Everyone programs.  If you get out of bed in the morning and go through any sort of routine (everything is pretty much a routine) you are programming.   This is not semantics. Programming is nothing more than organizing things in such a way that they transform into other things.   Everyday life is programming, it’s just not the uber-formal (re: very restrictive) programming  we think computer programmers do.

When people reject my statement about everyone programs and should get better at what they are actually rejecting is the specific implementations of computer programming – the syntax, the formalities, the tools, the long hours in front of a headache inducing screen.

If you speak, write, draw or communicate at all you have learned a set of rules that you apply to various inputs and produce various outputs.   If you work in spreadsheets, at a cash register, with a paint brush, in a lecture haul, in a lab, on a stage, you are programming.   If you make yourself a sandwich, eat it and go for a jog, you are programming.  Everything you do is taking inputs and transforming it into outputs using various rules of a system.   The system is more or less formal, more or less open.

I don’t see there being any room for dispute on this observation or rather this definition or axiom.

With that basic assumption as a starting point let me make the case that honing your more formal, strict and, yes, traditional “computer” programming skill is a must do for anyone participating in modern society.  (yes, if you do not participate in modern society and do not wish to do so, you don’t need formal programming skill, but you will always be programming within the universe…)

Without getting too out there – our lives will never have fewer computers, fewer programs, fewer gadgets, fewer controllers monitoring, regulating, data exposing, recommending, and behaving on our behalf.   Cell phone penetration is near ubiquitous, every car has computers, trains run on computerized schedules, more than 50% of stocks are algorithmically trade, your money is banked electronically, the government spends your taxes electronically and so on.   So in some sense, to not be able to program formally leaves you without any knowledge of how these systems work or miswork.  Some will have the argument that “I don’t need to know how my car works to use it/benefit from it.”   This is true.  But computers and programming are so much more fundamental than your car.   To not be able to program is akin, at this point, to not being able to read or write.   You are 100% dependent on others in the world.  You can function without a working car.

Before you reject my claim outright consider the idea that learning to program is quite natural and dare I say, easy.   It requires no special knowledge or skill.  It requires only language acquisition skills and concentration which every human i’ve read about or know has these two basic capabilities (before we go on destroying them in college.)

Why do I make this claim of ease?

Programming languages and making programs that work rely on a very small language.  Very simple rules.   Very simple syntax.   Frustratingly simple!   The english language (or any spoken language) is so much more ridiculously complicated.

It does not surprise me that people think it’s hard.  It’s frustrating.  It’s the practice and the simplification of your thoughts into more simple languages and syntax that’s hard.   And so is writing a speech others will understand, or painting a masterpiece, or correctly building a financial accounting book, or pretty doing anything you do for a living that requires someone else to understand and use your output.

I firmly believe each persons ability to translate their lives into useful programs is a differentiator of those that have freedom and identity and those that do not.  Either you are programming and able to keep watch over the programs you use or you are programmed.

Sure, companies and people are busy at work making easier and easier tools to “program” but that doesn’t change the fundamental problem.   The programs you layer on top of other programs (web page builder guis to HTML to browser parsers to web servers…) the more chance of transcription problems (miscommunication), unnoticed malicious use and so forth.

Beyond the issue of freedom it is fun and invigorating to create, to mold your world.  This is the part that’s hard for adults.  Having spent probably from age 10 to whatever age we all are following rules (others programs) and being rewarded (program feedback loops) we all don’t really do a great job molding our world.  Kids are so good at experimenting (playing).   And playing is essential to really great programming.   Programming that will fill you up and make your life better is the kind that generates wonderfully unexpected but useful results.   It’s not always about getting it right or spitting out the answer (though for simple programs that might be the point).  It’s about creating, exploring, and finding connections in this world.

I can replace the word programmer (and programming) in this post with Artist, Mathematician, Reader, Writer, Actor, etc and it will be essentially the same piece with the same reasoning.   All of these “occupations” and their activities are programming – the only thing that differs are the implementations of language (syntax, medium, tools).

When people are rejecting my argument that everyone should learn to program, they are rejecting the notion of sitting down in front of a blinking cursor on a screen and having a piece of software say “error”.   Reject that!  I hate that too!  For me, correcting grammar in my posts or emails or journals is as painful! (but it doesn’t prevent me from wanting to write better or write at all, i *need* to to survive and be free!)

Don’t reject the notion that you shouldn’t be always trying to communicate or understand better – taking inputs from the world and transforming them into useful outputs.  To reject that is essentially rejecting everything.  (and that is now the annoying over-reaching philosophical close!)

A couple years after reading it I’m reminded of it daily.   The march of technology, culture, business, education towards a future in which large organizations simply can’t withstand the tide of individual creators creating on a small scale and networking upwards.

creative destruction, as it were, little tiny piece by piece.   all on the backs and hands of people who probably wont make a fortune on these creations.  They will get by enough.

I don’t know if it turns out that everyone gets what they need and this is the new economy capable of supporting 300+ million people.  It is the new culture.  and maybe we’ll do with less. or we’re have a larger and larger income gap.

artisans, craftmakers, app developers, youtube stars, self employed…

then again, we need infrastructure.  roads, info networks, cellular towers.  can a world of makers fully exist on top of a large commercial infrastructure?  the network is the thing and the network is still owned by huge, controlled, controlling organizations.  The pipes and search engines and the social networks, owned by perhaps 10-15 organizations.

Perhaps the rise of 3d printing will make it so that eventually makers can print the necessary network at a scale that removes the requirement of these big infrastructures.

Not sure.

hard to sort out.

i’m too busy making.

What is the longest word you can type on the QWERTY keyboard with just your left hand using the proper position?

I love problems like this.

Especially because I get to toy around with Mathematica and use features that day to day I may not interact with for biz problems.

Finding the solution required only a tiny bit of code.

alpha = “”;
ourdictionary = “”;
alphabase = {“q” | “w” | “e” | “r” | “t” | “a” | “s” | “d” | “f” | “g” | “z” | ”x” | “c” | “v” | “b”};
alpha = StringExpression[alpha, alphabase];

Code

n = 0;
dictionarycount = 0;
ourdictionary = DictionaryLookup[alpha];
While[n < 20 && Length@ourdictionary > 0,
ourdictionary = DictionaryLookup[alpha];
alpha = StringExpression[alpha, alphabase];
n++;
If[Length@ourdictionary == 0, Print[{Length@ourdictionary, n - 1}];
Print[DictionaryLookup[alpha[[;; n - 1]]]]]]

The Answer(s):

{“aftereffects”, “desegregated”, “desegregates”, “reverberated”, ”reverberates”,”stewardesses”}

We want to be No. 1 — but why, and at what?

Yes.  That is a good question.  And “being number 1″ is such a useless statement when talking about anything beyond an amateur sporting event.   When we’re considering what we value and how we teach each other and feed each other chasing these numbers is such as wasteful activity.

I know, we’ve all been taught, if you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it.   I get it.  The measurement thing is fine as long as you question the measurements too and understand that measurements and any model is just a model.

The articles points out how GDP and other measures aren’t great and how other cultures have stopped focusing on being number 1, etc.  But I think the bigger point is here:

But in the midst of the Great Depression, Congress, showing a great deal more intellectual curiosity than it does today

INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY, as a social value.   We don’t have enough of that.  Our education system, politicians, marketing, media all reflect this.   Perhaps we even have more than we had 200 years ago, but it’s not enough.  Things are more complicated, more connected so we need more than ever.

And be careful before quoting back to me stats on education and literacy and college enrollment and knowledge worker jobs… what we current measure as Intellectual Curiosity is a very limited view.  I won’t propose a measurement myself and I will say the annoying point that you know it when you know it, and most of my interactions out in the world aren’t full of intellectual curiosity.  The movies, shows, news reports, sound bytes, songs, conversations, etc… how many of these things are pushing you, all of us?  is your knowledge job really about uncovering and sharing knowledge?  is facebook, google, twitter really a utility to spread knowledge? engaging in questions?

I don’t have the answer.  I do have questions.

Sounds exactly opposite of our political system.  Might be the problem.

With that in mind, it is worth recalling President Abraham Lincoln’s words during the dark early days of the real Civil War. “Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed,” he told Congress in December 1861. “Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration,”

The life cycle of a cell is simply amazing. It does work to construct constraints on the release of energy, which does work to construct more constraints on the release of energy, which does work to construct even more constraints on the release of energy, and other kinds of work as well. It builds structure. Cells don’t just carry information. They actually build things until something astonishing happens: a cell completes a closed nexus of work tasks, and builds a copy of itself. Although he didn’t know about cells, Kant spoke about this 230 years ago when he said that an organized being possesses a self-organizing propagating whole that is able to make more of itself. But although cells can do this, that fact is nowhere in our physics. It’s not in our notion of matter, it’s not in our notion of energy, it’s not in our notion of information, and it’s not in our notion of entropy. It’s something else. It has to do with organization, propagation of organization, work, and constraint construction. All of this has to be incorporated into some new theory of organization.

…

We don’t know what Darwinian pre adaptations are going to be, which supplies an arrow of time. The same thing is true in the economy; we can’t say ahead of time what technological innovations are going to happen. Nobody was thinking of the Web 300 years ago. The Romans were using things to lob heavy rocks, but they certainly didn’t have the idea of cruise missiles. So I don’t think we can do it for the biosphere either, or for the econosphere.

…

I can begin to imagine making models of how the universe gets more complex, but at the same time I’m hamstrung by the fact that I don’t see how you can see ahead of time what the variables will be.

…

The same question applies to the economy. How can human beings assemble this increasing diversity and complexity of ways of making a living? Why does it work in the common law? Why does the common law stay a living body of law? There must be some very general conditions about co-evolutionary assembly. Notice that nobody is in charge of the evolution of the common law, the evolution of the biosphere, or the evolution of the econosphere. Somehow, systems get themselves to a position where they can carry out coevolutionary assembly. That question isn’t even on the books, but it’s a profound question; it’s not obvious that it should work at all. So I’m stuck.

From “The Adjacent Possible“, Stuart Kauffman

I think the killing of Osama Bin Laden changed the world dramatically.

It won’t change terrorism or our world views… yet.   OBL was a powerful symbol and the media, politics and academics are going to make sure that the symbol carries a lot of weight and reinforces whatever agenda they want to push.

From oil prices, to futures, to political fortunes, the process of killing and marketing OBL has changed everything.

What if all it does is change the political fortunes of Pres. Obama?   isn’t that a big deal?

Perhaps we need to consider different levels of change.  Even if all these things I claim are a big deal actually, in the grand scheme, are just small perturbations in the overall arc of the human and Earth story.  Perhaps this story has played out thousands / millions of times and its just part of it.  No real outlier.

What say you?

RFS

This is a really uncomfortable show to watch.   Asks some amazing questions AND unemotionally explores some answers/approaches.

What got me really thinking was listening to the Drs. and researchers who work on this stuff everyday.   It’s shocking to many of us who don’t deal with this stuff everyday, but for these researchers, its clinical.

Absolutely fascinating research over hundreds of years.   Some really kooky stuff.

There’s a part where this Dr. “MacDougal” attempted to measure the weight of the soul in the 1800s.   WHAT??!?

There’s an amazing part involving the air force testing the effects of G on pilots’ brains.

Definitely a much watch, if you can handle it.  It’s not for everyone.

That strategy can never work.  All things that lead to the above goals are computationally irreducible systems.

The most efficient strategy, and here comes the bad news… is to jump in, do stuff* and see what happens.

*stuff =  take to the streets, code something, write that book, run the marathon, quit that job, join the peace corps, send the letter, have the talk, etc.

I was disappointed at the time and still am a little bit.   The King’s Speech was a fine movie, but when you have a rare baby sitter night you want what you want…

Alas, one facet of The King’s Speech intrigued me quit a bit.   How does someone in a position of fame behave when they realize the reality of the facade.   Colin Firth brilliantly played a fascinating character without anchors.   The scene with Geoffrey Rush sitting in Edward’s throne in Westminster Abbey was the clearest example of this.

“People have carved there names in this chair!   I don’t care how many royal assholes…”

A throne with graffiti still used in a coronation ceremony!   What could be more anchorless!

Even at the end of the movie, Firth still had this look when he was waiving at the throngs of people “What is all this for?!”

Not sure there is a resolution to this quandary for any of us and certainly not for a monarch in name.   Oh, sure, we can all find a justification if we don’t question too hard and profess it out to the world enough….

Other thoughts to follow up on:

Impact of radio/mass broadcasting to politics, power, public policy

Current obsession with Monarchy and America’s own “monarchs in name”