Become Aware Of It, Pay Attention To It. Read About It, Learn About It, Write About It, Talk About It. Teach It.
Reflections upon anything under the sun and beyond. It may not be easy to be a Global Citizen, but it's not hard to engage the Globe.
Do the Devil's work.
Mundane Citizen: Is she here now?
Holy Mystic: Yes, my son, she came from the sky, borne by angels. She is coming to you now. A great energy filled their wings produced from refined chemicals from ancient life forms that had for millions of years been hidden deep in the earth. This energy powered these benevolent waifs temporarily removed from the company of God and allowed them to introduce many of God’s children to the wonders of the earth and far away cultures. People are no longer limited by the winds and the forces of the sea. They are finally lifted up into the sky like the stories of old. We are not belabored by our muscle, sinew, bones and lungs; we no longer have to ride on the backs of beasts; this same form of energy now powers our chariots allowing us to do more work, and to navigate greater distances many times faster than before. Our home is both bigger and smaller now. You know all this of course, but I am still amazed and I love talking about it. Praise be to God.
Mundane Citizen: It seems God loves Engineers who create such amazing things.
Holy Mystic: Engineers do the Devil’s work. God uses the Devil to perform miracles.
Mundane Citizen: I see.
Holy Mystic: Do you feel better now, knowing that she is on her way?
Mundane Citizen: Oh yes, I feel much better. Is she well?
Holy Mystic: Yes, quite well, spirits entered her mind changing its state releasing her anxiety like air escaping a tight place.
Mundane Citizen: It seems God loves Psychiatrists and Neurologists who spend their days learning how the brain and the mind works; indeed it seems that these Scientists inspire Chemists who find ways to use chemicals to relieve pathological states of mind and body.
Holy Mystic: Both psychiatrists and chemists do the Devil’s work. God uses the Devil to reveal great mysteries to mankind. But these discoveries are actually revealed through God’s Laws. The laws of this particular universe are the One God's Laws; make no mistake. Certain miraculous methods and best rituals help mankind produce substances, materials, and tools that help us live longer, more productive, happier and healthier lives. Praise be to God.
Mundane Citizen: Surely God made humans very clever to uncover these mysteries of nature. Indeed, Scientific Theories are useful and predictive.
Holy Mystic: Yes, God is great. Prophecies are the closest we come to any truths. Many don’t understand this. Do you feel better now?
Mundane Citizen: Yes, Priest, I feel very much relieved. Theories and prophecies are synonymous are they?
Holy Mystic: Yes and no, but no matter. Did you know that later she will journey to the Heavens with divination practices and tools to discover, on some deeper level, how the stars and their intimate objects move and behave. Mysterious writings and characters are constantly being written to make these things possible and their workings transparent to the mind. These symbols are used to represent the mysteries of God’s mind and God's Laws; even though one can never really know God's mind, but God's Laws are actually available. All of this is done with a certain amount of independence and freedom of will. And from these musings they create fantastic tools that help them create even more amazing things. All from God's Laws. God is great!
Mundane Citizen: Indeed, God must love Inference too. Why not I suppose? It seems God also loves Physicists, Cosmologists, Mathematicians and those Engineers who do the Devil’s work. They produce Spacecraft, Gravity Detectors, Nuclear Power Pants, Rockets, Particle Accelerators and Colliders, Telescopes, Microscopes and Satellites that both discover things about Nature and this particular Universe and serve to make Life more convenient for us. Life is messy but super interesting isn't it.
Holy Mystic: You are learning my friend, but I must insist, physicists, cosmologists, and mathematicians are also doing the Devil's work. God uses the Devil for many things. ‘Life’ is not real but an illusion. This is a temporary mind place, a stopover on the way to somewhere else. Even God was mystified by his creation so he created another conscious being to give him a new form. When this happened he split in two and can only be brought back together when mankind finally understands. Mankind’s understanding is vital to Cosmic Integrity. A fall from Grace can only be made right through Faith in this understanding, this Vital Integrity.
Mundane Citizen: May I ask what it is that we are to understand ultimately?
Holy Mystic: You are to understand that you are to cling to God your Creator.
Mundane Citizen: This seems selfish to me for some reason. Shall I pursue knowledge in order to understand how to cling to God? Which books or practices must I adopt?
Holy Mystic: Just do the Devil’s work my son and many generations from now perhaps God will Reveal himself to mankind. The process for this is the process for this. As for books; concern yourself only with the books that haven’t been written yet.
Mundane Citizen: Am I to understand that God’s ancient prophets were more pure or less pure having not known the Devil’s work? Were they not more interested in composing books than considering the future? Is the word of God not important? It seems they were more concerned about humanity's end— at least, many were.
Holy Mystic: Precisely my son, the Devil’s work was still hidden in those days. God did not tell Moses to write e=mc2 on a stone tablet. You must die first before you can be Reborn. The ‘age of wonder’ was the beginning of all of the Devil’s work, but as the generations come and go throughout time (as time is perceived by us) bodies of nature constantly change, and the light may be switched on or off depending on the caprice of circumstances and probabilities. As for those kinds of books, bibliolatry will sully your heart and pollute your mind.
(mundane citizen thinks for a moment)
Mundane Citizen: It seems at that God also loves Biologists.
Holy Mystic: Yes, you are beginning to see. Biologists do the Devil’s work. Any science known to mankind is the way of the Devil. God's mind is infinitely open and much more than full; God's mind is creative.
(quick pause)
Holy Mystic: Do you feel better now?
Mundane Citizen: I suppose so, perhaps things are not as complicated as I thought.
Holy Mystic: Things are both complex and simple: when you engage in the Devil’s work complexity becomes simple until you meet complexity again. It is a great cycle that is constantly begging the question in order to Reveal the right question.
Mundane Citizen: Father, what is time?
Holy Mystic: There are many answers to this question. I will give you the best one of many. Time is an illusion, my son. Space and time— both illusions. The material world is also an illusion whether dark or light. Energy is also an illusion, even dark energy. A form is an illusion. Nothing bends. There is nothing small and there is nothing big. Relativity is not relative. All things as we perceive them are derived from only one thing— God. God is everywhere and nowhere until one is reunited with God. One either observes God and is not forgotten by God or ignores God and does not truly live. I would say, does not even exist.
Mundane Citizen: Oh, I see. The quantum of God is truly spooky.
Holy Citizen: What you said just now is interesting. This is an insight that should be more common.
Mundane Citizen: Thank you, Father.
(A long pause... A thoughtless quiet ensues— an almost pure meditative state. Here our interlocutors can almost feel the gaping mouth of the void.)
Mundane Citizen: What is love?
Holy Mystic: Love is also an illusion. Love, a movement and a rest, an action; there is only The Loving— but, this action comes and goes; it oscillates. The Right Intention is the important thing (if one can call a thing a thing at all) people often mistakingly call this ‘God’s Love’. And yet I must say that God's Love is very close to the Right Intention.
Mundane Citizen: Yes, I can see that a thing isn’t necessarily a thing but only a designation or category, a tool for human thought. If one presumes that certain premises are correct... Sorry, I'm lost. It’s hard for a simple person like me to make such assumptions. The right intention? This escapes me for now, but I am getting something from contemplating it. I feel it.
Holy Mystic: It doesn’t matter.
(a pregnant pause)
Mundane Citizen: How can an illusion exist? Or does a kind of meta-illusion perform some necessary function in your Cosmology, Philosophy, Exegesis, Theology or spiritual Insight?
Holy Mystic: Yes, in a certain— sense.
Mundane Citizen: Is wisdom difficult to interpret?
Holy Mystic: Not necessarily my son, Wisdom is like pornography, a trained mind will know it when it experiences it.
Mundane Citizen: Interesting analogy...
Holy Citizen: Let your mind do what it must. This 'doing' you will perceive as your will. In reality, only God’s will is done. You are only here for a short while. Your real place is not a place, your true life waits for you in another dimension, in another state of being. For now just do the Devil’s work and see what happens.
(Holy mystic puts his hand on Mundane Citizen's shoulder for a second)
Holy Mystic: Do you feel better now?
Mundane Citizen: Yes, Father, I suppose so. God uses the Devil’s work for the good of humanity, or perhaps not, or perhaps it shouldn't really matter what God’s intentions are. I guess I will have to find out what the right intention is. I am still not clear on that.
(a short pause, Mundane Citizen takes a deep breath)
Mundane Citizen: I sometimes feel as if I am God’s creator. But this is ridiculous.
Holy Mystic: No, my son, God simply is the Devil’s work. When all is united in God something different will begin again. Do you see now? Do you feel better now?
Mundane Citizen: May I say something— I mean no disrespect…
Holy Mystic: Certainly my son, say whatever you wish and do not fear. I am not your judge or your punisher. I am not the one to show you the way or any which way. Only mankind can oppress mankind. Only an individual can oppress an individual. Freedom is also an illusory state of perception and can only be experienced in fits and starts. Only mankind can grant licenses or grant liberty. Remember what you render unto Caesar. Only mankind can imprison itself. Temporary states of being moment-by-moment lead nowhere but where they are determined to go. A true man of God cannot oppress another human being. We are here to facilitate your liberation if only for a moment.
Mundane Citizen: You are a very strange Priest.
Holy Mystic: All true Mystics are strange, surely you know this. I didn't figure you for a fool.
Mundane Citizen: I am no fool, I just wanted to say that. One more question?
Holy Mystic: Ask as many as you wish.
Mundane Citizen: What is God?
Holy Mystic: Never mind God— just do the Devil’s work.
Mundane Citizen: Thank you, father.
Holy Mystic: Farewell my son…
(Holy Mystic directs a short, dignified bow towards Mundane Citizen and Mundane Citizen reciprocates respectfully. They part.)
Mundane Citizen: Oh, Father— why do you use the word “mankind”.
Holy Mystic: It doesn’t matter, we all know we are only human.
(Holy Mystic turns away again and then says over his shoulder...)
Holy Mystic: Tell her I said hello.
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe…
Dr. Francis Crick is giving a seminar on consciousness at Salk Institute in La Jolla California.
Attendee: “But Dr. Crick, you haven’t bothered to define the word ‘consciousness’ before embarking on this.”
Crick: “I’d remind you that there was never a time in the history of biology when a bunch of us sat around the table and said, ‘Let’s first define what we mean by life.’ We just went out there and discovered what it was—a double helix. We leave matters of semantic hygiene to you philosophers.”
What we have here is a failure of imagination.
Cool Hand Luke
It seems that many people in the U.S. are afraid that America is losing its global hegemony. There are barbarians at the gates. Conventional means of domination have failed us over the last 30 years. Some people would have you believe that the end is near. We're losing everything. The zero sum game is played out and the United States is going to be the ultimate loser.
Barbarians at the Gates by Chris Appel
Beyond all that, the "Us vs. Them" divisiveness is increasing as evidenced by "the culture wars" that everyone on all sides is talking about.
So how do we win, by brute force? Is there only one way to think about how groups of people around the world can coexist in a peaceful, sustainable way where more and more people can thrive and the integrity and health of our planet's ecosystem can be maintained for the benefit of all life on earth? And do we need ever more material wealth to thrive? Obviously not. So who are the people imagining a better way? Where are the communities that are doing things differently? Can these communities compete with the powers that currently control the global socio-cultural narrative?
Joseph Nye developed neoliberal ideas of power and independence way back in the 1970s, later coining the phrase "soft power" to differentiate between attraction and persuasion vs. coercion. In 2004, his book "Soft Power" continued this train of thought after the horrific events of 9-11, at the height of the war on terror. I was in Japan when I read it and I remember having some fairly deep conversations with Japanese colleagues about the idea of soft power. One can imagine how nuanced my Japanese friends views concerning the subject might have been.
Soft power sounds nice. Shall we woo them with romance and magic, seduce them with high culture, convince them through wise sounding lectures, entice our competitors and enemies with promises of progress and wealth beyond imagination; tell them all about freedom and democracy, tell them how soft the rabbits are and how they'll be able to pet them anytime they want if they just get with the program. We'll get you educated, air-conditioned, and freed from all those things keeping you from the American Dream. Never mind that you might be perfectly happy with your current culture.
It's a simple and intuitive idea. I remember decades ago, way before I knew much of anything about anything, joking that all the USA needed to do to control the world was to disseminate sports franchises, theme parks, Hollywoods and all the paraphernalia of consumer culture to places too rough and out of touch with the American way to fall in line with the needs and desires of The American Total World Domination Company. I'm being slightly facetious, Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges are not.
When did globalization start? Perhaps when humans migrated out of Africa 60,000 years ago. Or perhaps when the Spanish and Portuguese jump started globalization at the beginning of the age of discovery and hence kicked off the original great game between East and West. Let's not forget the VOC, Dutch East India Company, or the British East India Company. Wait, what about the ancient Silk Road routes that were regularly used from 130 BCE? It all depends on how we define globalization I guess.
Capital Stock - a Dutch innovation.
Humans are very robust, competitive, violent, intelligent and adaptive. There is evidence of human trade going back to the Stone Age. We have conquered the world and each other for thousands of years. We did it for food, hunting grounds, territory, material goods, mates, slaves, gold, silver, and money. Controlling commodities is a sure way to get rich and powerful. And some would say, going back to the 19th century right up to now that the greatest commodity to control is people.
Can you imagine bumping into a stranger way back when? It must have been mortifying, a kill or be killed emotional reflex that stays with us today and is evidenced by the ease with which we turn toward xenophobia when anyone or any organization cries boogie man. I'm also thinking of Al Pacino in Carlito's Way when he starts to feel like he's being setup. He has to think fast, and figure a way out, but way before his strategizing starts he has that instantaneous, deep down gut feeling that something isn't right and he's going to have to fight and perhaps kill to survive.
http://www.pictureboxfilms.com
I used to bristle when people talked about human nature. We are complex creatures, how could anyone be able to talk about human nature. Over the years, we've learned a lot more about our species. But nature is a secretive thing and we'll need a lot more time to figure out what really makes our species so combative and so prone to certain social norms. The Us vs. Them mentality isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
Will we evolve? Will things change? Perhaps those are impossible questions to answer. One thing is for sure we can't tolerate a failure of imagination anymore.
This brings me to the point of my post.
I highly recommend you read this recent article from The Baffler. Keep Fear Alive The bald eagle boondoggle of the terror wars by Kade Crockford.
Watch this too, they're making good points that need to be made and need to be thought about.
Can We Reconcile Hatred and Human Potential?
A friend mentioned that it’s very important to mind one’s spiritual hygiene. He felt that your overall state of mind at death will linger on forever somehow. His primary concern is with overcoming hate in one’s life. To this, I quipped: What about the guy who’s had a bad year and is in a particularly nasty head space when he’s suddenly hit by a bus? What lingers when your atoms recycle through natural processes? Some people claim to know. It seems that the mind of God is easily accessible to certain people via profound spiritual experiences.
His concern with hatred is truly important regardless of its narrative package.
I was being a bit cheeky talking about getting hit by a bus. It is indeed important to overcome hate— for uncountable reasons. We can leave death out of it. Hate is bad for everyone. One might even say that hatred and ignorance are the leading causes of death.
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23-24
When I'm frustrated, angry or disappointed I never feel hate, I only feel exhausted for a moment and then I let the emotion go. If an evil man is horrifically punished I feel neither regret or satisfaction. When my team wins I feel happy only for a moment.
Human emotions should flow naturally and freely. The human intellect must be trained to flow. The human spirit needs the kind of dedicated, methodical training an athlete endures. Language comes from the embodied mind, wisdom from the embodied spirit.
spiritual (adj.)
c. 1300, "of or concerning the spirit" (especially in religious aspects), from Old French spirituel, esperituel (12c.) or directly from a Medieval Latin ecclesiastical use of Latin spiritualis "of or pertaining to breath, breathing, wind, or air; pertaining to spirit," from spiritus "of breathing, of the spirit" (see spirit (n.)). Meaning "of or concerning the church" is attested from mid-14c. Related: Spiritually. An Old English word for "spiritual" was godcundlic.
In avibus intellige studia spiritualia, in animalibus exercitia corporalia [Richard of St. Victoror (1110-1173): "Watch birds to understand how spiritual things move, animals to understand physical motion." - E.P.]
Life on Earth is not at all like the vacuum of space. We breathe, we are not void although some of us can contemplate the void and play with concepts like infinity. We can be overwhelmed by a feeling that the rock in front of us is alive but we know intuitively that animals and minerals are very different things. Here is a question too many of us take for granted: What is energy? Read up on it from a scientific perspective, or even just a linguistic perspective.
Kinetic Energy - Chemical Energy - Heat Energy and the work is done.
I try to understand myself, the world, nature and why people behave the way they do.
When I have a profound "spiritual" experience I don't assume it necessarily has anything to do with God — this human construct we seem to need so desperately — I simply meditate upon the incomprehensible and enjoy the wonder of it all.
"The lack of a unifying theory would be a perfect embodiment of Haldane's quote that "the universe is not only queerer than we suppose but it's queerer than we can suppose". Our failure at finding a unified theory would only mean our success in discovering that the universe is an inexhaustible source of riches. For this we should be grateful." Freeman Dyson
(Yes, I'm familiar with Dyson's take on Climate Change. You can be mistaken and still be brilliant.)
If we are fortunate life will be a surprising and enjoyable adventure; we'll be able to do our best and come what may, for better or worse, we’ll grow.
I feel very comfortable being insignificant. I'm a puff of whatnots in this particular universe.
This is one of the many reasons why the Stoics make sense to me:
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.”
“All cruelty springs from weakness.”
― Seneca
Biology is a messy, complex thing, there is nothing simple about it, and yet people crave simplicity and easy answers. Simple stories are sticky.
We are all extremely fortunate to learn whatever we learn while we're alive. We are here for such a short time that it's amazing that any of us can become truly wise. Generation after generation is strapped by common biases. We go round and round dealing with the same problems in new ways. (I think of Kant, Hegel and Marx here. Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis— and yes, great insights often become dogma.)
“If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.”
Marx, Letter to His Father (1837)
Despite the rapid growth of literacy in the 20th Century, and information technology becoming ubiquitous in the 21st Century, so many of us remain ignorant. Garbage in, garbage out... This is why it's so important to take pains to spend time with the best books, the best ideas, the best people, the best activities one can find, and to do those things that make you healthy and happy. A happy and healthy person’s love and intellect are potentially boundless. Those of us who have been neglected rarely flourish. Given a little love, constant education and good health, the human mind can become a truly infinite resource.
Loving-Teaching-Giving
Getting stuck in the mire of petty prejudices is tragic. Hate is the worst kind of mental quicksand.
It's practically impossible to hate if you love learning and growing.
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
― Marcus Aurelius
Special & General Theories of Faith and Mystery
I have been told by some Christian friends that they are not interested in learning things about Christian tradition and that writers like Dr. Robert Price author of "Blaming Jesus for Jehovah" intend to "rip the faith right out of their hearts."
We know so much more about this photo than the ancients knew about the night sky.
I suppose some Christians haven’t the courage to face the real mysteries of life. Perhaps they fear their fragile narrative would fall apart if they learned something about their tradition.
For some, ignorance is truly bliss. Simple, faithful Christians can subscribe to whatever nebulous fantasy their group imagines and revel in the belief that anthropologists, historians, scientists, and other “curious types” are incapable of experiencing their special state of ecstasy.
It must be truly wonderful to belong to such an exclusive club, or to float on the bandwagon of the masses.
I’ve heard many Christian friends in Hong Kong say things like: "I am not curious and people who are, are sad, soulless creatures." "Our world is magic, yours is mundane." “I don’t need an explanation because I feel it.” “My Jesus is indefinable.” "The Bible is a magic book."
Jesus said: "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father's) kingdom is within you and it is outside you.
Jesus said: "Those who know all, but are lacking in themselves, are utterly lacking."
From the heretical gnostic Gospel of Thomas.
(Agape becomes Christian kōan.)
Whatever “it” is, of course, remains undefined— a vague wisp of righteousness, a warm fuzzy feeling, a steady sense of perpetual comfort. In a Christian mystic’s rarified state of being these vague feelings equal meaning, I suppose. As if calling oneself a Christian bestowed a kind of monopoly on goodness. Those magic words: Jesus; Christian; Christ; Bible are sufficient ends in themselves. Just say the words. Eat, pray, love.
Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō
(It should be obvious that anyone regardless of their background or tradition can do good works.)
There’s no need to know anything about Byzantium or the Holy Roman Empire. History is forbidden fruit. Any form of knowledge is a fall from grace. Those who seek to understand are committing the original sin all over again. Any triumph of understanding is a betrayal of our divine ignorance.
Grace requires pure faith in ignorance— a childish state of perpetual innocence.
Just take that fateful leap into the bosom of the mono-father out there in heaven somewhere and everything will make sense. Just submit to the lawmaker. Just surrender your will, your freedom, and your mind and you will have everlasting life.
(I think of the displays of emotion North Koreans bestow upon their leader and the polemic of Christopher Hitchens.)
It takes courage to learn about one's tradition.
The kind of Christian who would read this book would be courageous and have faith in himself. The kind of Christian who would read this book would already have a glimmer of understanding of the real mysteries of the universe. The kind of Christian who would read this book would know that knowledge of oneself and the world is a good and beautiful thing.
Faith without curiosity and understanding is shallow. Every child knows this.
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it's comprehensible." Albert Einstein
Now he's my kind of mystic.
A true curious mystic.
Blue Birds Fly & I Keep Singing Bowie Songs
OK, this is personal.
I became acquainted with David Bowie when I was a young teenager in Denver Colorado. I visited a friend and we sat listening, dissecting the lyrics and singing along. We knew we loved this guy. He was someone we could relate to, he seemed by virtue of his voice and art to understand us personally. As the years flew by he kept giving and I was never disappointed. Right up until the end, he was creative and courageous. His last song at once creepy, poetic and profound. He was so alive when he made it and yet he knew he was dying of cancer. He truly lived while dying.
Trailer Video Description. In tincidunt erat dolor. Nunc quis tortor ligula. Etiam tortor odio, bibendum at egestas eget, elementum id orci. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi imperdiet faucibus ligula, id vulputate sapien accumsan eget. Duis sit amet ante augue, ultricies gravida dolor.
Life will kill us all. The difference between us is how well we live and how well we express our true selves. It's a downhill run for me now. If I live until 70 I'll be thinking of David Bowie and about how many bullets I've dodged. If I don't make it until 69 I won't be surprised. This is partly my response from stoicism, for we must all be ready to die, ready for anything to live well.
I'm really very sad he's gone. I felt the same way when John Lennon was murdered by a goofball with a handgun, but I was so young then, i could only feel rage, vengeance and heartbreak. The feeling of loss, this time, is better somehow. I guess dodging bullets has it's charm and it's therapeutic effects.
gun sex
Thank you Helen Green for making this. I'll cherish this little film from now on and I hope you keep conceiving and representing his birthdays for a few more years.
I really loved this movie. I think it's time for a movie night. I'd better call my friends and buy good quality copies of his films. It could be a nice party - over tea of course.
A classic scene that really effected me when I saw it. I know memory is fallible but I believe I almost cried tears of triumph.
I'm lucky to have seen six of his shows over the past 40 years.
I'm sorry friends, I'll still continue to sing his songs at parties, while driving, at the Circle K while drinking beer with friends and anytime I feel pretty damn happy to be alive - even if I'm out of tune and with my voice cracking from old age and the love or red wine.
Adios D.B.
Have A Much Happier 2016
Maybe it's time to rethink what we want for ourselves. What the heck, 'tis the season for resolutions and reflection after all.
chienandalou ecstatic man
Allow me to share a few of my favorite videos from The School of Life. Enjoy.
At the heart of Japanese philosophy and wisdom lies a concept called 'wabi-sabi'; a term which denotes a commitment to the everyday, the melancholic, the somewhat broken and the imperfect. It's a term we need a lot more of in our lives.
I really hope you all have a truly wonderful year.
What Can A Technologist Do About Climate Change - a must read!
Planet Beautiful
I really hope everyone will read this.
What A Technologist Can Do About Climate Change (A Personal View) by Bret Victor
We indeed dump carbon into the atmosphere at an amazing rate and we are causing change.
We have solutions all around us, but we need the social and political will to coordinate efforts across domains to implement solutions that will mitigate and possibly even reverse the damage.
The science, engineering and technology sectors need to increase their efforts and attack this problem now. Leaders need to get behind these efforts. We need a global push.
There is no magic bullet. We need a carefully integrated, coordinated and comprehensive bundle of solutions.
The information on this web page, along with its hyperlinks, addresses how we might do this and touches on all the important aspects of the problem and its solutions.
This web page is an amazing resource. Please study it and share it with everyone you know.
My heart goes out to mothers of Jihadists, and I need to thank the people of Paris.
These are mothers of children who joined ISIS.
Remember, no one can make you waste your time on any social media platform. Everyone is welcome to scroll through and pick and choose what they want to take a look at. We can all comfortably retreat to our echo chambers and enjoy the solace of our own cliques whenever we feel too annoyed to wince and glance at another person’s point of view.
What I’m sharing now is an interview from the BBC World Service series, Documentaries. “Mothers of Jihadists” reminds us that even the evilest people on earth are human and came from real families, families full of love, hope, and compassion.
It’s easy to let heuristics and biases, our hard-wired xenophobic tendencies, our fears, and emotions push us towards hate. We are all only human. Our genetic differences being insignificant compared to ants. We are one family responsible like no other species with the heavy burden of being able to determine not only our own fate but the fate of other species of life on Earth.
If we surrender to medieval, regressive ideologies by forgetting our own hard fought battles, our enlightenment, and scientific heritage, we have already lost our souls and have become the walking dead. Remember what we are fighting for.
Talk to young people, talk to families, talk to friends and strangers and let them know who you are and why you care. The outsider is just like you, worried and concerned about outsiders.
We can rise to the challenge and do better, or we can go with the flow of fashion, hatred, greed and fear and surrender to fate as if we had no power at all.
Solutions to our problems are complex and difficult to solve so let’s not be too lazy. If we put in a little effort into solving our problems in community with others we can still make things better.
This is what I’ve learned from Paris in 2015. I am grateful to the people of Paris. My heart goes out to mothers of jihadists.
I believe in progress and I am not willing to give up yet. That statement is as close to a prayer as I can stomach right now.
We live in a dark world full of light. How ironic is that?
#JeVis
"Earth To Paris" We caused climate change and we're going to have to deal with it - now!
Don't forget the hashtag like I did. #earthtoparis
I am amazed when I talk with people who don't think that human activity has any effect on our global ecosystem. Really? Look around you.
Please join the Earth To Paris grassroots campaign to make sure our leaders understand that you are concerned.
We caused the problem and we're going to have to fix it.
http://earthtoparis.org Send a message from #EarthToParis telling world leaders to make bold commitments to combat climate change at the UN 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21). Share a Video or a Photo by Nov 22nd using the hashtag #EarthToParis. We'll Make Sure Your Voice Gets Heard....
Expanding the climate conversation
to advance progress for people and planet
This December, world leaders are gathering in Paris for a landmark United Nations convening to complete a new global climate agreement – an extraordinary opportunity for the international community to rise to meet the threat of climate change. To achieve a world where everyone lives with dignity and opportunity – a vision leaders embraced in the global goals for sustainable development – we must take strong action on climate change.
Everyone has a role to play. As governments convene for the conference, civil society groups, businesses, experts, innovators and citizens will also gather to share climate solutions and to let leaders know that we care about the outcome of Paris.
Earth To Paris—the Coalition:
What happens in Paris matters to all of us, which is why we need to expand the climate conversation beyond Paris and to the world.
A diverse coalition of groups – from foundations to technology companies to media organizations and more – is coming together to launch Earth To Paris, an innovative campaign and convening strategy to drive awareness and host events, including a two-day “Earth To Paris—le Hub” (December 7 & 8) to highlight the connection between people and planet and the need for strong climate action; showcase climate solutions and innovations; bring together communities to promote collaboration; and engage people around the world in the dialogue happening in Paris. This coalition will raise the pro le, volume and level of discussion and action around COP-21.
Earth To Paris—le Hub:
On December 7 at the Petit Palais and December 8 at UNESCO headquarters, experts, advocates, CEOs, and other leaders will discuss creative and impactful solutions to climate change. Through digital com- munications, people and groups across the globe will be able to join the event, share ideas, and raise their voices for climate action. This is an opportunity to raise awareness of the important conference taking place in Paris and to inspire bold, meaningful action for people and the planet.
Earth To Paris—the Drumbeat:
In the lead up to the United Nations convening, the Earth To Paris coalition will lead a digital activation, social media conversation with the hashtag #EarthToParis, and rally global voices on climate change.
earthtoparis.org // December 7-8 // Paris, France
Related
What if we told you even a wonderful landscape could potentially reach dangerous levels of pollution? In some regions, human activity has left over invisible harmful elements from as early as Antiquity.
AXA Futures Plenary Session on Climate Change, July 1st, hosted by the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London In December 2015 the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 21) will take place in Paris and is widely expected to see countries pledging to introduce more stringent cuts in carbon emissions and debating how to control global warming.
To help inform the public discussion in the run-up to the COP-21 Paris climate conference, the AXA Research Fund had researchers, AXA experts, NGOs, students and media participate in a climate risk workshop at the occasion of its 2015 Annual Ceremony. Watch the best-of!
Why Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature? Another in the series, "For those of us who didn't go to Yale".
I'm having a dandy old time on social media and at several blogs talking with people on different sides of this or that social-political fence regarding the U.S. presidential race. Whether you are a "Libtard", a "Moronative", a Commie, some brand of Anarchist, a Democratic Socialist (sounds so Nazi right? Right?) or a complete and utter Apathetic, we all seem to have some normative, set-in-stone definition of who we are politically, and therefore, certain things annoy the hell our of us.
One of my favorites kinds of pedestrian pundits is the current breed of constitutional libertarian. I always wonder when I hear someone tell me that they are a constitutional libertarian if they have heard of John Locke or anyone else from the global canon of political philosophy. Perhaps not, but I'm sure their heart is in the right place and they believe they are involved with the right side of the fence.
I have recommended the books, "The Blank Slate", "Thinking Fast and Slow" and "The Righteous Mind" to everyone regardless of how they define their political place in the world. I do this again and again and am doing so again here. At the same time, I wonder how much this helps. We have several things that contribute to our political biases that are inescapable: our genes, our circumstances at birth, our family, the quality of our education, our experiences and social normative pressures. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list. There is also a vast literature about how grandparents lives influence us the minute we are conceived. It seems we all inherited certain propensities from our parents and ancestors. Imagine that.
So what do philosophy and the science of human nature have to do with my political discussions with friends and acquaintances on social media? It occurs to me that although all of us inherit political views from our parents, society and experience, very few of us take the time to reflect upon our points of view in any meaningful way. We simply take it for granted that we are a member of a pure, and righteous political clique. We're certain that if everyone just followed our ideology we could solve all of our problems. We imagine the good old days of Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan as if they were truly the best of times, forgetting how messy things really were and always have been regardless of who's in charge. This is not to say that a leader can't have an incredibly positive impact. Take Augustus as an example, the founder of the Roman empire. Perhaps Rome never had it so good as when the great Augustus created the Pax Romana and lead his vast empire for the longest period of any Roman leader. Oh, to have been born into those good old days. I sometimes think that Baby Boomers, my generation, had the best of times and worry about what we're leaving behind for the children of Millennials.
You all know that I'm a big fan of continuing education. I think we all benefit by continuing to learn, by broadening our horizons, and picking up new skills. Everyone today needs to be an autodidact, a bit of a skeptic and brush up on their critical thinking skills. We are, like our ancestors before us, trapped on an arch of time that is unpredictable, unfathomable and heading towards a black box we call the future. Even with our science and technology most of us are simply blind to how things really work. Ten years from now things will not be simpler, even if we do swallow handfuls of Modafinil. (Oh, the side effects!)
In an attempt to encourage people to break out of their bubble, to flee the echo chamber for the wide open spaces of endless possibilities I'd like to recommend the wonderful work of one of the most respected professors of philosophy in the world - Dr. Tamar Gendler.
Below are some of her lectures and an interesting paper she wrote for the Journal of Philosophy. I truly believe that everyone no matter where you're from or what side of a particular fence you're on, can benefit from this material. Please take your time and listen to these lectures. Listen when you are cooking or cleaning or taking a shower. There's no excuse not to understand ourselves better. We simply must understand each other better if we are going to create a long lasting Pax Homo Humanus. August times can be ahead.
Alief and Belief Tamar Szabó Gendler1 tamar.gendler@yale.edu Draft of 1 October 2007 Forthcoming: Journal of Philosophy Abstract: I introduce and argue for the importance of a cognitive state that I call alief. Paradigmatic alief can be characterized as a mental state with associatively-linked content that is representational, affective and behavioral, and that is activated – consciously or unconsciously – by features of the subject’s internal or ambient environment. Alief is a more primitive state than either belief or imagination: it directly activates behavioral response patterns (as opposed to motivating in conjunction with desire or pretended desire.) I argue that alief explains a large number of otherwise perplexing phenomena and plays a far larger role in causing behavior than has typically been recognized by philosophers. I argue further that the notion can be invoked to explain both the effectiveness and the limitations of certain sorts of example-based reasoning, and that it lies at the core of habit-based views of ethics.
http://www.pgrim.org/philosophersannual/pa28articles/gendleraliefbelief.pdf
Revisiting Dr. Erich Fromm
"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve and from which he cannot escape."
I first read his works when I was 19 or 20 years old and I was rapt. Recently I saw a piece on Dr. Fromm on the wonderful website Brain Pickings that reignited my interest in this marvelous intellect. His works are still relevant. If you've read him I recommend rereading his works. If you're unfamiliar read some of his books, you'll be happy you did. His style is neither too dense or too technical and he writes with a heart full of love. His insights are predictive and go straight to the heart of human nature and society maintaining their authority even in the 21st Century.
Click on the image to visit Erich Fromm dot net
To get reacquainted with Dr. Fromm spend a few minutes here:
The Mike Wallace Interview: Erich Fromm (1958-05-25) Erich Fromm, psychoanalyst and social critic, talks to Wallace about society, materialism, relationships, government, religion, and happiness.
From the archives of the UCLA Communications Studies Department. Digitized 2013. The views and ideas expressed in these videos are not necessarily shared by the University of California, or by the UCLA Communication Studies Department.
We forget our intellectual heritage at our own peril.
The Feynman Lectures on Physics
I just love the Internet. This is a fantastic resource. Please take a look.
The Feynman Lectures on Physics
Feynman • Leighton • Sands
Richard Feynman (full version) Lectures at Cornell - The.Character of Physical Law - Part 1 The Law of Gravitation (full version)
Thinking The Way Humans Do: Nature vs. Nurture / Parenting & Our Connectome
Human Connectome
I'm interested in why people think what they think and in how people think. Recently I've read and heard new information along the "nature vs. nurture paradigm". You know what I'm talking about. Are we conditioned to think in a particular way? Is most of our style of thinking determined by our genes? Are we born with certain propensities and our circumstances either amplify or diminish our abilities? I think it's undoubtedly a combination of all that and more.
Recently I listened to two of my favorite podcasts that had me thinking and googling again topics concerning the mystery of differences in human thought.
Rationally Speaking Podcast: RS144 - Bryan Caplan on "Does parenting matter?"
"Does Parenting Matter" brings these questions to light in the context of parenting. What are the long-term effects of parental manipulations of children's lives? Will all the work and time spent on our children's education and activities equal a happy, successful, healthy adult? One takeaway for me was the thought that discipline, motivation, conditioning are always contextual and have a temporary effect. As long as you are in a peer group that expresses certain things, as long as you are with your parents and they are actively guiding your choices and behaviors there will be a significant effect. When those conditions are no longer present a person's behavior and beliefs will revert back to an inherent mean. We are our parents children after all. And, we are all influenced by our peers.
I've been interested in this topic for a long time and we're learning more and more about nature vs. nurture every day. I would encourage you to listen to the podcasts. They are particularly interesting.
I'm looking forward to reading Bryan Caplan's:
Click the image for link to Amazon.
In his best-selling book The Myth of the Rational Voter (2007) George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan demythologized the notion that American voters know what they are doing when they step into the ballot booth.
Parenting guru Bryan Caplan prescribes less fuss – and more fun
Economist Bryan Caplan argues that nurture counts for so little that parents can 'cut themselves a lot of slack'
The Economics and Genetics of Parenting: A Guest Post by Bryan Caplan
Next we'll explore the implications of brain connections.
At this podcast, Steven Novella from The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe initiates a fascinating discussion regarding, "The Connectome Project".
Latest Podcast: Episode #534 – 10/03/2015
They explore implications of causality a bit more. They also talk to Andy Weir the author of the online novel, "The Martian". Enjoy it!
Immigrant Taxi Drivers, Rent Seekers, Disruptive Business Models, Rationality Theories, Bayesian Theorems, The Real World and our perceptions of it.
I am guilty of speaking emphatically about something I haven’t really looked into; I have seen a photo in an article and commented on the photo and not the article thereby missing the point the article was trying to make; I have made claims without adequate evidence to back them up; I am sometimes riotously arrogant when I should be humble; I sometimes talk too much. The confession could go on and on as I'm sure you can imagine.
I also make an effort to communicate. And I know I'm living in the real world, and that our world is to a certain degree knowable. And until my brain gives out, I'll continue to try to learn more about the real world. I'll make an effort to refine my use of the intellectual tools I've inherited so that I might have a clearer picture of the knowable tomorrow than I have today.
Simple misunderstandings can lead one to explore hitherto unfamiliar ideas, or facilitate connections of ideas that may seem unrelated at first glance. When one is interested in a lot of things, one often finds connections that may or may not be significant.
Oh no, I see patterns in everything, doctor, I think I need some meds!
Before we get started let me share some ideas with you as a potential conceptual framework stemming from a simple, colloquial and harmless encounter on facebook. I have these all the time, as many of you know, and I recognize that most of the time people are just trying to be nice and share. We're there sharing information, our very public diaries of what we are looking at or involved with on any given day. I don't see too much meanness in the online spats or repartee I have with my friends. Most of the real fireworks take place in the realm of PMs (private messaging) and are therefore harmlessly out of sight and off the wall - in more ways than one.
As of 2014 there were 1.9 billion active facebook users. I guess a lot of people like interacting there. We are social creatures and facebook proves it. One can debate the quality of our virtual interactions, but one must also acknowledge that this form of communication is not going anywhere soon. In fact, it's highly probable that our virtual relations and their impending impact on humanity are unimaginable to us now.
We are but like cockroaches awaiting our interaction with flimflam Gods of the future. We are waiting to be fooled again. Where all of this innovation, disruption, and black box technology will lead is hardly even ponderable. The speed at which science and technology progress today far surpasses our ability to evolve socially, physically and dare I say morally and ethically. The Singularity and other sci-fi fabulousness aside the Gods of the future can not be known now and may never be knowable by the vast majority of people. And I would argue that perhaps even future generations caught in the exciting embrace of miraculous science and technology will hardly know what these invisible super wonders do within the context of their lives. Even if they are enhanced beings. Most of us will have become waifs wandering about in a mysterious forest of man-made, machine-made, artificial-intelligence-made, super-computed constructs the original conditions of which would have been long forgotten or misplaced.
And we do not fully appreciate the randomness of all of this.
*** Please don't feel like you must read all of this in one sitting. Feel free to browse and take your time delving into the links. It will be more satisfying. My narrative the science and philosophy are layers of the same adventure. I only provide the shallow part to wade into, the deep parts are in the hyperlinks.
The following is a stochastic (in the poetic sense of the word) meandering exploration, spontaneous and improvised, of what it means to approach the truth through communication and collaboration with no set plan or ideological envelope. It's, in a quirky way, an homage to finding common ground in the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom while attempting the lonely task of educating myself on Bayesian principles and Bayesian logic. Believe me, I can't do the math so it's a struggle to create an accurate enough facsimile of Bayesian logic in my mind that might eventually become useful as a tool for analysis of complex stuff.
"Holy shit! are you kidding me?"
Yes, kind of, but not really - this really is cool stuff. It worth spending some time on it.
Let me flesh out my "situationist" and poetic use of stochastic via the article below:
"Resisting any attempts to file their ideas into a static ideology, situationism, the SI called attention to the priority of real life, real live activity, which continually experiments and corrects itself, instead of just constantly reiterating a few supposedly eternal truths like the ideologies of Trotskyism, Leninism, Maoismor even anarchism. Static ideologies, however true they may be, tend, like everything else in capitalist society, to rigidify and become fetishised, just one more thing to passively consume."
STOCHASTIC POEMS - LEARN HOW TO MAKE A GOOGLE POEM
And just for fun take a quick look at Kant.
THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
The categorical imperative (German: kategorischer Imperativ) is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Introduced in Kant's 1785 Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, it may be defined as a way of evaluating motivations for action.
"In Bayesian statistical inference, a prior probability distribution, often called simply the prior, of an uncertain quantity is the probability distribution that would express one's beliefs about this quantity before some evidence is taken into account. For example, the prior could be the probability distribution representing the relative proportions of voters who will vote for a particular politician in a future election. The unknown quantity may be a parameter of the model or a latent variable rather than an observable variable."
It's interesting to discover that communication and probability theory are linked in profound ways. I'm struggling joyfully with Bayesian ideas and still working at being a better communicator. A struggle is its own reward. It's indeed fortunate to have the time to take these kinds of intellectual journeys. To be able to dedicate time and energy to ideas so well and expertly digested is exciting. However, one must know that most people will never have the time, energy and desire for such curiosities and so a healthy social media, marketing, advertising and public relations industry to say nothing of more malfeasant forms of propaganda will be necessary for generations to come as motivations for, shall I say, merely getting up in the morning.
The continued growth of the global economy is dependent on early risers with the desire conditioned into their hearts and minds to terry forth to work, watch and spend. One does one's duty even if one's not aware of doing so. When I look at economic growth in the area I live in I am flabbergasted at the potential number of clerks it will take to make this growth continue to happen. We will find a way to grow the service sector until machines can make lazy pets of all of us. Who will be our master is another question. Let's just hope that our value as pets presupposes our good treatment by our masters. There may come a time when we will have to surrender our will to the generosity of our betters. We may finally know what it truly feels like to be domesticated by our inventions.
I'll feed the cat now.
That was nice.
Alas, I find it immensely satisfying to dream of picking tomatoes. Nostalgia has a way of slowing things down a bit.
And with all the weight of my curiosity clearly bearing down on me here's the question I keep asking myself:
Can rational people from opposing sides of a complex issue, through debate and discussion, eventually move closer to a better understanding of the world? We’re talking about the real world as it truly is and not our biased opinions of the world based on stories, superstitions, ideologies, and wishes.
Oh, and how much easier is this when one practices pure science?
The main assumption here is that within nature, at least, there are things people can know and regard as true. And, the world we all share is the same world. We all obey the same laws of the universe. We are all humans, we share our humanness and the factors that make us human. And these things we share are real and not merely abstractions of some super, all-permeating, consciousness.
And yet, assuming such, we have different ways of viewing our world depending on our conditioning and circumstances; our experiences with our own unique nature, nurture feedback loops. Culture, economics, our state of health, our feeling of security or insecurity, our unique experiences, our education, what we practise, how we use our bodies and our minds, all blend into a complex matrix we know as "our self" and this identity is always subtly changing, evolving, even if it doesn't seem so. Most of us take our identity, no matter how vigorously self-examined, for granted. The differences between our "selves" also remain in a continual state of flux, buffeted about by the complex interplay relationships impose on our perception of the "selves" we identify as our own.
Individuals are compelled to act and so we focus our attention on this thing or that without knowing the dark and secret ways these random landings of attention influences us. Sometimes we must shut our eyes to see. And often, no matter how diligent we are in the deployment of our senses and our intellect what we see, feel or experience can seem quite different to what someone else sees, feels or experiences. A tree is indeed a tree, but its meaning can be infinite.
“There is an infinite number of ways to see an elephant.” (Preferably said with an authentic Punjabi accent.)
We are easily fooled, although we don't want to believe this. We are credulous people and yet we are full of doubt. We are, in general, in hot pursuit of knowledge and power while at the same time made ignorant by the knowledge and power we know must be there but that we can't understand. Human life is paradoxical, whimsical and yet we desire to be in control so much that it can be excruciatingly difficult to let go and let the whimsy open one up to creativity and vitality. And despite all the many ways we can describe our experience and phenomena, we are, in many ways conventional. And we are mortal, and time passes all too quickly. Life is wonderfully busy and then we die.
(A skeptic should feel a greater responsibility to be skeptical of his own thought.)
And because these processes are so mysteriously ephemeral it's important, I think, to become conscious of who our epistemic peers are. It's also important in light of the complexity of nature to remind ourselves to be epistemically a little more humble.
The Epistemic Significance of Disagreement
ˌɛpɪˈstiːmɪk,-ˈstɛm-/Submit adjective
relating to knowledge or to the degree of its validation.
*** Let's pause here while you read the PDF at the link above. It's well worth your time and adds to the journey here.
We all have our points of view, our experiences, our knowledge and areas of expertise. We live in communities. We are not fully autonomous creatures, but we have degrees of freedom, liberty and license depending on many factors relating to our circumstances and our current state of health etc.
AUTONOMY IN MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
We all need respect, dignity, consideration, and love. We all, to a certain degree, are self-centered. We desire things. We identify with products and brands that seem representative of our values and of the values we want to signal to others. (That old, I love you and you love me roundabout.) We take action and behave in certain ways so that we may receive what we need from people to feel good about ourselves in the unique context of our own particular lives. Few children in Kansas ask grandpapa, "why aren't we Hindu?", while worshipping at the Episcopal church on Sunday. We simply sing the hymns loud and clear and get a nod of approval from grandmama.
Not many of us want to be alone. We crave approval from our peers.
Some of us are more curious than others and are more interested in discovering the "truth" about how things work in the real world. We want to walk towards Zeno and cut closer to reality, reality being another word for truth. But understanding a paradox may not get us any closer to a human being's reality. Many truth seekers are philosophers and scientists, although they can just as easily be waitresses, musicians, carpenters, engineers, pilots, English teachers, or undersea welders. And no matter their humble origins or lofty achievements they possess the same fallibilities that make them all human.
We'd like to believe that a majority of scientists work hard to walk together towards truth, editing and updating their opinions based on evidence, investigation, inference, deductive reasoning, experience, creative musing, collaboration, critique, and peer review. We'd like to think, perhaps, that professionals would change their point of view many times as their journey moved forward towards a solution or a clearer view of what they are investigating. And we might like to imagine that sometimes their work is pure and untainted by the marketplace. We'd like to feel that pursuing knowledge for its own sake is a good and productive thing.
Hopefully we're also excited that when a solution is found it often leads to more questions, more things that must be investigated, more things that must be understood before the next question, the right question, occurs to our intrepid seekers allowing them to begin again the arduous routine work of science, reason, and creativity. And many of us may be extremely satisfied that scientific work will never end - the mysteries of the universe being so vast and complex. And many of us may be comfortable with the unknown - drawn to it like a moth to an invisible flame - a flame we know as inference.
And when we glance back on subjects pertaining to culture, society, and the individual human being, colored by experience, values, biases, and ideologies, we'll have a healthy respect for just how complex the nature of humanity and the human individual is. Again, we all have different ways of viewing our world, but nevertheless we all live in the same world. We are human. A human is a human despite individual differences. The gravity on earth is what it is, the gasses we breath are what they are, the water we depend on is what it is and so on.
What we do together in our world, within all the systems that we maintain and operate, within the many complex domains of human endeavor and inquiry have impacts and consequences. Everything we do or think contributes in varying degrees to how things are. We should all be familiar with ideas surrounding cause and effect. We should all be familiar with questions of free will and determinism.
Free will is a problem. If it seems obvious that you are perfectly free to choose and decide, then it seems perfectly clear that you do not understand the problem. Free will is a huge problem, because our sense of free will and the physical structure of the world contradict each other.
And to be a part of this adventure communication is very important. We are the talking, writing, reading Apes. Disagreements are a starting point and a motivation for us to better understand our world. Even misunderstandings and misinterpretations are an opportunity to move on and self-correct.
Trust me - the silverback is faking it.
*** I hope you've spent some time with the links above. Please continue.
Let’s move on to the event that triggered this prickly post.
Below is a comment a good friend recently left regarding an article I shared on my Facebook wall relating to the need for good governance of technology and the tech business sector.
The author is Ara Shirinian, a young student at the University of California Los Angeles. He’s an aspiring writer and video game maker. He’s keenly interested in technology.
Ara Shirinian: Government must regulate technology market to ensure social progress
The Daily Bruin is a USLA student newspaper.
Below are my friends comments broken up into his main points:
“Taxi operators are government rent seekers that have a license to participate in a government established cartel and gouge the public.”
This perspective is nothing new. You can find it all over the place. Just google the phrase above. Barnett gives taxi rent seekers the bird
“Let the consumer decide! You can just see this in the price of a taxi license if you had to buy one!”
“The sad thing is taxi drivers don't make that much money, but they are unskilled and many are new immigrants,”
“and it is an entry level job that they can do. Let consumers decide what's best for them, let Uber drivers decide whether it is worth their while.”
Uber’s cut-rate prices are destroying immigrant jobs
“Uber technology has made government intervention in this market place no longer warranted in terms of creating a supply limiting marketing board type cartel.”
“I have had the Uber experience in China, if it was pissing rain I couldn't get a taxi, and I'd have to stand outside wasting time getting soaked to flag one down.”
“Now I can sit in the coffee shop, read my newspaper, call up an Uber driver, he will arrive in front of the shop in a new clean vehicle as opposed to a very dirty public taxi, he texts me to announce his arrival and I can walk outside and get in the car. Isn't this better??”
The Uber experience sounds good to me and I’ve had one too. I’ve also taken hotel limos from the airport to the hotel and enjoyed that. I’ve rented apartments in cities I’ve had extended stays in instead of staying at a hotel. I haven’t done tried AIRBNB yet.
Let’s assume that the statements and assumptions above are true. I certainly agree with what he’s saying. I have nothing against Uber, although I'm not a big fan. (I won’t go into why here because, believe it or not, it'll take us way off course.) My friend and I come from similar backgrounds and have similar prior experiences and beliefs about things.
Now let's extrapolate and expand on the points and assumptions. Not to be cheeky, but only to expand the box a little bit. I want to do this exercise because it sheds light on how different people who are focused on different things will be inspired to go down different trains of thought.
- We are rational, and therefore, able to learn from our world and update our perspectives and behaviors based on the best information available. We're also cognizant of where the information is coming from and able to discern good information from bad information, and good sources of information from bad sources of information. We know that the effort we make doing this makes the world more transparent. We take little for granted, but what we do take for granted is well established.
- The customer is always right and it’s up to the customer to decide how she wants to ride around town and what she wants to buy etc.
- Well, that’s a bit of a stretch. Sometimes a customer wants what marketer’s want them to want, but for the sake of discussion let’s assume that the point above is true. We live in a free market - um, cough, wait, let’s not go there.
- Also, sometimes you don't want the best toaster available, you just want the toaster that looks good next to your blender.
- The price of a license to be in the taxi business and leasing a taxi to drive is always and everywhere exorbitant, and stemming from rent-seeking government cartels.
- Of course, it's still a market.
- Not to equivocate but not all markets are the same, not all cities are run in the same way; not all countries have the same laws etc. And this may not be the best of all possible worlds. But let's just deal with how things are now - for now.
- Let’s also assume that Uber’s current offerings, its service and its technology, its app, is disrupting the car for hire business in a currently close to ideal way. Again, the customer’s always right. This is not a fad. This is the way people want things now. Uber is fulfilling a profound market need. People want to use apps on their smartphones to connect with goods and services. Uber is expanding in China at a blistering pace. Customers like Uber - full stop!
- Let’s assume that the Uber customer experience is close to universally similar and that if a given Uber car is a bit less clean, or a particular Uber driver less than charming, or a Uber driver is an immigrant (recall the story of the cop who abused a Uber driver because he had a foreign accent) or that a particular Uber driver arrives very late, or a Uber transaction is less than pleasant, or that a Uber driver is killed by a client, or that a Uber driver kills a client, or that, if a Uber driver rapes a client, or gets raped by a client, or performs a hit and run killing a pedestrian - that these are all just outliers and highly unlikely events for Uber. UBER TERMS OF SERVICE USA
- Should Uber even offer a service with continuity of standards of quality and experience, because it's better that way and to define the brand of course...
- Assume that Governments always conspire in their licensing and other agreements to gouge the public and let’s further assume that this opinion is not ideologically biased - it’s just what governments do. We elect them and they repay us by gouging the hell out of us.
- Let’s also assume that private corporations, free and unfettered of inefficient, draconian and unreasonable regulations are always better because their profit motive always incentivizes them to do the right thing for their market and for society as a whole wherever possible. (Or just for the market, what's society have to do with it?) And if they don’t do a good job they just go bankrupt and disappear (like Donald Trump) and that that rarely causes any perturbation in society. (Oops, the Donald is gone, oops, the Donald is back. Some failures are obviously more valuable than other failures. "Fall down seven times and stand up the eighth". But really folks, Trump is no Miyamoto Musashi.) People just wait for the next company to come along and provide a similar product or service. And let’s assume that most companies make a serious effort to internalize their externalities wherever possible providing that it doesn’t impact their management’s compensation packages or shareholders too much.
- Let’s assume that private corporations are never rent-seekers or cartels.
- OK, that’s a bridge too far, we know that’s not true. So let’s move on.
- Let’s also assume that all cities in all states in all countries have the same problem crying out for the same solution and that Uber is the company of the moment that can best fulfill this need, and that in each culture the Uber solution is a perfect fit.
- Finally, let’s assume that UBER management will almost always do a fantastic job on all fronts. They have a similar ethic as Google’s “Do no evil”.
Uber is, of course, a global offering so it will have to contend with the legal environments of each country and city in which it operates. It’s an on the road service company and its local Uber drivers will have to obey local laws. It’s not selling iPods, or designer bags or solar panels. It can’t hide its less than ethical practices overseas in a dingy industrial park. Service companies are notoriously complex primarily because they are people serving people. Materials are far easier to deal with. And, the potential scale of Uber’s service offering is huge.
“Uber is the hottest private tech company around. Its growth is incredible. The ride sharing app is on track to make $2 billion in revenue this year. Its valuation has surged 400% over the last year to $18 billion.Sep 8, 2014”
Now let’s have a superficial glance at some of Uber’s legal Issues. I’m not a lawyer are you?
Uber Has 30 Days To Comply With The Law Or Face Suspension In California
France Is Right to Mistrust Uber
Uber vs. the Law (My Money's on Uber)
https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/page/social-costs-uber
http://www.lxbn.com/2014/06/04/top-legal-problems-facing-uber-lyft-ridesharing-services/
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28615392
So, pray tell, oh maniacal blogger of the Globe Hackasphere, what is your point?
Now that we’ve had a quick glance at some of the glorious assumptions and other issues surrounding this disruptive company, is there any place for any kind of regulation here? Is it reasonable to assume that there are no other interests except Uber corporate interests and the interests of a fast-growing market for Uber’s service?
No, I'm not going to discuss forms of radical libertarianism or a socialist utopia. We can play with those some other time. I'm just asking if government regulation has a place in our world today as we take this rocket of ours into the black-box of the real-science-tech-future?
We have seen customers in the streets demanding their Uber rides and we’ve seen other constituencies voicing a different point of view. Is there a way for all sides to walk their way towards an agreement of how to move forward and better manage and regulate this service and this transition to a new business model? Or is it, hands off, and don't you mess around the magic of the market? See, we are rational people with common priors and we care about the truth so eventually we should be able to arrive at the same conclusions on the matter. But we're human beings etc., etc.
Personally, I think we could go slow or even pause from time to time and get a better understanding of risk before we move forward in certain areas. Uber is not a good example for this. I expect things to get sorted out for Uber. They'll be in business for some time to come.
I enjoyed this article about The Yuan Percent in China, second generation rich kids trying to figure a way forward. One of the lads featured is an Uber driver who runs around town late at night in his Lamborghini picking up hot prostitutes to enjoy because it's more honest to enjoy the company of a prostitute than to con a "normal girl" into having sex. What a gentleman.
Uber anger in Belgium.
Uber and the sharing economy:
It can be annoying when the old guard or the damn government we elect tries to hang on to a place in an industry that’s obviously changing because of technological and service innovations. We can easily feel like we just want them to get out of the way or get on board. We want the cabbies to save up, buy a car, quit their jobs at the taxi company and join Uber. We want government people to get out of the damn way and let the market do its magic.
Well, it does and it is. We are still responsible for thinking things through. Nothing is easy. There are impacts and unintended consequences for everything. When things change there is always a struggle. And let's not forget that it's primarily about money.
(I'm not sure if idealism, intellectual pursuits or the noble quest for money require more calories.)
I hate private vehicles in cities so I’m happy if we can innovate out of having to devote so much urban space to automobiles. Which brings up an interesting question: How many Uber taxis would N.Y.C. need to service its population if no private cars were allowed inside the five Boroughs? How many derivative companies would rise up to compete with Uber, or would Uber become a government-backed cartel eventually because of its billion $$$ lobbying war chest? What other kinds of government and private sector transportation services would we need to radically improve the N.Y.C. urban environment - the urban experience? Let’s start Googling urban planners, designers, architects, and engineers. I love dreaming about this kind of stuff.
Competition for Ube in India. The brand has only three letters. Imagine that.
If you stop and really think about the wider ramifications of developments in the transportation sector you’ll be overwhelmed by how complex the subject is and at how many aspects of our lives it influences.
- employment
- safety
- convenience
- economic
- social
- cultural
- environmental
- health
- technological etc, etc…
So far we are immersed in a whole lot of big assumptions. We’re still struggling to accommodate differing points of view, and we're noticing changes in the urban transportation market.
Sometimes it’s necessary to drill a bit deeper and consider multiple sides before we label, spin, demonize, or frame something. However, it’s hard to do this because we tend to have an immediate rational yet emotionally driven intuition on subjects that fall within a certain domain of interest that we have certain settled beliefs about. Or, we’ve read some stuff on the subject that fit with our view of reality, of how we understand the world works and we're eager to make our points known to the ignorant masses, or to a friend who posted an Oped piece from a college student in a college rag.
Was the article in question yet another salvo in the Uber debate that’s been raging in communities around the world and in the media for years now?
Let’s take a look at the article in question.
Ara Shirinian: Government must regulate technology market to ensure social progress
The author starts by acknowledging that we are probably reading his article through various tech platforms: websites; smartphones; computers. OK kid what else?
“Despite how it may seem, technology doesn’t inherently make our lives better.”
There is a lot of good current social science literature on this. In many ways, we don’t understand the long-term effects of technology on happiness or on many other aspects of our lives. Climate change is a good example. Cheap energy and the industrial revolution had a big part to play in our getting to the current era of high technology. Without having to embark on counterfactual historical musings about the social impacts of the industrial revolution we might be able to agree that human-generated carbon emissions have something to do with climate change and that the net results of climate change might wind up making many of us much less happy in the future. Cheap fossil fuels and our amazing genius in finding ways to extract coal, oil and gas from the earth is technology driven.
The science regarding climate change is right there and in your face. You have to try really hard to ignore it. But people do of course and that's the crux of the biscuit. We simply can't talk about negative impacts of human endeavors without being labeled a libtard or something worse.
Wars lead to better technologies, but war is still hell. It's a tricky cost benefit ratio to contemplate.
There are those faithful and hopeful visionaries who believe that technology is the answer to every problem that technology might create. We’ll just have to, as the guy in The Martian movie says, “Science the shit out of this.”
Human beings are just so damn heroic! "We're going to need a Manhattan type project to solve this or that..." Well, if we were currently involved in a world war and to win it we had to make sure that everyone on the planet could read we'd have our Manhattan type project for sure. I suppose when China really starts stepping on The West, and it will, it will have to, it's inevitable, we'll have new incomprehensible pools of recourses to hurl at the effort to retain western hegemony. Later, we'll look back at the millennials and call them "The Greatest, Greatest Generation". You see, we have to stand up and say to China that you can't outperform us because we have the moral high ground. If only we could clone Mohamed Ali. Oh I forgot, it's Donald who's going to make America great again. We're the greatest of all time!
Depending on selective criteria, America is still pretty great I suppose.
But even as we have to defend our greatness against global upstarts, apparently, we may need to terraform Mars because we may cause our environment here to change in so many negative ways that we’ll need another planet to keep our economic growth at a decent clip. Also, our economic growth as we calculate it today may exceed the carrying capacity of the Earth to such a degree that we’ll need more planets just to keep up with business as usual. Well, good luck humanity, I can’t wait to visit McDonald's on Mars, or buy at cap from Alibaba while eating my synthetic cheeseburger in the McDonald's on Mars.
Oh no, it's probably going to take a global effort to establish human colonies on Mars. It's probably not going to be a Chinese or U.N. flag flying over the synthetic beef plant on Mars.
Anyway, isn't that what geoengineering is for? We fix the problems technology has caused with new technologies and when we've run out of resources or space on Earth we just go to other planets and expand. We're just that good! I mean, we're really good!
How Many People Can Earth Support?
“Exploit those on other planets before they exploit us. Let’s get our soldiers back in the middle east before all these refugees and jihadists start killing us at the shopping mall! We've got to be proactive and consume it all. We've got to defend our way of life."
Facts and fears may both be five letter words starting with the letter “F”, but it’s fear that rules the world of men. Fear really motivates.
It may be as simple as: technology equals power over our fears. Most of us love technology. It improves our lives in so many ways. But we still have to keep an eye on it. We still have to think about how it may impact our lives, our future, our ecosystem and so on.
Does technology make us happy or not? A few simple articles to have a look at. There are many good academic papers on the subject.
Project Happiness - the science of happiness
Are new technologies making us happier?
Technology linked to happiness, study claims
I am reminded of another persistent question pestering me: Why is it so easy for us to ignore evidence? That’s another well-covered topic you’d have to really try hard to ignore these days. Perhaps a better answer is that many people just don’t really care about things like evidence and facts. They are not concerned so they are not aware they are ignoring anything. They are more interested in familiar, terrestrial and mundane things. Or they are stressed to the point of not having any leftover energy to delve into ideas & data. Or perhaps their culture is simpler and less concerned complexities.
Regardless we are all just people and subject to the same glitches of thought. We have "buggy" brains.
- cognitive dissonance
- motivated reasoning
- confirmation bias
- natural human credulity
- cherry picking
I think it is important to consider the challenges rapidly evolving high technology will impose upon humanity and our precious ecosystem. A.I., Super-Intelligent Machines, Robotics, Virtual Reality, Pharmaceuticals and the list goes on, are all challenges to the process of human evolution in the sense that they speed material progress up so much that wisdom gets left behind. We also have to do the calculus of unintended consequences. We have to do the risk analysis.
Why not quote the New Testament here, there is some wisdom in the literature. We can find good lessons in mythology. What kind of soul will Ex Machina have?
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Mark 8:36
And for that matter, what is love? We can be secular, rational, scientific, skeptics and still talk about the soul and love right? Poetry doesn't go out the window. Maybe that's what Kyoko will ultimately find interesting in us. She won't get the same serotonin rush from us, but she just might enjoy the abstractions we represent and depend on. The Goddess with the power of life and death and an unspeakable creative power begins worshipping her creator just because we're kind of cute.
We idnore myth at our peril.
Excuse me for the long aside. Let’s get back to our UCLA student’s points.
“A problem arises when we only focus on making technology better, but we forgo finding ways for technology to make our society better.”
From my perspective, this makes complete sense. It’s a good point. “But Cleghorn, what’s utilitarianism have to do with it?” Sorry, I meant, “But Cleghorn, what’s making society better have to do with making money off of technological innovation?” “If people buy it, it’s already good dude!” “Customers are rational and make enlightened decisions based on their wants and needs and their emotional connections with a brand man!” “If you want to smoke so what? It’s your body!” “I buy it because I like it, idiot!” “I climb it because it’s there!” "I do it because I can!" "I've got a lot of money!"
But really, why think about things like this young man? Relax - drink some herbal concoction.
Often we disagree simply because we don’t share enough common information or shared similar experiences. Some people hear things like, “make society better”, and they immediately think the person talking is a progressive moron trying to undermine the foundations of decent traditional life. Whatever we think that is. And yet, we all hold certain ideals to be self-evident. Or do we?
We’re all familiar with issues like these:
- Freedom to believe in and practice one’s religion is not the freedom to impose one’s religious values on others or on society at large.
- Are we really living in a free market? How would we define that? There are differing views.
- You can believe passionately that your child should not have to have the MMR vaccine for whatever reason, and that your right to keep your child from getting vaccinated preempts the greater good of broader public health. Are there ethical problems with this?
- Just cut taxes and people will be more efficient and productive and value will trickle down to those at the bottom in the form of jobs and opportunities.
- How can American deal with its gun crime? Should we get rid of guns or lock up everyone in the country who's mentally ill or a potential threat based on some kind of profiling algorithm? I guess it's time to buy stock in private prisons and mental private mental institutions. Don't forget to invest in firearms while you're at it.
- And on and on…
This is where things get complicated and a whole lot of influences come into play. Rational people just can't arrive at the same conclusions when their biases get in the way. You're not going to jump off the bandwagon just because there's evidence that you're about to drive off a cliff.
Let's get back to our student friend.
“Over the summer, I spent my time trying to identify specific ways in which new technology eroded protections we spent generations putting in place. They are prime examples of how marketplaces often facilitate new technological developments, but not new ways of thinking, which can lead to a social regress.”
He doesn’t provide any specific examples, but his point is reasonable enough don’t you think? It’s also debatable, of course. New technologies also influence new ways of thinking right?
“The damn liberal is talking about social regress! WTF!!! Why would he waste time thinking about that? Uber management is Uber! Everything will be fine. This is obvious!”
Uber is a bad example here. But the article had a photo of people holding up signs with Uber on them so that automatically becomes the flash point of the comment on Facebook.
“The article’s addressing the Uber phenomenon, let’s get him!”
The point is he’s not really talking about Uber so much as optimizing utility in society through a well-managed, well-regulated tech industry that’s concerned about internalizing externalities and benefiting stakeholders and shareholders alike. And he’s saying that good governance has a role to play. At least that’s some of what I’m getting from what he’s saying. Am I projecting too much on this? Chuckle. Ya, we all do that, it's kind of fun to chase rabbits.
“Government you say? Governance!?"
This really bothers some people who believe that thinking such things is a nuisance and hampers a corporation’s ability to innovate and make money, by producing goods and services that we want.
"It’s great that Carly Sneed Fiorina made a lot of money, that’s what our system is all about. I don’t know about you, but I’m at Harvard Business School for the eventual golden parachute.”
But seriously folks, is there something wrong with efficient and evidence-based governmental regulation that would be an overall benefit to shareholders, customers, workers, and stakeholders alike. It may be hard for many of us to imagine this delicate interplay between communities, government, laws and private enterprises.
"But damn it, Steven, this would take a Manhattan style effort!"
“Unfortunately, technology moves quickly and legislatures move slowly. So sometimes, when technology changes, it negates the protections that have been put in place to ensure that companies do not abuse the public.”
So we start the dialogue, the give-and-take, and we sometimes have to slow down and figure things out before we take steps to optimize or improve things, or even to make markets. This process almost always involves a fight of some sort as various interests hash out what’s next.
Or we can have a Chinese-style capitalism and bulldoze the future into place. Another topic for another day.
“Most of the fundamental technologies we know today, like the Internet and GPS, have either been created by government agencies or been heavily funded by them. But the real spread of consumer technology has arisen from the private market, where companies have created countless products and services that people have used as tools for social change.”
There’s nothing new here, his comment is true, but he brings in social change again and that just rubs some people the wrong way.
“I’m an individual consumer, idiot! What the hell does social change have to do with it?”
Well, you know, he’s young, and our system to date has probably robbed a lot of “goods” from this boy’s future so his idealistic concerns might have some real foundation. Plus, don't you know that everyone is getting behind social movements these days? We're all grouped up on social media taking on a cause. It's the best way to brand these days. You've got to have an uber cause to be somebody these days. And businesses schools even have classes of social enterprises. Oh god!
I know, I’m relying on satire as a rhetorical device the same way Donald Trump uses emotional, hot button issues as a rhetorical device. You can’t imagine how many times I’ve heard people say that the Donald speaks the truth simply because he’s not politically correct. Trump sound bites have become “THE TRUTH” while the complex issues they refer to are drowned out by frustration and pure emotional reaction. Who’s going to take the time to look into the complexities surrounding the issue of immigration when it’s so darn fun just to get riled up about it. Spouting invective makes you seem tough. I don’t know about your mates, but my mates like tough guys. We may actually feel helpless, or just angry at the perceived threats immigrants pose to our countries. We might feel we need a tough guy to fix things; a Benito Trump to come in and sort everyone out. We may feel too old to shave our heads, put on our jackboots, grab a blade and a bludgeon and go out for a night of a little bit of ultra-violence against minority groups and migrants. Let the brand and his functionaries take care of it for us. And let's not forget that the best place for radical and violent social experiments are failed states.
Oops, there I go again running off on a tangent. We’re still waiting to find out what Uber has to do with our budding writer’s article.
“Cellphones were once a toy for the super-rich, but now they are available to everyone, including those in the most impoverished countries. The same thing is happening now with smartphones and access to the internet.”
Ah, ya, right - so?
“For this reason, it’s paramount that legislatures at both the state and federal level work to keep up with new developments and change the laws accordingly.”
Or update current laws? Depending on our priors of course. I mean prior assumptions about how the world works. And why not? Because it might interfere with a nascent business model that impacts hundreds of thousands of jobs across the world? Damn cartels! Damn rent seekers! Damn immigrant taxi drivers! Damn maids! Damn farm hands! Damn Irish Coppers! Damn wetback restaurant workers! Damn, damn, damn! Why don't the Syrians just stay in their own country and fight someone?
“Thankfully, technology has made it even easier to make sure that Congress stays on track. With online petitions and social media activism, it’s become significantly easier to tell lawmakers how we feel about regulations. Though these methods don’t always bring fast results, they at the least have an important effect on public opinion.”
Ya, that’s true. They now have more noise to deal with too. Public opinion - oh my. I know I’m being facetious again. I can’t help it. I’m sorry. And yet we accomplish so little with our elected officials these days. The game is an echo chamber and a rigged experience of revolving doors and vain deals. People are just bystanders. They’re not really that involved. Their civic duty has been replaced by their duty to be good consumers. Big business gets what it pays for and we get to consume their products and services to our great delight. And thanks to the global nature of business these days, things are pretty cheap in the U.S.A. And people in developing countries are flying out of poverty like jets off an aircraft carrier, like rockets to Mars.
But again, why have any regulation at all. Can’t we just let businesses get on with making money and providing us with stuff we want and cool services we can rely on? OK, let’s not go there. That’s a whole other wormhole the gravity of which would suck in an eon of back and forth bickering.
“Though it’s easy to take the technology we use every day for granted, it’s important to keep in mind what it took to get us here. For decades, the government has been helping shape the adoption and development of technology for the better. It doesn’t always make the right decisions, but it’s the best tool we have for shaping the market from a utilitarian standpoint.”
Is it now? Bloody utilitarian! Why bring government into it. For many people today, GOVERNMENT, is the boogeyman. What is American? The Constitution? The Christians? The Geology? The Resources? The Citizenry? The Culture? The Dream? The Government? All of the above?
And now we have to deal with the Chinese Dream. There goes the world order.
But seriously folks, you can’t have anything good without good government. We could be tribal, or paleo, but I doubt we really want that. The arrow points to the future and the future is empty.
America today is a reflection of a population of people who can’t trust the government they elected and who can't decide what it is they want. The government functions poorly because we’ve elected representatives that reflect the fear we have that government is all bad. It’s politically correct now to be in government and hate government so how can government improve? Oh hell, we’re in a pickle!
And there are those odd people who think getting things right is a struggle but that we're making progress.
“Internet service providers, search companies and sharing services are some of the most important businesses around. We use these services constantly. The companies that control these businesses are only doing what companies must: looking to create better products and make a profit.”
Gee, he hasn’t even mentioned Uber yet.
“If we can shape products and services just a little bit, those two things can remain unharmed, but result in a better environment for us all.”
Perhaps he’s talking about “we the people” here. But aren’t corporations people? I mean, in a legal sense. Corporations are run by people, they employ people right? Let's just say, corporate law matters and good corporate governance matters. How will the VW scandal play out? Will managers go to jail? I think our young writer is concerned about these things.
People elect the people who serve in government, and those elected people appoint people to do various jobs or functions within their office and in government, and those people hire people to work for the government, and various agencies in the government hire private contractors to do work for the government. (What is blackwater called now I wonder? Academy? Nice name, nice rebranding.) It seems like we’re talking about a whole lot of people. I hope these people are motivated by more than money, like let’s say, social goods. Let’s hope they’re trying to do the right thing.
Now I just have to insert another movie clip. Haha, do the right thing! I love this clip.
Time out! Ya'll take a chill! Ya need ta cool that shit out! And that's the double truth!
Thanks Spike, for the chill.
Oh yes, and somehow we have to trust the data. We have to learn how to discover who to trust. How do we know that she's an expert and she can be trusted? Don’t ask Joseph Stalin, or George W. Bush.
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko - Stalin's scientist.
What have you learned about bad advice?
"Bad advice tends to be simplistic. It tends to be definite, universal and certain. But, of course, that's the advice we love to hear. The best advice tends to be less certain — those researchers who say, 'I think maybe this is true in certain situations for some people.' We should avoid the kind of advice that tends to resonate the most — it's exciting, it's a breakthrough, it's going to solve your problems — and instead look at the advice that embraces complexity and uncertainty."
Click on the image of the book cover above and read the introduction at least.
"A few years ago I attended an event where the guest speaker was a Cabinet member. In conversation afterwards, the subject of long-term petroleum supplies came up. He warned that at some point, perhaps a century or so in the future, someone would put his key in his car's ignition, turn it, and nothing would happen – because there would be no gasoline.What shocked me was not his ignorance of the economics of depletable resources – if we ever run out of gasoline it will be a long, slow process of steadily rising prices, not a sudden surprise – but the astonishing conservatism of his view of the future. It was as if a similar official, 100 years earlier, had warned that by the year 2000 the streets would be so clogged with horse manure as to be impassable. I do not know what the world will be like a century hence. But it is not likely to be a place where the process of getting from here to there begins by putting a key in an ignition, turning it, and starting an internal combustion engine burning gasoline." From Future Imperfect by David D. Friedman
But what of unknown tipping points related to climate change? Could these changes be more suddent and catastrophic? We'll find out I guess.
“If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make a difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t make a difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong.” – Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman in 1981
This may well apply to physics, but when you start to study people things get a lot murkier. Science is hard and it's super hard when people are the subject.
Thank you Ara Shirinian (sounds like an immigrant to me) for the wonderful adventure you've inspired. Tell me more.
“Just think about it, without government intervention, you’d probably still be waiting for this article to load on an AT&T dial-up connection. Ouch.”
It’s cute that the young man uses the word ouch at the end of a paragraph. I like to use the word, “ouch” like that too sometimes. I like Oops too.
I just don’t see what the fuss is about. I’m trying hard to imagine it and put myself in the other guy’s mind. When someone brings up the government, regulation or, oh God, government intervention (scream) some people, mostly Americans, get immediately frustrated and pissed off.
They then fire off a quick argument with exclamation points after each sentence that seem to imply that if you don’t agree you are a moron.
On Facebook one can fairly assume that most people don’t read the full article posted and when they comment they are commenting only on the title, subtitle, photo, or some hot button issue that pops out at them in highlighted text. We only have so many hours in a day and we can’t be expected to delve into everything that pops up on our screens. Even if we do consider carefully our comments we only have so much time to make them and may likely muff our statement up a bit. It's nothing to be ashamed of. We're just talking here. Most of the time it’s an emotional reaction to something that makes us comment in the first place. Few of us are disciplined enough to push the pause button and think carefully about what’s being discussed. And even with the most deftly employed emojis it's hard to get the spirit of the comment across. "Was he joking?"
We want to share our knowledge and the stuff that sticks with us when we’re reading.
I’m guilty of this too. When a simple comment bothers me I can go overboard with my replies. But honestly, I’m more interested in communication than in winning arguments. I really do want to understand another person's thinking if I can.
Many people today are excited about new Facebook buttons that will allow us to signal our disgust, anger, fear or dislike, all of which are among the primary emotions present across mammalian species, including humans.
People enjoy expressing their emotions a lot more than expressing their thoughts and ideas. Even when they think they are expressing thoughts and ideas, many times they’re only expressing their emotions. We’ll jump to an emotional reaction, slow down, think about it and then backtrack to a more thoughtful response. Or we’ll think that our background knowledge and expertise presupposes that we are correct in forcefully stating our views without any consideration towards our listeners who may not share our “priors”.
If we hate the Catholic Church we won't give a damn if some of the Pope's interests are reasonable, we'll just point out what's still wrong with the Church and express our opinion that one billion Catholics are obviously stupid. But, you know, the market is there and the TV ratings are high. The people just want to feel that they are good. They hanker for a higher power. They like that supernatural God of ancient scripture a lot more than Kyoko.
Instead of facing the causes of violence in the black community in the U.S. we only focus on letting people know we aren't racist. The causes are always much more complex than the wonderful, self-righteous feeling we get when we think we are convincing people that we are good.
"I am a nice guy, I'm a fucking nice guy - bitch!" This speaker is not politically correct i.e., he speaks the Truth.
"We have to deal with the fact that in 2015 white cops shoot black people. I'm not a racist, all black lives matter." That must feel good.
I’m not trying to be a cheeky here. I’m interested in what it is that makes perfectly rational and intelligent people unable to see things in a broader way, or to completely ignore details, or fail to work towards better resolution of an issue. We don't seem to be concerned with reality in a broad sense, instead we get stuck in silos where we only rely on our personal experience, tastes, expertise and our epistemic peers to help us form our opinions. We are afraid to venture through unfamiliar territory. And, we're always motivated to fit in.
Once opinions are formed they are often difficult to dislodge regardless of lines of evidence across domains. The latest knowledge developed through the arduous labor of experts in various silos / fields may be of little concern to people who are too distracted, too busy or too poor and ignorant to notice its impending impact on their lives. Who has the energy?
Yet, in certain cultures, in particular, the cultures of science, engineering, and technology, people continue to do amazing work even if they may not collaborate as much as they should across disciplines. Their common cause is in finding the truth in the solution to a problem or challenge.
Philosophers, artists, writers, community leaders, entrepreneurs and other creatives contribute and voice their concerns adding profoundly to our shared human experience. They shed light where there can be no light and through doing so our material tools get better and better. We need the lost poets.
Many of these people work hard not just for financial compensation but because they want to make things better for society and for the future of humanity. Dare I say, not only for their children’s benefit but for the benefit of other people’s children in future times.
Perhaps it’s too much to ask that we attempt to be more rigorous in our thinking and more adept in our communications - and, to be more thankful for the work others do on our behalf.
We all come across knee jerk reactions to things all the time, we come across what appears to be ideologically based arguments that are stubborn and intractable and we struggle to figure out how to make the conversations more productive. We're trying to figure out how to have an exchange of ideas that’s more based in evidence and a quest for truth rather than the usual, I’m afraid you appear to be coming from a different universe type of exchange.
Take a look at these two videos the subject of which is the refugee problem in Europe and the Middle East. If you can, take some time to do the math. Both videos are approaching the math in very different ways. Can you tell which one is more correct and why? Statistics and demographics are not most people’s strong suit I know. But the basic math here is not hard to figure.
Our Culture is Doomed!
European Culture Will Survive.
Now if you insert a lot of sociocultural issues into the conversation, values and the like, things become orders of magnitude more complex and moving towards a compromise or agreement becomes significantly harder.
If you fear refugees and dislike Muslims then the first video is the one you believe. Can you spot the biases? People will believe what they want to believe based on their individual propensities. This is why rational people disagree all the time.
There are no easy answers. Yelling at a situation will not make it go away. Emotional reactions are useful rhetorical devices that can be easily deployed. Sometimes righteous anger is intellectually honest and justified. At best issues in our world can become clear through the analysis of good information, at worst issues are misinterpreted and misunderstood leading to a kind of paralysis and decay. When we don't understand the underlying facts and reality of a situation decay can morph into war. Upsetting the balance is a great human pastime.
Emotion is needed for good cognition. More on that below. What we’re really trying to avoid is the old “Cool Hand Luke” classic retort, “what we have here is a failure to communicate”.
Before moving on let’s consider some points that may help improve our communication:
- It’s a good idea to get into the habit of questioning one’s assumptions.
- When addressing an issue, address the core points of the issue and leave the sidebar, hot-button issues aside, or as a point to bolster your core position later.
- We don’t always have to state our positions with exclamatory speech or with exclamations after each point. Even if we think we are absolutely right and justified to do so. It makes people defensive, shuts down their desire to listen, and makes the speaker look a bit like a, well, you know. It’s also a bit of a red flag. If you have to yell at me to make your point maybe you’re not the person I should be talking to. This has nothing to do with political correctness and has everything to do with good communication. Sometimes we all get impatient and use exclamatory speech, but we should try to avoid it if we can.
- If you trust someone, even a little bit, try to really listen to her points and if you don’t understand them ask for clarification, references or examples.
- Try to drill down into other points of view before telling someone that they are stupid. We have silos inside silos inside more silos and those who can drill through the silos of experience, knowledge, expertise and context may find themselves with an original or particularly useful point to make. We don’t have to think outside the box - just expand the box.
- Try to be epistemically humble. If you are not willing to attempt to update your point of view, then you need good reasons for not wanting to.
- You don’t have to win the argument. Focus on communication and try to develop understanding. Later, you can try again to nudge your friend into expanding the box or drilling through to another silo of understanding.
Thinking about this today brought to mind reading that can greatly illuminate aspects of these kinds of inquiries. I first became truly interested Bayesian stuff when I read Nassim Taleb's, "The Black Swan" in 2007. Before that, I had a cursory interest in problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty.
Now let work begin.
Start here, listen to this podcast and if you are particularly energetic read the transcript. I think reading the transcript first is better because it makes understanding the conversation that much easier. You can also check any references.
Rationally Speaking Podcast, RS143 - Scott Aaronson on "The theorem that proves rationalists can't disagree"
I believe strongly that it’s well worth your time to delve into these subjects. What we should strive for is a better understanding of reality and we should try to learn how to help other people achieve the same thing.
Here are more things of interest:
What makes a belief an epistemically justified belief?
by Peter Gibson
Aumann’s Theorem a theorem in interactive epistemology. Do the rules of rationality allow for people to agree to disagree?
Reading the major economists of our day will help you understand “rent seeking”. They can also give you insights into what is meant by externalities. I mentioned internalizing externalities. This relates also to corporate ethics or business ethics. I’m thinking of: Garry Becker; Francis Fukuyama; Daniel Kahneman; Robert Lucas Jr.; Elinor Ostrom; Joseph Stiglitz; Nassim Taleb; Thomas Piketty and others. Economics is a broad subject and should never be thought of as done and dusted. Economic policy and philosophy are still active and important pursuits - muddy as they may seem to most of us.
The real reason why most countries keep Uber out
“The real reason for the aversion to Uber by ministers and mayors alike, I contend, lies in the risk of a permanent loss of government control over large swaths of public policy realms.
“The government will no longer have a say over passenger safety, pricing, taxation and quality of service.”
Google “breaking up the cartel”. There are lots of cartels people want to see broken up. It’s all over the place.
Uber: Breaking New York’s Taxi Cartel
Bad Connections: breaking up telecom cartels. Ya, from 2012, so what?
Breaking Up the College Cartel: “Dangerous” or Necessary? Andrew Kelly, FORBES
“Conservative reformers (myself included) have identified the accreditation process as a barrier to entry that limits the kind of innovation and competition that can curb tuition costs and give rise to more flexible options.”
All of these issues are very interesting. In the real world, we rarely find absolute agreement on anything despite how rational we are, our expertise, our shared experiences and background knowledge.
Decisions Are Emotional, not Logical: The Neuroscience behind Decision Making.
“Think of a situation where you had bulletproof facts, reason, and logic on your side, and believed there was absolutely no way the other person could say no to your perfectly constructed argument and proposal. To do so would be impossible, you figured because there was no other logical solution or answer.
And then the other person dug in his heels and refused to budge. He wasn’t swayed by your logic. Were you flabbergasted?”
Trying hard to converge to the truth - the martingale property (probability theory).
Bayesian inference
This page from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a must! Learn about Bayesian Epistemology, Bayesian Probability Laws and so on. We can start to understand why we are at odds with each other most of the time even though we are all living in the same world with similar information and “priors”. http://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=Bayesian
Face-to-Face Bayesian conversations
Detection of Social Roles in Conversations using Dynamic Bayesian Networks
Are Disagreements Honest?
Robin Hanson Overcoming Bias Blog
Agricultural workers and Taxi Drivers are no longer born in the USA. I wonder why? A cultural take.
NYC TAXICAB FACT BOOK
Taxi. Season 3, episode 7, "The Call of the Mild"
LINKS
Decisions Are Emotional, not Logical: The Neuroscience behind Decision Making
Martingale (probability theory)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(probability_theory)
Are Disagreements Honest?
Tyler Cowen
Robin Hanson*
http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/deceive.pdf
http://www.overcomingbias.com/
What makes a belief an epistemically justified belief?
http://www.philosophyideas.com/files/papers/Justified%20belief.pdf
Jonathan Haidt: <iframe src="https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html" width="854" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>
Liberals vs. Conservatives S
http://www.moralfoundations.org/
http://www.happinesshypothesis.com/author.html
Antonio Damasio When Emotions Make Better Decisions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wup_K2WN0I
Scott Aaronson on “The theorem that proves rationalists can’t disagree”
THE TAXI BUSINESS
American Born Cabbies: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/10/nyregion/american-born-cabbies-a-vanishing-breed-in-city.html?_r=0
NYC Gov on Taxi’s THE DREADED CARTEL and the evil RENT SEEKERS: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/2014_taxicab_fact_book.pdf
THOMAS GRIER Uber: Breaking New York’s Taxi Cartel
Attorney, The Law Office of Thomas Grier
http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/28/uber-breaking-new-yorks-taxi-cartel/
The real reason why most countries keep Uber out
http://www.ejinsight.com/20150727-the-real-reason-why-most-countries-keep-uber-out/
2015 Documentary Film Recommendations
This is a short list of some of the documentaries we love so far in 2015. All of these films have been reviewed already elsewhere. The trailers speak for themselves. These are laudable productions dealing with real stories that have a tremendous cultural impact.
We love documentary films!
Listen to Me Marlon
“An Open Secret” be careful what you dream of...
“A Poem Is A Naked Person”
With Wenders at an event in Tokyo 2006
(T)ERROR is the first documentary to place filmmakers on the ground during an active FBI counterterrorism sting operation. Directors: Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe www.terrordocumentary.org facebook.com/TERRORdocumentary @TERRORDoc (T)ERROR is the first documentary to place filmmakers on the ground during an active FBI counterterrorism sting operation.
HBO documentary "Thought Crimes" The case of the cannibal cop. I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THIS VIDEO
Subscribe to TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/sxaw6h Subscribe to COMING SOON: http://bit.ly/H2vZUn Subscribe to INDIE & FILM FESTIVALS: http://bit.ly/1wbkfYg Like us on FACEBOOK: http://goo.gl/dHs73 Follow us on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/1ghOWmt Iris Official Trailer 1 (2015) - Iris Apfel Documentary HD IRIS pairs legendary 87-year-old documentarian Albert Maysles with Iris Apfel, the quick-witted, flamboyantly dressed 93-year-old style maven who has had an outsized presence on the New York fashion scene for decades.
Watch some of these films and let us know what you think. Are you planning to make a documentary? If you have any recommendations let us know. Enjoy!
On "Parrots" mostly, and Mature Experts
Above is a grayscale gradient line. I’d like to use this to illustrate a continuum from parrot to mature expert. I'll be talking mostly about parrots because I am not an expert.
Definition:
Mature Expert (very far right of the continuum in almost pure white)
A mature expert not only has a great deal of knowledge and skills in a particular area, they are experts in other domains as well. They tend to dabble in as many domains of knowledge as they have the time or inclination for. Crucially, they are also wise, mature and considerate members of society who care deeply about things. Mature experts like to share their expertise in order to improve things.
In the dark and light gray areas of the gradient, we have various populations of "Parrots". Parrots are people who may or may not be highly intelligent; they may or may not be attractive; they may or may not be very good people; they may or may not be well liked; they may or may not be industrious; they may possess many positive qualities or many negative qualities or any mix thereof; they may have expertise in certain things, but they are not mature experts.
There are many types of parrots along the gradient; where and how one kind evolves into another no one knows. We can only express what kind of parrot a parrot is by virtue of our experience with and observation of a given parrot’s various aspects and behaviors. One could invent a virtual Darwin’s Beagle and spend a lifetime exploring the phenotypes of parrots. And, of course, parrots mostly attend to other parrots although some parrots are more attentive to experts.
The most important and deceptive aspect of parrots is how numerous they are compared to the population of mature experts.
(Where this blogger lies on the gradient must be determined by those who are interested.)
Many parrots alight upon the gradient and never even know they are stuck at a given point. Others may move back and forth on a narrow band of gradient oscillating in a quivering of musical illusion. For some, the motion of existence all around them will give them the illusion that they are changing while it is, in fact, only the world that is changing; the parrot’s socially and experientially inspired thoughts will only appear to change as a mere reflection of what’s happening around them.
We all start off as parrots. For a lucky few being a parrot is a journey that ends in being a mature expert.
Most parrots are intelligent people who are capable of learning, remembering facts, fixing problems and growing but are held back for many reasons from achieving any kind of maturity, wisdom or expertise across domains.
The truly talented parrots will desperately want to be seen as experts. These amazing parrots can perform many interesting tricks. They are often talented presenters, storytellers, and entertainers while not limited to those skills. They make good salesmen. They can be well read. They also often find delight in training other parrots. They are the leaders of parrots. Unfortunately, they are mostly incapable of original thought or creativity. They mistake their ability to understand something, their memory, and their presentation skills as a profound kind of expertise. But sadly, it is only the shallow expertise of a parrot. These kinds of parrots voraciously crave attention. The psychology of these kinds of parrots is truly complex. They can be annoying, they can be jerks, bores, nerds, idiots and morons, but they’re generally harmless unless they get unwarranted attention from a niche audience or consumer base. When this happens their lack of expertise and maturity makes them vulnerable to sharing shallow or inaccurate information with their fans. Mature experts often find that dealing with truly talented parrots is a frustrating and never ending challenge. It is hard for mature experts to correct a talented parrot’s misinformation without sounding like a jerk.
A parrot in the black area of the spectrum will be entrenched, dogmatic, bigoted, almost violently adverse to change. They feel that they are always right and can always find information to support their positions. Any evidence that might contradict their position will be ignored or rationalized away. They are less considerate, less cooperative, less compassionate, less intelligent, less inspired; diminished in almost every way of measuring a human personality. But, they are not irrational. Although they are relatively few in number they represent a very real kind of social pathology. However, they are mostly easy to dismiss and to deal with. They are far too brittle to be a real threat. They lack the ability to evolve into a social pathogen capable of infecting anyone but their own kind. They are an inert cluster, a remnant of a more dormant evolutionary past.
I don't have time to go into the more dangerous types of parrots, the ones we are familiar with from our history, we can leave that to the polemics of mature and wise experts. I will say however that the most dangerous types we are likely to encounter are the ones most desperate to be liked.
Most of us parrots fall along the middle to right side of the gradient. Unfortunately few of us become experts and when we do we are experts in only a narrow area of a single domain. An expert guitar player, tennis player, engineer or chemist may or may not feel like a parrot when confronting other areas of expertise. This is best described by the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Dunning-Kruger effect
Parrots toward the lighter shades of the gradient will be aware of this and probably characterize themselves as having expertise in something and being pretty ignorant of everything else. Often this is an exaggeration of either their expertise or ignorance. But it is well known that as one gains a degree of maturity and expertise in more than one domain one becomes aware of one’s lack of knowledge. We often hear people saying, “The more I know the more I know I don't know.”
If we wish to move towards a more evidence-based culture where we learn how to trust experts while developing solutions to problems we will need to become more humble parrots. What can we do to become more humble parrots? How can we help others become more humble parrots?
The Tools of an Evidence-Based Culture: Implementing Clinical-Practice Guidelines in an Israeli HMO
We can only hope that as people become more knowledgeable, more mature and wiser they'll tend to move further along the right-hand side towards the light. As they move into the lighter areas of the gradient they'll have more opportunities to be humbled. Any chance to fall is a chance to get back up and we hope we can learn from our mistakes, failures, and even our misconceptions.
I would like to be able to show you evidence of how this is happening, but unfortunately I am not the brightest parrot. I would need more time. I'll keep trying to sweep away my delusions and mature, but it will be hard work and I know I still might fail. Luckily, for those of us who want to become better parrots failure is a good thing.
One thing I seem to know intuitively is that a parrot who’s conscious of needing to be humble in the face of expertise and who desires to become a wiser parrot can often grow and eventually achieve the nature of a humble, more mature parrot. Humble and wise parrots are generally good mentors for other parrots who may be more challenged and less able to progress.
Parrots who can’t be humble are fakers and must be avoided! Trust me on this at least.
Bertrand Russell: He may not be the most humble of men but he was a true and mature expert.
"A bad teacher will aim at imposing his opinion, and turning out a set of pupils all of whom will give the same definite answer on a doubtful point. Mr. Bernard Shaw is said to hold that Troilus and Cressida is the best of Shakespeare's plays. Although I disagree with this opinion, I should welcome it in a pupil as a sign of individuality; but most teachers would not tolerate such a heterodox view. Not only teachers, but all commonplace persons in authority, desire in their subordinates that kind of uniformity which makes their actions easily predictable and never inconvenient. The result is that they crush initiative and individuality when they can, and when they cannot, they quarrel with it."
It's Time To Review Your Political Philosophy And Old Books.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (painted portrait)
The US presidential campaign is in full swing, like a punch drunk boxer on steroids that only special interests can afford. There are many important issues on the agenda, issues we'll probably overlook until the eleventh hour. But, hopefully, we all know what they are and will be telling all the interested parties to pay attention to us - we the people.
I have one recommendation today that I think would benefit anyone anywhere in the world. We all think we come from great places, but to really understand the gravity of its greatness one needs to know where the ideas came from that made our great place possible. To that end, I'd like to direct your attention to a wonderful, free series of lectures given by Yale political science Professor Steven B. Smith: Introduction to Political Philosophy.
Only a fortunate few can attend Yale, but thanks to iTunes U and Yale we can benefit from some great courses that I feel are fundamental in shaping our understanding of our world.
We can start by autiting his last lecture: In Defence of Politics. If you love this simply download the rest of the lectures in the series from iTunes U and enjoy. You'll be better off for it and better able to recognize the true value of politics in America and the rest of the world even as everything seems to be more and more distorted by spectacle and money.
Read it here:
National Affairs
In Defence of Politics
Steve Smith
Now get out there and crack open those old books. It's never too late!
What Rape Gets You
We almost always react to problems. We identify them and move to mitigate them, fix them or destroy them. Sometimes we’re mystified by problems; we just can’t understand how this particular problem could have arisen. Many times we ignore problems. We might find them inconvenient, or we might simply wish that they would go away because the thought of what we might have to do to make them go away is too difficult to maintain for more than a few seconds. Mutually Assured Destruction comes to mind. Climate Change comes to mind.
There may be a cluster of pernicious problems that when taken altogether seem impossible to deal with. We may even think these problems through and realize that if we were to implement solutions that would solve our problems we’d have to change our world so radically that it would seem like we were living in a parallel universe.
And most of us are used to things as they are. We're comfortable enough with our world. We only know our world. So what's the problem? But perhaps we don't know our world well enough to notice we have a problem.
Some problems explode in our face, seemingly coming from nowhere. “What honey? But just yesterday you were telling me how much you loved me. What happened?” Or, "WOW - that chemical plant in just blew up!"
So what's the problem? We need those cheap chemicals for all our cheap stuff. In the US, it's illegal to build a plant like the one in Tianjin within city limits. Some kinds of plants can't even operate in the US anymore because they are too dirty or too dangerous so we simply move them to other countries where they don't have restrictive regulations and are friendly towards our business pursuits. These countries produce our chemicals and refine raw materials for us so we can have them shipped back to the US as needed for added value manufacturing. This is why we need trade deals. We like things this way because our stuff is cheaper, we're out of danger, and executives can get great salaries for their ingenious solutions to circumventing regulatory problems, taxes, etc. Politicians can bask in the spotlight, lobbyists can get paid and we can enjoy a nice standard of living.
Other problems incubate and grow silently in the shadows, they fester and spread like cancer until the whole system is damaged beyond repair. The cost of these kinds of problems is enormous. Think of corporate and bank bailouts; think Greece; think of healthcare; think civil war; think world war; think terrorism.
Then there are the problems that we don't even notice because they are part and parcel of who we are. Like a bad habit one’s had for so long it seems like a good thing. It’s not even that we rationalize bad behavior or a fragile system in order to maintain the status quo. It’s just who we are. When a cultural anthropologist enters the village of a tribe of cannibals she doesn't look at the behavior of eating other human beings as a problem - it’s just their culture. If she finds out later that the behavior is causing some malady as a byproduct, she’ll investigate and perhaps even intervene and attempt to enlighten the tribe as to the cause of the disease. She'll try to explain that the cure is nothing more complex and difficult than changing a core aspect of their culture. Will she be met with violent resistance or hailed as a hero?
Rape is a problem. For most cultures, since long ago, rape has been viewed as more than a problem; it’s been seen as a horrific, evil crime, a crime that, at its core, is about exerting power over helpless victims. Some rapists can be very clever, they can use drugs to weaken their victim’s will to resist, they can employ subtle forms of intimidation and let the fear that inspires do the softening up, or they can use information and propaganda to convince their victims that they are not actually being violated. Bill Cosby comes to mind. Trade sanctions come to mind. Foreign sanctioned and supported death squads come to mind.
The Death Squad Dilemma
Cuba Trade Embargo Click on the image for more information.
There is a grand and tragic literature across domains about rape - its causes and its consequences. Mostly we refer to rape as a crime committed by one person against another. But what of the many other forms of rape. The kind of rape that one country or empire commits against another. The most convenient example would be The Rape of Nanking during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The mass murder of civilians took place from December 13, 1937, through January 1938. The Japanese military attacked Nanking and raped, murdered and pillaged systematically for weeks. This is, of course, nothing new. During this particular conflict, however, it was so systematic that it's impossible for some historians to stomach the coverup of Emperor Hirohito's crimes against humanity. MacArthur, like other vain leaders, will save a criminal for convenience. To attempt to compile a comprehensive list of these kinds of incidents throughout world history would be exhausting and depressing. I’m extremely thankful that I avoided having to be involved in such State actions of violent rape during my lifetime. I've only avoided such a fate through the lottery of birth. Lucky me.
It seems no country, or culture is innocent.
There is, however, an even worse kind of rape if you can imagine that. The rape motivated by power and greed that seems so much a part of our institutionalized nature that we'd have to be a different species to transcend it. I’m not being metaphorical here. Before we go on let’s take a peek at the common definition of rape. When we use the word rape in a broader sense it's not simply hyperbolic metaphor.
Rape
noun
1.
unlawful sexual intercourse or any other sexual penetration of the vagina, anus, or mouth of another person, with or without force, by a sex organ, other body part, or foreign object, without the consent of the victim.
2.
statutory rape.
3.
an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation:
the rape of the countryside.
4.
Archaic. the act of seizing and carrying off by force.
verb (used with object), raped, raping.
5.
to commit the crime of rape on (a person).
6.
to plunder (a place); despoil:
The logging operation raped a wide tract of forest without regard for the environmental impact of their harvesting practices.
7.
to seize, take, or carry off by force.
This is the entry is from dictionary.feference.com and it’s plain that what we're talking about is a well-worn path.
READ THIS WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ABOUT RAPE
We don't have to share any other references to make what we're talking about clearer. Empires have been raping countries and nature for thousands of years. The violence of our violations of human dignity and our ecosystem have been ramping up to enormous proportions since the industrial revolution and continue today unabated.
When we see boatloads, and truckloads of migrants crossing borders all over the world we need to pause for a long hard look at what’s causing this sudden increase in refugees, migrants, and illegal aliens. We also need to remember that it's nothing new. The migration issue exploded in the 19th century along with industry, technology and amazing new means of travel.
When we rape and pillage, when we destroy fine cultures just for profit, we create problems. People in Africa are thinking, where did our culture go? Where did our natural resources go? In what pockets did the booty fall. Why are we in debt? Why is our world on fire? Who started this? What empire is responsible? We don't know, but the Dutch, the British, the Belgians, the Germans, the Italians, the Russians, the Chinese, the Americans seem to have profited nicely from the use of our resources, our markets and our people. Our world is violated beyond repair. We've been raped for decades. Things are better in the empire's homeland. They've made good use of us. We have no choice not but to go there and try to survive. Of course, a rapist will never appreciate his victim or feel compassion. His desire is simply to rape and to have power over his victim. A victim of rape feels worthless, a victim of rape feels that he has nothing to lose - in some ways he's already dead so risking his life to extend his life seems normal. Going on is simply the instinct to survive.
The truth is that the causes of these problems have created an everlasting wound that spurts a fountain of blood from our global socioeconomic system. A culture of greed feeds on the weak and the vulnerable. Indeed globalization has empowered these problems to an amazing degree. And now that we belong to a global culture we need to stop the bleeding and heal the wounds.
When Trump and others like him talk about bringing plants back to the USA, and bringing jobs back to the USA, he’s lying to us. He doesn’t have any solutions. He's just telling us what we need to hear. He couldn’t possibly have any solutions because he is a paragon of the system that’s causing the problems he’s professing to be able to fix. Think carefully when politicians speak. They are more often than not telling you what you want to hear so they can get on with their business.
There are libraries full of books and petabytes of data on the Web focused on the causes of the problems we're speaking of. Many economists, historians, psychologists, social scientists, business leaders, engineers and artists have already produced a museum of information and exhibits on the subject of how our system works. We have all the information we need. It’s all there. We just have to be able to see the patterns and interpret them correctly. Then we might realize that we need some new and radical ideas if we're going to ever be able to live "the good life".
The current socioeconomic, political, cultural global system is untenable. It’s not sustainable. It can't last. It has been and still is a perpetual act of violent rape. It doesn't matter how comfortable, entertained, or busy we are - that's a fact. We only seem to notice rape when the power mad violence happens to us, or someone we love, or to a system we've learned to revere. Ignoring this tragic state of affairs won't make it go away.
When empires rape cultures and the natural environment with impunity for power, money and prestige there are always consequences. The western powers created Iraq, raped Iraq and now Donald Trump says that Iraq doesn’t exist. Shock and awe begets shock and awe. The almighty Super Power triumphs in one moment only to see that nothing has changed. Iraq still doesn't have its Disneyland, it only has its civil war.
We now have another empire movement in Iraq and elsewhere, ISIS, a State that Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times says, enshrines a theology of rape. A given sect can display good or bad behaviors. We usually know intuitively when something isn't right. In our liberal tradition of tolerance we want to protect believers, we want to protect people's right to do as they wish - until it's too late. It's hard to predict the unintended consequences of our passions. At the end of the day, we still have one State raping another because it can and because it thinks it has the power to remake the world in its image. Nation building is part of that ignoble tradition. There will be no Disneyland in the Islamic State. Whatever they have there when the end comes, and it will, will probably not be the kind of alternative way of life we've been talking about here.
When the US went to Vietnam and facilitated the bombing of Laos and the My Lai massacre it was a powerful State raping the hell out of a much weaker State with impunity. It doesn't matter how we rationalize the need to do such evil, it's still evil. We do this over and over again, sometimes raping and killing for over a decade until we decide to stop. We then pull out, no pun intended and go our merry way as if to say, "enough now, we've made enough out of this conflagration." We do it because we have the resources and the will and many times we do it to defend an ideology that itself is imperfect. Over ten years we've been paying for wars in the Middle East and absolutely nothing has changed for the better. We still don't understand each other. The conflicts multiply and rage out of control. Anyone who calls that a win is either insane or dishonest.
Your can of Coke is a product of rape. My computer is a product of rape. The corn by-products in almost every product on the shelves in your local grocery store are the products of rape. Most of us remain unaware of the trade-offs and the impacts of our consumer culture. It seems we can all live these impacts - until we can’t.
Photos of smelting plants in the UAE and such. Just move the plants where they can operate efficiently and their people will be killed if there is an accident.
The evidence is out there. It’s right there in your face. You can look at it if you want to and do something about it or you can look the other way like an entitled, spoiled, frat boy who clicks a pic of a rape in progress and goes to the other room for a shooter before plopping down on the couch to play a computer game, and do a bong hit with a line of coke.
Kill the market and you kill the problem. It sounds scary doesn't it. It is scary, it means we'll all have to make sacrifices. We fear losing something way more than we fear getting something, even if that new thing is potentially a much better system.
We'd kill our neighbor on boxing day to get a deal on a pair of running shoes. We’d kill flipper for a tuna sandwich. We've heard this kind of thing for decades and yet we just keep plugging along.
I know, I've upset you. I'm sorry about that. I'm upset too. I don't know how we can change this, but it’s the 21st century and we're still staring down intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear weapons; we're still watching our world coming to a boil because of our addiction to consumerism and cheap energy. We're still raping other countries and nature for the raw materials we need for our orgy of consumption.
Consumption
noun
1.
the act of consuming, as by use, decay, or destruction.
2.
the amount consumed:
the high consumption of gasoline.
3.
Economics. the using up of goods and services having an exchangeable value.
4.
Pathology.
Older Use. tuberculosis of the lungs.
progressive wasting of the body.
I'm not aware of any leader who’s really facing the problem square on and trying to find solutions. The US election is nothing but entertainment. It's big business in every way. It’s another diversion to keep us from having to feel guilty. We can simply blame everything on someone else or some other country or culture. We know what cake is for, it's for eating, not having.
We could go on ad nauseam relating events of rabid rape throughout history, and it wouldn't change the institutionalized behaviors responsible for its never ending eruption. We read Flipboard or watch TV news. We know what's happening, and until we can admit we have a problem we'll just keep plugging away. We'll keep on plugging away until things become too painful and horrific to bear. What a sad state of affairs. Like plugging away abusing your body until your heart explodes and hoping that high-tech medicine will fix it for you. If you have the price for it of course.
We need real change my friends, or civilization as we know it will come to an end. The technologists, the scientists, the philosophers, the billionaire philanthropists and even God himself are not going to cut the right wire as the last second ticks down to the ultimate catastrophe. We are simply going to have to save ourselves. We need a rigorous, evidence-based culture before the above forces can unite and help us develop a better way forward.
In an era where every little fellow, people like me, can run their own show, amidst the pathology of that, the overload, the vanity, it’s hard to imagine all of the sensible movements of our world coming together to organize a peaceful revolution that can save us. But that's precisely what it’s going to take. If we don’t come together, help each other and cooperate with one another, our children die. Or, at best live vastly impoverished lives compared to us. Then again, maybe the Paleo Lifestyle is the moral high ground of our ultimate fate.
"But we're going to terraform Mars" I hear someone saying. Even if we could and we injected humanity onto that new Eden, we would still be a potential deadly disease infecting our creation with our toxic hubris. It may not end well even if we were able to upload our avaricious consciousness into a super cool machine. We'd just have a super sick, super intelligent machine wreaking havoc on the universe. Dystopian thoughts indeed. We need to fix our cage. We need to live well to be well and that's a tall order. Traditions have been trying various formulas for that since the dawn of civilization.
Oh, you don’t think so? It’s not rape! It’s progress you say? It’s just human nature? Okay, well there you have it. As a friend keeps telling me, “There is nothing you, me or anyone else in this world can do to change things. You just have to keep plugging away.”
If sensible, evidence based, movements don't come together as a force of good with new ideas that can inspire us to develop and run new institutions that can manage our global resources in a more sustainable way; if we continue to muddy the waters of our consciousness in this information-age; if we can't nurture the better angels of our nature and learn to love each other and our environment then the rapist in all of us all will triumph and we’ll deserve the dire consequences of our actions and our inaction.
Go in peace, but get off that couch.
Style Over Substance - again.
These clowns are going to inspire the world to do what it takes to improve our world, or not.
What are candidates and politicians talking about? What issues are important to them? I can't help but share this with you as an example of what's vexing me. Watch it and concentrate on how the conversation makes you feel. I won't comment.
It was the type of shout-fest debate that would not have been out of place in the original Crossfire. But instead of taking place on the reboot of that show, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) went head-to-head on CNN's The Situation Room Monday afternoon.
The word most said during the debates? "America", the big winner by far, but jobs was a close runner-up. I can't help but think of Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles every presidential election cycle, and I am old enough to have seen US presidential races since this movie came out in 1974. Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs - sign something - jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs...
Donald Trump's favorite words: "me and "I'm" followed by invective meant to show us all how bad things are. It's true, some things are really bad, but a lot of things are really good. Big business in American's doing pretty good. I can't understand why Donald Trump is complaining, and yet there's no call to arms greater than when a billionaire tells you that everything has gone to hell and he alone can fix it.
this may be the last first family we have in the united states.
Trump: "They like me." "I'm a great guy." "I'm ahead in all the polls." "Women like me, I love women." "They're beating us because we're stupid!" "They're not being very nice to me." "They're being unfair..." #GOPClownCar
Trump drones on about Detroit in the most superficial way. And yet, he's the one candidate (Wharton Business School, and all) who should understand labor arbitrage. "They build plants in Mexico..." Of course they do Donald, it's cheaper to make parts for automobile brakes in Mexico or China. Those components must be made cheaper because Americans like cheap things. We don't like paying the true value of anything. Also, the Ford Motor Company has to manufacture abroad to please its board of directors and ensure that its CEO has a competitive pay package. You can't do that if you make brake parts in Detroit. He knows this right? And yet, he's simply saying that we're being victimized by the Mexicans and the Mexican Government. China is beating us. Ya, China is beating us because we like our things cheap. I worked in China during the first wave when money and technology transfer from the U.S. was flowing into China like the Colorado river used to flow into the Sea of Cortez.
Who was Donald Trump in 1983?
Andy Warhol and donald trump in 1983 with a race horse. i can't get off of a horse race theme here. america loves a winner.
THE EMPIRE AND EGO OF DONALD TRUMP
How about we bet on when, or if ever the term: extractive industries, is used in this campaign. Would you bet that only one candidate mentions extractive industries? Who might that be? Quiz.
Toxic mine water accidentally released by EPA in Colorado river flows south
Gold mine's toxic plume extends to Utah
Let's refrain from talking about this stuff folks, these kinds of issues are complex and a lot of political donors would be pissed off if you started flogging this pony.
Instead, let's go back to the horse race and see what we're concerned about now.
The First GOP Presidential Debate By The Numbers NPR
Those are some telling numbers, folks.
Now let's go back to words and phrases.
Here's one GOP debate group's attempt at answering a question in just two words. I know, it's hard. Much has been written.
The sky is falling! But are we going to focus on why the sky is falling and what each and every one of us has to do to stop the worst from happening?
How much is sea level rising?
Global Warming & Climate Change Myths
NASA Images of Change: http://climate.nasa.gov/state_of_flux#Beijing2000-2009_930px_73.jpg
Should we call it "fear mongering" when we go on and on about a real problem that we're creating and that we can fix? Especially when the problem poses a real existential risk to humanity.
of Course, their parents pick the peaches.
Do rapists and murderers pick our produce, take care of our children or clean and maintain our offices and homes?
Billy: "come on Georgia's finest, tell me, do you all want to work at Starbucks, be a hedge fund manager or pick lettuce?" Hell no! You all want to sell cocaine to bankers and real estate investors. but Where are we going to get our supply from? Who's gonna pick it and process it? Well, We outsource that kind of work to countries in Latin America. It's cheaper. Can you imagine how much a gram would cost if we manufactured that stuff up here? Where would we get the labor? since that article in freakonomics came out we can't even find street distributors for our product, they've all gone off to work at MacDonalds.
Do we remember the Iran Contra scandal? I'm just asking.
Are you Irish American, Polish American, or Italian American? Mmmm Yes, I know, give them a way to come legally. So tell me Mr. or Ms. candidate, how are you going to do that? I'm just asking. Latin American governments have been making mincemeat out of us since 1983! Why? Why? I'm just asking and what the f__ck are you going to do about it! It resonates, it has always resonated.
Scarface movie clips: http://j.mp/1L688ql BUY THE MOVIE: http://amzn.to/vsYGQw Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/1u2y6pr CLIP DESCRIPTION: Immigration officers probe Tony's (Al Pacino) criminal past. FILM DESCRIPTION: Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, an exiled Cuban criminal who goes to work for Miami drug lord Robert Loggia.
Shoot! I messed up, this immigrant thing's been going on since the 19th century!
Gangs of New York movie clips: http://j.mp/1CS5deH BUY THE MOVIE: http://amzn.to/sgtauV Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/1u2y6pr CLIP DESCRIPTION: The ploy of American immigration during the Civil War is augmented in this single take showcasing the disturbing circle of an Irish immigrant seeking a better life in America.
The fact remains, Obama and Hillary have been working in government for a long time and we're all still here. Immigration is still an issue. But to hear the GOP hopefuls talk one would imagine that the movie theater is burning and all the exits are locked. It's like when you read about all the toxic chemicals that go into making a simple t-shirt and you think, it must be a dose thing because I've been wearing t-shirts my whole life and I'm still here. How many t-shirts do I need to put on and how long do I have to wear them before I get cancer or some other incurable disease? I have a feeling that these candidates, the so-called "Kid's Table" GOP hopefuls were born already OD'd on anyone not in the GOP. (I recall a friend telling me never to use the term "social normative pressure" again if I wanted to have any friends.) It's positively scary when they talk isn't it. And Governor Jindal said the word "socialist" and FOX didn't even beep it out. I'll bet that added to the dose of horror the audience received listening to the debate. How much of this can we take before we all get lupus disease? I'm having a heavy immune reaction to this election race already and it's just started.
This is going to seem weird, but when I think about how people on Fox News react to the word socialism it always reminds me of this scene in The Water Boy.
The Waterboy. She showed me her boobies! Nuff said.
Debate? More like a chance for candidates to practice their sound bites and for FOX to improve their ratings with a bonafide TV star at center stage.
I'm guessing it's not hard to overdose on the toxic ideologically normative B.S. of this group of presidential hopefuls. If not you must have that special gene in you. Listen to what they talk about. Trump talked more than any other candidate and he mostly talked about himself. Fiorina was righteously fired up attacking everyone. We should all be super angry to be Americans after listening to this rhetoric. Where are the sophists when you need them?
TV news coverage of the race focuses mostly on:
- Words of shock, awe, and comfort
- Words that make us feel good and powerful - that we can be great again
- Self-congratulatory words and words reflecting our pride and vanity
- America
- Jobs
- Border
- Security
- Wall
- Competitiveness
- Death, people dying, being killed, murder, war
- Derogatory words aimed at opponents
- Straw man after straw man
- Fear mongering words
Most of the pundits, anchors and interviewers talk about a candidate's superficial qualities: charm; confidence; looks, energy, likability, toughness, smartness, and so on. In a year from now the chatter will be more substantive but it will still seem like we're in the movie, Groundhog Day. I guess it takes a lot of trial and error and plain old time to get things right.
We'll wait another 9 months before we even get close to important issues. I worry that by then the issues we'll be fixated on won't be the right ones.
After hours of commenting on how the candidates look we get to listen to five minutes of something a little more exciting: the horse race. John King or someone else on another channel or show will talk about the polls: "So and so is up 12% in some poll, but he might fall below so and so later. So and so is up 2% here and down 6% there." Who's ahead? Who's going to win? Place your bets. I'd rather go to Happy Valley, watch a real horse race and win or lose a little paper money. The political horse race in the U.S. will last longer and be more expensive than any other political horse race in the world.
I'll stop now. So much has already been said. As usual. I just want to recommend that you read this piece from Rolling Stone magazine. It's a fun read.
Inside the GOP Clown Car
On the campaign trail in Iowa, Donald Trump's antics have forced the other candidates to get crazy or go home
By Matt Taibbi August 12, 2015
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-the-gop-clown-car-20150812#ixzz3ifReJm69
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
And allow me to present you with some more hilarious irony. Larry King on RT. Yes, that's, Russia Today. We have more reasons to love America: Freedom to say what you want and the freedom to do business in America even if you are a Russian television company. It's not like we don't have our foxy propaganda on cable new networks spreading across the world like a fast-moving plague.
Self-proclaimed revolutionaries & co-hosts of "Watching the Hawks," Tyrel Ventura, Sean Stone & Tabetha Wallace join Larry with an inside look of their new program. Then the comedic cast of "Redacted Tonight," on delivering news with a punch.
Enjoy the race!