I’ve had a thought for quite some time now that I would probably cope quite well if I was a nun. I don’t seem to have the same issues with silence that other people do; in fact, given a choice between a noisy party and a quiet home, I’ll take the quiet home kthnx. Why? I don’t like being in noisy places. I can’t think clearly and it makes me withdraw somewhat.

My favourite time of the day is about 10pm – 2am at night. After the madness of prime time and before the infomercials. I know, TV rules my life, yes? We’ve established this before, I believe. It’s quiet. There’s a stillness about that time of night that I adore. Usually I’m the only one awake, and with that still silence, I can think, I can write, and I can do things I can’t normally do during the day. Most of the artwork I’ve done has been done late at night, with the TV on as background noise.

I’m not really a morning person. It takes me a while to wake up. I’m not the sort who can get up instantly, at least, not very often. Is it possible to be addicted to the night? Because I think that’s what I’ve become. The night is most conducive to my mind, so I tend to embrace it. I’m not as nocturnal as I used to be. I’ve had to compromise my need to be up early enough for work and my need to go to bed after midnight. That hasn’t stopped a few 3am bedtimes though.

Also, rage has become a staple of my Friday and Saturday night. The effect of this has been that a lot of music (and music videos) is just better at night. Some clips only make sense at 2am when you’re half-asleep. XD But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even if my interest in triple j wanes (which it has, because I found a better radio station to listen to – sorry, Marieke), rage will always be there to start my weekend.

Perhaps it’s because I spent the first half of my life without the internet, I am somewhat wary of it taking over everything. There are times when I don’t want to be connected to everyone. I just want to shut it all down, and spend some time with myself, and my Gods, if I’m in the mood. There just isn’t enough time for people to do that these days. Everyone rushes about at a hundred miles an hour, and barely has time to think for themselves. We’ve lost the ability to just sit still and think, we’ve always got to have our mobile or laptop or mp3 player or whatever. But these things are not essential. I think we’d all be better off if we could find that silence again, and not be afraid of it, but to fall into its loving embrace, and find ourselves again.

(As an aside, if you haven’t watched Silent Running, you should – it’s… haunting and incredibly sad. It stays with you. Srsly.)

I’m not one who likes writing hard sci-fi. I tend to stick to dystopia. This doesn’t stop me reading hard sci-fi though, and empathising with these AI computers. And it’s this ability to empathise with these AI computers that got me wondering what sort of ethics humans will need to adhere to if/when we get to a point in the future where AI computers are widespread.

Why do I say that we’ll need ethics? They’re just machines, right?

Well, I don’t see it that way. Humans have a bad tendency to personify. It already happens with current technology. People give their gadgets and computers names, and talk about them as if they had distinct personalities. How attached do you think we’ll get when computers not only have names, but can talk and interact with us as if they were alive?

Would we consider them alive? What if they can create, independent of human intervention, like Edgar did? Would we respect their claims for ownership of their creations? Or will we claim they are our creations because they’re just machines and can’t create?

I wonder if we even have a right to give machines human-like intelligence and them claim total control over them, that we have some sort of right to decide if they live or die, insomuch as computers can live or die. If they are similar to sentient beings, if we kill them, does it become murder? Or would we end up justifying it the way we justify euthanasing animals? Could you argue those computers would have a ‘right to life’?

This is where my own opinions about this get muddled. I honestly can’t find a position because I can see all the alternatives and options and ideas and none stand out as being ‘the right choice’.

This is especially true for me with the issue of euthanasia. On the one hand, I can sympathise with wanting to end the misery for someone with a terminal illness who wishes to die. However, I can also see it as murder. I also can’t see why we can justify euthanasing animals as being ‘humane’ and ‘putting them out of their misery’, and yet applying the same thing to humans is somehow wrong. It’s not like the animals can consent to being euthanised. Indeed, there would be some terminal patients who might not be able to consent. There are also patients who do consent and wish to die, and somehow we think we know better than they do in allowing them to live and drawing out their suffering because ending their life is seen as wrong.

I know there’s a counter argument that, well, animals and people are different, but are they really? Animals feel pain. They get sick. They love us. We look after them. They might not have the same intellectual capabilities or ’sentience’ as we do, but I doubt that means they are mindless robots. There are different forms of intelligence and ways to communicate.

Still, we feel we have guardianship over our pets and animals because we feel they can’t make decisions for themselves. We have power of attorney for people who can’t make decisions for themselves. There are people who have ‘do not resuscitate’ things. And yet…

I don’t know. I’m feeling a little morbid today. I might go get some coffee once this is done and do some assignments instead of procrastinating further. I doubt I’ve solved anything in this entry, apart from articulate some thoughts on similar yet different issues. I think I had more to say, but the words aren’t there anymore, so I’ll save them for later when I can think of more to say.

(If I’m being technical, I am Gen X, since I’m the child of baby boomers. But I like my special awesome not part of either classification better. )

Anyway. I’m a rather nostalgic person. I’ve mentioned it before on here. I adore vinyl, old movies, VHS, cassettes, retro games, old consoles, all that awesome stuff I grew up with. At the same time, I’m very at ease with modern technology and the internet. I’ve been using the net since I was in my early teens, around a decade.

(Also, WWII-era code-breaking and computers and Enigma machines are all epic and winsome and Srsly, when I saw CSIRAC at the Melbourne Museum late last year, I was quite possibly the happiest little Alex alive. 8D!)

(AlsoAlso, I want to visit Bletchley Park. Like, really badly. Really, really badly. >.>)

I remember dial-up, DOS games, 14.4k modems, and dot matrix printers. I remember doing assignments and referring to actual physical encyclopaedia volumes in the library. Hell, we even had a set of ~20 year old encyclopaedias at home. They were awesome. XD

I’ve been writing websites since I was 14. That’s when I first learned HTML. I remember the first site I ever made. It had a red background and white text. It was awesome. XD

My parents have always dragged me off to op shops ever since I was a kid. They’re the sort of places where, if you’re nostalgic like me, you fall in love with old stuff. Old stuff with character. Every time I buy something from an op shop, I can’t help wondering who used to own it, why they donated it to the op shop, do they still miss it, those sort of things. I could create characters based on everything I’ve bought based on asking those questions.

(In fact, perhaps I should do that one day. Get a bunch of stuff I’ve bought and make characters based on who might’ve owned them.)

But I digress. I don’t know. I’ve got this love, fascination and adoration for analogue technology. We’ve got a record player at home, a VHS player, I think we even still have a cassette deck somewhere. Also, old stuff smell is intoxicatingly gorgeous. Like, it’s like old book smell, but more awesome. It’s old stuff smell. It’s orgasmic. XD

(Er, sorry for the brackets. My thoughts fail at being linear. XD)

At the same time, I rather like new technology and I’ve grown up with computers and CDs and other awesome things that I possibly couldn’t live without anymore. They’ve become a part of my life and world-view and as much as I adore the past, the internet and the kind of technology we have now is really quite awesome and it’s all good and I really should stop now before I ramble any more. XD

This is possibly not one of my better pieces, but whatever. It’s late, I’m tired and yeah. 8D