Reading has become less popular, actually, much less popular. Many more folk are watching videos and listening to podcasts on their smart devices. The act of reading itself is a far more complex activity for the human brain to process. Reading hard books burns energy. Similarly, any mental process, which is seriously challenging burns a lot of energy. I experience this myself, when I am learning new languages, as I can feel my body heating up. This is useful knowledge to have if you wish to lose some excess weight. It does not have to be physical exercise, which in this sedentary era, is good to know, it can be mental exercise.
Do You Read Books In The Age Of Convenience?
We are living in the age of convenience, where technology is sold to us on the basis of making our lives more convenient. Convenience is not an unmitigated force for good health. In fact, convenience and laziness are hard to differentiate, when it comes to the body burning energy. Many people rarely get out of their cars, these days, utilising drive-throughs for purchasing fast food and drink. They move from bed to seated at desk in front of a computer screen, then, to the couch in front of the TV. Sedentary living is not good for the health of our monkey bodies. Eating highly processed foods takes a lot of the digestive work out of that necessary process too. Of course, your microbiome bears the brunt of the bad bacteria, which chows down on refined carbohydrates and the like. This, then, translates into poor health outcomes and mental depression.
The Hard Books Can Teach You Stuff
The upshot is that, always, taking the easy option is not a good idea. Those companies selling you the smart and labour saving devices rarely tell you the full story. The smart device may measure your heart rate and steps, but it cannot make you do the more advantageous thing for your health. The combination of sitting on your behind for much of the day, eating processed foods lacking fibre, drinking too much sweet soda and alcohol, and rarely challenging your brain is a disease and early death trap. Obesity beckons and that leads to a bunch of degenerative health conditions. There is way too much sugar in everything they sell at the supermarket. Refined sugars rot your teeth and raise your chances of developing diabetes. All those RTDs at the liquor store are full of sugar, alcohol is mainly made from sugars.
AI Will Make You Dumber & Fatter
Reading hard books burns energy. Most challenging books are not trying to sell you commercial products. Unlike videos and podcasts. America abounds with overweight and unhappy people. Social media is an American invention. Smart phones also came from America. These ‘so-called’ advances have been complicit in reducing the rate of reading globally. Reading really challenging books will improve your whole life. AI will make things worse on this score. AI will likely make you dumber and fatter. Convenience is, ultimately, a downward spiral.
What To Do Instead?
Challenge yourself by reading difficult to understand books. Reading hard books burns energy. Write down your ideas into cogent arguments. Writing stuff gets your brain to work. Using AI all the time is only going to make you dumber. If you lose the mental ability to read challenging books and write critical summaries, you are losing what it means to be a human being. Convenience is a trap. Are you smart enough to avoid that trap?
“In 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, neuroscientists at Stanford University reported that reading ability in young children is related to the growth of the brain’s white matter tracts—specifically, the arcuate nucleus, which connects the brain’s language centers, and the interior longitudinal fasciculus, which links these language centers with parts of the brain that process visual information. Strong readers, they discovered, start out with strong signals in both tracts that get stronger over a period of years. The opposite pattern occurs in weaker readers.”
The Transition To AI Will Be Like A Bad Golf Swing
“What do I mean by that? The AI transition will be like a bad golf swing. If you are a golfer you may know what bad golf swings feel like. One of the most common is the OTT golf swing. In this swing, the player rushes everything and attacks the golf ball from the top of the backswing. The resultant ball flight is an almighty slice to the right for most golfers. The important thing to comprehend here is a swing that gets out ahead of everything and gives the body no time to catch up. The uptake of artificial intelligence (AI) by corporations will see massive job losses, as it replaces white collar roles in firms and institutions. Like a bad golf swing, the AI transition will look really bad for millions of workers who have lost their employment.”
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of The Stoic Golfer; The AI Heresy; What Price Life?; America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump; and other titles. NOW AVAILABLE AT APPLE BOOKS & GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS. Google Play Books AUDIOBOOK
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The AI Heresy: A Betrayal of Humanity – PDF
Robert Sudha Hamilton has written The AI Heresy: A Betrayal of Humanity – PDF