I thought I’d posted about this before, but I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of the [“B-Theory” of time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-theory_of_time), and [world lines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_line), and the possibility of our actions in the present forming something visible outside of time. So here’s a post that includes all those words that I can add to when I find new stuff.
The Growing Block universe is another formulation: “The present is an objective property, to be compared with a moving spotlight. By the passage of time more of the world comes into being; therefore, the block universe is said to be growing. The growth of the block is supposed to happen in the present, a very thin slice of spacetime, where more of spacetime is continually coming into being.”
[](
http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/a20784)
“Pretty good. The ending was a bit predictable.”- [New Yorker](
http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/a20784)
* What exactly *is* the decision we need to make?
* Who is responsible for making the final decision?
* When must we decide?
* Is this even important enough to act on now?
* Do we have good enough options?
* Do we have the right information about those options (e.g. their effects)?
>Throughout the city, the variable that best explained the pattern of mortality during the Chicago heat wave was what people in my discipline call social infrastructure. Places with active commercial corridors, a variety of public spaces, local institutions, decent sidewalks, and community organizations fared well in the disaster. More socially barren places did not. Turns out neighborhood conditions that isolate people from each other on a good day can, on a really bad day, become lethal.
Love [this framework from Charley Scandlyn on how to apologize](https://alldayeverywhere.com/2015/01/21/six-steps-to-sorry):
> 1. I did this (Acknowledgement)
2. It was wrong (Understanding)
3. I’m sorry (Remorse)
4. Please forgive me (Request)
5. I commit to new behavior (Repentance)
6. I will do the work I need to do to repair the damage I have caused (Restoration)
One of my favorites from the new SFMOMA exhibition, [Sohei Nishino’s Diorama Map of London](https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/new-work-sohei-nishino/):
Her [obituary in The Economist](http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21714964-foreign-correspondent-was-105-obituary-clare-hollingworth-died-january-10th) reads like one of [those Dos Equis commercials](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3VIJjdjbxw):
> She gained the first interview with the last Shah of Iran in 1941; after his fall in 1979, he said he would speak only to her…she commandeered a British consulate car and drove into Germany from Poland. A gust of wind lifted a roadside hessian screen, revealing Hitler’s army, mustered for the invasion…Aged nearly 80, she was seen climbing a lamppost to gain a better look at the crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
[The Exploratorium explains voting paradoxes](https://youtu.be/tJag3vuG834), and why, no matter what happens tomorrow, no one will really be happy:
Or is it because [society is too complex for us to even understand our choices](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/society-is-too-complicated-to-have-a-president-complex-mathematics-suggest)?
> “We’ve become fundamentally confused about what the decisions are, and what their consequences are. And we can’t make a connection between them,” he added. “And that’s true about everybody, as well as about the decision-makers, the policymaker. They don’t know what the effects will be of the decisions that they’re making.”
Kenneth Arrow even won the Nobel Prize for proving that [when there are 3 or more choices, no system is guaranteed to choose an optimal winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem).
Smaller decisions with smaller groups are more likely to work, but still fraught with peril. But go vote tomorrow, and [may the odds be ever in your favor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s7qgNMqDJI)!
