Actions speak louder than words …
The only issue that matters in the upcoming federal election is whether or not we are willing to protect our democracy by ousting governments that show a profound disrespect for our system, our values and our people.
Just saying ...
Monday, March 28, 2011
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
In Thinking About it
The rapidly tiring fad of the day is that we’re all going to collectively meet our end from nuclear war, asteroids, global warming, a pandemic, financial collapse, bad diet, a nuclear meltdown, acid rain, cancer, an ice age, violent crime, toxins, an old age home, aliens or any number of other immediate “threats” that are use to continually scare us into passivity. This month it’s, ummm, errr, …., don’t know, I forget.
Ironically, the real threat to humanity seems to come directly from us. Most people, most of the time are walking around doing things, making choices, interacting, but they have their brains completely shut off. They’re over-whelmed by the exponentially increasing complexity of our societies, and in response to this, they’ve decided that trying to get anything done -- anything at all, even if it is stupid -- is far better than having to sort out the underlying problems. It’s full speed ahead, right over the cliff.
Of course, this shallow depth and complete loss of reason or responsibility simply makes the underlying problems worse. In response to the failure of existing rules, politicians simply create more stupid rules. In response to people loosing faith in the major media, the journalists turn to even more outrageous stories. In response to lawsuit lotteries, we just get more and more weasel disclaimers and less people willing to stand up to admit the truth. In response to the “cause of the day” most believers just spout propaganda, without even trying to understand the real issues.
The farther down we dig, the more people just shut off their brains and try not to think about the brewing insanity. Eventually our rampant loss of intelligence will just overwhelm us, and everything will collapse around it. We’ll just be wandering around in a daze saying “I thought you were going to take care of that!”.
And don’t think that we’re going to be saved from this horrific fate by some unknown “smart people”. It seems as if intelligence is inversely proportional to thoughtfulness. That is, the longer someone has spent trying to fill their brains with very deep knowledge about a very deep subject, the more likely they seem to just shutdown their thinking with regard to everything else. We get experts that know everything about a tiny slice of our collective knowledge, but nearly nothing else. A room full of super-bright specialists talking about general issues has a phenomenally low collective intelligence (thus the failure of most committees).
Our biggest impending threat is that even though we are an intelligent species (barely), we aren’t utilizing our one and only advantage. We’re all just cruising through life, with only some minuscule percentage of our population ever thinking hard about stuff, and they’re only thinking about the stuff that is fun to think about. Everything else is getting intentionally ignored (and is only going to get worse).
Ironically, the real threat to humanity seems to come directly from us. Most people, most of the time are walking around doing things, making choices, interacting, but they have their brains completely shut off. They’re over-whelmed by the exponentially increasing complexity of our societies, and in response to this, they’ve decided that trying to get anything done -- anything at all, even if it is stupid -- is far better than having to sort out the underlying problems. It’s full speed ahead, right over the cliff.
Of course, this shallow depth and complete loss of reason or responsibility simply makes the underlying problems worse. In response to the failure of existing rules, politicians simply create more stupid rules. In response to people loosing faith in the major media, the journalists turn to even more outrageous stories. In response to lawsuit lotteries, we just get more and more weasel disclaimers and less people willing to stand up to admit the truth. In response to the “cause of the day” most believers just spout propaganda, without even trying to understand the real issues.
The farther down we dig, the more people just shut off their brains and try not to think about the brewing insanity. Eventually our rampant loss of intelligence will just overwhelm us, and everything will collapse around it. We’ll just be wandering around in a daze saying “I thought you were going to take care of that!”.
And don’t think that we’re going to be saved from this horrific fate by some unknown “smart people”. It seems as if intelligence is inversely proportional to thoughtfulness. That is, the longer someone has spent trying to fill their brains with very deep knowledge about a very deep subject, the more likely they seem to just shutdown their thinking with regard to everything else. We get experts that know everything about a tiny slice of our collective knowledge, but nearly nothing else. A room full of super-bright specialists talking about general issues has a phenomenally low collective intelligence (thus the failure of most committees).
Our biggest impending threat is that even though we are an intelligent species (barely), we aren’t utilizing our one and only advantage. We’re all just cruising through life, with only some minuscule percentage of our population ever thinking hard about stuff, and they’re only thinking about the stuff that is fun to think about. Everything else is getting intentionally ignored (and is only going to get worse).
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Thoughts
Platitudes are just poor advice wrapped in a sugary coating. Easy to generate, easy to digest, yet impossible to utilize.
For every opinion, right or wrong, smart or stupid, sane or crazy, there is at least one person holding on to it.
The only problem we can’t collectively solve is ourselves.
Human intelligence is clearly more advanced than a dog’s, but less than it ought to be, and far less than we believe it is.
We’re only as smart as our average behavior; whatever spikes we get are quickly leveled by our other moments.
Self-centered people often miss the fact that their misery is caused by their obsession.
The shallower we go, the faster things will fall apart.
A good example is far more noble than just giving in to the norm; they are their own reward and they are worth far more than any pile of stuff, even if the world hasn’t noticed yet.
Faith is blindly following people based on their word, science is blindly following people based on their interpretation of limited observations.
We invent technology decades before we know how to use it, and we use it decades before we realize that we shouldn’t have.
It is questionable whether or not our limited intelligence is significant enough for us to out evolve all of the perils of which it has made us aware.
An average person will look at their successes and infer that they are smarter than most people, whereas an intelligent person will look at their failures and infer that they are human.
Wisdom is knowing when to end a blog post. Foolishness is adding another sentence.
For every opinion, right or wrong, smart or stupid, sane or crazy, there is at least one person holding on to it.
The only problem we can’t collectively solve is ourselves.
Human intelligence is clearly more advanced than a dog’s, but less than it ought to be, and far less than we believe it is.
We’re only as smart as our average behavior; whatever spikes we get are quickly leveled by our other moments.
Self-centered people often miss the fact that their misery is caused by their obsession.
The shallower we go, the faster things will fall apart.
A good example is far more noble than just giving in to the norm; they are their own reward and they are worth far more than any pile of stuff, even if the world hasn’t noticed yet.
Faith is blindly following people based on their word, science is blindly following people based on their interpretation of limited observations.
We invent technology decades before we know how to use it, and we use it decades before we realize that we shouldn’t have.
It is questionable whether or not our limited intelligence is significant enough for us to out evolve all of the perils of which it has made us aware.
An average person will look at their successes and infer that they are smarter than most people, whereas an intelligent person will look at their failures and infer that they are human.
Wisdom is knowing when to end a blog post. Foolishness is adding another sentence.
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