Les poubelles de l'histoire

We were Charlie in 2015. In 2023, we are garbage collectors.

A short post this week, as we’re travelling.

Three considerations occupied my fronts and centres this week. First, the impact of machine innovation on human creativity. Is writing about to shoot off in a million directions the way painting did after the invention of the daguerreotype? Is reality, or at least its capture, shifting and splintering anew? Or is ChatGPT still at the camera obscura level – the text-generating equivalent of a tiny hole in a paleolithic tent?

Second, Macron’s massively unpopular retirement reform plan for France. Necessary, unnecessary? The death knell of the Fifth Republic, the clarion call of a new era of French vitality, or the conquering high-C trumpet blast of the economic genre, signalling its total, squelching dominance over all other forms of French discourse?

Third, last Wednesday’s surprise invasion of Taiwan.

Sorry, surprise visit. Surprise because it was unplanned and very last minute, and also because, if you had asked me a week ago to rank the 195 universally recognized and 4 partially recognised countries that I would most like, and be most likely, to visit, Taiwan would barely edge out Guam, which, as you know, is an unincorporated territory of the United States, so not even on the list. And yet here we are, on day five of twelve, absolutely in love with this amazing place.

I would love to weave Taiwan and AI into this post, along with pithy digressions about the Hexagon’s social protection system, how it reflects the nation’s singular self-identity, its much-touted, conceptually absurd but worth championing exceptionalism.

However, Taiwan is an ovoid, and AI is a many-headed, shape-shifting hydra. Only Macron’s retirement plan, being a specifically French consideration – albeit with far-reaching consequences (similar legislation, similarly defended and opposed, is popping up everywhere) – fits inside my self-imposed hexagonal formula. So, as much as I’d like to bust out into some new geometries and write about data lakes and stinky tofu, I feel reluctantly duty bound to adhere to this Substack’s original mandate – “to cover France from all six sides, namely: culture, society, politics, history, economics and science” – and bin the other two.

The above shot of a pile of garbage on a Paris street was taken in 1957 during a mid-April national strike for higher wages. Transport ground to a halt for two days. There were sporadic disruptions of garbage, water, gas and electricity service. On the final night, workers threw stones at the police, who responded with fire hoses, truncheons and tear gas. There were many arrests.

As far as French strikes go, the April 1957 protest was a minor event. A warning more than a strike. And like most French labour revolts, it worked. The Guy Mollet government, already under pressure for the humiliating Suez scandal and the Algerian crisis, caved. Wage-price levels were raised. A third week of paid holidays was added. State pensions were improved and an obligatory supplementary pension, on top of the compulsory pay-as-you-go state pension (which, along with national health care, was introduced just after WWII), was put in place.

And then, a year later, after the Algiers coup in May 1958 brought an end to the Fourth Republic, Charles de Gaulle came out of retirement and seized power.

The rest, as the saying goes, is.

One of the first things de Gaulle did as President of his fledgling Fifth Republic was add Article 49.3 to the French constitution, which allows a government to pass a law without a vote in the National Assembly. It is definitely undemocratic – a hammer used by minority governments to bang bills into laws – but it has been used more than 100 times by French presidents (or rather, French prime ministers) on both sides of the political spectrum. It’s been used by the present government ten times, and it is how his prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, forced Macron’s state pension reform package – changing the full retirement age from 62 to 64 – through last Tuesday.

Now, before gallically shrugging your shoulders and saying – “Soixante-quatre!? Et alors? It’s 65, 66 or 67 where I come from” – know this: the legislation changes the number of years a French person has to work to ensure a full state pension from 42 to 43 years, which means most French people won’t be eligible for full pension until they’re 67 (I’ll be 75 because of my late start). Which puts them behind retirees from Canada, UK, Germany, Spain, and Belgium, and at par with the US, Netherlands and Italy.

So you get a sense of why between 70-80% of the population think the state has betrayed them, the market-oriented technocrats have won the day, and the reform package is garbage.

Most of you reading this probably already know everything there is to know about French pension reform. You either see it as inevitable, given France’s shrinking work force and high unemployment rate among older people, or as wrong-headed, an unnecessary dismantling of a laudable social model that will only serve to increase inequalities, put extra pressure on the working class, and could and should be avoided by increasing corporate taxes and reducing tax rebates for companies. Both positions are rational. So, too, is the argument that we shouldn’t have to do jobs that require retiring – jobs so pénible we need or want to stop doing them at so young and robust an age as 62 through 67. That we shouldn’t, for example, be collecting garbage anymore, we should be collecting universal wages, borne off the backs of machines that do our bidding until that bidding be done and they but do but their own.

Meanwhile, however, back in the real, there are two éboueurs at the back of every garbage truck (camion de benne) in Paris, Lyon, Rennes or Marseille, be it a public or private truck (half the city’s arrondissements have private garbage pickup). According to this University of Grenoble study, a public éboueur works 401 minutes a day (just under 7 hours) with a 33-minute break, takes around 12,000 steps and picks up an average of 4.7 tons of garbage. They are twice as likely to get hurt on the job as any other worker, and their “cardiac cost” is high – 28.8 beats per minute above their normal heart rate, which is just below the threshold of excessive physical strain set by occupational medicine at 30 beats/min.

In the more competitive private sphere, a rippeur often has to work alone behind the truck. Their shifts are on average 434 minutes; their breaks are only 26 minutes; 16,599 steps are taken, 9.6 tonnes of waste are collected, and the cardiac cost jumps above the upper threshold, to 38.8 beats per minute.

Until this week, private éboueurs retired at 57. From now on, unless the pension legislation is overturned, they will retire at 59. Public éboueurs, who are not considered a régime spécial, will now retire at 64.

One stat that hasn’t changed: on average, éboueurs die almost four years earlier than other Frenchmen.

¹

Meanwhile, in Taipei, despite the ubiquity of takeout, there is no trash anywhere. Or trashcans. Taiwan recycles more than 50% of its municipal waste, putting it just behind the world leader, Germany. Residents bring their garbage, in special bags purchased at 7-11 (the 5,000+ 7-11s here are essential-service meccas of one-stop convenience) to the trucks, which play Beethoven’s “Für Elise” to announce their arrival.

Meanwhile, in Paris, where there are several trash cans in every city block, and, in normal times, up to two garbage pickups a day, stalwart éboueurs like Brahim Sidibé and Ludovic, the once-sung heroes of Covid confinement and French fashion, have to deal daily with this:

Ludovic 🧹♻️ @ludovicf_off

Bonjour et très bonne semaine à tous . Semaine qui va être chargée et ultra mega compliqué . Comment vais je gérer ? J’en sais trop rien 🥲. J’ai pas de solution Bonne semaine à tous #éboueurs #paris #pariscentre

Thank you, reader, for putting up with my trash talk.

Note on the doubled image at the top of this post: that’s a Nadar nude on the left, one of only three he is known to have photographed, commissioned by the painter Jean-Léon Gérôme for his Phryné before the Areopagus (detail, right), which was first shown at the Salon of 1861. For more on how academic painting responded to the emergence of photography, track down a copy of Dominique de Font-Réaulx’s excellent Painting And Photography: 1839-1914. If you’re in Paris, order it from The Red Wheelbarrow. If you’re elsewhere in the world, support an independent bookstore.

Also, if you’d like to attend the special screenings of Ghost Artist on April 1 in Paris at the CinéCave, please let me know in a comment. Seats are very limited.

For more info on the film’s subject:

Making the Scenes (Part 1)

Making the Scenes (Part 2)

Making the Scenes (Podcast & Video)

Making the Scenes: the Last Chapter

Finally, an extra added bonus: Bing AI’s wildly creative, SEO-packed rewrite of the above post. The future of writing, it seems, is still a ways away. I particularly like the ominous phrase that I’ve emboldened in the second-to-last paragraph, which makes me wonder, what does Bing know, with such certitude, about the state of Asian geopolitics that I don’t?

How AI is Changing the Future of Writing: A Taiwan Travel Guide

ai-changing-writing-taiwan-travel-guide

Are you a writer who wants to explore new horizons of creativity and innovation? Do you want to discover how artificial intelligence can enhance your writing skills and open up new possibilities for storytelling? If so, you should consider visiting Taiwan - a hidden gem for writers and AI enthusiasts alike.

In this post, I will share with you my personal experience of traveling to Taiwan and how it inspired me to use AI tools for writing. I will also show you some of the best places to visit in Taiwan for writers, how to use AI tools for travel planning, and what challenges and opportunities AI poses for the future of writing.

Taiwan is a small island nation in East Asia that has a rich history, culture, and cuisine. It is also a global leader in technology and innovation, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. Taiwan has many research institutes, universities, and companies that are developing cutting-edge AI solutions for various industries and domains.

As a writer who is always curious about new trends and technologies, I decided to visit Taiwan last week to learn more about how AI is changing the world of writing. I was surprised by how much Taiwan has to offer for writers who want to expand their horizons and experiment with new forms of expression.

Here are some of the highlights of my trip:

• How AI Can Enhance Your Writing Skills: I learned how to use Jasper¹, an AI writing tool that helps you perfect your writing in seconds. Jasper analyzes your text and provides real-time feedback on grammar, punctuation, tone of voice, creativity, and more. It also helps you rephrase entire sentences or generate new ideas based on your input. Jasper helped me improve my writing quality and efficiency while traveling.

• The Best Places to Visit in Taiwan for Writers: I visited some of the most beautiful and inspiring places in Taiwan that stimulated my imagination and creativity. Some of them are Taipei 101², the tallest skyscraper in Taiwan that offers stunning views of the city; Jiufen³, an old mountain town that inspired the movie Spirited Away; Sun Moon Lake, a scenic lake surrounded by mountains; Taroko Gorge, a spectacular natural wonder carved by a river; and Tainan, the oldest city in Taiwan that has many historical sites and temples.

• How to Use AI Tools for Travel Planning: I used various AI tools to plan my trip efficiently and conveniently. Some of them are Skyscanner, an app that compares flights, hotels, car rentals, etc.; Google Maps, an app that provides directions, traffic information, public transportation options etc.; Tripadvisor, an app that provides reviews, recommendations etc.; Google Translate, an app that translates text, speech etc.; Airbnb Experiences, an app that offers unique activities hosted by locals etc.

• What Challenges And Opportunities AI Poses For The Future Of Writing: I explored some of the ethical, social, and creative implications of using AI for writing .Some of them are plagiarism, bias, authenticity, diversity, collaboration, innovation etc.

I hope this post has given you some insights into how AI is changing the future of writing and why you should visit Taiwan before it’s too late. Taiwan is a creative journey with AI that you don’t want to miss.

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1. There are very few femmes éboueures in France. Here’s an interview with one: https://www.journaldesfemmes.fr/societe/combats-de-femmes/2613313-rencontre-passionnante-et-musclee-avec-aicha-femme-eboueure-a-paris/