{"id":4141,"date":"2015-07-07T11:24:11","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T11:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/?p=4141"},"modified":"2015-07-07T11:24:11","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T11:24:11","slug":"in-tech-we-trust-eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/in-tech-we-trust-eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"In Tech We Trust: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rationaloptimist.com\/\">rational optimists<\/a>&#8221; say we&#8217;re moving in the right direction, and how can you argue against <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gapminder.org\/\">Hans Rosling&#8217;s bubble charts<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gatesfoundation.org\/\">Bill Gates&#8217; multibillion dollar positivism\/activism<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>This morning the optimism was in high gear. Within about 10 minutes on Twitter we had<\/p>\n<p>The BBC announced <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/mediacentre\/mediapacks\/makeitdigital\/micro-bit\">the Micro Bit<\/a>, a potentially worthy successor to the BBC Micro, in getting kids to code. One of the lovely organisations behind it is called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techwillsaveus.com\/\">Technology Will Save Us<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Today we announced the launch of the BBC micro:bit. We&#39;ve already begun creating hacks and\u2026 <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/No3Gxx48wO\">http:\/\/t.co\/No3Gxx48wO<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/re4cPN2zzt\">pic.twitter.com\/re4cPN2zzt<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; TechWillSaveUs (@techwillsaveus) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/techwillsaveus\/status\/618373584734580738?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 7, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>And even better<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/ITredux\/status\/618363790090833920<\/p>\n<p>Well thats good news. But there is more.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/mdm_mav\/status\/618180139072008192<\/p>\n<p>Or how about reforestation?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe are going to counter industrial scale deforestation using industrial scale reforestation\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/oZoPU618O4\">http:\/\/t.co\/oZoPU618O4<\/a> amazing cc <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/timoreilly?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@timoreilly<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Grumble Bundle (@monkchips) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/monkchips\/status\/611850127955857408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 19, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Or perhaps we don&#8217;t need tech per se, just the power of our imaginations<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Could human imagination save us from extinction? | Andrew Simms <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/GuFyidTDOW\">http:\/\/t.co\/GuFyidTDOW<\/a> Including the invitation to respond<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RichardJMurphy\/status\/618374628445188097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 7, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>An argument based on empathy doesn&#8217;t seem so dumb when we have stuff like this<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LoveWins?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#LoveWins<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; President Obama (@POTUS44) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/POTUS44\/status\/614435467120001024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 26, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>But then we live in a society that reveres banks over countries and communities.\u00a0Optimism or not we&#8217;re clearly facing real and substantive challenges and dangers &#8211; mass extinction is pretty compelling evidence. Science is not a Cargo Cult, whatever the deniers might claim, though it increasingly looks like a religion in terms of the the faith we put in it. I am in the lucky position of being half-American so I am naturally pretty optimistic, but I am also a European so I believe in resource constraints. We all have a lot of work to do. \u00a0Technology can&#8217;t save us. Only we can do that, by choosing how to use it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;rational optimists&#8221; say we&#8217;re moving in the right direction, and how can you argue against Hans Rosling&#8217;s bubble charts or Bill Gates&#8217; multibillion dollar positivism\/activism? This morning the optimism was in high gear. Within about 10 minutes on Twitter we had The BBC announced the Micro Bit, a potentially worthy successor to the BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9wfjh-14N","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}