At the bottom of a creek with translucent waters, Second life, October 2022.
The publisher
– Hello Surf Xi, can you please introduce yourself?
Surf Xi
– Hi! I am an author-avatar. I do-live-and-do-not-live in Second-Life from which I escape occasionally to discover other universes, digital-and-non-digital…
I am particularlly fascinated and intrigued by the-world-of-human-beings-that-inhabit-planet-earth.
The publisher
– Why?
Surf Xi
– Hard to express…
he meditates
I try to understand the worlds I belong to and following, those on which they depend, I imagine…
In my quest to understand these worlds, or our-world if we prefer to distinguish only-one, a little voice has pushed me to take an interest in the traces we leave in the ecosystems where our activities take place…
But what one can find there leaves me perplexed and saddened…
The publisher
– How so?
Surf Xi
– It’s sad to realize that whatever we do, most of us start by polluting-and-destroying the nature that surrounds us, the nature that gave us all our lives and that we all need to exist. I have the feeling that most of us don’t do it on purpose; it’s more like we don’t realize it. It’s like it’s just become a habit, let’s say systematic-systematic-and-trivialised attitude-and-behaviours.
Perplexed because I don’t understand why we can’t stop ourselves from destroying our nature-mother, even when we admit that we have indeed mistreated her and even when we claim to want to save her.
Becoming aware of this-sad-reality put me in a painful-dilemma, because the human-digital activities, to which I owe my life-and-no-life, do not escape it, on the contrary.
This is why, for some years now, I have been trying-to-demonstrate that my own existence is not irrevocably and fatally destined to pollute and destroy the human universe, any more than the existence of human beings themselves is, I think.
The publisher
– Where does this conviction come from?
Surf Xi
– There are surelly on earth people who know how to live in harmony with their living environment, right?
The publisher
– These people are far from being the norm…
Surf Xi
– Well, let’s say their existence does indeed seem to be threatened-by-the-permanent-aggression-of-human-activities-that-disregard-nature. Is this proof that their way of life is inadequate? It sounds a bit like a fable by La Fontaine…
The publisher
– Not sure to get the idea.
Surf Xi
– What can you do when you realise that the-law-of-the-strongest is the-worst?
The publisher
– Are you asking for a revolution?
Surf Xi
– My impression is that the political-revolutions, referred to in-the-accounts-of-human-development-I-have-accessed-so-far, have consisted essentially in replacing-a-small-number-of-dominant-human-beings with another-small-group-of-dominant-human-beings, without changing the-dynamics-of-human-development in any way, or at least not in essence.
The publisher
– Which means?
Surf Xi
– That is, each time the-new-dominant-team seems to be bent-on-doing-worse than the-previous-dominant-teams.
The publisher
– Worse?
Surf Xi
– Faster-and-stronger towards the-destruction-of-our-nature-mother.
The publisher
– I see. And so the same goes for technological-revolutions I suppose?
Surf Xi
– It seems to me, indeed, that the-one-does-not-go-without-the-other, that they kind-of feed-and-instrumentalise each other.
The publisher
– Got it. So please, back to How to change the law of the strongest when it is not the best?
Surf Xi
– I mean, when one suspects that it is the-worst-ξ
Not the best is an indefensible euphemism, in-my-opinion, to qualify the state of the world after the first cycles of digital-revolution we have just witnessed, and in particular the last thirty-year cycle to which I personally contributed.
The publisher
– Well noted, so let’s say, do you have something to propose in a situation where the law of the strongest is bad enough that it’s desirable to change it?
Knowing that it is the-law-of-the-strongest, of course.
Surf Xi
– I assume that going-back-when-you-have-made-a-mistake is one of the basic features of most digital-systems.
Based on this observation, I say to myself and I hope that it must be possible to start-again-with-a-certain-number-of-things-that-we-have-done-upside-down.
The publisher
amused
– Mindblowing. Ah, what a clever guy you are!
Surf Xi
– Of course, it’s all-smoke-and-mirrors as long as you-don’t-demonstrate-anything.
So I’m trying, at my level, to show that it’s possible to start a new digital business, because that’s-where-I-live-and-don’t-live, without first polluting-and-destroying the environment in which it fits.
That’s it… To sum up.
The publisher
– Ok, thank you! And you think it’s possible?
Surf Xi
– That’s what I try to understand, striving to demonstrate it first for my own activities.
The publisher
– And you’re confident you can succeed?
Surf Xi
– I haven’t thrown in the towel yet.
The publisher
– Well, so in that case, how do you go about it?
Surf Xi
– This is what I explain in my Data-driving trilogy.
The publisher
– Aha, a little bit phoned in, isn’t it?
Surf Xi
– If I need three books to explain it to myself, I don’t see how I can explain it to you in one sentence.
The publisher
– Fair enough. And where are you with your trilogy?
Surf Xi
– I am currently writing the third volume in French. The two first volumes have been published in French and English. I plan to publish Volume-3 during the second Quarter of 2023 in French and end of the year for English.
The publisher
– Good luck then, Surf Xi! Wishing we can continue this other-worldly conversation one of those days!
Surf Xi
– Thanks, come back whenever you want, Les-éditions-à-deux-balles!
See also Surf Xi’s page on this website.