Diary Entries

"Well my dear, if we are all living on a turtle's back what is beneath the turtle?" "I'm sorry to tell you, it is turtles all the way down." The way we think about consciousness is dependent on the instrument we use. A measurement is only as good as the accuracy of the instrument. So to think of one's mind as a vector tending to one point of understanding as a reflection of the external world is not such a bad understanding of the world around you and where you sit in it. To be drunk on money or sick with fear or crazy with lust, these are all motivators for action. Most exist together in humanity as forces like bull and bear markets stir people to make the decisions that create (and destroy) their lives. Ants on a turtle isn't such a bad analogy. I would say fleas except fleas jump and either assumes the turtle undamaged, merely annoyed by it's hitchhikers. If the turtle must breathe, filling the air with poison was surely a bad idea. Enter Elon Musk, a guy with a Physics degree and a Business degree who saw the missing element in humanity- making the electric motor into a vehicle propulsion system. Today in Feb 2020, we have net zero carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, something humanity has been talking about for more than 50 years. World governments are struggling to make policy and finally everyone is realising not only the mess we have made but how it is the fault of everyone. Billionaires cannot make zero carbon choices today. We are all ants on a turtle. And so we try to offset what we do with other things - plant more trees, build more windfarms, use more solar power, buy an electric car.

A note on our changing society. Coronavirus. Hasn’t the world changed? We didn’t realise how happy go lucky we were until Coronavirus hit. We all had houses full of stuff, had to fix nothing and didn’t even need to wash our hands. Now suddenly the quintuple issues of Covid-19, Climate Change, #MeToo, #BlacklivesMatter, and LGBTIQ+ Rights are on the agenda for everyone. Michael Jackson had been saying it for decades...’They don’t really care about us’ (Jackson, 1995) and although it is too late for Michael the issue of #BlackLivesMatter became forefront with the death in custody of George Floyd. It came on the heels of coronavirus as protests happened in a lull in cases. The riots started in Minnesota and were watched on the internet with lightning speed. The ferocity of the spread of information has lead to copycat rioting which spread to over 50 cities in the United States and led to protests around the world. In Librarianship and Print Culture, Luke Tredinnick argues the case of Arnold, 1869 that culture is anathema to anarchy. The internet has with incredible 25 year ferocity become a roaring fire of information joining people and ideas the world over. Tredinnick also states it is the innovation itself or ‘idolatry of the machine’ which is the besetting danger. Just as the fire of the internet has had many advantages it has clearly showed each other the inequalities that exist in our collective world society. All of these major issues have been fuelled by the internet and at the time of writing this see no abating. Traditionally the function and purpose of a library has changed throughout the history of humanity to meet the needs and requirement of the people at time.