Cultural Change in Technology

As our modern dinosaurs crash down around us, I sometimes wonder what kind of humans will eventually walk out of this epic transformation. Trump and the populism that’s rampaging around the world today, marked by xenophobia, racism, sexism, and rising inequality, is greatly amplified by the forces the GDE has unleashed. For someone like me who saw the power of connection build a vibrant, technologically meshed ecosystem distinguished by peace, love, and understanding, the polarization and h...

 How Our Grandparents Perceive the World as Unchanging

Men can know a thing and yet know it quite ineffectively if it contradicts the general traditions and habits in which they live. [...] ONE of the most striking differences between the outlook of our grandparents and that of a modern intelligence today is the modification of time values that has occurred. By the measure of our knowledge their time-scale was extremely shallow. They had scarcely any historical perspective at all. They looked back to a past of a few thousand years and at the v...

 Parental Resistance to Educational Change

The greatest challenges facing parents stem from their own school experiences. Every adult has been educated in some way, and the methods their teachers used usually shape the values they carry with them and color their perceptions of how education “should be.” These learned values are very powerful and can be seen in the ongoing controversies that manifest in social media regarding the Common Core State Standards and math instruction, for example. The notion that there is a critical-thin...

 The Destiny of Earthseed

The Destiny of EarthseedIs to take root among the stars.It is to live and to thriveOn new earths.It is to become new beingsAnd to consider new questions.It is to leap into the heavensAgain and again.It is to explore the vastnessOf heaven.It is to explore the vastnessOf ourselves.   We are Earthseed.We are flesh—self aware, questing, problem-solving flesh.We are that aspect of Earthlife best able to shape God knowingly.We are Earthlife maturing,Earthlife preparing to fall away from the pare...

 Shape God

God is Power—Infinite,Irresistible,Inexorable,Indifferent.And yet, God is Pliable—Trickster,Teacher,Chaos,Clay.God exists to be shaped.God is Change.   Any Change may bear seeds of benefit.Seek them out.Any Change may bear seeds of harm.Beware.God is infinitely malleable.God is Change.   God is ChangeAnd hidden within ChangeIs surprise, delight,Confusion, pain,Discovery, loss,Opportunity, and growth.As always,God existsTo shapeAnd to be shaped.     A victim of God may,Through learning...

 God is Change

God is Power—Infinite,Irresistible,Inexorable,Indifferent.   All that you touchYou Change.All that you ChangeChanges you.The only lasting truthIs Change.GodIs Change.   As wind,As water,As fire,As life,GodIs both creative and destructive,Demanding and yielding,Scultpor and clay.God is Infinite Potential:God is Change.   God is Change.Beware:God exists to shapeAnd to be shaped.   ∞ = Δ

 You Need More than Passion to Change the World

You have to go through life with more than just passion for change; you need a strategy. I'll repeat that. I want you to have passion, but you have to have a strategy. Not just awareness, but action. Not just hashtags, but votes. [...] But to bring about structural change, lasting change, awareness is not enough. It requires changes in law, changes in custom. If you care about mass incarceration, let me ask you: How are you pressuring members of Congress to pass the criminal justice ...

 Douglas Engelbart's Idea of Small Changes

I'm reminded of Douglas Engelbart's classic paper "Augmenting Human itellect,"2 on his belief in the power of computers. He wrote this in 1962, way before the PC, and argued that it's better to improve and facilitate the tiny things we do every day than it is to attempt to replace entire human jobs with monolithic machines. A novel-writing machine, if one were invented, just automates the process of writing novels, and it's limited to novels. But making a small improvement to a pencil, for ex...

 Children Come First

Savage: When somebody writes me a letter and says, “X happened, I’m thinking I should leave.” My first response is always, “Do you have children?” That’s going to color my advice because I think the needs of children and the damage they may experience has to be factored in, and maybe you should suck it up for your kids. Klein: The tension that’s emerged mostly since the 1950s is between doing what’s best for your kids versus your self-actualization. The therapy industry is p...

 Think of Everything as Already Broken

In his book Thoughts without a Thinker, psychiatrist Mark Epstein recounts this teaching by the Thai meditation master Achaan Chah. “You see this goblet?” Achaan Chah asks. “For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf, and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it fal...