What does "hospicing modernity" mean?

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That’s my current view. So for example, when I ask Copilot a question a question like “what is the carrying capacity of Wales using pre-industrial technology alone?”, it 1) looks up a bunch of articles on the Internet, 2) takes an average, 3) presents a range, 4) does some fairly simple math, 5) presents results in summary with a small table. I certainly could have done all that. Just saved an hour or so not to have to. And of course, if the resulting number fed into some vital policy debate, the entire analysis would need to be reworked by critical humans anyway, just to be sure of the quality of both the research and the calculations. At best, Copilot can bang out rough estimates and first drafts in a big hurry. That’s useful as far as it goes.

Notice also I’m not even tempted to ask AI questions like “should the Welsh press for devolution from the UK?” Maybe “summarize arguments for and against Welsh devolution”, but that’s really just glorified search. The political question itself is none of AI’s business, IMO.

In the context of an upcoming textbook, I drafted the AI chapter. That requires covering the spectrum of opinion from AI skeptics (like Y N Harari) to AI cheerleaders (like Ray Kurzweil) One thing I did was to summarize Vervaeke’s talk on Hobbes-Descartes-Pascal precisely to flag that “intelligence” or “reason” has never achieved any consensus definition. The 17th century debate was never resolved, and if anything, the topic has only complexified more recently. (I’m team Pascal, BTW). So the Turing Test is not well defined - it depends entirely on what one requires for “human-like” behavior.

Although spreading the theoretical options out on the table for students to evaluate themselves is a good practice, at the end of the day, we’re all situated, need to make practical moral judgements, and need to live with the results of whatever bets we place. My current bet is that education needs to lean more into the right-brain, 1) to correct cultural skew of the past 500 years, 2) to facilitate human students to differentiate their contributions from AI, so they will clearly have value to offer beyond whatever the bots spit out. Paradoxically, that means I’m going to be encouraging students to throw AI at everything (to get familiar with it), but class effort will be almost entirely human-to-human interaction. Even if the school itself shuts down in some impending collapse, a radically relational human-to-human education program can still transpire around hearths or campfires or whatever gathering space becomes available. The “school”, as such, is really the people. AI can serve as a sort of text. If AI goes away (due to loss of power, connectivity, access, etc.) text on print can go back to being what it once was.

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Another scheme I’m cooking up… Solar LocaLAI, an small local AI with local information, curated like a local library, networked with Bioregional AI, local history, arts, traditions, health care info, supply chain links, building and construction advice, plant databases, farmers almanacs, scientific research papers and guidance, educational material to degree level, local governance systems and grassroots initiatives and democracy tools. Not always on, not always available, maybe you have to book time on it.

Think a version of Cuba’s El Paquete

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have you got anything like B4RN in your part of Wales? I was involved with B4RN a few years ago

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BT installed fibre all the way to the mud hut, 4 years ago. It’s the only thing we are not “off grid” for. The fastest connection we’ve ever had, and faster than anyone else we know. The paradox of the eco village.

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Good example of the sort of multi-layered world that will likely evolve next. On the one hand, less reliance on mechanization for every conceivable purpose. On the other hand, the tech we do use may be advanced beyond what is available now.

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Robert, I agree that AI’s best use is not to make political judgements for us but to serve as a kind of text. What fascinates me, though, is less its capacity for summaries and estimates, and more its ability to reveal patterns in our language—how we frame, repeat, and sometimes trap ourselves in the very words we use. That’s where I’ve found it unexpectedly helpful: not giving answers, but exposing the grooves of thought we didn’t realize we were walking in.

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Good insight. My understanding of language is essentially neo-Kantian - the language we inherit conditions the perceptions that are available to us. AI does a good job summarizing current consensus linguistic structures and mirroring them back to us.

The real opportunity then is to see all that for what it is and then go off exploring less charted territory. (Start with experience itself - not the conceptualizing of experience).

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What I find significant about all commercial broadband providers is that they artificially limit upload speed. (B4RN gives symmetric upload and download.) The only rationale I can think of for this is the familiar capitalist artificial scarcity of upload bandwidth — I mean, if we allowed common people full upload speeds, they might (horror of horrors) start to have web servers in their sheds! And that would really be breaking the unseen hegemony of internet service providers.

I was hoping, with B4RN, to take advantage of this and set up some decent self-managed web server facilities, but the other people in Lancaster Cohousing (and the connected Halton Mill community) were mostly more interested in yoga, art, healing, etc. Nothing wrong with those! Just felt to me like a missed opportunity.

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There is a technical question here exclusive of underlying business model. See this:

For an ISP (private, public, for-profit, non-profit) to provision symmetrical data services to all customers equally would entail engineering something like a 3x-10x expansion of network capacity across the board. Rather than undertaking that expense, ISPs typically offer a lower rate for residential asymmetrical broadband (the most common use case) and have some sort of premium upcharge for “business class” symmetrical services.

Anyone setting up a pro-social, p-t-p, non-profit business model is still setting up a business model. Cost accounting continues to have a role to play

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I just want to briefly appreciate the IFS analogy: “reparenting” modernity as a “part” that has good intentions, but is no longer being given control because the big-S “Self”(whole) has better strategies now…

I feel more attraction to this lens than the “hospicing” lens, though it’s a tricky analogy in that e.g. parts don’t have control when we’re “in Self” yet modernity very tangibly has enormous power and control so techniques must be different. But seeing ‘modernity’ points at the bigger space from which we’re seeing it - not the view from nowhere, but the view from perspective-taking that gives us space to work with the object we’ve been subject to.

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This is a key insight. What is the platform that provides this critical distance from modernity, and how do embodied creatures such as ourselves obtain such a wide-angled view?

A relevant passage in Hospicing Modernity is found beginning on p. 216 in which the author describes her extended stay with a Quechua family that more or less adopted her. Among other things, the author dressed in indigenous Andean fashion, bowler hat and all, and helped the women sell tourist trinkets at the Peruvian market at Pisac. (A market I once visited, definitely from the tourist side of the table). Vanessa Machado do Oliveria views the cultural world through a sort of binocular vision not uncommon to bi-cultural or multi-cultural people the world over. Readers who are completely WEIRD in outlook will likely not understand this at all, and that seems to be the readership Vanessa has in mind for the numerous exercises in her book.

Can any of us here replicate the experiential processes that gave Vanessa her specific perspective? No … and yes. To literally do exactly what she did - dress up in female Andean costume and sell trinkets in Pisac - would be somewhere on a spectrum from buffoonish to belligerent for most of us participating in this discussion here. That practice made sense for Vanessa, however, because of her particular genealogy and her specific familial and cultural embeddedness. By contrast, I was in Pisac in the early 1980s as part of a youthful program of throwing myself into as many global cultures as my funding sources at the time would allow. That was authentic for me - because I’ve basically been an information sponge almost since emerging from the womb - so diving into every conceivable perspective out there just seems like the obvious and natural thing to do. After nearly seven decades of that sort of practice, my thinking is not especially bound by anything quite so prosaic as the “modern”. The “modern” of course is available, as are lots of old shirts and slacks and sweaters hanging in my closet, for periodic reuse, depending on the weather.

My general recommendation for anyone desiring a very wide angled view from somewhere, which gains a lot of unusual perspective on experiences that are elsewhere, is to balance outward investigations with inward investigations and vice versa. My analog to selling trinkets at Pisac is to work with a developmentally inclusive community selling fresh produce at a local farmers market. That resonates with family history, among other things. I’m growing beyond my current version of self, but in ways that are true to prior versions of that self, and perhaps to my original face before I was born. “Modernity”, it turns out, is just one slim chapter in a very long-running epochal story.

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This feels like it could be whitewashing to me. I cannot see how providing symmetrical data connections would need to expand network capacity … and I would be grateful to know details, so we can objectively assess whether this is actually true, or just a feeble excuse to create artificial scarcity. In the B4RN scenario, there has never been any talk of why symmetric data requires more optical fibre capacity than asymmetric.

I recommend digging deeper than a bland reassurance that seems to me to carry no weight at all. Iin fact, the figures quoted suggest that nothing at all would be lost, and no extra load would be generated, by allowing all connections to be symmetric.

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Having taught networking engineering for going on 20 years now, I can assure you that bandwidth does not provision itself and numerous cost factors are involved. (See an AI summary below.)

Suppose a local ISP does offer symmetrical upload and download to all customers, and suppose some of these customers take advantage of that and set up high traffic web servers from their locations. Is the cost of that outbound traffic negligible to the local ISP?

Over the last mile fiber itself, perhaps so, because fiber has legendary bandwidth capacity. But what happens when all those bits hit the first switch at the ISPs head end? Carrier class switches to do not come cheap. (I just now put this query into Google. For further detail, feel free to try it yourself: “what is the average cost of a carrier class data switchport?”)

Beyond the local ISPs point of presence, then comes the hand off of the traffic to other backbone carriers. Carriers that push a lot of traffic onto that backbone generally have to arrange settlement terms with the carriers they hand off to. We could go on … but there is complex supply chain behind the internet, and none of the infrastructure is really serviceable by anything other than advanced capitalism, even in places like China.

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what cost factors are involved in provisioning residential broadband service?

Copilot said:

Copilot

Provisioning residential broadband service involves a variety of cost factors that span infrastructure, operations, regulatory compliance, and customer support. Here’s a breakdown of the major categories:

:building_construction: Infrastructure Costs

These are often the most significant upfront investments:

  • Network build-out: Laying fiber, coaxial, or copper lines; trenching; pole attachments.

  • Last-mile connectivity: Connecting homes to the broader network.

  • Equipment: Routers, modems, ONTs (Optical Network Terminals), and other CPE (Customer Premises Equipment).

  • Backhaul and core network: Connecting local networks to the internet backbone.

:gear: Operational Costs

Ongoing expenses to keep the service running:

  • Maintenance: Repairing lines, replacing equipment, and maintaining network health.

  • Network upgrades: Increasing capacity or transitioning to newer technologies (e.g., DOCSIS to fiber).

  • Power and facilities: Data centers, cooling, and electricity for network operations.

:busts_in_silhouette: Customer Service and Support

  • Technical support: Call centers, field technicians, and troubleshooting.

  • Installation labor: Technicians visiting homes for setup.

  • Billing and CRM systems: Software and staff to manage accounts and payments.

:scroll: Regulatory and Compliance Costs

  • Permits and fees: Local government fees for right-of-way access or pole attachments.

  • Universal service obligations: Costs related to serving rural or underserved areas.

  • Privacy and data protection compliance: Meeting legal standards like GDPR or FCC rules.

:chart_increasing: Marketing and Acquisition

  • Advertising: Online, TV, print, and local outreach.

  • Promotions and discounts: Introductory pricing, bundles, or subsidized equipment.

  • Sales commissions: For agents or third-party sellers.

:credit_card: Financing and Capital Costs

  • Debt servicing: Interest on loans used to fund infrastructure.

  • Depreciation: Accounting for the aging of physical assets.

:abacus: Variable Costs per Subscriber

  • Bandwidth usage: More users or higher speeds require more capacity.

  • Support calls and service visits: Varies by customer behavior and network reliability.

  • Equipment provisioning: Some ISPs lease modems/routers, others sell them.

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What the article shows is that the demand for upstream is much lower than the demand for downstream data. Naturally. People watch lots of video, they upload only a little. That is not a justification for limiting upstream bandwidth. I don’t see it as “rather than undertaking that expense” (which I rate as minimal or zero); rather as you say, artificial scarcity so that they can charge more for symmetrical services. How about looking at the bigger picture here?

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Good question for my students when they return in a month or so. Meanwhile …

Do symmetric and asymmetric broadband services cost the same to provision?

Copilot said:

Copilot

Great question! The cost to provision symmetric vs. asymmetric broadband services can differ significantly due to several technical and infrastructure factors. Here’s a breakdown:

1. Symmetric Broadband

This means equal upload and download speeds—common in business-grade services and fiber connections.

Provisioning Costs

  • Higher infrastructure requirements: Often requires fiber-optic networks, which are more expensive to deploy than copper or coaxial.

  • More robust equipment: Needs networking gear that can handle high-speed uploads, which is more demanding than download-heavy setups.

  • Dedicated bandwidth: Often provisioned with dedicated lines or less oversubscription, increasing cost.

2. Asymmetric Broadband

This means higher download speeds than upload speeds—typical for residential services like DSL, cable, or some wireless.

Provisioning Costs

  • Lower infrastructure costs: Can use existing copper or coaxial lines.

  • Cheaper equipment: Optimized for download-heavy usage (e.g., streaming, browsing).

  • Shared bandwidth: Often oversubscribed, reducing cost per user.

Cost Comparison Summary

Feature Symmetric Broadband Asymmetric Broadband
Typical Use Business, enterprise Residential
Infrastructure Fiber-optic, dedicated DSL, cable, wireless
Equipment Cost Higher Lower
Bandwidth Allocation Dedicated or low contention Shared, oversubscribed
Provisioning Cost Higher Lower

Bottom Line

No, symmetric and asymmetric broadband services do not cost the same to provision. Symmetric services are generally more expensive due to the need for higher-grade infrastructure and equipment, and are typically targeted at business users who need reliable upload speeds for things like video conferencing, cloud services, and hosting.

Would you like a comparison of typical pricing or deployment models for these services in Seattle or another region?

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The aspects of views and perspectives is so interesting.

It seems something we have to cycle through, jiggle or oscillate with. Spotlight/floodlight. Microscope/panorama. Filters that surface different types of difference. View from nowhere, view from everywhere, inside/outside (debatable), Salience for who/what? Kaleidoscopic, networked, chaotic. Time as linear, time as cyclical, or timeless, ever-present, kairotic. So it goes on. Seems to me we need to develop an agility and flexibility in holding or sharing the paradoxes, conflicts and synchronicities afforded by this complexity.

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What an interesting rope (with three strands) Tech constraints, entrainment constraints and belonging in a social space for sensemaking constraints. How about noticing how we are explaining and what each of us needs to feel safe, recognisable and sense-able in our chat here.

The question about up/down-stream bandwidth and use of AI servers while keeping in mind sustainability needs to expand in another thread besides our current topic of (Hospicing Modernity. let us not stepping aside from tasks of the season: removing all the non perennial plant remains, putting the “beds” in order, adding to the recyling piles, that will take a lot of time using microorganism process of composting/assisted sprouting.. as Robert pointed out I can not get rid of some of my modernist programing. We live with habits, family assumptions-neighborhood rules and patterns, with shards and cancers of Modernity. And I feel we can delude ourselves as John Vervaeke warns us of with our “higher” perspectives and sense of doing right but we need to stay with the trouble and widen as well as be more precise in our rushing and meandering epistomologic flows of making sense.

I use Aiden quite differently Robert and I ask it to help be find relationships in historical and developmental stories so that we might find our shadows and reboot our thinkings skills with more awareness for what is left out and hidden instead of re-searching for the edges of what we are willing to accept for now as provable. I thank Gen for opening, providing and provoking gently my use of language both mine and LLMs and to the diverse group of relational journey- men/women who joined for the deep dive that is off to a very good start.

I would be happy to have some feedback on how I use Aiden for inquiries.
So if you have about 7 minutes, read through Aiden Inquiries Nr. 6 on my Substack.

Thank you all for this very interesting discussion.

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To me that sounds like Gebser’s integral mutation of consciousness in a nutshell.

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A hard core technical thread would scratch my itch!

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My preferred use of AI is very prosaic - as a business tool to speed up search, summarize long documents and videos, and write first drafts of things very quickly. That said, I am finding it’s generally useful to run queries on “what are the potential objections to this argument"?” I suppose that might be directed toward shadow work as well. But me and Copilot - keeping that relationship strictly professional and work-related, thank you!