What's Wrong with Society?

It's simple, really. Nothing is wrong with it. Society, like anything else created by our social behavior, has been following human evolution ever since we started living together within small and functionally organized communities. In the beginning there was a simple need for this—it was impossible for just one man to hunt down one, for example, mammoth or to defend a family from the herd of prehistoric saber-tooth tigers, and the only solution was to get together and organize a little for the mutual benefit. Not to mention the everlasting need for prolonging the species, which also required, sort of, well, socializing with a member of the opposite gender.

Mammoth hunt and prehistoric society*

We can only wish that things were as simple as they were millennia ago. If we disregard the fact that socializing in order to save the species didn't change much from the times when humans shared the habitat with mammoths, all other aspects of human society, due to the thousands of years of human evolution, changed a lot. We multiplied to enormous numbers, spread to the farthest corner of the Earth, used many different languages, started worshiping the divine and prominent members among us, created a money-based system of rewards, kept original differences between us and created new ones, built villages, cities, and countries to live inside, and ultimately developed a society as it is today with all its flaws and bright sides.

The question is "Did we do it wrong?"

Could we do it better, or was this the best we could do? Did we make wrong foundations in the first place, and is what we have now just a consequence of our ancestors's decisions and their poor vision of humanity as it is today? Or whatever they did, we would eventually evolve into this by its nature?

Let's not buzz our brains with "what if" questions too much. We can't change the past and explore different paths in human social evolution. Instead, what I want to write a little about in this post is just to "examine" some of the foundations we live in or use on a daily basis and take for granted as if they were always there. But before I just want to state something obvious—in this little mind experiment I am not trying to change something that needed thousands of years to emerge. That would be mission impossible. For example, we can try to advocate that living in big cities or dividing ourselves with borders and countries is not wise for many reasons, but in reality, efficient "canceling" of this way of life overnight is not possible. If we use the political metaphor, that would be similar to a revolution of some kind in order to change, for instance, an already established political system. We know from our history that all the revolutions didn't end without violent conflicts with lots of casualties and spilled blood. The less "bloody" disappointment, this time in the realm of information technologies, was felt by the mighty Google a couple of years ago when they tried to speed up the evolution of e-mail and tried to replace it with "Google Wave", an ambitious project with the power to bury email service forever with its sophisticated layers and new technology. I remember they advertised "The Wave" service as "how the e-mail would look if it were invented yesterday instead of twenty years ago". Like in the political arena, in a way, Wave was trying to revolutionize an already recognized system and expectedly failed big time.

Money, Money, Money**

No, social evolution is a very slow process, and just like the evolution of species, it is based on many tries and errors. Very few revolutionary methods succeeded in affecting it on a large scale, and I can't recall anything in the past that did it without turbulence.

But that doesn't stop us from using our imagination and trying to see one hypothetical future if we change some ground foundations a little. Just for fun.

So, for the very first ground property of our lives, let's think about how to improve the system behind the "money". Probably rudimentary trade in the form of simple barter was born with the very first societies long ago, but over time, when the amount of goods and services had risen to the point that simple exchange couldn't work anymore, it was natural that using a medium of exchange was something that was inevitably invented very soon. The history of the "medium of exchange" is very interesting, from the very beginning, when people in early civilized societies used barley grains to exchange things, through the times when different commodities were used as money, like shells, alcohol, cigarettes, and even cannabis. Today, after a long period of using gold, silver, and copper coins, we successfully created a system of banknotes that, by the beginning of the 20th century, all modern and industrialized countries accepted as the only means of use for all kinds of trades. However, even though an intermediary in the form of money was inevitable, it added other dimensions to the people's daily lives. I am sure greed existed long before money was invented in its rudimentary form, but in modern societies it received its pure meaning, or simple desire to acquire or possess more than one needs. Perhaps the only way to fix the basic problem with money, in which many people started to adore shiny banknotes more than the goods you can buy with them, is to remove one of its properties out of the equation. Cash. We need to ultimately stop using cash and replace it with a full electronic system. This way, "home money collectors" will be eliminated, and the system of individual wealth will become more transparent in many ways. I am sure "individual greed for money" would be significantly reduced, even though, as a psychological concept hidden deeply in our emotional brains, greed is simply impossible to remove.

Politics and Power***

On the other side, hypothetically speaking, removing worldwide banknotes and replacing them all with several or just one planetary electronic monetary value (let's call it credit or bitcoin?) could be possible, and that would efficiently remove so-called "corporate greed for money" and force worldwide stock markets to deal more with goods and services instead of dealing with money alone and their exchange rates. Not to mention the medical benefits of not using papers and coins that travel from one hand to another all the time. Payments in the future must be done completely without touching of any kind, preferably by wirelessly reading fingerprint-protected ID cards. Of course, there will still be people who will start worshiping 'credits' now instead of green banknotes, but hopefully their number will be significantly reduced due to a lack of physical connection in the hypothetical new system.

Ok, now that we fixed the money problem ;-), what else are we enjoying every day for granted? What is that thing that the average human being worships the same along with wealth and collecting treasures of any kind? Yes. The power. There is no society in nowadays planetary kingdoms, republics, states, provinces, or even the smallest municipalities with no rulers recognized and worshiped by the majority. No matter if they use simple dictatorship, communism, still live in African tribes, or live within highly evolved democracies, everything is organized within one or a couple "alpha" leader(s) in power, followed by the people designated in lower ranks ("betas" and "omegas" if we use the wolf herd analogy). These behaviors also came from our emotional inner beings, which we inherited from our animal origins. Fixing this problem is easy, and within current societies (evolutionary speaking), I can't see a better system than democracy. People are different in many aspects, and it is necessary that the majority select the rulers, and the only thing we need to do is improve democracy as it is in the current stage. In simple words, instead of voting for political parties that, if elected, govern the society for several years until the next elections, it became necessary to find a way to involve people and the voting system more frequently and for each and every agenda that requires important decisions to be made. Instead of voting for politicians, elections should be organized for each chairman, so to speak. Electronic voting is now possible, and counting the results can be done almost instantly, so we need a way to vote for the prime minister alone as well as for each member of the government. Also, voting should be selective, and it should not allow all members of the community to vote every time. For example, hypothetically speaking, why would I be involved in the election of the ministry of health when I committed and educated myself within the food and agriculture industry? I don't even know anybody from the medical institutions, so how would my vote be relevant? The same would be for the election of the ministry of agriculture, and only relevant people within this realm should participate in this election, and there is no need for doctors and nurses to bother voting for something that has so little in common. Anyway, a real democratic system requires many changes, and nowadays technologies allow the transformation. The only problem is that politicians would suffer the most and almost become extinct in the process, making this change as hard as the exchange of CRT television sets with flat screens. But it is inevitable, and in one way or another it will happen. Like in the case of "Cathode Ray Tube" TV sets, no matter how old technology spreads its roots, it is destined to die eventually.

Five Myths About Education****

So far we have encountered financial and political systems that actually create the rules responsible for one society's health. But what is even more important than these? Who is actually behind these systems? Yes. People. Individuals. But how did they come to be in the first place? Where did they learn all that they know? Yes. This is the final social link we need to improve. The Education. We all once were kids. No matter how talented we were, we needed to go through the educational system to become what we are today. This is where everything started and therefore the system that is the most responsible for the outcome of one society. What we have now in our societies, basically everything bad and good in our human existence, more or less, has to thank education. If one man or woman became a successful scientist responsible for some kind of breakthrough discovery that would change the world, the big portion of gratitude would go to the education institutions where he/she spent early days learning and acquiring knowledge and skills. The same amount of credit goes to the education institutions that actually provided installation of a mass murderer, serial killer, or lunatic war general, or at least didn't do enough to prevent their misfortune. The bottom line here is that the educational part of any society is something that must be the most important of them all. Sadly, there is no country in the world that prioritizes this part over anything else. Not even the highly evolved democracies and technocracies recognized the full potential and danger of one educational system. We now have mediocre politicians and bank employees that enjoy a wealthier life than highly educated teachers and university professors. Not to mention that military budgets in ALL countries are way bigger than their counterparts in educational and scientific systems, directly or indirectly funded by tax money taken from people. When I think of nowadays societies all over the world in relation to education and science, the title question, "What's Wrong with Society?" might not be accurate. Maybe the better question would be "Why is society turned upside down?"

Yes, education in private schools and universities is way better by the quality of given knowledge compared to tax funding and state institutions, but looking at it from the global scale, there are only a few of them, not to mention that the price of scholarships is way above the average income of the society they are located in, automatically excluding potentially extraordinary students from participating in the first place. The solution I have in mind is based on further fragmentation of class groups. Schools, especially elementary schools, are gathering kids away from their families every day, and it would be only fair to provide a family-like atmosphere inside the classroom. If we consider this, it seems reasonable that the number of students should not be bigger than 5 per group. These small selected groups would be enjoying classes in a more relaxing environment and over time get better results than a group of 15-30 pupils like today simply because each member of the smaller group would be more active on a daily basis. A family-like atmosphere would allow active tutoring of poor or lazy students as well as better acceptance of those who came from dysfunctional families. Furthermore, bright students and their interests would be spotted much earlier and therefore provided with more time in targeted education following their recognized talents and interests. The goal is also to get much better insight into the development of young people during their childhood and adolescent periods, when they are the most vulnerable and easy targets for various influences.

I will stop now and probably leave some more foundations and brainstorming about their improvements for some future posts (for example, dealing with social security with respect to medical and elderly insurance or demographic separations of different societies). The baseline here is that nothing is written in stone, and there is nothing wrong with thinking of how to change some social foundation, even though it has been in use for centuries. Times are passing fast, and sometimes we might be unaware that some technology already developed can help us live much better if we only try and dare to use it.

Without revolutionizing anything, of course.

Grisly find suggests humans inhabited Arctic 45,000 years ago*
http://www.sciencemag.org/grisly-find-suggests-humans-inhabited-arctic

Money, Money, Money**
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/holy-wow-you-can-actually-swim-like-scrooge-mcduck-in-1481547007

Politics and Power***
https://www.masonreport.com/donald-trumps-campaign-rhetoric

Five Myths About Education****
http://www.thepolisblog.org/2012/11/education.html

History of (d)SLR

The year was 1975 when I was browsing a small dusty workshop located next to the garage in our backyard. It was a perfect combination; I was about to turn 7 years old, eager to explore the darkest corner of my childhood realm, and the dark workshop was the most mysterious chamber in our entire family estate, no bigger than four cubic meters, occupied by a heavy and old greenish oak cabinet with a couple of drawers and compartments filled with tons of different tools, mechanical devices, and various interesting stuff whose origin and purpose I didn't know. It was, more or less, the year when I started to break things in order to find out what was inside or to find out how something works, foolishly believing that I would be perfectly able to put things back together.

Well, from this point of view in time, I can't remember if there was at least one mechanical device I "inspected" in such a manner that I successfully restored after unscrewing all the bolts and junctures or by simply breaking the metal hood. One thing is for sure, though. What I found that summer morning in the workshop I definitely never managed to restore. I simply succeeded in dismantling the old thing beyond any possibility for repair. But the knowledge I gained from what I found inside was priceless. It was something I had never seen before. When I broke the hard metal hood of an old binocular I found hidden in one old bag stored in the old oak, at first glance I thought I had found a treasure. Two shiny, perfectly aligned, and beautifully shaped objects smiled at me from the inside of the optical instrument. I was too young to understand what their purpose was, but in the following days I learned everything about it. That very day I discovered a prism. Two of them.

Needless to say, I instantly became attached to my newest discovery to the point that I kept them with me all the time. I was carrying them to the school and bragging about their almost magical abilities of bending light in different directions. Well, I wasn't any different from any other kid at that age. Only in this case with a little twist. Guess what the twist is? I still have one of them (above photo).

Leica IIIa, rangefinder camera, 1935-38 (responsible for the kiss photo**)

After almost 40 years, one prism survived and is more or less in the expected shape after four decades, still playing with photons the same as years before. But this is not the end of the story about this particular prism. The history of the little thing goes even more into the past. Actually this binocular belonged to my grandfather, who brought it directly from World War II. Some 30 years before I found it hidden in an old cabinet, my grandfather was experiencing the final year of his captivity in one of those German camps for military personnel imprisoned back in the year of 1941. After German capitulation, he was traveling half of Europe on foot, trying to find his way home, carrying these binoculars with him. Sometimes, I wonder what exactly little prism saw in these turbulent years, changing who knows how many owners during the war, and how many untold stories are lost forever and hidden in little crystals now perhaps more than 80 years old.

But to get back to the title story, basically the technology behind the acronym is connected to the camera's solution of how the photographer's eye is monitoring the shooting object. In the history of photo cameras, way back in the 19th century, the first professional cameras were designed with two objective lenses, perfectly aligned and with the same focal length, one for taking the light to the photographic film and the other toward the viewfinder. The single-lens system was a natural step forward, where a mirror-prism system mounted between the lens and film forced light to make a couple of sharp turns and to end directly at the viewfinder. The result is obvious: the framed image shown in front of your eye is the one forming the final picture after the mirror is lifted up and the photographic film is lit during the desired exposure time. What is also obvious is that the more quality the objective lens, mirror, pentaprism, and eyepiece are manufactured with, the better the image you see in the viewfinder before the final moment of triggering the shutter mechanism. The other non-optical part of analog-era SLR photo cameras directly responsible for the quality of the final product is, of course, the sensitivity of photographic film as well as the quality of embedded microscopically small light-sensitive silver-based crystals responsible for the contrast and resolution of the film. Back then, in the analog era, the photographing process didn't end by clicking the button. The film needed to be chemically developed, and with another optical/chemical process of illumination, the negative taken images are finally transferred to the photo paper.

If you were a photo enthusiast back in the seventies and eighties of the previous century like my father was, you might imagine that having a proper camera along with a photo laboratory with a darkroom was not a very cheap hobby. But thousands of images were worth all the effort. My favorite memories from those days were all connected to spending hours in a dark photo room with a red light producing pictures on paper. The moment of the image appearing on the surface of photo paper submerged in a dilute solution, followed by washing the photograph with fixer liquid and water, was my favorite part. I was typically in charge of these final steps in the process along with hanging wet photos for final drying. In this part of Europe in those times, the best amateurish and semi-professional cameras and all the equipment needed for a photo laboratory for hobbyists, with all the chemicals and supporting devices, came from East Germany and Russia. My father owned a couple of those-day cameras, and the one I remember the most was the Zenit E/EM (pictured to the left), manufactured a couple of years before the Olympics in Moscow in 1980. Zenit was made by KMZ (Красногорский завод), a leading Russian enterprise in the area of optical and electro-optical engineering, and you would be amazed how nice photos this little fellow made 25-30 years ago.

In conclusion, after a little history and technicalities, in the final chapter of this blog post, let's talk a little about digital SRLs. Basically, optical systems used in old cameras are the same. Two things changed, though. The quality of manufacturing of all optical parts in nowadays photo cameras is far more advanced than before, and all aspects of the final image are increased to the edge. There is a software term in the early digital era called WYSIWYG, meaning "What You See Is What You Get", which initially referred to printing documents looking the same as seen on the display of your computer. I guess the photo industry today reached the same goal, and with not even too expensive lenses and moderate DSLR cameras, final photos reached the quality of the image appearing in viewfinders or the one seen with your naked eye. The second major change is in the simple fact that all the chemical industry and paper photos are replaced by pure digital systems. Film is removed by a light sensor in the form of an electronic chip filled with a matrix of millions of tiny analog-to-digital converter dots capable of instantly saving an image into a fast memory card. Perhaps the third change is the fact that each DSLR device today is also a specialized computer, and compared to old systems, they are now able to perform various post-processing procedures to assist you with intelligent zooming, face recognition, adapting to shooting conditions, filming entire video clips, and maintaining a detailed database of taken images.

Nikon D5200 dSLR and Zenit EM SLR*

Considering all the features of one DSLR, I can surely say that this one device replaces my father's entire environment, from the camera through the darkroom for developing photographs to the bulk photo albums where final photos are stored. And all that with a smaller price, and what's more important, with far more space for creativity and for taking photos in a professional manner. To me, today's worldwide market is taken by two big players, Canon and Nikon, Japanese multinational corporations, both specialized in the manufacture of imaging and optical products, especially in the market of digital SLR cameras. It wasn't easy to choose one of their models, and I took several days of browsing stores and reading about all the specifications, but I eventually chose the Nikon D5200 that fits all the requests and budget I had in my mind.

At the very end let's speculate a little about how the future of photo cameras might look. Will it be further development and improvement in optical and digital systems or with the upcoming ultimate speed of future computer circuits or with the introduced quantum computers that the digital system will "evolve back" to the analog world? It remains to be seen. One thing is for sure though: miniaturization of optical systems is still not possible by the simple fact that the more photons you get in the sensor, the better the image is saved, and in this case, size really matters.

Ref:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/viewfinders.shtml

*
http://www.theothermartintaylor.com/moveabletype/archives/cameras/000005.html
http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/dslr-cameras/d5200.html

**
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2313418/Times-Square-kiss