Coding: A great preparation for life

December 17, 2015 //

I’m introducing my kids to coding at the moment. I’ve just discovered Scratch and Tynker and, having fallen in love with the UI (a combination of code and coloured lego blocks), I’m encouraging them to write simple programs.

Programming is great; not just because it’s a hugely important skill in itself; but because it teaches kids some valuable lessons about life itself. Here are a few things I’ve learned:

It’s all about making mistakes.

There are few things as frustrating as coding. To get something to work right requires hours of getting stuff wrong. You can be stymied for ages over a misplaced variable name or a minus sign in the wrong place. But if you stick with it, you’ll produce something rather beautiful: something that does just what you want it to do.

That’s how it works if you want to do anything well. You have to be willing to try different things; to accept that your first drafts will be imperfect – particularly when you are trying it for the first time.There’s an awful lot of trial and error in life. Coding gives you a deep insight into this.

There is no such thing as perfection.

Programs are never finished. Even if they do their job well, there’s always something that needs improvement. Perhaps the environment changes, or you need to make it work faster. When you are responsible for a piece of code, you are often in it for the long haul.

This is true to life. We never get to the stage where everything is sorted. In jobs, relationships, goals and personal needs: it’s a constant effort of jumping from one challenge to another. There is no perfect time, just the imperfect now. All we can do is adapt as best as possible.

There are no miracles.

When a piece of code doesn’t work right, the last thing you can do is to reach to a prayer book to answer the problem. Coding doesn’t respond to miracles, only to hard work. There’s always a logical answer embedded there somewhere, and an “aw shucks” moment when you finally figure it out.

In life, there’s a huge amount of fuzzy, magical thinking around which purports to have mystical answers to life’s deepest questions. But in the end, nature trumps such wishful thinking. Many things work in very complex ways, but deep down, it’s just natural laws at work. No matter how much we wish otherwise, there are no short-cuts to figuring out the great problems of life.

You get to practice some important life skills

Coding can involve a lot of playing around and trying things out just for the sake of it. If you are doing it against any kind of deadline, however, or if you need to write code for someone else, you have to learn to organise yourself. Coding generally involves a lot of thinking, writing, testing and improving. If other people are involved you will need to carefully consider how long these different phases are going to take, and give people updates if things don’t go according to plan. This, in essence, is basic project management.

Of all the competencies required by companies nowadays, managing projects is one of the most important skills you can learn. Over time, coding helps you to understand how long a task should take and how to regularly check your progress. You also gain experience in learning how to work with people and what’s involved in giving them just what they want. It’s hard work sometimes. Through it, you learn persistence, tenacity and negotiation – skills that are important throughout your adult career.

Coding is all around us.

The more we learn about this wonderful universe, the more we learn that very similar processes are everywhere around us. Our DNA is a type of elaborate computer program that shows how basic chemicals can be turned into the stuff of life. The way our brains behave and operate is akin to the working of a complex computer system. Evolution itself is an enormous, long term natural coding project where mistakes are punished by extinction, while adaptability is generously rewarded – it’s the biggest experiment in trial and error the world has ever seen.

Coding has helped to open the world up to us; enabling us to understand the universe in ways that our ancestors could never have imagined. Looking at the complexity of nature in terms of different algorithms has allowed us to make sense of it all. From coding you get an insight into how things hang together. It’s through coding we will solve the great challenges of this century.

 

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Categories opinions, technology

Oh America.

December 8, 2015 //

The latest verbal outrage by Donald Trump has everyone talking again. Every day his rhetoric gets worse. Every day, he stokes the fires of racist and sectarian hatred, all in a frantic bid to become the world’s most powerful man. By appealing to the most regressive and darkest mindsets in American life, it is inevitable that his statements will result in innocent people being injured and killed.

I do not believe he has any chance of becoming the next President of America, even if there were to be a major event between now and the election. He has alienated too many people. Liberal, minority and moderate voters can’t stand him. I reckon that a sizeable number of Republicans would, if push came to shove, vote Democrat even if they would only do it with their noses pinched. Trump is promoting values that have nothing to do with America and nothing to do with how it achieved greatness. Throughout its history, people came to America because it was a free and fair country, not a fascist dictatorship. Americans fought world wars and spilled blood against fascism. American history and the history of America’s place in the world, is the strongest guarantor that Trump’s bid will go nowhere.

Even if Trump, by improbable good fortune, did become the next US President, it’s hard to see how he could have any success at all. In his zeal to enact his policies, he would start battles that would render effective government impossible. Since his greatest enemy, at times, appears to be the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights – he can expect fulsome and ferocious opposition at every turn; not just from politicians but from the many thousands of people – police, soldiers, doctors, officials and ordinary citizens – through whom he would expect his edicts to be enacted. They would find ways, overt and covert, to thwart his policies. Unless he was determined to turn the country into an autocratic police state (even more improbable), his presidency would be an utter shambles. I doubt if he would even make the full four year term.

If Trump has created a legacy, it is to revive a tradition of bigotry and hatred, mainly among the entitled cadre of white, elderly elitists who have seen their country become more diverse, more tolerant, more secular and more globally integrated, despite all their efforts to the contrary. My worry is, that as their numbers and influence wane ever further, we can expect greater extremism and violence from these quarters. They will not go quietly.

Despite this, I am optimistic about America. I think the chances are good that the moderates will win out. The recent success of progressive laws, such as same-sex marriage, is an indication that the forces of deep conservatism are on the retreat. I think a tipping point is near, if it has not already passed. What we are witnessing with Trump is the rattle of a mortally wounded snake – ugly, venomous and vicious. but doomed nonetheless.

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Categories opinions, Uncategorized

Panelists behaving badly

December 6, 2015 //

My last blog post brings me nicely to a recent debate on climate change on RTE Prime Time (an Irish current affairs programme).

On the panel were Kevin Humphreys (Junior Minister in the Dept of Social Protection), Ray Bates (Adjunct Professor at the Meteorology and Climate Centre in UCD), Oisin Coughlan (Friends of the Earth) and Eamon Ryan (Green Party).

While, I think, two of the panelists (Humphreys and Coughlan) did creditably well to represent their positions, the other two, Bates and Ryan, were awful, and for two different reasons.

Maybe I should get the worst of them out of the way first. Eamon Ryan came across as shrill, ill-tempered and preachy. He butted straight into other people’s talk time, listened to no-one, waved his hands and acted like a small boy in a sweetshop whose parents wouldn’t buy him a pack of bonbons. He might feel really, really, really strong about this issue (and I don’t blame him for that), but his style completely overruled content on the night. Humphreys only had to roll his eyes a few times, and Miriam O’Callaghan to politely reprimand him, for us all to realise that Ryan’s emotions had let him down badly. He should be long enough in this business by now to realise that dogmatism and rudeness does you no favours in a TV debate, nor does it help the credibility of your party.

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Eamon Ryan in full flight

On the opposite side, Ray Bates was a model of civility and patience. He was considered. He didn’t lose his temper. Which was unfortunate, because Ray Bates was, by far, the most problematic person on the panel.

Now, to be fair to Bates, he is not what I would call a First Degree Denier. He accepts anthropogenic climate change (ie. we’re responsible for it), but he disputes how bad it’s going to be and how long it will take.

Bates took pains to advertise his scientific credentials. Indeed, He mentioned them a few times. But what I heard was something slightly different than what I might expect most scientists to say. He spent his time picking some IPCC findings that suited his argument: that the margin of error was greater in 2013 than in 2007, or that 2015’s warming was less in the higher atmosphere than the lower atmosphere, or that climate models were out by a factor of 3. Pick, pick, pick. It’s like he was reading all the data, then looking for a small number of anomalies that he could use for the purposes of spreading uncertainty. That’s curious.

So here’s the thing. If you are fairly clueless on the details of global warming like most of us are, you would be left with the impression that all scientists have the same viewpoint as Ray: that they think it’s serious, but it’s not something to worry about too much. He was the only person on the panel with real scientific credentials – others were political and activism based – so that lent his view a certain amount of gravitas in the circumstances.

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Prof. Ray Bates – climate models are the best we have, but sure, we can pick and choose.

But the fact is that he is very much out of step with most of his peers around the world. It’s not because they are all have some chip on their shoulder, or he’s not invited to the right parties; it’s because they are reading the data differently to him. The issue really is more urgent than he is making it out to be. After reading John Gibbons’ article about him, I tend to concur with the view that he is somewhat more protective of the Irish agricultural position than a totally independent actor should really be. I think he has an ideological position in this matter – otherwise why such a pro-agri stance? Why use the airtime to water down the findings in favour of the status quo?

I’m unhappy that Bates was the only scientist that RTE could find on this subject, because he badly misrepresented the scientific position on this. RTE needs to start getting away from the climate denier spokespeople – who are always available to talk – and start hearing more from other scientists who can better speak to the likely downstream issues caused by a rapidly warming world.

 

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Categories opinions, politics, science

A Case of False Balance

December 6, 2015 //

Let’s say you were watching a programme on house building, but every time the builder spoke up about using concrete blocks, the camera panned afterwards to a person who believed that instead of concrete, Christmas tinsel should be a better building material.

Or, you were watching a motoring programme with a mechanic talking about putting oil in the engine to keep the parts moving. After he had spoken, the programme sought the views of a person who felt that Fanta Orange was a much better alternative than oil to lubricate the engine.

Imagine, in both cases, how the builder or the mechanic would feel about this. Imagine what they would think about the programme makers. “Short changed” would be putting it mildly.

With due consideration to the Christmas Tinselists and Fanta Orangeists out there, we might consider it completely mad for a programme to devote time to people who clearly were off the range as regards issues that are generally accepted as mainstream ideas. Not only that, but it would be seen by many as sowing confusion and distraction where no such thing was warranted.

The principle of balance is ingrained into most broadcasting organisations. To be fair to all sides, they will often invite people with different viewpoints to debate particular points. This is a good principle in the main. It minimises the chances that we are being excluded from hearing important contrary information when making your mind up about various issues. It also makes for good, entertaining TV and radio.

In the cases above, however, you can see that the principle of balance can be overextended, particularly when subjects are largely decided and incontrovertible. In many situations, therefore, the broadcaster is not required to create a “balanced” debate; they are perfectly entitled to represent the single accepted position and get on with it. This is the picture acknowledged by most experts in that field. It’s accepted because there is overwhelming support for it. Why create debate when there is none?

Take evolution for instance. There are people in this world who deny evolution, primarily for religious reasons. That’s their choice. It is a nonsense, however, to employ the principle of balance when discussing evolution, because unlike evolutionary scientists, creationists have no real evidence supporting their position. In the many decades since Darwin first published his ideas, creationists have utterly failed to provide reliable support for an alternative, while the scientific underpinning have multiplied in size. The scientific evidence is so overwhelming that it’s a complete nonsense to suggest that a debate even exists. Pitting a creationist against an evolutionary scientist – no matter how many people feel there is a debate to be had – is quite ridiculous. It only serves to elevate a faith based position to be seen as a plausible alternative to the scientific research – a position it does not deserve.

After so much debate and so much evidence, we are also entitled to question the motives of those who would continue – to this day – to promote creationism or intelligent design as credible alternatives on a par with evolutionary science. Since their positions have been refuted in so many ways and for such a long period of time, we can safely say that such people are no longer interested in an honest pursuit of the truth. Denial has a propaganda value. Thus, it’s not just false balance: anyone organising a debate between creationists and evolutionary scientists nowadays must accept that the creationists are not coming to the table with pure intentions, despite what they might say publicly.

Such is also the case with climate change. The vast majority of climate scientists are in agreement that a) CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are warming the planet, b) that intensive human activity is the major factor in this warming and that c) this issue needs to be tackled urgently. Deniers take issue with some or all of these statements, but their arguments have little scientific merit. Pitted against decades worth of evidence building and hypothesis testing, the denier community has come up short. They are losing and they know it. Having singularly failed to develop a plausible scientific alternative, they resort to sowing doubt and muddying the waters. It’s the Creationism vs Evolution debate all over again. Because it too has only got worse for deniers in the past years, we have to ask ourselves what the underlying motive for maintaining their stance might be.

It’s for these reasons that I don’t think it’s useful to be giving a platform to climate change deniers on broadcast media. Like Christmas Tinselists or Fanta Orangeists, they have no scientific argument to make and thus they are a distraction from the real issue. But more than this, just like creationists, I have a problem with their motives. When the evidence is so overwhelming, there has to be an underlying reason for maintaining their stance. An honest debate in such circumstances is impossible.

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Categories scepticism, science

A note to the next generation.

November 27, 2015 //

I had a brief chat with my son this evening. He told me that there was some kind of initiative going on where kids were going to learn politics as part of their final year exams. At first I thought it was a dumb idea. Surely, kids could learn about that by picking up a newspaper or watching the news on TV?

But when I thought about it some more, I changed my mind. And it’s not just because of the obvious question: I mean, what kid reads newspapers or watches TV news these days?

Here’s the real problem: our generation and the generation before us have made a complete balls of looking after the world. We have all these really serious issues, like climate change, poverty, inequality, radicalisation, racism, sexism, terrorism, access to medicines and drinking water, overuse of antibiotics, biodiversity decline and ocean acidification, to name but a few. Huge problems. And who have we chosen to solve these problems for us? In the main, a bunch of space cadets.

Our generations, when given a chance, have blown it, choosing instead to elect populist dickheads again and again and again and yet again. Instead of electing someone who might know a thing or two about managing complex problems, we’ve gone repeatedly for the political equivalent of the drug pusher. Yeah man, Pop this Pill and All your Worries will be Gone. The Problem is Not You; It’s Them.

I despair for the future if our kids grow up with no interest in politics, because we’ve left their generation in the invidious position of having to clean up after us. They are the ones who’ll be left with no fish in the seas. They are the people who’ll need to deal with all the carbon dioxide in the air and the oceans. They are the ones who will need to tackle youth unemployment and unrest and desperate social inequality. And all because the incompetents we elected did precisely nothing about it when they had the chance to. In fact, they did worse than nothing: they made these bad situations even more abysmal than they were.

If the next generation grow up in our footsteps, apathetic about the world they live in, they won’t even have the language to tackle the problems we’ve left them with. Instead, if they vote at all, they’ll be left voting for blowhards in the footsteps of Berlusconi and Trump, only because nobody in their right minds would enter politics in a fit. Imagine this: George W Bush is now considered by many commentators to be a moderate. A moderate. My god.

I have one caveat about giving the next generation a sense of political awareness. If they ever realise what our lot did on our watch, they’ll immediately have us all locked up. But then again, it’s nothing more than we deserve.

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Categories opinions, politics

Life is not so short.

November 24, 2015 //

I recently arrived at my 48th year on this planet. With a good bit of luck, I can make it to 2050. Thirty five years. It’s as far away from me now as 2015 was when I was 12 years old.

In 1980, people wore jeans, t-shirts and runners. They had colour TVs, digital watches and Tupperware. Star Wars was already a thing. The big difference, of course, was computerisation and mobile technology, but even so, there was a familiarity about those times. In the same way, 2050 may not be too foreign to modern sensibilities when it eventually arrives. We are well on our way to this future date.

By now, it should be obligatory for me to tell you that the years fly by too quickly, and that I remember the 1980s like they happened yesterday. But honestly, it was a long time ago. I was a child back then. I can’t lay claim to that title anymore, however hard I have tried to delay the onset of adulthood.

I think this feeling of ‘tempus fugit’ is something of a delusion. Life doesn’t fly by as fast as we think it does. Days might whizz by, but there are a few hundred of them in each year. It’s a lot of time. 10 years is a whole heap of time and 30 years practically an eternity. It’s just that our brains make the past seem so much closer than it really is.

I’m pretty sure that this sense of time passing by quickly is a function of a memory system that best remembers the things we remember the most. Music, particularly the most popular tunes, seem recent only because we hear them often. So too with places visited regularly, like my mother’s home, or local schools and shopping centres. We recall distant events there clearly only because we are minded to remember them quite often. The gap in time is shortened only because we frequently remember the memory, not the event itself.

Maybe it’s where I am now in my life. With my children now passing into teenagehood, I seem to remember their earlier years as a transient blur. But in reality, I don’t think it was quite so speedy. There was plenty enough time there for my father to fall sick and pass away; for my marriage to crash-land and for a while, chaos to take the place of security. It’s just that I have forgotten so much. Perhaps that’s the real tragedy of ageing: so many experiences have been scattered to the four winds. What remains now are bare threads.

Life is long. It’s long enough for us to make big mistakes and to recover from them. It’s long enough to breach the surface after diving the depths of despair. It’s long enough to see green shoots where once there was bare earth. Even in middle-age, there is still time to find peace; to make life more livable for those around us; perhaps to yet follow our dreams. 

Despite the awfulness of forgetting, maybe  there is more time there than we normally appreciate. And in that, I think, there is hope.

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Categories stuff, thinking, Uncategorized

Cork City – a nightmare zone for drivers

November 22, 2015 //

Some weeks ago, a work colleague from the US asked me if it was a good idea to hire a car when she would be in Cork.

I had to think about it for a minute, and then I gave my answer:

Hell No.

Cork is a driving disaster zone, not because our drivers are somewhat absent minded, nor because of inclement weather, nor because we drive on the other side of the road to US drivers, nor because we have these teeny narrow streets you have to navigate through. No. It’s a disaster zone because, come rush hour or moderate traffic, you need to have truly psychic powers to navigate yourself around the city.

To drive successfully in Cork traffic you need something akin to the Knowledge, cherished by London cabbies. This is an intimate understanding of the unwritten rules on which lane to move into and when to do it, before executing a manoeuvre. Crucially, the correct positioning might be required in a totally different part of the city.

McCurtain Street for instance. To be in the correct lane when you reach the Leisureplex Coliseum, you need to be deciding lanes way back on Patrick’s Bridge.

Or try Brian Boru Bridge, turning left, straight on or right by the Bus Station. To get it right, you need to have pre-chosen your lane in McCurtain Street. Get it wrong and you’re in a whole lot of trouble.

Following the same road down Clontarf Street to the City Hall, you need to have picked the correct lane by the Bus Station, or woe betide you.

Another beauty is the South Link road heading into town. If you are intending to go to Dublin or Rosslare via the Lower Glanmire Road, you need to have already chosen the correct lane at the Elysian Towers, half a mile away.

Or try the Christy Ring bridge from the Mallow Road – actually, don’t bother. Christy Ring Bridge itself is a traffic nightmare zone at the best of times, no matter what direction you approach it from. I’m sure its traffic light system was part of a psychological torture plot in a former life.

These are just a few examples of a traffic system not just designed by committee, but probably designed by camels. My advice to anyone driving through the city? Lodge a flight plan in advance. And bring emergency supplies. Getting through Cork in rush hour may take some time.

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Categories stuff, Uncategorized

Placebo Solutions for a Real War

November 21, 2015 //

Let me just say something straight out. ISIS/Daesh are a gang of murderous, vicious thugs. They are part of a network of religious cults that would put the Moonies, Scientology and Jim Jones in the shade. Their poisonous ideology is reminiscent of the Blut und Stahl mindset of Nazi Germany, where ideology overrode basic humanity, allowing all manner of atrocities to occur. It’s the worst, most hermetically sealed, conspiracy laden, violent, misogynistic, racist, anti-human worldview of our time. ISIS/Daesh must be defeated.

The question is, how to defeat them.

There appears to be a small number of widely-held views, depending on which side of the political spectrum you lie on, that I call “placebo solutions”. The aim seems to be to address the feelings of those who espouse them, without actually dealing with the real problem.

On the political right, you have the “they are all the same” placebo solution. Under this idea, all Muslims are considered to be potential (or actual) terrorists, particularly the hapless refugees who have left their homes in Syria and Iraq in search of an uncertain future in foreign states. Right wingers want them scrutinised, vetted, isolated and thrown back to their own countries. In those lands, they want to bomb them into oblivion. All this in spite of overwhelming evidence that most Muslims and refugees are peace-loving ordinary people. Irish people should be well familiar with this mindset, given how we were viewed with suspicion during the murderous IRA campaigns of the 1970s and 80s.

Not only are these just salves for right-wing anger, they have the side-effect of further marginalising Muslims and pushing unemployed youths into the arms of the terrorists. It also creates local, reactionary terrorism – vigilante gangs whose lack of forethought is matched by their violence.

On the political left, you have the view that this terrorism is solely the creation of the West and that military action is never appropriate. the more conspiratorially minded would suggest that ISIS/Daesh is a creation of the West. That, instead of going to war against ISIS/Daesh, we need to understand the causes, maybe even pander to their views as if they had an equal place at the ideological table. This is to discount the fact that Salafism is a pretty hard-boiled system of thought at this stage. It is far more than a response to victimisation. The main focus of ISIS/Daesh wrath has not really been Westerners, but other Muslim sects and local groups, such as Yazidis and Kurds, with no record of imperialism and domination. In fact, local civilians have been, by far, the greatest victims of their outrages, thus the refugee crisis.

When threatened with war, countries have no choice but to use whatever means are at their disposal to protect their citizens and those who call their country home. War is an abomination, but what do you do when confronted by war from others? There is always a fine line to be tread between civil liberties and protection and in a peaceful society it should always veer towards personal liberty. But in times of war and evidence of real danger from an enemy force? What then? Just stand by and hold out flowers to them?

 

Placebo responses only help to sate pre-existing views. They do nothing to solve the problem. What we need are cool heads, better intelligence sharing, and intense co-ordination between multiple states. Strategies are needed to identify the ringleaders, destroy their ability to function and, ultimately, eliminate them. If ISIS/Daesh want to play war, then, for certain, our war professionals – generals and military experts – are more adept, more strategic, more networked and better resourced than any rag-tag bunch of terrorists could ever be. In situations such as what we are seeing, we need to let them get on with their jobs with a minimum of political interference.

Ultimately, the crucial objective is not really the elimination of ISIS/Daesh, although this is a necessary pre-condition. It’s the rebuilding afterwords and the creation of a long lasting peace that will allow people to return to their homelands. Hospitals, homes, schools, electricity, water – the basic services of life. Remove the threat, then rebuild. This is the big challenge for the civilised world if the peace is to be permanent.

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Categories opinions, politics

The Worst Idea Ever

November 15, 2015 //

Dear God,

You truly are the Worst Idea Ever.

 

Because of You, millions have gone to war.

Millions have died. because of You.

People torture In Your Name.

They inflict cruelty and suffering In Your Name.

And You know the worst thing?

These killers, these torturers, they sleep peacefully at night

Because of You.

 
 

You give us False Hope.

When it works out, you steal the success for Yourself.

When it doesn’t, we shoulder all the blame.

Instead of responding to Injustice,

You say, “It’ll be better in the next life”.

Or even worse, You say we will Burn Forever.

That’s a nice touch, God.

 
 

Because of You, whole groups of people

Come in second place,

Or third place, or forever last.

You don’t much like difference, do you God?

But money, power and privilege? Ah. That’s different.

Now I know your holy people say otherwise

But we all know how it works out.

 
 

So do us all a favour.

We can get by just fine without You.

We can sort out our own problems.

We can talk. We can compromise.

We can understand.

We can dream.

By listening to ourselves, and less to You,

We’ve made things better.

We’ve brought light to dark places.

And comfort for crying eyes.

 
 

You know what?

We can take it From Here.

 
 

So do us all a favour, God.

And begone.

You were never a Great Idea in the first place.

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Categories poetry

Welcome to the New Dark Ages

November 11, 2015 //

Picture the scene. It’s 2813 AD and a school class is reviewing the history from the 21st Century. The teacher begins the class with this statement. “The 21st Century is an interesting period in time, mainly because we know so little about it. In many cases, all we can do is speculate”.

What? The 21st Century? The Information Age? The age where we can receive the answers we need at the touch of a button? Where we share almost everything about ourselves on Facebook? Where one hour of footage is uploaded to YouTube every second? Where vast records are stored on each one of us by shadowy intelligence agencies and Internet businesses across the planet? How could this be?

Nevertheless, in 800 years time, little of this will remain. We don’t need to conjure up a great catastrophe for this to happen. The pace of technological change alone could render the records of our lives impenetrable and impossible to discover.

The Dark Ages – a period stretching roughly from 500 AD to 800 AD, is so called because records of this time, in Western Europe at least, are few and far between. The Western Roman Empire was at an end. Migrating tribes roamed the continent and fought each other bitterly in search of a new homeland. Bubonic plague decimated the population. Scholarship disappeared, with the result that almost all Europeans alive could neither read nor write. There are very few accounts of life in Europe during this time.

Literacy and numeracy were reintroduced to Europe mainly via the Islamic World and ever so slowly, books were written and record keeping began again in earnest. The Renaissance saw a re-kindling of learning and with the advent of the printing press, a bright light was shone into the people and the events of the times. Over the intervening centuries, with ever greater literacy and technology, this light has dramatically increased. Now, at the height of this illuminated age, all this knowledge may disappear into thin air rather rapidly.

Paper is by no means a perfect way to keep records, but it has the relative advantages of clarity and durability. In their basic form, books in the 13th century were not much different from books in the 19th Century. With a bit of luck, they might have avoided being set on fire or being destroyed by an iconoclast, allowing trained historians to read them and interpret them with relation to other books from the time.

But all this could now stop because we are now moving away from paper as a primary means of storing information. Instead, our records have moved to electronic media. Computers, laser disks, hard drives and distributed private server farms (aka the Cloud), now hold much of the information produced each day. More and more data is encrypted, meaning that even if you had the technology to read the data, you might not have the keys required to decipher the information. Most private companies will eventually fail, and with them their vast storage capabilities may go dark. Furthermore, the information is electronic and magnetic in nature, meaning that it may not have the permanence of ink on paper. A few magnetic storms or simply the effects of loss of charge over time may put paid to most of our electronic records in a relatively short period. 

Historians of future centuries will have a big problem on their hands, should paper disappear entirely over the coming decades. Ironically, they may need to look towards less advanced societies or communities to find primarily records from the past. Luddite paper loving hold-outs or impoverished societies on the far side of the digital divide might provide the only keys to the goings on in our century.

Of course archaeologists will have a field day, given the amount of non recyclable trash available to them. We’re a filthy lot, so they won’t have too many problems figuring out how we lived, or what we wore, drove or ate. It’s just that there may not be any voices from that time, adding colour to this picture. In the total absence of available records, we literally become prehistoric, like ancient Celtic or Germanic tribes. 

Paper is not quite dead yet, so I expect we are a long way from total darkness, but one thing is virtually certain: much of what we are recording today – the vast billions and trillions of megabytes recorded each day – will eventually go missing. We are an information rich, yet record poor, society. If we ignore this issue, it will reverberate down the generations. 

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