The slightly-evolving post about Obama

Basically, I'm optimistic about Obama's presidency in general. However, I can't pass up the chance to say what I think about a few other things. Well, maybe I can.

1. Nothing will change very much.
2. The global economy is our friend (well, maybe not our friend, but someone very familiar)
3. The global economy is bringing over his friend, the Military Industrial (Congressional) complex
4. The value of an individual's opinion (is not very much)
5. The world beyond our control gives us a break from time to time.
6. Hope, but get to work.

The Rick Warren controversy is an interesting test for the nation. Warren's detractors are right to speak up but those who call for excluding the religious fundamentalists like Warren from the national dialogue do not really understand Obama's greatest strength. Reagan's greatest strength was (no, not economics) making everyone feel good about themselves while dividing the nation into cultural camps. I think Obama may be trying to do the opposite.
12/29/08

Liberals and Conservatives, more of Part 2.

(the previous post was Public Speaking for Liberals. It illustrated a far-fetched interpretation of actual reality, which I wrote recently after my friends pissed me off by sending me a conservative political e-mail.

As you may be able to tell, this is the rhetorical style I am more intrigued by.

Public Speaking for Conservatives.

If you want to give a presentation for a public audience, more important than any ideas you wish to present is your personal credibility with that audience. If they don't feel confident in you, they sure won't buy what you are selling and may even resist. The key to this is to establish that you are an upright, rational and respectful person, the kind they trust to make their decisions for them. The following guidelines illustrate how to present your ideas in a rational, respectful and effective manner.

1. Set the Tone. Greet your audience respectfully.

Example: Friends, I'm so happy we're all here today. It's wonderful of all of you to take time out of your busy schedules to join your friends and neighbors, and I'm really humbled by this opportunity to speak with you today.

2. Interject a Theme. Connect your audience with your topic in an innocuous and reasonable way.

Example: I want to share with you a story about what one of my kids did (tell cute story).

3. Contrast warmth of the moment with the possibility of danger

Example: Don't we all just love our children and want them to grow up in a world where they can be safe? I know I do. But there are some in this world who see things differently.

4. Play to fear

Example: Why just the other day I heard the most tragic story about a group of kids -- could have been any of our kids -- tragically attacked by wild animals in one of our national forests.

5. Make moral distinctions, demonizing villain(s).

Example: Now you'd think those government employees who're paid all those taxpayer dollars to look out for trees and animals, the least they could do is try to keep our children who visit those forests out of harm's way. And where was their teacher, I'd like to know? You'd think a highly paid public school teacher could manage a class of 60 kids, like they used to in the old days.

6. Ask leading questions. Do not tell people what to think; let them draw the conclusion.

Example: Some say it's time to take a new look at the so-called "endangered species" act. Others think these national forests should be off limits to school children--that they'd be better off opened up to more logging, and oil and mineral exploration. I can't speak to those issues. The scientists and experts are better qualified to answer such questions. But I just think --and this is just my personal opinion--I think it's terrible that innocent children would be hurt with the U.S. Forest Service looking on. And how must the parents and the other school kids be feeling after a tragedy like this?

7. Take a strong stand on the specific moral instance. Leave the general questions to your audience.

Example: These forest rangers and their forests must be held accountable. What kind of a world is it when we allow school children to be threatened by these forests? I think there needs to be an investigation into this matter, and we need to get to the bottom of why those teachers failed to prevent this tragedy, as well as what the Forest Service was doing with our tax dollars when they should have been protecting children. Otherwise, what could happen next?

8. Acknowledge your audience respectfully, expressing confidence in their understanding.

Example: Thank you all for coming here to listen to me today. And may God Bless you and your families.

Liberals and Conservatives, part 2.

George Lakoff's Moral Politics and other works probably cover this topic better than I can, but for the benefit of my own superficial understanding, here's a hypothetical discussion of the workings of rhetorical styles, liberal and conservative.

Public Speaking for Liberals

If you want to give a presentation to a public audience, the most important thing to convey is your passion for the concepts you are presenting. Second to that are framing, context, and other vague semantic concepts that somehow make your information meaningful. Here is a set of guidelines for creating a meaningful presentation sure to connect with like-minded audiences.

1. Start. Introduce your general topic as a foregone conclusion. Use well-known facts to avoid dispute. To speak to All audiences, employ concepts from both liberal and conservative frames.

Example: Once again the corporations are threatening American Values with their double-dealing.

2. Continue. Using facts, describe the specific problem you wish to discuss.

Example: Neurox corporation announced several job cuts this week, blaming the slow economy for decreasing revenues.

3. Continue. Discuss the false account you wish to debunk. Be sure your choice of language illustrates your opposition to the idea you are presenting, lest your audience become unclear where you stand.

Example: Corporate executives claim their cost-cutting measures are needed--how many times have we heard that before--and it looks like another case of shareholder profits taking precedence over the lives of American workers and their families.

4. Continue. When presenting facts, it is always good to extrapolate those facts into a general statement, so that the implications of your narrative can be widely understood by the masses.

Example: One worker stated, "It's gonna be tough on my family, losing my income and all." The tragedy of one family sends a clear message to all workers everywhere, the corporations are going to make it tough on all families, everywhere, and there's nothing you can do about it. Wherever you have corporations, it's always profits first, families a distant second. That's the corporate way.

5. Step Back and see the Big Picture. When dealing in general statements it is important to frame the issues and put them in context. This will help your audience better understand the meaning you are trying to convey.

Example: Look. It's important to put this in context. Let me frame this so the average American can understand. If there are corporations, you could lose your job. It could happen at any time, in any place, in any city or suburb or community. All over people are suffering tragic losses of jobs under corporate rule. And when this happens, like the worker in the example, your family could suffer.

6. Continue. Now comes the time to interject your passion into the discussion.

Example: I just feel it would be a terrible, unfair thing for those families who might be suffering.

7. With your passion clearly established, offer hope.

Example: But we are not without hope.

8. Describe the solution, ideally in the context of the problem you presented earlier.

Example: Corporations like Neurox must be held accountable. That's why I'm proposing congress enact tough new legislation to curb these corporate excesses and prevent possible future job losses.

9. Finally, a call to action. Note how inserting inspiring language into the narrative reinforces the urgency of the message.

Example: Today I'm asking all of you to go to my web site and click on the link to sign my petition that will be e-mailed to members of congress showing our support for standing up to corporate interests. The people united will never be divided. Now is the Time to say Yes we can! or be canned!

10. End on a positive note.

Example: Thank you.

Liberals and Conservatives

I must have had some underlying issues about the political world because conservative friends sent me a funny (to them) chain e-mail making fun of liberals. It struck me that if they wanted to insult me I should return the favor. So being proud of my liberality, I got all pissed off and wrote some inspired blog posts ripping on conservatives.

I really was hoping the dumb-ass culture wars would end. Why would they though, when their profiteers need more than ever to gather their flock-headed together to march into the future, armed with 2nd amendment rights and promises of exemption from the apocalypse based on their moral superiority.

Sorry. I know that kind of negative attitude won't get me anywhere.

Well, just in case, I'll waste some time listing off attributes of our conservative friends. And I'll try not to use too many big words.

Conservatives believe in work. Work is the center of the economy, and nothing ensures a person is moral and on the road to wealth like good old-fashioned hard work. In their spare time they love to work even more, making their front yards the very embodiment of conservative hard work and self-discipline. If that means waking up the neighbors with the 7-horse gas-burning lawn-edger or the 14-horse leaf blower or the 1100 cc riding mower that it takes to tame the 10 x 10 wilderness that is their front lawn, so be it. The more people know how hard you work the better.

On the job, nobody works as hard as conservatives. With the advent of technology, blogs and talk radio give the conservatives that lifeline they need to reinforce their feelings of moral hard-workingness. They hate liberals and unions, who want to make everyone work only 40 hours per week, taking away one of the conservatives' important means to demonstrate how hard-working they are by working longer hours than anyone else. Despite all the hard work they do, conservatives just never seem to get anything done. Probably because of the roadblocks put in their way by all those government regulations and the labor unions. But they keep working at it all the same. I s'pose if you got your work done, you wouldn't be have any work to do any more, so best to just keep your head down and keep working. Or talking about it. The more people know how hard you work the better.

Liberals are against work. They're always complaining that the work they're asked to do is not what they enjoy doing. Liberals have a problem trusting the business sense of their boss to steer the company through times of trouble--they feel like somehow work owes them something, like they're entitled to something for giving up the productive hours of their day to turning the wheels of business. Not conservatives. They never complain, if they can help the boss and the company in some way, they're always happy to oblige. Take responsibility for enforcing the burdensome government regulations that someone would have to read and think about to make understandable? Got it handled, right down to the letter. Working on it, you bet. ;)

Work longer hours for less money? Sure, boss. Wear clothes with the company logo on them? Great. Glad I can help out. Clean out your desk and leave the premises immediately? Sure, boss, I'd hate to cost the company your bonus in these tough economic times. After all, the more moral you are the more likely you are to gain that exemption for yourself in end times.

Conservatives live in trailers and foreclosed townhouses. You can recognize a conservative home by the well-maintained yard, tastefully decorated with an American flag and possibly several different plastic yard ornaments. To make ends meet, conservatives live a frugal penny-pinching lifestyle, saving money where they can on things like food and taxes, looking out for those low credit card APRs, and shopping for bargains at Wal-Mart and Sam's club. Only by their financial discipline can conservatives reward themselves for their hard work and realize their birthright to burn as much gas as possible by owning loud and powerful yard tools and toys like watercraft, atv's, bikes (real bikes with engines that require wearing leather and harley-logo t-shirts to ride, not the wussy contraptions liberals call "bikes" that requires pedaling and wearing spandex). This is how conservatives live, and everyone else should too. There's no need for wasteful things like parks, nature preserves, "bike" paths, art museums, concert halls, libraries, and other things that nobody but liberals care about. The cars they drive also reflect their practical and frugal lifestyles: American cars, such as the Ford Explorer, the Ford Excursion, the Chrysler Town and Country, and the Hummer are the practical and easy-financing-available solutions for conservative families taking the kids to their sports activities, the fast-food-drive-through, or Wal-Mart.

The worthiest of conservatives realize the rewards of their hard work and frugal lifestyle by owning the most well-engineered and luxurious automobile possible, the Audi.

In their well-earned vacation times, conservatives enjoy a wide variety of activities, such as football, other sports, motor sports, X-treme sports, and recreation such as atv-riding, watercraft-riding, riding (bikes, in case you're an awareness-challenged liberal). In summer when the kids get out of school, they like to go on family vacations exploring the wonders of the world, places like Disney World, 6 Flags, water parks, or the Mall. They have no need for things like museums, parks, or Europe.

OK, that's enough. I hate writing this stuff or thinking about it. Too stupid. But if the culture wars must go on, there's my contribution.

Lately I'm more interested in being online. For a while it seemed like every minute on the computer would cost me three to five minutes of real life, but that feeling is giving way to an more relaxed holiday sense of time.

I guess not everyone associates holidays with relaxation.

Well in any case the seasonal social priority is kicking in just as I've been enjoying getting a few things done on my own, and recovering a sense of control over my time. I was able to test the insulation a week ago as the weather started to get cold, and with it ten degrees cooler may just do it again.

In near-freezing outdoor temperatures with the thermostat keeping it 68° inside I took a bunch of temperature readings. Using a remote thermometer I measured a good sampling of points on both the outside and the inside walls where we had insulated. The point is to get a general idea of the distribution of temperature variances and to try to identify patterns indicating excessive heat loss. I wish I'd had this device last year so I could have compared pre- and post-insulation measurements. All the same it'll be interesting to see later this winter how the same measurement points compare.

What I'm getting from Listening to BigThink's Economic Crisis Discussion

The economy is changing. Bubbles of various kinds embody the beginnings of major post-Bush upheaval. Recession fears loom. Housing prices are flat and new building is at a standstill. Trust has eroded between Main Street and Wall Street threatening their interdependence. Investors fear citizens borrowing irresponsibly and then defaulting, just as citizens fear parasitic financiers accumulating capital out of the pockets of ordinary working people.

What lies ahead, and what do we do now, and who is this "we" anyhow?

It's apparent that real investment will take place in energy development, probably to the point of a future energy bubble. On the Web 2.0 front, which I hope to read up on later, all is going to the cloud. Investment in new technology doubtless will continue. Social networking will keep driving changes as human relationships are analogized more and more deeply in the digital world. Will manufacturing and food production be forgotten tomorrow? More likely those will be rethought as well and new logistics will develop around them.

Addressing what we measure depends on what our goals are for the future, but those are varied and vague enough that they can't exist independent of today's knowledge. So what we know now, i.e. what we measure now, will not simply change to something better. The changes will be complex and often times conflicting.

For example, measuring productivity has been a staple of economic understanding for some time now. The benefit of this is rather obvious for a traditional manufacturing economy or an agrarian economy seen through an industrialist's lens. The more you produce, the greater your productivity. The more that can be produced by fewer and fewer people, the greater the productivity for that group. This is fine if you're growing corn or manufacturing scooters, until everyone's cupboard overflows with corn and then productivity is reframed as excess capacity. Popular understanding comes to realize there's too much corn to sustain prices at a level the corn farmer can get paid enough to buy the new scooters his identity as a modern consumer depends on (fortunately, thanks to productivity gains, there aren't so many corn farmers as there used to be, and the problem of excess corn can be seen as an opportunity for the growing population of hedge fund managers looking to sell corn even shorter).

For the corn farmer, the problem is different. Like the scooter manufacturer, the farmer is paid for being productive, and when prices decline the only solution is to produce more. Stop producing, stop getting paid. Slow down and you're asking for a pay cut. It's a self-fulfilling recession waiting to happen.

Then someone comes along and finds a cheap way to turn all that corn into fuel. More demand for corn, lots of uncertainty for scooters. What if people go back to buying trucks? The ensuing drama yields to the opportunity to build bigger, more powerful corn-powered scooters (with a picture of an ear of corn affixed to the gas tank). Everyone now needs new scooters, and prosperity marches ahead.

When your economy tips from producing corn and scooters to producing information, the story of productivity changes. Indeed, BigThink panelists (Summers I think) among others point to declining productivity as an economic alarm. Looking back 30+ years, there was a time where it was imagined productivity would naturally plateau, and that this would be a good thing. The point generally missed today by our industrial statistics farmers is that a leveling off of productivity, or economic growth for that matter, would indicate that capacity is sufficient to meet human needs, and it was time to turn to other newer activities.

Whether or not you continue to measure productivity, the classic calculus of it is likely inappropriate for an information society. Do you count the number of myspace pages as productive output? Or measure the count transactions that occur per day or per month, assuming more is better? That's good if you're paid by the transaction, like many in the finance industry are. But framing productivity this way is one of the biggest reasons classic industrial models fail. The new thinking in manufacturing since the ascendency of Toyota, is to focus on value. Eliminate waste, they say. Do not produce things that are not needed. Do not mindlessly drive production in order to continuously increase your numbers. Instead, understand what is needed from you and focus on that.

This offers a rationale for thinking beyond productivity as a goal, but shifts the goal toward building less measurable things. How do you measure "value to customers"? In recent years many analogs have been developed: repeat purchases, survey results, lots of information-based measurables. To be meaningful in an economic paradigm, however any indicator of value must eventually be translated to money, though some like Kevin Kelly and Chris Anderson seem to want to think about transcending that, at least conceptually.

So if your manufacturing and / or farming economies shift from producing goods to producing semantic tokens, or, alternatively, if we move toward something like an "innovation economy" or a "conservation economy" as visionaries like Amory Lovins imagine, it seems the important measurement is not how many of something is produced -- how many ideas did you get today? How many patent applications did you take out? Those may be measurable but are not relevant. I don't know the answer to how or if a paradigm of continual growth can or should be sustained, but suspect that a global economy will need to be seen more holistically, as a closed and finite system. This implies a greater validity to the idea of redistribution of resources, which I know most people vested in the present economy are fearful of. But the question comes down to what we are in it for. And I hope we ultimately will answer on the side of mutually assured survival rather than mutually assured destruction.

Source: www.bigthink.com/features/896
A conversation between George Soros, Larry Summers and Robert Merton.

Fear and Curiosity

It's open to question all the different attitudes one can approach life with or the reactions one can have to it. What is the difference between living in fear of uncertainty about the future and living assured things will turn out predictably and maybe even favorably? Is there a kind of flow state possible in the everyday lives of some people, or a brain chemical that pumps out confidence, like a natural prozac that prevents fear from taking hold? Or can that kind of phenomenology be willed into existence, catalyzed by action or by a combination of positive action and positive attitude? It crossed my mind that the constant desire to learn more, intellectual or technical curiosity is one such antidote for fear, as it keeps the mind occupied, focused, the way a predator's attention while stalking its prey blocks out ordinary considerations of possible risk exposure. A mind constantly learning questions assumptions and beliefs. Being habituated to experiencing the fallibility of what one knows produces comfort through repetition, like all habits do, but what combination of directedness and sense of purpose infuses this habit to be more satisfying than lazier alternatives? And how is it that one's own tearing down of assumptions reveals underneath anything satisfying rather than sheer terror?

Creationism offers a solution for an age-old problem.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

This question has baffled the greatest philosophical and scientific minds since human history began, or at least since the history of domesticated chickens began (which narrows it down to within the past 6000 years we all know).

Thanks to creationist innovations in thought, here is the answer:

They both came first

because....

eggs are baby chickens.

Maybe I shouldn't have listened to that robo-call from MCCL the other day.