11.1 The sustainable city  (Page 12/20)

Education

Our children will find their place in tomorrow’s workplace based upon their brains, not brawn. Education is the most important component in preparing for tomorrow’s workplace. Classrooms today link via television and the internet to amazing resources. More importantly, artificial intelligence has the capacity to treat each student as an individual and to tailor instruction to meet his or her individual abilities and needs, in contrast to the classroom that moves, at best, at the speed of the average student.

The sustainable school should still contain classrooms, but it will probably be supplemented by individualized computer learning labs. Each student would have their own personal computer (see Cyborgean Man below) that would link them to the internet. Classrooms would have multi-media capabilities that would link to other classrooms around the world. Webinars would make expert instruction available to all. As noted earlier, the biophilia of green classrooms would improve learning and test scores.

Cyborgean man&Big brother

In his book “Understanding Media – The Extensions of Man” Marshall McLuhan explains how once man creates an extension of himself, let’s say writing, he both gains (the ability to remember more in his records) and loses (not being able to remember as much without these written records) abilities.

McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media; The Extensions of Man , McGraw Hill, NY, 1964

Horse drawn carriages and automobiles enable man to travel faster and further even as his body gains weight and loses muscle tone. Tents, tepees and igloos enable man to migrate from the primordial forest ^{Paradise lost – the Hebrew word for forest is Pardais - paradise} to inhospitable climates, but man, like the tortoise, must lug this shell of material civilization around with him.

Miniaturization in the Computer Age now promises to let us reinternalize some of the external abilities we’ve created. Over ten years ago Thad Starner, a research assistant at MITs media lab, garnered a lot of publicity by calling himself a cyborg because he incorporated his computer monitor into his glasses, and let his keyboard and computer hang as appendages by his side.

CNN at http://articles.cnn.com/1998-07-23/tech/9807_23_t_t_digital.gadgets_1_mit-wav-neil-gershenfeld?_s=PM:TECH , accessed 4/27/11

Today half the civilized world has smartphones that link us via the Facebook, the World Wide Web, texts and tweets. In our sustainable city we could all be wired, possibly though implants directly into out brainstem. Artificial intelligence could provide a virtual butler that would be available to schedule and keep track of our appointments, order our groceries and other items, and help us with things we can’t even imagine today. Advertising would be directed at us individually, as in Philip Dick’s Minority Report

As in Philip Dick’s Minority Report , published in Fantastic Universe, January 1956 ,

, as advertisers use software like doubleclick

http://www.google.com/doubleclick/ , accessed 4/27/11

and links to national databases (see Big Brother below) to track who we are and our buying preferences. This should be good for sustainability, as there will be no need to hoard things for possible future use, and to discard them when we no longer need them. Government would find it easier to poll citizen’s preferences and opinions.

In George Orwell’s 1984 everyone is constantly reminded, “Big Brother is watching you.”

Orwell, George (1949).  Nineteen Eighty-Four. A novel . London: Secker&Warburg

In our sustainable city everyone will be watching everyone else. Video surveillance webcams might be everywhere, and everyone would have access to them. Everyone could have a reality show in which those wanting to follow you would merely tune into the appropriate URL and be able to choose the cameras and microphones that are in range. Some people would not even turn off the feeds, ever. Artificial intelligence (or actual humans for the more popular content) could provide edited condensed feeds. Crime would go down in those areas with eyes and ears, but crime will evolve and persist. It will be easy to research everyone you meet and to stay connected. Since this will be by and large electronic it will promote a sustainable lifestyle by not consuming additional resources.

Review questions