What causes apathy?

This is a good short sharp piece where Dave Meslin expresses succinctly why we should focus our attention on the external forces that drive us to apathy, rather than deride ourselves with guilt.

I latched onto this topic a couple of years ago after reading around the term 'passive aggressive':

Passive–aggressive behavior, a personality trait, is passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to following through with expectations in interpersonal or occupational situations. It is a personality trait marked by a pervasive pattern of negative attitudes and passive, usually disavowed resistance in interpersonal or occupational situations.

It can manifest itself as learned helplessness, procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, or deliberate/repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible.

[Taken from Wikipedia April 2011].

Combined with the idea put forward in The Corporation documentary (available free on YouTube).

We should think of groups/companies/organisations as having personalities. Just as it is difficult to describe the character of a person, it takes hard work to describe the personality of a corporation...but it is possible if we have access to the necessary information and take the time to write it down coherently. Just as people rely on personas to avoid judgement, so do businesses. The trouble is that large global corporations enact their psycho-pathologies on a massive scale where as individuals just piss a few people off on a daily basis.

I disagree with the general idea that public organisations should behave more like private ones in the way they communicate. There will be lessons to learn but of course we would want to avoid the spin and lies that private organisations don't flinch at as they pump their bullshit into the market. Public organisations will do well to adopt a confidence that equals the arrogance of the private companies we tolerate today.

I think Meslin puts some useful markers in the sand that help us envisage better organisations generally. I subscribe to the view that the best way to overcome disease is to act publicly and give up vanity and paranoia and accept the help that comes your way. The mean level of goodness in society will always improve if we let it.

The moral psychology of liberal and conservative politics

• If a group shares values it becomes a team and stops being open to experience.
• Take the red pill an open your mind to a new moral matrix
• What is morality and where does it come from? Not the blank slate, it is organised in advance of experience. So what are we born with

1. Harm / care
2. Fairness / reciprocity
3. In-group loyalty
4. Authority / respect
5. Purity / chastity ("political right does this with sex, left with food")

http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/mft/index.php

Haidt's questionnaire (27, 000 respondents at the time) shows a marked difference between Liberal and Conservative morality. Liberals value harm/care and fairness/reciprocity while conservatives do too, but to a lesser extent, but great value the other 3 morals (called dark morality but some). But are the last 3 traits morals at all? Haidt answers this with reference to The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych by Hieronymous Bosch, the analogy being that order tends to decay. Then Haidt pull the paper by Fehr and Gachter (2002) on Altruistic Punishment as something that reinforces this analogy. Perhaps this is what religion gives us (another conservative choice) religion.

The crux of the difference between liberals and conservatives is the rate of change that they want to achieve justice. Liberals, being open to experience enjoy revolution, while conservatives fear change.

"Liberals speak for the weak and oppressed; want change and justice, even at the risk of chaos."

"Conservatives speak for the institutions and traditions; want order even at the cost of those at the bottom."

Then Haidt encourages us to see the two forces as complimentary, as in many Asian countries e.g. "If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease" - Sent-ts'an, c. 700 CE.

"Our righteous minds were designed to unite us into teams, divide us against other teams, and blind us to the truth."

I find it hard to think about this in such a balanced way. To me conservatives are people who want to live in a hierarchy, and normally at the top. People who fail to overcome their mammalian and lizard brains, they live by impulse rather than consulting their pre-frontal cortex to ask: how could we do this better. That's not to say all conservatives are powerful, there are of course plenty of people who get a thrill out of being dominated, beaten up, treated like they are scum. This fits with the hierarchy view - conservatism a longing for a medieval style of sado-masochism, a sense of security through hormones and thrills. I wonder who writes about politics like this...

Saul Griffith's kites tap wind energy

A free flying wing can sweep through more sky, and generate more electricty than a fix wing...and go higher where there is more wind.

Again, didn't mention the issues - I guess he doesn't want to talk his business down.

Shai Agassi's bold plan for electric cars

So first off:
Chutzpa:

–nounSlang.

1.

unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall.

2.

audacity; nerve.

That aside, there's some kind of business speak going on here. I think this talk amounts to saying, in the US you have to change the way the market operates to get more people using electric cars. In Europe we have taxes, China will have edicts, India will just get better mileage per tank/charge.

Apart from that hopefully this guys ego is as big as the idea the engineers are coming up. He makes a good point about systemic change e.g. it is a moral change. Nice anecdote comparing it to the decision to give up slavery despire worring about the economy.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on flow

• Was inspired to understand what constitutes a life worth living because he saw how the second world war destroyed so many people's sense of well-being

• Since we don't get happier with wealth, what is it that makes some people very happy it must be something else, Milaly then began to research flow:
  
• On composing music: You are in an ecstatic state to such an extent that you feel that you almost don't exist. I have experienced this time and time again. My hand seems devoid of myself, and I have nothing to do with what is happening. I just sit there watching it in a state of awe and wonderment. And [the music] just flows out of itself.
• Apparently there is a finite limit of about 160 bits/second that we can process external information e.g. listening to more than 2 conversation is almost impossible
  
• It is a truism in studies of truism that it takes about 10 years to be able to change something in a way that is better than it was before
• A poet's sense of flow: it's like opening a door that's floating in the middle of nowhere, and all you have to do is go and turn the handle and open it and let yourself sink into it. You can't particularly force yourself through it. You just have to float. If there is any gravitational pull its from the outside world trying to keep you back.

Seven conditions for flow:

1. Completely involved with what you are doing - focused, concentrated
2. A sense of ecstacy - of being outside everyday reality
3. Great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done and how well we are doing it
4. Knowing that the activity is doable - that our skills are adequate for the task
5. A sense of serenity - no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego
6. Timelessness - thoroughly focused on the present, hours seem to pass by in minutes
7. Intrinsic motivation - whatever produces flow becomes its own motivation

To me this sounds just like a natural high that comes after lots of hard work. Its worth mentioning Maggie Boden and her description of the Creative Space which draws on cognitive science to guess at what the brain might be doing, perhaps when it is in a state of flow.

Watching TV and sitting in the bathroom are the opposite of flow, unless for instance, you choose a program you really want to watch.

Now to do some research on what this legend advises on how normal people can get themselves some happiness, a sense of flow.

While this might sound like conspiracy theory I think one reason why so many people lack flow is because their agency is disrupted, they let other people subvert them away from who they are, or don't get the help they need to keep on their ideal path. For most people this happens at school, with our wonderful curricula, and if we are not hammered there then our careers will do it for us. And why does this happen? Because we still mostly live in clumsy medieval hierarchies, we let a few people concentrate power and organise us to maintain their positions. And the tragedy is complete when we find that even these people are unhappy on not experiencing flow - so we minions can't even enjoy their happiness. Why are we so conservative, why do we seek to shroud ourselves in false systems to hide from our insecurity, we just delay the downfall. I think the people that find flow are just the people who managed to stare into the void that is this world then decided they are just going to get on with life. The people that do we, most inspire us are the ones who understand how deep the abyss is and maybe even carry it around with them as a reminder of what we are up against.

PS: What will change everything:
The End of Analytic Science: The idea that will change the game of knowledge is the realization that it is more important to understand events, objects, and processes in their relationship with each other than in their singular structure. Western science has achieved wonders with its analytic focus, but it is now time to take synthesis seriously.

Eric Topol: The wireless future of medicine

Lots of obvious mobile physiological monitoring but why is there an explosion of these technologies/services now:

• 4 billion mobile users and many smartphones
  
• broadband 3G/pervasive connectivity
• ingenious sensors e.g. alarm clock EEG

In the case of asthma we can monitor: RR, FEV1, AirQuality, oximetry, pollen count

I am fascinated by this because of the politics of it, will the doctors and pharma-companies try to hold on to the doctor-patient relationship. Will the technology enable communities to look after themselves and do their own research. What is the place of the expert in medicine?

Again, another rather gushing talk, an evangelical sales pitch rather than a more educated critical analysis. There are obvious difficulties here but none of them were mentioned:

1. Who will own the data
2. What is the effect on the average patient of knowing all this stuff
3. Will the doctors know what to do with the data, or simply be able to deal with the volumes
   
4. Will the patients know how to use the data

There is essentially the old knowledge vs widsom problem. We don't necessarily know what to do with this technology - longitudinal trials are needed.

P.S. Was a cool idea to wear the monitoring equipment, and display the readings, while he was talking.

William McDonough on cradle to cradle design

Quotes:

1. Design is an expression of human intention
2. In the dominion versus stewardship debate, we are of course stewards because you can't dominate something you kill, and to steward something you have to dominate it
3. We can't say that destroying the planet was not our plan, because since we have no plan to save it, the de facto plan is to destroy it [consequentialism?]
4. Humility and architecture have not been in the same sentence since the fountain head...reflect on this, it took 5000 years to put wheels on our luggage
5. Le Corbusier architecture affectionately known in our industry as Brutalism
6. Solar energy has nothing to do with architecture [just as energy consumption has nothing to do with IT]

The beautiful thing here is that the world we design speaks volumes about us, according to William we do not acquit ourselves well. The trouble with shit design is the tools then speak back to us.

He published a database of chemicals to help designers analyse their products at the ppm level. (No reference given).

Designing 12 eco-cities in China.

Not much to say here, William is walking the walk, but I know too little to comment.

Alex Steffen sees a sustainable future

Alex is an editor of this website:
http://worldchanging.com/
Not sure this talk was well pitched for the audience e.g. rattling of things the other talks have done in detail, and perhaps more importantly slightly more critically. Of course it is important to be optimistic but this is all a little bit too gushingly so for me. The talk is like reading out a giant set of bookmarks.

John Doerr sees salvation and profit in greentech

John forgets that efficiency will not solve climate change, we'll just find new ways to use more (Jevons). And as for glorifying bullies like Walmart. You have to go green on a holisitic basis, being a business person is not just about being efficient. This guy is a linear, narrow, top down thinker, one of the old guard. He is adept at talking up economies that he wants to invest in (well at least he acknowledges this).

Interesting statistic:

"the presidents budget for investment in renewable energy technologies is $1M pa which is one day of profit for Exxon"

An interesting general point across all talks is how the cultural background of the speakers effects the solutions they promote e.g. americans love talking about efficient cars that use alternative fuel while the chinese (not at TED) talk about cutting their population. It would be a form of colonialism to say one is better than the other, but I suspect it is important to realise our prejudices.

to be continued...bloody internet connection cut again.

Al Gore's new thinking on the climate crisis

Scary stories, global political and economic strategies, new technologies. This is informative but not cutting edge, the main problem many will have with Al Gore is his posturing that top down big solutions are the solution. Given his history this is not surprising. I think his main strategy is subverting the American dream e.g. repositioning the heroes, rousing them, changing the end game. A nice quote that fits the MO idea:

"We have to change the light bulbs but we also have to change the laws," we have to be doing more.

And a nice quote:
"If you want to go quickly go alone, if you want to go far go together...but we have to got far and quickly".

One concern would be that maybe this is not an awesome issue, it is not going to be solved with new infrastructure, new material gains and so on. It is just a repositioning of what each wants, a humility, a quiet intelligence, a slower and more considered approach to living. Not a criticism however, others are making this point.

Bjorn Lomborg sets global priorities

How do we decide which problems to solve first considering we have scarce resource. Bjorn thinks we should focus on solving the problems that we have solutions for already. Prioritisation is always a very uncomfortable process. Apparently we should ask economists what we should prioritise, presumably because they are used to optimisation problems? e.g. dealing with global warming will cost $250,000,000,000 per year a fraction of what we give to other causes.

Of course this guy has cooked his numbers, or at least he makes no effort to explain the assumptions behind how he estimates the costs. He cites his dream team (Schelling was one of them) then extrapolates.

I just don't think you can convince people by essentially making one point over and over. There may be good research behind this talk but Bjorn presented none of it.

Martin Rees asks: Is this our final century?

Lots of Astronomical numbers and beautirful pictures reminding how small we are and why science has such a long way to go e.g. what came before the big bang.

Martin describes the possibility of a whole other universe, each with their own big bang, existing in parallel to our own, in other dimensions. This brings up the interesting idea that only quantum physicists would be able to 'see' this world and if more of us are to do so we'd need to have develop the insight and have access to the tools. Perhaps if there is life in these parallel world we'd not be able to experience it with our senses, it would be more like a techno-trip, something we can only appreciate and not sense. How crude the people who rely on their 5 senses would then look.

Bill Joy's fine-grained relinquishment - giving up the dangerous side of science. Of course this is absurdly naive, every coin has two sides.

Maybe we should be thinking in terms of cosmological time rather than now, this decade, this century. With our minds geared to think in this way, (maybe we can stop grasping). The science of the young Einstein will continue but we need the wisdom of the older man to ensure we can experience it.

Jared Diamond on why societies collapse

With reference to the Greenland Norse society:

1. People inadvertently destroying the resource base that they depend e.g. cutting all the trees down to make iron tools and causing soil erosion
2. Climate change
3. Relations with neighboring friendly societies e.g. between Iceland and Norway
4. Relations with hostile societies e.g. the Inuit
5. Political, economic, social and cultural aspects e.g. commitments to Christianity and building churches

South Western Montana:

1. Toxic problems from mining waste, weeds, desalination, forest fires
2. Getting warmer and drier, especially problem to irrigation agriculture
3. Transfer payments from out of payments e.g. social security
4. Terrorism and oil supplies
5. Long held values stunting development e.g. logging

And collapse is often a rapid:

1. Lowland Maya in Yucatan in 800 BC
   
2. Collapse of the Soviet Union
3. Easter Islanders
   
4. Growth of bacteria in a Petri dish where there is a mismatch between bacteria and nutrients

But how did these societies not see what was coming? (Tragedy of the commons?)

1. Conflict of interest between the considerations of the elites and the long term considerations of society e.g. Enron
   
2. Difficult to make good decisions within traditional value systems e.g. commitment to Christianity within Greenland Norse, commitment to British identity in Australia in backdrop growing Asian influence.

What is the most thing we need to do:

1. Realise the issue is complex, we need to do many things, and all of them are essential
2. Accept that our present course is unsustainable
3. We have a choice, this threat is not an asteroid, all the problems are tractable

Lots of bullet-point wisdom from Jared! For me the most interesting area here was how the disjoint between hierarchical interests can emerge, how it manifests itself and how it can be resolved.

Ray Anderson on the business logic of sustainability

The business case for sustainability:

1. operations are cheaper
2. which pays for necessary infrastructure costs
3. sustainable products attract customers/sales
4. sustainable brand also attracts best employees

and Ray factors in Affluence and Happiness.

Carpets are a hydrocarbon/petro intensive industry.

This is big news because here we have a company that can track its whole operation across the entire supply chain.

Finished off with great applomb with tomorrow's child, a poem written by one of Ray's employees.

Gordon Brown: Wiring a web for global good

Okay, on the scale of things this is a bit blunt, but admirable for a poitician. I guess you just watch this and see what these people are allowed/capable of saying. Like a litmus test.

Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man

I am just an ad man: "I particularly remember a good speech by Kim Jong-il about how to get teenagers smoking again" Nice intro."

Solve climate change by manipulating perception: "All convicted child molesters have to drive a Porche KM" [As Ataturk did by making prostitutes wear the veil].

Persuasion is better than compulsion - not according to the ideas behind altruistic punishment.

Veblen Goods vs Shakerism

Impulse savings...but saving is consumerism needlessly postponed.

"Social networking allows people to share news and give badge value to..."

Funny talk, intelligent humour.

John Gerzema: The post-crisis consumer

Not sure I agree with this guy. I think this is news for the people who have forgotten what life was like before things went mad. "There is a big DIY movement...people spend less when they have less, they buy less luxury goods". Come on where is the news? John seems to have his heart in the right place, but he speaks like an evangelist and as a Brit I'd like to see just a little more radicalism and perhaps a sense that the equation he presents is slightly more flaky if, heaven forbid we actually thought about it by ourselves for a few minutes.

I thought this would be a talk for consumers to learn how to shop more intelligently (or not at all). Actually the message seems more about how to maintain business as usual for large corporations, even though the poor little fat cat darlings might have to learn a few new tricks to to squeeze the 'consumer' now they are poor.

It is interesting how culture and audience has configured this talk - I'll be looking for the same theme presented by a local in a slightly less consumerist country.

Note: While watching this I tried to understand what is meant by leverage:

Leverage generally refers to a situation where any type of investment, credit or borrowed fund is used in such a way that a high return is gained. Leverage crops up when any investor attempts to have a control on a large investment or a borrower struggles to reduce liabilities for any loss.

Looks like one of those slippery economics terms, that actually means something very simple but us paupers are not prive' to understand how it is used in context i.e. like the word 'faith'

Rob Hopkins: Transition to a world without oil

There's something tantalising about this idea but the talk lacks substance. I very much like the affirmation that stories profoundly shape our culture, or at least identify desires that then through hard work get satisfied. Rob provokes the TED audience into asking whether it is right to give the impression that innovation is the magic elixir, without pointing out the obvious risk of this belief (we don't invent the things that will solve the problem - surely this is not possible).

Rob is clever enough to not dismiss the possibility that we can invent tools that bail us out. Instead he asks actually, is this what we want. His last sentence nicely sums up his view:

"a world that is more resilient, more skilled and more connected to each other"

But, the details I suspect leave many wanting more. On a practical level he only mentions or alludes to energy micro-generation, urban gardening, local currencies and new ways of building with natural products.

This leaves me cold too. While I do think many more people would be happier involved in simple manual tasks, hard work outside, because this would help solve a huge problem: too many people are cut off from meaningful relationships by pointless jobs.

But why should we aspire to be farmers and house buildings, is this just harking back to medieval days? Did the Amish have it right? Nostalgia is a powerful drug (does 'nostalgia' apply to something that we have no real memory of?), having been a keen allotment gardener in the past I know it is not all fun, and making enough to live from is much more work than most could handle, and more importantly very risky e.g. crops do fail.

I think this nostalgia is really fuelled by another social malaise. Lack of trust in the people/organisations that provide these commodities. We just don't like the big supermarkets, the intensive agriculture systems, the transport networks, the energy and chemical companies that underpin the whole thing. We don't know who they are, what they do and the assumptions that underpin their operations. We suspect they are there just to make huge profits to line a few people's pockets, treating the consumers cynically and with disdain.

What is more, I just cannot believe it is more efficient for thousands/millions of people to be farmers rather than the few. Is the battle here Fordism vs Anarchy with the assumption that people would be happier within a slower individualised world. I love to clear the mess from my desk so that I can have more interesting thoughts, I aspire to escape the mundane. After a while creatively needs new props, I am not sure how far my thoughts will travel within sensory universe of manual labour.

I suspect this view is largely unfounded and the issue is more to do with poor communications and laziness in many areas of innovations. Operations have been swimming in oil, basking on the beaches of indolence letting the fat cats swell to bursting point. What I suspect Rob and the network he is supporting is really peeved at is having their ideas and sense quashed for decades by the weight of these baby boomers, the Peter Pan generation and their 'progress' dogma.

Personally I don't want to be a market gardener, I want just enough food and energy for me to have meaningful relationships, and focus as much of my self as possible engaged in creative processes that befit 2100 AD rather than 1400 AD.