The Right Way to Flourish

The promises of virtual reality are coming slower than expected. Even Metaverse (formerly Facebook) has reported poorer than expected progress. As well it should because we are not at all ready for such new technologies. We have yet to learn how to cope with real reality, much less something beyond it. If new technology could ever be the answer to dealing with large and significant social/environmental problems, it must first enable us to see the world and ourselves as they really are. What we really need is a clearer understanding about how we humans perceive and act within the world… Read More

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For those who come looking for something new, I apologize for the long absence. I have been working on some new stuff and have been buried in the process. But just to make sure you now I am still up and about, here is a poem that I recently wrote. As it tells, I am in a pretty down mood about the state of the world. Love to have your comments. No Tears Left As I walked, I saw a tree cry. A maple waking up, I thought. No, it was a great oak’s sadness. I passed by a rock,… Read More

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This post expands upon the previous one. Justice cannot be found in a text. Neither originalism nor textualism can result in justice, except by chance. Full stop. Justice cannot be found in the past. It lives only in the present moment. Justice exists only when the right systemic conditions allow it to come forth. Justice belongs to the same class of qualities as does beauty or fairness. Justice always depends on the contextual whole of the place and time it is to be found. Further, what is right cannot be found wholly in a text, Rightness, like justice, is a… Read More

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Amy Coney Barrett said in her Senate testimony that the Constitution has “the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it.” No. The Constitution Document and the words it contains have no meaning at all. A piece of text has as many possible meanings as there are people reading it. Only humans can create meaning from texts or spoken words. That is true of individual words and the sentences made from them. Much mischief has been done by conflating the written or spoken word with some inherent or essential meaning. The founding document “doesn’t change over time,” Barrett… Read More

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I have recently done a podcast and will be streaming an interview tomorrow. The podcast was done by Futurizer and can be heard on Trond Undheim’s website. https://trondundheim.com/podcast/ The direct link to the podcast is https://www.futurized.org/the-real-world-beyond-sustainability/ Tomorrow,, June 17th, I am streaming a conversation, sponsored by the International Humanistic Management Association. The live link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5102359757?pwd=MXhDdEJqVjVNWlE4S2JrcmxyTWVSdz09 I will post a link to the video after the event is over. This event is tied to the publication of an article in the periodical magazine, Amplify,  of Cutter, a member of the Arthur D Little Community. The article can be downloaded here.

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“The world is running out of options to hit climate goals, U.N. report shows” Is this headline from the WaPo (April 4, 2022) correct? I do not believe so. This old “joke” may help understand why. A policeman goes to help a drunk searching for something under a streetlight and asks what he has lost. He says his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes, the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, “No, I lost them in the park.” The policeman asks why he is searching… Read More

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Still batting zero in getting my opeds published. I thought this one was pretty timely. Even if the title seems nonsensical or blasphemous, it is a valid question. Whether or not “God” exists, some human being invented the word, “god,” or its equivalent in other languages. I can think of a few ways that this happened. One is as a neologism to explain something that was inexplicable, but important enough to require naming. I suspect this is how it happened because we know that early cultures showed signs of something we would call “god” or “gods.” Many natural phenomena would… Read More

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Tried to get this published also. Those who would ban critical thinking in any form are making a huge mistake. If they believe they are protecting the youth of America from some evil force, they are doing just the opposite. Freedom in the fullest sense means that one must be able to act authentically, to create and own one’s actions. Cognitively, it means escaping from stories, based on the past, that run most of our lives. Only then can one call what they are doing their own—the autonomy that underlies freedom. The idea of critical thinking arose when thinkers figured… Read More

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Another rejected oped. I have been trying to get McGilchrist and the divided-brain-model into the press with no success so far. It seems a waste to simply file them away. More to come from the past and, I expect more in the future. What holds the United States together? This question has become very important in the face of the many rifts that have cropped up recently. The answer is not, as many might say, patriotism or nationalism or any other ideology. The glue lies in the many powers, rights, or duties that have been explicitly created through the ratification… Read More

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My wife and I had a conversation a few days ago about wisdom. It’s not an easy question. How can you tell whether or when someone is wise? Is it something about them that hangs in there? My response was very pragmatic. Wisdom shows up after the fact in the assessment of whatever action, often involving some guidance to another, was taken. Did it fit the circumstances, beyond anything routine? Routines are the opposite of wise acts they always fit, by definition of the word routine. Wisdom only shows up when the going gets tough and our routines fail us.… Read More

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