Mark Frauenfelder on 'Cosmic Trigger 2'

 

Cosmic Trigger 2: Down to Earth is my favorite underrated RAW book, so I am always happy to pass on a recommendation. Here is a sentence from an email from Boing Boing founder Mark Frauenfelder: "By the way, I recently finished Cosmic Trigger II, and was astounded by how relevant it is in today's uncertain world!"

One of the points RAW makes in the book is that technology has made life better for many people. When I think about current politics, I get depressed. When I think about advances in technology, I feel optimistic.

The above picture, a girl holding a flower in the style of Salvador Dali, was made by an artificial intelligence art program named Conjure, which I read about in Mark's Substack newsletter, The Magnet. I've tried making several pieces of art with Conjure, and the one above is the one I like the best so far. Below is another one that came out pretty well, when I told the program to give me a picture of a bush with berries on the Siberian taiga.

You have to pay to get all of the issues of The Magnet, but something else  Mark that's free for everyone is Recomendo, a weekly newsletter with six recommendations in each issue from Mark, Kevin Kelly and Claudia Dawson.

What Kevin Kelly has in common with Mark is that you can't go wrong paying attention to him.  Kelly just turned 70, and celebrated by offering "103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known." Some of his advice sounds like RAW, e.g., "If your opinions on one subject can be predicted from your opinions on another, you may be in the grip of an ideology. When you truly think for yourself your conclusions will not be predictable."