"You guys paid for all this"

Jeff Bezos holds Amelia Earhart's aviation glasses, July 20, Van Horn, Texas – photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

We live on this beautiful planet. We saw this – you can’t imagine how thin the atmosphere is when you see it from space. We live in it and it looks so big. It feels like this atmosphere is huge and we can use it and disregard it and treat it poorly. When you get up there and you see it, you see how tiny it is and how fragile it is.

We need to take all heavy industry, all polluting industry, and move it into space, and keep Earth as this beautiful gem of a planet that it is.

Jeff Bezos wants us all to know that by flying into 'space', he is now enlightened.

I wonder if Bezos recognizes all these are connected: capitalism, droughts, industrial pollution, insurrections, tax rates, pandemics, wildfires and floods, inequality, callousness. We now know it doesn't take brains to win a presidential election, and it doesn't take vision to fly into space. In America, all it takes is money and ego.

Bezos should ask himself: how do we move all heavy industry into space without polluting? even if we got those industries into space, how do we supply them with parts and resources, or return their products to 'this beautiful gem' without polluting?

Bezos is not thinking straight. That, or he's thinking of all the money to be made shuttling people and materials up and down.

Bezos is proposing we treat our celestial shores the way we treated the waterways and oceans during the industrial revolution. History tells us there were some seriously bad consequences. Some of these are 'stabilized' now – to a point – but only after the world suffered, and continues to suffer from: diseases, human subjugation, chemical contamination, inequitable wealth distribution, environmental destruction.

Instead of prioritizing a sustainable power grid, or emissions-free transportation systems, or fair-minded global banking, or low-carbon construction and manufacturing methods – or generally reducing the amount of crap we buy on Amazon – we should just shoot all the polluted stuff into the sky. And we should listen to Bezos cause he's been there.

It's a matter of understanding all the parts before we see the whole, or consider solutions - big picture stuff. Take the recent example of Miami: the inhabitants of Miami experience increased 'sunny-day flooding', so they install pumps. The flood waters rise and the drainage system becomes a flooding system, so they add back-flow valves and treatment plants. They extend the seawall. They elevate the streets. And on it goes. Yet, the water continues to rise.

Thus, a common through-line for these species-level challenges is our inability to perceive them at scale. In terms of climate change, NY Times columnist Charlie Warzel describes our view this way:

[O]ur 21st century existence is characterized by the repeated confrontation with sprawling, complex, even existential problems without straightforward or easily achievable solutions. Theorist Timothy Morton calls the larger issues undergirding these problems “hyperobjects,” a concept so all-encompassing that it resists specific description. … We understand the contours of the problem, can even articulate and tweet frantically about them, yet we constantly underestimate the likelihood of their consequences. It feels unthinkable that, say, the American political system as we’ve known it will actually crumble.

Climate change is a perfect example of a hyperobject. The change in degrees of warming feels so small and yet the scale of the destruction is so massive that it’s difficult to comprehend in full.

One attempt to provide a high-level, long-term view is this eye-opening study: "Update to Limits to Growth", by Harvard researcher and KPMG analyst Gaya Herrington. It reexamines and appears to confirm the projections of a fifty-year-old model developed at MIT ("Limits to Growth"). The model plots several broad variables (population, food production, industrial output, resources) out forty years, and expresses the risk of a global collapse during the 21st century. The study refreshes those metrics, comparing current empirical data to the original model's 'scenarios':

BAU2 (business as usual) and CT (comprehensive technology) scenarios show a halt in growth within a decade or so from now. Both scenarios thus indicate that continuing business as usual, that is, pursuing continuous growth, is not possible. Even when paired with unprecedented technological development and adoption, business as usual as modeled by 'Limits to Growth' would inevitably lead to declines in industrial capital, agricultural output, and welfare levels within this century. 

I suspect both the model and the study are intended more as a warning light than a predictive tool. Herrington comments that 'collapse' …

… does not mean that humanity will cease to exist, … economic and industrial growth will stop, and then decline, which will hurt food production and standards of living, … the BAU2 scenario shows a steep decline to set in around 2040.

However, there are other scenarios, such as "SW (stabilized world)", in which growth does not hit the same peak industrial output, but plateaus at a lower level and does not 'collapse'. Unfortunately, the scenarios that avoid collapse do not align as well with the current data. 

The study does not preclude the BAU2 scenario from generating some amazing technologies or accomplishments, like an Alexa factory in space. It simply shows that less-managed growth will likely result in a more-damaged planet, accompanied by increased inequality and human suffering. If we build cheaper, cleaner launch vehicles to orbit communications and weather satellites, or platforms for basic science (so we can invent, say, the next transistor), or find any other useful purpose for the journey – that could be a net-gain. Why don't we just try to do that? what is the point of traveling up and down just for the hell of it?

Less growth is fine. Less money is fine. We should consider quantities that are sustainable and equitable. What more does Bezos need to fulfill his bald, evil, supervillain fantasies? isn't Amazon already printing enough money? isn't he already the richest man in the world?

Upon landing, Bezos posts a tweet that reads:

I want to thank every Amazon employee, and every Amazon customer, because you guys paid for all this.

I'm an uneasy Amazon customer of twenty-five years. As a benefactor, let me say – Jeff, you know where you can go.

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One of the saddest stories yet of this pandemic (there have been so many) is given by Dr Brytney Cobia, of a young patient, about to intubated, begging for a vaccine. As the world approaches two hundred million total cases, it's hard to know if anyone is counting them correctly any more.

For example, recently while Georgia's published case counts are less than half the counts in Portugal, the death counts, just today, fall lower than Portugal's (a lag of about two months). How can the case counts be so much lower? is it the vaccination rates (GA: 45%, PT: 64% with at least one dose)? Recall that back at the beginning of June, Georgia was just ahead of Portugal (GA: 40%, PT: 38%). Looking at the graphs of cases and deaths, the correlation in Georgia, especially during this calendar year. is much less clear than in Portugal.

 cases: 193,375,410 global • 35,213,594 USA • 943,244 Portugal

deaths: 4,150,990 global • 626,172 USA • 17,248 Portugal

Ai Weiwei "Rapture" - July 4th

Ai Weiwei is now in 'exile' in Portugal. He has a new show at the Cordoaria Nacional entitled "Rapture". The show reminds me so much of his show at Alcatraz that we saw in 2015, when Ai was confined at home ('kidnapped'), his passport confiscated. The big difference is that the artwork is shown in a single, extremely long space rather than a series of discrete 'cells' – the Cordoaria is a building that was used to make rope (you can still see the pulleys, tracks, and measure marks).

The first piece, at the show's entrance, is an archway made of bicycles. Stand on-axis, and the assemblage becomes a blur of motion (nothing is in motion); stand at an angle, and it becomes a jumble of parts; stand at the side, and the order becomes clear.

Upon entering, the next piece is a long snake made from backpacks. Beautifully assembled, sinuous, but playful, the serpent works very much like the dragon kite we saw at Alcatraz – both sinister and silly. The backpacks represent, in number, the children killed by a 2008 earthquake in Sichuan. Simply counting the children is an authority-defying act, as the Chinese Communists do not want the world, or its own citizens, to know the truth – a fitting point in these days of pandemic data collection.

From the entrance, the docent explains, we can go left to the 'reality' side, or right to the 'fantasy' side; we go to the right.

 

 

 

 

The first 'fantasy' object is a kind of over-sized 'Flintstones' car wheel. At first I think it might be part of the rope-making, but it is, in fact, a scaled-up roll of toilet paper executed in darkly-seamed Portuguese marble. The perfect pandemic-era starter, it reminds me very much of the highly-grained bathroom tile that seems popular here (we're apartment hunting again). Of the pandemic, Ai says, "This unbridled demand for toilet paper represents the insecurity and mistrust of people in the system in which they live."

Next, is a low, circular platform covered in hand-carved, toy-like objects or 'votive figures': heads, skulls, hands with middle fingers extended, trucks full of people, boats full of people, tanks, weapons, body parts. The artisans are from Brazil, and the images obviously represent things from their daily lives. One imagines that by playing or praying, one can tell a different story or maybe change an outcome.

Then we have the large 'bird's wing' (which we did see at Alcatraz). The 'feathers' are made from Tibetan solar cookers, and many of the hot water kettles are still suspended there.

 

 

 

In the next space, the artwork is moved to the periphery – to the walls, the ceilings and floors. On either side are portraits of Chinese astrological animals. Initially, I think these are low-bit graphics applied to panels, but they are made of Lego (again, similar to the portraits we saw at Alcatraz).

I recall a podcast about animals heads looted from a fountain at the Summer Palace, the Yuanming Yuan – The Twelves Heads from the Garden of Perfect Brightness. In the story, an exclusive art auction is sabotaged by a Chinese agent demanding that the heads be returned to China. Ai becomes part of the story when he claims the heads are not cultural relics, but 'pieces of propaganda'.

So Ai casts his own 'fake' animal heads, and sends them on a world tour. As he points out, the Communist Party had no problem destroying old relics during the Cultural Revolution: "China has been victimized by the imperial states, but—still China is a bigger victim by its own government."

After listening to the podcast and reading up on this, I am glad to see the actual artwork today.

Suspended from the ceiling, above the line of animal heads are kite-like constructions of mythical creatures, somewhere between demons and angels: multi-headed winged reptiles, cow-warriors, translucent hybrid dragons. Some figures are more complete than others; some have no tissue at all. The various states of assembly actually highlight the paper lantern and kite-making techniques used by the artisans from Shandong.

 

 

 

 

As the floating parade of 'chimera' continues, they are joined on the floor by what looks like a dirty, old rug, but it is a carpet runner meticulously-made to resemble the tracks of a tank. It's meant to remind us of the 'tank man' from Tiananmen Square, and is woven like a tapestry, with colored and textured detail to appear as cracked earth, broken pottery, and dead grass.

Leaning against the side wall is an animal skin, with a kind of poem created by scarring the hide with the brand marks from various ranches or farms – a play on the idea of brands, ownership, mass production, and subjugation. The typography is savage and lovely.

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the hall is a life raft made of bamboo, and carrying a number of human and human-like refugees; some appear to be the astrological animals (this type of boat is known as a 'zodiac'). You are forced to strain a bit to focus the forms and faces, but the kites have prepared us to consider these pieces. The boat reminds me of the small, hand-carved objects from earlier in the show, and of course brings together the animal heads, the kite construction, and the stories of the refugees. Around the base are quotes and poems that help tell the story of human and artistic displacement.

 

 

Then, on the far wall, is an enormous panel of Portuguese azulejos. It is a history of human wandering. In exile from his homeland, as he wanders the world, Ai energizes the local crafts-peoples and artisans to tell their versions of this shared human narrative. It's no different now that he's made the Alentejo his new home – Portugal's traditional trades of stone work, textiles, tiles, and cork are all represented at this show.

 

 

On the long walk back to 'reality', I can stop to check the smaller works and get up close to the Lego portraits. Off to one side, there are a number of photographs of Ai giving the middle finger to iconic buildings and places: the Mona Lisa, the Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower, the White House.

Upon entering the other side, we are first confronted by a self-portrait, sculpted using a CNC milling machine in cork. It is Ai, with the top part of his head absent, seated in a knotty wood chair, handcuffed to the armrest. He seems to be emotionless, staring strait ahead – and we soon learn why.

 

 

Just beyond the cork statue is a set of large, rusty boxes. These contain dioramas of Ai's imprisonment in 2011 for 'tax evasion'. At one end of each box is a window and ventilation fan; you can peer into Ai's cell, and see him eating, washing, being interrogated. At various points on the tops of the boxes, you can stand on a small step and peer down as well. The scenes are beautifully lit, and disturbingly life-like. In each case, Ai is being watched 'a little too closely' by two uniformed guards. In his cell is the same knotty wood chair from the cork self-portrait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the other side of the prison cells, there are stacks of rags. A closer inspection reveals that it's a map of China, and as I turn the corner, a map of the world. I'm uncertain why some island nations are shallower than the continents (ie Japan, Iceland) – do the smaller stacks become unstable at height? I also like how thin peninsulas like Baja California just hang, shapeless, from the main landform.

On the other side of this map, are smaller cases with 'manufactured' objects rendered in 'artisanal' materials: hand-cuffs in wood, a hard-hat in marble, inner-tubes in stone, a puzzle game in porcelain, another roll of toilet paper – in each case, the transformation seems to make the object, perhaps, more valuable, but less 'useable'.

Lego portraits in reverse, these are less 'repeatable'. However, they do blur the distinction between objects of 'reality' and 'fantasy', asking: which are more common? which are easier to mass-produce? 

 

 

The floor opens again and there is a tower of porcelain jars with familiar images of tanks, refugees, encampments, and dragons. Beyond that, there is another over-sized lifeboat, this one made of black, inflatable plastic.

On the far wall is a wallpaper mural with the same images as from the other end, a history of human wandering, theme and variation. Nations are abstract, we make them up. Yet our species invests nearly all its time and treasure creating and enforcing them – and manufacturing so much suffering. Still, the search for 'belonging' is as universal as it is personal, theme and variation.

I can think of no better way to spend the Fourth of July than to celebrate the work; appreciate the ideas of liberty, justice, and dignity; and examine what it means to make things of great value, versus the value of making a great many things.

 

 

 

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As of July 2, several dozen 'Republican states', including Georgia, have stopped reporting daily COVID information, making the collection and graphing of the data a less meaningful exercise – fingers crossed that there will be some updates as time passes.