The robotic revolution
Adam Lee’s back-page paean to technological solutionism (1 January) perfectly completes the circle, returning readers to where they started before reading the front-page article warning of the risks of the robot revolution. Of the material developments that Lee highlights – from economic growth to face transplants – few, if any, are unequivocal improvements. Indeed, while Charles Arthur’s piece specifically points out the ethical dilemmas surrounding self-driving cars, Lee heralds the technology as the potential saviour of tens of thousands of lives.
Since anthropocentric climate change can, to a very large degree, be attributed to the damaging side-effects of what we have all too easily tended to regard as technological progress, should we not at least embrace the newest and latest with a little more circumspection?
Andrew Hallifax
Örebro, Sweden
• Should we fear … robots? you ask. Wrong question. It is humans who design robots and build artificial intelligences, usually with little or no thought to the long-term implications. It is humans who create (or, more likely, fail to create) the regulatory regimes in which they operate. Hence, the question ought to be “Should we fear humans?” The answer is pretty obvious.
Tim Sprod
Taroona, Tasmania, Australia
Real books have a future
Robert McCrum (1 January) salutes the survival of imaginative literature on the printed paper page and looks to coming works that will typify our age under its electronic blanket.
May I put in a word for the disciplines of history and biography going from strength to strength as real books? Their authors, aided by newly discovered sources and by the speed of both internet research and consultation with other experts, offer many viewpoints to help the reader judge what really happened. Never before have the past and its lessons been so brightly lit.
Where is the ebook, imaginative or factual, that squeaks delightfully when first opened, whose pages can be flipped back, checked and commented on, with notes and index accessible and with illustrations where they should be – in glorious colour? (I have not yet solved the puzzle of slipping a pertinent online newspaper item between the pages of an ebook.)
Elizabeth Quance
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
Why so many young men?
In his letter about Europe’s refugee crisis (Reply, 8 January), Hugh Irving comments on something I have been observing for weeks: most photos and TV images of refugees are almost all of young men. This has been the case for weeks if not months and I have wondered why it has never been mentioned or addressed in reports or articles.
Earlier on in this crisis, one saw some women and children, but your photo in the 18 December issue speaks of potential problems in resettling in a new culture. With this in mind, I was not surprised to hear of the events on New Year’s Eve in Cologne and other European cities (15 January). Young men without work or responsibility hanging around cafes, bars and public squares can be social problems in any city. I have observed it in Delhi, Asmara and various other cities, including some in the US.
The demographic circumstance needs attention.
Kathy Hoffmann
St Paul, Minnesota, US
Curious things about coal
I am curious to learn how the miners at Kellingley pit reacted when Susanna Rustin told them that she worked for a newspaper that was actively promoting such closures through their Keep it in the ground campaign (18 December). Or did she prefer not to tell them?
Do the editor, journalists and readers of the Guardian who support this campaign simply accept that the plight of these miners is a price worth paying (by others, of course) in the short term? Will the editor of the Guardian now be asking the Scott Trust to invest in activities to alleviate the hardship of those affected by this campaign? Lastly, I am not a climate sceptic but can I still rely on the Guardian to neutrally report on this issue when you are actively promoting a certain viewpoint?
Stephen Corney
Peymeinade, France
The secret of writing well
It would seem that psychologist Robert Boice, in his book How Writers Journey To Comfort And Fluency, as described by Oliver Burkeman (8 January), may have independently stumbled upon Anthony Trollope’s secret of writing successfully.
Trollope, whose day job was a postal inspector in Ireland, is said to have written 200 words – neither more nor less – each day prior to setting out to fulfil his Royal Mail duties and resisted any temptation to deviate from this habit. In all likelihood, however, Trollope’s imagination would have remained active as he rode horseback on his rounds, thus fuelling the next day’s efforts.
Considering the extent of Trollope’s literary output, the imposition of this discipline would seem a commendable exercise for those of Burkeman’s readers with writing ambitions.
Michael J Reynolds
Milverton, UK
Dubai’s new museums
It was interesting and troubling to read Kanishk Tharoor’s candid account of the grotesque social inequalities attaching to the two lavish museums being built on Abu Dhabi’s shores (1 January). Creditably, it throws a spotlight on a very much understated gross disparity between rich and poor in the Emirates.
Tharoor’s journalistic candour serves as an antidote to the frequently banal and soporific descriptions of that country.
It’s no surprise that the article first appeared in a New York art magazine. It has a natural home in Guardian Weekly and would sit very uncomfortably in the Air Emirates in-flight magazine.
Terry Hewton
Adelaide, South Australia
Briefly
• It is unconscionable that governments, universities and foundations would spend billions for a ego trip to Mars when the earth is in the early stages of its death throes from climate change (1 January). Stay home scientists, engineers and research funding – and develop low-cost and accessible energy options quickly so we can keep the carbon in the ground.
Charles Drace
Christchurch, New Zealand
• Hunger threat for millions as strong El Niño hits crops, John Vidal reported (8 January). However, failed harvests and soaring prices of agricultural commodities are the “only bright spots in sight” for investors around the globe, Martin Farrer writes under the headline Bleak year for commodities. The same edition featured a review of Disaster Capitalism: Making a killing out of a catastrophe.
QED, I’d say.
Sue Seymour
Brampton, Cumbria, UK
• Ana Romero remains cautiously hopeful throughout her intricate prognostication for Spain’s new year in politics (1 January). However, as far as I know, “brave new world” is meant ironically only in English now (quixotic in the Tempest, dystopic in Huxley).
R M Fransson
Wheat Ridge, Colorado, US
• If Wang Wei was the opening night of Hamlet he might merit the title, China’s premiere trainspotter (8 January). A more accurate epithet would surely be “foremost”.
Brian A Wren
Wells, Maine, US
• Donald Trump’s proposed selective ban on those arriving in America reminds me that those who decimated its native population were not Muslims predominantly but Christians (11 December). It would be interesting but unfortunate if these were similarly to be banned from entering or re-entering the country.
Adrian Betham
London, UK
• Mary Quattlebaum’s review of Kathryn Aalto’s book on Winnie the Pooh (from the Washington Post) has repeated admiring references to the illustrator Ernest H Shepard (15 January). So whose editorial decision was it to illustrate with the abysmal Disney versions?
Joyce Schlesinger
Durham, UK
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