About 35 years ago my wife and I were traveling in Africa. As part of our itinerary we were scheduled to visit Ethiopia, but some internal strife there led us to change our plans at the last moment and spend the time we had allotted in Greece instead. Our improvised itinerary included renting a car and traveling around the Peloponnese Peninsula. At that time we had sites like Delphi and Olympus pretty much to ourselves, despite the fact that we were there during the summer high season. These days these sites are on the standard circuit of dozens of group tours and are visited by thousands of tourists.
For our return to Greece this year we decided to concentrate on the islands since we hadn't seen any on our first trip. We contacted a Greek travel agent who specializes in island hopping packages and booked a custom "tour" for the two of us (hotels, transfers, ferry & plane tickets).
Compared to the extensive planning that goes into many of our trips, this went surprisingly easy. Until Zeus and his buddies decided to challenge us a bit. The Icelandic volcano blew up and threatened to cancel, postpone or reroute international air travel. The Greek economy went into the dumper and the government's economic reforms sparked numerous strikes, some associated with violence, that threatened to make internal travel difficult and perhaps a bit risky. However, we decided to go ahead -- life's an adventure, right? Besides, we've found that the news media (both "mainstream" and "fair and balanced") tend to exaggerate and distort the negative aspects of situations like these. And this turned out to be the case. We found modern Greece to be one of the safest, cleanest, and most travel-friendly places we've visited.
The islands we visited were very different from one another in terms of geography, geology, size, history, social character, and level of tourist activity. Some, like Naxos, Milos, and Crete, have significant economic bases that lessen the importance of tourism and give them a more relaxed and laid-back atmosphere. Others, like Santorini and Mykonos, are almost entirely dominated by tourism. For instance, each morning 2-3 cruise ships arrive in Santorini's harbor and disgorge thousands of passengers who elbow their way through the picturesque main town of Fira for a few hours and then return to the ships for an afternoon departure. The same thing happens on Rhodes and Mykonos. This is clearly one of the downsides of cruise-ship tourism. An upside for those not on the cruise is that after all of those people leave it is very pleasant in the port towns; having a drink in a sidewalk cafe, watching the cruise ships sail off into the Aegean, is a nice way to spend an afternoon.
The Greek mainland oozes with history and with important archeological sites. We were surprised to discover that so do the islands -- even the smallest of them. For example, we spent most of one day on the tiny island of Delos, just a short boat ride from Mykonos. Until around 70 b.c. it was the financial and trading center of the Mediterranean, complete with multiple agoras, temples to not just Greek gods, but those of contemporary powers as well, like Egypt, Italy, Syria, and houses of some very wealthy families. Delos was also considered to be the birthplace of Apollo in Greek mythology. On Milos we hiked to the spot where the famous statue "Venus de Milo" was originally located -- a niche along an avenue to the ancient theater. On Crete we visited Knossos, one of the most famous examples of Minoan civilization. And Rhodes was a major European base for the Knights during the Crusades, not to mention the location of the famed Colossus of Rhodes.
The Greeks take all this history in stride, as do most Europeans in their own countries. Having a connection to a place that goes back several thousand years gives them perspective on current issues that most Americans lack.
One interesting thing we observed is that different islands seem to be favored by different groups of tourists. In general we saw very few Americans, except on the places visited by cruise ships, and of course in Athens. The biggest single group seemed to be northern Europeans, especially Scandinavians, no doubt trying to recover from their sunless winters. The most common language was....English. Since few visitors spoke Greek, the universal translator was the common language most learned a smattering of in school, which used to be French and now is English. At restaurants we would overhear customers haltingly order their meals and then return to their native language. We got along very well because I think the waiters found our English very clear!
Speaking of restaurants, Greece was similar to many other places we have visited where there is little or no tipping: the service was uniformly excellent. This is contrary to the idea that the promise of a good tip is required to motivate a server to do a good job and provide extra personalized service. Nevertheless it is something we've seen time and again on our travels. One interpretation is that the salary for wait staff is substantial enough that people view their work as valued and important, and strive to perform accordingly.
This trip had many of the features that we value in travel: interesting and unique locales, exposure to a different culture and way of life, historical richness, charming architectural character, and the opportunity to observe and interact with other travelers from backgrounds much different from our own. It also reinforced our conclusion that we were fortunate to travel in earlier times, before mass tourism developed the ability to negate the positive experience of these features.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Two Things That Will Change the World
**Warning: The following blog contains prognostication that exceeds the credentialed informational acumen possessed by the author (i.e., he's blowin' smoke)**
In my last blog we looked at simple inventions with large impacts. This blog will get more complex and more serious. Get a cup of coffee, you may need it.
One of the phenomena I investigated during my working days as a social psychologist was how the internet and the World Wide Web are changing society. I still follow this topic -- old social psychologists never die, they just stop going to departmental meetings -- and it has been fascinating to watch as this technology has become more and more central to our lives and altered our interactions. One of the developments that I correctly predicted ten years ago was the move toward wireless connectivity. I also correctly noted at that time that the cell phone, though not discussed nearly as much as the internet, was also changing society in dramatic ways. What I missed, though, was that the two would be merged to have an even greater impact, a development we are seeing very clearly today.
Unquestionably the internet/cell phone combination has rapidly altered society in fundamental ways and stimulated a lot of debate about whether the changes are good or bad. I predict, though, that there are two scientific fields that will change the world at least as much, and perhaps pose even greater challenges and dilemmas to society over the next 15-20 years: Nanotechnology and Genetic Engineering.
I assume that nearly everyone has heard of these fields from depictions in current entertainment media and in recent splashy news accounts. For example, male Star Trek fans will recall the rather visually intriguing connection of nanotechnology to the character Seven-of-Nine. Michael Crichton readers will recall Prey, which combined nanotechnology with emergent artificial intelligence, and of course Jurassic Park, which explored the deathly downside of genetic engineering. Readers of Neil Stephenson (who wrote Snow Crash, from which I took the title of this blog) will remember his dystopian extrapolation of nanotechnology in Diamond Age. Genetic engineering has been in the news frequently, mainly related to controversies surrounding genetically modified food, stem-cell research, cloning, and the development of "synthetic life."
Nanotechnology involves the creation of very, very small devices, such as carbon tubes 1000 times smaller than a red blood cell. Nano-structures can have some very interesting properties that scientists are only beginning to explore. For instance, carbon nanotubes assembled together into large structures are hundreds of times stronger yet six times lighter than steel. Other nano applications have the capacity to do physical "work," as illustrated by a range of devices called nanopumps, which can pass specific liquids back and forth through a membrane . Coatings composed of certain nanoparticles can alter the characteristics of objects, for example by keeping them cooler or by making them scratch resistant, self-cleaning, or sun resistant. Nanotubes implanted in human tissue can act as energy producing transistors, fueled by the body's biochemistry and thus providing power for nano devices, such as tiny computers, that might be implanted under the skin.
Genetic Engineering refers to the direct manipulation of an organism's characteristics by altering its genetic structure. This also takes place at a very, very small scale and like nanotechnology the consequences are enormous. The key word here is "direct" -- humans have been altering organisms indirectly through intentional selection processes throughout our history. In GE the alteration is carried out at the molecular level and the effects can be quite specific and unlikely to occur naturally. Recent applications include modifying organisms to produce insulin, changing certain food crops to be disease resistant, and altering viruses so that they deliver chemotherapy drugs to cancer cells. Gene therapy, in which genetic abnormalities are corrected by repairing, replacing, or turning off defective genes, is a major development in medical treatment of a number of diseases.
There is also the very real possibility that nanotechnology and genetic engineering may be combined in certain ways. For example, UK researchers have conducted gene therapy in which genes were inserted into cancer cells that caused them to self-destruct. The insertion was carried out by nano particles: The genes were wrapped up in microscopic nano-particles which were taken up by cancer cells, but not their healthy neighbours. Once inside, the genes stimulated production of a protein which destroyed the cancer.
There are both utopian and dystopian views of genetic engineering and nanotechnology, just as there are of the internet. On the utopian side are suggestions that these fields will solve the energy crisis, clean the planet, reverse global warming, solve world hunger, and eliminate disease. On the dystopian side are arguments that we might unknowingly unleash dangerous substances into the environment, poison our food supply, and create a race of genetically vulnerable humans. Judging from history, predictions based on these extremes are unlikely to be correct -- there are always unforeseen consequences of any technology, both positive and negative. But it is clear that the potential applications of these two technologies are so varied and so far-reaching in their possible impacts that they will indeed change the world. Regardless of the specifics, our understanding of what a machine is, what the properties of familiar things are, what it means to be human, and what "life" is and how much it can be and should be controlled and by whom -- these and other fundamental views are about to change profoundly.
In my last blog we looked at simple inventions with large impacts. This blog will get more complex and more serious. Get a cup of coffee, you may need it.
One of the phenomena I investigated during my working days as a social psychologist was how the internet and the World Wide Web are changing society. I still follow this topic -- old social psychologists never die, they just stop going to departmental meetings -- and it has been fascinating to watch as this technology has become more and more central to our lives and altered our interactions. One of the developments that I correctly predicted ten years ago was the move toward wireless connectivity. I also correctly noted at that time that the cell phone, though not discussed nearly as much as the internet, was also changing society in dramatic ways. What I missed, though, was that the two would be merged to have an even greater impact, a development we are seeing very clearly today.
Unquestionably the internet/cell phone combination has rapidly altered society in fundamental ways and stimulated a lot of debate about whether the changes are good or bad. I predict, though, that there are two scientific fields that will change the world at least as much, and perhaps pose even greater challenges and dilemmas to society over the next 15-20 years: Nanotechnology and Genetic Engineering.
I assume that nearly everyone has heard of these fields from depictions in current entertainment media and in recent splashy news accounts. For example, male Star Trek fans will recall the rather visually intriguing connection of nanotechnology to the character Seven-of-Nine. Michael Crichton readers will recall Prey, which combined nanotechnology with emergent artificial intelligence, and of course Jurassic Park, which explored the deathly downside of genetic engineering. Readers of Neil Stephenson (who wrote Snow Crash, from which I took the title of this blog) will remember his dystopian extrapolation of nanotechnology in Diamond Age. Genetic engineering has been in the news frequently, mainly related to controversies surrounding genetically modified food, stem-cell research, cloning, and the development of "synthetic life."
Nanotechnology involves the creation of very, very small devices, such as carbon tubes 1000 times smaller than a red blood cell. Nano-structures can have some very interesting properties that scientists are only beginning to explore. For instance, carbon nanotubes assembled together into large structures are hundreds of times stronger yet six times lighter than steel. Other nano applications have the capacity to do physical "work," as illustrated by a range of devices called nanopumps, which can pass specific liquids back and forth through a membrane . Coatings composed of certain nanoparticles can alter the characteristics of objects, for example by keeping them cooler or by making them scratch resistant, self-cleaning, or sun resistant. Nanotubes implanted in human tissue can act as energy producing transistors, fueled by the body's biochemistry and thus providing power for nano devices, such as tiny computers, that might be implanted under the skin.
Genetic Engineering refers to the direct manipulation of an organism's characteristics by altering its genetic structure. This also takes place at a very, very small scale and like nanotechnology the consequences are enormous. The key word here is "direct" -- humans have been altering organisms indirectly through intentional selection processes throughout our history. In GE the alteration is carried out at the molecular level and the effects can be quite specific and unlikely to occur naturally. Recent applications include modifying organisms to produce insulin, changing certain food crops to be disease resistant, and altering viruses so that they deliver chemotherapy drugs to cancer cells. Gene therapy, in which genetic abnormalities are corrected by repairing, replacing, or turning off defective genes, is a major development in medical treatment of a number of diseases.
There is also the very real possibility that nanotechnology and genetic engineering may be combined in certain ways. For example, UK researchers have conducted gene therapy in which genes were inserted into cancer cells that caused them to self-destruct. The insertion was carried out by nano particles: The genes were wrapped up in microscopic nano-particles which were taken up by cancer cells, but not their healthy neighbours. Once inside, the genes stimulated production of a protein which destroyed the cancer.
There are both utopian and dystopian views of genetic engineering and nanotechnology, just as there are of the internet. On the utopian side are suggestions that these fields will solve the energy crisis, clean the planet, reverse global warming, solve world hunger, and eliminate disease. On the dystopian side are arguments that we might unknowingly unleash dangerous substances into the environment, poison our food supply, and create a race of genetically vulnerable humans. Judging from history, predictions based on these extremes are unlikely to be correct -- there are always unforeseen consequences of any technology, both positive and negative. But it is clear that the potential applications of these two technologies are so varied and so far-reaching in their possible impacts that they will indeed change the world. Regardless of the specifics, our understanding of what a machine is, what the properties of familiar things are, what it means to be human, and what "life" is and how much it can be and should be controlled and by whom -- these and other fundamental views are about to change profoundly.
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