R.I.P. 2011

[frigidmagi]

"IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,"

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

I feel the partial quotation above sums up 2011. This was the best of years and the worse of years. An age of active wisdom and passive foolishness, as well as the reverse. There was idealistic hope and cynical despair. There was an Arab spring and an Winter of American Discontent. We have everything before us, or we have nothing left. Perhaps it's like that every year (excluding my topical little references) and I've only now noticed. I'm told in our universe everything is possible even if it is not probable.

It is to early for an effective After Action Report on the year of our Lord 2011, and that is not the idea behind this post. This post stands as the first impression so to speak of what will surely be a year to remember. A year where status quos were changed, governments brought down, movements suppressed and odd events abounded. As always good things and bad things happened, tragedies were displayed alongside triumphs. I'd like to beg your indulgence and cover over the biggest ones.

In North Africa and the Middle East we saw people that everyone has discounted and believed to be of no moment to history rise up and shake the pillars of their world. They did not do for the West, they did not do it for the Jews, they did for the best of reasons, they did for themselves. It is the only reason that is likely to make it stick. In many cases they did it alone. Nor have these events played out, in Syria the contest continues. Meanwhile in Tunsia, Libya, Egypt and elsewhere people are for the first time in generations deciding what liberty will mean to them. I wish them joy in it.

Nor would these rises be restricted to the middle east, as of my writing, thousands have gathered in Russia to protest a corrupt election and are firmly declaring ENOUGH! Whether that is enough to change the course of their government and nation is for 2012 to say.

South Sudan became an independent state. I wish them well.

Japan was hit by one of the greatest disasters in human history, one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded followed by a tsunami. Our support and best wishes remain with the Japanese people.

Osama Bin Lauden arch terrorist, murderer, radical and humorously named hide and seek champion of the world was slain by navy SEALs down the street from Pakistan's best known military academy. It was a long time coming.

The first artificial organ transplant was carried out in July of last year, an artificially created windpipe with a coating of stem cells.

Norway suffered it's worse terrorist attack in decades, carried out by a home grown lunatic who murdered children in sick fantasy of martyrdom in the name of Christ. I know no words of sufficient comfort to abate the sorrow of those who buried their children because of this.

Evidence of liquid water was discovered on Mars.

Occupy Wall Street arrived on the scene and would spread across the nation, even drawing out thousands into the winter of Boise Idaho of all places. Their final impact... Is yet unwritten.

The United States of America withdrew it's military from Iraq. For better or worse our battles there are over.

King Jong Ill is dead.

As we speak two drones launched by NASA are mapping gravity on the moon.

This year has given us heroes, martyrs, villains, and victims. We have seen the spread of freedom and the iron fist of tyrants. It has been a rollercoaster of a year. R.I.P, 2011 you were many things to many people and will be remembered as such, but you will not be remembered as boring.

May we all, Arab and Jew, American and Russian, European and Chinese and Everyone Else see better days ahead.

[Soontir948]

If I may add a bit. The worst national soccer team, American Samoa, won their first official game after 30 losses 2-1 against Tonga with a transgender player no less.

[Josh]

The continued expansion of drone warfare is the stealth trend of '11. I don't personally hold out a lot of hope for the Arab Spring to bring a lasting reform of the governments involved and OWS hasn't been able to coalesce around a meaningful step forward, minor blips like the port shutdown notwithstanding. The former is running into the disease of revolutions everywhere, the new boss is likely to be the same as the old boss. OWS on the other hand is demonstrating an acute lack of understanding of history with their attempts at direct democracy.

However, the increased use of drones for American military intervention is a key sign of what's coming in the future. Right now we're still seeing blended interventions such as Libya, but once we can really ramp up in terms of committing force without risk to American personnel we're going to be in everyone's business more than ever. It won't matter who's president, and it bodes poorly in terms of having any sort of electorate oversight. Especially as we diversify the drone arsenal toward terminator-esque capabilities over time.

Speaking of Terminator, the Predator drones sure make those HKs look even more ridiculous these days. Skynet deserved to lose because Skynet was dumb.

[General Havoc]

An awful, useless, waste of a year that I am glad to see the end of. One that I will not miss. Nor shall I miss the analyses that I was subjected to every day of that year whose sole object was the infliction of misery upon my and others' persons under the guise of cynicism and commiseration. One of my resolutions this year was to put up with these things no longer, irrespective of what and who might be displeased with such a thing. As such, permit me to disagree:

The Arab Spring need only result in a single country with a government mildly more responsive to its people than the gerontocrats that ruled the nations in question previously for it to make unheard of progress. It has already appeared to do that much in several countries. One cannot selectively declare that because every country has not instantly formed a western democracy, that therefore the Arab Spring is a flash in the pan and of no importance, at least not if one wishes to be perceived as anything but someone who employs cynicism as a means of feigning intellectualism.

A similar concept can be applied to OWS. This is not some corporation who can go bankrupt and disappear because they failed to meet Q4 numbers. The people who support OWS have not gone anywhere, nor has the message become less relevant. The simple fact that OWS did not, in the six months it has existed, succeed in completely re-writing society from the ground up, does not render it non-existent or unimportant.

As to Steath Drones, I admit that I am unsurprised to find that you, having in one breath dismissed all evidence to the contrary as meaningless, now defined 2011 as the year wherein democracy and freedom died, due to the continued use of unmanned drones, a project that has been fully operational for the better part of a decade. I could speculate on the axes being ground here, of course, but that would fall outside the bounds of fair play.

2011 was the year wherein I decided that such sentiments were no longer acceptable to me as matters to leave lying. If that is truly all you got from the year that has just passed, sir, then I am deeply sorry for you.

[frigidmagi]

I would suggest that both of you take a deep breath and go to your corners. This is not the forum for political debates just to start with.

That said, I will note my own opinion is that it is to early to make any sweeping pronouncements about OCW or the Arab Spring. Everyone has two choices of value, get involved or wait and see.

[Josh]

Heh. No worries, FM. I don't bother with political arguments anymore.

Few clarifications: I didn't declare either the Arab Spring or OWS dead and defunct. I said that I don't hold out much hope for their long-term viability. It's not an axe to grind because as the years go by, I get less and less political. I'm simply interested in trends. I barely care who's president or whether team red or team blue controls congress.

As for the drones, I was referring to a stealth trend, not stealth drones. In other words, the trend to use them for interventions in lieu of riskier and more attention-gathering troop commitments is going to continue to ramp up. What is troubling about that particular trend is that it allows for a hands-off interventionist policy that will the US government entangled in any number of affairs with minimal public interest. It's not the death of democracy by any stretch, it's just something that follows along a well established path- the US public doesn't care who the government kills so long as we're not racking up significant casualties on our side.

General Havoc: As for your resolution to oppose cynical dismissals, good for you. Cool nihilism is all the rage these days and it's made discussions poisonous. A significant number of people can't wait to be the first one to dismiss the hot new trend and demonstrate that they're nonconformists like all their friends. When they're not doing that, they're running around taking a shit on any positive topic they find and being belligerently negative.

On what I found positive last year, I'll point to the fact that potentially significant progress has been made all over the place in the medical sector, ranging from cloned organs to hopeful signs in potential cures for both diabetes and cancer. That is certainly some awesome news.

[General Havoc]

*Sigh* My apologies. That was an ill-considered reply on my part. My tolerance for even perceived cynicism has eroded to nothing over the last year.

[Josh]

It's all good.

Personally, I am a cynic on a lot of things and especially a lot of political matters these days, which is why I don't bother engaging much on them. But there's a difference between being cynical and being hip-dismissive and the latter is currently the in thing in various places. I hate that crap with a passion because it's an affected air of being above the fray and being so much 'smarter than all those sheeple' and so on. It finds expression in sarcastic rhetorical questions and smug one-liners that don't actually contribute to discussions. It throttles progress because anybody who dares think that something can be accomplished becomes decidedly uncool and naive.

So believe me, I get you and I appreciate where you're coming from. That said, I do prefer to leaven idealism with realism. I've seen people get excited about things that they feel are paradigm shifts or world-changing events that fizzle into impotence within weeks, months, or a few years. So you have to look at movements and trends and compare them against historically relevant events. It's bitch-hard to project what's going to succeed, but a lot of times you can look at things and see where they have the marks of failure.

[Josh]

Another item that was demonstrated in 2011 was the automation of construction processes:

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This was a relatively "simplistic" display in terms of what can be built at present, but it heralds the automation of the future.

[Batman]

'Relative' as in 'stuff human labour could do 6000 years ago. Effortlessly.'
Get back to me when those things can build a skyscraper that way. Also, what's the battery life on those things?

[Josh]

'Relative' as in 'stuff human labour could do 6000 years ago. Effortlessly.'
Get back to me when those things can build a skyscraper that way. Also, what's the battery life on those things?

Get back to you in twenty years then?

If you have a master charging station where they can just drop off the old battery and get a freshly charged one, I don't see battery life being an issue. Right now it's all proof of concept, but looking at the work being done and I look at the work I've done in my life and easily most of it goes automated within my lifetime.

Driving? Google's already done proof of concept on their autonomous driving system, it just needs refinement. Interestingly, the work being done with these quadcopter's directly applies to a city-wide driving grid system, where vehicles can run autonomously on their own parameters, then switch to a traffic control system when they come close enough to other vehicles to need management.

Construction-type work likewise goes out the window.

Basically we're approaching an epoch where a lot of manual labor work goes over to automation. From a health and safety standpoint, hell, that's one of our top goals. Bent and leaky metal is always better than bent and leaky people. From the business standpoint, 'bots don't go on strike. So there's a lot of incentive to develop in this direction. So we really are living in the midst of the rise of the machines.

Certain work will stay human labor- Allen's probably safe for a while, because H2S plays merry hell with sensitive gear and people can presently be protected more easily than machinery. Obviously service-based jobs will still be in play. But right now the main advantage people have is flexibility, and as these systems develop that edge will evaporate.

I'm not being apocalyptic about it, it's the progress of humanity and technology. But how we adapt to the new labor environment is going to be a major story of the coming century.

...I'll try to stop dragging the thread off-topic now.

[Josh]

On the definitely positive side, that traffic control system they developed for the quads does raise the possibility that we'll all get our flying cars someday.

[Batman]

'Someday' likely meaning sometime after we moved to Alpha Centauri because I don't see it happening before that. (Not that I see us developing the technology to get to Alpha Centauri anytime soon and yes, it likely doesn't have any inhabitable planets anywhere so maybe it's not the best idea. I'm just offering options.)

[Josh]

Seriously, you don't think that we could develop automated systems to handle prefab construction work as well or better than humans in a conceivable timeframe? Obviously there'd be more involved than little gnat choppers running about, but what functional construction tasks do you think are beyond the capacity of automation? Cement laying? Beam placement? Interior finishing? Plumbing?

Would the limitations be functional/mechanical or in terms of system 'intelligence'?

[Batman]

The (needlessly cynical I admit) reaction was mostly towards the 'flying cars', which have been 'just around the corner' since the 1950s, just like useful fusion power. And if it turns out I was wrong, I look like an idiot (which I do a lot of the time anyway) and nobody's harmed (except possibly my pride, and the very fact that I still have any means it can take a beating ). I'm dubious because a lot of projects that at the 'proof of concept' stage looked positively awesome turned out not to scale particularly well, either financially or technologically. Feel free to laugh at me if this actually turns out to work for something useful.

[Josh]

Aaaaah, okay.

The flying cars are my pipe dream Bats, and you've had 'em since practically the fifties so it's only fair you share.

[Batman]

I've had planes (and, occasionally, space vehicles) to make NASA/USAF/general aviation drool with envy since practically forever, but I don't think I've had a flying car before Batman Beyond (at which point everybody had them.)