THERE IS AN INFINITE NUMBER OF PRIME NUMBERS, BUT THEY GET MORE RARE AS THEY GET LARGER

By Tom Kando
   

On. Feb. 12, 2011, I wrote a post on prime numbers: Prime Numbers, Large Numbers. This topic still fascinates me.
 
A prime number is a whole number that can only be divided by 1 and by itself. Or put differently, prime numbers cannot be divided by any other whole number without leaving a  fraction. For example, the four prime numbers below ten are: 2, 3, 5, 7. Beyond that, no even number can be a prime.  Nor can any number ending on  5, since all such numbers can be divided by 5.
One fascinating aspect of prime numbers is that they seem to obey no other law than that of chance, and that nobody can predict what the next higher - and not yet discovered - prime number will be!

Back in 2009, the largest prime number ever discovered (by the Greater Internet Mersenne Prime Search Research Project) was:   2 to the power  43,112,609 minus 1. This is a number with almost 13 million decimal digits.
Since then, the same researchers have gone much further. As of early 2014, the largest known  prime is 2 to the power 57,885,161 minus 1. This number has nearly 17 and a half million digits. To write it out would require 6,000 pages, or twenty 300-page long books. For more information about   prime numbers, see: prime numbers

* * * *

The way  to  find out  whether a number is a prime:
First, as I just told you, no even number, nor any number ending on 5, can be a prime. So the only candidates to be  prime numbers  are those  that end on 1,3,7 or 9. This already reduces your task by 60%.
But then, you have to  factorize: That is, when you try to determine whether a number is a prime or not, you must “decompose” it and find its  factors that are prime (indivisible). For example, take 87: It is divisible by two prime numbers:  3 (and  29). Therefore 87 is not a prime.

Now try to factorize 89: is it divisible by 3? No. By 7? No. By 9? No. Etc. 89 turns out to be a prime.

Here  are the  25 primes under 100:  2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47 53 59 61 67 71 73 79 83 89 97.

As you get into large numbers, factorization becomes tediously time-consuming. The good news is that there are many prime number calculators on the Internet, for example: calculator,  which you can use up to nearly four and a half billion.

* * * *

Here is  one of the most fascinating aspects of prime numbers: There is an INFINITE amount  of them, but at the same time, they become more and more rare as you move up the  sequence of natural numbers. This is something you suspect  right away, even just looking at the  first few hundred numbers: For example, here is how many prime numbers there are  under 500:    
from 1 to 100: 25
101 to 200:    21
201 to 300:    16
301 to 400:     17
401 to 500:     16

The diminishing number of primes is called the Prime Number Theorem (PNT).


Mathematicians have  known this  for  hundreds of  years. For example, Carl Friedrich Gauss -  of the famous Gaussian (normal) distribution -  studied and  confirmed this theorem in 1791, at the age of 14.

Mathematicians say that “the distribution of primes is ASYMPTOTIC.”  This means that  the curve approaches zero as it tends towards infinity. In other words,  it never touches zero, and its slope is curvilinear, declining ever more slowly. See: https://www.google.com/#q=asymptotic+curve

I just wanted to SEE the  asymptotic distribution of prime numbers with my own eyes, so I examined some tables showing  the density of primes as you go up the sequence of natural numbers. Here is what I found:

below 10, there are 4 prime numbers =    40 per 100
below 100:     25                                 =    25 per 100
below 1,000:     138                            =    14 per 100
below 10,000:  1,229                          =    12 per 100
below 100,000:  9,592                        =    10 per 100
below 1 million:  78,498                    =       8 per 100 
below 10 million : 664,579                =       7 per 100
below 100 million:  5,761,455           =       6 per 100
below 1 billion:  50,847,534              =       5 per 100
below 10 billion: 455,052,511           =       4.6 per 100
Etc.
See: questions about prime numbers

So it’s clear that prime numbers become more rare as you go up the series of natural numbers. Also,  the DECLINE in the frequency of prime numbers slows down.

Mathematicians say that the frequency  reaches zero in infinity or at the “limit.” In other words, there NEVER comes  a number, no matter how unimaginably large, beyond which there are  zero primes, or only one, or only a finite amount of them, even though they are spaced further and further apart, which is what makes finding them  increasingly difficult, even with the most powerful computers.

I find it incredibly weird that there are immense numbers out there which are indivisible, in other words, quantities  of just ONE  piece, without ANY component parts.

© Tom Kando 2014

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AMERICAN VIOLENCE: GUNS AND PARANOIA.

By Tom Kando
 
It happens with uncanny regularity. We have become inured to it, to the point of boredom.  On May 23, there was another mass murder: the Santa Barbara college student Elliot Rodger killed half a dozen people and then himself.

Right away, people are asked for and offer comments, for example  Michael Moore, journalist Charles Pierce  and myself. Moore’s best-know film is “Bowling for Columbine,” the 2002 movie about a Colorado mass murder which  also took place in a school. Pierce has often written about social issues for Esquire.  I taught criminology  at the university for decades.

Do we, “experts,”  have  answers about mass mayhem in America?  Maybe not. But there are important things to be said, misconceptions to be cleared up:

Michael Moore:
“I no longer have anything to say about what is now part of normal American life...: We are a people easily manipulated by fear which causes us to arm ourselves with a quarter BILLION guns in our homes that are often easily accessible to young people, burglars, the mentally ill and anyone who momentarily snaps...The gun, not the eagle, is our true national symbol. While other countries have more violent pasts (Germany, Japan), more guns per capita in their homes (Canada), and the kids in most other countries watch the same violent movies and play the same violent video games that our kids play, no one even comes close to killing as many of its own citizens on a daily basis as we do -- and yet we don't seem to want to ask ourselves this simple question: "Why us? What is it about US?" Nearly all of our mass shootings are by angry or disturbed white males. Even when 90% of the American public calls for stronger gun laws, Congress refuses -- and then we the people refuse to remove them from office. So the onus is on us, all of us. Enjoy the rest of your day, and rest assured this will all happen again very soon (Michael Moore, Facebook, May 24)

Charles Pierce:
“At the beginning of this Memorial Day weekend, another American decided to make war on his fellow Americans....This is a country now at war with itself... for profit... Because its ruling elite is  too bribed or too cowardly to recognize that there are people who are getting rich arming both sides, because the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, so you make sure that it's easy for the bad guys to get guns in order to make millions selling the guns to the good guys. This is a dynamic not unfamiliar to the people in countries where... civil wars are kept alive because distant people are making a buck off them. In Africa, war is made over diamonds and rare earths. In South America, war is made over cocaine. Here, for any number of reasons - because Adam Lanza went crazy or because Elliot Rodger couldn't get laid - and the only constant in all those wars is the fact somebody gets rich arming both sides.
This is a country at war with itself because cynical people have told its citizens that their fellow citizens - all of them, because you can never tell, can you? -- are the enemy. This  is a guerrilla war, fought on darkened streets against children in hoodies brandishing Skittles, against children in cars who play their music too loudly.....Our movie theaters are our Wheatfields, our Peach Orchards, or our Bloody Lanes. A quiet college campus is the Hornet's Nest. An elementary school is Cemetery Ridge. Those are the killing zones. The enemy, we are told, is everywhere, and nowhere

This is the country that Wayne LaPierre, that malignant profiteer, talks about when he says, at he did at a conservative conference last spring:

    In this uncertain world, surrounded by lies and corruption, there is no greater freedom than the right to survive, to protect our families with all the rifles, shotguns and handguns we want. We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and car-jackers and  rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all. I ask you. Do you trust this government to protect you?

Wayne LaPierre gets paid when his masters sell guns to the bad guys. Wayne LaPierre gets paid when his masters sell guns to the good guys because of the guns he's already arranged to sell to the bad guys.(The Country is at War with Itself)

In July2012, I wrote an article about Colorado Mass Murderer James Holmes, also focusing on the role of guns.

So let me cut to the chase, dispel  some  misconceptions, and give you some facts:

1. Violence is DOWN - both in the US and in the world at large. Historically, humanity has become gradually less violent in the long run, as have Americans  in the short run: Today, the US murder rate is less than HALF what it was  a generation ago - under 5 per 100,000 vs. Over 10 per 100,000 in the late 1980s.

2. Race: Young white males may commit the brunt of these spectacular  SPREES (many of them occurring in schools, from elementary to universities), but the vast majority of the perpetrators AND THE VICTIMS of  murder   are people of color. The vast majority of murder consists of violence WITHIN  families and within your own group.  Crime is far more strongly associated with social class than  with race. Elliot Rodger, by the way was (part) Asian-American.

3. At the same time, US rates of deadly violence remain  shamefully  high compared to the  rest of the post-industrial world - Canada, Japan, Korea,  Australia, Europe, etc.

4. All of which goes to prove that Pierce, Moore and I are right:

What IS unique to America  is not our high rate of gun ownership, or our high rate of untreated mental illness, or an unprecedented high murder rate. What distinguishes us,  is  our extremely high level of PARANOIA. This is  fostered  by the media and by  the likes of Wayne  La Pierre and the NRA: Paranoia about  everyone, about our neighbors, about the artificially and vastly overblown threat of crime and terrorism. We have been made paranoid by the powers-that-be. Whether it be Communists, Muslims or street criminals, there MUST be groups out there whom we must fear,  hate and be ready to kill in self-defense. This attitude is much more pronounced here than just about anywhere else.

© Tom Kando 2014

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LEARNING FROM COLORADO MASS MURDERER JAMES HOLMES?

By Tom Kando

    I wasn’t going to write about this. It’s already been overkill by the media, and there isn’t much left to say.

    But e-mails and  articles keep coming my way. Plus: I taught criminology for 30 years. I went to international conferences and published on this subject many times (see for example Tom Kando's publications. I covered gun control issues for decades.

    The gun control arguments have been made ad nauseam, but nothing ever changes.

    Marcos Breton says excellent thing in the  July 22 edition of the Sacramento Bee.  He reminds us of  well-known NRA-sponsored  clichés like  - “guns don’t kill people, people kill people;” “we don’t ban spoons and forks because people are obese,” etc.

    I can add to this idiotic list: “more people are killed by cars than by guns, so how about banning cars?” “If we ban guns, people will easily  kill you with knives and other things...”

    And the “guns don’t kill people” proponents always bring up places like Switzerland, Israel, Washington D.C., New York, Florida: The Swiss and the Israelis are heavily armed, but their murder rates are very low. New York and D.C. have some of the toughest gun control laws, yet also some of the highest rates of homicide. When Florida’s gun laws  became more permissive, gun deaths were said  to have declined. And so on and on, the abuse of selective statistics, spurious correlations  and absurd arguments...

    Breton points out the obvious: it’s not “guns or no guns?” but “what TYPE of guns?” and “used by WHOM?” James Holmes buys 6,000 rounds of ammo and  no alarm bell goes off?  Assault weapons in every garage?  All these things have been said a million times, but don’t hold your breath waiting for  significant change.  The stranglehold which the NRA and a certain mind set have over politics and public opinion will never slacken. What’s the point of mentioning the obvious again?

    US: 16,000 murders per year, of which 13,000 are  by guns.
    UK: 600 murders per year, of which are 60 by guns.

    But the US is 5 times larger than the UK, so we are entitled to 5 times more murders. That would be  3,000! Not the 16,000 which we DO have!

    “But if we ban guns, people will use knives, etc.  instead...” See previous paragraphs. It’s a lot harder to kill with a knife or with your fists.

    This guy Marc has a brilliant blog  essay “Jimmy Homes, Superhero?” A lot of sarcasm, but  his conclusion should not be misunderstood. He is on the same page as I am: GUNS  DO KILL PEOPLE!


    You can substitute dozens of other countries for “UK” in the above comparison. The discrepancy remains  equally appalling - if not worse.  For instance, Japan had 300 murders last year, that’s half Britain’s number  and 53 times  (!) fewer than in the US. (Japan’s population is twice that  of Britain and a little less than half ours). Of Japan’s 300 annual murders, 10 (!) were by gun!

    Actually, I am a bit surprised by the huge  brouhaha about the recent Aurora killings. 12 deaths are tragic, but murder goes on unabated every day. As I open the morning newspaper, I’d say that  just about every other day our region experiences 1 or 2 murders (90% through guns).  We are a mid-sized city, but we have more murders annually than the average mid-sized  European COUNTRY, and  almost as many as Japan!

    Like Breton, I’ll put in a disclaimer to show you that I am not a zealot: I own a rifle. It’s tucked  away safely, and it’s not leaving my house, ever.  I don’t advocate dogma, just common sense.  Someone very dear to me just said it: “Gun control is a duh thing.” The NRA is wrong. Case closed.

© Tom Kando 2014

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IS BICYCLE RACING A TRUE SPORT?

By Tom Kando
 
    A few years ago,  I was surfing through various sports channels and I happened to catch a few minutes of something on one of the ESPN channels: There was the usual panel of sports commentators, discussing some major American sport (football, basketball or baseball, I forget), the current season, or whatever. The panelists were the usual assortment of ex-athletes, recruited from the ranks of retired NFL or  NBA stars - you know people like Cris Collinsworth, the former Cincinnati star wide receiver, Charles Barkley, the former Phoenix power forward, etc.

    A few of these sportscasters  are annoying, almost obnoxious. Take Charles Barkley, and some of what I saw on national television on this occasion.
    First of all, let me say that I have always found “Sir Charles” somewhat of an oaf. He is always grouchy.  He always  looks and talks angry. He seems to exude contempt for whomever he talks to, and for whatever topic he happens to be discussing. Smart and sometimes funny, yes, that he can be. But simpatico? Not to me.
    And so on  this occasion, you know what he and his two  or three acolytes at the desk in the TV studio were  discussing? Well, one of them (I believe  it was Barkley) proposed to set up a seminar, a panel discussion, with speakers arguing both the pros and the cons of the question,  and you know what the topic would be? This:

    IS BICYCLING (.E.G. THE TOUR DE FRANCE) A SPORT OR NOT?

    Now this really infuriated me - even if these four or five American sports commentators were speaking in jest. Because here are some aspects of bicycle racing which are relevant to what they were doing on that day, and to my anger about it:
   
    (1) Bicycle racing is one of the most grueling, excruciating, and skillful sports on the planet.

    (2) The Tour de France is the longest and most demanding athletic event in the world, watched by the largest live audience on earth. It is a 2500 mile race, in which 200 athletes cover 100 to 200 miles EVERY day, for nearly a month. Have you ever ridden 100 or 200 miles on your bike without stopping? I bet  you can’t. Well, these guys do this - every day, 25 days in a row.  They are in the saddle for five to six hours EVERY DAY. And they AVERAGE speeds of 30 or more miles per  hour, for the entire day. In the mountains, there are  uphill climbs that go on for 10 to 20 miles at a 15% angle, with no flat or downhill interrupting the endless climbs.
    I sometimes take a bike ride in the foothills of the California Sierra. I do a 60-mile loop, with a couple of two-mile climbs.  At my best, I can average 15 miles per hour for the whole ride, and that
nearly kills me.
    The Superbowl, the World Series and the NBA finals are picnics compared to the Tour de France.

    (3) the great bicycle champions - Indurain, Armstrong, etc. - are genetic freaks. (They may have  cheated with drugs, but so do most baseball players).   Their heart rate at rest is in the 20s. They don’t feel the pain of lactic acid when it accumulates in their muscles. Etc.
    (4) At the same time, professional bike racers tend be thin little men, weighing 120 to 150 pounds, they wear tight outfits that show bulging testicles, etc. So to idiots like Charles Barkley and some of my redneck American friends, they are figures of fun.

    (5) Bicycle racing has not been a patriotic all-American sport, like football, basketball, baseball or boxing. To stupid people, then, it is not MANLY. It is “faggy.”

    (6) Finally, there are practically no black bicycle racers. The last one I can remember is the North-African Zaff, in the 1950s.

    Thus, a sport that is almost totally  white and  practiced almost entirely by  funny-looking little Europeans  is easy prey to the ridicule of American bigots, including black American bigots.

    In reality, the sport is arguably far more demanding than the major American sports, yet this group of ESPN sportscasters  had the gall to suggest a panel discussion to determine once and for all whether the Tour de France should qualify as an athletic event.

    Here is my retort: let’s determine whether the World Series, the Superbowl and the NBA finals are true sports events. They are  probably all fixed by crooked referees, and no more real than World Federation Wrestling.

© Tom Kando 2014
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IS BELIEVING IN GOD BELIEVABLE?

By Tom Kando

The main reason not to believe in God is that there are better explanations for what happens around us, what happens to us, what happens in the world, what happens in nature. It’s called SCIENCE

Now many of you might say: “But wait a minute, science can’t explain everything.”   True. There is an infinite number of things which science cannot explain. But science makes progress. In ancient Rome,  just about everything that happened - storms that shipwrecked boats, defeat or victory  in battle, the wind,  illness, death during child delivery - all these things were  attributed to the Gods. We now laugh at this. Similarly, many things which we do not (yet) understand today will be scientifically explainable in the future. At least, most reasonable people today no longer attribute events to the Gods.

You could say that the  belief in scientific explanations is a FAITH, too, not unlike the faith of those who believe in God. I suppose you are right.

A funny comedian recently said that atheists reject God’s existence because no one ever SEES God. According to atheists, this comedian  said,  since you can’t see God, he doesn’t exist. And then he  made fun of atheists, saying that he hadn’t yet seen  the movie “Twelve Years a Slave,” but that this did not  mean that the movie does not exist. Haha. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Okay.  I get  it.

I’ll grant you that I can’t PROVE that God doesn’t exist. Call me an agnostic, not an atheist.

Another problem with the idea of  God: What do you MEAN  by God? A bearded old  man sitting on a cloud?  The all powerful  yin-and-yang  cosmic force of the universe? The first Cause? Something else?

I don’t have a problem with some of the more abstract  versions of God. But I find the Christian biblical God a ridiculous concept.

It also seems that  the currently  dominant Muslim conception of God is really bad, judging by the violent political extremism to which it leads at this time. However, I know nothing about Islam and the Koran, so I limit my remarks to the Judeo-Christian God.

The ancient testament is replete with primitive fairy tales such as the story of Samson and the parting of the Red Sea. These narratives are  cultural treasures, to be sure, no less valuable than Homer’s Iliad. However, belief in their literal veracity is childish. Yet millions of people  do believe in their  veracity,  like children who believe in Santa Claus and  Donald Duck. The Ancient Testament has been a trove for Hollywood, because the mental age of the audience to which it caters is that of a child.
 
And then came Christianity and the new testament. It all began with what appears, historically, to be  a gifted, charismatic, brave and moral revolutionary.  To be sure, there have been others. Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Albert Schweitzer, Mother Theresa, to name a few.


The enduring power of Christianity is puzzling. After 2,000 years, it continues to control a quarter of humanity.

Yet think about it: No sooner was Jesus dead than things started going downhill, making a mess of his legacy: the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were composed  many years after Jesus’ death. That is where the  nonsense about walking on water, resurrecting the dead and creating  loaves and fishes began to sprout. And then things got worse: Roman civilization was followed by a dark theocracy based on  superstition, ignorance and  corruption. Yet Christianity, which should have  disappeared in the dustbin of history, survived the Renaissance and the Age of Reason. Today, it is alive and well, adhered to by hundreds of millions of people, some of whom see Mary’s face on veils and on  potato chips. Puzzling indeed.

And then, there is the HARM that organized religions such as Christianity and Islam have caused. If you were to add the number of deaths caused by religious conflict in the world, it would exceed that of any other cause. Have atheists killed many people? I suppose atheistic  Communism (in Russia,  China, Cambodia and elsewhere) has a very bloody hand.  But all in all, the belief in God still ranks as one of the greatest sources of bloodshed  in  history.

So these are some of the reasons for rejecting religion.

© Tom Kando 2014

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DJIMON

By Tom Kando
 
    In October, my wife Anita and I took a  taxi from our Paris hotel on the  Boulevard Saint Jacques to the Gare de Lyon, to  take  the train to the  South of France.
               
    The taxi driver picked us up around nine in the morning. He was a big,  talkative young  man from the Cote d’Ivoire. Looked a lot like Djimon Hounsou, the handsome actor in the movie Gladiator. These days, the  probability that you’ll be driven by a (native) French taxi driver in Paris is nil. The city has become so “diverse,” there are very few  Frenchmen left who live there,  plus the taxi business in all cities always attracts a lot of  immigrants from poorer countries. The last half dozen times we took a cab in Paris, the drivers were from Algeria, Ukraine, Senegal, Cap Verde, Morocco (a woman) and now the Ivory Coast. 

    These drivers were all  friendly and  colorful, and today’s man - we’ll call him Djimon - is no exception. He hits the boulevard like the 24-hour Le Mans race track. Anita is petrified, but I am enjoying it. Back home in California, Anita always accuses me of driving too wildly. Yet compared to Djimon, I drive like a octogenarian woman on Valium.
    However, to Anita’s delight, the morning Paris  traffic lives up to its reputation, i.e. we are soon stuck in jams so monumental as to make those on L.A. freeways pale in comparison. Luckily, our train isn’t scheduled to leave until noon, and  the railroad station is only four miles away. At times, we stand still long enough for Anita and me to get out of the cab and buy ourselves a café au lait at a nearby sidewalk café.
    So Djimon’s driving isn’t hair-raising after all. Still, his maneuvers and his communications with other drivers keep the situation interesting. I have long noticed that the primary rule for successful Paris driving is to always take advantage of any available open space whatsoever, even if it’s only a couple of centimeters. Thus, if you can squeeze between two other cars with zero space left, you must do it, and do it tout de suite, or else someone else will, and you’ll never move forward. If you occasionally miscalculate and you don’t quite fit in, no big deal, just one more scratch or dent on your Peugeot or Citroen. I don’t recall the last time I saw an unscratched or undented car in Paris.

    Just as Djimon begins to back up his honking at another taxi with some four-letter verbal argumentation, his phone rings. Good, I tell myself. That’ll distract him from the  incipient traffic altercation.
    Judging from Djimon’s reaction, the caller is a woman, and it’s about an alleged unpaid bill. Djimon explodes: “Hey Madame, I paid that bill a long time ago, and I can prove it! foutez-moi la
paix!( f..... you!)”
    However, the lady persists, and she threatens with collection, legal action, and even jail and expulsion back to Africa.

    Then, just what I had been afraid of,  happens: Djimon turns around from behind the wheel and addresses us, trying to involve us in his problem. “They are  threatening me!” he announces in a booming voice. “They  want me to pay  bill which  already paid!” He starts telling us some incomprehensible story, interlaced with outcries like,  “It’s outrageous! Merde to all Frenchmen, Merde to all Europeans!  You  all a bunch of racists!”

    “How terrible,” I say, doing my very best to sound sympathetic, “...actually, we are not from here...”
    Djimon goes  back to  shouting at the woman on the phone. He tells her that he is driving over to their office right now  to teach them a lesson, and he hangs up.

    Shit! Is he taking us with him on the warpath, instead of the railroad station? I begin to plan our escape. I tell Anita to get ready to jump out of the car at the next stoplight or the next traffic jam, whichever comes first. But what about our baggage in the trunk?

    The phone rings again. Same woman. She has switched to the appeasement mode, saying, “Monsieur Djimon, I am just a secretary doing my job. We’ll research the matter. Don’t worry, we wont take any action. You don’t have to come over to the office now.”

    Suddenly Djimon’s face shows the biggest smile I ever saw. The storm blows over as quickly  as it blew in. He turns to us again and says, beaming,  “Ha! You see, all you have to do is be brave! Little people cannot allow  Frenchmen to step everywhere  on  us!” and then he asks, “you not Frenchman?  You come from where ?”

    “California,” I confess with apprehension, knowing how hostile much of the world is to Americans. If Djimon hates the French, he must hate Americans even more, I surmise. On the other hand, it has long been a principle of mine to never apologize for or hide the fact that I am an American. I find  Americans who travel in Europe and say that they are Canadians despicable cowards.

    But I am pleasantly surprised. As soon as Djimon finds out where we are from, he exudes admiration: “Oh bravo! La Californie, c’est magnifique! San Francisco!  Golden Gate Bridge!
One day I  go to America. It is  promised land!”

    And then, a brilliant idea hits him: “I come and visit you, okay? My wife and children  stay in your house, and in return, you come and stay in my family  house  in the Cote d’Ivoire, yes? My father has  big house in Abidjan. We go back  every year. You know Cote d’Ivoire? Is very beautiful. You come and be our guest. We eat very good food, you stay as long as you want, yes?”
                                                               
    “Hmm...” Anita and I aren’t quite sure about this exchange program. Sounds exciting, but maybe we should think about it. That’s what we tell Djimon.

    We arrive at the Gare de Lyon. Djimon is not just nice, he is effusive. We give him a generous tip, and we even hug each other. Next year in Abidjan maybe?

© Tom Kando 2014



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TIME FAMINE: THE LETHAL COMBINATION OF HIGH TECH AND BUREAUCRACY

By Tom Kando
   

I have been retired for a few years, but I find myself hurrying more and having less time to do all the things I want to do.

Maybe it’s my age. I am slowing down. I can obviously no longer work as hard as I used to.

But judging from what I hear from others, even from some relatively young people, there is more to  it than that:

It seems to me that life is getting increasingly  time-consuming, not less so. Technology schmecknology! Many years  ago I published a pretty successful  book called
Leisure and Popular Culture in Transition.”   Like many other utopian fools tainted by  the sixties’ Counterculture, I predicted that technology would soon enable  humankind to enter the Age of Aquarius. The workweek would decline to 20 hours. Machines would do the work. People  would devote themselves to poetry and philosophy. The Maslowian hierarchy of needs would be fulfilled.

Ha! What happened? The Internet, social media, computers and bureaucracy.  Do these things  save time? Not mine. I sometimes  find an hour or two to write, but more often I spend my time trying to fix a problem with my blog, my website, my e-mail, a virus, Google+. I try not to spend much time on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media, but just weeding through my e-mail takes a large chunk of my daily time.

Are you planning a trip? Do you have to deal with doctors or hospitals? Do you want to order and buy something? Do you need help with Comcast, or with  some other service provider? Do you need to  deal with Social Security, Medicare, the IRS or another   agency?

Welcome to the age of do-it yourself.

You use the archaic tool called “telephone,” and you are  politely invited by a machine  to visit their website, where you can try to tough  out your problem while   spending countless hours navigating some labyrinthine system.  

Where are the good old days when you could pay a travel agent to map out your entire European trip, when you got paper air tickets in the mail, when the TV repairman came to your house?

********

Next time you go to the dentist, to your family doctor or to a lab for some test, check out how many people are in the waiting room and how many are on the other side of  the counter or reception window. You’ll probably  be one of  2 or 3 patients waiting, while there will be  half a dozen or more very busy workers on the other side.
After waiting  half an hour or an hour, you’ll finally meet the first person whose job it is to actually help you medically. Not a nurse, mind you, but a nurse’s assistant. Eventually, someone will take your blood pressure.

But what about the eight  or nine other people  in that office?  Are they chatting and drinking coffee? Absolutely not. They work quite  hard.  They are on the phone and at desktop computers, they are faxing things, they are working on voluminous paper files at their many work stations.  But they are not doing anything medical.  They are dealing with insurance, with bills, with paperwork.

It’s the same thing with Intel, with the Social Security office and with any other office you go to: A majority of the people are working on things OTHER than what the place is FOR, whatever that is. They are dealing with paperwork, with files, with  privacy forms and whathaveyou.

Last time I went to a hospital, they shoved half a dozen pages of privacy regulations in my hands, some of which I had to peruse and sign. My wife works in the medical field. When she gets a new patient’s file which she has to work on, it is accompanied by 25 (!) pages of privacy regulations.
I wish they printed those on soft Kleenex-quality paper, so they could at least be used as toilet paper.

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To me, it seems obvious that life is  getting more complicated and in that regard more unpleasant. Joseph Tainter’s “The Collapse of Complex Societies,” which I reviewed on ths blog and in professional journals,  addresses this issue.

Another interesting book, somewhat to the point, is Siva Vaidhyanathan’s “The Googlization of Everything, and Why We Should Worry.”This book is more about the potential monopolization of information that Google could bring about. However, it also tangentially touches upon the fact that in the Age of Google and other similar technologies, it takes a lot of time and resources to participate in the competitive dissemination of knowledge (as an example, think of the frustrations of Search Engine Optimization).

Every once in a while I  come across a charlatan who tells me that technology is simple. It is not. I  sometimes come across people who claim to know how  to  solve a technological problem with a few simple steps, but their claims often turn out to be noise, gibberish.  Humility and the ability to admit  ignorance are rare.

And as to whether technology saves time, my good friend Dr. Abram De Swaan, professor emeritus  and former chair of Sociology at  the University  of Amsterdam, has pointed out  studies which  question the facile assumption that computers are saving humankind time.

The computer  revolution may  save time (increase “efficiency” and “productivity”) for  sellers, producers, service providers and  managers, but it is robbing time from buyers, users, clients  and the rank and file. This is the way of capitalism.
© Tom Kando 2014

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