerned citizens with certain expertise versus concerned professionals (which would potentially put them at risk of violating the Goldwater rule). Their case is composed of three parts: the first on Trump himself, the second on the ethical dilemmas surrounding the Goldwater rule, and the third on the effects of Trump's potential mental illness on the populace. If not convincing all of its readership of the need to at least submit the president and vice president to annual mental health screenings at the request of Congress, the volume at least makes a very good case with what it has considering the ethical and professional taboos around violating the Goldwater rule. The limitations of this indirect approach become clear to the reader, as the mental health professionals reach diverging pseudo-diagnoses of President Trump, partially from a result of their field of specialty and their personal and professional experiences.

However, as much as these contributors disagree about the exact mental health categorization to make about Trump, there were commonalities in their observations and conclusions made from the data available: the president seems to be at least in possession of a narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) of some kind, severely curtailing his ability to consider opposing perspectives that he takes not as constructive feedback but personal attacks on his self-perceptions as perfect, omniscient and powerful. Besides narrowing his exposure to opposing perspectives necessary expressed in the process of democratic governance, the contributors note that this NPD also could explain why Trump has surrounded himself with close family members and business acquaintances (from Jared Kushner to former adviser Steve Bannon), as they are more likely to enable the president's dangerous conception of reality (everyone is out to get him, especially women, minorities, immigrants, refugees, Muslims, etc.) rather than call him out on his "alternative facts" (Lee, 2017, p. 230). Moreover, having dictatorial role models only reinforces these tendencies, as the individual sees their vision vindicated by others practicing the same M.O. with varying degrees of success.

Okay, so the president may be mentally ill (as have 37 presidents before him), but are the people surrounding him and the larger country also mentally ill (Lee, 2017, p. 181)? The most interesting (and disturbing) part of the The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump is its assertion that yes, to a certain degree, all people are mentally ill, yet tend to suppress or not acknowledge the darker tendencies of human nature (scapegoating of others, selfishness, violence, etc.). This ultimately hides the dark undercurrents of any society and leaves them dangerously unaddressed and easier to exploit by an authoritarian-minded leader who mobilizes society by motivating people in defense of the nation (read: the leader and his/her objectives) by funnelling populist energies towards the targeting of selected Others with whom we identify both as the source of all of our troubles and also the unwanted dark sides of our own selves. We've all seen where this leads, when people elevate a certain figure above all others as omniscient and able to solve all their inner problems and grievances. History has shown us this time and time again, with Hitler being the more prominent historical example in recent memory. But just imagine if Hitler had access to nuclear weapons or the full powers of one of the most powerful states in the world. Those are the stakes of today's present political situation.

The urgent questions this book forces all readers to consider (readers of all political persuasions) mean that The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump ultimately succeeds in at least effectively persuading people to critically think about the potential paths our nation could take in the present moment and how to counteract it. Perhaps the time has come to at least consider the possibility of mandated mental health treatment for prominent members of the executive branch. It might be the only surefire way to see dangerous mental health issues before they paralyze not only the affected individuals, but also the country and larger world. It is certainly not a time to do nothing and wait for the worse to happen.


Works Cited:

Lee, Bandy. (Ed.). (2017). The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Book Review: Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner's "What Unites Us"

2017 was quite the doozy, to put it mildly. To get 2018 off to a better start, I thought I'd review a book with an overwhelmingly positive message about our country and the people that live in it. That book is Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner's 2017 treatise What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism. In this collection of essays concerning various (now) controversial aspects of our civic life (such as free speech, science, and immigration), Rather and Kirschner both remind us of the inherent goodness of people and serves as a much-needed manual (and reminder) for personal and civic improvement. In other words, it reads as a frank yet positive New Year's guide. Here are some resolutions all of us can commit to in 2018 as U.S. citizens and as individuals.

1. We should all strive for an "active, constructive patriotism" (Rather & Kirschner, 2017, p. 17).
• In other words, Rather and Kirschner warn against falling into the trap of confusing nationalism (raising one's country and culture on a pedestal as superior) with patriotism (a national dialogue among citizens on the nation's faults and ways to improve the country). Take the opportunity in 2018 to engage more with your fellow citizens, anything from having informed debates on the issues of the day to engaging in grassroots activism to volunteering for a good cause. 
2. Get out and vote! 
• At the risk of repeating this slogan ad nauseam, this remains as important as ever for those of us that wish to improve our democracy, from the local to national levels. Vote in that local school board election, vote in that congressional race. Make your voice heard more loudly with every vote in every race and the more likely it is that the powers that be will hear you and change.
3. Support your local newspaper/news station.
• Seriously though, news outlets could use your help. Donate your money or time or both to a newspaper near you. Remember, the free press is one of the cornerstones of any democracy and media company consolidations, recent staff cuts and increase in advertisement-fueled media means less investigative and international reporting. As Rather and Kirschner write, local media have a huge influence on reporting all the way up to the national level because it provides "checks on local and state governments" where much of the governing happening effects citizens directly and also helps to transmit stories that have implications for the democratic experiment at large (p. 67). It is also a vehicle for constructive dissent, to keep those in power accountable. 
4. Get to know your neighbors.
• Whether it is saying "hi" to them every now and then to hosting a neighborhood block party (whatever works best for you). You never know who you're going to meet and what their story is. It helps to remind us all of each other's humanity and that we're all in this together (both recent immigrants and descendants of immigrants alike) if we're going to make this democratic experiment we call the United States work in the long run. 
5. Always be curious. 
• Ask those dumb questions, read a new book about a subject you're not familiar about, or take up a new hobby. Humanity as a whole is an exploratory species, but we all don't have to be Magellans or Armstrongs to push us all forward. We need adventurers, to both push the physical frontiers (space exploration, anyone?) and their intellectual/scientific/cultural/artistic equivalents. 
6. Visit a library near you!
• Whether or not you prefer an e-book to a traditional print equivalent, libraries have all of those in abundance. Libraries are a vast repository of knowledge, with both non-fiction and fiction alike providing insights to human nature, how we can improve ourselves, and all that humanity has achieved (and possibly will achieve). In other words, there's something at the library for everyone and library cards are generally free. Take advantage of this invaluable resource and be better informed citizens. 
7. Go and visit a national park. Or a local park.
• Visit a park near you (or go an visit a national one). Or plant a tree. It's good for one's health to get away from it all and reconnect with nature. Also, it reminds us of the importance of preserving one's environment for both present and future generations. 
8. Be steady. 
• Meditate. Visit a park. Read a book. Take the time to do anything (on a regular basis) to help ground you in the chaotic present and remind you that you're more resilient than you might think. Rather and Kirschner write about this in What Unites Us on a personal level as well, but serves to make it a more national level focus, reminding all of us that in times of panic and unsteadiness, our democratic institutions have come under strain but ultimately have weathered the storm (so to speak). They have been able to because of the simultaneous embrace of the democratic status quo while heeding radical voices of change (and incorporating them into those same institutions to make them more adaptable). We must be the same on a personal level: incorporate the good change and reject the bad. Be adaptable, yet steady.

Happy New Year's everyone!

Works Cited:

Rather, Dan, & Kirschner, Elliot. (2017). What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism. New York: Workman Publishing.