Reflections on Destin’s Backwards-Brain Bicycle

The destructive effects of the algorithm are everywhere evident-from our polluted atmosphere to our polluted oceans, from shrinking glaciers to depleted aquifers, from the rapid deforestation of the Amazon rainforest to the rapid extinction of species-and yet how many of us could adapt to living with even a little less? Daily or seasonally, they wind their way up the hillside to plant the flower beds, fill the swimming pools, groom the lawns, clean the nine bathrooms of the main house, and then at dusk descend. 3 Meanwhile, under wraps perhaps, in an abandoned airplane hangar, welders are at work on a bike whose every pedal push will take the rider incrementally underground, at least in places not yet covered by macadam, asphalt, or concrete, where earth still can breathe, thanks to the remnant population of ventilating worms.