Chips and Chips: What's Getting Chipped Away?
I was listening to a conversation between Ezra Klein and Jensen Huang.
One thing struck me in particular.
Ezra asked
(paraphrasing) what happens to the things students don't learn anymore. Do they get forgotten?
Jensen answered
(still paraphrasing) like long-division? Yes, and that’s probably fine, isn’t it?
Also, something about using up fossil fuels for data centres…
So that got me thinking
— about languages and
— thinking around processing.
I mean, let’s imagine older words may contain richness of offline experience that new generations do not notice.
You:
Give me an example.
Okay, how about — well, this.
Grandpa:
I remember, during the War…
A younger listener might yawn and think,
Student:
Here we go again, another history lesson. Why isn't he talking about what actually matters, like how the world might end because of international politics, scarce resources and the violence of competitive leaders in a battle that implicates worldwide populations just trying to live their lives?
(I'd like to suggest this as an example of 'under-hearing'. Hearing someone's words without picking up the expansive added extras of experience and relationship they're carrying. Perhaps also the over-hearing of an assumed lecture designed to guilt-trip.)
You:
Okay, but that works both ways doesn't it?
Yep, true. The older person might see the yawn and think,
Grandpa:
That's the problem with young people these days. Writing off anyone over thirty-five. They don't know what actually matters! They don't know how life and death feels, or the experience of imminent existential threat — wondering whether you're going to live long enough to actually live beyond the next few years.
(Under-hearing the other side of the story, and over-hearing the same-old…)
So the two of them might go home none the wiser, both missing out on something valuable.
And then (because, no sense in leaving a metaphor that still has juice in it!)
the next day each of them might go out and spend money on chips.
One for lunch with a nice piece of battered cod.
— Enjoying well-earned retirement.
One as an investment.
— Pension planning.
But in Jensen's telling — much to Ezra's surprise, and I think dismay — outcomes and productivity leading to financial increase could be accepted as more than adequate compensation.
A bargain, almost.
He admitted he himself couldn’t tell you his own zip code or phone number.
Who needs to bother remembering that kind of thing!
Hmm.
I was listening
— wondering whether he was making choices for the rest of us that might be a bit too - big?
And
— whether “might is right” philosophies should be allowed to apply to big companies with powerful commodities and home-grown ethics, as well as big nations with powerful armies and home-grown borders.
And babies and bathwater.
More to say here might include:
— the relational context. The experience — you had to be there.
In other words, non-commodifiable knowledge or aspects that aren’t seen as relevant or valuable by systems looking for major scaling and financial profit.
And
— what does all this do to our capacity to hear and communicate?!
For example, about any “potentially true" ultimate reality that deals in dimensions that aren’t about profits and markets. What about conversations around those dimensions, in a world where, “h'yeah, that’s not a thing” can be the final say.
…under-hearing.
…over-hearing.
Give all that a few more years.
People die, remembering the war.
New ones born — phones and chips in hand.
Not literally.
Maybe literally. 😳
Oh, and Jensen said this too.
At first electricity helped us with POWER. (Lawn mowers. Washing machines. Truly miraculous.)
And then with FINDING. (Whoa — Friends Reunited. The astonishing ability to see a more contemporary photo of someone you knew in the days when Gold was in the charts, before they entered parliament, and you got a job at the Co-op.)
But next, it will help us with KNOWING and DOING.
In fact, I think his claim was we will KNOW EVERYTHING and be able to DO ANYTHING.
Hmm.
Really? Know?
Is that savoir, or connaître (as we used to ask in French class).
And doing?
Hmm.
So much more to say.
But words are —
Although, I think I better make a few mental notes for future reference. Please bear with me.
Concepts in scripture that might become less accessible as words change meanings toward more system and process language.
Relationality and instrumentality — whether instrumentality and commodification emphases might be dimming the importance of relationality, when that might be a crucial emphasis for all things crucial
(by which I mean cross-related, rather than any step, variable, or decision that directly determines the success or failure of the entire system).
Ah, don't get me started…
