Category Archives: Information

Economics & Livelihood

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“financial innovations such as mortgages, insurance, venture funding, stocks, checks, credit cards, mutual funds, to name only a few, have completely reshaped our economy.” 2

“this small sector has influenced how all business is done, and how we structure our lives.”

“The dynamic of our society, and particularly our new economy, will increasingly obey the logic of networks. Understanding how networks work will be the key to understanding how the economy works.”

Kevin Kelly – New Rules for the New Economy

The Opposite of Community

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“The Wilkses, who now own some 700,000 acres across several states, have become a symbol of the out-of-touch owner. In Idaho, as their property has expanded, the brothers have shuttered trails and hired armed guards to patrol their acres, blocking and stymying access not only to their private property, but also to some publicly owned areas.”

“In 2018, more than 20,000 Californians arrived in Idaho; home prices around Boise also jumped 17 percent. This has meant not just new subdivisions and microbreweries, but also packed schools, crowded ski trails and heightened anxiety among teachers, plumbers and others, who are finding that they can no longer afford a first home.”

““John earned everything that he’s made,” said Rye Austin, who leads the land preservation foundation created by John Malone’s family. “If he wants to purchase and own land, we live in a capitalist country, why shouldn’t someone be able to buy land? That’s the whole concept of private property.'”

“In Idaho, the Wilks brothers did more than gate a few roads. They also revoked road-use contracts that propped up the region’s multimillion-dollar snowmobile industry, shut down hunting on their land and told timber companies to pull crews from the area. About 100 people lost their jobs.”

“Amid the dispute, some residents emailed the Wilkses, asking permission to cross their property. They were surprised to receive a response suggesting they first visit a popular right-wing website and share their opinions of its content.

The site, PragerU, features videos supporting the hard-lined conservative views of personalities like Ben Shapiro and Dinesh D’Souza. The portal has been heavily financed by the Wilkses.

Mr. Horting, a lifelong conservative, was “insulted,” he said. “I’m not going to give my political views to use your land.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/22/us/wilks-brothers-fracking-business.html

Sensitivity – Groups

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““In the end this is a human process,” said Leon Panetta, who served as defense secretary and CIA director for President Barack Obama. “What human beings tend to do is they make judgments about people who are at the table, and whether or not they have the strength and the position and the knowledge and the experience to be able to voice their opinions.” 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trumps-decision-making-on-iran-strike-highlights-absence-of-a-confirmed-defense-secretary/2019/06/22/6f617d8c-950e-11e9-b72d-d56510fa753e_story.html

Democracy 3.0

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“People were happy when they controlled their destiny, when their voice was heard, when they participated in public events, when the government did not do things to them, or even for them, but with them.”

“As political animals, human beings need a city, a nation, in which to flourish. People can develop their talents only in society. The good society nurtures many talents, and the political system makes that possible by what it rewards and encourages.”

“The root problem,” he said, “is in the fact of dependency and uselessness itself. Unemployment means having nothing to do, which means nothing to do with the rest of us. To be without work, to be without use to one’s fellow citizens, is to be in truth the invisible man of whom Ralph Ellison wrote.”

“We need to create and sustain jobs that let men and women say to their community, to their family, to their country, and most important, to themselves, “I helped to build this city. I am a participant in its great public ventures. I count.”

At the moment, unfortunately, few people would regard building the city as a source of happiness, even when they’re doing it. A few weeks ago, I was at a political event in Washington. Over 12,000 people from all over the country had come to participate. When I asked the woman who was standing next to me what made her happy, she described the purchase of a lovely piece of pottery. She never thought of saying, “Standing here, working for my country, making my mark on American policy.” Yet she had devoted hundreds of hours to doing just that. She simply did not see what she was doing. She didn’t have a name for it. 

Surveys won’t give her the answer. Only thoughtful discussions of the true meaning of happiness and prosperity will awaken people to what it is that really fulfills them and will give them the words to describe it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/the-pursuit-of-happiness-what-the-founders-meant-and-didnt/240708/

“It took me a long time, but as I got older, I realized that life was more than just about work, technical innovation and business. Michael and others worked to preserve and protect the values that made life worth living. And while we were making things, they were the ones who were changing our society into a more just place to live.”

“the measure of a life is not time or money. It’s the impact you make serving God, your family, community, and country.”

https://medium.com/@sgblank/uc-santa-cruz-commencement-speech-2019-7228d464f4d6

https://time.com/4985185/john-mccain-liberty-medal-speech/

How Ireland used a Citizens’ Assembly to solve some of its toughest problems.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/05/a-jury-of-peers/

Hong Kong Protests

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/06/hong-kongs-protests-leader/591820/

Mendocino Fire

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/california-wildfires-cause-wasp-nest-ranch-glenn-kile-investigation-a8954741.html

The Pursuit of Happiness

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“People were happy when they controlled their destiny, when their voice was heard, when they participated in public events, when the government did not do things to them, or even for them, but with them.”

“As political animals, human beings need a city, a nation, in which to flourish. People can develop their talents only in society. The good society nurtures many talents, and the political system makes that possible by what it rewards and encourages.”

“The root problem,” he said, “is in the fact of dependency and uselessness itself. Unemployment means having nothing to do, which means nothing to do with the rest of us. To be without work, to be without use to one’s fellow citizens, is to be in truth the invisible man of whom Ralph Ellison wrote.”

“We need to create and sustain jobs that let men and women say to their community, to their family, to their country, and most important, to themselves, “I helped to build this city. I am a participant in its great public ventures. I count.”

At the moment, unfortunately, few people would regard building the city as a source of happiness, even when they’re doing it. A few weeks ago, I was at a political event in Washington. Over 12,000 people from all over the country had come to participate. When I asked the woman who was standing next to me what made her happy, she described the purchase of a lovely piece of pottery. She never thought of saying, “Standing here, working for my country, making my mark on American policy.” Yet she had devoted hundreds of hours to doing just that. She simply did not see what she was doing. She didn’t have a name for it. 

Surveys won’t give her the answer. Only thoughtful discussions of the true meaning of happiness and prosperity will awaken people to what it is that really fulfills them and will give them the words to describe it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/the-pursuit-of-happiness-what-the-founders-meant-and-didnt/240708/

“It took me a long time, but as I got older, I realized that life was more than just about work, technical innovation and business. Michael and others worked to preserve and protect the values that made life worth living. And while we were making things, they were the ones who were changing our society into a more just place to live.”

“the measure of a life is not time or money. It’s the impact you make serving God, your family, community, and country.”

https://medium.com/@sgblank/uc-santa-cruz-commencement-speech-2019-7228d464f4d6

https://time.com/4985185/john-mccain-liberty-medal-speech/

This I Believe – May 1, 2019

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Happiness = Growth + Collaboration

I believe growth and collaboration provide a path to happiness.

I believe my happiness is determined by the decisions I make on two questions: 1) Where do I need to improve? 2) How can I work hard with others to solve hard problems?

Everything else is details.

Connecting Makes Life Happier

I believe we are naturally sensitive to relationships. Connecting with others feels good. Solving hard problems with others feels even better.

Communication Makes Life Easier

I believe the world is changing fast and communication is essential to adapting to the changes.

I believe communication between people is a challenge. I believe improving communication makes life easier.

I believe the brain filters information. I believe we all have different filters, the filters are not obvious and the filters make communication challenging.

I believe 10 of us could sit in the same meeting and walk out with 12 different versions of what happened.

I believe that given any topic we all have different views of what is obvious and what isn’t, what is hard and what isn’t and what is helpful and what isn’t.

I believe different viewpoints can be either advantages or disadvantages based on the communication skills of the group.

I believe there are differences between listening and being genuinely curious and between talking and attempting to convince.

I believe the groups which will adapt fastest are the groups which do the best job of finding and integrating new information into their worldview.

I believe we adapt faster when we communicate.

General

I believe the answer to any challenge is a combination of physics and people.

I believe we underestimate our capacity for understanding.

I believe we overestimate our awareness of our surroundings and our awareness of our beliefs.

I believe limiting the volume of information and increasing the structure of information makes it easier to share.

Challenges

I believe cancer is a challenge but we are rapidly approaching both prevention and cures. I believe we will get there faster once we learn how to have better conversations about beliefs and effort.

I believe food production is a challenge. I believe the challenge is in determining quality (what to eat) not quantity (generating enough to eat). I believe we will make faster progress on food production once we are able to start having civilized conversations regarding nutrition.

I believe climate change is a challenge but we will make better progress once we are able to have a conversation.

I believe connection is challenging and getting harder.

As we moved from tribes to villages to cities to suburbs our lives developed more silos.

In a fairly short period of time we’ve gone from tribes of families working together to feed and take care of each other, to communities where our work, schools, friends and family are all in separate silos. If we’re lucky there is understanding and flexibility between the silos but often each silo has a priority which conflicts with the others.

I believe livelihood is the greatest challenge we face.

I believe our happiness is dependent on our ability to contribute to a group.

The challenges we’re facing with connection and communication make livelihood harder and harder and often conflicting with the necessities of friends and family.

Trends – Automation & Instability

I believe somewhere in the second half of the 20th Century (~1970-1990) priorities of business shifted from workers to shareholders.

The majority of successful businesses have always been sensitive to capitol but in the late 20th century it became more profitable to focus on keeping shareholders happy rather than keeping workers happy. We humans are complicated which makes us hard to deal with sometimes :).

I believe the focus on the costs of employees coupled with the increasing availability of automation will increase the rate people are replaced with machines.

I believe there are three things which are different with this revolution when compared to the agricultural revolution and industrial revolution: 1) The have-nots have greater visibility of what the haves have. 2) In this revolution people are not required to increase capitol, and 3) It takes effort to adapt and to survive, and with the current trend adaptation will need to be constant and faster than before.

I believe automation brings unprecedented opportunity. I also believe the current trends point to automation generating social instability as more people fall farther behind due to the rate of change in how families generate livelihoods.

Trends – Education

I believe the current trends in the costs of education are unsustainable.

I also believe the value of education is falling as the costs are rising. I believe the value is falling because of both what and how we are teaching our kids.

Education has traditionally been memorize and repeat (knowledge) vs teaching knowledge, wisdom and skill, especially in such vital skills such as collaboration and communication (pictures and words).

I believe the teaching profession is over regulated and undervalued, meaning that teachers’ salary is significantly lower than the job which we are asking them to perform.

The Good News

I believe we’re intelligent, we like working together and we’ll sort it out.