Not only do smart people ask questions when they don’t understand something, but they also ask questions when the world thinks it understands something. Smart people challenge the very limit of human understanding, and push the envelope of what’s possible farther than many people would argue it’s meant to be pushed. Smart people don’t take claims at face value, and smart people don’t rest until they find an explanation they’re comfortable accepting and understanding.
Q. What ideals have you embraced from Steve Jobs? A. The importance of doing everything you do to your very best. And that the journey is the reward. If you do things well one at a time, you end up in a really good place. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Control the things you can.
The corruption of this government is a cancer. And you don’t launch an attack on cancer by prescribing good eating and exercise. Nor can you make change believable by pushing for reforms that won’t change anything in that corruption. What Obama must do if he is to make American democracy possible again is to speak boldly, not practically, about reform. He has to give us the big ideas that would actually have an effect, not the pathetic tinkering that only makes the lobbyists laugh. He needs to begin the process of persuading the nation that fundamental reform is necessary and possible. He must “take up that fight,” for unless he does, then “real change — change that will make a lasting difference in the lives of ordinary Americans — will keep getting blocked by the defenders of the status quo.” He must stop, by his silence, defending the status quo. He must begin again the fight to change it.
For nearly a decade, it turns out, the most accurate forecasts have come from the fringe. So it’s upsetting to learn that many of those same Cassandras now believe, for different reasons, that we are on the brink of another catastrophe that may be far worse. Wolff, the Marxist, fears that China may be entering a significant slowdown, which, combined with Europe’s all-but-inevitable recession, could send the world into an economic tailspin.
Roubini, now one of the world’s most visible economic thinkers, has a similar view, though he sees the timing differently, with the worst coming in 2013 or 2014, when China will face a situation like the one the United States experienced in 2008. Its banks, he says, will reveal huge investments in nonsensical bubble projects. The world will question China’s solvency, and the subsequent chaos will destroy whatever fragile recovery is under way. Schiff also paints a dire picture, but for essentially the opposite reason, saying America’s indebtedness and currency policy will cause another crash.
It’s much less lonely being a doomsayer these days. Steve Hanke, an economist at Johns Hopkins, says there’s a 50 percent chance of a recession this year. Lakshman Achuthan, of the eerily accurate Economic Cycle Research Institute, predicts a return of double-digit unemployment. They are downright rosy compared to George Soros, who has warned of violent riots throughout the world and a possible total global financial collapse. I really hope these guys are wrong.
1) Because of the costs of running a campaign for office and our current campaign finance rules, corporate interests effectively run the government, in many cases creating outcomes that are completely at odds with what is good for the people regardless of political view. Our democracy is corrupt.
2) Campaign Finance Reform is needed, and Lessig details what a citizen driven model could look like… but it’s not enough with the role and power of the SuperPACs. Lessig proposes a constitutional amendment that, if I understand it correctly, limits their speech in the 90 days leading up to an election so they can’t use the power of money to directly influence a vote. They have freedom of speech otherwise and can work to establish their view culturally, but they can’t, for example, run attack ads on a candidate right before an election. This would require bi-partisan effort to step back and look at reforming the rules and incentives our democracy is beholden to — a constitutional amendment needs approval by 75% of states to pass.
This is the most compelling, common sense picture of the role of money in our government and prescription for reform I’ve heard.
February 3, 2012 at 4:53pm 13 notes
reblogged from tedr
Emails, tweets, notifications, text and instant messages, Facebook status updates, Path moments — all these are new tools of communication when taken together are notification hell. These notifications prey on human desire for a dopamine fix. And just as we are over-caffenited, I think the 21st century is quickly making us over-notified.
The secret of success is concentrating interest in life, interest in sports and good times, interest in your studies, interest in your fellow students, interest in the small things of nature, insects, birds, flowers, leaves, etc. In other words to be fully awake to everything about you & the more you learn the more you can appreciate & get a full measure of joy & happiness out of life.
— Excerpt from an altogether beautiful 1928 letter to 16-year-old Jackson Pollock from his dad (via curiositycounts)
So what would our mornings look like if we re-engineered them in the interest of maximizing our creative problem-solving capacities? We’d set the alarm a few minutes early and lie awake in bed, following our thoughts where they lead (with a pen and paper nearby to jot down any evanescent inspirations.) We’d stand a little longer under the warm water of the shower, dismissing task-oriented thoughts (“What will I say at that 9 a.m. meeting?”) in favor of a few more minutes of mental dilation. We’d take some deep breaths during our commute, instead of succumbing to road rage. And once in the office — after we get that cup of coffee — we’d direct our computer browser not to the news of the day but to the funniest videos the web has to offer.
— New neurosciences studies show most morning routines kill creativity, but there might be something we can do about it. (via curiositycounts)
