Speed = Death?

Angst over AI is widespread, at least among early career white collar workers. Others pooh-pooh the worries, noting that lots of jobs have gone away in the past and this is no different. Oddly, a relevant example exists in the deep biological history of Earth.

At one point about 40 years ago, many paleontologists made a strong case that changing climates had no impact on extinctions. So in the Cenozoic, the end of the Paleocene was not at a big inflection in climate, which continued to warm well into the Eocene. The cooling from the Eocene through the Oligocene seemed just a part of a longer cooling that would lead eventually to the Ice Ages. And in a sense, these paleontologists were right: it wasn’t these long gradual shifts in climate driving species to extinction. But they were also wrong, because at least in a number of the extinction episodes that define the epochs and periods of the geologic record, it really was the climate. It was just that what the climate was doing was hidden by the blurriness of the geologic record as first read.

The most dramatic example is what we now call the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM), which was originally not identified to be on that boundary between Eocene and Paleocene. It took high-resolution examination of oceanic sediments and very carefully work with terrestrial sedimentary rocks to discern a very rapid change in the Earth’s climate. And that very rapid change–most clearly evident as a rapid increase in temperature–led to a notable number of extinctions, in fact the extinctions that had caused paleontologists to define a boundary where a number of species went away [that is where those funny names originated].

The harder you look, the more it seems that it isn’t absolute levels of change, it is the rate of change that causes species to go extinct. The bolide impact at the end of the Cretaceous would have been such a rapid change that it would have been a surprise if it hadn’t caused a mass extinction. [It is worth noting that a lot of other impacts have not had remotely as profound an effect, probably a combination of smaller size and a chemically less damaging target].

Now we usually bring this up in talking about climate change, because the rapidity of climate change today will drive extinctions even beyond the ones caused by us hunting or paving or polluting the world. But the same logic applies to just how extinction of jobs is likely to evolve. Back when electricity led to the illumination of the world with light bulbs, the penetration of electricity was slow enough that those engaged in creating whale oil for lamps still had jobs for many years. Similarly the blacksmiths of the late 19th century were slowly replaced by both railroads and automobiles. These changes took decades, and many participants had skills that could migrate to other jobs.

When you look more recently, you can get a sense of trouble. The furniture and fabric manufacturers in the southeastern US were pretty successful for a long time. GG recalls a family trip where we stopped somewhere in the Carolinas to buy cheap sheets that were seconds from the local manufacturer. But when China was accorded access to the international trade system, these US companies were wiped out in short order. Both because of the concentration of specialists in this smaller area and the rapid influx of cheaper items from overseas, a lot of folks lost jobs in short order, and many of these towns are still struggling to recover. [You might think coal a similar story, but there the big story is the mechanization of coal mining far more than the replacement of coal by gas and renewables].

So what? We now have extraordinary claims that large swaths of office work will be run by AI in the next 12-15 months. Now, maybe that won’t happen, but if it does, it will mean a massive reorganization of work in very short order, and that is the recipe for extinction of a sort. Roughly half of all workers are in white-collar jobs. If this occurs over the next couple of decades, it will barely make a ripple as people move through different parts of the system in their careers. But if we are talking a year or two when entire career paths are eliminated…well, the dinosaurs wish you well…

Technology Review, GG Style

OK, there are plans to actually post some things about earth science, but for now, some flippancy.

The country is being run by MAGA, and when America was great originally remains up in the air (1950s? 1920s? 1880s?). If you turn the clock back, what technological marvels would you have to do without? And what monsters since unleashed would go away? So, with some commentary, are GG’s notes of technologies that make an impact during GG’s lifetime on GG…Have fun and feel free to make your own list…

Down the memory hole…

For awhile we in the U.S. bathed in adoring light those who were born from roughly 1901 and 1927 as members of the “greatest generation,” a term popularized by Tom Brokaw. These folks endured the Great Depression and fought WW II and the Cold War. That generation was also responsible for constructing a global framework of cooperation and respect for other nations that included the notion of major international trade as a plus for international stability. Domestically, they saw development of vaccines that eliminated many dangerous diseases. Tax rates both of income and estates prevented the accumulation of extreme wealth. That generation was largely responsible for investments in science and technology that led to things from the moon landing to microwave ovens.

Those folks, the youngest of whom would be 97 right now, are virtually absent from any political discussion. Their example, which a few years ago seemed etched in stone as a model to follow, is now dissolving under an acid wash of extremism. Just what are we losing sight of? Let’s review.

Trail Trials

GG is just back from a 6 day backpack with PassToPass, an organization that seeks to help Parkinson’s disease patients improve their quality of life through getting outdoors, in particular on multiday backpacks (GG was along as a support hiker). This was the first multi-day, multilocation trip GG had done in several years, so there were a lot of reminders of some of the downsides of camplife. Things like condensation inside a tent, wearing a pack each day, etc. And it got GG to thinking about how much of American history can be distilled into hikes, whether the National Road, the Oregon Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) or the Long Walk, especially as his drive back passed Oregon Trail info stands at nearly every offramp in Oregon…

Of course the most familiar to most Americans is the Oregon Trail. GG did stop to visit the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center outside Baker City, which tries to recap the experience of those who chose to travel west. Not surprisingly, the gift store had versions of the old Oregon Trail game (“You have died of dysentery”). The 10 to 20 mile a day distances Oregon Trail people covered will sound familiar to many backpackers, as might the need to care for stock for those using llamas or horses. The business of carrying your whole life in a breakdown prone wagon might be more exotic to modern backpackers while resonating with others. Toss in the Santa Fe Trail, the California Trail, the Mormon Trail (where they used handcarts) and a few others and it seems this business of moving on to greener pastures defines a lot of America (even if the old Turner hypothesis has taken its lumps).

This business of long distance foot travel didn’t end there. Arguably the modern conservation movement began when John Muir decided to walk down the Mississippi from Wisconsin. His gambols over the Sierra led to the creation of the John Muir Trail. But longer trails were soon to be found; the PCT and Appalachian trail being the first official national scenic trails. And so we now have the evolution of thru-hiking, of walking immense distances for, um, GG guesses pleasure. Toss in the Continental Divide Trail, the Colorado Trail and probably a dozen others and the opportunity to pit yourself against a continent’s worth of landscape has never been easier.

Then there are some other, less happy, trails. The Trail of Tears records the expulsion of the Cherokee and adjoining Native nations into “Indian territory” west of the Mississippi. Unlike the willing members of the Oregon Trail caravans, the participants here were carrying their homes under threat of death from accompanying soldiers. The Long Walk of the Navajo into the Bosque Redondo in New Mexico was a similar exile, though the Navajo were able to negotiate a return after suffering tremendously in the Bosque Redondo.

Perhaps the oddest part is that both the emigrant trails and the Native expulsions saw considerable death and suffering (almost to the point where you could lift sections of the description of one and drop them into the description of the other without them being out of place). In a way, Americans heading west volunteered for a journey only a bit less dangerous than the forced migration of tribes: roughly one in ten Oregon Trail pioneers died on the way west. In a way, the widespread acceptance of such a risk suggests that American citizens were not particularly well treated (the museum display had one panel for “why did they leave?” that points to economic factors–families were starving in the panic of 1837, for instance). Now some motivation was misleading information (some descriptions made it seem like a mobile picnic), some was calculated risk, and some may well have been desperation, but it would be hard to suggest that folks who were comfortable in their lives would venture on such a quest.

So a lot of American history is represented in these trails, old and new. Something to ponder if you are out on the trails with backpack on…

Disneyland on the Mountain (book review)

Since GG completed his tome on the Sierra, a few books have come out that fill out some of the history GG had focused on. This is the second one on Mineral King GG has become aware of (after Dawn at Mineral King Valley). While Dawn at Mineral King Valley was tightly focused on the legal action, this book looks more broadly. This is partially possible because the Disney archives have become accessible, and in part because the authors are looking beyond the usual protagonists.

The Mineral King story has often been told in a one-sided manner. The Disney side pretty much wanted to forget it ever happened (as GG noted in his book, an NPS employee who had sought to buy the main parcel from Disney was greeted with a company seeming to not know anything about the purchase), so the volumes on Disney skipped Mineral King or left it as a small sidelight to an otherwise successful career. The cabin residents in Mineral King were sidelined in the stories written from the Sierra Club side, maybe in part because the Club and the cabin owners would disagree after the valley was put into Sequoia. This book helps to overcome those slights.