| In New and Noteworthy, I linked to a piece on the "anti-Promethean backlash," the move away from exerting control over the physical world and pursuing instead dominance over "digital spaces" or the abstract world. Bits instead of atoms. Software engineering over civil engineering. That's a huge departure from the arc of human development. As hunter gatherers, we shaped the landscape and populations of animals. As farmers, we took control of plant and animal life cycles—no longer was it just the province of Mother Nature and natural selection. We became the selectors and the parents. We've diverted and dammed rivers, erected walls, built cities, dug tunnels, extracted minerals and the life blood of the planet. We've made the world our own. Although we aren't gods and our control isn't total, we have a long history of physical mastery over the physical world. Those are big civilizational issues, but they're also reflected in how we as individuals conduct our lives. We as individuals can exert dominance over the physical world. We can effect change in our immediate surroundings. I'd argue that we should do these things. I'd argue that if we don't, if we shrink from our genetic legacy to alter the physical world, if we fail to take up physical space and own to some extent the space around us, we suffer. Something inside us dies. That's why the blog or the books weren't enough for me. They may have influenced physical changes in the world (people getting healthier, getting stronger, that kind of thing), but they weren't "physical" in the normal sense. I felt I had to make a physical product that would sit on shelves and fill refrigerators. I had to make a physical imprint on reality, something that would take up space, something made of matter. Atoms. We all need to make a lasting physical impression or imprint. As far as I can see, there is no substitute for it. How do you impress yourself upon the physical, material world? How do you own physical space? What legacy do you leave in your wake? Let me know in the comment section of New and Noteworthy. | 
