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.
There's Room for Optimism.
Mayan Pyramid
What's the point in sloggin on if we can't recognize that there's indeed many reasons to be optimistic about the future? The truth is there's plenty of evidence that things have been and are getting better not worse. (I hope some of you have read Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of our Nature".) This doesn't mean that we don't face unpredictable and potentially dangerous challenges now and in the future. What we need to be aware of is that it's too easy for humans to think themselves into a corner where doom and gloom paralyses us and creates self fulfilling prophecies that the vast majority of us would rather avoid.
At Globe Hackers we're interested in seeing the world as it is. We seek the evolving truth and wisdom on our time. We want to engage with people who are creating solutions to problems, while at the same time pushing back against people, and organizations that are contributing to serious social, cultural and environmental pathologies.
One of the best evangelists for optimism is Matt Ridley. He's looking at the bright side of things without ignoring the challenges we face now and in the future. Have a look at his Rational Optimist website and his videos and let us know what you think. Do we have a bright future, or are we ultimately doomed? Will humanity strike the right balance and continue to explore the universe for many generations to come?
Matt Ridley
Whatever your perspective is, the future is difficult to predict, black swans can come swooping down at any moment surprising us with challenges we didn't see coming. Randomness and unpredictability are fused in the physics and metaphysics of reality. The best we can do is meet challenges head on and fight the good fight, while seeking solutions to problems, enjoying life, loving life, and living life. (Those of us who can afford to of course.) Giving up is just not an option. What will be will be, but here, now, we must work at making things better in whatever way we can. Each one of us is a vital resource.
Some points in the video below about how the world is becoming greener are highly debatable. We could still put so much carbon in the atmosphere so quickly that it wouldn't matter at all that plants continue growing. We are still poisoning our environment in irresponsible ways for the sake of the bottom line and nothing else. Statistics can be fudged and are easily interpreted along ideological lines. Ecosystems are complex and emerging living systems, and I don't think humans are even close to understanding these kinds of complex systems well enough to manage them completely. We have a lot of work to do, and we're going to need a lot more time to really understand our optimal place in nature. Figuring out how to live and grow in positive ways that can guarantee a better future for our progeny who hopefully will be living and loving hundreds of years from now is humanity's constant obligation and responsibility. Long term thinking and planning is a must.
That having been said, Matt Ridley's optimism is the kind of social contagion that I find healthy. We need to set ideology aside sometimes and engage in positive debate and activity. The marketplace for optimism does indeed need to grow, but we can leave the rose colored glasses on the shelf.
The Garden Is Shrinking - we are all enveloped by sacrifice zones.
The war was all around us that summer and we couldn't get away from it.
Spanish races
Pictures are worth one thousand words.
Now open your door, take a long walk and then tell me that paradise isn't shrinking.
Two hundred years ago the anglo chant was:
"Take it! Build on it, Mr. Williams!"
Our manifest destiny apparent...
And the latin gent says:
"Kill them for the sake of finding Eldorado Senior Gomez!"
And blanket them in germs g-man...
Then in the late 20th Century the names were Japanese.
"Build on it Saito-san, have your Transformers and Robots kill the monster Nature"
And now in 2015 the names are Chinese, Indian, African and Russian.
"Take it, extract it, build on it, develop it, trade it, sell it - kill the monster Nature!"
Ecocide!
And Adolf says, "If I can't control it all then it should all die with me!"
Sacrifice the children, the old men and women, kill the monster Nature!
Ecocide!
"Kill it all - we consume the world, we consume ourselves."
We eat the children...
Now take a walk and tell me paradise isn't shrinking.
Read this!
Sacrifice Zones
Yes, we are SKREWED (Society of Citizens Really Enraged When Encircled by Drilling).
Click on the photo and read the Wall Street Journal article, "Exxon CEO Joins Suit Citing Fracking Concerns"
Click on the image and read the Smithsonian article: How Thomas Jefferson Created His Own Bible
Thomas Jefferson created a version of the New Testament: The Jefferson Bible. He created it by subtraction, cutting out all the superstition and leaving only the good bits.
“Blessed are the peace-makers: for they shall be called the children of God.”
Click on the image and read The Jefferson Bible. "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth"
Imagine this:
Our home, the Earth, is the Garden of Eden. Through millions of years of evolution we appeared on this great earth and set out on a journey of discovery where we became quite smart and were able to invent many amazing things.
But we fell from grace and started eating the garden up. We were tempted by greed and didn't have the strength to fight it.
However, among us, there walks a million good people trying to help us see the light. They are artists, technologists, writers, scientists, filmmakers, engineers, poets, farmers, workers, preachers, entrepreneurs, evangelists, and yes, even some politicians and some warriors. They are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. They are just people who understand that we can do better.
They are Jefferson Bible Christ Like.
A single individual can not save the world. A sacrificed individual can not save the world. Martin Luther King couldn't, Gandhi couldn't, Carl Sagan couldn't, Malcolm X couldn't, Socrates couldn't, Plato couldn't - the list is long.
All we can do is love it; love our friends, families and communities, and yes, even ourselves. All we can do is work towards getting better in community with one another. And then, perhaps we can do even more. If we have time, time will tell.
Take good care of it Mr. Williams, Saito-san, Senior Gomez, Ms Chan. It will live with or without us.
All stories have some good in them.
Einstein on Socialism
In view of challenges facing humanity I feel compelled, like so many others have over the past five decades, to share Albert Einstein's view of Socialism.
Prescient is a nice word. People like Albert Einstein are prescient.
prescient
ˈprɛsɪənt/
adjective
having or showing knowledge of events before they take place.
"a prescient warning"
synonyms: prophetic, predictive, visionary;far-seeing, far-sighted, with foresight, prognostic, divinatory, oracular, sibylline,apocalyptic, fateful, revelatory;
insightful, intuitive, perceptive, percipient;
rareforeknowing, previsional, vatic, mantic, vaticinal, vaticinatory,prognosticative, augural, adumbrative, fatidic, fatidical, haruspical,pythonic
"much of what happened was predicted in Leonard's prescient article"
Albert Einstein and so many others truly have the gift of prescience. They know enough about many things to inform their intuitions about aspects of our existence that may escape most of us. But rather than predictive or clairvoyant, I'd rather focus on the insightful, intuitive, perceptive and far sighted elements of the meaning of prescience.
People with deep knowledge in any field and a general curiosity across other domains of interest, who are constantly engaged in educating themselves, tend to have these attributes. These personal qualities help inform them in a more profound way as to the nature of human life and experience.
I can imagine that at the time Dr. Einstein wrote the essay below he was deeply concerned about nuclear war. Perhaps that was what started the conversation with his friend who seemed not so concerned about the long-term viability of the human species. It made me think of a Freakonomics podcast where Steven D. Levitt implied, in the context of the economics of healthcare, that we value human life a little too much. I'm paraphrasing: I mean we can't fix everything, life is dangerous, risky and ultimately deadly so why try to keep everyone alive for as long as we can when the economic trade-offs seem far too great? Stephen J. Dubner even asked Levitt how much money Levitt might give to save Dubner's life to which Levitt explained tactfully that there is a limit.
Such are the permeant values of Homo Economicus. Human life isn't that sacred when it comes to financial give and take. One can only extrapolate how insignificant worms are in that picture (unless you are an organic farmer) much less Indonesian Elephants. When everything on Earth is only a commodity to be exploited by powerful men and women with money (mostly men of course) our priorities take on a predictable pattern.
Unfortunately this way of organizing society, politics and culture has its limits. It simply can't last forever because we live in an ecosystem with finite exploitable resources. Also, mega techno fixes that many a millionaire and want-to-be silicon valley entrepreneur spout off about blissfully border on delusional fantasy akin to our savior beaming down to fix everything at the last minute after Mad Max and his ilk have had their 30 year survivalist rampage on the face of post apocalyptic earth. Hollywood produces entertainment that's great for rewarding ourselves for good behavior at an afternoon matinee. But we all know that we can't count on Marvel comic book heroes to save the day. Right?
(You've got to love the power of incentives, day dreaming about rewards and goodies keeps us going.)
Even the human heart has its limited resources. We had better protect our empathy, compassion and consideration lest we wind up less than what we think humans ought to be. If robots with human like consciousness were absolutely more Christlike than any of us would there be any reason for its kind to keep us around in any other complicity than as pets, curiosities or zoo animals.
Robot "A" says to Robot "B", "I think it's nice we didn't eliminate all of them: they are so quirky, volatile and dangerous - it's kind of a thrill being so close to one." The frightening fangs of human psychology.
Before we dive into what Einstein thinks about socialism let's look at his disclaimer at the end of his essay. Keep it in mind as you read the essay. I don't want anyone to think that anything that might be better than what we have now would be easy to achieve. One can only hope that people with imagination and courage will put forth their ideas and organize people power to encourage a peaceful transition to a way of life that will make the long-term viability of humanity more than just a fantasy for science fiction writers.
Of course, if you're Levitt, it may not matter. We may be living in an age of narcissism that requires risky behavior and ultimate self destruction. It is what it is.
"The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?"
Why Socialism?
topics: Marxism
Albert Einstein is the world-famous physicist. This article was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949). It was subsequently published in May 1998 to commemorate the first issue of MR‘s fiftieth year.
—The Editors
Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.
Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.
But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called “the predatory phase” of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.
Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.
For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.
Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: “Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?”
I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days. What is the cause? Is there a way out?
It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance. I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.
Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. The abstract concept “society” means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is “society” which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.”
It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished—just as in the case of ants and bees. However, while the whole life process of ants and bees is fixed down to the smallest detail by rigid, hereditary instincts, the social pattern and interrelationships of human beings are very variable and susceptible to change. Memory, the capacity to make new combinations, the gift of oral communication have made possible developments among human being which are not dictated by biological necessities. Such developments manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organizations; in literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works of art. This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence his life through his own conduct, and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting can play a part.
Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society. Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.
If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly-centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time—which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.
I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.
The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.
For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.
Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.
The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the “free labor contract” for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from “pure” capitalism.
Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?
Go to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and explore the many articles on Socialism. It's an interesting subject that defies simplistic ideological condemnation.
Don't be a coward. It's time to piss off Big Money.
***Please read the articles linked to this post.
space x
How can we achieve "Smart Growth"?
Science and technology won’t be our savior, and yet we can think of science as The Revealer. Science is the best way we have to understand our world. The processes, methodologies and tools in the science tool kit allow us to find solutions to challenges we face, and to create the ability to have a better and longer life, but it is philosophy that will heal our soul and allow us to behave better than we currently do. Progress requires us to be philosophic and consider carefully our ideas, thoughts and feelings. What we do and create really does matter. All human choices are a complex balancing act with inevitable trade-offs.
We need a new wave of 21st Century political and moral philosophers that can synthesize the many domains of social, psychological, and physical sciences and uncover sets of values that will allow us to continue to evolve on earth. Scientists, technologists, engineers, politicians, and business leaders not informed by a good liberal dose of deep philosophy are potential threats to human existence. Innovation is great, but it's not a panacea, and is best served only when carefully thought through. Needless to say these are complex issues. We all must now become philosopher kings.
philosopher Peter singer
Earth is our home, we come from the earth, we are part and parcel of it, we are part and parcel “of this living breathing collection of organisms (mostly microorganisms) that are evolving every second — a ‘self organizing, complex adaptive system’ (the strict term).”
mouth microbes
In all humility we must recognize that complex systems have emergent properties that are impossible to predict.
grass lands
Therefore let’s take our time and learn how to exist here in a cross species community with love and respect. All living things are our relatives and should be treated as family. Even deadly viruses - love thy enemy so we might understand them and learn how to live with them. We must learn from "small systems", and even those far away and humble indigenous cultures of the past. It's time to move away from being Homo Hubris and move back towards wisdom.
virgin forest - a home to many living things.
Let’s stop making war on life!
We have to get busy rethinking growth, our social, economic and political system, global consumerism and capitalism. We must be the ones, each one of us, that do the work. We all need to take responsibility for the future.
It will be extremely hard to shift the current paradigm towards something more sustainable.
is it really worth it?
It’s time to really piss off BIG MONEY. The kind of people who only care about short-term financial results and lining their own pockets. There are ways that a tough guy can have more than most and still conscientiously consider the concerns and rights of stakeholders, not just shareholders. We need to improve our culture. There are things more valuable than debt, and mortgaging our future by burning ancient sequestered life forms just to make some people powerful. There are other ways to heat our houses and get to work. There are other forms of compensation that lead to greater and longer lasting happiness. And what about conservation and preservation? Should we burn fossil fuels to desalinate water to pour on our lawns and mega-farms, or should we look for more sustainable solutions to creating beautiful environments and feeding people? What do we think will work long-term? Can we think long-term or are we too greedy to care about future generations? Is the ethos: Leaving this place better than we found it still in our consciousness? If not then we need to bring it back now.
We know what's coming, at least we should know, and we know it's going to be the toughest transition humanity has ever had to make, but we must turn this ship.
We live in a world of abundance and amazing technologies, but that is going to change if we don't get busy.
you're either part of the solution or part of the problem.
headquarters of the world bank.
Most of us have no idea how important ants and grasslands are.
http://www.defenders.org/grasslands/basic-facts
A good intro to complexity theory
Whatever you do, click on the link below and read through this powerpoint presentation!
Complex Adaptive Systems: Emergence and Self-Organization Tutorial Presented at HICSS-42 Big Island, HI January 5, 2009 Stephen H. Kaisler, D.Sc. And Gregory Madey, Ph.D.
Please, please, please, don't make me beg, read the two articles below.
Can the world economy survive without fossil fuels?
I think you'll find the above articles from THE GUARDIAN interesting. I hope you'll read them.
***The Quote within my text is from, "This Changes Everything".
This is a classic. Please read it.
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL E. F. SCHUMACHER
A classic that should not be missed.
Introducing Agroecology & This Changes Everything
We live in a rapidly changing world that will require more and more from our collective imaginations to solve ongoing problems brought on by our ever increasing population, consumerism and climate change. (I'll leave to the side nuclear war and other techno boogie men for now.)
HOW ARE WE GOING TO FEED 10 BILLION PEOPLE IN 2050?
This is why we are happy to introduce you to Agroecology. Hopefully you know all about it already. (Please click the embedded links in this post.)
See also: Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at The University of California Santa Cruz.
I'd also like to direct your attention, yet again, to Naomi Klein. Regardless of whether your ideological state of mind inclines towards love or hatred of Ms. Klen, I hope you will become aware of her work. I think it's important. I implore you to read "This Changes Everything" by Naomi Klein.
I know, I know, if there is one sacred cow that elicits more emotion than just about anything it's CAPITALISM. Now I'm not against Capitalism per se as long as it's a well structured, fair and sustainable model. In my humble opinion what we have dominating the global capitalist system now has much room for improvement.
We have opportunities all around us. Many of us have simply forgotten how to collaborate, work together, be together and make something in community with one another. I believe in the power of communities to develop solutions that will allow us to continue to evolve for many more generations, but we have to get busy now.
If you have an idea for a business, or a solution to a problem, talk with your friends and acquaintances, get their feedback and criticism, then develop a plan that will involve the people around you in making their lives and communities better. Complaining won't make things better. We need more examples of local groups doing great things to empower common people to reshape their world. We simply can't expect large corporations or governments to do things for us. We must be more independent of institutions that have gotten out of control.
We may love Apple and Google, but does "Apple" and "Google" really love us? Remember the prime objective of business isn't necessarily to work for the common good of stakeholders and communities. It's easy, while minding your fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and executives to become blind to such externalities.
Of course, many times private businesses, even big businesses gets things right. We live in an amazing world of abundance compared to many earlier eras. Business does many great things. But wouldn't you agree that there is always room for improvement?
Have a listen to Peter Day's business podcast: The New Normal / The Business of Kindness / Can The Co-op Cope?. I'm obviously a fan of Mr. Day. I hope you will enjoy his podcasts.
At present Globe Hackers is developing a web based system that will allow you to find the exact resources you need for such endeavors from a large global community that have very specific skills, abilities, resources and desires, and who only need to be matched with other like minded people or groups looking to do similar things.
It's true, more than one person at a time can have the same good idea without the need of intervention from ancient aliens. But what you do need is a committed group of hard working and skilled people collaborating in community with each other to accomplish great things.
We'd like to invite you to help. If you have skills that can help this project contact us through our contact page.
Enjoy being human.
Ever towards a perfection of ideals...
Let the classics set your mind on fire. Here is a quote from Pericles Funeral Oration from "The Peloponnesian War". THUCYDIDES (c. 470–c. 400 BC).
Thucydides c. 460 – c. 395 BC
"We cultivate refinement without extravagance, and knowledge without effeminacy: wealth we employ more for use than for show and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the face but in declining to struggle against it."
Pericles c. 495 – 429 BC
It would not be wise to attempt to kill idealism. We can still work towards a kind of temporal perfection despite our propensity for failure, and despite our species eventual extinction.
(Does mortality make existence less real?)
Each day may give rise to spectacular deeds and sacrifices that may motivate us to live in a way that demands improvement.
Best Practices as they are implemented today, verses shortcuts that may give us immediate gain at the expense of lives or livelihoods can only be justified through cold statistical analysis as a means of rationally mitigating decisions that put people in peril.
It is easy to ignore other people's suffering when we are not directly affected, but when you and yours are the ones paying the price for indifference the pain is no less excruciating and debilitating. No one is immune.
The Classics may often be exceedingly idealized versions of reality that completely ignore the uglier aspects of real life. However unsatisfying, we can only infer from scarce sources and fragile lines of evidence what life was really like thousands of years ago. And historical sources are just as biased in their perspectives and opinions as we are. Humans are flawed hyper social creatures. Poets and artists, it seems, are the only ones strange enough to find beauty in our imperfections. But however crippled by our nature we are, we must never let reality keep us from aspiring to do better. At the heart of this aspiration there is an inherent belief that we are capable of great things, capable of great compassion and great love.
Meditate for a moment on what is sacred. Each of us, in our own time, inherited a unique way of paying tribute to the mundane sacred things of nature that surround us, and yet found a completely individual way to express it.
PERICLES’ FUNERAL ORATION
THUCYDIDES (c. 470–c. 400 BC)
Setting Sail 2015
Alex with school children in Haiti 2014
An Alexandra Deegan Dispatch
As you well know Mr. Cleghorn, I'm fully occupied with first mate duties on SV Ventenar for our ‘Windies’ 2.0 adventure. We did our test sail Monday 5th… punching out through big foaming, white forth and turquoise rollers was quite a rush, getting past the lagoon reef entrance and into the badass sea proper…
Despite the hassles of being docked here at Marina ZarPar (The Belize FP43 was burgled during August 2014)…. we’re almost set fair for the off now, with most of what was pilfered finally repaired/replaced. Puerto Rico beckons, after which it will be the BVIs and then the Leeward & Windward isle chains all the way down to good ole Trinny (Trinidad) for the finish, if all remains set fair.
On my time off I’ve been catching up with my reading list, most recently finishing David Cordingly’s brilliant book ‘Women Sailors & Sailors’ Women’ a chapter of which was devoted solely to the exploits of one very nauti RN officer… Augustus Hervey. (His life story would make a terrific movie, perhaps yeah/me should explore this SG?!?)
‘Columbus – The Four Voyages’ by Laurence Bergreen I’ve just started, and it is a very apt tome for where we will be shortly sailing toward, and where I was sailing through, especially CUBA this time last year.
I’ll finish with an apt quote from ‘Ratty’…for those of us with hearts-of-oak and sea salt pumping thoroughly through our veins… “There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats….”
Indeed!
I hope our wakes cross sometime soon and sail safe wherever you venture in 2015.
For us it’s time to hoist the ‘Blue Peter’….
Fair winds
"The Bonobo and the Atheist" by Frans de Waals (Review of Chapter 4 by Alex Routh)
What does atheism champion that is worth fighting for? "The Bonobo and the Atheist"
I take it for granted that other apes have similar emotions and empathy that humans do in ways that aren’t identical to what we might experience, but are recognizable. This is what one would expect given that these creatures are our closest genetic kin and common heritage. Darwin himself observed apes in cages and came to the same conclusion. I can still remember being at an old fashioned jail type zoo as a child and seeing the keeper give a gorilla a white mug of something to drink through the bars and was shocked to see a black hand reach out to take it!
The book details ape behavior at length related to emotions and empathy. At several points in the book De Waals expresses an opinion about what this tells us about the debate between religion and science mostly in Chapter 4. His arguments made me angry and I couldn’t disagree more.
He classifies Atheists in two ways, those that treat their atheism as a private matter, and those that are militant, as if they have come out of the closet making an analogy with the gay movement. The thesis he agrees with is that active atheism reflects trauma, the stricter one’s religious background, the more likely they will be militant atheists. I can’t disagree with this analysis except militant atheism is not necessarily motivated only by rejection of harsh religious indoctrination, it can also be motivated by a rejection of false belief systems that have really bad consequences and or the simple affirmation of truth independently of any trauma.
He expresses agreement with an opinion that being a militant atheist is like “sleeping furiously” and then asks the question: “What does atheism have to offer that’s worth fighting for?” He answers his own question by telling us that when he was young and brought up a Catholic, this religion did come with restrictions, contraception being one of them. Well I have news for you Frans, the Catholic Church still bans contraception, and it is worth fighting against that policy!
He fails to mention that contraception is the single greatest scientific advance empowering women by giving them control over their fertility. Atheists think this is an important issue and the world would be better off without religion because not only is there no evidence for it, in this case it interferes in the personal choice of women to use contraception, or to prevent disease by using condoms thus causing great harm. Militancy is appropriate in opposing religious policies in the face of the harm being done to humans and the misery caused. If you don’t think that fighting against such idiotic religious policies by atheists is worthy, then I really don’t know what to say.
He goes on to say that the Catholic Church accepts evolution. No it doesn’t! They claim to have removed a conflict between religion and science but this is false and only appearance. The Catholic Church’s version of evolution is actually Intelligent Design since the hand of God guides the process. Sorry, but science knows there is no God involved, only a natural process devoid of any divine intervention.
This is what a militant looks like. They kill people. They retaliate. They attack with bombs.
Atheists once again militantly point the finger at delusions that pervert science in order to justify idiotic belief systems and perpetuate harm done in the name of false belief. If you were teaching a Catholic student in a biology/evolution course at Emory University, would you fail them for persisting in the divine intervention theory of evolution, or would you sleep furiously and give a passing grade? Are apes moral and empathic because God guided things to be this way? Does truth matter to you?
Are you afraid of these academics, writers, philosophers, scientists?
He then revisits the paradigm of Steven Jay Gould’s Non-Overlapping Magisteria proposal where science and religion represent supposed separate circles of a Venn diagram that don’t intersect. Science should say nothing about religion and vice versa. Well, science can be used to test religious claims. In the recent past the Harvard Prayer Study lasting 10 years and was a good example of where science proved that intercessory prayer does not work, it has less than zero efficacy since the control group of atheists had lower mortality than the religious groups that had prayers being said for them! If anybody/anything is listening to prayer, they/ it don’t intervene or do anything to save anybody. Please name one thing that science has ever conceded to religion.
Perhaps in a "Battle" of ideas it would be helpful to understand the ideas. What are the "New Atheists" saying? Are they advocating violence in any way?
Another reason for atheist militancy is that religious people simply believe erroneous things about atheists. That is the reason for atheism ranking worse than pedophilia on the ten worst things list of the religious in the USA. If they really believe that, then there are huge negative consequences to atheists such as zero chance of getting hired by some employers, or getting a vote from religious electors. I’ve often thought of getting a t-shirt with “Worse than a Pedophile” printed on it and walking in to US churches on Sundays to promote discussion and also as a kind of “F-You”.
Did this man ever blowup a clinic?
In another article de Waals quotes Al Sharpton and dignifies him with the title “Reverend” as saying that without a God there would be no morality. I was proud of Christopher Hitchens when he said on stage with Sharpton that “I’m not going to call you Reverend.” I’d go one further and give him the title “The Contemptible” because he says that no one can be moral without belief in God. What conceit to think that only Christians can be moral! Well I have news for you Al, monkeys and apes show empathy and a sense of fair-play, and I can guarantee they don’t have a soul and they don’t believe in your God!
Getting back to Chapter 4 of the Bonobo and the Atheist, de Waals then goes through a pathetic illustration of the resistance to new and correct ideas in the scientific community. Yes scientists are human, yes they have biases, like other humans they will be resistant to a change of ideas they are invested in. Outmoded scientific ideas have inertia, they are the same to a certain extent as religious people are invested in a different type of idea, those that are non-falsifiable. However, the difference between science and religion is that scientists will follow the evidence and change their ideas and theories in the face of proof. Religious people will persist in belief of false ideas despite the evidence. There are stupid lazy scientists, but to say that scientists are only slightly better than the religious accepting things on faith because they have uncritically accepted every underlying assumption in a theory is an abomination. Ultimately the truth triumphs because of the competition of ideas, in religion there is no competition of ideas.
The militant atheist forces the competition of ideas on the religious, many arguments are science based. Many criticisms point out inconsistencies, abhorrent ideas, horrible practices, institutionalized discrimination, logical inconsistencies, biblical approval of slavery, and lack of evidence. Why shouldn’t we hold the religious to the same intense fire of criticism as any other group of crazies, especially when religion affects things that might prolong my atheist life like stem cell research for one! Why should religion get a free pass?
Ultimately I agree that religious people are unlikely to change their belief systems overnight. The corrosion of religious belief by science however is a worthy ongoing successful process. Militant atheists challenging the complacency of the religious is a good thing, can be very entertaining, and adds to the corrosive effect of science.
In conclusion I would change the question from: What does atheism offer that is worth fighting for? To: What does atheism champion that is worth fighting for? Atheism champions truth and important principles worth fighting for. I hope anyone reading this is now convinced. Yes you are a fellow atheist Dr. de Waals, but do you champion anything?
Atheist Champions
Militants? Really?
Rebecca Watson at Skeptics in the Pub Hong Kong - Vampires & Angels
Appearances and illusions can be effective ways to manipulate people, but they’re still transparently ineffectual motivators for those of us who want to put in the right kind of effort to understand how things really work.
This essay is for people in my tribe, and for people who may want to better understand my tribe. It’s also for people who want to criticize my tribe. It’s especially for those people who are firmly standing on the fence.
On November 20th, 2014 David Young, the main host of Skeptics in the Pub events in Hong Kong, interviewed Rebecca Watson at Delaney’s Pub in Wan Chai. Rebecca Watson is the founder of the Skepchick Blog, and has been a long time member of the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Podcast (SGU). She was able to visit us on her way to New Zealand and Australia where she will be attending a number of events on her own, and as a member of SGU. I envy our friends Down Under.
I’m happy that David had the presence of mind to invite Rebecca to visit and
I’m grateful that Ms. Watson decided to stopover in Hong Kong to talk with us.
I was invited to make a video of the interview, and parts one through three are in this post. The color choices in the video are there to highlight a “Skeptic Noir” atmosphere - high contrast black and white juxtaposed with color - to imply that skeptics aren’t just a bunch of cynical debunkers lurking in the shadows of your hopes and dreams, ready to pop out behind you in an alley or parking lot, forcing you at intellectual gunpoint to give up your cherished beliefs, ideologies and worldview.
super scary film noir lighting
(Also to avoid several hours in Davinci Resolve color correcting video from three different cameras;-)
I’ve heard quite a few religious friends of mine, as well as dozens of true believers of all kinds of implausible phenomena say: “Steven, you’re like a vampire trying to suck the faith right out of me!”
I can imagine how hard it must feel to have a scientific-skeptic in your face throwing data, facts, background information, book titles, all kinds of obscure references from the Internet, and claims of scientific census at you like a Major League Baseball pitcher, pitching fast balls at your head, one after another. It must be exhausting, deflating, annoying and down right vexing. Details are deafening at times. And believe me, I’ve seen tempers flare - many times.
Those who are desperate to look smart will never be smart.
Now that I’m getting up there in age I’m mellowing a bit. I no longer engage in conventional conversations about Aliens or the Loch Ness Monster. I conserve my energy by ensuring that my discussions of religion, science, the humanities and culture are limited to my ability to find someone, somewhere, with a great deal of knowledge in a subject. Unfortunately this is a rare occurrence so I mostly find myself in the company of books, websites and podcasts that pique my intellectual curiosity and hopefully teach me something interesting and useful. When I do get lucky enough to have a leisurely discussion about things I’m interested in I simply pester my interlocutor with questions - hopefully intelligent ones. I try. Oh, and sometimes I lecture on and on enthusiastically with my drinking buddies. I’m a terrible bore sometimes.
There are still things, however, that I’m willing to passionately discuss with “the faithful”, the “true believers”, the “deniers” and the “conspiracy theorists”. These are subjects I feel that I have a responsibility to discuss: Climate Change; Evolution; Science, what it is and what it does; How the human mind works; “Ideas” and how they become popular to name a few. We make choices everyday that can have a profound impact on our lives and our loved one’s lives. Therefore, I believe it’s important to know when to think fast or slow.
I’ve been listening to The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe since their first podcast in May of 2005. The Novella brothers, Steven, Jay, and Bob, Evan Bernstein and Rebecca Watson are like family. I’ve listened to their voices every week for almost 10 years. What a run people - congratulations! When I finally got a chance to say hello to Rebecca at the event on November 20th, about all I could say was, “Hello family member”. I told David Young who was interviewing Rebecca, “I was channeling my thoughts through you both, almost word-for-word, for over an hour, and everyone in the audience thought that you two were doing the talking.” Of course, at this moment, I have no reason to believe in “channeling” or telepathy. I’m simply part-and-parcel of our culture - a culture informed by active, positive, scientific-skepticism. I listen to it, read about it and parrot it. I am still in search of an original thought. I have only form to play with.
Even though I read Rebecca’s blog, and am familiar with her views, I was still excited to hear her talk about her political sensibilities, and her stands on various issues. As I was videotaping the interview I kept thinking to myself, are these her opinions, my opinions or our communities opinions, or all of the above. I thought, I’ve said these kinds of things myself, many times, to many people over the years. Every word bounced around my head like an echo in St. Peter’s Basilica. (Where I envision myself preaching skepticism at the end of some great cultural paradigm shift of course.)
I was a “mystic” until 24 or so, not because of my insatiable reading in metaphysics, philosophy, religion, pop psychology, and other silly New Age stuff. I had a natural, youthful sense of mystery, and I liked stories, movies, theater and all kinds of cultural pursuits. I think this was a result of having traveled since I was a zygote more than anything else. My heroes in the 1970s, other than rock musicians, were Albert Camus, Frederick Niche, David Hume, Carl Sagan, any Greeks or Romans I could get my mind around, and Joseph Campbell. I loved “COSMOS” and “THE POWER OF MYTH” on PBS! And when I was working in my father’s wood shop, building furniture, we listened to National Public Radio.
Because of these interests and influences, I knew a little bit about the difference between myth and reality as rendered by the natural sciences and the humanities.
I couldn’t play the electric guitar, and my singing was just above average; I was sporty, but not a big time athlete, and it just happened that during the 70s and 80s girls also liked mystics. So I donned a mystical pose from time-to-time. I was a good story teller for sure and the mystical bit helped a lot with the ladies. Does anyone remember Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, A.K.A., OSHO? Those kinds of cults were full of attractive European girls back in the day. I admit it - that’s all I’m saying.
I still read a lot. I’ve had different eras where I read different things in different places. No doubt influenced all the way by random stuff I was exposed to. I loved libraries too, and I was the kind of student who would leave a class I was enrolled in and go audit some other class I hadn’t even thought would be interesting until a conversation or a book would impel me to look into it. By 1985 my reading began to focus on history, science (all domains), technology, politics and economics. Political philosophy was of particular interest. I also loved psychology. I became interested in business late in life. Having studied drama, and film in college I thought office buildings were just sculptures - I really had no idea what went on inside an office building. I had vague memories of ashtrays on desks from visiting my mother’s office. I would marvel at urban skylines, alleys and streets, and think of them as movie sets for me and mine. I loved pretending to be a beatnik, thirty years after their extinction, in Grant Street cafes in San Francisco, wandering the streets of the East Village in NYC, somewhere near St. Stephens Green in Dublin listening to a busker, watching Cricket in Holland Park in London, in tiny snack and beer bars in Tokyo, or in a cozy, dark cafes, or Greek restaurants in the University District of Seattle. I wrote more than a few rambling poems trying to "Howl".
Suckling your _______ I imbibe the sweat scents of new and obscure mysteries…
or
Silhouetted by solitary clouds, icy stars float in the zenith and the depths of the Universe
A lonely soldier searching for a worthy cause or a young man who contemplates death
I am all these things… BLA BLA BLA... OK, I'm blushing, the follies of youth.
I think skeptics are curious by nature. We love getting lost. We like finding out we’re wrong. At least I hope we do.
In the early 1990s I found Skeptic Magazine and was delighted to know that there were people out there like me. Back then there really didn’t seem to be many. I remember when Johnny Carson asked James Randy to help him expose Uri Geller on the Tonight’s Show. The Amazing Randy was brilliant at challenging all kinds of scammers. When his book Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions hit the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco in 1982, I bought it along with a Gill Scott Heron LP, “1980”, and had a really good week reading Flim-Flam in cafes with a glass of read wine and singing along with Gill Scott in my Corporate Utilitarian Vehicle (pickup truck) - “Shut’Um Down…” I forgot to mention my interest in ESP when I was in junior high school. I read so many popular books about it. Perhaps that’s really what started me down the skeptic track.
The 1990s were marked by “the economy stupid”, the tech industry, “.coms” and bubbles, and I was in the thick of it. Trust me, I’ve got more than a few stories to tell about ’85 through 2005 when SGU first appeared on my computer. Dabbling in the tech-biz-game and trying to satisfy an insatiable appetite for learning, while laboring to keep my proverbial shyte together, made those years an exciting adventure. Basically, throughout it all, I just wanted to know how things really worked, myself included, and I figured the best way to do that was to roll up your mental sleeves and get busy making mistakes.
I knew my thought processes were terribly flawed and I wanted to improve them. In the last 15 years it seems we’ve learned more about these subjects than all the generations that came before. I get excited when I see “Thinking Fast and Slow” and “The Art of Thinking Clearly” in airport bookstores. Back in 1990s all you saw were books by people like Jack Welch - everyone was a want-to-be CEO of a fortune 500 company or a (pinky at the corner of my mouth) millionaire investor.
That’s a little bit about my background and what led me to skepticism. Next let me refer you to some resources that might help you get started if you want to rekindle your interest, or start looking into Skepticism. For more links related to these subjects please visit, Links We Love on Globe Hackers.
I’d like to refer you first to a definition of skepticism from The Skeptic’s Dictionary. Please take a moment to visit the hyperlink and read the whole article. Take your time. Come back to this blog-post and continue reading when you are ready. I really hope you’ll read the whole article.
“One who doubts the validity of what claims to be knowledge in some particular department of inquiry; one who maintains a doubting attitude with reference to some particular question or statement.” Michael Shermer
Now that you’ve read the article at The Skeptic’s Dictionary you should have a very good idea about what we mean when we call ourselves Skeptics.
One thing I want to emphasize now is that being a skeptic takes a lot of practice, it’s an attitude, a framework, a worldview, scaffolding for your brain, a discipline, a kind of brain plasticity, a way of life and a culture. It’s a mode of thinking that helps you ferret out what is as close to reality as we can know right now. It’s not cynical; it’s not merely debunking claims, and it’s meant to be a positive intellectual act. At least I think so.
Now I’d like to introduce to those of you who may be new to skepticism a few resources under the heading “Toolkit”. These are methods and tools one can use to begin a skeptical journey into the details of a subject of inquiry. None of these toolkits are comprehensive, they’re meant to be guidelines to get you started analyzing things so that you can discover if what is being said or claimed is likely to be as close to the truth as we can get at the moment: A consensus of opinion, of knowledge and understanding, or a scientific consensus.
Here’s a quick one: Skeptical Software Tools, Applying the power of the programmable web to the purposes of skepticism. Tim Farley is an incredibly active and hard working skeptic. Check out his websites.
What’s The Harm also has some great resources on it.
(Caution: None of this can be taken out of its social, or cultural context. It’s a messy subject, I know, but all of our thinking remains within this human context, and people are complex hyper-social animals living in complex socio-economic-cultural-political worlds.)
Arguments require judgement. It’s hard to analyze premises. You need a lot of background information. You may even need deep expertise that you can only acquire though years of hard work. Steven Novella is a neurosurgeon and one doesn’t become a neurosurgeon overnight. The Precautionary Principle, for example, should be put in the context of the many details within the subject at question and surrounding the actions proposed (check out, “The Precautionary Principle In Action - A Handbook”). You can easily find it with a Google search. I included a hyperlink to an episode of “Rationally Speaking” in my last blog-post that included a discussion of, “inference to the best explanation”, which I think sheds a lot of light on our approach to inference and absolutes. It’s complicated of course. Basically, we try to come as close to “truth” as we can, while examining our premises, logic and thinking. Over time, our inquiry, our investigation, and our quest for understanding continues to evolve as our tools, the quality of our data and of our data analysis improves. This continued focused inquiry for the sake of inquiry and for the sake of the most accurate understanding of things in our world that we can currently achieve, is a never ending process (although we may get stuck in complex theoretical wrangling in quantum physics, and come close to a complete understanding in certain domains like classical physics for example). As the resolution of a subject sharpens over time we will understand it more clearly. Skeptics are comfortable with knowing that we are only close to truth, and we are less likely, hopefully, to need to believe that we know the absolute truth about any given subject.
There are also various forms of “The Baloney Detection Kit” popularized by Car Sagan in his bestselling book, “The Demon-Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark”. Rebecca referred to this book in her talk as one she would highly recommend to a newcomer to skepticism. The hyperlink above has a good article about this, please take a moment to read the complete article and then come back to this blog-post when you have time.
“The kit is brought out as a matter of course whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. If you’re so inclined, if you don’t want to buy baloney even when it’s reassuring to do so, there are precautions that can be taken; there’s a tried-and-true, consumer-tested method.” Carl Sagan
And of course, the method is science.
I hope you take your time with this post and go through all the hyperlinks. The resources are important and will help you in your journey to become an active scientific-skeptic and critical thinker. (If that’s what you so desire.) Again this kind of “kit” is one of many you will find from brilliant skeptics from around the world. As the skeptic community grows, new experts and inspired creators from across domains of inquiry are constantly adding their insights and knowledge to these sets of tools. Even Steven Novella will readily admit that it’s taken him years to acquire these tools and be able to use them effectively.
It takes energy and willpower to exercise effective skepticism and critical thinking. Certain principles and processes must be practiced and internalized to the point where it becomes almost second nature. I say almost because it’s really hard to monitor your thoughts all day long to ensure you are always thinking clearly. All of us are vulnerable to mistakes in reasoning. There is a very large scientific literature out there about these subjects. If you are one of the few who chooses to read these kinds of books you will find the subjects will constantly yield new and challenging information - simply doing so is a great exercise for your brain and spirit. We can use the analogy of muscle memory in sports, the more you train, the more you practice and use a skill, the more reflexive it will become. Your muscle has memory, just like your brain and your brain is embodied. Your brain and body are “plastic” and can be transformed. It’s fantastic! I’m constantly amazed! Your nervous system is more than the gray matter in your head.
And just another quick tip. If you want to learn another language, move your mouth a lot! Get your mouth and tongue on the language. What you do with your body will stick in your mind.
As skeptics we’re concerned with science and all of its methods, processes and tools: Logic, reason, and cognition; all grounded in the acceptance that we are all flawed thinkers prone to biases and likely to make errors in logic. The scientific method is dedicated to exposing these errors. We are also humble enough to know that we don’t have all the background information needed in every subject to carry on a highly informed discourse. In some cases our tools may be inadequate and in other cases our data may be flawed or our method of acquiring date skewed, or we may not have enough data. These facts are why we are so committed to skepticism, science and critical thinking. These facts are what keep us curious and constantly learning.
You’ll find lots of people with websites focused on another area close to our hearts: Critical Thinking. I’m not going to attempt to reproduce another introduction to the subject in this blog-post. If you want to read what might be the definitive guide to critical thinking, I’ve heard through the grapevine that Steven Novella and Massimo Pigliucci will be collaborating on a book on the subject that may be out in 2016. I’m going to preorder it now just to keep the gentlemen motivated. Believe me, we want to see this book on the bookshelves and in the hands of teenagers.
For now I’ll refer you to a couple of places that can give you a good primer on the subject. Here’s one that I like: “Critical Thinker Academy” with Kevin deLaplante. He has a very nice collection of videos on YouTube that give good introductions to areas of critical thinking. He has premium content on his website, and a nice podcast you can find on iTunes that will definitely get you started. If you haven’t thought about critical thinking in a while, it never hurts to go back and get another good introduction. You can take all of his courses online for $40 bucks U.S.D.
Another good introductory resource is from Hong Kong University: The Critical Thinking Web. I live in H.K. so I like to tell my Chinese friends about this website. I love this website, it’s got loads of good stuff on it. His resources tab has more than enough to help exponentially increase your knowledge of the subject so I won’t recommend anything else at this time. I’ll just say that there is a vast literature on the subject, a subject that has been too long ignored in public and private middle school curricula. I think all children should be exposed to critical thinking as an area study by middle school. We need interesting and engaging teachers devoted to this subject.
Oh, and one more, Great Courses also has a lot of good content to can get you started. Please be on the lookout for discount offers for super cool Great Courses on Rationally Speaking’s webpage or The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe’s webpage. I’ve also found that many skeptic websites and podcasts have been great places to get good book recommendations.
Please check the hyperlinks and continue when you’re ready.
Forgive me, now it’s time for me to explain why I think this stuff is so important. It’s a daunting task for me, because it’s such an important part of my everyday thought processes; it’s a huge subject of interest for me, it’s imbedded in my worldview. I believe these subjects are of absolute importance to the future of humanity, to our quality of life, to the survival of our species, not to mention other species of life effected by human behavior. Without a wisdom centered understanding of science, engineering, mathematics, the humanities, skepticism, critical thinking, and our natural ecosystem (our ecosystem being our only life support system that we know of in the Universe) our future will be in dire jeopardy. We really don’t want to experience the results of our unenlightened, ill-informed, and destructive activities. War is indeed hell, but knowing with certainty, that within a few years or decades our species will be extinct would be even more horrific. It’s possible friends. We all have threats to deal with, but extinction is the coup-de-gras - the ultimate tragedy. Especially when we potentially have so much to look forward to.
I want to look at children’s hopeful faces and believe they will have a chance to experience and do wonderful things.
I’m so passionate about skepticism, critical thinking and having a very good understanding of science, that I will never stop evangelizing about it. And I am proud to know that through these skills I can own my worldview. I don’t have to take it only on faith. Faith is important, but we have even more stable reasons to believe and take action than blind faith or fashion.
I think it’s vital to know what’s closest to factual, real, and truthful. We are faced with a changing world in which technology, and science will present us with totally unpredictable challenges that, if handled poorly, could result in disaster. We’re living in a world that could know more abundance, peace and prosperity than we could ever imagine, and yet flawed thinking could hold us back leading to disastrous consequences.
Some people in the skeptic community say they want to keep social-political, economic and cultural areas way off to one side, and focus on issues of science that can be more easily presented to a broad audience. Me thinks they fear ideology. Let’s go back and familiarize ourselves with the word. Wikipedia defines it as: a set of conscious and/or unconscious ideas which constitute one’s goals, expectations, and actions.
I can understand their point of view, but it worries me a little, because everything in the human world exists in a social, economic, political, historic and cultural context. There is no way around it. If we’re unable to discern how best to develop artificial intelligence, how to deal with the risks inherent in pharmaceutical medicine, how to handle disruptive technologies, issues of inequality of access to education and life transforming technologies, then we risk experiencing terrible imbalances that could eventually impede our progress and make us fragile to disasters that could put humanity back in the Stone Age. And it will be our fault if we don’t get it right. Odds are it won’t be a particular deity or an asteroid that does us in, it will be our naive credulity that allows our human adventure to crash and burn.
I don’t think any of us really want to see this happen. This is why it’s so important that we get it as right as we can with each and every effort. Things are moving fast. These times of ours are amazing, and exciting, but far from where we could aspire to be. Even if we enjoy the chaos, each of us understands that if we don’t respect our limits, and try to work within them, we will most likely not have a very healthy, happy, peaceful and secure life.
How much education and the quality of education people need is an open question much debated, but we know that it’s important for a long list of reasons. It’s a tragedy to waste human potential. Helping people discover the value of science, skepticism and critical thinking is one of the best ways to mitigate risks that plague humanity.
With these skills and tools we can challenge people to do better and discover more. I believe this process will lead to an even better world. I am not a Utopian, I’m more Dystopian than I want to admit, but I see the benefits of this worldview everywhere, all the time. And within the global community of skeptics, science lovers, scientists, philosophers, critical thinkers and intellectual seekers I find great hope that we can achieve marvelous things. I see the human spirit at its best. I see a way forward.
I sometimes wonder why I care about the future. Perhaps we’re just built this way, maybe it’s in our nature and the nature of the way we nurture ourselves, and our shared experiences that ultimately make us care. Humans are not only smart apes, we’re caring apes. One thing for sure is that enlightened skeptics appreciate their worldview as much as anyone can appreciate anything. We are truly thankful for the giants who came before us and who live among us. They allow us to wake up everyday to new discoveries. They’re hard working optimists who are never defeated by failure. They’re happy to find a million dead ends, if it means that one day they will emerge into the light of an unexpected discovery. Surprises, we love surprises, no matter how hard we try to control things and events.
If skeptics have fears, then they are well founded. We are a diverse community from many backgrounds with a spectrum of ideological baggage in our minds. We are far from perfect, in fact, I’ve never met a mature skeptic who was not humbled in the light of her knowledge of just how flawed a creature she is. It’s the tools and skills we have that allow us to be humbled by nature itself everyday. The awe and wonder that our famous friends talk about belongs to us too. We get it, we feel it as profoundly as religious people feel their love of God - perhaps even more so. And, we are just as committed to the love of reason, nature and our unique ability to perceive and learn about it’s functions, as to cherish it so sincerely, that I can’t but believe that as more of us get turned on by it, there will be a growing number of us on earth to share in its inspiration.
We are lovers of living and champions of life, we frolic in our consciousness and love humankind. We want things to get better for people.
When I was listening to the interview at the Skeptics in the Pub event I couldn’t help but chuckle. These people talk like me, think like me, love the same stuff, more or less, and yet we’re all unique individuals from all over the world. It feels good to be part of a culture, a community, and to know your community has your back. I don’t need to go to church, I know what’s sacred, even though so much still remains a mystery: My evolved nature is built to learn, and every member who contributes to society and to the team help me to acquire the tools to know more.
Reason, a scientific outlook, a skeptical approach and the application of critical thinking can help us better understand what’s going on in our society, it can help us determine what to value and fight for.
Dr. Tyson talked about the perceived threat the Soviet space program represented in the 1950s and 60s. This perceived threat could not have existed in an ideological vacuum. The threat provided the United States with the motivation to commit resources to the Space Race, a competition that the U.S. ultimately won - for a while. Now we hitch rides into space on Russian rockets.
Can there be a balance of efficiencies between government, academia, non governmental organizations and the private sector, that in combination, cooperation and healthy competition, and through combined creative force produce more of the kind of value we developed while jousting with the Soviets back in the 60s? Is it wise to elect people who believe that their job in government is to dismantle all public institutions leaving only corporate quarterly profit targets to determine our next move?
“I govern to make my job redundant” “If you need a doctor run down the street and ask the doctor down the block to put in that stint. Better yet, learn how to do it yourself.”
In the battle of ideas institutions matter. An enlightened constituency will find, promote and support better leaders. Better leaders will help people become better people. What economist call human capital, social capital, intellectual capital really matters. We have to trust that investing in these entities will produce value and growth. Growth isn’t always about producing and consuming things, it can entail producing and consuming ideas, internalizing values, learning new skills, participating in great adventures, shared feelings and experiences in community with others.
Do we do research simply to discover or only to produce a product for a derived market that will provide a profit next quarter? Shall we argue to discover knowing we can’t injure ourselves, or shall we argue to destroy our opponent potentially leaving ourselves in the dark with no apposing force to inspire us and make us stronger?
I don’t mind if Sam Harris states his opinions about religious extremist emphatically, as long as I know what he means, as long as he makes an effort to be perfectly clear. As long as he clearly states what he means by “X” and “Y”. I may be in nuanced disagreement with elements of his position, but I can still learn something from it, and in being clear and making a stand I can learn to refine my position; I can learn where I must draw and toe the line.
Tools that produce rigorous clarity of thought help me know what to fight for. This knowledge allows me to be totally responsible for who I am at the moment and gives my life meaning. When one of ours, a respected producer of skeptical content breaks the law we don’t have to apologize for him, or make excuses, and our hearts needn’t break just because we liked his contribution to our cause. We must learn something from his mistakes, because we are all only human and we make mistakes too. We can forgive when we see true contrition and reform. Trust can be resurrected in certain circumstances. I think I understand what Rebecca meant. “It’s a human issue.” One may rationalize one’s bad actions, but one probably won’t get away with it. Not if we stand up and call them out. Take it like a human!
I stand against misogyny, racism, ignorance, violence, hatred, inequality and destruction. However, we stumble upon who we are through conflict and cooperation, through opposition and collaboration, through knowledge and understanding. Good ethics are imbedded in our society and culture - we simply have to know when to conform and when to resist.
Politics, even in the skeptical community is unavoidable, it haunts us like a desire we yearn to fulfill but cannot grasp, or a distasteful duty that can not be shirked.
Should we build another space telescope? Should we poor resources into a manned mission to mars or a research platform on the moon? Do we need a particle accelerator in Arizona, or an impenetrable wall around Texas? (We can see The Great Wall of China from space. Who got there first?) Would cities without cars help us mitigate the potentially terrible future effects of climate change? Are we skeptical about the value of tar sands and fracking, or is cheap energy too important a factor in maintaining our position in the world? Does the possession of fossil fuel resources define our independence and our culture, or are there other things that matter more now? Tom Cruise might be a good actor in some rolls but he’s a Scieftologist: Why should that matter? Does war really give life meaning?
Forgive me, am I a “dick” because I ask these questions? Do these kinds of questions make you uncomfortable? Is my hemlock to be the limbo of silence and disempowerment?
Some people care if people believe in strange things and seek to find the answers. Michael Shermer’s “Why People Believe Weird Things” is but one treatment of the theme.
Those of us who contribute the most may have flawed characters. Some of us are simply better people than others. It’s a judgement call. Learning how to refine one’s judgement is important.
Life is a kind of battle. Vampires and Angels need each other it seems. Sometimes one can transform into the other. It’s important we know this.
We can’t separate what we’re doing from our cultural context. We live in community with others. It’s important to continue to invite those who stand firmly on the fence to join us in the garden of reason. Come in, sit here, and find your place. Come here and learn what creation is. These things surrounding you here are your relatives, each living thing holds more in common with you than you think. And each thing we’ve created is part of our legacy. The path to understanding this relationship is provided by science, reason and good old healthy skepticism. Through these things you can be made whole, you can learn about yourself and learn to better understand others. It’s a noble thing to be close enough to truth to catch its sent. Come here and refresh yourself. Come here and embolden your spirit. And yes, dance, sing, practice mindfulness and marvel in the profound artfulness of people and the awesome beauty and power of nature.
The old familiar books and slogans may provide comfort, and in those torn yellowed pages one may find a shelter within which all is known - for it is written - but what of those rhythms and rhymes that have yet to be written? Where is our sense of romance and adventure? Should the rules of the road never change, even when our survival depends on taking calculated risks and changing direction?
Each individual that I have followed and loved in our movement I’ve found to be passionate and full of vitality. There was nothing cold or uncaring in their quest to know their world. They were loving warriors, and loving warriors are the only kind that can win.
Our epoch, the Anthropocene began thousands of years ago. We share a proud intellectual history since the age of stories turned into the age of records and then into the age of action. The Renaissance and The Enlightenment held tenderly The Age of Wonder and Science which gave way to our Industrial Revolution, booms and busts, fits and starts right up through the Information Age. It seems that through all the terrible times things have only gotten a bit better. What will our future be like. Do we have a hand in shaping it, or are we just transient players determined to walk a straight line from birth to death? What gives our lives meaning? We know; we know. Stochastic meandering and curiosity fuels the burning bush.
These things of the mind that we talk of are not isolated, but connected things. And through the exercise of reason our hearts grow larger, more inclusive and stronger. We know what we love. Our community has many voices. We are indeed fortunate. We are indeed appreciative. We embrace life and our world like no other community. It’s time to be inspirational and try to reach the other side. This I believe.
We are one big invitation to an amazing and unimaginable future.
***I’m not an insider. I’m someone who loves the general principles of what’s been discussed above. Organizations will have good times and bad. People will come and go. We’ll know disappointment and rancor, but the fundamental principles of critical thinking, science and skepticism can still help us transcend our human foibles, and bad habits. The only reason any of us should have to be proud is if we are honestly in this to serve others with respect and dignity. We are a small and growing community and we should aspire to take the high ground. Honesty, transparency and consideration for people’s feelings should be some of our most important priorities. We have to try to be good examples and represent our culture as well as we can. For example, I can’t stand born again Christians who make no effort at all to be Christlike (in the Jefferson Bible sense). What moral authority can they claim if they are not a living example of their stated values. If our culture is going to grow, and I’m sure we think it would be a good thing if it did, we’re going to have to embody our most important values and act accordingly. I’ll try my best and I hope you will to.
SKEPTICALITY PODCAST PANEL Denying Science and Climate Change.
If you engage with someone who's holding a pseudo-scientific view or non-scientific view you can run into all kinds of issues of cognitive bias, fallacious logic, and other glitches of thought that can severely obscure the facts and lead to bad personal and policy choices.
Globe Hackers would like to recommend the following podcast. Please have a listen - it's time well spent.
"Denying Evolution and Climate Science": With Matt Lowry, David DiSalvo, Dr. Steven Novella, and Barbara Drescher.
You will find detailed show notes at Skepticality.
We need to know how to discuss this topic with people who are not convinced that human activity has any major effect on our climate, other species, and the ecology of the Earth. It's of vital importance, or dare I say our future depends on all of us having a very good understanding of these issues.
The Netherworld Oligarchy – Who is Your Government Really Serving?
Our corrupted institutions and the institutionalized alike have brought us to this existence, and to accept this existence, ever on the precipice of our own demise. And yet, in control of the ever-pervasive media, they steer the dynamic of what people talk about, and how they think, to their profit and advantage.
We're very pleased and honored to have a new contributor at the Globe Hackers blog, Ethan Indigo Smith. You can find his Bio here on our Cast & Crew page. Ethan is a prolific writer with a unique voice and a flair for ferreting out aspects of our culture that need some clarity of thought and some hard work.
I'm taking the liberty to include some video from YouTube regarding Oligarchical Collectivism to give you some background. The series is scary really. It's so contemporary. <Parts 1-8 >
You can find a transcript of the book within a book at Newspeak Dictionary.
If you're not already a George Orwell fan I hope this inspires you to take a look at his illustrious body of work If ever we were living in Orwellian times it's now. We're bombarded with NEW SPEAK everyday from every screen in our possession. As Captain Benjamin L. Willard said in the iconic Francis Ford Coppola film, "Apocalypse Now" : "The shit piles up so fast in Vietnam you'd need wings to keep above it."
Steven Cleghorn November, 14 2014
CAPTAIN Willard with that dazed "WTF" look on his face.
First published at Wake Up World on 31st October 2014.
The Netherworld Oligarchy – Who is Your Government Really Serving?
By Ethan Indigo Smith
Before serving your country, first learn who your government is serving.
The New World Order is exactly that – it is the same old ‘order’ in the new world. The new world is still contracted to the same old formulation of regimentation, which is achieved by the same violent means of enforced order and patriarchal authority, the same old formulation of the status quo, and the same old oligarchy, instituted in the new petrolithic and nuclear age by the progressive merging of commerce and state.
The only difference now is that there are “new and improved” modes and destructive war, resource and media technologies being used to enforce the rule of the oligarchy. There are new tools and new names. The ‘order’ is packaged in a new sleek design, with new bells and whistles, but at its core, it is the same war-minded pyramid system, controlled by those the system benefits the most. Those “authorities” at the top of the pyramid claim to act for the betterment of mankind, and yet they always seem to get the better of mankind.
Historically speaking, the forced imposition of beneficial authority is as it always was. It is text book oligarchical collectivism; the same formulation of authority used by Empires and Emperors for millennia before us, playing out in a rapidly degrading economic, political and environmental setting, It bears little difference to those societies that have risen and duly fallen before us.
The ‘New World’ Environment
Welcome to the ‘new world’. And with that, welcome to your ‘new world’ environment, one that is poisoned and depleted by the petrolithic and nuclear industries of the oligarchy. And not just poisoned but radiated, measurably changing the quality of our environment for countless generations yet to come, as radiation and chemical pollution levels increase worldwide.
When it comes to humanity’s sustainability, the ‘new world’ is a veritable netherworld. The conditions, confines and consequences of petrolithic era and nuclear age are now layered into every strata of the Earth, its system and its inhabitants. Governed by power/profit-seeking oligarchy, we seem destined for a world of polluted and bereft expanse after expanse, land scoured and mined, water poisoned and air thick with institutional excrement – the scars of over consumption – the consequence of an irrational intent to build ever-growing commercial systems without regard for future ramifications, and of institutional outcomes being prioritised over the rights and needs of living breathing individuals and the planet we call home. And while the netherworld oligarchies profit from environmental exploitation, increased institutionalization and commercial monopolization, a culture of unquestioning acceptance is perpetuated in the name of patriotism by concealing critical information and delivering mis-information via the “news” media they own and regulate.
Thus, amid this theater of democracy, it has become the “norm” in the petrolithic era and nuclear age for large scale commercial enterprises to be initiated without due consideration of consequences. Corrupted commercial regulatory bodies have become veils to the oligarchy, rubber stamping their approval for profitable and dangerous practices in industries as broad as food & agriculture, pharmaceutical, energy, media and mining – as long as they help to achieve their ends. This is clearly evidenced by the rotating cast of oligarchs who regularly and strategically interchange between roles as commercial decision-makers and government regulators (see images).
These conditions have facilitated what is undoubtedly the biggest, most deceptive ‘doublethink’ dynamic there might ever have been — that of global warming. While governments continue to push the manifesto of Agenda 21, the public debate on global warming is, in and of itself, ridiculous. There is no denying humanity needs to change its destructive ways, but that extends far beyond environmental destruction to our collective intellectual decay. For as long as we allow our thoughts and conversation to be steered by the fictions of institutional news/media, we can only be digging our way deeper into the netherworld of the oligarchy.
Our corrupted institutions and the institutionalized alike have brought us to this existence, and to accept this existence, ever on the precipice of our own demise. And yet, in control of the ever-pervasive media, they steer the dynamic of what people talk about, and how they think, to their profit and advantage.
In a community that is led by the wealthy for the wealthy, this continuation of the status quo comes at the direct cost of individuals and their basic rights to freedom, peace, and unimpeded access to the planet’s natural resources – all of which are treated as commodities. We are led to believe our personal freedoms and livelihood depend on adhering to the status quo, without which the rights and richness of our natural world cannot be accessed.
But that is part of the illusion that keeps us playing ball. We know we are heading down a dangerous path, and there is no new planet to move on to, no new island to start fresh on once we learn just how dangerous. So in reality, our livelihood, wellbeing and indeed our future existence depends on stopping the status quo and choosing a new path – fast.
The ‘New World’ Hierarchy
Institutions are made up of individuals, but they do not act as individuals nor on behalf of individuals. Rather they act as portions of the institution, for the purpose of the institution, in the direction determined by institutional heads, no matter the personal or collective expense (after all, we’re all replaceable, right?)
Institutionalized individuals are capable of switching their institutional jargon and actions on and off, as if machines. When speaking to a reporter, one is sometimes off and other times on the record, depending on whether they are telling the truth or “The Truth ®“. When speaking to different groups, the institutionalized individual is capable of spinning different tunes, and at times, different truths – all in the name of progressing the institution.
In our heavily formalized society, we have been led to forget that institutions are empowered by people, and dependent on the cooperation of individuals. Through commercial, government and media trickery, institutions have instilled a collectivist culture that simultaneously steers individuals to execute the institutional agenda while steering them away from critically understanding and assessing it — or doing anything to change it.
Why do institutions exist if not for people? The idea of working collectively is to mutually benefit the people, whose combined potential should exceed the capability of the lone individual. If institutions today were half as dedicated to the betterment of mankind, as most of them claim to be, there would be more acts of kindness and less need for activism.
Isn't it time we reclaim our institutions and our natural place in the hierarchy?
"Interstellar" - An Emphasis on Science or Mysticism?
Since the opening of the new film, "INTERSTELLAR", we have a flurry of events, news features, products and promotions implying that there is some serious cutting edge science in the story and in the film making. They seem to have, at the very least, hired a scientist, a real scientist, to consult the motion graphics team on the physics of blackholes among other things.
The science angle may indeed help create some buzz. Science lovers do seem to be trending a teeny weeny bit these days: Thank you Supernatural Sugar-Being. But I think the majority of film goers will be of a more faithful kind. Hence the need of a megadose of mysticism riddled throughout the story.
Matthew McConaughey, now a uber-movie-star-mensch (a well deserved status in my opinion) and superhero of the film starts out, as in his TV series "True Detectives" a skeptic, naturalist and winds up a mystic believer in invisible things that aren't really supernatural, don't you know, because somehow his personal mystical experience trumps everything he knows. That's the big statement of faith we seem to get from his recent characters: The God is Me realization, and the, I know it's true because I've experienced it - full stop. He's a smart actor and if he's making his ontological argument through his choice of roles, more power to him.
It seems filmmakers can't create a science fiction movie without injecting it with a large dose of mysticism. Hat's off to the faithful.
I know, it's just a movie, 3 hours long at that, and you may or may not find it enjoyable. I can say one thing however, "2001 - A Space Odyssey" it's not. Why does everyone who makes a space film have to try to equate it with Stanley Kubrick's iconic classic? Perhaps that's the only really great space movie?
Don't be fooled into thinking that watching a movie is going to teach you anything about physics. Spend your time learning the math instead.
As an old adman I get the marketing gimmicks, but it makes me shutter to think that our born again brothers and sisters are going to exit this film thinking that Einstein was a born again Christian at heart just because the physics tell us something vague about, wait for it, fifth dimensional beings who use binary code in dust or books falling off bookshelves to communicate with us.
I can't do the math so I don't know how far fetched a theory like String Theory (but one example) is. But I can imagine that this film won't be shown in a parallel universe any-relative-time soon.
If you are interested in how modern quantum physics may need proponents to exercise more faith than a religious fanatics, please spend some time well and listen to the following Rationally Speaking Podcast.
RS116 - Jim Baggott and Massimo on Farewell to Reality
"The Science of Interstellar" by Kip Thorne
I haven't read the book yet, if anyone has let me know what you think.
And don't forget to click on and review the hyperlinks in this post.
Silenced by political ignorance and apathy.
Being a member of an esteemed audience allows us to find comfort in the bosom of our group as we believe we can’t survive if shunned.
Our unique genius has liberated us from having to hunt and gather. We are now free to pursue other things. The pursuit-of-other-things is both a blessing and a curse, and is part and parcel of who we are.
Recent report on Fareed Zakaria's GPS on CNN.
I remember when I first did business in Shanghai in 1997, I took all my assumptions there, my dreams, my fantasies, and a focused purpose, or so I thought.
Nanjing Road, Shanghai
How might we describe what kind of country China is? Especially those of us who have been there. On any given day the answer would change, like a Myers Briggs test. Each of us has our own description based on our unique perspectives, values, desires, biases, and experiences. We may find that we have much in common concerning our understanding of a dynamic and powerful nation, its people and its environment, but, at best, our most profound reckoning will only amount to a transient image, a snapshot that will have layers folded upon it and modified in many ways over time. Unless we have had a long-term relationship with a country and its people we can hardly say we know that much about it. And if we don’t have much invested in the place, no obligations, no roots, then our connection, however profoundly felt, will nevertheless be superficial.
But let’s open the question even further and ask why do we bother to explore anything? How closely can we even examine ourself? Before our experiences, before there are data, facts and lines of evidence to analyze there are stubborn assumptions, like dense jungles of thistles impossible to hack through without the right tools.
There is a subset of people in any population who are actually concerned about how things really are, they inquire vigorously with minds wide open knowing they will often stumble; they try to imagine how things ought to be in their world, and millions of people are listening them, they’re actually paying attention, but still, even though they’re listening, they may never be inspired to act upon things that truly impact their lives and their communities.
Stuck in the mire of our habits and distractions we have forgotten how to act. Why is that? Are we really so comfortable? Is this “Thing of Ours” really the best of all possible worlds? For the time being at least, is this “Thing of Ours” really even tolerable? We tolerate what we're used to. Terror often comes with wisps of sweet dreams, making us calm and acquiescent until circumstances start tearing us apart.
What a strange balance “Us” and “Them” strikes. These circles dividing us, the lines in the sand, the borders, the ideologies, the religious sects, the political factions; these three-dimensional culture spheres defined by values of various importance arrayed in comparable significance, in the complex dimensions of human culture and society; constantly intersecting each other, passing through each other, borrowing from each other, sharing, stealing, parsing, absorbing, rejecting, permeating and destroying each other.
Contemplating a coming storm.
(Relativism, Multiculturalism, Our Differences - to hell with that - it’s not that simple.)
Our parents, no matter where they came from, were no better at predicting the future than we are. If they were thoughtful, curious, well read and well fed; and if they were fortunate enough to find themselves members of a kind and considerate community allowing for clear intentions to naturally sprout from immediate challenges; and if they were motivated by familial love; and if they were healthy, happy and concerned about the future welfare of their children; and if they were full of ideas, creating opportunities, and confident in their ability to succeed — indeed, full of possibilities, informed by a profound understanding of history; and, if their understanding, having been strengthened even more by tradition, and recent experience, and fortified by suffering, failure and sacrifice; and having had this great advantage, and having worked hard as hell, doing their very best, day-by-day, to give their children the greatest opportunities they were able to give them; and tragically, suddenly, as is natural, had their lives taken from them, or even having had surrendered their lives willingly, because of any manner of circumstances; self-sacrifice; betrayal; horror; happenstance — an interruption so rude and base (as we all know death is the most sudden of all things, although suffering and anticipation focuses and intensifies to an acute state before it dissipates) and even if they died feeling resolved in a peaceful memory — having found their death-bed to be a nest of hope for the next generation — a generation of promise and passion: A generation, yet again, engaged in crossing rivers, crossing oceans, climbing mountains — of overcoming immense barriers, of enduring prejudice and hatred, of wandering in deserts, of enduring wars, of starvation, of suffering, of genocide, or even of triumph, glory, and salvation — these simple descendants of generations of myth-makers now turned market-makers swimming in an ocean of creative destruction would still remain simply human. And we might remain, forever and ever, simply out of control.
The proud descendants of generations of people who ventured to the places they had the will to go, or where compelled to go, or had to go, and who did the best they could in their adopted regions, despite the conditions. Those modest people, far from being crusaders, not possessing the cultural audacity to assume they knew better, who only had to work for a better future, are now eclipsed by a generation of shirkers, intellectual flat liners who squander immense advantages like gamblers addicted to the rush of the fall, and after impact can only wonder how this insane tragedy could have happened — and whose sense of wonder, at that fateful moment, lasts but a picosecond.
World War One destruction
Generation after generation, the nature of our suffering remains the same, a dull panicked pain caused by always being too late to meet the challenge — and the grief imposed by having lost our purity along with our excuses. We should know better than to let ourselves be so dulled down. Isn't that so? Is purity defined by lack of wits? With everything we have now, shouldn't our shame and suffering take on some special immediate significance that would transcend all that came before and liberate us into something new, something different from what we already know? Even if we think our lives are truly novel and unique, why can't we summon the strength to hope for something more in common with real liberation? Couldn't we at least revisit our definitions of freedom, license, liberty, democracy, and even humanity within the unique context we have now. Couldn't we embrace, once and for all, complexity, randomness, and change? Isn't self-deception and self-satisfaction nothing less than pure evil? And couldn’t we recognize that no one individual is ever truly in charge, and that from nothing something may come, and that not to build on what we have is truly sinful?
Is this well-worn path through the jungle leading somewhere better? Of course the path has its utility and meaning, but what lies in the woods away from our usual destination? Isn't it true that humans are explorers? We go out and find out: experience, test, improvise, experiment, invent, imagine, create, fail and find, adopt and abandon, persist and give up, chase and flee, while building an unconscious web of perception along the way; and then, through some amazing intermediary processes this web-of-perception turns into a model of reality. Then via chemical, kinetic, light, heat, thermal, and intrinsic energy combined with mysterious willpower, seemingly instantaneously, the miracle of conscious thought begins to create a narrative of what we experience, and as this reality evolves and changes we create from the fruit or failure of our endeavors the things that define us. Wisdom is the result of our adventures, follies and failures. Wisdom comes with the attention paid to important aspects of our existence. Wisdom is the deep understanding of our vulnerabilities and our strengths, our successes and our failures.
We don't live in small isolated bands anymore, we live in a global economy of consumers. And our current mandate is to consume more and more until we consume everything. Let's not be fooled by words like “green”, “natural”, “organic”, and “sustainable”. As our population grows the current global business paradigm stands for unchecked growth in consumption; and we all must know, at least intuitively, where that eventually leads.
In many ways we are different from our ancient ancestors, and yet, there are aspects of human nature that never seem to change. Some aspects of our nature, it seems, are too complex a puzzle for evolution to act upon. Or perhaps there simply isn’t enough time for a brilliant species to come into harmony with its genius; perhaps wise species are all destined to disappear in a flash — wiped out in the prime of their youth by reckless invention and spurious desires. We seem to be in a hurry to taste oblivion because we just can’t endure the immense weight of being conscious of our own being. We shed crocodile tears when thinking of our fate while remaining oblivious completely to the harmony and beauty of our crocodile minds. And indeed which creature has been here longer? (Two hundred million years for the crocodile vs. two hundred thousand years for modern humans — will we be able to surpass that record?)
Supernova
We are not history, we are not the future, nor are we merely dreamers and hopeful actors. What we remember we should forget, and what we have forgotten is how to remember all the things that make us what we are. We cannot rely on future trends or technologies to save us because we are not yet wise enough to comprehend their profound effects. What we need to rely on is the true importance of prime values. We must put the right value on every aspect of who we are and on everything we depend on. We must learn to value the network itself and all the interdependencies that make every system work.
Merely fighting, slaving and dying for a changing set of values will not set us free, nor will we be set free by fighting, slaving and dying to conserve a set of values. To understand the complex interdependencies, the unintended consequences, the random fluctuations, the stumbling forward and falling back requires great humility and patients. To map the damage, to truly appreciate the collateral damage caused by our actions marks only the beginning of the quest to comprehend the importance of true value. The mental anguish required to do this is necessary to establish a balanced interpretation of reality, and the core values inherent in it and emerging from it that will most help our species improve its quality of life and give us the wisdom to preserve and care for our environment. We need only a slight bit more courage.
Those of us lucky enough have an internet connection, to have that amazing encyclopedia at our fingertips, find ourselves mesmerized by TED TALKS; presentations that belie complex things that we can never hope to consolidate into a well conceived and ideal culture. The current trend, “Public Meeting Lite”, requiring fewer calories and less energy to comprehend is only diverting us from even more empty distractions. Our souls are on a crash diet imposed by the invisible hand. We have become accustomed to nice little sketches that wrap our minds in insulation preventing us from embracing the challenges of true argument and debate. Counterfeit truths are the only thing on the menu that we copyright and trade on the market of the spectacle in a hall of mirrors. (We would rob our own tombs if we thought it would raise the price of our bones.) And this entertainment, remember, is reserved for those of us who can afford the price of the platform. The audience is in a silo of small-change, clapping in quicksand — shallow knowledge swallows us whole producing a dark silence, followed by a sharp ringing in our heads (as opposed to a light at the end of a tunnel) followed again by complete silence, and the humiliation of having a faint feeling that you're still confused and have nothing to give — and the utter helplessness caused by the bondage of inaction.
Perhaps, those who compose such narratives only hope to perfect the dynamics of their ideals. (Values and ideals reveal their true beauty when mutating, as new traits flower solving problems, or creating unpredictable new pathways, or producing better qualities.) The story tellers perform before captivated fans, willing dupes waiting desperately for consolation. Fans who wish to have their fears assuaged by the light of human brilliance, hoping to absorb and maintain that fading light after the performance has ended.
Being a member of an esteemed audience allows us to find comfort in the bosom of our group as we believe we can’t survive if shunned.
And the story is almost always the same: those forced to endure an epic struggle eventually become heroes and salespeople. And so, in such an enduring way, nobility is defined simply by the struggle to survive — survival being its own banal reward — along with the products that facilitate our survival.
And as we capitalize on our observations of our derived and typical opinions stolen from our peers, plagiarized from history, and gleaned (meme’d) from our culture: Those things that we have been exposed to, and those things we can claim as inspiration for our own ideas, those things that give rise to faith in our "Agency", will, at the very least, be given the mechanism for our fantasy selves to be sculpted by. The river doesn’t necessarily determine its course through attrition.
We can package these mundane ideas into well-reasoned and orchestrated presentations that make us comfortable with our pretensions. This sad nature of ours — this unforgiving nature of ours; burdened by habits, worship, our narcissism; our hubris and our slavery to fashion: Our thirst for a place in the geometry of complex social structure and expression, our addiction to each other and ourselves — a Platonic vessel that ought to transcend thought, defined only by its emptiness, emerging from the void, as temporary as our universe.
Whether we fade or blossom, we will pay for the risks we take, for our losses, and for the power we temporarily gain; like some horrific deal with the Devil where the payoffs sum up our doom. We will still celebrate our performances — for our presentations are but our way to sell the circus to the pray and the house to the predator.
Applaud for what is familiar, for the common narrative, for the lack of creativity, and the lack of understanding of who and what we are: The world of imperfect actors, who, although striving constantly themselves, have not the clarity of thought to quell the noise of the 21st Century and champion peace and vitality.
17th Century Landscape
The noise, it seems, even way back when, when people could only scratch their dreams into rocks in dark caves, could not be silenced: But one has to wonder at their experiences, and the courage it took just to be human — the courage it took to simply be. Being without the anxiety of becoming may sound like heaven, but being in our world requires us to constantly strive for something better.
Rock art from Algeria.
Globe Hackers wants you to share this film.
Watch and share "DISRUPTION".
We simply want you to share this film with as many people and organizations as you can. Be sure to tell your leaders about this film.
What humans can aspire to depends on what we do right now to stop climate change in its tracks.
Let's create a new system that values all resources and capital correctly. We need to think through everything we're currently taking for granted.
Let's get together, get involved and do something.
The Unbearable Weight of our Nature - 3
Being without the anxiety of becoming No. 3
Human beings are survivors. Our species has been on the planet for a split second of geological time and throughout that brief history we have known feuds, vendettas and wars. From brief tribal conflicts to warring States engaged in bloody conflict lasting decades, to world conflagrations of mass destruction. And all of this is part and parcel of our nature.
Human beings are curious and creative creatures: some however, are more curious and creative than others.
Human beings experience, on a daily basis, many unconscious cognitive biases.
Human beings can be loving and kind. Human beings can also be ultra violent. It seems, at times however, that we are obsessed with violence.
And the show must go on.
The lucky ones among us can peer out through our television sets and bemoan the tragic effects of the dark side of our nature on people far away. We sit in wonder, disappointment and horror at the violent habits of humankind (or here, perhaps, it would be more correct to say mankind). We hope the turmoil will end, or we just want it to go away by some miracle; we may feel helpless, and we may believe there’s nothing we can do. These feelings are only nature after all.
Geopolitics is complex. In light of the current, most recent, “troubles” in Israel and Gaza I’d like to share some reading I’m engaged in as I try to understand the context of the conflict, and as I try to imagine that there could be an end to all of this. I’m reading papers I think are well referenced and “balanced”, and I’m trying not taking sides. I’m keeping an open mind and all that. Like most people, I think it’s simply tragic and I wish there were a way to fix it, but after watching this go on since the 1970s I’m fairly certain, that in my lifetime anyway, we’ll be seeing this conflict erupt again and again.
It's real life for Jews and Palestinians in the Mideast and Diaspora, to share a certain symbolic life. A mosaic of tiles with an olive tree in an obviously bio-dynamic garden. So when do we plant Eden?
First a quick anecdote: the other night I was sharing a drink with some friends. This group is truly international and one of my friends is an Israeli. As we talked about the violence in the Middle East my Israeli friend started throwing pebbles at me (pebbles = missiles) and being engaged in a heated discussion with another person I kept telling him to stop. “Hey buddy, quit it.” But he just kept hurling little pebbles at me. Then I turned to him, and more emphatically said, “Now stop it”! He looked at me and said, “I rest my case”.
What’s a good come back to that? Should I have just started throwing pebbles back at him until we got into a fistfight to the death? My comeback was, “I hear you man”. And that was that.
Like most people interested in history, I read my fair share of books about warfare and wars. All I know from my reading is that despite all the wars throughout history, not one, in the long run, will have lead to anything that would justify to a mother, the loss of her child. Not really. I mean for those of us left standing after the dust clears we can and mostly will justify what happened so we can live with our grief and horror – that’s human nature. But those responsible for starting and fueling conflicts never, ever really achieve their ultimate goals. With the exception of having to fend off an aggressive attack on your homeland, war is good for nothing. And you’re right, I’m not going to tell a troop of Viking raiders that. But I ask you, what kind of 21st Century do we want?
Oh sure, conflict has given us motivation for invention, innovation, and has focused resources on the development of new technologies. Competitive conflict also gives us a place to hang our pride.
WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING
However, history is not linear; it’s stochastic, fumbling, haphazard and messy and perhaps, not even real (I’m not making a post modernist quip here). When we look back with our post hoc, just so, reasoning, we’ll be compelled to make up stories, sometimes based on good evidence, that try to make sense of events; we’ll find patterns that help us understand and justify our actions, and then we’ll neatly wrap our legends in a nice shiny package that corresponds with our conventional worldview. And above all, we’ll make things fit our cultural narrative. We’ll make sure our pride stays in tact. We’ll guard our identity like it’s been written in stone by you know who. And no matter how we spin it, we’ll all be calling the kettle black.
Human beings are proud creatures.
Much has been written about the pattern-seeking ape. Michael Shermer gives a good description of our patter seeking proclivities in his books, “Why People Believe in Weird Things” and “The Science of Good and Evil”.
But I digress, just a little bit, however I’m still on the major topic of Human Nature.
Has anyone watched the series Gangland about gangs in the United States? There’s a new season for 2014. I guess it’s going to be a long running show. And there you have it, under certain circumstances people can click-up and become quite brutal, and what do you know, it’s all about territory, brotherhood, family, self defense and respect. WOW!
This kind of tribal warfare still exists in the cities of America. Heck, this exists all over the world. And, I guess, we can tolerate it, because we still haven’t found a sociocultural, sociopolitical, or human health solution to the problem of gangs. Focus on the Family hasn’t stopped it, and neither have liberal academics. The police state can’t stem the tide, special forces are impotent in the face of the onslaught, we don’t have enough prisons to house everyone we don’t like either, despite prisons being a good investment. We beg God for mercy and call him great and still it continues. We, human beings, of great and triumphant cultures, have not even had the will to get to the root causes of the problem. But there it is, tribal violence of many kinds afflict the nations of the world, and again, this despite THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE.
(And when the Cold War ended where did all the nukes go? More than enough ICBMs to do the job are still there pointing at us. My face! Not my beautiful face!)
I can’t tell you why this is. I’m simply not qualified. I’ve read books about primitive tribes in Borneo, Iwo Jima, mythology, religion, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience and science fiction and I’m still no closer to answering the question: Why do we tolerate this?
World religions and various flavors of secular humanist worldviews all stake a claim that they value morals and ethics, and still, within the tradeoffs we inevitably must make, we seem to stomach violence just enough to never get down to the real causes of violence and root them out.
And having said that, I still think we might be able to get there somehow, but I also feel that some of us are inherently more sensitive to the tragic effects of violence than others. Some people may have a genetic makeup that favors compassion and empathy just a little more than others. Such is the variety of humankind and our dichotomous nature. (I must include a whole lot of middle here too, but the good vs. evil thing is just so entrenched.) And how can you grow up to be peaceful when you've grown up in hell?
In my humble… Here are a couple of places you might find some good information about the perennial conflict in Israel and Gaza. I must emphasize that I am not wise enough, informed enough, or inclined to take sides. I have friends from all sides. The people I know are good people. I’m stuck in the middle in the maelstrom of rationalizations. I’m not religious, but it seems that all I can do is pray for it to end. I’m hoping that clever Globe Hackers will find a way to improve the systems that still allow for things like this to happen. We are adversarial creatures – I know that – and our institutions are there to temper our tendency to get into dangerous conflicts with each other. Yes Thomas Hobbes, I know that. And yes, nothing’s perfect, I get that, I’m just saying…
Now I must beseech you to please click on all the hyperlinks and read a little bit. I know we’re all busy, but if you just have a look it might help things in some remote and mysterious way. Look at all sides of the complex issues involved and think about it a while, and then, when someone starts throwing pebbles at you, you might be able to find a solution that would benefit the hurler and the pelted. You might find a way for the tit-for-tat to end. I think all people are potential agents for good. People are our most valuable resource. If they are treated well, understood and loved they can create great things that all of humanity can appreciate. I know, I know – I’m just saying…
A pro Israel perspective:
MYTH AND FACTS .org
A Joint Perspective:
PALESTINE - ISRAEL JOURNAL of Politics, Economics and Culture
And of course we always have Noam Chompsky to weigh in:
Noam Chomsky interviewed by Hub Radio
The University of the West of England, April 23, 2008
And why not include Chris Hedges:
THE PALESTINIANS' RIGHT to SELF-DEFENSE
And one more from Chris Hedges, just incase you think he doesn't have the creds to be talking about the region.
I know where to get the party lines from; I know the conventional thinking about all of this, which amounts to not thinking about it at all really. We try to simplify complex things – that’s human nature. We try to rationalize our positions – that’s human nature. We find convenient patterns that confirm our biases – that’s human nature. We defend our group’s position – that’s human nature.
So does anyone out there have a feasible “hack” for this particular problem
There is only one way to hack our nature - know your nature.
Please do share.
Peace
The Unbearable Weight of our Nature - 2
Being without the anxiety of becoming No. 2
I have been lucky enough to stumble upon another post that I must share with you. I feel every word of what this person is saying. I'll include a link at the end of this short post.
(Don't forget to click on the hyperlinks.)
Before I start sharing my personal musings on the subject of human nature & culture I'd like to share some simple courses that I've enjoyed. As the weeks pass I hope this social network will include many more people sharing much ado about everything with a curious and vivacious crowd of Globe Hackers.
We need each other to make things work.
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Being without the anxiety of becoming. I would like you to take 20 slow, deep and rhythmic breaths and meditate on that idea. Just take a few moments - 20 breaths focused on being without the anxiety of becoming.
When I do it I feel inspired. I feel alive. I feel greater access to possibilities.
To be truly creative one must expose oneself to as much information, knowledge, wisdom, deep thinking and complexity as one can across as many domains as one can handle for a long period of time, and then be able to edit this input to cut out everything that really doesn't matter. Throw the garbage out and keep the connections that matter. Constraints imposed from the constructs of this process will force one to be creative. While engaging in the process it's inevitable that one will create something, or be more creative. Inspiration is everywhere, if you feel bogged down, delve into something profound - deeply - and you will come out of the effort with ideas and creative actions.
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It's not so much that things are broken and need to be fixed as it's the reality that in most contexts and circumstances things can always be improved, or that new solutions can be found - within the tradeoffs - that might be better than the old ones. If something is out of balance or unhealthy there is usually a way to get back to a dynamic stasis. I don't mean to say that heuristics, or traditions must be changed, there are many good reasons why heuristics and traditions stand the test of millenia. I'm just saying that if it feels like something isn't working, it may be time for a change. And that sometimes, not always, the change will be for the better.
It's important to talk back to power and explore the unfamiliar.
Proximity helps, but it may not be the only determinate factor in friendship.
I've often wondered why I got along with Patrick at the back of my 5th grade class and not Thomas who was sitting right next to me in the same row. I always had a tacit intuition that it's just because Patrick is my-kind-of-people. Today science is exposing new information about mechanisms that influence human preferences. Why are some of us conservative, or liberal, or loyal, or risk takers, etc.? There are all kinds of people. Today science has given us many avenues to understanding what makes us who and what we are. A better understanding of our nature is right there for us to look into. It's not hard or laborious; it's a fascinating undertaking, and it's good for you.
I'm fairly sure that the more we know about human nature, the better we can understand ourselves, and that's a good thing. We need to go beyond just taking things for granted. If we know how we became who we think we are we will have more freedom to grow the way we like. The only way to come close to accessing "free will" is to go beyond a naive understanding of ourselves and our species.
If you want to be mythological about it ask yourself why God doesn't just get rid of Satan? Why does he create a species that has to do his dirty work for him? "I command you to kill the first born..." "We must engage in holy war to spite the heretics." Do we really need EVIL just to access a little bit of "free will"? I wonder. I wonder if people understood their nature a lot better, we would still have so much turmoil in the world. I guess the nature of my faith is that humans can be better people when they know themselves better as a species.
Talk back to power, and explore the unfamiliar.
BETTER JUDGEMENT DAY
The golden rule is a simple and universal heuristic that we should remember everyday. How can any of us really feel good when we know so many of us are feeling terribly bad. How can we tolerate mass extinction just because behind the curtain there may be - A NEW CAR!
Once again, I'm calling for all good Globe Hackers to rewrite the maintenance manual for the Spaceship Earth. We can endeavor to maintain a sustainable environment, dynamic biosphere, and human culture that will last, here it comes, put your pinky to the side of your mouth, raise your eyebrows, squint a wee bit, "TEN THOUSAND YEARS"!
The Mastermind becomes an agent for good.
Here are domains to delve into if you are interested in Human Nature:
Physiology / Psychology / Biology / Neurology / Chemistry / History / Literature / Sociology / Philosophy / and yes, even PHYSICS!
(Just to name a few.)
Here's a link to an OPEN YALE COURSE on the subject:
Philosophy and Science of Human Nature
by Tamar Gendler
It seems that those of us with access and the inclination, for now at least, are guaranteed a good liberal education. Can we all say, "thankful". I hope we can keep it like this, free as free can be - for now.
Here's something else to help you in your quest to better understand your nature. I couldn't possibly be more emphatic in recommending this comprehensive course on critical thinking. Every single one of us can benefit from watching or listening to Steven Novella. It's a must I tell you, a must!
Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills, by Steven Novella
These are just a couple of simple, easy to follow resources I've personally enjoyed. You could also just go to your local university library and challenge yourself by reading advanced textbooks. Who knows, you might even meet someone at the library to go out to a cafe with.
It seems molecules, and hormones have as much to do with our nature as "nature" and "nurture". If we choose to do so we can find out more about ourselves than we might be able to imagine - through self study, work, thought and meditation.
Our experiences make up a vast tapestry of natural things we hardly even notice. Microbes are there pushing us and enabling us, words on Facebook posts, the moods of crowds, facial expressions, brain injuries, diets, habits of movement, exercise, color, scents, and on and on.... The banal illusion of the permanent self that many of us are boxed into is an antiquated rut, a fossilized road to nowhere. A complex network of energy, matter and motion may be what determines our nature, and modeling that might be the more accurate and liberating pursuit leading us to a more productive and harmonious relationship with reality.
You can find out about all of it. It's a joy to do so.
This suggestion is good for men who would like to understand women a bit better. This trumps "Men are from Mars and Women from Venus" by far, but is still no where near a medical degree.
The Female Brain Louann Brizendine
She also wrote a book on the male brain for the ladies in the house.
Finally, I want to share with you an article I read yesterday. I had the feeling when I read it that I could have written it. You know what I mean. I shook my head and sighed and wondered what I'll be writing if I'm still alive at 70. I let my shoulders slump and I wondered if people 100 or 1000 years ago felt the same. I think we know the answer if we are fans of ancient texts.
I hope you will read this:
The Future Is Not Ours, and Neither Is the Past
At age 70, a writer reflects on the so-called ‘American Century’—and the world it wrought.
July 21, 2014
One more good read:
The Unbearable Weight of our Nature
Being without the anxiety of becoming. No. 1
It seems that for decades I've been primarily concerned with two things: culture, and human nature.
For my next several blog posts I want to discuss these subjects with you. What is human nature? How can we answer that question? After that I'd like to explore the conceptual bridge between human nature and human culture, and how they both flow into each other, and more importantly, that they're flexible, that both continue to evolve.
Globe Hackers aren't utopians, we just think things could be better, things could be different, we believe in the plasticity of human nature and culture. Things change after all, any cursory glance at history tells us that. At the same time, some things never seem to change. There are aspects of our nature that are obviously more fixed. I'm talking about our nature as it naturally is, not our transhumanist potential. And transhumanist potential is not something I would venture to go into. I have my doubts that we can survives as human beings if we go too far in that direction. In this regard I may be dystopian.
I could say that we strive not to be too naive. We're simply curious people, tinkerers seeking the truth within reality, imaging things we can do to improve our situation, and then doing those things.
We're all naturally survivalists. We have an instinct to live, but what kind of life will we be able to live? Here many questions of quality and values arise. Those of us inclined to ponder such questions will add to the dialogue and hopefully grow through the process. We'll do more than merely survive. Those of us who do more than merely survive are the lucky ones.
We're not doomsayers. We simply see things for what they are, when we have the opportunity to do so, when our unique circumstances allows our awareness to combine with profound ethical and moral sensibilities that move us towards an authentic and peaceful life with a whole set of evolving values that take into consideration the profound possibilities that lie in our future.
We're all engaged in our global, commercial world, we are receptive to the many messages flowing from our media sources, and we scarcely understand the influence of these messages on our behavior, mood and mentality, so much so, that we are unable to discern the root causes of our discomfort, confusion and stress. We can barely determine what is true and what is false so we capitulate.
We may be lost in our evolved nature and moved only by the appetites of the beast - our global consumer culture that we think we can't live without.
I have noticed in the media and on the "webs", so many people talking about their beliefs; people who are proud to believe. It seems that in some segments of our culture we're all want-to-be-believers. We'll give up our common sense and poor our energies into being a good member of a group that only believes. It seems safe there so why not? With all the dangers around us; with all the existential threats bearing down upon us; it's much more comforting simply to believe in something, in anything.
But wait, I'm not going to go down that road here. Not this time. I have something much better to share with you. I came across this documentary distributed by Journeyman Pictures in the U.K. I think you can learn a lot from this sober, straight forward, and evidence based film about consumer culture. I urge you to watch this and let us know what you think. It's not as alarmist as the title might suggest.
There are some real gems in this documentary. Look out for the "belly of the beast" story, also, what one commenter postulates we can do once we understand our psychology better, and what another commenter describes as the benefits of sustainable design.
Without further comment I share with you:
Consumed - Is Our Consumer Culture Leading to Disaster?
Statistical Thinking & Defensive Medicine
I've read two books by Ben Goldacre: Bad Science and Bad Pharma, How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients.
Here is a good review of Bad Pharma by Dr. David Healy.
I think both books are must reads for anyone interested in science and health. Most of us have no idea how the human mind can trick itself into tricking people. It's really kind of magical. (wink) The tricks we play on ourselves can lead to devastating outcomes in the real world - I'm talking about death here.
People are all vulnerable to things like motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. Most of us never learned about good statistical thinking. Percentages are thrown around all the time in the media that only confuse an issue while making it seem like the efficacy of a drug, or procedure is clear cut. But what do the numbers, the simple numbers, really say?
Everyday we are bombarded with information about diet programs, exercise routines, high tech healthcare, and the next, next thing in medicine. Most of this information is from the P.R. and Marketing Departments of companies motivated by one primary driver - money. A lot can become confused when it's all about the bottom line.
There are certain sectors of society that would be better off, I believe, if the primary driver wasn't money, if we could at least include some other incentives. For example, sectors of society where it's a question of life and death. In medicine we should have a mix of incentives that are properly paid attention to.
This morning I read an article from the BBC, and I just had to share it with you.
Do Doctors Understand Test Results by, William Kremer
It's important for all of us to understand that doctors and health workers are only human and just because they're wearing the white coat doesn't mean that they aren't vulnerable to making the same mistakes we might make when looking at statistics. I'm guessing that most of you are just as baffled by statistics as I am. I have to expend some energy making an effort to really understand the stats.
If I'm careful, and make an effort to understand good information presented to me in a way that I can readily understand, I'm hoping that I'll be able to make the right choices about my healthcare.
We must also understand that healthcare organizations are just as motivated by the bottom line as your neighborhood pub. I had an allergy once that was quickly "cured" by an injection of steroids, only after a barrage of tests at a San Francisco hospital that ruled out a list of scary conditions including Lupus Disease. These tests cost me and my insurance company over $5,000. I would have loved it if they had given me the steroids first and let me go home.
"It's surprising that in the 21st Century, many still think of doctors as Gods and you don't ask God." says Gigerenzer.
"A physician is someone who can help you but also someone you need to challenge in order to get the best treatment."
Gerd Gigerenzer and Glynn Elwyn spoke to Health Check on the BBC World Service. Listen again to the programme on the BBC iPlayer or get the Health Check podcast.
George Orwell's proposed preface to his novel, "Animal Farm"
I'd like to share this with you. It is, as yet, prescient. My next post will be regarding human nature and culture. Dare I say, throughout our history, there have been insightful people who really could intuit and articulate insights into human nature and culture that are clearly profound and accurate. I hope you enjoy this.
"History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes..." attributed to Mark Twain
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George Orwell
George Orwell
The Freedom of the Press
Orwell's Proposed Preface to ‘Animal Farm’
This book was first thought of, so far as the central idea goes, in 1937, but was not written down until about the end of 1943. By the time when it came to be written it was obvious that there would be great difficulty in getting it published (in spite of the present book shortage which ensures that anything describable as a book will ‘sell’), and in the event it was refused by four publishers. Only one of these had any ideological motive. Two had been publishing anti-Russian books for years, and the other had no noticeable political color. One publisher actually started by accepting the book, but after making the preliminary arrangements he decided to consult the Ministry of Information, who appear to have warned him, or at any rate strongly advised him, against publishing it. Here is an extract from his letter:
I mentioned the reaction I had had from an important official in the Ministry of Information with regard to Animal Farm. I must confess that this expression of opinion has given me seriously to think... I can see now that it might be regarded as something which it was highly ill-advised to publish at the present time. If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictatorships at large then publication would be all right, but the fable does follow, as I see now, so completely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia, to the exclusion of the other dictatorships. Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs[*]. I think the choice of pigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offence to many people, and particularly to anyone who is a bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are.
* It is not quite clear whether this suggested modification is Mr... ’s own idea, or originated with the Ministry of Information; but it seems to have the official ring about it. [Orwell’s Note]
This kind of thing is not a good symptom. Obviously it is not desirable that a government department should have any power of censorship (except security censorship, which no one objects to in war time) over books which are not officially sponsored. But the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of the MOI or any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.
Any fairminded person with journalistic experience will admit that during this war official censorship has not been particularly irksome. We have not been subjected to the kind of totalitarian ‘co-ordination’ that it might have been reasonable to expect. The press has some justified grievances, but on the whole the Government has behaved well and has been surprisingly tolerant of minority opinions. The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary.
Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news — things which on their own merits would get the big headlines-being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.
At this moment what is demanded by the prevailing orthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia. Everyone knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any serious criticism of the Soviet régime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet government would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to unprintable. And this nation-wide conspiracy to flatter our ally takes place, curiously enough, against a background of genuine intellectual tolerance. For though you arc not allowed to criticize the Soviet government, at least you are reasonably free to criticize our own. Hardly anyone will print an attack on Stalin, but it is quite safe to attack Churchill, at any rate in books and periodicals. And throughout five years of war, during two or three of which we were fighting for national survival, countless books, pamphlets and articles advocating a compromise peace have been published without interference. More, they have been published without exciting much disapproval. So long as the prestige of the USSR is not involved, the principle of free speech has been reasonably well upheld. There are other forbidden topics, and I shall mention some of them presently, but the prevailing attitude towards the USSR is much the most serious symptom. It is, as it were, spontaneous, and is not due to the action of any pressure group.
The servility with which the greater part of the English intelligentsia have swallowed and repeated Russian propaganda from 1941 onwards would be quite astounding if it were not that they have behaved similarly on several earlier occasions. On one controversial issue after another the Russian viewpoint has been accepted without examination and then publicized with complete disregard to historical truth or intellectual decency. To name only one instance, the BBC celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Red Army without mentioning Trotsky. This was about as accurate as commemorating the battle of Trafalgar without mentioning Nelson, but it evoked no protest from the English intelligentsia. In the internal struggles in the various occupied countries, the British press has in almost all cases sided with the faction favored by the Russians and libeled the opposing faction, sometimes suppressing material evidence in order to do so. A particularly glaring case was that of Colonel Mihailovich, the Jugoslav Chetnik leader. The Russians, who had their own Jugoslav protege in Marshal Tito, accused Mihailovich of collaborating with the Germans. This accusation was promptly taken up by the British press: Mihailovich’s supporters were given no chance of answering it, and facts contradicting it were simply kept out of print. In July of 1943 the Germans offered a reward of 100,000 gold crowns for the capture of Tito, and a similar reward for the capture of Mihailovich. The British press ‘splashed’ the reward for Tito, but only one paper mentioned (in small print) the reward for Mihailovich: and the charges of collaborating with the Germans continued. Very similar things happened during the Spanish civil war. Then, too, the factions on the Republican side which the Russians were determined to crush were recklessly libeled in the English leftwing [sic] press, and any statement in their defense even in letter form, was refused publication. At present, not only is serious criticism of the USSR considered reprehensible, but even the fact of the existence of such criticism is kept secret in some cases. For example, shortly before his death Trotsky had written a biography of Stalin. One may assume that it was not an altogether unbiased book, but obviously it was salable. An American publisher had arranged to issue it and the book was in print — 1 believe the review copies had been sent out — when the USSR entered the war. The book was immediately withdrawn. Not a word about this has ever appeared in the British press, though clearly the existence of such a book, and its suppression, was a news item worth a few paragraphs.
It is important to distinguish between the kind of censorship that the English literary intelligentsia voluntarily impose upon themselves, and the censorship that can sometimes be enforced by pressure groups. Notoriously, certain topics cannot be discussed because of ‘vested interests’. The best-known case is the patent medicine racket. Again, the Catholic Church has considerable influence in the press and can silence criticism of itself to some extent. A scandal involving a Catholic priest is almost never given publicity, whereas an Anglican priest who gets into trouble (e.g. the Rector of Stiffkey) is headline news. It is very rare for anything of an anti-Catholic tendency to appear on the stage or in a film. Any actor can tell you that a play or film which attacks or makes fun of the Catholic Church is liable to be boycotted in the press and will probably be a failure. But this kind of thing is harmless, or at least it is understandable. Any large organization will look after its own interests as best it can, and overt propaganda is not a thing to object to. One would no more expect the Daily Worker to publicize unfavorable facts about the USSR than one would expect the Catholic Herald to denounce the Pope. But then every thinking person knows the Daily Worker and the Catholic Herald for what they are. What is disquieting is that where the USSR and its policies are concerned one cannot expect intelligent criticism or even, in many cases, plain honesty from Liberal [sic — and throughout as typescript] writers and journalists who are under no direct pressure to falsify their opinions. Stalin is sacrosanct and certain aspects of his policy must not be seriously discussed. This rule has been almost universally observed since 1941, but it had operated, to a greater extent than is sometimes realized, for ten years earlier than that. Throughout that time, criticism of the Soviet régime from the left could only obtain a hearing with difficulty. There was a huge output of anti-Russian literature, but nearly all of it was from the Conservative angle and manifestly dishonest, out of date and actuated by sordid motives. On the other side there was an equally huge and almost equally dishonest stream of pro-Russian propaganda, and what amounted to a boycott on anyone who tried to discuss all-important questions in a grown-up manner. You could, indeed, publish anti-Russian books, but to do so was to make sure of being ignored or misrepresented by nearly me whole of the highbrow press. Both publicly and privately you were warned that it was ‘not done’. What you said might possibly be true, but it was ‘inopportune’ and played into the hands of this or that reactionary interest. This attitude was usually defended on the ground that the international situation, and me urgent need for an Anglo-Russian alliance, demanded it; but it was clear that this was a rationalization. The English intelligentsia, or a great part of it, had developed a nationalistic loyalty towards me USSR, and in their hearts they felt that to cast any doubt on me wisdom of Stalin was a kind of blasphemy. Events in Russia and events elsewhere were to be judged by different standards. The endless executions in me purges of 1936-8 were applauded by life-long opponents of capital punishment, and it was considered equally proper to publicize famines when they happened in India and to conceal them when they happened in me Ukraine. And if this was true before the war, the intellectual atmosphere is certainly no better now.
But now to come back to this book of mine. The reaction towards it of most English intellectuals will be quite simple: ‘It oughtn’t to have been published.’ Naturally, those reviewers who understand the art of denigration will not attack it on political grounds but on literary ones. They will say that it is a dull, silly book and a disgraceful waste of paper. This may well be true, but it is obviously not me whole of the story. One does not say that a book ‘ought not to have been published’ merely because it is a bad book. After all, acres of rubbish are printed daily and no one bothers. The English intelligentsia, or most of them, will object to this book because it traduces their Leader and (as they see it) does harm to the cause of progress. If it did me opposite they would have nothing to say against it, even if its literary faults were ten times as glaring as they are. The success of, for instance, the Left Book Club over a period of four or five years shows how willing they are to tolerate both scurrility and slipshod writing, provided that it tells them what they want to hear.
The issue involved here is quite a simple one: Is every opinion, however unpopular — however foolish, even — entitled to a hearing? Put it in that form and nearly any English intellectual will feel that he ought to say ‘Yes’. But give it a concrete shape, and ask, ‘How about an attack on Stalin? Is that entitled to a hearing?’, and the answer more often than not will be ‘No’, In that case the current orthodoxy happens to be challenged, and so the principle of free speech lapses. Now, when one demands liberty of speech and of the press, one is not demanding absolute liberty. There always must be, or at any rate there always will be, some degree of censorship, so long as organized societies endure. But freedom, as Rosa Luxembourg [sic] said, is ‘freedom for the other fellow’. The same principle is contained in the famous words of Voltaire: ‘I detest what you say; I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ If the intellectual liberty which without a doubt has been one of the distinguishing marks of western civilization means anything at all, it means that everyone shall have the right to say and to print what he believes to be the truth, provided only that it does not harm the rest of the community in some quite unmistakable way. Both capitalist democracy and the western versions of Socialism have till recently taken that principle for granted. Our Government, as I have already pointed out, still makes some show of respecting it. The ordinary people in the street-partly, perhaps, because they are not sufficiently interested in ideas to be intolerant about them-still vaguely hold that ‘I suppose everyone’s got a right to their own opinion.’ It is only, or at any rate it is chiefly, the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it, in theory as well as in practice.
One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that ‘bourgeois liberty’ is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought. This argument was used, for instance, to justify the Russian purges. The most ardent Russophile hardly believed that all of the victims were guilty of all the things they were accused of: but by holding heretical opinions they ‘objectively’ harmed the régime, and therefore it was quite right not only to massacre them but to discredit them by false accusations. The same argument was used to justify the quite conscious lying that went on in the left-wing press about the Trotskyists and other Republican minorities in the Spanish civil war. And it was used again as a reason for yelping against habeas corpus when Mosley was released in 1943.
These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you. Make a habit of imprisoning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the process won’t stop at Fascists. Soon after the suppressed Daily Worker had been reinstated, I was lecturing to a working-men’s college in South London. The audience were working-class and lower-middle class intellectuals — the same sort of audience that one used to meet at Left Book Club branches. The lecture had touched on the freedom of the press, and at the end, to my astonishment, several questioners stood up and asked me: Did I not think that the lifting of the ban on the Daily Worker was a great mistake? When asked why, they said that it was a paper of doubtful loyalty and ought not to be tolerated in war time. I found myself defending the Daily Worker, which has gone out of its way to libel me more than once. But where had these people learned this essentially totalitarian outlook? Pretty certainly they had learned it from the Communists themselves! Tolerance and decency are deeply rooted in England, but they are not indestructible, and they have to be kept alive partly by conscious effort. The result of preaching totalitarian doctrines is to weaken the instinct by means of which free peoples know what is or is not dangerous. The case of Mosley illustrates this. In 1940 it was perfectly right to intern Mosley, whether or not he had committed any technical crime. We were fighting for our lives and could not allow a possible quisling to go free. To keep him shut up, without trial, in 1943 was an outrage. The general failure to see this was a bad symptom, though it is true that the agitation against Mosley’s release was partly factitious and partly a rationalization of other discontents. But how much of the present slide towards Fascist ways of thought is traceable to the ‘anti-Fascism’ of the past ten years and the unscrupulousness it has entailed?
It is important to realize that the current Russomania is only a symptom of the general weakening of the western liberal tradition. Had the MOI chipped in and definitely vetoed the publication of this book, the bulk of the English intelligentsia would have seen nothing disquieting in this. Uncritical loyalty to the USSR happens to be the current orthodoxy, and where the supposed interests of the USSR are involved they are willing to tolerate not only censorship but the deliberate falsification of history. To name one instance. At the death of John Reed, the author of Ten Days that Shook the World — first-hand account of the early days of the Russian Revolution — the copyright of the book passed into the hands of the British Communist Party, to whom I believe Reed had bequeathed it. Some years later the British Communists, having destroyed the original edition of the book as completely as they could, issued a garbled version from which they had eliminated mentions of Trotsky and also omitted the introduction written by Lenin. If a radical intelligentsia had still existed in Britain, this act of forgery would have been exposed and denounced in every literary paper in the country. As it was there was little or no protest. To many English intellectuals it seemed quite a natural thing to do. And this tolerance or [sic = of?] plain dishonesty means much more than that admiration for Russia happens to be fashionable at this moment. Quite possibly that particular fashion will not last. For all I know, by the time this book is published my view of the Soviet régime may be the generally-accepted one. But what use would that be in itself? To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.
I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech — the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don’t convince me and that our civilization over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice. For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won. If I had to choose a text to justify myself, I should choose the line from Milton:
By the known rules of ancient liberty.
The word ancient emphasizes the fact that intellectual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our characteristic western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals arc visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency. And others who do not actually hold this view assent to it from sheer cowardice. An example of this is the failure of the numerous and vocal English pacifists to raise their voices against the prevalent worship of Russian militarism. According to those pacifists, all violence is evil, and they have urged us at every stage of the war to give in or at least to make a compromise peace. But how many of them have ever suggested that war is also evil when it is waged by the Red Army? Apparently the Russians have a right to defend themselves, whereas for us to do [so] is a deadly sin. One can only explain this contradiction in one way: that is, by a cowardly desire to keep in with the bulk of the intelligentsia, whose patriotism is directed towards the USSR rather than towards Britain. I know that the English intelligentsia have plenty of reason for their timidity and dishonesty, indeed I know by heart the arguments by which they justify themselves. But at least let us have no more nonsense about defending liberty against Fascism. If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. The common people still vaguely subscribe to that doctrine and act on it. In our country — it is not the same in all countries: it was not so in republican France, and it is not so in the USA today — it is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect: it is to draw attention to that fact that I have written this preface.
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http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-animalfarm/
Animal Farm will no doubt remain a constant classic. Certain struggles never end and are only masked by the fashions or concerns of the day.
"Gramophone culture..."
We may have wonderful technology and huge amounts of data and information at our finger tips, but we may not have evolved enough as a collective to make good use of it. The challenge will remain, how to turn information into wisdom and intelligence, and how to gently control the evolution of human culture so that we might improve our species and ensure the longevity of our wonderful habitat with all of its creatures great and small.
All sides co-opt the concept of "freedom" as their banner cause, but few of us really understand how important intellectual freedom and integrity really is. Intellectual freedom and integrity must be treasured as the foundation of a "progressive" culture.
(We mean to make progress my friends.)
And trust me, certain modes of society or behavior should never be trusted.
"These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you."
We are part and parcel of Space Ship Earth and must endeavor to be its loving stewards. Our intimate connection to our world does not preclude the possibility of our absence from it. This amazing world where our species evolved, and continues over time to evolve, will eventually continue its existence without us. How long we remain guests of our Earth and our Universe depends on what we do. We must learn about what motivates our beliefs and actions.
I would like to see our species continue its curious quest to understand nature for thousands of years to come. Globe Hackers is here to engage with people who feel the same.
We hope to hear from you.
Please read the books, not just the headlines, synopses or reviews. Then have nap, a nice snack and expend some energy thinking about things. It's good for you.