by Duncan Cary Palmer
(Special to nostr, 27 February 2025)
A decade or so ago, a dear friend expressed a longing to simplify her life. She spoke of eliminating superfluous household items, reducing reliance on technological devices, eliminating clutter, and other appropriate downsizing.
My thoughts about simplification are perhaps a little more Solomonic...
I've long been jealous of Solomon - at times, in the most juvenile of ways, picturing two or three new babes per night throughout the year... But, as I've, ahem, *matured* a little, *ahem*, my jealousy has been more focused on Solomon's *access to resources*...
What does that have to do with "simplicity?"
MY concept of simplicity is not the elimination of "stuff;" rather, the ability to keep my stuff under tight control, fully organized.
I remember my Grandma Tess, who introduced me to Jesus at a very tender age (five) and who loved me by telling me stories, taking me "gospel tracking," encouraging me in many ways, and especially praying for me... I recall Grandma saying to me "A place for everything, and everything in its place." That is something I have *struggled* with all my life!
I desperately want to have a large array of *tools* at hand; tools that enable me to implement my ideas. Over the last decade or so, I've worked to improve my tool situation; first, by building a workshop in the garage; later, a woodworking shop on the end of the driveway... And it's *still* not enough! I struggle *mightily* trying to keep the tools I have *organized!*
What I *really* want and need--and what makes me so jealous of Solomon--is access to *minions*.
The man had immense resources, including *minions* by the *thousands*--hey, if he could afford 700 wives and 300 concubines, I'm sure he had a *servant* or two, ya think?
Fast-forward to the 21st century, and I *do* have minions, of a kind... I have "thinking machines" that help me with my work and keep my reading matter, documents, and important papers from flooding my office. I have robots that help my better half keep the dishes and laundry clean. I imagine one day having even *more* robots to handle many other menial chores.
*Way* back in the '70s, when I was working as a maintenance man in a plastics factory, I recall agreeing with my colleagues that our jobs would *never* become obsolete. It seemed obvious that things would *always* break, wear out, gum up, or otherwise deteriorate, requiring our repair skills...
With the advent of AIs, however, that may one day no longer be true. AIs plus "replicators" (i.e. solid printers, CNC machine tools, etc.) may one day--rather than repair--simply use robots to disassemble, recycle as raw materials, and re-fabricate the broken, good as new...
Given replicators, we need not "keep things" all filed and sorted... we'll merely stock basic "raw materials," out of which our replicators can "build" the things we need--on demand--as needed.
I guess--for me--"simplicity" would be primarily a matter of far more tightly controlled organization; of truly having the "space" to store things in an organized fashion; of having robots to "deal with" keeping track of things for me; of keeping my personal space uncluttered and restful; of off-loading menial tasks, so as to afford the maximum time for social interaction, for family time, and for me to do what I did yesterday; namely spend hours with my granddaughter out on the lake, teaching her and making her laugh and teasing her and loving her towards a happy future womanhood.
I also think of Bob Heinlein's stories--like "He Built A Crooked House"--in which he imagined tesseract houses, and spacecraft that have larger *insides* than *outsides*, interior space folded in interesting and very useful ways. Cool ideas.
I recall another among my favorite Sci-Fi series, the "Heeche" novels by Fredrick Pohl. In them, the protagonist has programmed his AI to appear as a holographic Einstein... an "electronic amanuensis" who accesses information and keeps track of everything for him. *I WANT THAT*! I *need* an amanuensis to facilitate my life, to deal with all the myriad and niggling and otherwise troubling details, thus *freeing me up* to concentrate on the technical and design problems du jour...
*SOME DAY*--in the Glory, if not before--*I SHALL HAVE* all of this, along with friends at my side to collaborate!, and THEN the universe will be "my oyster," and some *amazing* things will begin to happen...
Until then, I'll just have to muddle along as well as I am able.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think in the thread below...