CNN, AP and Reuters are reporting Saddam Hussein may have been captured in Tikrit. If that's true, it'll be good news. It will also be be very interesting to see what happens to the tempo and organization of the attacks against American forces, Iraqi police and civilian contractors.
Here's a nice little example of how people behave as members of a social organism, and it's even an example of the example I chose: Mac users.
Our behavior is bounded by our belief systems. We tend to believe that folks with rational beliefs will behave rationally. Well, most of the time anyway. But belief systems are how social organisms get people to make choices that serve the needs of the social organism. Presumably, the people making these choices also believe that they also serve some of their needs as individuals. I'm not sure that's always the case. In fact, I'm pretty certain that it isn't always the case. But back to our example.
Now, there's a lot more going on here than just the beliefs that make one a Mac user. At some point, a number of other human behaviors come into play. For instance, I suppose some of these people aren't Mac users at all, but are simply believing that if all these people want to wait in line to get in, there must be something worth seeing inside. And there's a certain kind of reasoning that humans do in queues that I was reading about recently. Whether or not one chooses to stand in a long line seems to have more to do with how many people are behind you than in front of you.
I'd like to think that there's no way I'd stand in a line like this to get into an Apple store. But the nature of this sort of thing is such that I probably can't be certain that I wouldn't.
We are a very strange species - humans, that is. Mac users are a little strange too, but it's inherited.
Well, the burly men with the big truck come tomorrow to haul most of my really heavy worldly possessions to my new domicile, Dave Cave II. I'm happy to report I'll still be living in an undisclosed secure location on a barrier island somewhere on the Atlantic Coast of northeast Florida.
Dave Cave II is a significant upgrade from Cave I. It's amazing how "nicer" translates to "more rules and regulations," i.e. less freedom. But that's okay, Cave I was a little too exciting, what with the fires and the drug dealers and the drunks fighting in the parking lot. Cave II comes with a washer and dryer too, which is nice; though I think I'll miss the social interaction the community laundry center offered. I won't miss the washing machines that failed to drain after they completed the rinse cycle, and the dryers that either didn't tumble or didn't dry.
I will kind of miss Shangri-La. It's more house than I care to look after, but it is nice. It needs some work; I didn't manage to accomplish everything I'd hoped to accomplish, but I got a few things done. This is Maria's house. She picked it out by herself when we were expecting orders back to Florida. I didn't care what she picked, thinking it would make her happy. Doesn't work that way I learned. But it's in a great location, and I'm quite certain it's worth far more than we paid for it. It's the kids' house too. Caitie's never lived anywhere else. Chris has lived in six different houses, though the last 10 years have been stable. I've lived in 13 different houses or apartments, five ships and three, whoops, four BOQs in the last 25 years. I'm not too hard to please when it comes to accommodations. I expect at some point I'll have to find some place to plant myself, but I'm not in any hurry.
I have WeatherPop in my menu bar, and it tells me what the temperature is supposed to be outside. It's usually pretty close. I've also got it set to tell me the temperature in Syracuse, NY, near where my parents live and where I used to live.
But now I live in Florida, the Sunshine State, where it's much warmer. Usually. Except on days like today. When it's 34 degrees F here, and 31 degrees F in Syracuse.
A person in a group, who perceives himself as a member of that group, will very often make different choices than he or she would, given the same information, as an individual acting alone. This is not news, it's not surprising, and very often it's what we want and expect. "There is no 'I' in 'team.'" On those occasions when someone does exhibit the propensity to think along lines that are different than the group, pressure is applied by the other members to get the differing member to conform. Again, this is not news, it's what happens. Some groups share a belief that they tolerate differing opinions, and to a certain extent, they do. Other groups, like a military organization, demand complete compliance. The degree to which differing views are tolerated or valued varies with the function of the group, and the personalities of the authorities that govern the group.
Macintosh users are a group, and one of the key authorities within the Macintosh user group is Steve Jobs, the head of Apple. One of Steve's aims for the group is to get everyone up and running on OS X, and so we had a number of efforts by Apple to persuade users (persuasion is the use of information to alter a person's beliefs for the purpose of achieving a desired result) that Mac OS X was the operating system they wanted to be using on their Macintosh computer. We had the mock funeral of OS 9 at one of the developers' conferences. We had the clock face that tried to show the transition ("It's just a matter of time." "Don't be late." "Hurry!" Though those things were never stated, time is a powerful metaphor for manipulating people's beliefs. "It's later than you think.")
One of the natures of groups is that they often tend to resist change. There is a certain range where change is tolerated and accommodated, but they tend to resist sudden, major changes without a significant stimulus. Other, usually lesser, though sometimes it's the reverse, authorities within groups will attempt to keep the main authority in check. In the Mac world, we saw this in the writing of many high-attention web sites, like Macintouch. When Apple announced that new Macs would no longer boot OS 9, they raised a protest. It's not clear to me how much of an effect that had, but my impression is that the decision to go to a platform that would physically be incapable of booting into OS 9 was at least delayed by the protest that followed. Even today, Apple still sells the PowerMac G4 just for people who wish to be able to run OS 9 instead of OS X. I really don't know if the latest versions of the iMac, eMac and iBook will boot OS 9, but my impression is they will not.
Groups also attempt to manipulate the beliefs of others who are not members of the group, for the purpose of getting people to become new members of the group, hopefully at the expense of one of the groups they're competing with. Apple's "Switcher" campaign was such an effort. I don't know how effective the "Switcher" campaign was. Apple would have me believe they found it effective; members of the other group would have me believe it was not effective. The truth is one of those elusive things that seems to be whatever some people want it to be. I guess it depends on your definition of "effective." I really don't care, I'm just offering an illustration.
So groups use information in ways that are intended to get individuals to believe one thing in preference to another thing, because if they believe that one thing, they will make choices and behave in ways that benefit the group. You can call it marketing, persuasion, propaganda, "a conversation" it really doesn't matter, it's all the same thing. Do I want you to believe this? I suppose at some level I do, or I wouldn't be writing it. But I'm pretty sure it won't matter what I write, so I'm also quite comfortable in saying I really don't give a rat's ass. At this particular moment, I don't happen to think I'm writing on behalf of any group, and I'm not interested in starting one. Mostly I'm concerned about individuals.
Back when I was a much happier technophile, I used to think that most of the major advances in civilization came on the heels of significant new sources of cheap and abundant energy. From the harnessing of animal power, wind power, coal-fired steam, to electricity, to internal combustion, etc. Later on, I came to believe that those advances were merely the physical manifestation of what was actually a different phenomenon, and that the real advance that permitted the spread and success of civilization was the free flow of information, increases in information bandwidth. Roman civilization was able to command an empire because of a system of roads. The invention of movable type was actually an information bandwidth increase that had little to do with energy per se. Widespread literacy seemingly also had little to do with energy, although cheaper more abundant energy gave people more time to devote to activities like learning to read. So there's probably a synergistic effect between available energy and bandwidth in the success of a civilization.
So, what's the most efficient information-mover today? For those so privileged to have access to it, it's the internet. What does the internet look like today? I don't know. Somebody should put up a web site to track that. I'm going to guess it looks a lot like the United States because we have the greatest access to it. The United States is a group, it's a social organism. It's kind of a different animal, as a nation, because while we certainly want as many people as possible to believe things that cause them to act in ways that benefit the United States, we don't actually want all of them to become American citizens. So while we don't spread citizenship around the world, we do spread a good portion of our beliefs in the form of our culture.
Our culture competes for the minds of people in other cultures. It does this by the manipulation of beliefs through the use of information. We, without question, dominate the information-space. Those authorities in other cultures, who have their own beliefs, significant among them that their own culture has value, face competition from American culture. They don't have the same advantages that Americans do, so what do they do? How do they compete with American culture for the hearts and minds of their own citizens? Well, we've seen what radical Islam does, that's one end of the spectrum. Then there's Kofi Annan and the UN on the other end of the spectrum.
They have a legitimate concern. The internet and American culture pose a threat to their own culture. To us, it's an opportunity. So much the better if billions of Chinese buy Britney Spears albums and Barbie dolls. But to them, it's a threat. Rather than consider their concerns, acknowledging the problems the world's cultures face, even if the fear is exaggerated, our own "deep thinkers" on technology and the internet simply behave as good little constituent members of their own social organism and mock and ridicule them. Aren't we special?
Is there a different way out? Maybe. But it's going to take some independent minds competing against powerful authorities. I don't think that's likely to happen, but I won't rule it out.
Feeding my ego-driven need to know how much attention I'm getting (not much), I checked the referers in the SiteMeter doodad, and happened to discover this. Would that be our own Hal of blivet fame? Cool!
Are these things true? Let's consider them in turn.
Nobody owns it. Doc and David maintain that nobody can own it, because it's an agreement. If you click on the link, you'll see they offer a number of assertions, but no real arguments as to how that is true. To me, it seems like they're performing a bit of rhetorical slight of hand. If nobody owns the internet, then what is the basis for charging for bandwidth? If nobody owns the internet, then what about my end? Do I own my end? If I don't own my end, can anyone put anything they want on my end, because it's not really my end? What is the basis for my rights on how I use my end if it's not a property right?
It's not really an agreement. The only agreement is the agreement to believe it's an agreement, and I don't agree.
The internet may rely on a protocol, a technical description of how to do something, but what the internet is is a lot of private and publicly owned property operating with that protocol. Yeah, the internet is owned by the people who have the money to buy the equipment to use the protocol. It's a physical thing, it's not an agreement. That's just fuzzy, feel-good bullshit.
Everyone can use it. I don't think so. Doc and Dave kind of wave their hands and dismiss the fact that you have to have the financial wherewithal to gain ownership or access to the property that other people own in order for you to use it. Yeah, once you get past that little detail, everyone can use it. But as a matter of fact, not everyone can use it. In some places, there are governments or other organizations who have made it their mission in life to ensure that you can't use it, or all parts of it. So, no, this isn't true either. It's just more fuzzy, feel-good bullshit.
Anyone can improve it. False. Even if one had the necessary technical knowledge to allow one to make changes which would be unequivocally improvements, which is a pretty high barrier to the "anyone" entry by itself, there are still hurdles and obstacles that have to be overcome. If you'd like evidence, I'd suggest looking at any number of moribund internet "standards." Various social organisms are competing for the opportunity to "improve" the internet, MS and Sun come to mind, and they try to make sure that not just anyone can improve it. Again, more fuzzy, feel-good bullshit.
This is the kind of crap that substitutes for real, rational, critical thinking on and about the internet. Those of us aboard the clue train don't have to live in the real world, where our lovely metaphors and cherished fantasies are inconveniently negated by this outmoded and clueless notion called "reality." The combination of breathing all these heady vapors and being subjected to the bumpy sections of track that must rest on the track bed of reality can make anyone a little nauseous. I'm just here to hand out the vomit bags for your convenience.
Browsing around the ol' blogosphere this morning, one can find no dearth of criticism of yet another internet non-getter, someone else who missed the "cluetrain," the Secretary General of the UN, who has apparently had the temerity to utter some concerns about the world of the internet.
The rich irony of course is that Doc Searls only the other day was extolling the virtues of Stephen Covey's Seven Habits, in particular to "seek first to understand," and commenting on how those of us among the internet-enlightened are more inclined to listen with "open minds."
But where is a restatement of what anyone believes they "understand" Kofi Annan's concerns to be? Where is the effort to "seek first to understand?" Well, if you just aren't onboard the cluetrain, a member of our little group of prometheans bringing the gift of fire to a benighted world, what's the point in trying to understand you? I guess that's what he really means. See? I'm "seeking first to understand."
Consider the security vulnerabilities Microsoft is constantly contending with, and ask yourself how we got here. MS was competing with other companies to get people to buy its products. Features were added because they seemed to be worthwhile, they were "good." And they were added in haste, because in competition speed is life. The internet, at first, merely added more opportunities for unquestioned "good" features. And then "what" did some people do? They exploited all those "good" features (new and better ways of "how" to do things) to do "bad" things.
Are we paying attention yet? Answering my own question, no.
If you repeat something often enough, supposedly people begin to believe it. Well, maybe they begin to remember it anyway.
In case you missed my point last night that Doc Searls seldom, if ever, exhibits any skepticism or criticism of the internet but never seems to miss an opportunity to criticize someone who doesn't happen to share his beliefs, he's written a bit of a brief post about a big and "nasty" spider he's chosen to name "Andrei."
Just something to keep in mind as we are urged forward, never pausing to consider or reflect, to whatever future awaits us by the deathless, breathless prose of the internet-enlightened.
It's later than I'd prefer, and it's indeed later than we think, but I'll try to be concise here.
Doc Searls, an A-List weblogger, one of the co-authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto, an open source advocate, and a Dean booster makes reference to old media and old politics (as contrasted with the shiny new internet-enabled media and politics) as the Matrix. (Scroll down to Location, Location, Location.) Everyone gets to pick their metaphors, but this one is not particularly apt. Doc Searls is a prolific 'blogger and he writes for Linux Journal, so there are a lot of his words on the internet. Reading Doc, one never encounters any sort of skepticism about the internet. There's plenty of skepticism and criticism of people who don't happen to "get" the internet, which most often seems to be anyone who doesn't happen to share his views; but, in the main, I think it's safe to say that Doc views the internet as an unequivocal "good." It's a little hard to nail down, because sometimes the 'net is a "place," like a commons, other times its a medium, but whatever, he likes it.
The Matrix is a bad thing. We know this from the movie. In my little look at the movie from a couple of years ago, I wrote that I believed that what the Matrix represented was a metaphor for the belief systems that bind together human beings in the various social organisms of which we are the constituent members. Put any number of human beings together in a group and give them some shared beliefs appropriate to the context that they find themselves in, and they will begin to function in ways that support the success and survival of the group. This is neither a good nor a bad thing per se. One can argue that it is almost always a good thing, as it is this ability to function as groups that has allowed our species to survive and to thrive. But there are undesirable aspects to group behavior as well, and we ignore those at our peril.
Most of what we do as we go about our day-to-day existence is governed by unconscious behavior. It would be grotesquely inefficient for evolution to have equipped us with enough brain capacity to make moment-to-moment cognitive choices governing our actions. Most of what we do is conditioned response, and as long as we've been properly socialized we're able to function quite well that way. In fact, we're nearly always quite unconscious of our own behavior. We're wired to pay attention to external events, we look for cues as to how we're being accepted within the group, and we nearly always are looking to achieve some level of affiliation, some degree of acceptance or belonging.
If you ask someone to explain their behavior in any given social situation, they will usually be able to call upon what seems to be a rational explanation. The explanation will be fashioned from a set of beliefs, which are presumably shared between the parties. Although we are, for the most part, unconscious of our behavior, there is nevertheless a cognitive structure we can call a belief system, that bounds that behavior. People with rational belief systems behave, we believe, rationally.
We acquire our belief systems from the social organisms we are members of, beginning with our families. Then perhaps our culture through the medium of television. For those parents who choose to home school their children and who do not permit television, then beliefs that make up part of the culture are more carefully mediated by the role of the parents. Our religion imparts our spiritual beliefs. As we receive education, we acquire beliefs that make us understand what we are as citizens and what our roles are. All these beliefs are imparted to us so that we may better serve our family, our community, our church, our country, and lately the corporate brands that we wish to affiliate with.
There is some period of testing and questioning of these beliefs in adolescence, but it is my opinion that social organisms, as learning organisms, have become more sophisticated at managing these periods of questioning and testing, and have actually learned to co-opt them successfully in most cases.
Social organisms compete with one another, just as individual organisms do. The resources they compete for are you and I, individual minds, whose belief systems can be shaped to serve the needs of the social organism. The NY Times is a newspaper, but it is also a social organism. It wants you to believe that it is the newspaper of record in the United States so more people will buy the NY Times. Marketing is all about manipulating beliefs. Campaigns are all about manipulating beliefs. This is nothing new, it's not horrible, it's just the way things are. The problem is, we don't pay enough attention to the way things are.
Doc is a member of a more amorphous social organism. (We are all members of a number of social organisms at any given time, our family, our employer, our church, our social club, our business group, our country, etc.) Perhaps more readily identifiable as a "group," and therefore as a social organism, is the open source community. It competes with social organisms like MS, and Userland, and other social organisms that supposedly espouse "closed source." There is a group of early-adopters of the internet who have affiliated themselves into a social organism that has a shared set of beliefs regarding the internet. You can find a subset of those beliefs articulated at (surprise!) Howard Dean's campaign site.
The members of this social organism that lacks a name are competing with other social organisms, like conventional media, to get people to behave in ways that are consistent with one or the other's set of beliefs. This is competition, so there isn't a lot of introspective examination of the truth or validity of their respective beliefs, there is simply criticism and distortion of the ones of those they oppose. This is not a good thing, in my opinion.
One belief that I think many of these people share, and which is, if not outright false then manifestly deficient, is that how humans do things is either more important, or equally as important as what human beings do. It's a criticism I've offered over and over again, technology changes the how, it almost never changes the what. The what is encoded in our DNA, and technology cannot change that. Technology often improves many hows for good whats, but what is often overlooked, is that it just as often improves the how of many bad whats.
That's an inconvenient belief if you're trying to compete with older, more established beliefs. And because we're competing, we're reluctant to expose any sign of weakness, and so many potentially dangerous vulnerabilities go unexamined, until something bad happens to expose us to them. People can believe a lot of things that they probably shouldn't, even trained, intelligent people - as an example I would point to the CHALLENGER and COLUMBIA shuttle disasters. Most of the time, these seeming cognitive failures are due to how we behave in groups. Group behavior has been responsible for our survival as a species to this point. In a highly networked world, where the friction of forming groups by manipulating beliefs is very reduced, the speed with which bad things, bad outcomes can occur, and the scale of those bad outcomes, can exceed our ability to control them. I would point to the August blackout as a minor example.
No, the Matrix is not "old media" or "old politics" - it is the belief systems we've been instructed to embrace to serve the needs of social organisms, which are, by extension, at least somewhat our needs. But the needs of social organisms and the needs of individuals are not necessarily congruent, and while blind service to the social organism may serve our individual needs for affiliation, validation, recognition, approval, belonging, safety, and others in the short term, they may not serve our individual needs in the longer term.
I don't believe in "smart mobs." And I'm skeptical of smart individuals who unquestioningly serve the needs of groups.
Two years ago, I was unemployed and rapidly burning through my meager savings. I don't wish to paint too bleak a picture, because I enjoy a very nice pension at the ripe old age of 46. Nevertheless, watching pennies was necessary to ensure I could continue to meet all my obligations until I landed a job. Even so, I was newly enjoying the effects of understanding something about the roles of faith and fear in creating the quality of my life, and I was consciously choosing to act more out of faith than out of fear. As a result, I made a conscious decision to put at least a dollar in every one of those seemingly ubiquitous Salvation Army kettles almost always attended by an enthusiastic bell-ringer. I knew that while it seemed as though I had a problem, there were others in far worse straits; and while putting a dollar in the kettles probably wouldn't go far in making anyone else's circumstances any easier, it was a reminder to me to be grateful for what I had.
So here I am two years later, gainfully employed and doing well. I walked into a grocery store a couple of weeks ago, and the enthusiastic bell-ringer was there and I recall feeling annoyed at the bell and the presence of the kettle. Needless to say, I didn't put anything into it. But as I went about my shopping, I noted my irritation and it called to mind the very different attitude I had two years ago. I have to admit, I wasn't very proud of myself. On the way out, I dropped two dollars in the kettle, and I promised myself I'd put a dollar in each kettle I passed this year. I'm kind of sad to admit, I have no recollection of what I did last year.
Yesterday, I dropped by the grocery store, and the bus from the local senior community must have just dropped off a bunch of residents because there was a larger than normal number of elderly people doing their shopping. I felt annoyed at how slow they were at moving through the aisles and getting through checkout. As I was waiting to check out, nurturing my irritation with all the inconvenience of having to share a planet with the aged, I happened to make eye contact with the elderly gentleman in front of me. We didn't smile at each other, but it seemed as though a voice in my head said clearly to me, "Say hello to yourself."
When we get comfortable, it's easy to fall asleep. Paying attention is a learned behavior, but it's well worth learning.
I don't actually have to go down and register as a Democrat so I can vote in the Florida Democratic primary. The internet will have "changed everything" and made that totally irrelevant.
We are not thinking creatures. We're clever, hairless monkeys, infatuated with our own cleverness. Now, I'm not saying this is a bad thing, it's just the truth.
I'm buying the book Jonathon referred to in his post on Social Proof. I think it will add a great deal to my limited understanding of how people behave in groups, and the social organisms we form.
The Dean candidacy will not be the result of many minds making conscious, cognitive choices. It will be the result of behavior. Admittedly, it is complex behavior, and we can even call Dean's candidacy an "emergent property" of that complex behavior, if that makes anyone feel any better. But it's not the result of many minds doing critical, analytical thinking. That's not necessarily good or bad, it's just the way it is. Maybe a few minds did some critical, analytical thinking. Mostly I think they liked what they heard. People don't think much anymore, it's hard work and I find that it can give you a headache. Behavior is easy. We're finely tuned to pick up on social cues and to affiliate ourselves in groups. We love our little communities of like-thinking, right-minded, upstanding, virtuous individuals. Well, we love our illusions anyway.
If you ask me, and nobody did, the only thing the internet seems to have done is to have greatly reduced the friction in forming groups. We don't have to actually get together in sweaty, smelly, teeming masses. We can sit in the comfort of our gated communities on our broadband networks enjoying each others' virtual presence as we congratulate ourselves on what good little boys and girls we are, going about the serious business of "changing everything." The network binds us even more firmly to the group. In such a world, what is the value of independent thought? Indeed, what is the utility of independent thought? Well, someone has to steer I suppose. Welcome to The Matrix.
My problem is attachment. I'm attached to my own illusion that one day individuals in my species will discover the will to live up to their potential as thinking beings and be more than the sum of the unconscious behaviors that govern the vast majority of our actions. This is suffering, the difference between the way we are, and the way I would like us to be. I should know better by now. I do, but illusions die hard.
I don't know how much Al Gore's likely endorsement of Howard Dean will help Dean sew up the nomination, but it's looking more and more like Dean is the anointed one. I get a really bad feeling about things like this.
Take a look at Jonathon Delacour's latest piece on the principles of influence and tell me how much of what you read there is driving Dean's success, and none of that has anything to do with politics. I think four of the principles of influence are at work here, with social proof being one of the largest ones.
Before any of the primaries, fund-raising is used as a predictor of future success. Dean was able to exploit the internet, which is a social proof medium like the world has never seen, to score early wins in the fund-raising arena. That success in fund-raising translated into a social proof phenomenon in the more conventional mass media which, like most of America, is fascinated by money, who has it, who doesn't, who's getting it and who's not.
The principle of liking was an early strong one for Dean, as his populist, Bush-bashing, anti-war message attracted the greatest number of activists, who are able to generate greater attention and attention is a key element of social proof. Now he's going to have to moderate his message somewhat to exploit the principle of liking in the less rabid ranks of Democrat moderates.
The principle of scarcity applies almost obliquely in politics. Perhaps I'm distorting it beyond all recognition, but to me the principle of scarcity is reflected in rooting for the underdog. In the early coverage of Dean, I recall most of the coverage being about how unlikely he was to be a successful candidate. He's a governor of a northern state that nobody had ever heard of before; the governor that is, though I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Americans had never heard of Vermont. Of course, this also somewhat calls to mind the successful candidacies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
Now, with Gore's endorsement, we'll see what the principle of authority will add. (Update: Here's a quote from a NY Times article on Gore's expected endorsement: "Al Gore has decided to endorse Howard Dean for president, aides to the men said Monday, a move that rocked the Democratic presidential field and hastened Dr. Dean's evolution from a long-shot maverick to a leading candidate of the Democratic establishment." "Long-shot maverick" is the characterization that applies to the scarcity principle.
So far in all this, we have yet to have anyone actually vote. It seems like the effort now is directed toward creating an air of inevitability.
Naturally, the thinking among mainstream democrats who otherwise might not have been Dean's strongest allies is that an early decision in the primary race will work to the party's advantage in the fall. We won't have the ugly spectacle of the party's candidates doing the Republicans' work for them by driving up each others' negatives.
Unfortunately, for those of us who would like to believe that there's something more to politics than just winning, the political process gets shoved to the side. If Dean sails through to the nomination, it will be a clear indication that the primary system in American politics is finished and we ought to just admit it and find something better, because this ain't it.
I hate going with the herd, and Dean feels like the herd candidate. I wonder what the odds are for a Clark independent bid?
In a comment to the Breakdown piece, Cecil says that, when I'm ready, I should go into the wilderness. In my usually wise-ass manner, I asked him what made him think we weren't already in the wilderness? The point is, one doesn't have to go anywhere. As my close personal friend Buckaroo Banzai says, "No matter where you go, there you are." I like to go to the beach because it helps to cut down on the noise, but lately I haven't managed to find the time. I've discovered that I can find the beach in my mind though. The real thing is a better experience, but what I go there to find is already inside me. It's just easier to find it there.
I was managing the details of my very technological existence today on my Sony Clié, and I was appreciating the value of better "hows" for necessary "whats." Then what occurred to me was one of the differences between Microsoft and Apple. It's a small difference, but I think it matters a lot. Microsoft is a company much like the people who I think invest too much hope in technology, the people who believe the "how" is everything. Apple seems to have a slightly better understanding that while the "how" is important, it's the "what" that matters.
If it sounds as though I'm a bit irritable of late, it's no mystery, I am. It's my bit of suffering I have to resolve at the moment. When I'm pissed, there's something I'm not getting, there's something I'm supposed to learn. Part of turning off the lights here is to pay attention to that, because if I don't, I'm just going to continue to be irritated and a wise man once said, "Pissed off is no way to go through life."
I've read about how "everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be," and I even understand that in some sort of superficial way. I understand that people learn when they're ready to and not before, so there's little point in making myself crazy.
I love television. I don't watch it anywhere near as much as I used to, but there are some shows I enjoy and I certainly enjoy watching movies on DVD. Television is fun. Like anything, you can abuse it, but even that doesn't bother me. I think I've written about this before, but I seem to enjoy repeating myself. I'm old enough to have read some of the things that were written about television, especially satellite television, and its potential as an educational medium. Look at what we have today. I don't think it worked out exactly the way a lot of those folks thought it would. That's okay. Yes, there is "educational television." There's also the Jerry Springer Show.
The internet and weblogs are this generation's television. Yes, it will "change everything." Just as the automobile created suburban sprawl and changed the scale of human architecture to accommodate our machines. It "changed everything," and the internet and weblogs will too.
The problem is, everyone seems to think the "how" is everything, when it's just the "how." It's the "what" that never changes, and the "what" is everything. That's because the "how" is always changing, so it's noticeable. The "what" never changes, and we take it for granted, so it doesn't even come to the foreground of our consciousness. Our problems aren't in our "hows," for the most part. They're in our "whats."
You can see this when you read the griping about how women are excluded when some men mention what they believe are significant weblogs, or when a special category is created for women in a weblog award. You can see it when you read people arguing about power laws and the size of audiences and what that means. We do the same things we always do. We bring all our behaviors, all our vices, all our ignorance with us wherever our shiny new technology takes us. And we do love our shiny new technology.
I love it too. I think the iSight is the greatest thing since the telephone. When I saw iChat AV demoed by Steve Jobs, I immediately bought a new eMac for my parents, and iSight cameras for each of us. It's a "how" that makes my "what" so much better. The "what" didn't change, but the "how" did, and that's a pretty good thing.
There's nothing wrong with making good "whats" better. Technology does offer a lot of that. You can read Socrates after dark without going blind by virtue of the electric light. Better "hows" for good "whats" are great, but they're not "everything."
Can you learn from reading my weblog? I don't think so. Do I learn from reading Lao Tzu? Again, I don't think so. How long have Lao Tzu, Socrates, Buddha, the Bible, pick any other one you care to name, been in print? I don't know, except it has to be longer than the lifetime of anyone currently living on this planet. There is thought out there, in print, that's been around for thousands of years, that really could "change everything" and yet it doesn't. Is it just because everyone hasn't read about any of those people? Is what they thought really not that important?
Never before have we had the ready, easy access to the thoughts of great minds that we do today. Presumably, people even read it! Yet we still bicker about the "anger industry" and mock the people we disagree with, and justify ourselves and demonize our opponents. If all we needed to do was "read" to "learn," shouldn't we be living in Utopia about now? Why are there so many different self-help books out there?
Was Siddhartha Gautama a genius? I'm not sure that anyone knows. I'm inclined to believe he wasn't particularly gifted, he just made better use of his ordinary gifts than most other people. He asked better questions, and kept asking questions, and discovered better answers.
I think, to some extent, reading the great thoughts of others may even impair our ability to really learn. You read something someone great wrote, you like it, you agree with it, you think you know something. The only thing you really know is you liked what you read. You have to do the work. Maybe reading the thoughts of others can help you do the work, I think it's helped me, but there is no substitute for doing the work. What is the work? The work is finding your own damn answers. You don't get to copy off Siddhartha, you'll get an F for your final grade. You don't get to copy off me either. You're certainly welcome to, but you'll flunk the course.
My point is, by focusing any attention on technology as some means of facilitating learning, or "changing everything" as some answer to anything, simply continues to obscure the real goddamn point. It's as if we seem to think that once we have achieved the right technology, somehow our minds will be liberated and we'll be able to "know" all these great things. When it has absolutely, positively, without question, NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with TECHNOLOGY. You need exactly NO technology to start asking yourself the kinds of questions you need to be asking yourself.
WHEN, in God's name, are you going to start? When you've perfected your technology? When you've read enough weblogs? When your bandwidth is wider? When gender bias goes away? When a democrat is back in the White House? When you've "simplified" your life? What life? You think you're alive? How do you friggin' well know?
Well, I see I've gone on too long again. The old throbbing vein in the temple comes along to remind me that I'm trying to do things I have no power to do, and all I manage to achieve is elevating my blood pressure. Time for this old man to go to bed.
Kudos to Al Hawkins on the fourth anniversary of his arrival on the weblog scene, courtesy of Dave Winer's Manila project and editthispage.com! I've been reading Al since he started, and he has consistently been a good read, refreshingly free of the gushing, breathless and entirely too self-conscious exaltation of the "blogosphere" as the answer to all questions, as exhibited by so many of the anointed digerati. Al shares compelling stories of his life as a critical care nurse, trying to keep some of our brothers and sisters from shuffling off this mortal coil before their curtain calls. He also often shares his experiences as a father of two daughters, a husband and as a preparer of fine foods.
It's been a great four years, and I look forward to as many more as you care to offer. Bravo zulu, big guy.
I received comments from both Kurt and Cecil on the last post, and I welcome them because they point out how I haven't been clear. Which is why it's probably a good time to state yet again that for all our vaunted technology, we absolutely suck at communicating.
Kurt's point is that real learning doesn't necessarily rely on person-to-person contact or presence. That what we're able to share by means of these disembodied voices is of some value in facilitating real learning. Cecil points out that it was technology that permitted the transmission of great thought that remains with us today. Somebody had to write down what Socrates said, or we wouldn't know about it today.
These two points are closely related. I'm inclined to cede the possibility of Kurt's point, because I'm relying on my experience and I'm a sample of one. My experience may not be universal, but I hardly think it's unique. So while I'm inclined to agree it may be possible for real learning to take place in the exchange of experiences mediated by technology, in practice I don't think it happens.
I suppose we might make some distinction between learning and training. Perhaps I'm being arbitrary, but what the hell. Yes, a weblog can be of great value in helping me learn how to reformat my hard drive, replace the siding to my house, bake a good loaf of sourdough bread, prevent heart disease or any number of other useful, wonderful things. That's training. Weblogs are good for training, learning practical things.
But when I write "real learning," I'm referring to something a little less immediately useful, a little less practical. I'm talking about the big questions here, like "What the hell am I doing here?" And, "Just who the hell am I, anyway?" Those are harder questions to answer, tougher lessons to learn. Though there is by no means any shortage of weblogs, books, magazines, TV shows, cassette tapes, CD-ROMs, or call-in radio programs that purport to answer those very questions. Of course, they do no such thing, but that's never stopped them from taking your money, time and attention.
Here's the thing, answering those questions is hard. Partly because, you're not going to like the answer, at least at first and maybe never. Partly because it can make you real damn uncomfortable, and we're nothing if not creatures of comfort. We may suffer, but we're comfortable with our familiar suffering. No new suffering for us, thank you very much! I haven't met anyone yet who has the kind of motivation to push himself or herself out of their own comfort zone. I've tried, it's about the hardest thing you'll ever do, and it takes help and you won't find that kind of help in a book, on a CRT or an LCD. It takes another mind, and one you have some connection to, some measure of trust, because you are not going to like what happens. You don't like the book? You stop reading it. You don't like the TV show? You stop watching it. You don't like the weblog? You stop reading it. Or maybe you don't, but you stop listening, you stop learning, you stop really paying attention.
Now, don't get confused, you still have to do the work, no teacher, counselor, guru, talk-show host can do it for you. But you're only going to do the work if someone you trust, someone you care about and you believe cares about you, is there to encourage you, motivate you, kick your ass if they need to. Otherwise, it ain't going to happen.
That's why I think technology is just a bunch of hooey when it comes to real learning about who I am, and who you are, and how should we live in this world.
Now, to get to Cecil's point. I can read Socrates all day long and it's not going to help if I don't have someone who's given me that shove, who's tossed my ass into cold water over my head. Reading Socrates from the comfort of my recliner on a quiet evening with the stereo going is a wonderful experience, but it's not going to really mean anything. Reading Socrates after life has just kicked your ass, that might mean something.
Now, why did Plato write down what Socrates thought? My guess is because Socrates kicked Plato's ass. Siddhartha Guatama kicked some serious ass, and people remember when they've had their asses kicked. Jesus Christ kicked ass too. And the people who remembered it were the people who had their asses kicked. It's great that they wrote it down, and it's great we can read what they said and thought today. But reading what they said and thought is no substitute for doing the work, and we're lazy and self-serving. We'll read all the great thinkers and we'll know everything they ever said or thought that survives today, but I'm telling you it won't mean a damn thing to you. You'll have learned nothing. Don't believe me? Fine, I really don't give a rat's ass.
Don't think you need a teacher? Think you do? Chances are, you've already got one whether you want one or not, and it ain't me, you're just not paying attention. It's that person who drives you nuts, makes you crazy. May be a spouse or ex-spouse, may be one of your children. May be one of your parents. May be your boss. Doesn't matter if you're not paying attention. Someone makes you uncomfortable? Go bitch about them in your weblog. Frustrated by someone important in your life? Distract yourself by "saving the world" and living a simpler life, or attending your bible study group, or reading your favorite warblog, or peaceblog. For God's sake, under no circumstances pay any attention to what's going on inside you! Grab some new technology and breathe the fresh, clean air of 21st century liberation!
You might go find a guru who makes you feel all peaceful and serene inside - here's a tip: that's no guru. When you find a counselor who helps you and you feel great about him or her and then one day they land this right hook from out of nowhere that puts you on your ass, that's a teacher, that's a counselor, that's a guru. Maybe. There are impressive fakes out there. Buyer beware and all that. But do not be mistaken, you're not here to feel all warm and fuzzy, you're here to find out what you're made of.
So, any clearer? I didn't think so. And just remember boys and girls, I'm an authority on nothing. I make all this shit up. We now return you to your regularly scheduled distraction...
It's tough to support an intellectual or spiritual class that inspires the common person to consider deeper philosophical issues if all you have time to worry about is where your next meal is coming from. It's very difficult to widely disseminate learning with any speed if the only way you have to transmit that learning is by word-of-mouth and hand-copied books.
This is a familiar argument to me, and one I used to subscribe to myself. I think the first time I heard it was in 1973 from a taped copy of a lecture one of my teachers had attended by Isaac Asimov. Dr. Asimov was discussing the romantic notions we seem to have of the pre-technological past. If we think about what it would have been like to have lived in ancient Rome, it seems we usually envision ourselves as one of the aristocracy, perhaps as members of the Senate or something. Dr. Asimov vigorously burst that bubble by laughing and saying, "Wrong! You'd most likely be a slave!"
His point, of course, is that technology has enabled people to indulge in many wonderful things that we would be unable to pursue if it weren't for the time-saving, information-sharing, wealth-creating benefits of technology. And as I said, I used to subscribe to that view as well, because there is some truth to it. But I no longer subscribe to it as an endorsement for technology itself, and it is not true that it is technology that has enabled people to think great thoughts or discover great truths.
For whatever reason, it seems the number of truly great thinkers among our species will always be a small one. Despite the fact that our technology has enabled us to support, if just barely, the largest number of living human beings ever to have inhabited this planet; and despite the fact that we now "know" more things than at any time ever in our history; and despite the fact that we are more closely connected than ever in an electronic web of communications technologies, you can still probably count on your fingers and toes the number of truly great human beings in terms of their thought, and nearly all of them are dead, most of them long, long dead.
I always liked that line from Judas' song in Jesus Christ, Superstar, "Israel 4 B.C. had no mass communication." Siddhartha Guatama didn't have a weblog. Gandhi didn't have satellite television. Socrates never even wrote anything down.
The role of technology in facilitating great thought is vastly overstated. The truth is indifferent to our toys.
But it's not simply that great thought doesn't rely on great technology, it's also that real learning doesn't rely on technology. That is so patently obvious that it should go without saying. Despite all our marvelous, labor-saving, time-saving, wealth-creating, information-sharing, gee-whiz technology, we labor in ignorance of the truly great truths much as we have through all of our existence. Real learning of great truths doesn't seem to happen until a mind is opened in some way, and there is no technology for that, I'm afraid. And most of that learning, in my experience, must rely, at some point, on one mind conversing with another, most often in a genuine, human, presence.
But that's just my opinion. I'm an authority on nothing.
Cecil dropped me a note wondering why I mentioned things might be interrupted here as I move if I'm going to be closing up shop in December anyway. In truth, I was really casting about for something to write about so I could get On Hope off the page. It occurs to me now that I'll be able to check and answer e-mail via web access, so it probably wasn't necessary to mention it at all. But it does look better to have three little entries than to have just two, I think.
Anyway, I've got maybe three or four more longish things to say before I'm done here. I'd seriously considered not saying them at all, but the other day I happened to read this over at Synergy:
Q: Yes, Socrates, but can you not hold your tongue . . . ? (25)
. . . This would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore [. . .] I can not hold my tongue. [. . .] The greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others. . . . The life which is unexamined is not worth living. . . . .
My friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it; for what is one man that he should make much of his winter, even when they bend him like a heavy snow? So many other men have lived and shall live that story, to be grass upon the hills.
(The page with the permalink renders badly in Safari, you may wish to use a different browser. The main page renders fine.)
This sort of invites the embarrassing impression that perhaps I'm comparing myself to Socrates or Black Elk, so I want to quickly dispel that notion. But I was sufficiently inspired by both quotations, and their appearance about the time I was seriously considering just letting this thing go, that I figured I'd try to finish up what I had to say. Hope was the first of those. Met with all the usual wild response that all the really important things I think I have to say ever meet with, which I've come to believe is probably a good thing. Any more response would suggest that I'm something of an authority; and whatever my ego may wish, the better part of me knows I wish for no such burden, and indeed can bear no such burden.
There's still an echoing refrain heard in the "blogosphere" about how much of an effect this activity has on things. There's perhaps less of the "this changes everything" theme, but there is still this kind of naive ego-centric enthusiasm about the potential for whatever it is we seem to be doing. Perhaps I'm just a party pooper, or maybe I'm just growing more cynical in my old age, but I don't share that enthusiasm.
The things that change are superficial ones. The nature of many of them does seem to suggest that perhaps they have "changed everything," but on closer examination, I don't think the claims hold. I used to be an enthusiastic technophile. I believed that while technologies such as genetic engineering and nanotechnology held great risks in the short term, in the longer term they held out the real hope of solving every one of humanity's material problems, and the only problems we would have left would be spiritual ones. While I'm still something of a technology enthusiast, I don't see technology as any sort of panacea for anything; and that our focus on our material problems has distracted us from what are probably our greater challenges in terms of addressing human suffering and those are all spiritual in nature.
"Spiritual" is one of those words that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Substitute philosophical if you wish. Recall the quotation from Brad Warner I posted last night.
The only thing that can "change everything" is if we each change one thing, and that is ourselves. The one thing about ourselves that each of us must change is our ignorance of ourselves. It's really no more complicated than that; which is not to say that it's easy, because it really isn't. But it's something that each of us has the power to do, at least for ourselves. While we may grow frustrated to the point of distraction over our seeming inability to influence the course of external events, we can have much greater success, although still limited, at influencing the course of our own internal events. Such a change, on a wide enough scale, I suspect really would "change everything." But even that is beside the point, because we're not here to change everything, we're here to discover ourselves and be transformed in the process. If you set out to be a Buddhist or a Christian or whatever in order to make the world a better place, you'd fail, and many have. It's just an opportunity. Nobody can do it for you, you have to do it yourself and you have to find a way to begin. If you're like most people, life gives you enough reasons to start, even though we seem ever more adept at trying to evade those little stimuli.
Anyway, I get distracted trying to be that stimuli, and I don't have that power. At most, I can be a bit of a guide. I'm not persuaded keeping a weblog is the best way for me to do that. I do have some ideas on what other ways might be better, and I intend to pursue some of those. But before I go, I'll share a few more thoughts. I just thought it was kind of interesting the things we find to be our muse. I was pretty much just going to "sit down and shut up" when I read two things nearly back to back that suggested to me that perhaps I needed to finish saying what I had to say first. Maybe that's just a coincidence. Maybe it's not.
This is Brad Warner's web site. He's the author of Hardcore Zen, which I seem to have somehow misplaced for the moment. But I like his writing, we think a lot alike:
"Words only have the meanings you choose to give to them. Nothing more. Ultimately all words are useless. Especially if they come from an asshole like me."
If you're like me and wondered where Lexmark's printer utility went after installing Panther, look for it in the Library/Printers folder in the main directory.
In the near future I will be relocating to a new domicile. There will be an interruption of e-mail and weblog service until new connections can be arranged.
