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“I’m a firm believer in the power of change. 

But there is one thing I’ve learned, and that’s the hardest part of moving forward is not looking back.”

Felicity

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Progress is difficult <and easy>. Changing is even more difficult <and easy>. Now. I am not sure if it is more difficult if you discuss this as ‘one’ <an individual> or as a ‘whole’ <groups, countries, society>.

Well, to me, the reason why I kept on throwing in easy is because I believe we look at “difficult” incorrectly.

Maybe difficulty is simply difficulty.

Maybe there are no ‘degrees of difficulty’ when it comes to change.

Maybe there is no ‘little or big’ change.

Maybe it is simply, well, change … no size … no degrees … and it is all difficult.

One size – same degree of difficulty.

In fact. Maybe I should be arguing we diminish, or boost the whole concept of difficulty by trying to find levels within it. And maybe a philosophical young student Tv character <Felicity> simplified change and progress and difficulty into the simplest form — not looking back. In other words, change difficulty is all about the past and not looking back. Therein lies the hardest part or the “difficult” as it were with change – looking forward & just doing and not looking back at what you may, or may not be, leaving behind.

That said.

Individuals or societies, the ones or the manys, always seem to want to go back or look back <in some form or fashion>. It’s funny. We do this even if we know it isn’t the right thing or the best thing. We look at the past holding on to what exists with ragged tenacious claws.

Worse? We sometimes <often> delude ourselves into believing we are proceeding in the most rational way by weighing all of the pros and cons of various alternatives which are actually alternatives usually based on looking backwards <with an eye on a future thought>.

Oddly.

Quite often it really isn’t rational thinking because in the end most often the decision ends up no more than “I liked that more than I liked the other alternative.”

Oh. And that is scary. Because our attitude and perception with regard to the past is wacky.

Wacky not only because, all things created equal, we not only view the past differently than it really was <we tend to gloss over things> but also how we think and feel today <please note this is the first time I have mentioned anything to do with the present> influences how we remember yesterday. Yeah. Whatever we are feeling now and about ‘now’ is a filter in which the past has to sift its way thru. That matters because tomorrow’s anticipated gains and losses inspire today’s decisions and actions.

–          Example one:

After being shown an ad talking about the wonders of Disneyland, including shaking hands with Bugs Bunny, people were asked about their own memories of visiting Disneyland. 16 percent vividly remembered shaking hands with Bugs Bunny, even though there’s no Bugs Bunny at Disneyland. (He’s a Warner Brothers character.)

–          Example two <using some research>:

This is about what is called Time perspective. It’s not the actual real events of the past that most strongly influence our lives. It is actually our attitude toward events in the past matter more than the events themselves <ponder that one for a minute or two>.

Our time perspective — whether we tend to get stuck in the past, live only for the moment, or are enslaved by our ambitions for the future – effect our attitudes and behavior and decisions <lets call this ‘progress’>.

Stanford University psychology professor Philip Zimbardo created this idea of time perspective. After a boatload of research over a lot of time <10 years> he concluded our attitude toward time is just as defining as key personality traits such as optimism or sociability. He concluded time perspective influences many of our judgments, decisions, and actions. Zimbardo identified five key approaches to time perspective.

These are:

• The ‘past-negative’ type. You focus on negative personal experiences that still have the power to upset you. This can lead to feelings of bitterness and regret.
• The ‘past-positive’ type. You take a nostalgic view of the past, and stay in very close contact with your family. You tend to have happy relationships, but the downside is a cautious, “better safe than sorry” approach which may hold you back.
• The ‘present-hedonistic’ type. You are dominated by pleasure-seeking impulses, and are reluctant to postpone feeling good for the sake of greater gain later. You are popular but tend to have a less healthy lifestyle and take more risks.
• The ‘present-fatalistic’ type. You aren’t enjoying the present but feel trapped in it, unable to change the inevitability of the future. This sense of powerlessness can lead to anxiety, depression and risk-taking.
• The ‘future-focused’ type. You are highly ambitious, focused on goals, and big on making ‘to do’ lists. You tend to feel a nagging sense of urgency that can create stress for yourself and those around you. Your investment in the future can come at the cost of close relationships and recreation time.

Anyway. All the research aside … here is an uncomfortable truth. Most of us are either focused on the past or the future. Or even both.

Here is the uncomfortable part.

That means if we are so preoccupied with past and future, well, that inevitably makes the present, well, smaller.

Yeah. The present becomes the smallest part of our attitudes which inevitably drives our behavior.

Unfortunately <or fortunately to any change consultant>  change actually begins and ends with what you actually do in the present. Nothing else really matters when it come to change.

Yikes. That sure explains a lot.

Anyway.

The hardest part of moving forward is not looking back. Heck. Maybe the hardest part of moving forward is not only not looking back .but not looking forward too.

<note: my head hurts after typing that>

Change is, adn will always be, about flipping today to tomorrow. Easy, and as hard, as that.

I imagine that change will always be difficult and the only thing that may matter is to make the present a little bit bigger in how you think in the scheme of things. I say that because when you do flip the present, and what you do in the present, and tomorrow looks bigger & better you will most likely have no desire to look backwards anymore, less likely to hold with ragged claws to anything you used to do, and more likely to just have, well, changed … and it is all said and done.

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originally written October 2013

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“Who belonged to no one, who belonged to everyone.
Who had nothing, who wanted everything.”
Lana Del Rey

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Business has always struggled to navigate self-interest versus collective interest. They create these sweeping uplifting visions and now even discuss a grander purpose with the intent to create collective interest in a common objective. Yet at the same time they design a long menu of incentives, bonuses, pay raises and in general every tool available to encourage every individual, every self, to do what is right for themselves. This conflict is a tug of war between self and the collective ultimately makes an organization less productive. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this conflict, which is incredibly important to every individual because this is how they earn their living, bleeds into society kitchen table by kitchen table.

But then there is this an added feature. And that would be group level selfishness. Humans aren’t stupid. Employees clearly understand what it takes to get ahead and to get more money and they understand they more than likely need other people to get what they individually want. Therefore, small groups form to not only fight within the system, but often to fend off the other groups from getting what they believe is a zero-sum pot of gold. It’s obvious this group level selfishness makes it hard for groups to get along. Like minded groups tend to amplify one key self-interest feature and that would be the different ideas of the appropriate terms of cooperation about what people should and should not expect from one another. Every individual has a point of view on this. Within a business, groups tend to coalesce around the common belief of their view on this. Obviously, what this means is that business has several different groups with number of different definitions of what they expect when they are asked to collaborate and cooperate with each other often of which are not in alignment.

Which leads me to shared ambition.

Look. I am all for communities, informal networks, distributed decision making and a variety of other ideas with regard to alternative thinking to command-and-control, but I think a business is a microcosm of society – a social construct grounded in some social contracts. Social constructs are inherently, and naturally, territorial therefore it would seem like the only way to share in a desired outcome is to tap into ambitions (which is inevitably a type of social contract). Based on that I think we need to spend more time on the social contracts aspect, as in “shared ambitions.”

Shared is important. Shared is not about efficiency, it is actually a “benefit multiplier.” An individual is additive and collective effort is a multiplier. I don’t need a case study to prove that, its common sense logic. Think about it in these terms: “if you say ‘I know I can generate these results, but I cannot generate these (something else) withouthout them.” that is tapping into potential through collective effort and collective interests. It is a combination of ‘me to you’ (what you get from me) and ‘we to you’ (how others expand individual effort). But this sharing demands a bit of a mindset agreement (not just in ambitions but in coexisting). What I mean by that is part of the uneasy social contract society has is its dealings with ‘helping others.’ Most people are perfectly happy to give money to their churches and other local institutions that serve other people. but when the government uses ‘their money’ (taxes) they think it goes not to hardworking people who just need a helping hand, but to welfare queens. Within this uneasy social contract, it means help goes to ‘them,’ not ‘us.’ This is group level selfishness and is fairly common – consciously or subconsciously. The tragedy of commons is a tragedy of selfishness, a failure of individuals to put us ahead of me which actually inhibits shared anything let alone ambitions. It gets a little trickier. The weird thing is that while moral thinking enables cooperation within groups it can simultaneously undermine cooperation between groups. This happens because each group has their own ‘codes’ and ‘moral ideas’ which remain slightly misaligned from either the collective interests or other groups. The outcome is the same however you view it – inefficiency and less-than-optimal effectiveness. In business terms, not maximized productivity. We need something that enables groups with conflicting moralities/codes to work together and thrive and a mindset that can resolve disagreements that create obstacles to progress. This is where shared ambition steps in. Complex social structures are about ‘us versus them,’ our interest versus theirs, our values versus theirs, disparate feelings and beliefs that make it difficult to cooperate and coordinate. I am not going to suggest every group thinks the same way, some will be more collective interest driven and some will be more individualistic driven, but if there are shared ambitions it creates a social contract which shifts the social construct. The automatic construct settings of each group, and individual, gets shifted just a bit to accommodate the shared ambitions. To be clear. What I am suggesting is that even group level self-interest has some vague outlines, rather than hard and fast boundaries, within which cooperation and effective collaboration can occur.

Which leads me back to self interest.

De Tocqueville said in 1845: “Desires still remain extremely enlarged while the means of satisfying them are diminished day by day. On every side we trace the ravages of an inordinate and unsuccessful ambition kindled in hearts which is which it consumes in secret and in vain.” He also said after taking a long hard look at America: “among democratic nations ambition is ardent and continual, but it’s aim is not habitually lofty and life is generally spent in eagerly coveting small objects that are within reach.” He was speaking of goals, but you can see the underlying seeds of self-interest and consumption within the thought. And then we should remember Faustus and his demon, Mephistopheles, wherein the insatiable thirst for individual knowledge leads him to make a pact with the devil –  a message about human ambition and stretching the limits. Everyone, every individual, has ambition in some shape and size. But the reality is any one ambition has limits and constraints which can only be expanded upon by interacting with others. Yeah. When we share ambitions, the tide does lift everyone; maybe not always equally, but all get lifted. It is a little dangerous even if you balance it all fairly well.  Clearly this is a tricky idea because to be as good as you can be you gotta give a little of yourself up to feed your talent and ambition to grow it beyond the normal levels. Someone is going to want to throw ‘trust’ into the ring here, but I will not. I tend to believe conflicting self interested groups will never really trust other groups, but they may trust in a more intangible, non human, thing like a shared ambition. In other words, we have the same ambition so despite their means, despite the fact they are ‘them’ and not us, they aren’t go to screw me/’us’. The good news with share ambition is that success at each level can be so addictive or pleasurable you have a tendency to want to feed it a little more. And maybe that’s the real prize with shared ambitions. Ponder.

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“To paraphrase someone smarter than me, who still knows nothing, the philosophical task of our age is for each of us to decide what it means to be a successful human being.

I don’t know the answer to that, but I would like to find out.”

Ottmer <the futurist>

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“Imagine a cheap little device that isn’t just smarter than humans — it can compute as much data as all human brains taken together.”

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Discussions about all technology seems to careen in-between oblivious no-fear (lack of belief that something like social media or an algorithm could “effect how I think”) and conspiratorial fear (government control, globalists, ‘the great reset’). And that’s before we even discuss something like a brain chip, an invasive introduction into mental enhancement. But there is a future lesson found in that fear binary. That lesson is that something like a brain chip will make the world binary and, objectively speaking, even more unequal.

Let me explain.

The people with the least understanding of technology but the greatest fears will reject the most progressive innovations, i.e., something like the brain chip.

The people with the most understanding of technology and the healthiest skepticism of ‘technology for good’ will accept the most progressive innovations, i.e., something like the brain chip.

Simplistically, just to make a point, the quasi-ignorant social media users will become dumber and dumber while the quasi- careful innovation adopters will become smarter and smarter. The latter will accept the risks viewing the potential benefits as outweighing them and the former will just see risks with little benefits. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this means one group of people will progress while another group will inevitably regress which begets a societal issue.

I begin with those thoughts to frame what I see as the benefits of a brain chip (which I do believe is inevitable).

*** note: Michio Kaku believes it is inevitable and Elon Musk even has a company, Neuralink, attempting to design one.

Which leads me to say we shouldn’t dismiss fears, but should still embrace the better hope.

I believe it was Peter Thiel who suggested something like “there’s all these scenarios where the stuff can spiral out of control. I’m more scared of the one where nothing happens.” This may sound odd but I believe we have been lulled into belief that technology is progressing too fast. I say that because most technology innovation hasn’t really been that innovative. Most of it has been superficial, but highly accessible, so that there is a general appearance of fast paced high innovation. But most of the technological innovations haven’t truly moved the needle on truly meaningful things (but have made a lot of money through consumerism). What this means is that our general view of ‘better’ has been skewed toward a fairly low bar. That becomes important when something like a brain chip appears because it is so far above the common bar it takes on all the appearances of science fiction, fantasy and, well, scary stuff – mostly dystopian. But here is where ‘better’ steps in: the higher the brain integration – verbal, visual, special and execution – the higher the intelligence. If a brain chip stimulates just that, well, that’s better. Better thinking by any one individual encourages better thinking within all people. And if enough people embrace the technology it creates structural societal thinking lift. It is this version of better that will encourage a shitload of people to seek to augment themselves in terms of intelligence and skills. And those people will inevitably separate themselves from those who elect to not pursue this opportunity.

That said. Let me describe better in my mind. it is clear that the human brain is incapable of coping with the onrush of new technology in the mosh pit formation available on a day-to-day basis. As trite as it may sound, while we now have more information available to us than ever, overstimulation makes us dumber on a daily basis if not unhealthier (depression, anxiety, etc). Many of us clearly understand our brains just can’t keep up with technology-driven cognitive load issues. Research has clearly documented the influence of information overload on attention, perception, memory, decision making, and even regulating emotions.  We have even seen that engagement with technology interferes with the pursuit of other behaviors critical for maintaining a healthy social contract. So, if an implanted chip is able to address many of our cognitive needs AND make us more effective thinkers, why wouldn’t we consider it? Why wouldn’t we consider augmenting our brain to better optimize it (not change it)? Maybe we should think of the brain chip as existing to help the brain as kind of a thinking companion. Try this thinking. Because this chip would be collecting real-time data on everything imaginable with regard to your brain physiology and sense-of-environment, it also optimizes your physical presence. You gain richer and richer datasets from which the chip can guide you so you could be at your highest functioning thinking and behavioral level. I imagine it actually could augment you to new level. I would be remiss if I didn’t note I am discussing a closed loop machine Learning System. Therefore it is secure and designed to augment only you and personalizes your data as opposed to a one-sized fits all system. However, this means the chip is on all the time (as is your brain).  You have to accept the fact your brain chip is listening all the time – to everything (including your memory). What this means is that many things – memories, knowledge, faces, etc. – stored away on some dark dusty shelf in your mind (meaning it has an imprint somewhere in your brain) can be activated by the chip. It takes away that nagging feeling you are forgetting something and brings it to the forefront at the right time. The chip activates a portion of your brain that says “hey remember this/remember what happened/remember that person” and it activates images from the past, in relevant context, thereby heightening your level of attention in the present. The interesting thing about this particular idea is the majority of us remember the things that we like to remember and forget things we like to forget. What that does is inherently bias your views and attitudes. The brain chip doesn’t permit this shortcut. It cuts in line in front of bias with even the things you wanted to forget. To be clear. The chip I am discussing means you remember even the things you really do not want to remember – yeah, even the horrible stuff and the stuff you hate. That said. What this means is you use, better than in the past, what you already know and increase depth of decisionmaking and insight into what you are thinking.

I imagine the next level would be if the brain chip could actually connect with the world wide web and supplement, or complement, what you already know to round out your knowledge. And it does so contextually (which we already know from education deepens learning). That’s next level thinking.

Which leads me to security and privacy.

Some people will never get over their fear of information being stolen and the fears will only increase with a brain chip because it becomes even more intrusively personal. That said. The adopters recognize within an increasingly complex world to keep identity safe and secure – from a personal identity standpoint as well as identity interface to things we own and have – the way to save identity is to actually lean in on technology. Insert a ‘yikes’ here. Yeah. Hear me out. While I have a couple of ideas on how to do this, I tend to belief an implanted chip is the best way forward <for a variety of reasons>. Every person could simply have a tiny chip implanted that permits a computer, or scanning system, to read a personalized code broadcasted by the chip. And while that may sound vulnerable to hacking or copying there are a variety of means and authenticating systems which actually protect us. For example, both Google Authenticator and Blizzard’s official authenticator use open-standard “TOTP” for authentication codes (although different). Google uses 6-digit codes, while Blizzard uses 8-digit codes, but the real idea I offer is that your personal identity algorithm, because it is implanted, can be tied to your biology which, well, cannot be stolen.

Which leads me to creating a good brain chip.

Algorithms really aren’t capable of thinking. They are simply yes, no; A, B; limiting, reductive, not expansive. Well. that is before the brain chip. A brain chip augments are complex brain so we see in patterns, not binaries. That said. We should simultaneously mistrust a brain chip technology and still recognize that it can augment the superiority of the human brain. It doesn’t circumvent our choice making it actually increases our choice base, our consideration set, so that our responses are more well informed and more well formed. It could permit all of us to sift through stacks of information which until now we were simply cognitively unable to do – or do effectively. A good brain chip makes us more effective human beings. It makes us optimize the present and increases our sensemaking skills (which cascades into better choicemaking). I could even argue it just makes us better people in that we become more well informed and a bit less biased. And if that’s the benefit, maybe it is worth the risk. To be clear. I would gladly take a brain chip. Heck. I would take a health chip implant that could possibly optimize my health. The benefits of ‘optimizing’ my brain and body clearly outweighs the possible risks – at least in my mind. And I end with that thought because that is the decision everyone is going to have to inevitably make and I worry that the decisions will only amplify societal divides. But. That is a piece for another day. Today we should be pondering whether you would put a technology chip in your brain.

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“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

Carl Sandburg

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In a world where we so often talk about time being money I am surprised we don’t see this quote more often.

Oh.

Sorry.

I know why. Because it suggests you control your time and popular wisdom suggests that our time is out of our hands (and that there is not enough of it).

Carl suggests a different perspective.

Time is currency in your wallet and just like that ten dollar bill you have a choice how and where and when to spend it.

I am sure there has been a book written suggesting this, but suffice it to say thinking about time as money in your own wallet that you have to spend (and earn) is actually a useful thought.

It’s bigger than “time management” and closer to “time budgeting.”

Anyway.

A similar thought <which I liked> is time spent is not distance covered. I don’t know who wrote this, or said this, but it seemed appropriate here.

How we use our time is a discussion I am fairly sure we will never tire of.

Well. We may tire of it but we will never stop discussing.

Mostly because we worry whether we are using it wisely, or efficiently or whether we even have any control of our own time at all. In addition many of us assess our time investment by ‘distance covered’ <distance being defined by any variety of something tangible so that we can have some type of ‘measurement’>. In fact, we use measurement in some fairly absurd ways to judge time.

Look. I see many <many> people spending the coins of their life, not flippantly for sure, but I question whether they do so wisely. There is more time spent on … well … time … than almost anything else I can think of. People, websites, apps, far too many other things to list, all telling you how you should spend your time, on what, and how, and for what. So many people being told HOW to invest their time.

But it’s your money. Do you really want others spending it?

Sure.

We all have responsibilities but at some point, I admit this may be a selfish perspective, if I only have ten dollars of time I sure as hell do not want to let someone spend all ten dollars for me.

To be clear, whether I really know what I am talking about what I do know for sure is that Carl makes a valid point.

One which I believe is worth thinking about. Ponder.

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“Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief and if believed is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at birth.”

Justice Oliver W. Holmes Jr.

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“I have always believed that I should have had no difficulty in causing my rights to be respected.”

Eli Whitney

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The limits of conscientious objection and civil disobedience is, well, the law. Okay. Not really. The limits are actually part of the social fabric of what society accepts. The truth is the machinery of legal order most typically establishes its enforcement when the social contract breaks down. What I just wrote shouldn’t be that controversial, but in today’s world there is always someone shouting “without laws there is chaos.” The problem is laws really shouldn’t be applied in all cases. Yup. I just said that.

Indiscriminate self-righteousness – or individual moral judgements – have limits within a citizenry and when the citizens themselves, the social judgement, cannot agree that is when law steps in.

Which leads me to say violence is not in the purview of those rebelling.

It is not only not within the law it isn’t within the overall social contract. Righteousness does not equal right.  Regardless. Righteousness, in almost all forms, is disciplined by risk. And that is where violence steps into the conversation. There is no such thing as ‘well intended violence.’ We may be empathetic towards the reasons, but never to the means. On the other hand, nonviolent interference into the normal everyday activities of the rest of the world should be expected and should be seen as almost the inevitable actions of civil disobedience of citizens with reasonable reason to showcase disobedience to a system/society. We should actually celebrate these activities, no matter how annoying they may be to our own lives, and maybe even lean in and listen.

We should listen because violence, or let’s call it extreme civil disobedience (which may or may not include actual violence), is usually a reflection of heightened frustration. This is different than rebellion. True rebels have established no allegiance to the legal order (no matter how they may twist their version of legality). The reason most people balk at true rebels and rebellious behavior is because it is incoherent to natural societal coherence. ON a side note, I think Jefferson was a bit misguided in his rebellion thinking but that’s a topic for another day. But this is where things go awry in today’s world. we confuse civil disobedience, rebellious behavior and even violence because we don’t view them with trying to understand but rather by our ideology. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out a healthy society should be judging individual behavior against itself, the societal norms, and not ideology.

Which leads me to anyone who purposefully disobeys a law, or purposefully stretches the law’s intent, pits the individual judgement against society’s judgement.

Righteousness of motives is judged by everyone else. And this is where things go awry in today’s world. in the wayback machine everyone else’s judgement wasn’t tainted by ideology, only by what they sensed as right or wrong. In today’s world people seem to have settled into a simplistic binary world – “if we do not follow the law (strictly), we are no longer a country of laws” versus, well, any other view than that. There is a portion of the world that goes to the most simplistic definition because it is easier to make a stand. The problem is the world is driven by nuance. Shit. Even law demands a bit of nuance. And therein lies the issue. Disobedience defies definitions while society assesses definitions and ideology demands definitions. The truth is society makes exceptions all the time and these exceptions are not made by the process of logic; but by the rules of prudence. Its part of what Edmund Burke suggested: “the notion of an established form of social life with the notion of an established set of institutional arrangements.” What I mean by that is ideas flow, even disobedient ones, and that’s why civil disobedience has always influenced culture. And what I mean by that is, well, it is inadmissible even when it may feel admissible and, yet, admissible within strict inadmissible rules. This happens because society is malleable to prudence and judgement. I state that because there are boundaries in identifying the limits of permissible civil disobedience and protest, but we would be naïve to think that “whoever is in power in government will peddle their preferences on what is right and what is wrong and what is within the limits and what is not.” The truth is the ‘law’ is simply a weapon wielded by the ones in power.

In the end.

I would argue that if the citizenry of a society continuously use law to settle their grievances, the law will fail. You cannot expect the legal system to decide what is the right thing to do. The truth is society judges what is right and wrong, legal and illegal, and admissible and inadmissible. Unless maybe if you are a judge, saying “it is just the law” to justify something, is lazy. The law is the last resort to deciding right or wrong because if that is the point we have arrived at, we, society, have failed in our duty to judge well. Ponder.

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In the scenery of spring,

nothing is better, nothing worse;

The flowering branches are

of themselves, some short, some long.

Ryōkan

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1st day of Spring. I have always had this crazy idea that we should celebrate the first day of spring instead of New Year’s Eve.

I say that because I sometimes find it odd we celebrate new year’s day which seems to be associated with regrets and leaving ‘things’ behind and ‘starting anew’ as if you completely throw out the old and start with a clean slate <which sounds good but is not really possible>.

And, yet, Spring is actually all about new from existing, growth from that which is and, well, hope <not regret>.

To me, as nature begins to throw off the cold thoughts of winter and days get longer, it seems natural to think of possibilities. And <returning to my crazy thought on ditching new years’ eve> it seems like it would also be much easier to become the change we seek in ourselves in Spring than when you are in the dead of winter and you have to fight off not only last year’s regrets but the grayness and coldness of winter days.

Spring abounds with, well, a life to come.

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Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never Is, but always To be blest:

The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

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Spring begins what could be called the narrative of hope.  The narrative can be religious or philosophical or both intertwined. Regardless. The narrative revolves around a speculation of what could be.

This I am today.

That I will be tomorrow.

I say this knowing full well that speculation is not an end in itself.

Speculation must involve some meaningful application.

While you have hope for growth in a belief of freshness and emerging growth from what already exists, you have to water the plant <you get the metaphor>. You have to do some shit in order for all the ‘hope shit’ to happen.

Spring isn’t about putting aside old habits and things it is about using them as stepping stones to grow and move forward.

I would argue that Spring helps us with hope because it suggests possibilities. This is good because far too often hope tends to stunted in pragmatism.

In other words, fulfillment of hope is much much easier in spring then in the dead of winter.

Behaviorally speaking, the pragmatic constructs of life and improvement seem much colder and stricter and harsher and less attainable in the winter.

And, yet, those same pragmatic constructs of life seem more open and warmer to adapting to change in the onset of spring and, most importantly to attitudes & behavior, more attainable.

And, yes, I do believe pragmatism and possibilities have a symbiotic relationship.

Now.

While you actually have to do some shit to make change and growth happen, Hope is a pretty powerful thing. Hope, which actually offers nothing more than mere speculation, actually provides us with the very basis of living.

Seriously.

Think about it.

What is existence without the hope for a better tomorrow or expectation of things to come?

<answer: not much>

We long for meaning which is certainly intertwined with hope — a hope for being as good as we can. A hope for being better today than I was yesterday and better tomorrow than I am today.

All that said.

“Dum spiro spero”

(While I breathe, I hope)

Alexander Pope

As long as we breathe, hope breaths.

Spring is about, well, breathing. Breathing life into hopes & dreams.

I would argue New Year’s Eve is about suffocation and is grounded in the despair of past dreams.

Ponder that a bit.

How often have you stood on the threshold of a new year looking to discard things <to start anew> and felt this?

                   “From where you are you can hear their dreams.

The dismays and despairs and flight and fall and big seas of their dreams.”

Dylan Thomas

Conceptually, for New Years to exist it means some dreams have died. Yeah. On New Year ’s Eve we put to rest some of our dead dreams … and create new ones.

<please note: I do not believe any dream should die>

On the first day of spring we let the seeds of our dreams burst forth from the ground and grow.

Now that, my friends, is something worth celebrating.

Spring is here.

Hope lives.

Think of the possibilities.

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“I fight to give people a destiny, but not to give them happiness. Destiny is what fascinates me.”

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The role of government in people’s lives, and with people’s lives, is one of the most wretched discussions it seems like someone can have.

That said.

No one should live in poverty.

No one should be food deficient.

No one should be homeless.

No one should have no access to healthcare (preventive or remedial).

No one should not have opportunities to education, living wage jobs and to some version of happiness.

The weird thing is a shitload of people will invest a shitload of energy debating “no one.” They will attach laziness and hard work and a whole bunch of stipulations on ‘no one’ until all of a sudden it becomes permissible to permit ‘some people’ be one or all of those things. That seems weird to me. It seems weird because no one is suggesting someone should be wealthy or live a life of leisure. All we suggest is that there is a baseline sustenance of life , maybe think of it as a potential springboard, for seeking out one’s destiny. If someone is content living on sustenance, or survivable means, that is their choice but it would seem to me that part of a country’s responsibility is to maintain a basic level of sustenance to all citizens – regardless of their ambition or lack thereof. It also seems weird, if not absurd, to think everyone – 330 million people – will all want to work hard or work as much or even work at all. It may chafe to those who do work hard, but its silly to suggest everyone has the same attitude. All that really should matter is that those who really do not want to work can live that life and let the ones who want to work hard build the destinies they desire. I could actually argue letting the ‘sustenance accepters’ tag out of the game leaves more for the rest of us and clears the field a bit for a better game.

Which leads me to ‘the game’ or what some people call the free market.

The problem is a “free market,” or let’s call it a lassiez faire attitude, isn’t really effective at enabling 100% of the people to fulfill their destiny. I will not argue that in certain circumstances a hands-off approach can work with an economy, but there have to be some specific features to give it a chance:

• The structural tools have to be accessible to many and not few
• There have to be widespread opportunities accessible to large swath of population
• There are no limits to distributional aspects of earning wealth, i.e., there are limited protectionist policies and limited protectionist groups.

Any sane person recognizes the government cannot be solely responsible for economic success nor is the market truly a mechanism of the pursuit of self-interest in which the interests of society will be served well. For example, Noah Smith has noted transforming the U.S. economy, in order to more effectively compete with China and Russia, will involve industrial policy. There’s a very basic economic reason for this. The industrial structure of the free market will tend to produce, if left to its own devices, things that do not take national interests into account – it produces not what the market needs, but what profits the business. Thus, if we want to have an economy that’s optimized not just for consumption, but for the good of individual destiny manifestations, government has to play a role with economic interests. These solutions reside somewhere within what Adam Smith suggested in the Theory of Moral Sentiments in that ‘however how selfish soever man may seem to be supposed there are evidently some principles in our nature which interests us in the fortunes of others.’ Government interventions implement a more rounded view of human behavior which acknowledges the coexistence of both the self-interested and altruistic sides of human nature. To be clear. Humans are neither inherently altruistic or selfish, they are what researchers call conditional cooperators and altruistic punishers. I believe this is called “reciprocity” and defined as ‘a predisposition to cooperate with others and to punish even at personal cost, if necessary, those who violate the norms of this cooperation even when it is obvious the personal cost will never be recouped.’ I would argue this is the true invisible hand, not the market, in that there is no rationality other than ‘the structure of the system will define behaviors’. I say that because one cannot blame individuals for most failures, but rather the system itself. This is an important thought as I discuss “no one” because e tend to highlight the accountability of ‘the individual’ in some unhealthy ways within economic narratives. I say unhealthy because, well, as Hanzi Freinacht has suggested the entire idea of individual or collective is outdated in today’s world. And in the Cluetrain Manifesto they suggested “I am parts of you, you are parts of me, and the whole is a malleable mix of parts of all of us – even those we interact with outside the internal system within the business.” I imagine my point here is that business and our little personal circles of existence are simply a system within a system, or of the system, and people are systems in and of themselves and true self-interest really doesn’t exist because no one ‘self’ can exist without the whole. That’s today’s world no matter what the politics of economics may suggest.

Which leads me to where it all goes wrong from there as we discuss “no one.”

Mancur Olson suggested, in stable countries with unchanged boundaries, distributional coalitions (interest groups, collusive organizations) are inevitable. The longer the country is stable, the more distributional coalitions it will have. These groups influence politics to gain benefits for their group, thereby imposing economic effectiveness for themselves and, simultaneously, macro economic inefficiencies. Yeah. Coalitions of self-interest slow growth. The only way to increase growth and enhance societal feelings of ‘collective good and needs’ is to break down the coalitions of self-interest. If you don’t, these groups increase not only wealth, but power and ultimately increase divisiveness (haves and have nots). This issue is actually where the world is struggling most (and, in particular, the US).

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It is more beneficial for the groups to spend money to redistribute wealth to themselves (through political lobbying or collusion), rather than increasing overall efficiency of the economy (investing in new technologies, etc.), since the redistributions go only to their small group while the overall efficiencies would benefit the economy as a whole. The involvement of many special interest groups in politics makes issues more divisive and complex.

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We should be seeking to have society operate, prosperously, with an incentive to redistribute opportunities (give people access to destiny). I would argue if we did this than wealth would naturally be better distributed. The problem is individual coalitions naturally protect jobs, opportunities and wealth thereby restricting jobs, opportunities and wealth. Within this protection it actually speeds up siloed decision making which only exacerbates the greater unhealthy asymmetry in totality. But maybe worse is that these self interest coalitions are inherently slower to adopt things (technology and new process) and are horrible at reallocating resources to optimize future growth. Why? Because, once again, their objective is to their protect jobs, opportunities and wealth, not fund the largest growth potential, destiny, possible. They may not seek to purposefully want other people not reach their destiny; they just cordon off their resources to ensure their own success above all.  I bring some of this up because a lot of what I just said flows into discussion surrounding where I began – what ‘no one’ deserves versus what one does deserve.

Which leads me to economic support in government is inextricably linked to how it is viewed in the public’s eye.

Ordinary people, the public, tend to have certain biases particularly when it comes to government and the role of government in economics. Those on the left tend to be more altruistic and when things don’t go well, they see it as true as greed and self-interest. Those on the right tend to see welfare programs as ineffectual and a waste of their taxes because people become lazy nor self-reliant/self-interest mindsets. However, the truth, as pointed out earlier, of how we accept economic policies gets driven by reciprocity. Strong reciprocity norms tend to encourage people to categorize the disadvantaged into the deserving and the undeserving and programs that reflect this distinction tend to enjoy broad support. Programs that run counter to these norms, even if it’s just by perception, and benefit perceived undeserving people tend to be controversial. The easiest example of this is welfare programs that give benefits with no requirements such as work or training. My point here is that politicians exploit our biases within the politics of economics. The truth is most people are not lazy, requirements tend to exclude some people who really could use the system and the most people who abuse economic policies are actually not the ones who need the programs.

Which leads me to embracing a ‘no one’ philosophy.

Well. Not to get philosophical but I think all cultures are in a constant tug of war between self-interest and collective good. And this is where systems play a role. If someone believes the system is rigged or unfair in some way then the individualistic aspects start getting stronger. Or. Say for example the system leans in hard on wealth accumulation or productivity/materialism this sucks out any ‘individual meaning’ which bends the arc of the everything toward individual versus collective good. So. Systems create dynamics which bend a society toward either collective or individualistic.  This is important if you care about enabling ‘potential destinies.’

Some politicians seem to hijack scraps of moral precepts to justify actions, ignoring the realities of the ‘no ones’ we are always discussing. They seek to offer simple, and simplistic, answers to things that are neither simple nor have any real answers. They also seek to use pseudo-logic to de-humanize humans and their situations. They seek to divide in order to have power over parts of the whole – because they cannot gain power by any other means. This, similar to my earlier point on ‘distributional coalitions’ is counterproductive if your objective is to fight to give all people (no one) opportunity to fulfill some destiny.

The truth is self is actually about a collective ability to understand and act. Problems are rarely individual; they are more likely larger tragedy of the commons issues and therefore demand some type of collective action. Politics of resentment is anti- ‘everything in that last sentence’. Resentment, at its worst, makes everyone an individual and everyone a potential enemy or someone to blame for any number of my individual woes – real or perceived. Consequently, politics of resentment makes everyone a victim. That last sentence was hard to type because it is a hard thought to swallow. But maybe the first step out of resentment is to accept someone is attempting to make us a victim and have the self awareness to understand everyone enjoys some version of a ‘free ride’ in a healthy society. Generally speaking in any societal action, there is no way to exclude people from the benefits nor should we want to. A society should permit someone to refuse to participate, and not make any contribution, and yet still benefit. I can decide to not contribute to the local library or the local park and yet I can still have access to both. In this case I am a ‘free rider.’ I do think it’s fair for a society to selectively pressure any one individual, including me, to assess my selective free-riderism, but at the same time I like being part of a society which understands that it is impossible to attain symmetrical organization of all people, and all groups, with a common interest and attain optimal outcomes for everyone. And that is the fundamental argument for “no one” left out. There will always be abusers of what is free. Period. But a society doesn’t design itself to these outliers, it designs itself so that ‘no one’ should be deprived of what is good for everyone. No one should be representative of everyone. We should fight so that no one is deprived of a potential destiny and within that I tend to believe we will not only encourage individual happiness but societal happiness. By ignoring the few abusers of the system, the many will achieve a better destiny. And, yes (circling back to my opening sentence), government can play a role so that no one can be part of everyone. Ponder.

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“All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.”
Aristotle

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I am both a complexity person and a “cause & effect” person. I believe all actions have a stimulus in some form or fashion. Yes. All actions. That said, I also know unwinding a usual complex interconnection of things to isolate a specific cause is often a fool’s errand. But the truth is that something always gets the ball rolling and it is often quite useful to spend some time thinking about causes of things. specifically, I rarely think “man, was that a stupid thing to do” when I see someone do something. Instead my first thought is almost always “gosh, I wonder what made them think that was the right thing to do.” To me that is a useful reflection of cause.

So. If I take that type of thinking and put Aristotle’s thought in place every time you see or hear someone say something, and rather than going ballistic or laughing or shaking your head or whatever,you place one of these into your head:

• Chance
• Nature
• Compulsion
• Habit
• Reason
• Passion
• Desire

Maybe, just maybe, you will generate a more reasonable response to the situation than doing or saying something silly.

I will tell you that I wish more managers (or people managing people) in the business world would try this thinking out when managing people.

Too often I have seen ill considered responses to people’s actions in business environments and it becomes more of a “slamdown” rather than a teaching moment. Or are just plain stupid with regard to this topic (although I like to err on the side of “not investing the energy to teach”).

Cause and effect is any easy thing to grasp and I wonder why managers forget it. Maybe it is because we seem to often get caught up in the “blame game” versus “teaching game” (probably because of the alliteration). Or maybe we get caught up in the complexity narrative and begin thinking there is no cause for any of the effects happening. Either of those two beliefs are less than useful if you want to foster an effective business.

Anyway. There is a Law of Cause & Effect which states that Every EFFECT has a specific and predictable CAUSE and every CAUSE or Action has a specific and predictable EFFECT. I do not buy into that ‘law’, but, as a concept it is useful in exploration. It can be useful because it means that everything that we currently have in our lives is an effect that is a result of a specific cause (or groupings of causes). Simplistically, in a business world, these causes are the decisions we make and the actions we take on a daily basis. Whether our decisions seem small and rather insignificant, or whether they are significant and transformational in nature, does not matter. Each and every decision we have made and action we have taken has set events into motion creating some predictable and specific effects, and some unpredictable and specific events, that we are now experiencing in our lives.

Which leads me to Chance.

The Law’s premise is that life (or any personal action) isn’t built upon accidents, chance or luck. It is rather built upon Cause & Effect. While I think that is a bullshit, absurd, less-than-realistic, thought, I will suggest that for business it has some usefulness. In business you have to believe you can shape your future and destiny in some way or let’s say “nudge chance in your favor” or why be in business at all.

Lastly.

While I simplify cause and effect down to a sound bite “stimulus-response” when teaching high school kids, this thought is really overlooked in personal relationships.

It may be that in long term relationships there becomes such a comfort & routine that you stop paying attention to details or maybe better said “cues” as to what is really going on. Let’s call this “the slippery slope of indifference to stimuli.” In other words, ignoring (or simply overlooking or even being simply oblivious to) the cause ‘cues’ to specific actions and effects. And once you begin to overlook things you run the risk of beginning down that infamous slippery slope.

In the end.

While I began with Aristotle I will end with Harry Potter.

“Humans have a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for them.”

Albus Dumbledore

We do have a knack for doing what is worst for us.

We should invest at least a bit of energy wondering why because we aren’t stupid.

I believe it is because we don’t invest enough energy asking “why did this happen?” when we do the ‘worst.’

Instead we choose “precisely the things that are worst for them” and shake our heads and move on.

Maybe if we seek to understand the cause for our actions a little better we could make good ole Dumbledore a little less insightful. Because, well, the answers to our actions are everywhere if you look around a bit. Ponder.

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“We are making more and more consequential decisions with worse and worse sensemaking to inform those decisions.”

Daniel Schmachtenberger

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all ideas can be weaponized

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Let me begin by saying I am a ‘capitalist’ and believe capitalism this the best system to encourage innovation, progress and economic growth (I could also argue intellectual growth but that’s for another day). But that doesn’t mean that people do not use capitalism in ways that aren’t particularly to the benefit of society and civilization.

Which leads me to ChatGPT.

I, personally, believe ChatGPT, from a grander perspective, would assist in solving one of society’s larger existential issues – a lack of shared sensemaking. What I mean by that is society is struggling to agree on some basic fundamental understanding and therefore we cannot seem to have a foundational “sense” of things. So, one of the larger benefits I could see from ChatGPT would be that if someone asked the exact same question in Tbilisi and Boise and Lyon and Caracas and, well, you get it, anywhere, Chatgpt would offer the same response. That’s on a macro level. And then even on a micro/macro level (say just the United States) if anyone in any state in any town or county asked the exact same question, they would receive the same response. It becomes a great leveler of a combination of knowledge and articulation of that knowledge. It is race agnostic, political affiliation indifferent and, in general, doesn’t care about your own bias, just in delivering a fair response to the question you give it. And, yeah, the responses are shaped by whatever embedded coding parameters the software has, but, generally speaking, it is crafted to offer the best ‘agnostic’ response possible. Simplistically, this would assist in creating better societal sensemaking which makes decision making a bit more responsible as well as increases the level of effective citizen involvement on issues.

Which leads me to capitalism.

Every major technology platform is developing their version of ChatGPT. But it just got a bit worse. Elon Musk just announced he is developing an “anti-woke” version which “would have fewer restrictions on divisive subjects compared to ChatGPT and a related chatbot Microsoft recently launched.” What this means is that ChatGPTs of the world are no longer framed by truth or ‘accountable sharing of knowledge,’ but rather by ideology. While it would be easy for me to point out how whack this is, its easier for me to remind everyone of the Long Tail Theory. Reality is there is quite a bit of money to be had by purposefully fragmenting a market and ‘owning a niche’ and monetizing it. That is capitalism, “free market,” post-worldwide web. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this is actually how business fueled culture wars. They like it so they can develop products and services from which they can profit from their particular place on the long tail. It can actually be quite lucrative, but not healthy for society and civilization. Basically, technology has deliberately crafted a content-delivery world which conforms to your beliefs and views – and makes money from that. This is as bad as it sounds. This is a world in which people may already arc toward fragmentation/tribal thinking and then someone actually amplifies that thinking, purposefully, to not only increase the tribes, but increases the silo walls. You no longer see alternative views but even if you do, they will get drowned out in one Chatgpt/AI drip after another. If you care about social cohesiveness, this should be frightening. If you care about business being ‘in and of society,’ this is annoying.

Which leads me to technology has, once again, missed an opportunity, because of profit seeking, to make the world better.

I’ve already pointed out the positive sensemaking benefits of if this chat AI if it had been done right and the negative consequences of the fragmentation when done wrong, so let me end with how technology almost seems to ignore its role in society and thinks of itself as a normal everyday product someone could pluck off the grocery shelf.

They almost embrace ignoring the fact they shape us, our minds, attitudes and even behaviors, and go forth missing opportunity after opportunity to make the world better.

They consistently ignore the problems they create and consistently suggest they are only offering a product and people make the choices.

They consistently absolve themselves of any responsibility and accountability (sounds almost like the tobacco companies in the wayback machine).

They consistently ignore the fact they are normalizing some attitudes, which normalizes some bad behavior, which only leads to, well, more of all of that.

They consistently ignore all of what I just said by falling back on ‘free market capitalism 101’, i.e., we are simply a product in a competitive market and the consumers will inevitably choose what is ‘right.’

I end with that thought because it is intellectually lazy to suggest this is all about profits, fundamentally it is a lack of accountability, and responsibility, tied to an incredibly flawed perspective with regard to what a ‘free market’ is. Freedom, in any form, even in business offerings, comes with responsibility. Ponder.

me against the world.

A gang against the world.

A place where we all seek from time to time.

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Today I revisit an idea I wrote about in 2010 – “generation Jones.” I decided to revisit the topic of generational summaries, and how they are basically bullshit, again because BBHLondon just shared this fabulous piece: PUNCTURING THE PARADOX: GROUP COHESION AND THE GENERATIONAL MYTH.

I will also note that in the wayback machine I had a delightful email exchange with the creator of the Jones generation where he was extremely patient with my poking holes in his theory.

Regardless. I had never heard of Generation Jones and in my typical curious style immediately started researching what the hell this whole Jones thing was all about.

The Generation Jones website (yes, there is one) suggests that Generation Jones (concept of historian Jonathan Pontell) is the group of people born between 1954 and 1965 (this group of people represents about 25% of the population – I was also born in this period). The “Jones” symbolizes moderation between the “personality extremes of the Boomers’ idealism and the Xers’ cynicism.” Apparently, they uncovered this ‘lost generation’ assuming it was passed over by society as the focus leapt from Boomer to Gen X’ers.

Well. I am a generational guy in that I have read The 4^th Turning at least 3 times and think about societal behavioral shifts often. I imagine we could find niche generations within any larger generational turning if we looked hard enough. Heck. If anyone practiced long enough, anyone could dance on the head of a pin if they desired to.

So, narcissistically, I loved the idea of talking about myself as within my own generation (admittedly they use words that appeal more to me then some of the Boomer words or GenX words). And, of course, I like anything centered on me.  But. I thought the whole idea of a Jones Generation, or Generation Jones, was kind of silly.

Then. Lo and behold The Economist came to the rescue of the Generation Jones concept. Buried in the 14 page special report on rebalancing the American economy (4/3-9 2010 issue) they make a specific reference to the children of boomers borne in between 1955-1964.

I admit it made me stop and think a little more about this Jones thing. The point in The Economist is most typical generations spending/saving behavior changes after they move out of the traditional home buying years (savings increase as a % of household income) yet the Baby Boomers during the specified period did not increase savings as a %. In fact, they maintained an incredibly low (10% of disposable income) savings % during this period. So. The consumer boom I grew up in defied fundamental wisdom (The Economist refers to it as “the binge”) and it is this group I was borne into that is running face first into the traditional economic rules that are reasserting themselves.

The consequence of all that is captured in the theory Generation Jones still wants to change the world but they are less ideological and more pragmatic. Pontell explains:

“We are practical idealists, forged in the fires of social upheaval while too young to play a part . . . Our practical idealism was created by witnessing the often unrealistic idealism of the 1960s. And we weren’t engaged in that era’s ideological battles; we were children playing with toys while Boomers argued over issues. Our non-ideological pragmatism allows us to resolve intra-Boomer skirmishes and to bridge that volatile Boomer-GenXer divide. We can lead.”

In addition:

“Chaos reigned, and we kids (with decreasing parental and societal guidance) were too challenged in finding our individual identities to be very concerned with finding our collective one. Jonesers, like others, focused on “me”, not “we” in the Me Decade of the 70s.”

Well. Once again portions resonated.  It was an odd time to be growing up.

Portions of us (this age group) were defined by the three D’s:

• drinking age
• draft
• democracy anniversary

I grew up as the drinking age shifted from 18 to 21.

I grew up as the draft was dissolved (but I knew kids who had a draft number).

I grew up and celebrated the 200^th anniversary of United States democracy.

It was an odd time of personal responsibility and unrestricted versus restricted actions.

Sure. There are some other cultural aspects (they point out MTV, the birth & invention of the internet by “Jonesers”, political leadership), but I would argue any niche could find enough of those extraneous data points to justify a niche generation.
Then I looked at a poll these Jones people did.

A nationally representative sample of 500 U.S. adults born in 1961 (the year Obama was born) showed that today’s 47-year-olds clearly feel not like Boomers or Gen Xers, but instead believe they belong to the heretofore lost generation in-between Boomers and Xers (Generation Jones).

ThirdAge, a popular website for mid-lifers, commissioned the poll, in conjunction with Obama’s Aug. 4, 2008 birthday.  When respondents were asked which generation they believe they are a part of:  57% chose Generation Jones, while only 22% picked Baby Boomer, and only 21% said Generation X. The underlying concept for the poll was that rather than focusing on expert opinion to determine the question of Obama’s generational identity, a very effective way of answering this question is to ask the actual people born in 1961 to self-identify their generation.

Question:

500 U.S. adults born in 1961 were asked:

“Do you consider yourself to be a member of the Baby Boom Generation,
Generation X, or a lost generation in-between (usually called Generation Jones)?”

  Results:

                                                         22% chose: Baby Boom Generation
57% chose: Generation Jones
21% chose: Generation X

nationally representative sample of 500 U.S. adults born in 1961, conducted July 31- August 1, 2008.

This where I think the idea gets in trouble: the idea begets the idea.

What I mean by that is of course people checked the box on “a lost generation in between”.  I could have predicted that. Given an opportunity for someone to self identify themselves as being “unique” (or distinct) the majority of people are going to run as fast as they can to stand in line for the “hey, I am part of a special group” sign up. Interesting research (I just hope they didn’t spend a whole bunch of money on it).
Now. If you wanted a niche generation and you needed a spokesperson Generation Jones got very very lucky (or fortunate?). Jonathan Pontell is a dynamic charismatic speaker. Compelling genuine and awesome at delivering factoids that sound appealing. For example, he describes this generation as stuck “between Woodstock and Lollapalooza.”  Nice phrasing.

Also.

They didn’t buy into or were too young to understand the Baby Boomer tantrums; yet they were a tad too old to join the Gen-Xers in the mosh pits.

“So who are we? We are practical idealists, forged in the fires of social upheaval while too young to play a part. The name “Generation Jones” derives from a number of sources, including our historical anonymity, the ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ competition of our populous birth years, and sensibilities coupling the mainstream with ironic cool. But above all, the name borrows from the slang term ‘jonesin” that we as teens popularized to broadly convey any intense craving.”

In addition, the Generation Jones website did an awesome job of collecting specific factoid to showcase that the “Joneser collective personality is clearly separable from that of Boomers and Xers.”

“Admittedly, determining generations is complicated, an inexact science, with inevitable blur on the edges. Nonetheless, broad accurate generalizations emerge with careful analysis. The three generations differ in many ways. One major difference is that Boomers tend to be idealistic, Xers tend to be cynical, and Jonesers tend to be a balance of idealism and cynicism. Attitudinal research bears this out.

For example, UCLA has conducted a particularly extensive national poll of 350,000 college freshman annually since the mid-60s. Students are asked to rank in importance different goals in life. Look at the following contrast between the three generations on the two key goals reflecting idealism and cynicism:”

Look. What I may be tempted to take away from this study is that of all the generations Generation Jones knew what they wanted the least (or was inherently a wishy washy generation), but suffice it to say this factoid doesn’t hurt the argument for a Generation Jones.

But, once again, much of this is either circular logic or simply highlighting factoids to support your hypothesis.

Please note I admit I don’t like the Generation Jones name. I’d like to see a name that better reflects the history or something quintessential or self defining about our time.

Regardless, I like the idea of a generational identity that’s more squarely focused on me or maybe better said “what I perceive as my time.” It’s kind of fun. I like thinking I am part of this group of people:

Russell Crowe. Madonna. Barack. Nikolas Sarkozy. JK Rowling. Elle McPherson. Michael Stipe. Eddie Murphy. George Stephanopoulos. James Taylor. Tracey Ullman. Weird Al Yankovic. Suzanne Vega. Allison Janney. Ronnie Lott. Emma Thompson. Katie Couric. Sharon Stone. Michelle Pfeiffer. Ellen DeGeneres. Andie McDowell.

And to think I am part of this club. Exciting! Uhm. But its not a generation. At best it is exactly what BBHLondon suggests: a group with some cohesive elements. Ponder.