Hope For The Future

Introduction 

I have been writing a book for my grandchildren over the past decade or so. It is finally somewhat ready for "publication," and I have shared a link to it with all of them. I have no idea whether any of them have read it.

This is from the last chapter. 

In the midst of all of this, reading and writing and paying attention - it sometimes seems overwhelming. As of the date I write this, 2024 06 11, we are facing the possibility of a nuclear winter over Ukraine and Russia, and the loss of our democracy with the “carrot topped” Republican narcissist being supported by his Republican toadies. I can understand that large portions of the populace are swept up in his tidal persuasiveness and fear of the “others.” But I cannot stand that the elected officials who should be above that are still bowing to his pressure to kill things like the border and immigration bill which would have funded enough border guards and judges to help FIX the problem. They are doing it to spite the Democrats, even if it means that a couple of million people are held in some terrible limbo. I CANNOT forgive them.

That said, I need a ray of hope, somewhere, from something. That is the purpose of this bit.

How we got here. 

Let’s say it - LIFE is amazing. That there is any life at all in this vast universe of fire and stars and rocks and gas is just amazing. And that WE are here - living, sentient, intelligent beings that can grasp this, and can even attempt to move it forward - that is astounding.

AND YOU and I are here - alive. Thinking, breathing, loving - what a glorious privilege. Sheer chance, sheer luck. Thanks. Enjoy every minute of it. Make it last as long as you can. Live it as well as you can.

Genetics and Evolution 

The gradual evolution of our genetics got us here. It continues to try to improve us, but the pace is very slow. And the goal of our genes is not very uplifting - they just want more of us, more, more, more. The improvements that happen are purely accidental. The ones that survive support us generating more of our kind and keeping them around long enough to generate some more of us. Nothing rational about that - but it does work.

BUT we are not slaves to our genes. They accidentally made us intelligent enough to be able to STOP and THINK about it - but that is NOT what we are tuned for - so we have to take a conscious effort to actually THINK. Our brain can process 10 million bits a second to keep us up and running, to hold on to information that will help us, etc. That is all purely automatic and unconscious. Those life and death decisions are ALL from our gut, our emotions, our endocrine, our hormones. NO thinking required. The thinking part of our brain has about a fifty bit bandwidth. And it uses up a lot of energy that the genes would rather have us save up for emergencies.

So, thinking is something we have to learn, and work at, and improve. Mindfulness is a good first step as I have tried to point out in all of this ream of paper.

So, the emotions of having a child, the emotions of being a grandparent are all wonderful. They are geared to have us procreate and populate.

But the emotions from poetry, and music, and fiction, and science - those are things we acquire and learn. No one is born reading and writing. No one is born THINKING and holding good values. We have to create those. See next section.

Social Evolution
Evolution is a hit and miss and a bunch of gradual steps forward, and lots of failures. When we hit on something, like writing, it helps propagate us and move us forward. But it took us many thousands of years to get the writing thing from the elite priests and scribes down to the common person. And on occasion, we seem to forget that we need to TEACH our kids these things

Social values are the same. They do not arise naturally, any more than writing did. We stumble about and formulate some ideas using our fifty bits. We slowly learn that one approach is better than others - we formulate that as a moral principle, we encapsulate it in laws, and we try to enforce them. Slavery is a fine example. In ALL of human history prior to 1800, slavery was taken as a given. You lost the war, you were invaded, you are now our slave. We only know of a very few societies where slavery was considered unacceptable prior to 1850 or so. There were a few indigenous tribes in the Americas that held to that principle, despite the resistance of their neighbors. And this has nothing to do with race, and Africa and the Civil War. This was all of humankind.

The simple “right to life” is still debated in many parts of the planet. Prior to the British philosophers such as Locke and Hume, the lord, the master, the king could take anyone’s life for any pretext. Many countries still have that heuristic in place.

Personal property and ownership was another huge breakthrough for values. Freedom of speech is still being argued around the world. Freedom of assembly the same. The right to vote is still up for debate in most of our modern world. Ask anyone living in a developing country, a dictatorship, or even a RED state here in the grand old U.S.A. Belief in that basic principle is not that common.

The good news is that evolution at the social level will continue - provided we do not destroy the planet and ourselves in the process. Give us enough time, enough creative people, we will eventually figure out how this works. I am pretty sure that there are many books and treatises already published that have the exact steps and the exact details required to solve world hunger, poverty, injustice, and even global warming. We just need to figure out how to persuade the vast majority who are not really using their fifty bits.

AI Evolution
AND, lastly, this one. We have succeeded in making machines that are FASTER than we are in the fifty bits department for things like math, and reading, and writing, and research. We can use them to supplement our SLOW brains. I don’t know that we will ever get to the point that they can actually be creative and inventive, and hold to moral principles. Those things seem to require emotions and gut response - which seem almost impossible to replicate in silicon.

But they will assist our 50 bits to get some things done more quickly. There are problems that we can put them to which will help enormously. Weather is one. It is a complex mathematical puzzle, but there are identifiable PATTERNS in there that a really smart AI can identify better than we ever could.

I fearlessly predict that we will one day have the following scenario happen for every child entering preschool. AND, EVERY child will enter preschool. We really cannot wait until they are 5 years old to start teaching them to THINK. That is simply crazy. Every research study shows that early intervention and socializing and learning leads to much better outcomes for health and wellbeing and earning for all of life.

Preschool Scenario: 

Every child is accompanied to a testing center at a really early age. This is some point after they have mastered the basic skill of understanding at least one language. You should be aware of the fact that most people outside of the Americas master 2 or more languages by age 2. They cannot avoid it when their town or tribe speaks one tongue, and their nation has adopted another one.

Before the test starts, the clinician takes a tiny drop of blood from a finger, and puts it into the DNA analysis port. The child is fitted with a set of goggles, much like the Apple Glass or VisionPro. They are shown some interesting and fun videos. As they are watching the videos, the device is carefully tracking and calibrating their eye movements. I am going to bet that the process may take an hour or two when we start, but that we will get it down to something like ten minutes after some practice. They will also have a sensor placed on their finger or wrist which also tracks things like heart rate, skin resistance, temperature, etc.

This may be coupled to an MRI scanner as we start doing these things, but that eventually will be replaced by the simple eye scan device.

The headset is removed, and the machine sends to the parents an electronic report in the form of various graphs or spectrums. We know that humans are all very different. Our brains, our genes, our history, our experiences are all different. When we look at things, videos, pictures, words, each of us actually see those things slightly differently. Our taste or smell is very different as well. Some of us love cilantro or kale, and others find it bitter or soap like.

Our emotional reaction to things is also very different. Each of these traits has a kind of bell curve. The majority of people for almost any trait fall in the broad middle range. A few fall out on both ends, lower and higher. The graphs will show about where this child falls in each of these realms. We can measure some things today, and we will rapidly learn to measure others - especially using our DNA as well as our eyesight response.

Of course our brains are also very plastic. With the right intention and assistance, we can move our point on that graph or spectrum in either direction. Normally, without some biological intervention, most of our measurable traits cannot be moved a great distance in either direction - but they can be moved. We are not forever stuck with the genetic propensity we were born with - just kind of constrained.

This gives us a starting point for this one person. Some skills rank higher or lower. Others are just different. For example, we have a fairly robust way of measuring the skill that people have in taking written tests - we call it IQ. It can be high or low, but most of us are in the middle. It is somewhat helpful to have a grasp of where we fall on the spectrum. Where you stand on any spectrum is useful information.

Our DNA spectrum is also helpful. If you have a clear propensity for heart disease, knowing that will provide you with additional courage to take the steps required to offset that fact. I do in fact have this propensity, and I am working on it. The risk of some other diseases like cancer and Alzheimers also seems to have a genetic basis. It is very helpful to know that early on.

We need a way to measure the other abilities and propensities that are part of us, from our DNA as well as our environment. I am thinking of a starter list of this type:

• IQ. 
  We tend to treat the upper end of this spectrum as a positive thing, not an illness. But nothing about it tells us something good or bad about the individual - it just gives us a map of their propensity in this one narrow ability. It seems to measure the ability to take written tests or "logical" reasoning.
• Emotional Intelligence.
  We need a better spectrum for this rather than just up and down. This is a complex set of stuff, and different people have different strengths or weaknesses in it. Sometimes we use it to refer to “common sense.” Other times we are talking about control over our emotional state. Those are very different attributes.
• Mathematics / Dyscalculia.
  I have always maintained that I have “mathaphobia.” I just can’t get it. I can work around it, but there is nothing in me that does math. I also know that there is at least one other disability called Dyscalculia because I spent several weeks trying to help a third grader who clearly was suffering from this. His problem was much worse than mine. One of my grandsons seems to excel at this. It might have been helpful if he had been aware of that at a younger age.
• Autism vs empathy.
  We tend to think of just the one end of this scale, where we treat it as a problem. But it is a broad spectrum, and the other end might also be a problem - we just do not have a name for it. Some people are highly tuned by their physiology to recognize the empathic signals that we all send all the time. The most amazing thing I have learned of late is that there are methods for moving people on this spectrum toward the norm - for good or ill. Someone with Asperger’s may be a brilliant mathematician, but unable to detect that their partner has a concern or problem. There are exercises, and apparently brain stimulations that can “correct” this, but it may also remove the exceptional skill as well.
• Psychopathy vs Super Feeling.
  Today we treat psychopathy as some sort of problem. It is a spectrum of skill or ability. There are very “normal” people who are psychopaths. They do not share the empathic vibrations that the majority of us have. I trust that there are people on the other end of that spectrum that have them in spades - even to the point that they find it to be a problem. A psychopath who is raised in a supportive, caring environment can be a very productive member of our society. There is a reason that evolution included them in the mix. They tend to be more risk taking, adventurous and the like. We need a few of them to help us over that next ridge. See James Fallon, the Neuroscientist who discovered he was a psychopath.
  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/
  We need a better name for this - “path” is from the Greek for suffering. Maybe PsychoLess / PsychoFull. AND in this one, I would put the LESS one to the left - just saying.
• Learning Style.
  This is not a left and right one - but a multiple choice. Some of us learn best by listening / auditory, some by visual / reading, some by talking / conversing, or physical / writing. There may be other styles as well.
• Conservative / Progressive.
  There is some genetic propensity in each of us on this spectrum. Scientists have already developed eye scans which can detect this. Watching a video, people tend to pay more attention to different parts of it depending on their propensity to be conservative or progressive. Let me be clear, both tendencies are in all of us - they are not good or bad - they just ARE. And they are not predictors - just propensities.
• Independent / hierarchical.
  We also differ on how much we need oversight and a strong leadership structure, or how much we favor independence or “freedom.” There is a fairly strong genetic component to this, which can be moved about by training and experience. We are still pretty plastic.
• Analytical.
  I am not clear on the two ends of this spectrum, but I know I am one of the analytical ones. I cannot see a problem or even a clock without wanting seriously to see how it works. My lovely wife could care less about how it does stuff inside. The same is true for most parts of our world. She is simply IN it, and I am trying to dismantle it.
• Tribal / Individual.
  We ARE tribal - some more than others. I seem to have less of this propensity than anyone I know - but that has not been formally measured as yet.
• Individual / Collective.
  I think there is some genetic proclivity to this, but there is a lot of social conditioning as well, as it changes radically in different cultures.
• Gender.
  This one clearly seems to be a much broader spectrum than we ever imagined. I am pretty sure it is mostly in the genes, and I do not think we actually have any way to measure it yet, but I am confident we will eventually figure that out.
• Artistic / Spatial.
  I KNOW this is a measurable skill or ability. One of my sons has it in spades. My wife has one that is totally different, and I seem bereft of the thing.
• Conflict.
  I am on the extreme spectrum of this one, and I do not think it is genetic. In my case, this is from my childhood conditioning. But one or my brothers seemed to end up on the other end of the same scale.
• Critical Thinking.
  I am pretty sure that NO ONE is born with great skill at this, and that it simply must be acquired through learning. We might be able to come up with a test to measure how good one is at it - but it is a learned skill - not an inborn talent. And it is indeed critical. Most of us make decisions from our uncritical gut, most of the time. We have to ramp this up to really make some progress.
• OTHERS.
  I am sure we will come up with a whole panoply of these. We will have to narrow it down to the ones that are really useful - meaning the ones where we can tailor the learning and education to best assist the individual.

Thanks! Love you all! I hold you all in my heart - forever!

© Copyright 2024 Carl Scheider

The End of Race Politics a book review

I know that this Blog is starting to look like a collection of book reviews, but I cannot resist sharing some of the things that I have found. If  you want to know about ALL of the books I am reading, drop me a note. I keep a running list and notes on what I think about them. I have found that essential because I occasionally read the same book twice! Old Age I guess. My wife says that she can determine how close a friend you are if you tell her how many books I have suggested that you read. 

I have been listening to a few podcasts by Sam Harris. He is a very bright guy, and he is interested in many things that strike me as of immense importance in this day and age. This one is an interview with Coleman Hughes, author of The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America. I found the book very insightful. It also totally changed my view of a couple of other books that I have read. You should be aware that the author is black, since that just might affect how you think about these comments - although it should not - and that is the VERY point he wants to make. 

If you are of an oral learning sort, you might want to just listen to the podcast.

This is the fee-based version.

https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/353-race-reason 

You can listen to a shorter free version here: 

https://youtu.be/xQJq9nVSa4E?si=NWUpMH6QDG6Hwfvq 

I highly recommend that. But, if you insist, here’s a few more words.

Neo-Racism

This book was significant for me because I almost went down the rabbit hole of “neo-racism” that he is describing. I read a fine book by  Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist. I enjoyed the book. I think of myself as an AntiRacist. Kendi tells it in a kind of autobiographical story of how he overcame his own racism about his heritage.  I empathized with his plight and made the journey with him. 

But he ends up in a framework that actually advocates a new form of racism.  The root idea is that our society and culture have racism as a systemic problem. To overcome this we need to take a more active role in suppressing “white power”- creating a whole new form of racism. This approach declares that all whites have inherent racial power, that they are evil, racist, and need to be cordoned off somehow because of their power over blacks. Blacks suffer “microaggressions” when questioned by Whites. Blacks need safe areas where they can avoid Whites. Whites that express concerns or tears about being charged as racists are imposing pain on their Black brethren - etc.

As noted by many others, these are the “trigger” words: “Critical Race Theory,” “White fragility,” “White Supremacy,” and “Systemic Racism.” Prior to reading the book, I thought that these were a bit over the top, but not dangerous. The author changed my mind, as this neo-racism seems to have had considerable inroads in the elite universities on both coasts. Some of the “diversity” programs in these institutions have been co-opted by these folk.

Our Family

One practice recommended by this movement is to separate grade school kids by race, and then have them discuss their power or lack thereof as a race. That sounds like a terrible idea. We raised children of mixed racial backgrounds, and when they were growing up, we NEVER talked about race. If someone approached them with a racial bias, we wanted them to think , “What is wrong with that person?” We had a few black friends, and friends with similar multi-racial families, and many Asian friends.

As they got older, we sometimes thought that we should have alerted them just a bit to the racism they might encounter - but it worked out. Once, my daughter was followed around a drug store by some idiot. She presented herself at the checkout and delivered her items, saying: “I was going to buy all of these, but since this idiot has been following me, I decided not to. Ask him to put them back where they belong.” My other daughter was hired by a firm to be a test case for discrimination. She would apply for an apartment, or shop for a new car. They would send in a young white girl with a similar background and credit history, and then my daughter. When I heard what she had to put up with, I wanted to pay a personal visit to those firms. The good thing is that the firms were actually paying for this research, and I am hopeful they took advantage of it.

On another occasion my daughter applied for a job at a local very well known coffee shop. She was told they were not hiring. Her good friend went the very same day and they gave her an application. It DOES still happen. I called the ACLU and they said that the problem was too widespread for them to do anything with a single case.

Color Blindness

The author advocates “color blindness.” We think our kids may actually operate this way intuitively since they were raised in a multiracial family and exposed to several others among our friends! Once when their grandfather was talking with them about our friend’s family, he asked them about their two boys. They had two sons - John and David. He asked them which one was which. The kids all chimed in - David is a bit larger and has curly hair, John is thinner and has straight hair - and things like that. In fact, the first thing that came to my mind was that John was Vietnamese and David was black - but they did not go there.

On another occasion, when four of our kids were all in high school, they came home and announced that our daughter had a “new boyfriend.” We knew that she had been dating a nice kid from a different school - and he happened to be white. The kids said, you would like him dad. He plays basketball and is from Chicago. I asked what his name was - they said “Calvin.” I can let you guess what went through my mind. They did not offer his racial heritage, and I would be damned if I would ask them. 

I know I am not colorblind in any sense of the word. I see race and cultural differences ALL the time. I can FEEL my insides reacting to the race of everyone I meet, but I do my damndest to not ACT on that feeling - positive or negative! Skin color should be like hair color - interesting but not that important. 

I am going to stop with that. The author does a much better job of explaining this than I can.

Some Quotes from the book

Page 35 

The animating feeling behind this neo racism. Is that people of color or morally superior to white people – that people of color are better at being good people. That’s at the core. The truth, which should be obvious, is that no race is morally superior to any other.

Page 59 ff.

Many of our most celebrated anti-racist heroes believed reverse racism was real and was a cause for concern. Dr. King, for instance, said that "black supremacy would be equally evil as white supremacy," and that the cry “black power,” whether they mean it or not, falls on the ear as racism in reverse. Roy Wilkins, the executive director of the NAACP, was even more critical. He called the Black Power movement, "a reverse Mississippi, a reverse Hitler, a reverse Ku Klux Klan."

Think about how this principle applies in a domain like professional sports. Is anyone suspicious about 75 percent of NBA players being black? Does anyone accuse the NBA recruitment system of anti-white racism? No. Most people feel confident that the system is not racist. They feel confident that the system is broadly meritocratic. If it turns out that most of the best players are black, then so be it. People become suspicious of the results only when they suspect that there's unfairness in producing those results.

Imagine that we instituted a "racial equity" policy in the NBA, whereby the NBA had to be 13 percent black. We could achieve the racial equity for which people like Kendi advocate, but we would clearly have to discriminate against individual black players to get there. Racist processes can produce equal outcomes, and colorblind processes can produce unequal outcomes. In other words, there is a perfect dissociation between the fairness of a process and the equality of the result. So if you're going to accuse a system of being unfair, it's not enough simply to look at the outcomes. You need to look at the process that produced them.

You really should read the book. I will stop here and let you do that. 

Thanks, as always. And remember, we are all in this together, and I’m pulling for you (Red Green)

Scheider’s Rules for Life Revised

 I originally posted this on my website in 1995 or so. You can still find the original there:  https://sites.google.com/site/carlscheider/carls-papers/rules-of-thumb-for-life

I had developed these to give me a calmer approach to life. I tend to worry about everything, and try to figure out how to FIX it all. Looking at life with these rules gave me a little more realistic perspective. You have to kind of just let it go.

There is a lot of thinking behind these, and some good scientific research - but if I put all of that in here, no one would read the thing. I’ll be lucky if anyone ever reads it as it is.

1. Most of Us are not paying attention.

When someone is merging into your lane of traffic, do NOT count on them noticing that you are there in the lane. YOU have to do the avoidance thing, because they are generally NOT paying attention. If you are in a long queue, and someone else shows up, odds are that they will not notice where the end of the line is. You may have to point that out to them. People get wrapped up in things, they focus on one thing at a time -- it's a genetic survival technique. The male can locate food and find his way home. The female pays attention to the cave. There's no genetic preference active for traffic, queues, or reading notices! So don't get upset when folks around you don't seem to notice something -- that is the norm, not the exception. 

A corollary for this is 'the world is run by those who show up'. If you want to make a change, go to the meeting -- or call the meeting! Most people don't.

UPDATE 2017.01.30. I wrote this decades ago, partly in jest. It struck me as true, that people are generally not paying attention, and it seemed simpler to just recognize that, rather than be disturbed by it. As it turns out, there is significant neurological research that supports it. 95% or more of what we do with our brain is an automatic reaction, which we are occasionally aware of, and mostly after the fact. See the book Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. So we make almost all decisions with the FAST brain, not our SLOW brain. See Thinking, Fast and Slow. This is true for political and economic decisions as well. The only part of our society that is actually using this information is advertising! And we have a recent presidential campaign that offers obvious proof. The other amazing thing that we have discovered, is that it is actually possible for all of us to pay a bit more attention, and to make much better decisions, with the simple practice of daily "mindfulness." Nothing religious about it, nothing magical - it turns out that this is how our slow brain catches up. On that see: A Mindful Nation. I continue to have hope, and you should too.

2. Most of Us are conservative. 

Most of us do not want things to change. This is the norm and it pretty much works. Just imagine that you walk into the bank to cash a check, and the bank teller decides to change the way he/she does accounts just for you. Not today, thank you!

And it's a genetic preference. Before we could read and write, when the knowledge of building houses was simply passed down, if you built a house, you had better do it the way they were always built. Otherwise, you ran the risk that it would fall down in the first rain storm, and you would catch a cold and die. People survived best doing it the way it was always done. Those innovators, the people who built a house that departs from the standard, ran great risk that their genes would not be passed down! So . . . when people resist change, get used to it -- that's the way most people operate.

2024 04 update. I still think this is true, and I have come to learn just how deeply seated it is. On that topic see my Blog entry: https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-are-those-idiots-from-other.html. This is a review of Jonathan Haidt's book: The Righteous Mind. There is a lot of research on this. 

For the genetic component, see Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences by Hibbing John R. et al, and Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are by Robert Plomin.  Not good or bad - it just is.
One of the amazing things here is that this conservative / progressive predisposition also correlates with other things - like our sense of taste! Guess which one likes kale?  Hmm? One thing it does not correlate with is our level of intelligence or education! And here I thought I had a good thing going. 

3. We need meaning and purpose in life. 

It's in our genes. Hominids with this dominated the others. The problem is that almost any meaning and purpose works, good or bad. And this rule also means that religion, all kinds of religion, will always be with us. Don't fight it, live with it and use it.

I think it is important to recognize that this has a genetic root, and it is not just our culture, history, or the persuasive power of the threats laid upon us by most religions trying to convert us!

In most cases, this need is fulfilled by some form of religious belief. The exact form varies widely, from the Buddhist approach of agnostic rules for life, to animism and Hinduism that find gods in everything, to the Jewish, Christian, Muslim preference for a single creator. But it is pretty clear that, despite the Enlightenment and the secular movement, religion as such is not going away any time soon.

These religious beliefs do provide meaning and purpose, but the variety is so great among them that they barely have a common thread. One might say that religion requires some belief in life after death, but that does not seem to be the case. Traditional Judaism and most Asian religions do not look for any reward for good deeds in some other life. Some of them talk about the dead, about ancestors, and about achieving "nirvana." But it doesn't sound much like the classic Christian paradise. And many primitive folk do just fine with religious tenets that involve no after life whatsoever.

But up-lifting goals that are not religious also work well with humankind. Hitler and Mussolini crafted goals that drove entire nations, without any semblance of a religious taint about them. Gandhi and Martin Luther King rallied thousands of people to a goal with no agreement on religious tenets. I can still remember President John Kennedy's inaugural address, and how it energized me. He lifted my sights, lifted my spirits, made me believe that we could do great things together.

Lately, our political leaders have been gathering followers by preaching fear and hatred of others, some others, almost any others - whether they be Al Qaeda or the Democrats or the Republicans or atheistic destroyers of marriage.

Let’s  try the other approach? Lift up the best that is in us and push us forward with it. What about the common good? What about the good of all humankind? What about an uplifting goal that would make our lives worthwhile? For more on this, you might look at Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion. The author has great ideas, but the implementation is going to take a bit of a worldview shift.

4. Most of us don’t read.

It's just not in the genes. For thousands of years, we handed down wisdom and knowledge through song and poem. If you could remember a rhyme and a meter, you could remember how to hunt the elephant. If you couldn't, you didn't eat! Pictures work, but stories are better! Books and reading are really recent in the evolutionary scale. And it is even more recent that someone could actually own a book! Even after Gutenberg, books were very rare and expensive.

The statistics are that 43 million Americans read at the 4th grade level, meaning they are functionally illiterate. Most people average 99 hours of reading in an entire year. Only 11% read the newspaper. It's not a problem with our education -- it's in our genes. Wikipedia has a bit of history on that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States. 

Even when people do learn to read, most of them do not retain things that they read. They retain the oral version much better, and a video one best of all. 

So - don't count on written notices to do anything. You need to stand up and say it, and it works even better if you can sing it! And if you want a really great career, get into story telling of some kind -- people just love to hear stories. Think movies, not books. And a visual experience is probably the only thing most of them retain - just look at TikTok for a few minutes!

5. Word of mouth works better than anything. 

This is a corollary of “most people don't read.” If it is the "in" thing, the "cool" thing, it will move the product. The word gets around. It beats advertising every time. The trick is how you go about getting your product to be the latest “cool” thing. I think this is the power of celebrity endorsement and “influencers.” Most people are fans of sports and movies -- someone in that world can sway them better than the coolest print ad. Check out the "The Cluetrain Manifesto" on the web.   https://www.cluetrain.com/book/index.html 

This public relations guy figured out that he could make a lot more noise for his company if he just talked to people all the time, rather than sending them press releases and such. After a while, they started calling him because he was such an expert in the area.

Just remember how you found out about this! Since you are among the minority of readers, you found it written down right here. But most people will not. Remember the rule that most people don’t read.

6. Dictatorship is the norm.

Democracy is a thin veneer on top of humankind looking for hierarchy and order. We crave hierarchy. If it doesn't exist, we make it up. It takes a whole lot of social maturity and mutual trust for a democracy to survive. When the US was planning to invade Iraq and liberate them from their dictator, a friend of mine sent me a publication which recited all of the things that had been created or discovered in that small part of the world -- like writing, and the first legal code, the Code of Hamurrabi! This friend clearly felt that the dictatorship there must have destroyed the source of so many wonderful things. But the area known as Iraq has always been a dictatorship -- as far back as anyone can trace the history. In fact, almost every place was always a dictatorship. The Greeks and the Romans had a short fling at an oligarchy -- a democracy of the nobility -- but it didn't work out. People want and need strong leaders.

This representative government stuff is always just a step away from disappearing. When the founding fathers finished the constitution, the vast majority of them thought that George would be a king within 10 years -- but it was worth a shot. When Lincoln was elected the first time, he was not sure that the 100 year old democracy would survive his first term -- and this was before the Civil War. This is priceless stuff, and hard to keep intact. Don't take it for granted. And . . . don't try to push it on any culture that doesn't have the basics to support it -- it won't last. It's like trying to teach a pig to sing -- it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.

If the Iraqi people really want a democracy, they have to work on the basics -- we can't force it on them. That hasn't worked anywhere else on the planet -- with the possible exception of Japan! For an even more robust understanding of how geography and climate impact democracy as a possibility, watch the  first part of this video https://youtu.be/0ao33aLssUU. 

7. Selfishness is the norm.

We all start selfish, and it's hard to let it go. It works! Don't be surprised by it. When some altruism appears, just be grateful. Most people support their family, but it takes a fairly sophisticated society to support anything beyond thatl. Getting to the level of the nation is a really big step -- most parts of the world have not achieved it to any degree.
If you want people to get motivated about something, you have to appeal to their selfish interests. It's only as a person or a society matures and gets beyond survival that they can cast a little wider area of concern, and actually consider their city, and, after a lot of maturity, their country. It will be a very long time before most people on the planet actually care about the planet itself. We are still working on this inter-dependency thing.
Why do you think capitalism succeeds so well? It's based on a modestly expanded selfishness. According to these anthropologists, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous the reason the WEST achieved capitalism and expanded economic development was that the Church persuaded people that they had to expand beyond the insular family circle of trusted friends. It had to do with NOT marrying your cousin. If you do business in most parts of Asia, a trusted relationship is more important than price. It is not ethical to bid on price alone. 

8. Most of us are corrupt.

This is a corollary of the selfish rule. We are tribal, focused on ours, our family and tribe. Again, this is genetic. It works well - xenophobia is the normal state of affairs. We protect our own for survival. Altruists didn't pass on the gene.
In the so-called "civilized" western world, we voice principles that sound like honesty and integrity. It gives us a reason to be upset when we catch people taking bribes, misstating financial results, ripping off their corporations for millions of dollars, etc.
The reason is that we have discovered that, for a truly complex economy to survive, we do need each other at some level. We have to have a market that we can actually trust. The value of our currency is based purely on trust. Most business deals go down with only a handshake. So we keep working on it, but you shouldn't be surprised when someone is caught with their hand in the till. In the rest of the world, outside of North America and Europe, everyone knows that everyone else is on the take -- that's why capitalism struggles there. Heck, it is barely making it here. And as for the trust required for democracy, forget it. Trust, but verify! ALWAYS.

9. Poverty has always been the norm, and still is. 

Us folk in the Western World are living in Disneyland. If the rest of humankind really understood how good we have it compared to them, they would be invading our borders. But, wait, they are doing just that!

There's an important corollary to this one: crime is the norm where poverty is the norm. This is a little complicated, because poverty is not just low income, but the perception of being poor in an affluent economy where you are excluded. Our sociologists / criminologists know this. If we want to reduce crime, we must reduce poverty. It is actually cheaper to create good paying jobs for people than to build prisons and hire police officers. As the gap in our society from top to bottom gets relentlessly larger, we can only expect that crime will continue to increase.

The best theory that explains this is that we have raised this wonderful ideal -- the American dream -- and then made it virtually impossible for many of us to attain it. Those with NO shot at it, get it any way they can.

One good step would be to raise the minimum wage so that anyone with a job can afford food AND housing. The concern there is that it will cost us all more money. That may be so in the short run, but it will save millions when it reduces crime, improves school performance for all those kids in poverty, and drives the economy with all of those working folks able to buy the things that they produce. This is a consumer economy. That means that most of the things that drive it are things that we really don't need. You can't sell things people really don't need when they have low paying jobs and are afraid of losing those. They have to FEEL affluent. We CAN pick ourselves up by our bootstraps -- we just have to make sure that we pick up MOST of us.
But then there's that selfish thing! 

Another way would be for a guaranteed job at that minimum wage. It would also solve the self respect problem of being unemployed. And it would pay for itself, easily. For a lot more on that, see Stephanie Kelton on MMT here: https://youtu.be/FATQ0Yf0Fhc 

10. You can't persuade anyone of anything they don't already believe. 

I used to think differently on this - so I had lots of arguments or “discussions" with people. Life is much simpler now. I really don't need to "kill Santa Claus," or change the social order! The only hope for change (see rule #2) is a generational one. Go after the kids! Why do you think Head Start is such a success?

This rule was brought home to me one day when I was discussing evolution with a friend who is of the more fundamentalist persuasion about the Bible. I was asking how he could ignore all the evidence about evolution, and he brought me up short with this: "If I can believe that someone created this whole universe in a single stroke, don't you think I could believe that this entity could make it appear to be billions of years old?" Got me there. I give up.

Religion and politics are the worst here, of course, but there are plenty of other beliefs out there that are held with great fervor. You see, people need meaning and purpose in their lives in order to survive. If you threaten what gives them a solid foundation, they will resist with great emotion - not reason, mind you - emotion. There is no way to reason with someone about a belief or principle that they did not arrive at by means of reason. You just cannot argue with someone's emotions!

If we don't see a meaningful religion, a meaningful goal in life, we make them up. When someone presents one that promises happiness, now or later, we are sorely tempted to adopt it. Charismatic leaders understand this -- they speak to our needs, not to our best interests. If you have never heard of Heaven’s Gate, give the documentary a few minutes of your time.
Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults  https://youtu.be/0IhQPUH-FhA. https://www.amazon.com/Heavens-Gate-Cult-Cults-Season/dp/B0B8T6KRTG . 

After a decade of reading neuroscience, this one has become even more clear. We actually do not THINK - we mostly FEEL. Our brain is driven by chemicals that make us FEEL things - not think things. Cognitive thinking, the kind required to do math and make critical decisions is rare - and the vast majority of us rarely accomplish it. If you don’t believe me, look at these two fine texts by Lisa Feldman Barret: How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, and Seven And A Half Lessons About The Brain. Ideas are a cultural construct - we FEEL our way through life. Stop and think about it - get my point?

11. Conspiracy theories presume way too much intelligence in world 'leaders'.

They are not that smart! I've met a few -- most of them are just a tad above average intelligence, and usually short-changed on the practical side. No one is behind the scenes moving the levers -- it looks like a mess because that's just the way it is. Just look at the conspiracies that have actually come to light through the stupidity of the people running the show. They got away with it for a while, but they left big footprints -- think Iran / Contra, Enron, Tyco. These are NOT smart people!

12. Most people are black and white thinkers.

Most people are black and white thinkers -- they don't get the complex issues. This seems to come from a biological imperative to divide everything up into 2 camps. Edward O. Wilson (On Human Nature, 1978, p. 72) says we have a tendency to "dichotomize" -- to separate everything into 2 camps -- them and us, good and bad, friend or foe. It seems to be a genetic propensity for making quick survival decisions. But it leaks over into all kinds of things. These are called “heuristics'' - quick rules of thumb. Our brain takes these shortcuts to act quickly, and to save energy.

Patriotism, support of the current government, tends to be one of them. When we have a sense that our way of life is at stake, we divide into 2 camps. If you think we should be doing something different here, you are un-American. If you are upset that American corporations are ripping us off for billions, you don't support the American entrepreneurial way. The FBI has a list, and you are on it, my friend.

Humans are so complicated and messy that there are NO easy solutions. It takes more time and more money and more energy than anyone wants to expend to really solve human problems. I talk to my elected officials about the downstream effects of cutting social programs -- they cannot get their brains any further out than the next election. Honest. If it doesn't happen in the next 2 years, it does not exist!

13. We are a violent species, especially the male half.

95% of the people in jail for violent crime are men. The US is the most violent place on the planet. Of the developed countries, our murder and violence rate are number 1. You have to go to Somalia to live more dangerously -- of course, it is REALLY bad there!

ANDit is in the genes. That testosterone generates the energy to defend one's turf, and it does a wonderful job. As societies get more complex, as we gather into tribes and villages, controlling that tendency to murder each other is a major part of our social cost.

I'm convinced that professional football is a plot to reduce violent attacks by males on each other. For that period of Sunday, and now extended to Monday nights, and even to Thursday, watching those huge guys pound on each other keeps the audience from doing the same to their neighbors. We will have attained an amazing level of civility when we actually ban football as too dangerous for our kids’ brains.

I would also count it a significant step forward when we charge people with abuse who beat a child with anything, including their hand. That early lesson in respect and human interaction lays a strong foundation in our kids that violence is a basic rule of life. Verbal abuse can be just as damaging and should be banned as well -- at least toward children.

Over the years, I have had numerous occasions to observe Vietnamese friends of mine and how they deal with their children. They are always quiet, respectful and patient. They also always have high standards and goals. Those kids have done amazingly well, and I have never seen them raise their voice to them, let alone their hand.

14. Never pay retail - you can always find it on sale. 

A bit frivolous, but important. This is especially true in many stores that cycle SOMETHING on sale every week, and off the next. Ask Ron Johnson, the former CEO of JC Penney whether a plain low price policy will work. And look at Kohl’s for the absolute epitome of always on sale, discount, coupons, etc. 

15. It's never as easy as it looks! 

You know how this works. You have this little project to do. It'll only take an hour or so. But then, there is this, and that, and I need a tool, and one thing leads to another and it takes the whole day. I've learned never to start ANY project that involves plumbing except early on Saturday morning, so I can be sure the hardware will be open when I need it! AND I have 2 days to finish the blessed thing, or get expert help on Monday.

16. You are never going to beat the squirrels - give it up. 

They have nothing else to do but figure out how to get into your bird feeder.
2024 04 I have to revise this one. I got a Droll Yankees feeder. The squirrels might try it twice, but never again. 

17. Law of 'Sociality' - yes, I know it's not a word - yet! 

We are social beings, and our economic, social, and political health depend on each other in profound ways! We do not seem to really understand this at the grass roots level, as we are all normally swamped by that selfish stuff -- but once in a great while, it surfaces. When we thrive, we thrive together. When we fail, it is because we have ignored the weakest among us, we have not made room for them at the table, and we have fallen down as a society.

What we really need is a bit more research here. When those psychologists discover that 65% of us are selfish and keep those rewards to ourselves (at least in the WEIRD world of western culture), what they should be doing is looking at the 35% who have the altruistic tendency, and figure out WHY those folks are different. What is the genetics, the childhood care, education, and peer influence that created those folk? How do we propagate that to the rest of humankind? As the great Canadian Philosopher Red Green put it, “I’m pulling for you, We’re all in this together.”

18. There is always hope.

People continue to aspire for resurrection, civilization, integrity, altruism, man for others - we do seem to hope to move forward!

Post-note. 

We are the product of genetic evolution from tougher times. Things are very different today, and moving much more quickly - too fast for the genetics to adapt. I believe that we are more than our genes, and we can change*. The next level of evolution is social / political, provided we can avoid destroying the planet. My point is that it's an uphill battle! The genes got us here - we have to take the next step. See: The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin by Keith E. Stanovich. The selfish genes are not in control of us completely, counter to Richard Dawkins’ book.  Don't get discouraged. 

© Copyright Carl Scheider 2024

* Another Red Green quote: “I’m a man, but I can change. If I have to. I guess.”