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“An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark – that is critical genius.”

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“The turning point really is just knowing you’re an imbecile.”

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I almost called this the ugly underbelly of simplicity, but heuristic imbeciles was more fun. To be clear. I am not smart enough to come up with ‘heuristic imbecile.’ Someone must have said it or written it somewhere because it was scribbled in one of my notebooks. So, what is a heuristic imbecile? I would bet we all have one or more people in our sphere. They forward some meme or a snapshot of some simplistic shit (sometimes a quote) that either (a) ignores context or history or (b) maddeningly actually makes the opposite pint they believe it does (but in an upside-down alternative universe down looks up). What they are doing is adopting complex beliefs based on incorrect, or less-than-correct, simplistic bites of information. Let’s call it the allure of the ‘satisfactory partial.’ Pieces and parts become the quick and dirty heuristics to navigating the less-than-rational path. Yeah. Heuristic imbeciles cannot be agents of rational thoughts. The imbecile use of heuristics basically means always being caught in-between rational and irrational even though someone may think of themselves as ‘the rational one’. The satisfactory partial process seems to make sense and, yet, it arrives at outcomes that don’t really make sense. That’s because the ‘process’ understanding isn’t really understanding but rather, well, satisfactory partials. And from there, well, we are screwed.

Anyway. Remember that a thinker must collect and remember enough available information to be rational or implement ‘reason.’ Ignorance is no excuse because there is more than enough information available, so the test is what I knew or should have known. This is stressful. This creates cognitive dissonance. This makes us dependent on some heuristic thinking. The problem, that imbecile thing, occurs with the question of what we conveniently adopt, which creates in some sense an unsound inference, in order to make a choice/decision or even form an opinion. We demand a reasonable requirement of collection of available information and yet many do not have the ability to gather all of it. the reality is we must implement some reasonable care in the gathering as well as the assessment.  This is sometimes called a ‘finite predicament.’ In this predicament our finite minds mean we are unlikely to have entirely correct and complete theories therefore our cognitive biases may cause us to accept some falsehoods and reject some truths. To be clear, generally speaking, we should be cool with this. The reality is complete theories are likely to be too complex for many of us to understand. We are always in a finite predicament of having fixed finite limits on our cognitive resources. In fact we should accept the possibility that any human being let alone any computational entity to be able to perform some relatively simple reasoning tasks in ways that are guaranteed to be correct. This doesn’t mean that we should abandon reason in the pursuit of rational thinking, but rather understand the limitations of what we call reason and rational. It is the understanding that almost every single action that we choose will fall somewhere between randomness and perfection and an understanding that our best logical ability simply must satisfy the minimal inference condition. Uhm. The heuristic imbeciles do none of this.

Part of their issue is they use simplistic heuristics as ‘obvious inferences’ which are supposed to represent understanding of logical truths involved in those inferences. To be clear. The question of adopting convenient, but in some sense unsound inference rules, is how a human’s deduction system works. And while not completely rational it is not a complete rejection of ideal rational conditions because if it did it would encourage us to adopt and anything goes thinking. We just grab onto satisfactory partials, but, the truth is almost always found in the drama of the details. Heuristic imbeciles hate details.

Which leads me to the imbeciles God – technology.

I will not even begin with ChatGPT, suffice it to say the reality is that humans and technology are intertwined and in fact technology becomes a mechanism of some version of a technological moral change. What I mean by that is technology affects moral beliefs and practices through decisions, how we make morally embedded decisions related to others and their decisions, how we relate to others, and perceptually how we perceive situations. And when technology is embedded in those ways they’re constantly nudging against our morality by adding options, by changing decision making utility and costs, by enabling new relationships, by altering the burdens and expectations within those relationships, altering existing balance of power in relationships, and ultimately changing the perceptions through information altering mental models and, of course, heuristics.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out an additional consequence of imbecile heuristics is it permits a sense of distance. What I mean by that is the heuristic provides a sense of anonymous expertise which creates a physical, mental, and moral distance which reduces any consequences to actually being wrong. Ultimately, though, this imbecile runs on reductive, exclusionary ideals of the world which, over time, begins to tear the fabric of the societal contracts. This is not to say that there aren’t plenty of heuristic thinking rejecting the misguided ideals, but the imbeciles can be overwhelming and exhausting.

What we would like is for technology and our heuristics to provide us with mental models and analogies for understanding the world. Heuristics do this in a simple and direct way by giving us new images which we use to interpret and understand the world usually by helping us develop theories about the world. Often it happens in a very abstract way (I believe this is called the tools-to-theories heuristic). Once again, generally speaking, all of us do this. All I’m suggesting is that the heuristic imbeciles do this in such a simplistic and affirming way it is unhealthy for society and, practically speaking, useless for the individual. And it can even become slightly dangerous in that new mental models and heuristics inevitably change our moral perceptions.

Which leads me back to heuristics themselves.

Heuristics are constantly evolving and adapting as we are provided new data, imagery, and information. And as the heuristics change the mental models adapt. And while most of human reasoning about the world is done through simplified mental models of how the world works, reasoning is dependent on crafting models by comparing them with other models. But heuristic imbecile mental models are typically, uhm, heuristics, not models. So, uhm, yeah, their heuristics are being shaped by other heuristics. It gets worse. The heuristic imbeciles simplify this even more so not by degrees, but by multiple degrees. So, while models typically generate insightful thinking and practical guidance, heuristic imbeciles don’t truly compare mental models (and new data, imagery, information) for insightful thinking and practical guidance, they simply generate nonsense and useless guidance. Look. We all compartmentalize information to manage cognitive resources. But extreme compartmentalization, which is basically what heuristic imbecile do, tends to exclude a belief system from the things it needs to optimize reasoning and rationality. What I mean by that is if a belief system is organized into too many sharply defined small compartments, cognitively it all disintegrates into unrelated fragments of too many of the beliefs. The consequence of this is it decreases the likelihood to activate any coherence between them because the mental model only sees too many inconsistencies so useful inferences cannot be recognized.  Here is where things go really awry. Without the linkage the simplistic sense making becomes grounded in flawed logic which, while possibly being okay in the present, will inevitably guarantee the future will at some point no longer make sense. It is generally recognized in the philosophy of psychology that although consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds consistency is a condition for having any mind at all and if the heuristic imbecile cannot even make sense of the present; the future is fucked.

Which leads me to not all finites are created equal.

The reality is a very fundamental feature of human beings is the finite predicament of having fixed limits on their cognitive capacities and the time available to them. This actually demands minimal heuristic requirements as a default mechanism to get us mentally from here to there. The finite predicament we find ourselves in is within our fixed finite limits on our cognitive resources. We may be unable to grasp complete theories because some of the most interesting important theories are likely to be too complex for us to understand and this, inevitably, leads everyone to , in some form or fashion, to agree on some ‘satisfactory partials’. Unfortunately, this contributes to the innate cognitive biases necessary to navigate life and decision making and sensemaking, yet, may also cause us to accept some falsehoods and reject some truths. But just as not all finites are created equal, not all heuristic use is created equal. While much of what I have said today we all do, the heuristic imbeciles are just bad at all of this. they could be lazy, they could be purposefully ignorant, they could be happy with their mental bias, but in the end they are imbeciles who use heuristics to simplify the world in dangerously misguided ways.

Anyway.

Rejection of an ideal rationality condition will never translate into rationalism (a minimal normative condition as a descriptive condition is a dangerous path to wander). And being a heuristic imbecile will never translate into rationalism (although it may feel rational to the heuristic imbecile). Look. In the daily onslaught of new data, a sane human will settle on some vanity metric to point to. Vanity metrics are simplistic heuristics for complex situations. The problem in being sane is in this world we become heuristic imbeciles defining success and failure and picking winners and losers off these simplistic heuristics, memes and information. So, well, maybe I am suggesting in order to avoid being a heuristic imbecile you have to approach the world in a slightly less sane way. Well. That’s a point to ponder.

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“When adults say, “Teenagers think they are invincible” with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.”
John Green, Looking for Alaska

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People careen through their lives between the desire to fitting in and standing out. In fact I would argue that in our youth this drives more stupid decisions than anything else. That doesn’t mean we don’t make stupid decisions later in life based on this dilemma, just that in our youth the codes seem a bit more dire and your choice between fitting in or standing out seems to carry more of a ‘fork in life’ moment. Heck. I could be wrong. But what I do know is that every young person actively thinks about this. And young people make a shitload of stupid decisions (which we should give them a break for).

But back to that “actively thinks about’ point. Maybe that is where adults differ.

Most adults don’t think about it, they just follow ‘the codes.’ What I mean by that is while the young world may seem like Hunger Games with these choices, the adult world is more like a color-coded world where the colors tell you how to fit in and the parameters to that fitting in. The rules are much much clearer on acceptance and rejection. But. That said, as an adult you do have a choice. But most people as they get older simply default to fitting in on the bigger more consequential shit and make themselves feel better about themselves by ‘standing out’ on some little things. You know. Just to show you have a little color of your own in an otherwise color-coded world. That may sound a bit harsh, but it’s kinda true. While the repercussions of bad choices seem to have a larger social effect when young, it seems to have a larger financial or community effect when old. So? We play the game and play by the color coding.

It may appear like I am saying this is the wrong thing to do. I am not. I am simply pointing out that day in, day out, we make choices about fitting in or standing out. And, for the most part, society, communities, and our individual lives, seem to do okay.

The point I am trying to make, though, is that this means most of a life is fairly constrained if you are not careful. In fact, it could quite possibly lead to a fairly comfortable, but unremarkable, life. To be clear. I know it can be incredibly difficult, and tiring, to make the attempt to position yourself in ways, or a way, to assert some control over your image and business life. But unremarkable is unremarkable in the end. Nothing more.

Which leads me to John Green.

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“What is the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable?”
John Green

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Really. What IS the point of life if you don’t even attempt doing something remarkable? I mean, c’mon, survival in and of itself is not that remarkable (for most people). I know the world is maniacally focused on success, winning, numbers, and, attempting something remarkable certainly doesn’t guarantee you any of those things. In fact, attempting something remarkable will most likely have a low probability of attaining any of those things. But. The attempt. The attempt to do something remarkable. At least you tried. Anyway. Just ponder about how much we ‘fit in’ day after day, month after month, year after year, and maybe, just maybe, that attempt to do something remarkable will stand out if not to everyone else, at least you. Ponder.

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“Education is a requirement for success. College is not.”

Me

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“Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.”
JFK

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This is just a short thought on education mostly because I keep hearing about ‘free’ (note: nothing is free) college for everyone. Personally, I think this is nuts. Maybe some technical college or community college, but if you choose to go to a 4-year college, please, go get a good loan. But it’s your choice. And you should pay for your choice.

That said. Free is energizing, but we should be taking a look at structurally whether the education system accommodates the true development of the potential of people.

And maybe this is where I veer a bit from other people.

I break education down into two basic aspects: structural foundational education and ongoing education.

Structural education is the basics you need to assume adult responsibilities and citizen responsibilities. Lets call it readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic + civic education. But I offer it with a twist. Its not time driven (you go at your own pace to the floor or the ceiling) and let me highlight the ceiling aspect. There should be “gifted student programs” because we want the smartest to go as fast, and far, as they can and feel comfortable doing so. Please note that I believe this despite the fact research suggests gifted programs don’t really optimize either IQ or scores and break out gifted students typically benefits disadvantaged gifted students moreso than anyone (even advanced gifted students). But I even have a twist on this. it has been shown time and time again that even one gifted student in a class can lift the entire class. So there has to be some cross-pollination which leads me to the additional ‘gifted student’ program: The generalist path. So what happens if you are gifted in combinatorial thinking? Well. Now you have a gifted program. This structural thinking demands a bit of changed perspectives on education, but in my pealike brain the existing system could be transformed to this thinking (rather than build something from scratch).**

** note: building a new education system from scratch, of which I am a proponent of, is a topic for another day.

Ongoing education certainly has a beginning, but I am unclear there is an end. The reality is awarding more college degrees does not increase the number of jobs that most graduates desire. We are running up against a fundamental limit both in terms of people being herded into college programs and the number of matched-skilled jobs available for them when they graduate. Numbers vary, but about 1 in 5 college graduates in the US are considered overeducated for their current occupation. Circling back, please note “when they graduate.” We are in a weird spot where we feel like there should be a “done this, deserve that” linear like flow. And while. Hypothetically (because of the investment), this should be right, its not. education is complimentary to experience and the combinatorial aspects sometimes mean that there is a time continuum aspect to value created. Well. that’s the whole “ongoing” thing. Anyway. While most people don’t know these numbers, they sense the numbers and as a consequence “higher” education has become easier to access, yet, fewer people take advantage of it. I would argue the majority of people, absent the overwhelming expense, are focused not on education per se, but rather ‘development’, i.e., develop constant learning to be of value and create value in the community (some of which could be monetized). And, yes, this could be primarily in their profession of choice. But. Good management of resources, all resources, should enable opportunities for all people to thrive today and tomorrow, to educate and improve themselves. We should conserve a system of ongoing learning, i.e., education.

Look. The conservation of education is part of, but not the same as, the larger question of national efficiency and effectiveness which I am fairly sure we, society, do not really know how to answer. That’s bad. Its really bad that our perspectives are mostly what’s holding us back. Any significant redesign of education involves changes in how we see as well as how we act, and I would suggest the world – in all its imperfect glory – has repeatedly attempted to transform our perspectives. I am not suggesting education has to run in opposition to rampant industrialization and capitalism, but it should certainly not be run by it.

In the end. It is easy to run into problems when decisions about education are made by a population that is, itself, under educated and steeped in a belief that education is to train for some specific profession.

In the end, 13 years ago I wrote college isn’t for everyone. It isn’t. And we should stop suggesting people who don’t go to college are lesser than, in any way, than someone who elects to go. That said. I think the entire education system needs to be redesigned, but college education in particular needs to shift from a profit-making machine into institutions dedicated to being places of learning. I say that because we are in a weird place where less and less people value a college education and more and more people are suggesting it should be for free, i.e., it is of no value and costs nothing. We should want to have every child have the ability to access college should they desire it. And insure the ones who will excel with a college experience get there with the highest probability of success. And let non-college goers still have opportunities to learn while pursuing their professional choices. Ponder.

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“Developing the mind is important but developing a conscience is the most precious gift parents can give their children.”

John Gray

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I just finished an ‘education system and society’ project where I had some PTSD revisiting some of the same issues I encountered when discussing my 2009 online education initiative. I begin where I have always began – the objective of education has never changed. It is to create good effective citizens so essential thinking skills are embedded within their eventual professional focus; by developing minds. I have consistently said, and thought, the education system should stop chasing industrial predictions of what the professional world will look like in the future. I am not alone in that thought. Shit. Toffler warned us to not follow that in 1970. That said. That is almost heresy in an industrialized education system, and an increasingly professional skill reductionist societal mindset, where everything seemingly gets reduced to measurement against ‘useful skills that can be professionally applied.’ To be honest at this point it almost feels like schools from kindergarten through university are structured in ways that students end up less developed than they would be if they spent the equivalent amount of time doing something else. This is not a reflection of poor educational intent, but rather how capitalism theory has been dictated upon the theory of education within capitalist societies. Ultimately this is a reductive ‘human capital’ theory, rather than “mind development”, that has made educational systems just feeders of the economy not a civilized society. Simplistic pragmatism has stripped education of the belief that possibilities and potential is found in what many people deem ‘soft skills’ (thinking, situational awareness, ethical decision-making) rather than ‘hard skills’ (pragmatically doing something). I suggest that while it is not a binary discussion it is those thinking & awareness skills which creates higher value for when you have actually learned a specific skill.

Anyway.

Consistently, one of the biggest debates I have with traditional educators (and, frankly, some boomer type people who suggest we need to go back to some basics in education so that “they”, i.e., youth, can learn the things we learned) is the role of the web and whether it can educate properly. I find this all a bit ironic in that these same people focus less on developing thinking minds and focus more on pragmatic thinking minds where online pragmatic youtube skills channels are incredibly effective.

We need to ignore existing paradigms and focus on the best ideas.

Yes. That ‘ignoring existing paradigms’ philosophy sucks if you are in the existing education system but developing a new education model means working backwards from whom you are educating.

Which leads me to the people at The Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern University.

1. According to a 2008 Pew report, 97% of American teens aged 12-17 play computer, console, or cell phone games, and three-fourths of these teens play them with others at least some of the time (Lenhart et al. 2008).

2. 93% use the Internet, 61% go online daily, and 51% create content that others can view online (Lenhart et al. 2007).

3. Eleven million students under the age of 18 use MySpace (Owyang 2008).

4. The site myYearbook, a social networking site created specifically for 12- to 17-year-olds, boasts 7 million members (Loten 2008). In short, many, perhaps even most, of the current generation of learners are enmeshed in connective technologies.

5. The environment and culture in which people grow up affect their thought processes and that cognitive processes are far more malleable than previously assumed. Evidence provided by magnetoencephalographic (MEG) imaging suggests that structural rewiring of the brain “can and does occur via experience” (O’Boyle and Gill 1998, 406). Interactive and interpersonal applications of digital technology shape the social and cognitive development of those who use them (Shumar and Renninger 2002). Oblinger (2004) claims that “constant exposure to the Internet and other digital media has shaped how [students] receive information and how they learn” (“Abstract,” 1). Some of these changes include “the development of a new type of multimedia or information literacy” which “parallels other shifts in how we approach learning such as of moving from an environment of being told or authority-based learning to one based on discovery or experiential learning” (“4. How People Learn,” 7).

6. Students “tend toward teamwork, experiential activities . . . and the use of technology. Their strengths include multitasking, goal orientation, . . . and a collaborative style” (“2. Changes in Students,” 1).

7. New societal patterns produce new educational paradigms that too frequently completely discard the old.

8. Students engage their social-connectedness schema in a set of behaviors that I describe as “link, lurk, and lunge”: Students link up with others who have the knowledge they need; they lurk, watching others who know how do to what they want to do; and they lunge, jumping in to try new things often without seeking guidance beforehand (Brown 2000).

9. Students’ social-connectedness schema underlies their ability to create and sustain physical, virtual, and hybrid social networks (Oblinger and Oblinger 2005).

10. Today’s students “do not just think about different things, they actually think differently” (Prensky 2001, 42).

11. Reigeluth (1999) argues, “when a human-activity system (or societal system) changes in significant ways, its subsystems must change in equally significant ways” (16).

12. Education theory must change to accommodate new developments in the way students learn and access information.

Source: This article was originally published in Innovate as: Sontag, M. 2009. A learning theory for 21st-century students. The article is a reprint of the original publisher, The Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern University.

While the information is dated, it remains directionally true. So If we use this information and think about an education redesign what kind of outcome can we expect?

Well. Let me use something the Singapore Ministry of Education has written and created.

If you buy into all of this, well, you then begin leaning into the thought that knowledge and skills must be underpinned by values which help define a person’s character. They shape the beliefs, attitudes and actions of a person, and therefore form the core of the framework of competencies.

The middle ring signifies the Social and Emotional Competencies—skills necessary for children to recognize and manage their emotions, develop care and concern for others, make responsible decisions, establish positive relationships, as well as to handle challenging situations effectively.

The outer ring of the framework represents the 21st century skills necessary for the globalized world we live in. These are:

• Civic literacy, global awareness and cross-cultural skills
• Critical and inventive thinking
• Information and communication skills

Why do I think this matters?

Well. we are in this weird spot where we are being encourage do think that people who go to an Ivy League school, or an equivalent, are less worthy to not only talk to but listen to. Please note, that is nuts. I am not a huge fan of ‘elite schools’, yet, most of these elite schools are simply the highest forms of vocational training – not thinking. And that is where higher education gets caught between being beneficial and being not. Elite schools train practitioner-based leaders, not thinkers. They foster holders of power, not critics of power or even critics of existing systems that uphold power structures. They have a nasty habit of not encouraging an independent mind or an independent thinker (challenging the systems within which people work) or a mind independent of allegiances to the existing institutional power structure. That is where education’s outcomes get killed in the public perception mindset (and it should). An independent thinker thinks of exploring while the practitioner-trained leader seeks to harvest existing fields, i.e., simply squeezing more out of an existing system.

I believe if we want to change education we should let learning occur through individual pursuit, not always ‘from-the-top’ dictate. I also believe business should be designed this way so it all actually ends up in sinc with a larger ‘optimizing professional potential’ objective. That said. I would argue the biggest obstacle to attempting this youth education redesign is adult’s unhealthy love of symmetry & “well rounded education”. My view is to encourage asymmetrical learning. Why? Emergent learning begets exponential learning, not additive learning. That is my Tedtalk in a nutshell. I will note that in order to achieve this it will take a blend of online and face-to-face (as noted in my 2009 initiative – online supported by face to face – or this 2023 piece on blended learning).

Which leads me to we should stop talking about free college or even college at all.

College is a tactic in developing minds, let’s talk strategies. It was around 1900 that the United States made highly (essentially) universal. Industrialized education or not, it created an entire generation with a strong foundation of knowledge. I could argue this was ‘structural value creation’ for society and business. To me the key to the future of, well, everything, is not college education, but youth education. How do we reinvest our energies and focus on the young – equally – so that there is a foundation of critical thinking and knowledge from which the future can be leveraged from. And while I purposefully put ‘critical thinking’ I’d like to be clear that there needs to be a reemphasis on math and science. We need to ditch the ‘right brain/left brain myth’ <which, in my mind, is where things began to truly unravel at the youth education level because it applied some pseudoscience to an already industrialized education system> and grasp the fact that philosophers and ‘creative thinkers’ are better if they understand math and engineers and plumbers (who really are a version of an engineer) are better if they understand arts. To agree with me you almost have to agree that progress is nonlinear, in other words, ‘new work’ is often unplanned outgrowth of innovative thinking. And, if you do, then it behooves the working population to certainly learn a skill, but having reached that skill bringing to bear a broader scope of knowledge and learning to that skill then simply that skill’s particular knowledge stream. Well. That’s what I think. Ponder.

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“You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it.

You just use the future to escape the present.”

Looking for Alaska; John Green

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Let me see. What can I talk about today. Whole life stuck in the labyrinth of crappy work life? Constantly using future to escape the present crappy situation? Imagining a future but never really doing what is needed to do it? Shit. So many choices, so little time.

I begin there because anyone reading this should think about this quote for awhile (and try not to cry).

So let’s go with using the future to escape the present.

Using the phrase “using the future to escape the present” generally refers to the concept of focusing on or relying on future possibilities, outcomes, or plans as a way to cope with or avoid dealing with current challenges, responsibilities, or issues. It’s a mindset where a person may prioritize imagining a better future instead of addressing their current reality. That said. Let me begin with the positive shit. It might mean using the vision of a better future as a source of motivation and hope during challenging times. This can be a healthy way to cope with difficulties, as long as it doesn’t lead to neglecting the present entirely. It’s kind of a version of Churchill’s ‘if you are in hell, keep going.’ As long as your future horizon incorporates some planning to get there, well, that can be a proactive approach to getting out of where you are and to a more fulfilling place in your life.

The good stuff is easy to see and, well, that’s it for the good stuff. Most of us who use the future to escape the present do it for the wrong reasons. And business is fraught with this stuff. Most of the time we do it to ignore reality. It’s kind of like wishful thinking in order to ignore the difficult realities in the present. I call it living in fantasyland.

So let’s visit fantasyland.

Fantasyland is a minefield of potential dangers and negative consequences. In fantasyland we use future goals and possibilities to provide motivation and hope but then we use that motivation and hope to disregard the present reality. It leads to these common shitty rabbit holes.

• Neglecting Responsibilities: your current responsibilities, tasks, and commitments become less important than future ones. For some reason the future ‘opportunity’ takes on a higher value in our head than any missed present value opportunities. This is nuts.
• Escapism: we use the future to escape crappy work situations including a crappy work environment. Unfortunately, you cannot escape crap. Crap will hunt you down in the present while you are seeking escape in the future.
• Missed Opportunities: as noted in point one, opportunities in the present are the pragmatic traction points for growth and success. Period. No debate. Look ahead too far and you will never see what is right in front of you.
• Unresolved Issues: avoiding present challenges only allows them to snowball. Yeah. You may think you can outrun them by finding some future escape hatch, but you will not and cannot. Unresolved issue are faster than you and sneakier than you and anything left unresolved NEVER goes away all by itself. I believe that is a business postulate.

Look. If we are honest, we have to balance the focus between the future and the present. While having aspirations and goals for the future is healthy, it’s equally important to engage with reality. The good news is that acknowledging and embracing the present can lead to more meaningful experiences, personal growth, and a better overall quality of life. As a corollary, if you don’t embrace the present in some form or fashion you will inevitably feel disconnected. What’s worse, though, is that learning comes from actively engaging with the current circumstances. Ignoring the present can prevent you from learning from challenges and setbacks, hindering personal growth.

In summary, the phrase “using the future to escape the present” can encompass both positive and negative aspects, ranging from drawing motivation from future prospects to avoiding responsibilities or challenges in the present moment. But I would suggest in most situations it is a negative because we do it for the wrong reasons. Don’t believe me? Look around your business. Ponder.

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“Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.”

Hugh McLeod

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Life is neither balanced or proportional and neither is it, generally speaking, fair or unfair. Life just is what it is which is, well, indifferent. I sometimes believe its good to remind ourselves of that because we give both successes and failures just a bit more emphasis then they most likely deserve. What I mean by that is successes encourage us to believe more successes are on the horizon and failures encourage us to believe more failures are on the horizon. All, and none, of that is true.

What I do know to be true is that if you don’t keep moving, Life will run you over.

What I mean by that is you can make the greatest decision in the world and if you stop too long to enjoy the moment … well … the devil <who apparently never rests> will recognize that moment as an opportunity to fuck with you.

I imagine the bigger message the Devil offers is be prepared for “what’s next” as soon as you have finished whatever it is you just did.

I am not sure what that says about Hell.

Does that mean we live in Hell in that we can never rest? Does it mean Hell resides in some place which awaits your moment of stillness to step in front of you?

Hell. I don’t know. All I really know is there is hell to pay no matter what you do so you may as well do something and do something you want to do. Ponder.

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“I lived according to the prevailing myth. Everyone lives by myths.

Prettied up they are called truths … basic truths, natural truths, self-evident truths. What I knew or thought a year ago is beside the point. The problem is today. Even if the past was a lie, what am I supposed to replace it with? Another lie? All that’s necessary is to pull the old one out and put a new one in like a circuit board?

Inspector O

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“The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.”

Robert Heinlein

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“If no one knows anything, then why can’t I know something?”

Bruce McTague

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Well. I am sure we have all experienced it. Sitting around with friends, maybe at the corner of the bar, bitching about the world and talking about what we would do to fix it. At that table and at that time we can solve everything that the experts, the leaders, the grand decision makers, seem to struggle solving.

Most of the time, if we are honest with ourselves, we dumb it down to some simplistic surface conclusion which sometimes is partially right.

Most of the time we apply a ‘common sense’ filter which, if we are honest with ourselves, does not really reflect the complexity of reality.

Most of the time, if we are honest with ourselves, more often than not we are wrong.

Its not that we aren’t smart, it just may be we are a little intellectually lazy. Ok. Maybe we just don’t know enough or have enough experience. But … whew … in the moment … in the discussion and debate and obvious commons sense, we could run the world, the country and the biggest business ventures out there. It is a fun moment. And we feel smart and, more importantly, we feel as if we could do whatever it is as well as the person who is doing it. For a moment we look around at all the Harvard MBAs and all the policy experts and all the high falutin’ experts and we are as good and as smart as they are.

Sigh.

But we are not.

It may seem like it. But we are not. Yet, when sitting at the corner of the bar, every Steve, Sarah, Sue and Sam thinks that they are.

I actually believe this belief is driven by a version of the 80/20 guide. Assuming you are fairly worldly, fairly well informed and fairly enlightened, you probably get 80% of it right. And, boy, that 80% feels good. It may even feel “right enough.” But, in general, its just 80% right, i.e., not good enough. And that is the difference between an amateur and a professional or an expert. That 20%.

Sure. Some would argue it is simply the nuance, but in most of the larger more grand problems and issues we face it is that 20% that makes something go incredibly right or incredibly wrong.

Most of us are not capable of that 20%.

Realistically the last time everyone possessed the same skills in a society to participate within a leadership role at 100% equal was maybe several millennia ago when humankind was in the hunter/gatherer era. Once we evolved into larger social groupings, inevitably creating cities and population clusters where some people had to make decisions for the greater good of the whole, some people naturally evolved into governors and governing <leadership> and the expertise needed to assume those responsibilities. And while we can bitch & moan about the ineptness of leadership, in general, leaders decide on the big shit and others decide on the little shit and the world is relatively navigable. But, yeah, that ‘navigable’ aspect is annoyingly more difficult than we want, believe it should be, and in being that way we everyday schmucks get confused and believe we would be smarter, if not as smart, as people in the positions of leadership.

Which leads me to suggest part of the problem is the problems themselves.

As we discuss country issues, we discuss natural contradictions within a complex world <both domestic & international is important> as well as the fact the American people often embrace contradictory goals <just wander through any PewResearch report to confirm that thought>. The reality is most of the things we discuss have multiple objectives and everything being done is an attempt to harness a complex mix of constantly moving parts and pieces to attain those objectives. And. Many of the parts and pieces may appear to contradictory. At the corner of the bar more often than not we ignore the contradictory challenges with more simplistic solutions for what would be great <under the guise of common-sense actions or ‘seems to make sense on the surface’ attitudes>. The solutions we tend to gravitate toward are, well, pretty useless. Patriotism, exceptionalism, nationalism, or all simplistic vague hat stands to place our hats on. And if you are not careful it can all take on a harsh insular ‘past driven’ edge to a much grander ‘future possibilities’ thought. But all of them do not really offer solutions, just an umbrella for everyone to stand under in the monsoon of contradictory issues. To be fair. We all want common sense to solve all problems and we all want to blame someone for the specific problems we see and institutions, government and experts are easy targets because its simpler to suggest they do not have common sense (like we do). Its simpler to blame than to acknowledge some of the problems we suggest are simple are actually just an unfortunate outcome of a very complex systemic issue far beyond any common sense solutioning.

Which leads me to suggest gravitating to the simple, and simplistic, is a natural human instinct.

Complexity brings out the emotional in us everyday schmucks, not the rational. Yeah. I just said that. At the corner of the bar, we more often than not rule our thoughts based on passion supported by some dubious reasoning. The experts reverse the equation ignoring/limiting passionate response <fear, individualism, anger> and basing ideas & solutions on solid reasoning and rational thought <and things called “laws”>. And while we at the corner of the bar sometimes shake our heads wondering what common sense <or lack thereof> created some laws, we accept they are laws (even Laws of Physics which are unfathomable to most of us). Experts tend to use laws as vague outlines within which nearing ‘the law boundary’ is actually a caution rather than a green light. At the corner of the bar most discussions dance on the superficial surface of “it is legal” or “it is not legal” (or its possible versus impossible). But let’s be honest. The neighborhood bar is in … well … the neighborhood. It is where we kibbitz over non neighborhood things. In general, we take a fairly ridiculously narrow view of how the world works. We have ridiculously simplistic and faulty view. If you open up some of your ‘strongly held loose opinions’ you not only realize that most of our social intellect, and the political rhetoric in general, is sadly lacking and even slightly embarrassing and that those of us sitting at the corner of the bar may not be stupid, but there are a shitload of really smart people discussing these topics. Basically, most of us struggle with globalization and nationalism. It’s not that we do not want either or reject one over the other, it is that we struggle to see, feel and understand the balance. One expert called this uneasiness we feel ‘casual collapse.’ It is the seemingly ongoing blurring of many beliefs, rituals, formal requirements and laws that define specific societies and us.   And we feel a little helpless in stopping this ‘casual collapse’ because of that darn thing called ‘the internet’ <the cross-cultural sharing of information and knowledge> and the ubiquity of globalization  Now.  All this is happening without causing any particular larger collapse of anything. It is just a casual collapse of things as they used to be. And it is happening despite any government edicts or programs designed to slow the change <collapse> or older generations tied to some past cultural aspects efforts. It is an inevitable collapse driven by the fact as everyone becomes more knowledgeable about ‘what is happening and what people are thinking’ half way around the world and they begin questioning the status quo conventional thinking where they are.

It becomes a blending of local cultural thinking and a more global perspective. To be honest. It can be equally exciting and uncomfortable. Someone can equally want to hold on tightly to one beloved ritual/thought and grab onto a new ritual/thought. And this is happening in 300 million someones and 8 billion someones simultaneously. As people are exposed to a wider range of alternative goods, services, lifestyles, opinions, rituals and experiences, their tolerance to alternative thinking and behavior grows – as does their interest & attitudes.

Generally speaking, the internet simply accelerates what would have been happening naturally.

I am certainly not suggesting this happens overnight. As trendwatching suggested: “compared to much trend thinking, casual collapse moves at a glacial pace.” That said. Whether we like it or not globalization has forced the world to be at odds with itself. We are not a world of countries and states living in solitude, but rather one in which we overlap, linked and delinked, by varying degrees of history, culture, religion, language, location, ideas and institutions.

This causes a natural reaction against a sense of uniformity.

And therein lies the greater conflict – while economic life takes place on a global platform; human identity remains national and local. Yeah. The identification of local <and nationalism> will always continue and will always create the same angst we feel at the corner of the bar as we watch the zillion TV’s typically sitting in the bar suggesting globalization is infringing upon our corner of the bar.

And even global economic growth infringes upon our national identification.

What do I mean? Economics depends on education and communication which leads directly to conflicts over language and comparisons over education levels. All the while a global economic view encourages everyone to believe the world is their oyster – anyone can aspire to any economic position. The reality is that everyone does not have an equal likelihood of upward economic mobility <locally, nationally or globally> even though each individual has different innate capabilities which SHOULD translate into equal opportunity.

I say that to follow it with at the corner of the bar, we need not worry nor address the balance … we focus on what we need and what we want – not necessarily the greater good. That doesn’t mean we don’t acknowledge, and give a head nod, to other people’s anguish or some aspects of inequities, just that attempting to incorporate it into our bar wisdom is a level of complexity beyond the typical cocktail fed brain.

All that said. The one thing we common everyday schmucks can certainly do really well at the corner of the bar is to analyze the present and embrace some of the past. Unfortunately we suck at envisioning the future. In fact, I could argue that our optimal corner of the bar wisdom is directed toward critiques of past decisions and present issues (as we think they are). But none of our ‘wise solutions’ are likely to be effective in a future yet to be written, in a world that is anything but simple, in a world where society is often uneven, in a world where local societies and communities overlap with a global society, in a world burdened by public institutions seemingly incapable of navigating local and international needs. As a consequence of the overwhelming complexity the minds turn to the tried and true simplistic divide versus unite, us versus them, common sense versus expert sense, because it is easier to solve a part rather than a complex whole.

And that is where most of us at the corner of the bar truly fall short.

…. typical plan ….

The big country and global issues have similar objectives: enriching people, minds, bodies and attitudes. Yeah. A pretty difficult task.

It is a complex task.

It requires the best of everyone, the best of civilizations and the best of leadership & thinking … not emphasizing the differences, but reinforcing the common objective and leaning into the greater messy connectivity from which anything good emerges from.

Look.

A country, a culture, a society is a messy creature.

A country can be kind and generous as well as cruel and coldblooded as they pick their way through the naturally messy, dynamic, always shifting, chaotic world.

The United States clearly has the capacity to influence which future is most likely. However, for anyone to predict the future confidently, would be highly incautious or naïve if not just a simplistic fool.

Globalization is not a simplistic concept.

Nationalism is not a simplistic concept.

Being a president, or any leader of a significant organization, is not a simplistic concept.

All leadership positions demand navigating complexity. That said. Inevitably leading is not just about hope or promising something better, it is a pragmatic pushing of opportunity to the people who need it the most and want it the most <thereby maximizing what opportunities do exist> and removing obstacles to possibilities. The truth is that opportunities and possibilities abound. In fact. There may actually be more opportunity in the world than problems <but you would never know it by watching the TV at the corner of the bar>.

Which leads me to mainstream corner of the bar wisdom.

A hundred and fifty years ago, I could imagine looking up at the stars, knowing It was unknowable to me and I knew I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out. But in today’s world where I have no idea how my mobile phone or the internet work <or my car, television, or microwave, or … whatever> everything seems so unknowable and, yet, using them makes amateurish expert wisdom actually seem, uhm, attainable.

In other words. If no one knows anything, then why can’t I know something?

It is that thought which appears to have left the corner of the bar and has now appeared in coffee shops, kitchens, townhalls, school meetings and, well, everywhere. The corner of the bar discussions, which typically have devolved into the simplistic with solutions that skate on the superficial surface of reality, are now mainstream “intelligent common sense” thoughts.

That’s nuts.

And its crazy bad for society and the world.

We should not, and cannot, devolve into a world where there are no experts or believe that experts don’t know more than we do. We need to stop destroying the experts. Simply being an expert doesn’t mean ‘perfection’ – not making mistakes or being wrong <because that would predicate they could actually tell the future>, but they have an exponentially higher chance of solving the most complex issues than any of us everyday schmucks. But let’s be honest. We want people smarter than us – yahoos just sitting at the corner of the bar – making the really important decisions.

Well. I certainly do.

Ponder.

===

“The way we got out of the caves and into modern civilisation is through the process of understanding and thinking. Those things were not done by gut instinct. Being an expert does not mean that you are someone with a vested interest in something; it means you spend your life studying something. You’re not necessarily right – but you’re more likely to be right than someone who’s not spent their life studying it.”

Brian Cox

–

“Not adding value is the same as taking it away.”

Seth Godin

–

“Truth has two main problems. Truth tends to be complicated and truth tends to be painful.”

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• Opening note/warning: let me be clear that what I am suggesting today is simply representative of business as it exists today, not how business should exist. Soe part may be maddening to those who, like me, who believe in fostering emergent, dynamic, generalist-skewed, organizational behavior. Just imagine how maddening parts of this were just in typing.

Value-extracting creates nothing new: it simply moves money around. It does not grow the economy, it does not lead to innovation, and it contributes to greater inequality. Well. That is certainly one vein of wisdom. But let’s talk about an uncomfortable version of value extraction. Yeah. We talk in business about value creation all the time. Maybe we should talk about value extraction just a bit more. Why? Because a lot of business is extracting value and ideas and thoughts from semi-formed value, ideas and thoughts in the people around you. Oh. And to exploit those extractions. Yeah. I just said that. That sounds bad, doesn’t it”? Let me explain. The business world is, and has been, a specialized world for a while. Decades and decades of ‘specialize to optimize your career’ has wrought a world of, well, specialists. And because business is business, they have tripled down on that specialization encouraging people to invest their outside energy honing that specialization and honing their ‘productivity skills’ surrounding that specialization. As a consequence, that means the business world is strewn with specialists who really aren’t adept at offering value, and value creation, ideas beyond their constrained specialist zone. I am not suggesting that zone cannot be deep and valuable, just that it isn’t particularly broad and valuable in a larger scope. Given what I just said, a minority of good business people are good at plucking out the ideas, thoughts, skills from the people around them. Uhm. Extracting and exploiting.

Which leads me to best practices.

Best practices extract value. Yeah. I just said that. Let me slice this two ways. It extracts value potential in a creation standpoint (bad) and it extracts value from those involved in the process (semi-good). The latter is actually the real reason leaders love process. It extracts replicable value, not optimal value, from the organization. But let’s be clear, management loves to use best practices to extract value and exploit worker “time”. Once again, a significant portion of this comes back to that specialization thing. Business has this weird belief that if you reduce everything it will expand, well, something (I am unclear what). Anyway. I am not anti-process, but using process TO extract is wrongheaded. Process should be a baseline ‘way to work’ so that workers have an opportunity to think and create the shit that an ‘extractor’ will be scanning for.

Which leads me to technology.

Here is the weird thing. Much of what technology offers business, at least as implemented, extracts from value. Its weird because we should be seeking, relentlessly I may add, to use business as a value creator. Anyway. Technology gets you both coming and going. Coming in it extracts effectiveness because for the most part people are asked to fit to technology rather than technology augmenting people. Going technology gets you with technical debt which inevitably clogs up any chance of increasing value. That said. Let’s get back to the uncomfortable part. Technology, used well, can extract the value from the minds of people. Some people may suggest this is augmenting people. Shit. I am a proponent of technology crafted to augment people. But for today I am discussing pure and simple extraction. While much of digital transformation is useless in terms of expenditures and effectiveness, there are many technological tools available to isolate individual’s who have the knowledge, wisdom, skills and thoughts that can be extracted from the organizational machine and incorporated into the larger value creation machine. It may sound creepy to say that but, what the hell, if I am going to infringe n people’s privacy I may as well figure out how to do so in a way that permits the individual to contribute beyond their specific skill cage.

Which leads me to how technology could augment positive extraction.

Within the next decade we ought to develop tools that would allow us to interact not only with information, but also with simulations and predicted futures, concepts, that might emerge depending on the dynamic marketplace and the choices we might make to exploit the market opportunities. It would be silly to ignore the fact technology offers the best opportunity to do this. knowledge graphs, AI which analyzes computer usage, LLMs which pluck out individuals for the extractors to go seek out. There are a number of semi-creepy ways to extract and exploit – in the interest of generating business value.

Which leads me to ‘culture fit’.

Oddly, or maybe paradoxically, hiring for culture is counter to value extraction. Yeah. Culture fit extracts value potential from the organization which means if you are scanning about seeking to extract dormant value you will see less and less to extract. It becomes a reductionary universe in which ideas and thoughts inevitably get smaller and smaller and incremental value creation gets smaller and smaller. Circling back to the thought that part of today’s business world is actually figuring out how to extract valuable thoughts and ideas from an organization, culture fit makes that more difficult. Culture fit will tend to emphasize not only similar thinking but emphasize specialization. Uhm. Both reduce the possibilities for larger value creation thinking, thoughts and ideas.

In the end.

I know it sounds horrible to speak about extract and exploit in some semi-positive way, but it is kinda true in today’s business world. In order to maximize the potential in an organization you almost are forced to put people in a room that on the surface seem more a pain in the ass than a valuable contributor and, well, set out to extract from their strengths in order to exploit the knowledge to the benefit of the business. Ponder.

=================

“The worst thing about falling to pieces is that humans can do it so quietly.”

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“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

==============

Well.

Stark.

That is what I felt when I put these two quotes together for the first time.

Starkly absent of cynicism, pessimism or optimism.

Just stark.

Stripped of any hues of Life.

That’s what I felt.

Shit.

I then sat back and said “whew, if I felt that … imagine how someone feels who actually writes these things.”

And maybe that is my point.

Most of us can only imagine how this starkness feels.

Most of us, at our worst, get only a glimpse of this starkness.

And, even then our stark is most likely not this stark.

Now, this kind of starkness doesn’t usually ‘just appear.’ In fact I would suggest this type of stark is an outcome of humans falling to pieces incredibly quietly.

I do know that starkness is difficult to express to someone who has never seen starkness.

I do know that there are most likely more people who, on the outside, are holding their shit together so well that most of us don’t even think to offer a ‘are you doing okay’ question.

I do know there are far more people who so quietly are falling apart than we believe.

So here’s the deal.

Falling apart is falling apart. What I mean by that is everything, and I mean everything, that falls apart makes some sound. You just have to listen closely enough to hear it.

===============

No, now you’ve got me interested, I want to know

exactly what seems wrong to you, how something could

seem wrong to you. In what way do things get to be wrong?

John Ashbery

=====================

Yeah. But. You have to listen closely for the sound one makes when they fall to pieces quietly.

It may be just a whisper of a sound. You may even confuse it for the rustle of falling leaves.

But.

Quietly or not, as the pieces fall apart, they make a sound.

You just have to listen closely.

This gets even trickier. Let me go back to my ‘stark’ opening. If you have never truly experienced stark, it is difficult to see this kind of starkness.

Sure.

You may get a sense of ‘something wrong’, but far too often we skate along the superficial surface of ‘something wrong’ assuming lack of depth or “not any starker than we have ever seen” and … well … we miss the true starkness.

My point?

What may sound like the rustle of some dead leaves on the ground may actually be the sound of some starkness we cannot even imagine.

The recognition of the true sound demands you take an interest in what is happening in the people’s lives around you. I am not suggesting empathy or compassion, just interest. By the way, what differentiates humans from other species isn’t opposable thumbs or the size of our brains, but rather compassion and an interest in humans – interest as in doing better, being better and just having a better life <and helping people be better if they are not>.

While, of course, we want it to be better for ourselves, we also don’t want it to suck for others. And we certainly don’t want anyone to have such a stark existence that their Life retains no color or, worse, no hope.

The difficulty in fulfilling this inner innate characteristic of ‘interest in others’ is the outer irate characteristic of Life. The outer is always angrily demanding you to focus on it and not the other humans occupying Life. This may not be selfishness, but it is often more self interest in a zero sum game world <where you bolt on a belief everyone is accountable for themselves and how they think>.

Look.

I am not suggesting running around listening to everyone’s whispers looking to save everyone.

I would suggest that the two quotes I used reminded me that saving a human, even just one, can sometimes be enough.

Just listen closely. The world can be really, really, noisy and falling apart can be really, really, quiet.

Yeah.

Humans can fall to pieces so quietly. And no human, even someone we really do not like much, deserves to have such a stark existence that, well, they can only stare blankly at their Life falling apart.

Ponder.

===

“Being covertly spiteful with the intent of inflicting mental pain.”
Ashta-Deb

===

I get asked for my thoughts all the time.

Literally.

All.

The.

Time.

I would say about 75% of the time I’m asked in good faith. What I mean by that is these 75% genuinely looking to improve or augment what they already think that they know. I thought about this for two reasons. The first was a recent piece JP Castlin offered where he discussed giving second opinions in business. Basically, it came down to fundamentals and the fact somebody who is offering the second opinion should be asking about assumptions rather than giving an opinion on a decision. That’s a truth I believe overlooked by far too many people who are either asked for thoughts or just give thoughts without being asked. The second reason is that other 25%. Yeah. The 25% who asked for thoughts in a passive aggressive way. What do I mean by that? You get forwarded an article, a thought piece, an image, and the only thing that’s attached to it is either ‘what do you think?’ or just the word ‘thoughts?’. It’s a trap. Let me just tell everyone who’s reading this; it’s a trap. And worse it’s a passive aggressive trap. The asker does not really want your thoughts, what they want to do is to tell you their thoughts and what you are missing and where you are wrong. Let me be clear. I love to hear other people’s thoughts, I love to hear if I actually miss something, and I love to be wrong, because every time any one of those three things happens I’m learning something new. But that’s not what is happening here in the passive aggressive situation. You are purposefully being asked in a way because they know, in general, you are gonna offer an answer or offer some thoughts or offer an idea which is going to be counter in some significant way or ‘a way’ that they’re gonna be able to make their point from what they already believe. Its passive aggressive, it’s annoying. However. It is indicative of an unfortunately large swath of people.

Which leads me to the underpinning issue of passive aggressive questioning.

So, yeah, well it would be easy to just call that 25% assholes but the reality is that they are representative of a larger societal issue. To be clear my 25% will have an incredibly high likelihood of having a high level of business experience, a broad level of business experience, and college education. I say that in combination with the word representative because if this 25% has the characteristics of what I would consider a shallow intellectual depth, on a larger scale there will be more of them. The underpinning is far too many people have rejected the discipline of the mind, of critical thinking, and the ability to be able to reexamine their beliefs and opinions. But they are sneaky in their lack of discipline. Sneaky in that they absorb external information, so they appear to be assimilating it into morphing views and attitudes. but they sift through all this information plucking out the proof points for their existing beliefs AND highlighting the things that make opposing views seem “absurd”. **

• ** note: those things are typically (a) without context or (b) reflective of some random event).

So, while they view trends and developments in the external world -economy, technology, social, culture – and they state they are important to follow, they don’t really allow it to directly or indirectly impact their views. They are really only observers of knowledge and not participating thereby not experiencing the connections and correlations which would create the traction for wisdom.  While they may seem to have an open mindset they actually have a more traditional mindset where they “feel” beliefs and focus primarily on the things that support their views rather than spending the time that they are watching the external world using it to inform their views. This was actually outlined by Philip Tetlock:

“Regardless of what side of the social intellect scale you reside on what you think isn’t really based on the level of Education or even actual experience instead it comes down to the way someone thinks. The ones who typically do amazingly badly with regard to how they think about things were those who believed that there was a big idea which explained everything world was simple and could be understood simply and that they could just stamp their big idea unto every situation. The ones who do well thinking through things were those who had no such big idea, who regarded the world as complex took their information from many different sources and were willing to be self critical and learn from mistakes. The key inevitably comes down to checking whether you were right or wrong. And even that is tricky because the majority of people seek out proof for what they predicted or thought rather than broad based information to check against it.”

I believe it was Jonathan Haidt who said when we are presented with evidence for or against a hypothesis, we ask ourselves one of two questions.

• When we want to believe something, we ask ourselves “can I believe it?” Then we search for supporting evidence and if we find even a single piece of pseudo evidence we can stop thinking. We now have permission to believe.
• When we don’t want to believe something, we ask ourselves “must I believe it?” Then we search for contrary evidence and if we find a single reason to doubt the claim, we can dismiss it.

I believe this is called motivated credulity and motivated skepticism.

The incredibly sad thing is by rejecting the discipline of the mind people are corrupting the one tool which elevated us everyday schmucks to some intellectual rigor of thought. This rejection inevitably creates an almost purposeful disregard for common knowledge replacing it with the oft mis-placed and oft-misused common sense. If we are truly honest, a significant swath of society lacks the penetrating critical intellect needed to pierce some of the complex issues we face hiding behind “common sense.” A complex world increases a craving for a simplicity, for something to follow, and it chases anyone who feeds into the desire for simplicity with hollow simplistic rhetoric. The urge to chase is encouraged if there is an overall disenchantment with the culture of the country – decline of national spirit, disappointment in idealism defeated by some institutional realism and materialism in business. All only encourages people to double down on the accumulated burden of ideas and attitudes over a lifetime, and the growing up experience, which consequently very few people will ever get around even to questioning. We all grow up in the context of certain ideas, which create some attitudes and beliefs, and it is difficult for us to shake free of them. I admit all of that, I acknowledge all of that, but there are a shitload of people who do not. and, relevant to this piece, it seems like the more educated, and more experienced, the 25% passive aggressive asshats are, the less likely they are to see themselves in anything I have written. And that, my friends, is indicative of an unfortunately large swath of people in the world today. Ponder.