The Most Interesting Man in the World Quotes: http://www.themostinterestingmanintheworld.net/the-most-interesting-man-in-the-world-quotes-top-10/
An Over-the-Type College Application Essay (I recall reading that it was actually written by a high school student for a class, not as an actual college application, despite what it says on this sight): http://paws.kettering.edu/~jhuggins/humor/essay.html
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In the spirit and form of classical mythology, but informed by a synthesis of complex dynamical systems (“chaos”) theory and an amalgam of relevant social and biological (and even physical) theories, this is my attempt to capture the essence of our existence in a work of intellectual art. This is an exploration of the underlying dynamics of human existence, rendered in a tapestry of magical story-telling woven from threads of ultra-violet prose. Now if that doesn’t make you run hard in the other direction…, read on!
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The theme:
The interplay of chaos and order, which are sometimes perceived as opposites, are in reality complementary (reminiscent of the motto that Danish Physicist Neils Bohr chose for his coat of arms when he was knighted: “Contraria Sunt Complementa” [opposites are complementary], beneath the Taijitu [the symbol of yin and yang]). Disordering and ordering forces interact to produce complexity, revealing the universe to be more organic than mechanical in nature. Applications of this theme to physics, ecology, human history, and the nature of individual lives are laced throughout the story. A secondary theme involves human consciousness of these systems, and how it grows by finding order, discovering increased complexity, and finding a subtler order within that complexity, in an endless process of cognitive and spiritual refinement.
The story:
To a backdrop of a millenial struggle between the Loci (mischievous chaos-loving imps with the magical ability to make tiny changes with enormous consequences, such as moving a twig an inch to the left, and thus providing the necessary link in a chain of events that lead to a forest fire that would otherwise not have occurred) and the Vaznallam (serene order-loving semi-divine beings that live in an ice city high in the Vaznal Mountains), a host of characters on intertwined adventures find themselves involved in the fulfilment of a phrophesized “Realignment”, averting the holocaust of mounting natural and human disasters. In the course of these adventures, they undergo a paradigm shift of their own, discovering a subtler, more accurate, and more naturalistic explanation for the wonders of their world than the religious and mythical understanding of reality they (and the reader) had always held to be true.
Two of my favorite scenes:
1) Algonion, a main character on a highly adventurous spiritual quest (which leads him to become a wizard-trained archer-hero at one point), finds himself inside one of the ice spheres nested inside a larger sphere which is, in essence, the wizards’ incubator of wizardry. Inside, initially simple patterns of colored light and sound and tactile sensations cause pleasure when solved and pain when unsolved (by thinking, chanting, and moving in anticipation of the next sequences in the patterns), only to encounter ever deepening subtley and complexity of patterns upon each resolution. This is my representation of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which accumulating anomalies in old established paradigms cause focused attention on those anomalies, and subsequent paradigm shifts. And it synthesises this quintessentially western theory of scientific philosophy with elements of Eastern mysticism. See The Wizards’ Eye.
2) Inspired by National Geographic footage of the Rainforest Canopy Ecosystem, Algonion is fleeing the Loci imps in an enchanted forest, their emotion-destabilizing darts, and the javelins of electricity that flashed in the air, swinging from trees and sailing from branch to branch…, “If only I could fold myself into the wind, he thought, desperately, “wrap myself around it like flesh around a whim….” Arriving at a debris strewn set of slate ledges leading down to a sea which “churned as though tossed by a storm, thrashing about like a beast with struggling prey clamped in its jaws,” he did just that, and transformed himself with his last lopping strides into a gangling bird that skimmed above that choppy sea…. See “Flesh Around A Whim”.
Also see :
Prelude to “A Conspiracy of Wizards”
The World At Dark
In the world at dark
The sky is lit with Time’s glow,
Each star a spark
In so long a moment
That there seems no start,
No end, no movement
That my eyes can know…,
But how much farther my mind can go!
To what avail? For what goal?
To lose myself and free my soul.
For I am nothing
And i am all.
The Crystal Ball
I saw a shadow
Drift across mountains,
A cloud afloat
In the beckoning sky;
The world, she danced,
Like sparkling clear fountains,
For all is as crystal
As time passes by.
I dreamt of an island
Where cascades are falling,
Where flowers are blooming
And nothing need try;
Surrounded by ocean,
Eternal waves calling,
My castaway spirit
Is free now to fly.
The sun gazes warmly
Upon the lush world,
Embracing Her gently
With patience and pride;
Life dances on,
Its wonders unfurl,
But all becomes crystal
Once Time has passed by.
Public education would benefit from improvements on three levels:
1) improving the quality and quantity of encouragement and support that students receive outside of the school,
2) improving the “student culture,” such that kids encourage one another to engage in behaviors that are conducive to learning, and
3) improving the incentive structure that teachers and administrators face, so that educating kids replaces avoiding problems as their top priority.
These can be addressed by
a) reconceptualizing schools as centers from which the educational mission is pursued rather than as locations and hours to which the educational mission is simply relegated,
b) creating opportunities and incentives for parents (particularly of at-risk kids) to receive support and education regarding how most effectively to support their children’s education,
c) using established programs, such as “positive behavioral support,” and other innovative ideas, to give positive reinforcement to kids not just for engaging in educationally conducive behaviors, but, even more importantly, for encouraging other kids to engage in educationally conducive behaviors.
The current emphasis on “accountability” is in reality a passing-of-the-buck down the hierarchy, avoiding a society-wide confrontation of the structural social and cultural problems crippling American public education, and succeeding only in creating new disincentives to the most talented potential new educators, pushing them into other more lucrative careers.
The notion that creating a competitive “market” will improve the quality of education presupposes that parents making those choices will be acting on reliable information about what constitutes higher quality education. In order to facilitate such accountability, there is an increased emphasis on concrete measurements of student achievement. While probably a necessary component of a well-designed complete educational policy, this current over-emphasis on concrete measurements is problematic for a number of reasons: 1) It devalues investment in unquantifiable foundational educational experiences, such as in music and arts, though there is substantial research to indicate that such investments are very conducive to long-term educational achievement; 2) It further encourages already rampant practices such as grade inflation and overly rosy feedback from teachers and schools, since many parents rely on such grades and reports in determining how well their children are performing; 3) It skews education toward emphasizing easily measured “mechanical” skills rather than harder to measure analytical and higher cognitive skills, though the development of such analytical and higher cognitive skills is of critical importance; and 4) It places almost no value on seeds planted by inspirational teachers which might germinate years later, though the planting of such seeds may well be the most important of all educational successes.
While I do not believe that the “school choice” movement addresses the most fundamental problems with our public education system, and am concerned that this movement in some ways undermines our commitment to maintaining high quality neighborhood schools, I oppose any state or national standardization of educational policy on legitimately unresolved issues: Local experimentation is the best way to discover what does and does not work.
A more promising initiative, which I enthusiastically support and would work hard to implement, is to promote and facilitate increased community involvement in neighborhood schools, particularly the utilization of professional and retired volunteers who want to come in, give their time, and help both struggling students to succeed, and highly motivated students to pursue their interests.
Students thrive on positive attention, on the encouragement of engaged parents, charismatic teachers, and a supportive community. If we want to improve the quality of public education, we need to work hard on improving the context within which public education takes place. Nothing short of that, or which attempts to circumvent it, is likely to perform as advertised.
I believe that affordable and flexible higher education options are necessary to a well-developed and productive work force, as well as to the provision of opportunities to our young adults. Investing in our human capital yields remarkable economy-wide returns and mitigates a host of costly problems. Controlling tuition costs, increasing the availability of low-interest student loans, and ensuring a variety of options for students of different abilities and preferences, are necessary components to a complete education policy.
Most importantly, we need to foment a cultural paradigm shift, one in which “education” comes to be perceived as a fundamental aspect of human existence, a life-long endeavor, and the most basic tool at our disposal for improving our individual and collective existence. The greatest tragedy facing humanity today is the underutilization of the human mind, for all other tragedies could be more effectively addressed were it not for that one. And a society that cultivates an appropriately exalted appreciation of the importance of education is a society of people who not only thrive better economically, but also live richer and more meaningful lives
I am more focused on fundamental principles, systemic structure and dynamics, and, in general, overarching abstractions, than I am on the particular vessels and driftwood floating on their currents. This post is not about the hot events of the day, the battling candidates, the particular policy proposals in the pipeline, but rather about an overarching principle, one which we forget in the heat of our passions and the hunger of our will.
Process is, in a sense, everything. Three recent narratives drive this home with renewed vigor: My sojourn as a law student; the rancorous primary our party is undergoing in Colorado’s U.S. Senate race; and my own experiences in situations in which process was woefully deficient.
One of my law professors once said that the faction that gets to write the procedural provisions of a bill can kill it or make it work at will. In constitutional and criminal law, due process is everything. A well-designed and well-functioning legal system is less about the results than about how they are achieved, because otherwise it is not “rule of law”, but rather “the ends justify the means”. Many people find it intolerable that a person who we all think we know is guilty can go free; I would find it intolerable if we subordinated our legal processes instead to what we all think we know. The commitment to process is where the protection of civil rights resides.
One of the legal phrases that captures the failure to adhere to this commitment to process is “arbitrary and capricious”. What a lovely phrase! Nobody likes to be treated arbitrarily and capriciously. Everybody recognizes the injustice of that, though it still survives in many areas of our collective existence. Most of our procedural protections protect us against the government, not from one another. In most situations, those with power over others have vast legal lattitude to act arbitrarily and capriciously at the institutionally, socially, or personally weaker party’s expense.
And this fact should not be swept under the rug with “it’s their right!” Sure, people with such power, be they employers, spouses, or owners of a vital resource, have broad rights to dispose of as they please the desired thing they hold (or withhold) access to (e.g., employment, affection or support, the material or institutional resource), but that does not make it right to do so arbitrarily and capriciously. This, in fact, is one of the ways in which private ownership can run up against the public interest, to be considered in conjunction with the ways in which it served the public interest: The private ownership may have driven the extraction, production, or availability of the desired resource, but it may also turn it into a lever to be used by some over others, with which much mischief can be done. On all levels and in all spheres of life, rules that are not implemented, interpreted, and reviewed by some transparent process designed to ensure their fair and effective execution, are a mere sham, more pernicious than simply the admission of a commitment to arbitrary and capricious decision-making, because it combines that defect with the insidious pretense of not being infected by it.
There remain many spheres of life in which judgments can be executed with inadequte process, with impunity. That the right to do so exists does not make it right to do so. It does not make it something that serves the public interest. It does not make it admirable.
And being admirable counts. Serving the public interest counts. Doing what’s right counts. We are not just a nation of laws, but also a society of values, affected both by our own conscience and by the reactions of those around us. Such social approval and disapproval can often fill in the interstices, where law has not gone or cannot go. It can be informal (looking askance at someone who has done something highly objectionable) or it can be organized (boycotting a private enterprise that has done something highly objectionable). And it is a very powerful force, sometimes liberating, and sometimes oppressive.
How we make our marginal contribution to this powerful social force is one of our responsibilities to one another that we should take seriously. It doesn’t matter so much what the substance of our individual judgments are, as the process by which we discuss and debate them, the process by which we decide when to be tolerant and when to be intolerant. There is room for both: No one is suggesting that heinous and hateful acts and attitudes should be tolerated. But none of us are privy to the indisputable and absolute truth, neither concerning what political economic and moral doctrines best serve human welfare, nor the disputed details and interpretations in particular instances. We are all fallable, all muddling along in a complex and subtle world. Let’s do our best to muddle along as reasonable people of goodwill, working together to improve the quality of life for all of us.
For me, there is something a bit amiss when our political conversations become focused on individuals, and not on the purposes that they serve. There are really two fundamental questions all of our political discourse should be ultimately anchored in: What are we trying to accomplish? and, How can we best accomplish it?
The first one, in broad terms, should be fairly easy to answer: We’re trying to keep refining our social institutional landscape in ways which improve the quality of life, increasing 1) the robustness with which we produce the things (both material and non-material) that facilitate a higher quality of life, 2) the sustainability of our processes for producing them, and 3) the fairness with which opportunity to benefit from that production is extended ever more broadly.
This involves continuing to discover what “a higher quality of life” really means, and what it is that really does contribute to it. So, such considerations as work/life balance, opportunities for personal and spiritual growth (however one chooses to define them), and the aesthetic qualities of our shared space and the pleasantness of our shared existence, all figure into the mix.
Of course, many of our disputes, and our most fundamental ideological chasms, are defined by the relative weight we assign to these different components, and how we define what best contributes to a higher quality of life. But understanding that helps those who choose to be reasonable people of goodwill do a better job of more effectively addressing those differences and discussing them in productive ways.
The second question is far more difficult to answer, because it involves understanding the complex systemic dynamics of the world we live in. The obvious answers are rarely the most effective ones, and often particularly counterproductive due to the unintended consequences that had not been considered. But politics is not driven by systemic-understandings; rather, it is driven by successful marketing strategies.
More than any other thing we ever discuss, this is the fundamental obstacle we face. The ultimate challenge we must confront is: How do we most effectively liberate and mobilize our collective genius in service to the broad goals described in answer to question number one?
There are some clear answers concerning how not to do it:
1) Do not advocate for government by plebiscite. This aggravates rather than mitigates the problem of policy being captured by marketing strategies rather than guided by reason. As in any other information-intensive endeavor, the principal (which is the people, in this case) hires agents to dedicate themselves to those information intensive tasks. And in many others, the stakes for the principal are certainly comparable: After all, when you employ a surgeon to perform a life-or-death operation on your child, the stakes are as high as they get for you personally.
A representative democracy has two demands placed on it: a) to hold the agent accountable to the principal, so that the agent is acting in the principal’s interests. This is best accomplished by most effectively aligning their interests, such that the agent’s interests are as identical to the principal’s as possible. And, b) to ensure that the agent is not only motivated to act in the principal’s best interest, but is also equipped to do so effectively. This involves mobilizing the greatest degree of expertise possible in service to the agent’s mission.
2) Promote open-mindedness rather than ideological entrenchment. We benefit most from a robust discourse, fueled by a combination of humilty (after all, even the smartest of us recognizes how dumb we really are), and commitment (I may be dumb, but I sure want to keep dedicating myself to becoming less so, and to mobilizing what knowledge and understanding I do have to maximum public benefit).
We should not assume that what we think we know is the incontrovertable truth. That is the stuff of Crusades and Jihads, of theocracy and totalitarianism, not of progress. When we catch ourselves arguing implacably with others who are not arguing indefensible positions, then we are probably not contributing as well as we might to the discovery of wisdom. It is not the robust commitment to a position that is dysfunctional, but rather the inability to ever sway or be swayed.
Whatever good the debate itself might produce, there is no way to harvest it if no party can be moved. A court requires a judge or jury; the academy requires peer review; and the people require something that does more to settle the truth of our disputes, for our elections only settle the crude popularity of competing positions.
In other words, we need to work at better aligning what is popular with what is right, and that is something more, and more useful, than merely working to convince everyone else of our own positions.
This is a discussion I think we need to be having, including all who are willing to have it. It’s not really about whether Romanoff or Bennet is the more honest or more corrupt. It’s about seeking subtler understandings, and the means of implementing them, together.
Yes, of course, that’s not the way it is, and that’s not the way it is going to be. But that is what we should be moving toward, every time we try to move in the direction of progress.
From time to time, and daily if the site becomes robust enough, I will post a quote or a thought, and leave it to participants to discuss either it, or whatever they choose.
Today’s quote comes from John Maynard Keynes:
Men will do the rational thing, but only after exploring all other alternatives.
Leaving aside the sexism of the phrasing, what I love about this quote is the subtle combination of cynicism and idealism. We do “the rational thing” in the aggregate and in the long run (idealism), but not individually and in the short run (cynicism). My suggestion for a topic of conversation is this: What have we accomplished that is rational, and what are we doing that isn’t? Try to find the long-term trends that we should honor and reinforce, and the short-term tendencies that we should be aware of.
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Why “Colorado Confluence”?
1) This blog is intended to be the confluence, the “flowing together,” of diverse people, thoughts, and modalities. All are welcome, of all ideologies, from all walks of life. It is where political debate, social analysis, and cultural explorations are invited to converge, a meeting place for knowledge, analysis, and imagination.
2) It is focused on the confluence of the many rather than the influence of the few. It emphasizes what we become in combination, taking into account our myriad contributions, but focusing on what we can create together.
3) It can also become a place that helps inform and organize efforts to implement good ideas, working with other organizations and think tanks both to disseminate information and to inspire the development of innovative policies. It can become a place where theory meets praxis, a confluence of thought and action, a home for our collective genius.
4) Here in Colorado, where some of our major cities are sited at the confluence of rivers, and where water is a precious natural resource that to some extent both defines and divides us, the concept of confluence, of coming together on merging streams, takes on added poignancy.
5) Lastly, while this is a Colorado-based blog, it is one that invites all to join, from anywhere in the country or world; and invites contributions on topics from the most global to the most local, relating to any place and any time. This is a locus of convergence rather than of exclusion.
A bile-free zone
For the time being, there are just three rules we ask that everyone respect: 1) Don’t break the law. Do not plagiarize or commit libel. Cite your sources, and avoid attacking individuals. Reasonable, fact-based criticism of public figures is acceptable, but as a means to a positive end rather than as an end in itself. 2) No hateful or incendiary speech. Remarks that denegrate groups of people or individuals will not be tolerated. 3) Do not post anything with the intention of harassing or annoying any other poster, even in minor ways. If it’s not good natured, don’t post it. Avoid even the hint of ad hominem attack. If it has the potential to be misunderstood or to cause hurt feelings, take pains to cure it of that defect. And, on the other side of the coin, resist reacting to perceived slights against you (email us instead). There are plenty of blogs and comment boards characterized by a toxic environment. We have no intention of becoming another one.
A vehicle for improved understanding and social change
Colorado Confluence has a purpose: To celebrate and cultivate our communal mind, in service to the continuing refinement of our social instititutional landscape. This is a forum for finding, sharing, generating and developing good ideas of all kinds, in all forms. It’s a place for exploring the possibilities. It’s a place to discover the narratives that illustrate both what is and what can be. It’s a place to consider how well our local, state, and federal governments, our schools, our religious institutions, our cultural and social venues, our businesses, our community organizations and political organizations, our various old and new communications media, and all of our myriad social institutions and technologies, serve our continuing endeavor to increase the robustness, sustainability, and fairness of our shared existence. And it’s a place to discuss how to do better.
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