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TEXT 49

The Limitless - Episode 4 Guest on 18th November 2022 06:11:06 AM

***The Bad Wolf Media logo comes up on the screen. No sound effects. It's silent as it fades in, holds, and then fades out again. When the sound hits, it is a wall of it. People. A multitude of people talking and laughing. Some people are singing. Some people sound like they are haggling on prices. And, oh boy...there a lot of fake Victorian British accents. This lasts for about five seconds before the video fades in, and we find ourselves at a Steampunk Convention. Wolfe is standing in the middle of it, surrounded by people in costume. People wearing convention badges. Kids and adults. Lovers and families. Gaggles of friends. And COSPLAY COSPLAY COSPLAY.
***Wolfe is not technically in costume. He's in his tweed as always. This suit is a brightly patterned gray with hints of gold. His waistcoat (because it's a waistcoat and not a vest) is a jade green with a golden cogwheel pattern running across it. Looking into the camera as people walk around him, Wolfe looks relaxed and happy, smiling at the audience.***
"The golden age of technology. The city of the future. A world where technology is sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic. All of these people are here today because the genre of steampunk speaks to something inside of them. Dreams of Camelot or Atlantis. The fabled city by any name. The City on the Hill. Utopia. Something within us craves it. Something within us seeks it, and for some of people, they are building it today. But where are these cities of the future? Where can we find them? I'm Dr. Frank Wolfe, and I have one question for you. Are you awake? Open your eyes, because we are all Limitless."
"If you saunter your way through the internet, like any other topic, there are lists of what people think are the world's most technologically advanced cities on the planet. There isn't one list. There are a lot, and combing through them often tells you more about the circumstance, criteria, and cultural bias of the person making the list than any real verification of which city on planet Earth might actually qualify as the City of Tomorrow."
***Wolfe is still at the Steampunk Convention as he walks around, talking to the camera, saying hello to some people as they pass by. It's a montage of him actually speaking, and then voiceover when he seems to naturally get into conversations with groups of costumed people.***
"That said, there are some cities that consistently make it onto the lists with varying reasons why. Seoul, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Dubai, Singapore, New York, and Stockholm all seem to pop up. Infrastructure, startup tech company support, adoption of technology into civil services, clean energy utility systems, better water, ubiquitous internet access, their tech adoption rate over the last twenty to thirty years..." Wolfe rattles these off in the focused, energetically casual fasion of his that has started to become his trademark in these videos. "...and of course about a hundred other reasons why. So, perhaps what we need to do is create our own list, eh?" He pauses in front of a tent at the convention. It looks like a circus tent, but wired up with faerie lights and piping and rotating gearboxes that seem to be making the tent almost breathe behind him. The banner over the entrance is City Of The Future. Wolfe grins at the camera. "So let's go inside and take a look. I promise, we're not heading for a Phillip K. Dick novel. I mean, not unless that's where we all secretly want to go. You too can find a new life in the off world colonies." He winks, makes a beckoning gesture, and steps into the dark of the tent.
***A graphic comes up on the screen that reads, "A Scientifically Curated List of What The City of Tomorrow Might Offer...or...the stuff we pulled out of a hat over lunch at Limitless HQ"***
1. No Poverty: You'd be surprised at how tricky this simple statement becomes due to its connotation to socioeconomic and political status. It does not necessarily mean that everyone is living in a big house on a postage stamp lawn with a grill in the backyard. It means that the first two levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs are met. Everyone's physical well-being is assured, and their safety and security is assured. The third level, Social Activity needs are not guaranteed, but social systems are in place to make it easier for people to be together, get along, create friendship and relationship bonds. And that brings us to number two.
2. Low Crime: Again. Tricky. Why? At least here in the United States, we have a slippery and rather old definition of what a crime is. As I learned recently, law is a muddled and murky minotaur maze that is as convoluted as three dimension chess or the hell dimensions from the Hellraiser movies. This isn't something that will get hashed out in any depth or detail here, but let's start with the simple idea that harm to individual people, community, or property is frowned up. Physically, financially, or otherwise. You can already see the rabbit holes that one can fall down, right? Right. But let's keep this here as an aspiration.
3. Net Zero Environmental Impact OR Environmental Symbiosis: What the Buck Rogers are you saying here, Frank? Good question. Let me ask the intern who wrote this one out for me. **A PLEASE HOLD graphic pops up for 3 seconds** Right! The city of tomorrow would ideally be built with sufficient wisdom to work with the local environment to ideally become part of the ecosystem in symbiosis rather than being parasitic in nature. Basically, Cheryl read a lot of Tolkien and wants to make sure we don't all get a "mind of metal". Also, poisoning our environment and resources seems like a really stupid idea. Also, being mindful of an ever changing climate and building for the future makes sense too. Finally, as a society, taking on the adult attitude of becoming stewards of the space we inhabit rather than conquerors of it seems like it should have happened...oooh.. a long, long time ago.
4. High Technological Adoption: Well, now we're getting to the fun part, right? Because that's what we're really talking about when we're talking about the city of tomorrow. How do we get lower crime, an end to poverty, and environmental symbiosis? Through policy evolution and high technology adoption. How would you like to have wireless power? No cords. No batteries. Just power when you need it for all of your devices. In the right areas, maybe even your cars, or your homes. What about 3D printers that can print shoes, or clothes, or even furniture? What if everything that was printed could be recycled right there in your home? The torn jeans or the worn out shoes tossed into a machine where the material is broken down, sanitized, and then reused at a recycle rate of 99 percent? It might lose a little water in the cleaning process. Speaking of, how about rainfall catching stations and smart roads and sidewalks that capture, treat, and filter rain water for drinking? Flexible solar panels that can be placed almost anywhere, unobtrusively, to capture solar power? None of these are beyond possibility. There just hasn't been enough sense of urgency to make them happen. Nikola Tesla was working on wireless power in his day, basing it around the principles that actually govern how electricity flows. Did you know it doesn't go through the wire? Go look it up.
"The fact of the matter is that people like systems. We like habit and familiarity. If it's not broke, don't fix it, right? Innovation tends to happen only when societies reach a crisis point, and perceive a crisis point, or a particularly charismatic group of people push a very specific agenda. Why? Because society is patterns of behavior. Established. Solid. Dependable. But here's the problem. Circumstance and relevency and time are the entropy that eat away at systems. Keep learning or start dying. Have you ever heard that one? The point is that we shouldn't wait for a crisis point, because we are always in one."
"Not that I'm trying to give everyone a bad day. I don't mean everything is coming to an end or there's no point. Of course not. What's the show called again? Oh. Right. The Limitless. In previous shows on this channel we've discussed how the entirety of human existance at the most basic level is about struggle. We stuggle to be born. We shruggle against gravity. It's how are muscles get stronger and our bones get thicker. We struggle to breathe. Human beings breathe oxygen due to an adaptation in evolution when this poisonous stuff filled up our atmosphere and started trying to kill all life. Life adapted, and we made oxygen our bitch."
**A drone camera image of the steampunk convention from above. A garden party filled with tents and food and people and wonder. Music plays in the back. Something that sounds vaguely like Hothouse Flowers. As the drone lifts higher and the camera pulls back, the greenery is bordered by a city. SFX manipulation has been applied at this point, because while it looks relatively like L.A., there are changes. Greenery. Sleeker. The usual signs of entropy in such a large city are lacking here. A utopian ideal of a shining city sprawling over the valley, out into the hills, stretching to the ocean, and rising up into the sky. Then the scene cuts, and we're back with Wolfe. He's got a pair of classic steampunk goggles perched on his forehead, and like a modern Henry VIII, a turkey leg in his hand.**
"Here's the part of the show where I start waxing patriotic or idealistic, or maybe both. Yes, I'm going to tell you that the city of tomorrow isn't built yet, or is in the process of being built. It's happening all over the world. It's an experiment about progress that is in progress. See what I did there? But let me temper the idealism for a moment."
**The scene cuts again, and this time Wolfe isn't in a place filled with fun and color. He's in one of the poorer neighborhoods of LA. He's walking, because it seems like Wolfe likes to be walking in these videos when he can be. The buildings are smaller, run down, in some cases looking like they're getting ready to fall over. What little greenery there might be is overgrown, neglected, and sparse. Bars over windows. Chain link fences that keep out nothing except joy. An angry dog barking somewhere off in the distance, and the vague sound of sirens.**
Wolfe looks at the camera as he slow walks his way down a street whose name should absolutely be Bleak or Nowhere. "Here's the reality for a lot of people. A lot. Not just in LA, but all over America. All over the world. This is what has to change, but remember what I said about crisis points? Yeah. Here's the proof."
**From here, Wolfe goes on with a number of graphics, charts, scales and statistics that talk about the rate of homelessness in LA, California, and the United States. He talks about how poverty, food insecurity, and housing insecurity contributes to and affects the rates of crime, of disease, of mental illness. He talks about the cost in dollars, and the cost in lives. He compares that to how much it would cost to start turning things around in any given population, and then into the future. The costs go down over time.**
"We're always in a crisis point, especially if we're thinking bigger than just ourselves. Innovation is all around us. New technology. New standards. New systems, or innovations on old ideas to make them into what is needed in the moment today. It truly is happening, but it's not happening cohesively. It's not happening on the macro or global scale. We're not connecting and working in concert with each other. Our disorganization, our lack of empathy, our paralysis when we hear the call to action, is the entropy that eats away at the Society of Tomorrow. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to look out your windows. I want you to listen for that call. Look for the light in the corners of things, and be willing to spread it. You'll know it when you see it, because change is coming. Hell, change is already here, popping up all over like wild flowers. We just need to nurture those flowers, tend to them, and help them to merge as a cohesive garden in which all people are well. I mean it. Watch. Thanks for watching. I'm Dr. Frank Wolfe. Wake up, and welcome to The Limitless."

Raw Paste

***The Bad Wolf Media logo comes up on the screen. No sound effects. It's silent as it fades in, holds, and then fades out again. When the sound hits, it is a wall of it. People. A multitude of people talking and laughing. Some people are singing. Some people sound like they are haggling on prices. And, oh boy...there a lot of fake Victorian British accents. This lasts for about five seconds before the video fades in, and we find ourselves at a Steampunk Convention. Wolfe is standing in the middle of it, surrounded by people in costume. People wearing convention badges. Kids and adults. Lovers and families. Gaggles of friends. And COSPLAY COSPLAY COSPLAY.

***Wolfe is not technically in costume. He's in his tweed as always. This suit is a brightly patterned gray with hints of gold. His waistcoat (because it's a waistcoat and not a vest) is a jade green with a golden cogwheel pattern running across it. Looking into the camera as people walk around him, Wolfe looks relaxed and happy, smiling at the audience.***

"The golden age of technology. The city of the future. A world where technology is sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic. All of these people are here today because the genre of steampunk speaks to something inside of them. Dreams of Camelot or Atlantis. The fabled city by any name. The City on the Hill. Utopia. Something within us craves it. Something within us seeks it, and for some of people, they are building it today. But where are these cities of the future? Where can we find them? I'm Dr. Frank Wolfe, and I have one question for you. Are you awake? Open your eyes, because we are all Limitless."

"If you saunter your way through the internet, like any other topic, there are lists of what people think are the world's most technologically advanced cities on the planet. There isn't one list. There are a lot, and combing through them often tells you more about the circumstance, criteria, and cultural bias of the person making the list than any real verification of which city on planet Earth might actually qualify as the City of Tomorrow."

***Wolfe is still at the Steampunk Convention as he walks around, talking to the camera, saying hello to some people as they pass by. It's a montage of him actually speaking, and then voiceover when he seems to naturally get into conversations with groups of costumed people.***

"That said, there are some cities that consistently make it onto the lists with varying reasons why. Seoul, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Dubai, Singapore, New York, and Stockholm all seem to pop up. Infrastructure, startup tech company support, adoption of technology into civil services, clean energy utility systems, better water, ubiquitous internet access, their tech adoption rate over the last twenty to thirty years..." Wolfe rattles these off in the focused, energetically casual fasion of his that has started to become his trademark in these videos. "...and of course about a hundred other reasons why. So, perhaps what we need to do is create our own list, eh?" He pauses in front of a tent at the convention. It looks like a circus tent, but wired up with faerie lights and piping and rotating gearboxes that seem to be making the tent almost breathe behind him. The banner over the entrance is City Of The Future. Wolfe grins at the camera. "So let's go inside and take a look. I promise, we're not heading for a Phillip K. Dick novel. I mean, not unless that's where we all secretly want to go. You too can find a new life in the off world colonies." He winks, makes a beckoning gesture, and steps into the dark of the tent.

***A graphic comes up on the screen that reads, "A Scientifically Curated List of What The City of Tomorrow Might Offer...or...the stuff we pulled out of a hat over lunch at Limitless HQ"***

1. No Poverty: You'd be surprised at how tricky this simple statement becomes due to its connotation to socioeconomic and political status. It does not necessarily mean that everyone is living in a big house on a postage stamp lawn with a grill in the backyard. It means that the first two levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs are met. Everyone's physical well-being is assured, and their safety and security is assured. The third level, Social Activity needs are not guaranteed, but social systems are in place to make it easier for people to be together, get along, create friendship and relationship bonds. And that brings us to number two.

2. Low Crime: Again. Tricky. Why? At least here in the United States, we have a slippery and rather old definition of what a crime is. As I learned recently, law is a muddled and murky minotaur maze that is as convoluted as three dimension chess or the hell dimensions from the Hellraiser movies. This isn't something that will get hashed out in any depth or detail here, but let's start with the simple idea that harm to individual people, community, or property is frowned up. Physically, financially, or otherwise. You can already see the rabbit holes that one can fall down, right? Right. But let's keep this here as an aspiration.

3. Net Zero Environmental Impact OR Environmental Symbiosis: What the Buck Rogers are you saying here, Frank? Good question. Let me ask the intern who wrote this one out for me. **A PLEASE HOLD graphic pops up for 3 seconds** Right! The city of tomorrow would ideally be built with sufficient wisdom to work with the local environment to ideally become part of the ecosystem in symbiosis rather than being parasitic in nature. Basically, Cheryl read a lot of Tolkien and wants to make sure we don't all get a "mind of metal". Also, poisoning our environment and resources seems like a really stupid idea. Also, being mindful of an ever changing climate and building for the future makes sense too. Finally, as a society, taking on the adult attitude of becoming stewards of the space we inhabit rather than conquerors of it seems like it should have happened...oooh.. a long, long time ago.

4. High Technological Adoption:  Well, now we're getting to the fun part, right? Because that's what we're really talking about when we're talking about the city of tomorrow. How do we get lower crime, an end to poverty, and environmental symbiosis? Through policy evolution and high technology adoption. How would you like to have wireless power? No cords. No batteries. Just power when you need it for all of your devices. In the right areas, maybe even your cars, or your homes. What about 3D printers that can print shoes, or clothes, or even furniture? What if everything that was printed could be recycled right there in your home? The torn jeans or the worn out shoes tossed into a machine where the material is broken down, sanitized, and then reused at a recycle rate of 99 percent? It might lose a little water in the cleaning process. Speaking of, how about rainfall catching stations and smart roads and sidewalks that capture, treat, and filter rain water for drinking? Flexible solar panels that can be placed almost anywhere, unobtrusively, to capture solar power? None of these are beyond possibility. There just hasn't been enough sense of urgency to make them happen. Nikola Tesla was working on wireless power in his day, basing it around the principles that actually govern how electricity flows. Did you know it doesn't go through the wire? Go look it up.

"The fact of the matter is that people like systems. We like habit and familiarity. If it's not broke, don't fix it, right? Innovation tends to happen only when societies reach a crisis point, and perceive a crisis point, or a particularly charismatic group of people push a very specific agenda. Why? Because society is patterns of behavior. Established. Solid. Dependable. But here's the problem. Circumstance and relevency and time are the entropy that eat away at systems. Keep learning or start dying. Have you ever heard that one? The point is that we shouldn't wait for a crisis point, because we are always in one."

"Not that I'm trying to give everyone a bad day. I don't mean everything is coming to an end or there's no point. Of course not. What's the show called again? Oh. Right. The Limitless. In previous shows on this channel we've discussed how the entirety of human existance at the most basic level is about struggle. We stuggle to be born. We shruggle against gravity. It's how are muscles get stronger and our bones get thicker. We struggle to breathe. Human beings breathe oxygen due to an adaptation in evolution when this poisonous stuff filled up our atmosphere and started trying to kill all life. Life adapted, and we made oxygen our bitch."

**A drone camera image of the steampunk convention from above. A garden party filled with tents and food and people and wonder. Music plays in the back. Something that sounds vaguely like Hothouse Flowers. As the drone lifts higher and the camera pulls back, the greenery is bordered by a city. SFX manipulation has been applied at this point, because while it looks relatively like L.A., there are changes. Greenery. Sleeker. The usual signs of entropy in such a large city are lacking here. A utopian ideal of a shining city sprawling over the valley, out into the hills, stretching to the ocean, and rising up into the sky. Then the scene cuts, and we're back with Wolfe. He's got a pair of classic steampunk goggles perched on his forehead, and like a modern Henry VIII, a turkey leg in his hand.**

"Here's the part of the show where I start waxing patriotic or idealistic, or maybe both. Yes, I'm going to tell you that the city of tomorrow isn't built yet, or is in the process of being built. It's happening all over the world. It's an experiment about progress that is in progress. See what I did there? But let me temper the idealism for a moment."

**The scene cuts again, and this time Wolfe isn't in a place filled with fun and color. He's in one of the poorer neighborhoods of LA. He's walking, because it seems like Wolfe likes to be walking in these videos when he can be. The buildings are smaller, run down, in some cases looking like they're getting ready to fall over. What little greenery there might be is overgrown, neglected, and sparse. Bars over windows. Chain link fences that keep out nothing except joy. An angry dog barking somewhere off in the distance, and the vague sound of sirens.**

Wolfe looks at the camera as he slow walks his way down a street whose name should absolutely be Bleak or Nowhere. "Here's the reality for a lot of people. A lot. Not just in LA, but all over America. All over the world. This is what has to change, but remember what I said about crisis points? Yeah. Here's the proof."
**From here, Wolfe goes on with a number of graphics, charts, scales and statistics that talk about the rate of homelessness in LA, California, and the United States.  He talks about how poverty, food insecurity, and housing insecurity contributes to and affects the rates of crime, of disease, of mental illness.  He talks about the cost in dollars, and the cost in lives.  He compares that to how much it would cost to start turning things around in any given population, and then into the future.  The costs go down over time.** 
"We're always in a crisis point, especially if we're thinking bigger than just ourselves. Innovation is all around us. New technology. New standards. New systems, or innovations on old ideas to make them into what is needed in the moment today. It truly is happening, but it's not happening cohesively. It's not happening on the macro or global scale. We're not connecting and working in concert with each other. Our disorganization, our lack of empathy, our paralysis when we hear the call to action, is the entropy that eats away at the Society of Tomorrow. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to look out your windows. I want you to listen for that call. Look for the light in the corners of things, and be willing to spread it. You'll know it when you see it, because change is coming. Hell, change is already here, popping up all over like wild flowers. We just need to nurture those flowers, tend to them, and help them to merge as a cohesive garden in which all people are well. I mean it. Watch. Thanks for watching. I'm Dr. Frank Wolfe.  Wake up, and welcome to The Limitless."