Dalai Lama on religion and change

“If science proves facts that conflict with Buddhist understanding, Buddhism must change accordingly. We should always adopt a view that accords with the facts” – The Dalai Lama

From Wired News

On Ideas

When this man appears in public no one is sure it’s actually him, and yet he’s held an iron grip on power since 1979 — 24 years of brutal dictatorship, all while only maybe existing. The point is we can kill Saddam Hussein but we won’t win the war until we kill the idea of Saddam Hussein. So what we need to do is develop bombs that kill ideas.” – Steven Colbert, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (from NY Times)

Information Overload

In an ironic coincidence that is completely beyond my ability to make sense of right now, this morning’s web browsing turned up about 50 web pages that I HAD to read (equivalent to about 150 printed pages), and several of them talked about the overload of information today.

Again, it’s Slashdot’s fault for getting me started. But this is something I’ve been interested in for a while, and even I contribute enough to the problem that my last rant about it just got pushed off the front page by this entry.

So in another twist above my comprehension level, it seems I will have to consume more information in order to learn how to consume less information. A few authors have tackled this problem, including David Shenk and James Gleick.

Shenk writes about ways to put technology and information (what he calls “technorealism”) in perspective and manage the use of them as tools, not tasks. Among his most poignant insights: “For all of the hype about new “interactive” technology, the most important interactions going on are between our ears.” (from his article in CIO Magazine) He offers, along with many other digerati and techno-luminaries (the usual suspects: Rheingold, Kapor, Steven Johnson, Simson Garfinkel), a credo and resource for those who wish to control their use of technology at technorealism.org.

I first ran into Gleick when looking at his book Genius, about Richard Feynman. In Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything, he widens the scope of acceleration to subjects like transportation and food, and ties it together using the metaphor of time (the wristwatch, the chronograph, the atomic clock). If I ever have time between doing all the other things I do to save time, I just might read his book, too.

At first glance this seems like a neverending cycle that demands absolute adherence or complete denial. And now, with the idea that I can save myself from information by consuming more information, it’s more confusing than ever. But I think a few things are true:

1) Information is not the enemy. As I wrote in an email correspondence about the dangers of too many people knowing about an event during the early days of the ISIS project: “Certainly there exist events of all sizes and for all different intended audiences, and difficulties arise when a different audience attends. However, I would think that more often the solution to these growing pains lies in more information existing, on all sides, than in less.” I wouldn’t know how to deal with the information problem without information, and an occasional problem that arises with a choice out of it I view as better than fewer problems but no choices at all.

2) There IS an enemy. We are on a path that is unsustainable. Even my most intelligent friends acknowledge to me that they can’t work all the time. We are attempting to make the Turing Test irrelevant by choosing to force upon ourselves the qualities of a computer–always on, computational analysis, networked to the hilt–rather than the other way around. This makes us in danger of becoming what Tim Sanders called in Love is the Killer App a “human switch”–destined to be replaced by a computer as soon as someone writes a program to do our job.

3) We have to save ourselves. This is entirely an “opt-in” disease. With the possible exception of spam emails (remember, no one forced us to have an email address), when we view information it is because we have made the choice to do so. As such, we need to be the ones to choose to stop. This is not intuitive. Evolution has taught us to seek immediate goals when we see them and to “play nicely” with the society we exist in, so we naturally want to exploit these new technologies when we can. The key point is to keep them as tools, not tasks.

My friend’s father once gave him timely advice during a period of intense classes and schoolwork–“If you don’t ever take breaks from work, you’ll never grow as a person. You’ll just be stuck doing the same things you did before, only faster.” Taking breaks–be they traditional vacations, sabbaticals, mid-day naps, or like me, writing in this blog–seem to be essential in keeping ourselves the masters of our information. The key, as Shenk said, is to keep the interactions going on “between our ears.” It will be a long time before computers can match the beauty, mystery, and complexity of that.

In the meantime, I’d better wrap this up and post it. I’m only about halfway through those webpages …

Crime in a different time and place

Bonnie and Clyde met a different end, on this day in 1934, than many of our convicts today … no wonder this generation raised a slightly more temperate one in the 50s.

“The woman was crumpled up on the seat, her head between her knees and a machine gun in her lap. Marrow, a smear of red, wet rags, had been clutching a sawed-off shotgun in one hand as he drove … Governor O. K. Allen of Louisiana congratulated Sheriff Anderson Jordan of Bienville Parish, where Barrow and the Parker woman were killed, when he was informed of the details today.”

(via NYT)

Today’s Huddled Masses

“Give me your tired, your poor,

I’ll make them mindless drones like the ones before.”

-Poem on the Statue of Liberty (2003 update)

one of the most compelling promises of the technological revolution is the ability for individuals to find knowledge and experiences that were not available to them before. the barrier to entry on the internet is so low that almost anyone can now publish their thoughts (like me!), no matter how illogical or misguided (like me!), and hopefully find answers to their questions (like me someday, i hope). it promises to bring together minorities, promote the cause of those without existing mass support, and expose people to things that they would not have seen otherwise.

but what i’m seeing a lot of lately is this technology being used to isolate groups from each other. now, instead of a misguided belief being held by a lone person in solitude, this person finds support online, in extremist groups that reinforce the isolationist belief without the objective examination that the internet promises. it seems that you really can lead a horse to water but can’t make him drink–and further, once the horse sees other horses not drinking, he’ll feel more justified in avoiding the water himself.

a ny times article today on Bill Maher‘s new show, “Real Time with Bill Maher” summarizes it as “a flagrantly liberal talk show that provides like-minded viewers with instant gratification.” fantastic. now liberals can watch only things that pat them on the back and tell them they were right all along, while conservatives will be over on Fox News watching “The O’Reilly Factor“. it’s too bad, i used to admire Maher’s late night show–though he had a decidedly liberal bent, he was always fair to his guests and ridiculed bad logic more than opposing views.

but surely the internet is different, right? maybe not. i spend lots of time researching and reading about the power of networks to increase knowledge and build community. the new “killer apps” of the internet are programs that connect people with similar interests, in the hope that they will work together to build a greater whole. my favorite website, amazon.com, is the current champion of this, with a system that they recently bragged received the highest customer satisfaction score ever for a service provider. people love being told who they are, what they like, and who they are similar to. i myself recently added all of my technology heros to my amazon.com “favorite people” list, in the hope that the system would recommend things to make me more like them. similarly, google news thrives on its ability to show you what’s important based on factors “including how often and on what sites a story appears elsewhere on the web“–in other words, what everyone else is seeing.

but i have been feeling a bit uneasy lately about my new self-imposed tunnel vision. sure, i’m moving faster than ever down this path of knowledge, and every day i am exposed to new technologies, philosophies, and opportunities that i never would have seen before. but i wonder if that makes me a modern, thoughtful, man–or just a really well-trained lab rat. the danger of this approach, of course, is that i might have picked the wrong path in the first place. then i would just be running, “at an incredible rate“, away from where i should really be.

it’s nice in this situation to have someone who provides an authoritative viewpoint, so i “lean not on my own understanding“. of course you can have the same problems with picking the wrong path that existed before–but having studied that quite a bit, i am confident in my God’s authority, and it is certainly better than relying solely on strangers with selfish desires similar to mine.

using that viewpoint in a world of technology will require some radically different filtering methods. Jesus promoted the cause of the downtrodden, not those with lots of social capital. He spent His time helping others find truth, not trying to succeed himself. it was certainly an editorial point of view–the kingdom of God is not a democracy; its policies are not determined by page clicks or user polls. so it may well prove impossible to combine the collaborative power of group filtering with the divine mandate of objective truth. but if we can use the first to help discover the second, instead of isolating people by their beliefs we will have truly brought them together. let me know if you have ideas on how we might do this.

Start Spreading the News

. . . i’m not leaving today. i’m not going to be a part of it, in old new york. these vagabond shoes, they’re quite happy here. don’t need a brand new start of it, in old new york. i wanna wake up in the city that’s still asleep, and find i’m somewhere on the hill, just on the heap. [long, melodramatic solo later] . . . it’s up to me, no no new york.

well, san francisco specifically. in my journey up to the city today, i realized that i have no desire to live in a big city right now. at the same time i was admiring the variety of people in the big town, i was missing the homogenous blend of palo alto. when i looked at the tightly-packed commerce and action, i saw only the laid-back style of work at home. and while choosing from the myriad of affordable restaurants and stores to patronize, i wished for less selection and more elitism. yeah, i’m a snob. yeah, i’m shallow. yeah, i’m selfish and sheltered and spoiled and probably most other “s” words associated with my “s” school. but i’m also secure, and satisfied, and “super”-productive (sorry, couldn’t think of an “s” word for that).

last spring i sent a scathing email to a friend accusing him of selling out when he took a job in finance. this is a friend who was one of my favorite people to philosophize with, one i looked up to and respected. so i knew it would elicit a valid response. here’s an excerpt:

the thing that i learned, that my brother was probably trying to share with you, is that people like you and me have a responsibility. we can fight it all we want, but it remains just the same. we grew up in (relative) wealth, and (relative) comfort, and the highest education that anyone could ever ask for. and so you might begin to ask yourself- “what is that for?” the answer should be the kingdom- and i don’t mean the kingdom of morgan or stanley. but where can i serve that (relatively) less fortunate can not? and what do i have that (relatively) uneducated people do not have? how will i invest the talents he has bestowed…the family, education, and abilities that He has invested in me?

i feel bad lots of times because of the way i am being largely selfish with my gifts. it’s true, my first concern is myself. fortunately that is becoming less so as God proves his providence and i learn to trust, but i suspect it will always be the case. what i didn’t realize before my friend’s email was that, despite my eternal selfishness, there ARE things that i CAN do, and these include using my unique (read: acquired through undeserved selfish means) gifts. i don’t have to travel around the world to help a poor person–they’re right on the streets of my town. i don’t need to volunteer for a non-profit to give my services to those who need them. and i don’t have to ignore my desire to design and research and create to follow God’s life plan–i can use that too for good.

it’s always a learning experience, i suppose. but this is what i’m learning right now.

Won’t you be my neighbor?

just saw a piece on PBS about Fred Rogers. a painfully rational guy like myself doesn’t show emotion often, but i am unashamed to say that i teared up when i saw him speak again. i will forever underestimate and underappreciate the positive influence this man and his show had on my life. if i can accomplish just a fraction of the good during my design career that he did in his broadcasting career, i will consider it a great success.

For nostalgia’s sake:

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

You Are My Friend

Married by America

right now “married by america” is on in the background–yeah, the show where people agree to marry the person who gets the most telephone votes during primetime. i heard a quote from one of the women’s mothers that just didn’t sound right to me: “Well, I trust America–they’ve never made a wrong decision before”. that’s right . . .

no matter how you feel about our current political quagmire, i think it’s pretty safe to say that our nation has made mistakes in the past. but as disturbing as that is, my main objection to the show is not the method of choice, but rather the premise. it seems to perpetuate the idea that marriage is an end goal rather than a journey. i’ve certainly felt this way in the past, but recently i’ve been exposed to a couple of things that make me believe the opposite.

first, a mentor of mine, Larry Moody, advised me to “just get married–the rest works itself out”. his opinion, based in over 10 years of happy marriage, is that the thing keeping good couples together is the fact that they have gone through tough times together. that builds trust, it builds security, and it BUILDS love–rather than needing all those things at the beginning to work. Larry’s quotable moment: “you can’t wait until you have everything in place before bringing someone in to share it, because then it’s still just YOUR life–not a shared one.”

second, i was privileged to participate in the recording of a cover version of “the good stuff” by kenny chesney. check out some lyrics from the song:

And it’s the way that she looks with the rice in her hair

Eating burnt supper the whole first year

And asking for seconds to keep her from tearing up

Yeah man that’s the good stuff

it just made me long for a situation where i can receive by giving–whether that is emotional support, material needs, or good ol’ fashioned love–and actually build a relationship that didn’t and couldn’t exist before.

that’s the good stuff.

The State of the Union

today’s NY times column by Nicholas Kristof , my favorite columnist, cites the recent Gallup findings that 46 percent of Americans describe themselves as “born-again” or “evangelical” Christians. moreover, almost twice as many Americans believe in creationism than in evolution (48 to 28 percent) despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.

i guess what worries me is not “the way you find God”. after all, anything that creates in people the desire to love, to give, to live in truth has got to have something going for it. but i worry that the increasing nature of these beliefs (the overwhelming majority of new conversions, especially in developing countries, is, surprise surprise, evangelical–increased by 36 times in Africa in the last century) is a reaction to the constantly changing war, controversies, and global information of today. at some level, it seems, it’s just easier to recede into a static belief system.

i respect Kristof greatly, who ends his column by saying “both sides need to reach out, [and] drop the contempt”, but i worry. the process for me to move out of my belief “shell” for the first time nearly destroyed my faith in God, and i don’t wish that on anyone.

UPDATE: an interesting quote found in this movie file: “the idea that we are in control of our lives is just an illusion created by the left hemisphere of the brain”. hmm . . .

Nigerian Riots

so the recent riots in nigeria got me wondering how people can use the right intentions to do the wrong things. over there, confusion over one journalist’s characterization of Mohammed caused rioting, murders, death and destruction. and all this was done by Muslims and Christians.

obviously neither Islam nor Christianity teaches its adherents to respond to slander with violence. in fact, Christianity teaches to “turn the other cheek”, and let the assailant continue to attack. but perhaps what is going on is something within each person, instead of the religion.

a pastor at “Sanctuary” service spoke of how we can turn our faith into something awful if we make the mistake of identifying our own self-worth with the accuracy or correctness of our religion. instead, we must have confidence in our God, and know that nothing that occurs here can change the facts of God and life.

without that confidence, we have only pride. and pride cometh before the fall . . . perhaps if more people in nigeria understood that right and wrong are not changed by public opinion; that their God is above slander, then they might not feel the immediate need to defend themselves with violence.