Rodoman s electronic geography

RODOMAN`S ELECTRONIC GEOGRAPHY

Speculation in Science and Technology, vol. 9, April 1986, p. 37 – 40.

IMPROVING THE STATUS OF RODOMAN`S  ELECTRONIC GEOGRAPHY PROPOSAL

Richard Brook Cathcart

Geographos, 441 South Berendo Street, Suite 101, Los Angeles, California 90020, USA

Received: 22 November 1984

Abstract. Rodoman`s 1965 postulate is reconsidered whit the aim of generating widespread interest in his theory of Space Age geography. Today`s computer technology permits the economical implementation of his idea for the real-time command and control of an anthropocentric Earth biosphere.

Today, Earth`s largest machine is the global telecommunications network. In the mid-1980`s, this network consists of probably 5 x 10 8 telephone and telex terminals and of several Earth-orbiting satellites dedicated to communications. In addition, of course, we should include all the actively-reporting solar system probes that have been rocketed into interplanetary and interstellar space. Mayo [1] revealed there are 6 x 10 13 possible connections that can be made within the telecommunications system of USA. In effect, this worldwide machine use of electricity keeps much of mankind informed of Earthly event-processes, in terms of news, scientific data and, as well, permits the command and control of industrial and military infrastructures [2].
        Yet, in 1965, few professional geographers could share the vision of the futuristic electronic observation and control system proposed by Boris Borisovich Rodoman (born 1931), who is a Soviet geographical theoretician working in the Economic Geography Department of Moscow State University. The year Rodoman was born, Vannevar Bush (1890 – 1974) developed the last of the analogue computing machines, his differential analyser. Now, digital computers dominate the marketplace. English-speakers have, so far, ignored Rodoman`s informed speculation calling for the development of a satellite-based system for the automation of regionalisation and the centralised control of regionalised economies [3].
        British geographical scholar Roger Minshull, in 1970, brought to the attention of a wider readership the nature of Rodomanian electronic geography [4]. Even today, Rodoman`s idea may seem bizarre. So far, apparently, no one else has bothered, to follow Minshull`s astute professional advice and, curiously, Rodoman himself,  judging by his translated published works [5, 6], never seems to refer to his two-decade-old concept directly! Here is what Rodoman said in 1965:

        «The acceleration of the regionalisation process would make in possible to issue… finally map-tableau, or television screens carrying a map image, which would continually portray changes of the mapped object. Simple tableaus depicting individual moving objects (for example, trains and railroad cars on a track diagram) are nothing new. Here we are talking about regionalisation tableau. The regional boundaries on such a tableau would continually changes and the characteristics of regions would be supplemented from time to time; some regions may disappear or split up, and the entire regionalisation would be instantaneously reorganised. Such a device could be… a screen shoving the regionalisation of weather  conditions. … But we can also imagine an automatic device that would not only data… but would also dispatch the needed raw materials or fertilisers, organise the irrigation  and harvesting of crops, etc. If regionalisation is a component part of these operations, then its cartographic representation becomes superfluous: the entire regionalisation process would take place instantaneously in `the mind` of the machine, simply as an algorithm of a class of problems that use information about the location of phenomena on the Earth`s surface".

        Soviet and American geographers work under the informational constraints of national security. For example, it may well be that  America`s KH-12 spy (not battle control) satellite, scheduled to by  orbited  in 1986, will contain some of abilities Rodoman desires. During 1983, NASA brought online the second generation of Earth-orbiting resource imagers (LANDSAT-D) and took delivery of a massively parallel processor capable of handling 10:13 bits of data during a single day. Approximately 500 maps of scenes could by daily available to human monitors using this tandem facility. By merely monitoring this rather inexpensive NASA facility will perform less than 50% of the functions wanted by Rodoman.
        But what of the other +50% of the functions?
        Evidently, Rodoman foresaw a kind of `simultaneous` modeling of the Earth`s landscape and seascape, cast on huge video displays in surface Biosphere Management Centres. From such managerial facilities, Homo sapiens would control, through complex programming, all of human significance that transpires at human behest, within the largest possible region, the entire volume of the planet`s biosphere. `Constructive Geography`, a philosophy of geography that encompasses macroengineering, has been since 1966 promoted by Rodoman`s Moscow State University colleague, the senior Soviet geographer I. P. Gerasimov (born 1905) [7]. It is relevant to note also that K. E. Boulding, once a president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1968 proposed that all recorded human history should by lodged in a single data bank! [8]. Preposterous? Recall please that the first supercomputer was developed by DARPA in 1964 and that today there are at least 85 to 100 supercomputers extant outside of the USSR. Recently, Narendra Karmarkar of Bell Laboratories has created a new algorithm to solve linear programming problems very quickly [9].
        The television tableaux that Rodoman hopes will come to pass are, properly speaking, real-time models [10, 11], of what is taking place in our home world. (If other terrestrial-type planets of this solar system were seeded with actively-reporting devices, then their shell-like `biospheres` could be likewise constantly monitored.)  Rodoman, has, as far as I know, never specified where the computer facility was to by located. As many environmentalists would wish, without doubt mankind could device an overall Economic Plan for our `Spaceship Earth`. The most recent developments in hypergraphics indicate that the rendering of visible television images is no problem nowdays [12]. If Rodoman`s idea were taken a step further; namely, if Man and computer shared responsibility equally for the results of the implementation of the agreed Economic Plan, then R. R. Landers` seemingly bizarre idea of an Earthly `dybosphere` – a world of mechanised men and women and humanised machines – would be a fact of life in our planet`s biosphere [13].
        G. Simons proposes that `…computers and robots, appropriately configured, can be property regarded as emerging life forms. …` [14]. David Ritchie, in his 1984 popularisation of the subject entitled The Binary Brain, stated rather matter-of-factly that Homo sapiens will soon embark on a new evolutionary path (extra-Darwinian evolution), fusing the human brain to supercomputers made of biochips, thereby multiplying Man`s sensing and intellectual capacities.
        In America, Cray Research, ETA Systems and Denelcor have yet to start projects aimed towards the result that Ritchie predicts. Humanity can expect the construction of biological computers someday. In other words, genetically engineered simple life forms will one day help to maintain mankind on some sort of planned track! The `lowest` and `highest` of our present-day biosphere`s life forms would be blended until extinction or extermination! Certainly, an Earth-orbiting biological computer, perhaps in a widely distributed mode, manipulating macroengineered surface facilities of the Earth, is a proposal of unique potential.      
        Rodoman`s idea for an electronic geography will probably soon be realised or materialised. But if Earth, Mars, Venus, Mercury and the Moon – not excluding other large planet-like bodies of this solar system – were disrupted and reworked by macroengineers into manageable unnatural units, then the entire idea would be even more feasible [15]. I think that these man-made units could be combined by AD 12000 into a far-future Dyson heliosphere in our solar system. A humanity co-ordinated for its best welfare by a biological computing system of control would surely by an interesting outcome of the `evolution` of Rodomanian electronic geography suggested only a few years after the beginning of man`s Space Age (1957). Artificial intelligence originated in 1956 and fift-generation supercomputers are expected be operational be 1990.
        Interested SST readers  may wish to carry forward development of the organisation of electronic geography. It is to by hoped that Rodoman will emerge to comment further on this idea!         
          
References

  1 Mayo, J., Science, 215, 831-7 (1982).
  2 Holden, C., ibid., 222, 595 (1983).
  3 Rodoman, B. B., Soviet Geogr. 6, 3-20 (1965).
  4 Minshull, R., The Changing Nature of Geography, 68-9 (1970).
  5 Rodoman, B. B., Soviet Geogr. 10, 575-82 (1969).
  6 Rodoman, B. B., ibid, 23, 110-15 (1982).
  7 Gerasimov, I. P., Geoforum, 15, 95-9 (1984).
  8 Boulding, K. E., History & Theory, 7, 90 (1968).
  9 Kolata, G., Science, 225, 1379-80 (1984).
10 Amiot, R., Simulation, 38, 27 (1982).
11 Fry, M., Computer, 15, 9-17 (1982).
12 Brisson, D., Hypergraphics (1979).
13 Landers, R. R., Man`s Place in the Dybosphere, 266pp (1966).
14 Simons, G., Are Computer Alive? Evolution and New Life Forms, 212pp (1984).
15 Cathcart, R. B., J. Br. interplanet. Soc., 36, 291-7 (1983).

Uncited Reference

1 Waldrop, M. M., Science, 225, 1136-7 (1984).
 

При наборе этого англоязычного текста мною сохранена его орфография (например, …isation, …ised), отличная от более общепринятой и привычной для нас (…ization, …ized). – Б. Р. 29.08.2021.

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28.03.2021; 28, 29.08.2021