> When the Long Now audience of 2515 looks back on the audience of 2015, their level of contempt for how we go about judging political debate will be roughly comparable to the level of contempt we have for the 1692 Salem witch trials. – [Philip Tetlock](http://longnow.org/seminars/02015/nov/23/superforecasting/)
It will be interesting to see–and invent–the ways we do improve political debate.
David Brooks shares a nice, quick talk on [the decisions to live for your resumé versus your eulogy](http://www.ted.com/talks/david_brooks_should_you_live_for_your_resume_or_your_eulogy/transcript?language=en):
> The résumé virtues are the ones you put on your résumé, which are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that get mentioned in the eulogy, which are deeper: who are you, in your depth, what is the nature of your relationships, are you bold, loving, dependable, consistency? And most of us, including me, would say that the eulogy virtues are the more important of the virtues. But at least in my case, are they the ones that I think about the most? And the answer is no.
In another article, he writes about [the 5 “ways to be deep”](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/print/2014/07/david-brooks-5-step-guide-to-being-deep/373699/), and hits on a few that aren’t as celebrated as they might be:
> *2. Suffering*
> “When people look backward at the things that made them who they are, they usually don’t talk about moments when they were happy. They usually talk about moments of suffering or healing. So we plan for happiness, but we’re formed by suffering…”
> *4. Obedience*
> “If you look at the people who are deep, often they don’t look inside themselves. Something calls to them from outside themselves,” he said. They obey a cause.
[A good summary](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140612-the-best-way-to-see-the-future) of [Philip Tetlock](https://psychology.sas.upenn.edu/node/20543)’s research:
> As you might expect, these elite forecasters tended to score better on measures of intelligence than the other participants. But they all shared one other trait too: open-mindedness…Crucially, open-minded people tend to be able to see problems from all sides, which seems to help forecasters overcome their preconceptions in the light of new evidence. ‘You need to change your mind fast, and often,’ says Tetlock.
> Another trait of effective forecasting that Tetlock highlights is self-awareness – understanding your own foibles…he points out that too often forecasters begin by taking an “inside view” of a problem…Yet research suggests that you could come to more accurate predictions if you instead take a step back and simply look at past historical data.
> Other strategies were aimed at reducing known cognitive biases. For instance, research has shown people tend to make better decisions if they are reminded of common pitfalls, such as the tendency to exaggerate the risk of particularly frightening events, like a terrorist attack; they could also remember to consider both the best and worst case scenarios of a situation, since that opens the mind to the full range of possibilities and helps to question your basic assumptions about the event.
[Previously](http://bob.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=5219).
Couched [in an article about procrastination](http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/why-we-procrastinate) is this fascinating study result:
> Using fMRI, Hershfield and colleagues studied brain activity changes when people imagine their future and consider their present…their neural activity when they described themselves in a decade was similar to that when they described Matt Damon or Natalie Portman.
If our future selves are truly strangers to us, that affects how we design behavior change and plan for the future. We need to build empathy with ourselves the same [ways we build it with others](http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/six_habits_of_highly_empathic_people1)–through trying new experiences, challenging our beliefs, and cultivating curiosity about the unknown. This points to an [experiential futures](http://futuryst.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-history-of-experiential-futures.html) approach to design, as well as a need for individual, interactive tools for people to explore their own possible futures. And it suggests that successful approaches will address the emotional side of decisions as much or more than rational thoughts.
It’s an important aspect to consider when designing the future. After all, the next stranger you encounter could be…you!
A well-written argument that [“politics”–built from mindfulness, personal commitment, and creative design–is as important to the climate crisis as science and technology](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/06/climate-change-needs-the-politics-of-the-impossible.html):
> [We have], basically, two ways out. One is extraordinary technology…[the other] is extraordinary politics: politics that goes beyond the usual interest-swapping and sets new commitments for the country and the world…
Does our culture still have the courage–and the harmony–to commit to real change based on moral beliefs?
> Consider the end of slavery—not in the US, but in the British Empire, which abolished the practice thirty years before the Emancipation Proclamation, by an act of Parliament, with compensation to slaveholders…the historians’ view these days is that British emancipation was, in fact, a wildly expensive and disruptive moral commitment, executed through extraordinary politics…
> [We need], in incremental and experimental ways, to keep building up a real politics of climate change. That politics will be both environmentalist and human-oriented, because there’s no separating the two in the age of climate change. It will have to ask how the peoples of the world are going to live together and share its benefits and dangers, and also how we are going to use, preserve, and transform the world itself.
That sounds like real design to me. See also Dan Hill’s [Dark Matter & Trojan Horses](http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2012/08/dark-matter-trojan-horses-strategic-design-vocabulary.html).
[Obama, in David Remnick’s New Yorker article](http://m.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/27/140127fa_fact_remnick?currentPage=8):
> I have yet to see something that we’ve done, or any President has done, that was really important and good, that did not involve some mess and some strong-arming and some shading of how it was initially talked about to a particular member of the legislature who you needed a vote from.
> Because, if you’re doing big, hard things, then there is going to be some hair on it—there’s going to be some aspects of it that aren’t clean and neat and immediately elicit applause from everybody. And so the nature of not only politics but, I think, social change of any sort is that it doesn’t move in a straight line, and that those who are most successful typically are tacking like a sailor toward a particular direction but have to take into account winds and currents and occasionally the lack of any wind, so that you’re just sitting there for a while, and sometimes you’re being blown all over the place.”
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.” – [Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4172-if-they-can-get-you-asking-the-wrong-questions-they)
“Well, one sign that you’re capable of constructive self-criticism is that you’re not dumbfounded by the question: What would it take to convince you you’re wrong? If you can’t answer that question you can take that as a warning sign.” – [Philip Tetlock](http://freakonomics.com/2011/06/30/the-folly-of-prediction-full-transcript/)
“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.” – [e.e. cummings](http://www.mrbauld.com/ee.html)
> One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily. In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book. The theme is defined, the style, the tone. At least in my case, the first paragraph is a kind of sample of what the rest of the book is going to be. That’s why writing a book of short stories is much more difficult than writing a novel. Every time you write a short story, you have to begin all over again. – [Gabriel Garcia Marquez](http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3196/the-art-of-fiction-no-69-gabriel-garcia-marquez)