Irrational Focus

I saw this mildly interesting bit on TV the other day where a group of almost-influential people were discussing how to bring environmental reporting to corporations. At least that's what I think they were talking about. I had jumped in the middle, and was only partially paying attention. They seemed to think that with enough effort the world could be changed and made a better place. That if there was dialogue and everybody was honest, it would all work out somehow. When I stopped laughing, I figured I might as well dedicate a bit of thinking to trying to deal with the same underlying issue. From my quick glance at the tube, I figured they weren't going to get too far. So, it can't hurt. And I get some satisfaction for at least for trying to be a wee bit positive about the circumstances. My bet is still that we are tumbling towards the abyss, but just in case it's not a done deal yet, I can toss in my 2 cents. My first observation is easy: you can't get people to do...

Yikes. The first principle of a really gifted conspiracy theorist is always that there is some type of 'super' intelligence at work in the background -- ruthlessly plotting and scheming to bring about some great master plan. Hmmm . Given the state of our world, my only comeback is "we should be so lucky". Lucky? Yes, for if you're really objective about our current state of affairs you'll see that it is only by sheer luck that we haven't managed to blow ourselves into space, or crack the planet in half, or some other major species-ending calamity. Mankind, you see, having just recently found its way out of the trees, still acts with a pretty low collective intelligence. Pretty low indeed. If you've ever seen the TV drama West Wing -- a great show about what it is like to be running the USA from the Whitehouse -- you may well be impressed by the intelligence and understanding shown by the various characters. They come together frequently in various epi...