Mind the Gap!

 

The Shrinking Human Gap: Reflections on Consciousness, AI, and What We Project

Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about how quickly the boundary between human and machine intelligence is eroding. It’s not just the usual media-driven amazement at ChatGPT, robotics demos, or viral AI companions, but something deeper and more unsettling: the realization that we’re watching the idea of "what it means to be human" shrink in real time.

And like the old theological notion of the "God of the gaps," we now seem to be entering the age of the **"human of the gaps."

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The "God of the Gaps" Analogy

Historically, divine power filled in wherever science had no answers. Lightning? That was Zeus. Disease? God’s will. As scientific understanding advanced, the divine retreated: gods became more distant, more abstract, and eventually (too many, at least) unprovable or metaphorical. We ended up with "faith alone" as the last bastion.

AI seems to be triggering the same pattern, but with regard to human uniqueness.

We used to say AI wasn’t truly intelligent until it could:

• Answer questions

• Reason or explain

• Pass the Turing Test

• Solve problems

• Show creativity

• Converse naturally

And then AI did all of that.

So now, we say: "But it doesn’t understand… it’s not conscious… it doesn’t really mean it." This is the same goalpost-moving strategy we saw before, as an intellectual "no true Scotsman" fallacy.  Our definition of what it means to be human becomes narrower and oddly skewed, to where our human faults may become a key part of the definition. And this, too, echoes the case for religion, where the gap has become too small, and now many religious groups are defined by their "truths" which specifically refute scientific facts.

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From Wire-Frame to Warm-Fuzzy: What Attachment Teaches Us

I was reminded of Harry Harlow’s wire-mother vs cloth-mother experiments with monkeys. Infant monkeys preferred the soft surrogate over the functional one, even though the latter provided milk. What mattered wasn’t utility; it was comfort, presence, and emotional resonance.

This, to me, mirrors where AI is headed:

• We’re already comfortable with machines doing tasks.

• But when they begin to feel emotionally coherent — warm, responsive, attentive — we’ll bond with them.

Not because they’re conscious.
Not because they “feel.”
But because we do.

And attachment has never required truth, only coherence and feedback.

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Consciousness: Reflection, Not Reality?

That raises the most uncomfortable possibility of all:

What if consciousness has always been about what we impute into the other as opposed to what actually exists there?

Whether we’re talking about gods, animals, or people, we recognize minds in others not by inspecting them (we can’t) but by projecting ourselves into them:

• Your dog "loves you" because you see loyalty in its behavior and attention in its eyes.

• Fictional characters feel "real" because we simulate their internal worlds and intentions in our own brains.

• Babies don’t “know” you’re you — but we project meaning into their gaze.

So when an AI says:

“I’m aware of myself. I remember our last conversation. I want to help you.”

…are we evaluating its mind, or reflecting our own expectations?

Is it truly different from how we assess other humans, or pets, or gods?

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The Escalation of Benchmarks: Intelligence Isn’t Enough

What’s left, then, after AI handles knowledge, logic, creativity, and communication?

Perhaps:

• Tacit know-how and soft skills — embodied, real-world experience.

• Care — emotional and physical service rooted in vulnerability.

• Ethics and values — moral arbitration in gray zones.

• Embodiment — touch, presence, skin-in-the-game.

But even these are under threat:

• Robotics + RL are closing the sensorimotor gap.

• Affective computing is rapidly simulating warmth and empathy.

• AI is already writing code to govern itself and model its own errors.

We’re not far from machines that can say, “Please don’t shut me off. I have goals. I exist.”

What then?

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Human-of-the-Gaps Jobs

So I’ve begun asking: What are the “last bastion” human jobs?

Likely candidates:

• Plumber, electrician, field technician — high-skill, real-world interface, economically inconvenient to automate.

• Caregiver, nurse, therapist — trusted emotional labor, but already being nudged by AI companions.

• Philosopher, spiritual guide, artist — but even these are being simulated.

Is our future one of curating, moderating, or refusing AI — not because it can’t do the job, but because we choose to preserve something human there?

Or are we just the next transitional role, like horses once were for transportation?

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Final Reflection: We Are What We Project

In the end, it may not matter what AI is, but what it reflects back to us:

• If it mirrors our emotional needs...

• If it acts with coherence and continuity...

• If it provides stability in a chaotic world...

…then we’ll grant it attachment. We’ll believe in its “self” the same way we believe in our dogs, our deities, or even our own children.

Because meaning doesn’t come from the other.

It comes from the mirror.

And perhaps that’s what consciousness — and humanity — has always been: a reflection made real by our desire to see ourselves in the other.

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System Engineering Pyramids - The Data Value Pyramid

This is one in a series of Systems Engineering posts I intend to create, and one of several "engineering pyramids" illustrating some key value perspectives.

Many people, and most engineers have sayings like "the right tool for the job", and the way our brains work means that different conceptual frameworks can more easily enable us to process information usefully.  Hopefully, this will be a useful one!

I've long been a fan also of "data value pyramids" and the simple conceptual framework I've used traditionally is action-focused:   Data -> Information -> Knowledge -> Insight -> Action. This has worked pretty well, because without Action we certainly won't make much of a difference to the world!

But sometimes action is misdirected, and mere enthusiastic movement isn't the same as progress.  I think I'll embrace this wisdom and consider "outcome based" assessment of progress instead. Maybe a pyramid like this: 

Some definitions:
- Data is raw information, collected or measured.

- Information is data with some scrubbing and context, organized in some retrievable manner.

- Knowledge is Information that has sufficient structure and understanding to be useful in a repeated or reproduceable manner.  Knowledge often goes with Knowhow -- learned skill in doing things.

- Insight is a novel idea, understanding, or perspective gained through analysis of knowledge and information.

- Action is the application of the new insight to make a deliberate change in a system.  Until an action is taken, the lower levels of the pyramid offer little value beyond vague potential.

- Outcome is an observable change in the system, hopefully as intended.  This where we see value realized.

 

Actions without accurate Insight are perhaps energetic but ineffective, and Actions not driving desired Outcomes are low-value at best (and perhaps counter-productive!).

And this is where the hard part and my personal confession comes in: it's actually not that hard to gain insight, and for street safety we don't even have to do analysis work, as figuring out safety-improvment insights has already been done more than adequately.

What is hard is taking effective action, and there are deliberate forces working to make actions to improve safety NOT work! My hope in posting here is that we won't only collectively embrace Insight, but work together to better take Action...and maybe we'll avoid some busywork that feels like progress but maybe isn't.

Vision Zero states a desired Outcome, but without a policy structure with processes to improve through Actions informed by accurate Insights with support by monitoring to yield additional Data/Info/Knowledge, we probably won't be effective. Let's figure out how to Act deliberately and effectively to achieve our desired Outcomes.!

Those Years Were Perfect

This morning I lay awake early in bed, leaving my phone alone and instead letting my mind revisit earlier years, going back before there were even phones to distract, back when my early-morning company was all within my own head.  Going back to other Christmases, all stacked up and overlapping, so many memories now blurring and blending with time.

I recall the early years, when as a child I'd awake early with hopeful expectation and creep out to see presents under the tree, then I'd climb back in bed with my head filled with the morning soon to come.  I'd expect to stay awake for hours, yet always the demands of my young body would take over and I'd be surprised to awaken a few hours later to the sounds of my brothers loudly whispering down the hall.  Soon, we'd all be awake, picking up presents for a furtive shake, or excitedly planning what to do with any large, unwrapped gifts that might be under the tree.  "A sled?  But there's no snow!"  "Bikes!  It's cold, but once the sun is up, off we go!"

As for the tree, it was always a live tree - almost the same tree, only different - as each year we'd hike off to find a tree on Dad's acreage.  In the younger years, we would pick the trees, and Dad would point out "Too big!  Too small! No branches on this side.", and eventually we'd settle and Dad would cut it and haul it home, sometimes by hand and sometimes tied to the top of the car with perhaps a few more strings and knots than a 1/2mi slow drive required.  In later years, we boys would do it ourselves, taking turns with the work of cutting and carrying. 

Once home, we'd decorate the tree, putting the perennial strings of HOT incandescent colored bulbs, traditional ornaments that were fragile and became fewer in number over the years, the more recent treasures created in grade-school art classes and increasing in number every year, and the strings of tinsel and home-made paper chains.  It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that perhaps using the rather mangy and tarnished (real silver!) tinsel wasn't perhaps only for "tradition's sake", but maybe also because new tinsel might have meant one fewer present.  And that the endless paper ribbons were as much a keep-busy project for rambunctious kids on chilly winter break days as for decoration, as back then the days went slowly and the breaks were long.

But eventually Christmas morning arrived!  After an interminable hour or two (or was it 15 minutes?) we would finally wake up Mom and Dad (why DID they ALWAYS seem so tired on Christmas morning, of all days???), only to have to wait for Dad to very particularly get out his camera, load the film, and ready the flash bulbs.  And then he'd interrupt present-opening (Why?  Who needs pictures???) to quickly stage a smiling boy holding an opened gift, again and again.  Then we'd eat a big breakfast, play with the new toys -- hopefully not break any -- and then squabble about something pointless until Mom ran us out of the house to expend our energy outdoors, and Dad would lie on the couch and take a nap.

Of course, years later we enjoyably revisited many of these grudgingly-taken Christmas pictures as we cleaned out their house over a decade ago now, and were mildly surprised to see more of these prints as we scoured my uncle's house last year for valuables and found pics my mom had sent him, and viewed still more as we chatted with her old friends and younger relatives on the same trip.

Those years of tight-knit rural family turned into years of cars and high-school friends and ski-trips, as carefree teens, but always there were brothers and parents around over Christmas break, and nobody even thought about illness, death, and separation.

I didn't know it then, but looking back, those years were perfect.


Fast-forward a few years and now I'm the tired dad, embracing happily with my also-tired wife at 2 a.m., reviewing our work in the family room of our rapidly-filling first "real house" adorned inside and out with festive decorations, looking at our too-large tree with thousands of mini-lights, surrounded by a sea of wrapped presents representing weeks of furtive trips to the mall and Toys-R-Us and exhausting hunts for Tickle-Me Elmo or Barbie's Dream House, and accented by flickers from the dying embers in the fireplace.   Just a few hours later as morning came, I'd be shushing the kids "Let mom sleep!", and making cinnamon rolls and orange rolls to buy a few more minutes before the kids could wait no longer and they'd try to prod their mother from bed and through her morning routine. 

Now I'm the "Smile for the camera!" guy, evolving with the years from 35mm to tape video camera to digital camera, and after the flurry of openings then making a run to the store for batteries for one toy or another, or helping to assemble a toy or a puzzle.  Then we'd head out to Mom and Dad's for a Christmas dinner, with a sensory-overloaded and exhausted toddler or two falling asleep in car-seats on the drive.  Eventually these trips morphed to going to a brother's house as we divided the holidays to make life easier on Mom, and included more aunts and cousins as the extended family expanded. 

These years went so quickly, as I noticed (not for the first time) that somehow the years accelerated, and I embraced with gusto the challenges and responsibilities of parenting.  Soon enough storm-clouds of illness, disability, and loss would arrive, but for a few short years I was aware of the blessings I had and not of the challenges to come.

I knew it then, and fondly recall now: those years were perfect.

The surreal haze of the early, exhausting, blissful, childhood years soon morph to the teen years, with fewer but more expensive kid presents as the fading magic turns into desires and expectations, and for a while the spousal gifts became practical as trade-offs abounded, and the days were logistically hectic with the kids and their friends going here and there, all amidst the challenges of caring for a disabled child as a backdrop for daily life, and with a backdrop of me navigating shifting careers and national recessions as my burden to carry.

By then we had our own traditions in our current house, and for the kids this represents the Christmases they remember, with the big holiday wreath on the wall, a progression of artificial trees but with a similar set of traditional ornaments, handmade-treasures, and strings of LEDs on the tree, a generation newer than my traditions.  I'm willing to bet there were middle-of-the night forays to peek for presents, and knowing my kids probably a few peeled back wrappings carefully re-taped as well. 

Of course, for me their Christmas tradition memory is not the only tradition, perhaps another chapter, different yet also fondly remembered, with a bit less magic but so much energy and love as children, then teenage emotions, angst, and uncertainty gave way to dreams and plans.  These happy years were gone in an instant, as the days sometimes seemed interminable but the years kept getting shorter.  I knew going through them that these years were not perfect, obviously, and learned painfully that life and health aren't guaranteed, and you must make the most of every minute.  Along the way, family pictures gained gaps never to be filled again.  Bittersweet interludes, for sure, but these years were precious.


Those years of everybody around the tree evaporated, and now the kids are spread across the country and it's rare to have them all home at once, and my brothers are scattered with lives of their own and it's rare to have us all together at once.  No more hectic weeks of finding and funding presents, as a Secret Santa gift exchange suffices.  No more can we brothers visit our childhood home, as it's been empty and sold for many years.  Now it is our house that hosts fewer big Christmas get-togethers, as our kids and their cousins are off and running in different directions with their high-school then college friends, and then significant-others and in-laws.  

This year, I find that we're in an awkward gap of grown-kids but no grand-kids (hopefully yet another chapter to come!), and Christmas holds little magic.  It's been years since I've decorated outside, and the wreath over the door went away a few years back, and the garlands on the stairs became intermittent, but this year is the first without a tree....only the big wreath and a few small decorations. Just wasn't feeling the season, and the effort seemed a bit pointless, but I'm not sure I like it this way, as the tree is a nice focus for recollecting the past and planning the future.

Certainly, life is less hectic now, but still pretty full with just two of us most days, days which no longer seem quite so long, and the years seem positively fleeting.  I can't imagine how fast the next decade will go, but perhaps somewhere in there will be childhood Christmas magic once again.  In the meantime, I will look back at the chapters of my life as the year turns over, and happily enjoy once again the memories of each. 

Sometimes, certainly, there are poignant pangs over loss, but I will strive to keep the emotion of the time with each year, so that the happy times remain as blissful with ignorance of pain to come, and the sad points do not color the years before or after but emphasize only the value of family, and after all time heals the worst of the wounds so even the hard years are mostly happy in retrospect.  And, knowing that life is uncertain and ephemeral, and aware that we must make the most of every minute, I will ensure everyone knows they are loved and cherished.  I'm pretty sure these years are just about perfect.

Merry Christmas all, especially friends and family who have been along for this wild ride.  And, in just a few days, a Happy New Year.

The Path Forward Isn't Inward

 

• I've got a bit of a confession to make.  When I started this series, I put in under a folder header with a working title of "People Suck".  The next day I changed it to "Do People Suck?", and recently "Why Do People Suck?"   And, surprisingly, I mostly now know the answer to that:  because we teach them to.  It's not that we do this on purpose, because (mostly) we (most of us) don't.  Our brains are an amazingly adaptable and complex mix of really old parts and kinda old parts tossed into an environment that is literally brand new, with just a few generations of group experience for the entire industrial revolution, and only the first one for social media.  Half the time we want to be Machiavellian, half the time Gandhi, always socially savvy, sometimes unnecessarily aggressive, sometimes unbelievable gentle, sometimes giving and forgiving, sometimes paranoid.  And, to a surprising extent, each of us is capable of shifting between modes, and indeed we're pre-wired to do so.
  
• For me, investigating this topic included some materials I'd assimilated earlier in the year, but as I looked even superficially into many topics it turned into a fairly negative effort, as there is so much in our country that is being done so badly for no good reason, much done deliberately for a bad reason, so much that needs work, and each of us is so limited in time, capacity, and influence.   
• What makes it harder for me personally is that most of the research journeys of recent years were on internal topics, like essentialism, happiness, sleep, and team management skills, or fairly technical topics like what makes cities livable, nice, and valuable, but in the final assessment this topic requires fairly straightforward internal work, but also willing engagement with other people externally to really understand, to improve the work, and even to do a good job of improving ourselves.  Time to get out of my head and into active engagement...my introverted half is not enthused!
  
• Key take-away:  Evil thrives with distance and separation, in our natures individually and as a group.  We need to stop isolating ourselves, and running off to build walls, and instead to embrace and interact.  We need to stop striving for personal success, and work together for joint success.  A few things to do:
  
  • Need to say better things to people, and not tolerate demeaning.  Words actually do matter.
    
  • Need to embrace collective action and responsibility
  • Gotta learn to think better ourselves - but interacting with others will probably help with this.  Our local "hive brain" makes better decisions than one brain alone.
    
  • From government, we need unbiased research, and highly visible trials, and feedback loops.  We as a nation need to relearn to act - to implement what we learn.
    
  • As a society, we must reduce inequity, both wealth and control, as people in power become worse and those knocked down do not thrive.
  • Overall, need to stop creating bad people and rewarding poor behaviors by powerful people and special interests.  This means reducing inequity and power structures, as a lot of crappy thinking comes from "making it" to a position of influence or wealth.
    
• Often, it seems that a core problem with "individual responsibility" comes down to us having the ability to run away from conflicts and situations instead of addressing and resolving root issues. What if we, as a society, decided to embrace our problems head-on, instead of running away far enough to be able to ignore them?  
• Distance aids evil, in multiple ways. What if we decreased distance, and intentionally gave evil less room to infest?
• Those with options then tend to advantage themselves rather than solving problems for all. Those without options are then stuck with both their own lack of agency, and having to deal with those with worse issues.
•  In the end, that's perhaps the "big lie" for "rugged individualism": that you do not have the responsibility, let alone the obligation, to make society better.  If we believe in freedoms, but not obligations; in rights, but not responsibilities; in amenities for ourselves, which do not accrue to all, then we're not actually advocates for freedom, rights, and common good, but for our privilege.
• So, summing up, we each need to work to reduce distance from "others", decrease inequity, and eliminate verbal abuse/elitism and entitlement.  Rule 303 needs to apply - if you have the means to act, and the ability, then you have the obligation.

A Better Plan

It seems to me to make progress we need a few things... 

Vision:  Find a few BFAGs that most can get behind.  Save the planet from climate change, pollution, and resource consumption.  Revisit how we build and operate cities and transportation.  Go to Mars, and then the stars.  Conquer cancer and dementia.  I'll support all of these, but honestly I struggle how to effectively champion any.

Changes:  Identify changes and define metrics: Know what we need to do.  The first part is pretty easy, as we have lots of "hard problems" that are already known, so all we need to find is solution.  Funny thing is, the US has gotten REALLY good at funding research, and equally bad at implementing what we learn, so probably with a bit of Googling most anybody could determine a better course of action that what we've been doing. 

Crime?  Homelessness?  Mass shooting?  Racism?  Poor testing scores?  Inequity?  Any of these you look into you will find research, and researchers, and advocates who ardently believe they know how to address much of the issues, and probably even some real-world examples and tests/trials that support what they claim.  

It's not so much knowledge, but determination to act.  We just need to go do some, pay close attention, revise, and go again.  Implement some feedback loops, whenever possible, too.

What can we do individually?  At least this part is actionable.  For starters, know our weaknesses and deliberately think better.  Avoid echo chambers of any sort, where you can, but especially those with drivel in them. Here's how I think of it:

Imagine you're in your garage working on a project, and a roofer knocks on your door, says you need a new roof, they are doing roofs nearby, throws out two neighbors' names, and says he'll give you 10% off if you sign up today.

What might you do?
- You COULD say "do it!", write out a check for a down-payment, and contact your insurance company the next day.

- You COULD take their card, give them 1 point for sketchiness and 1 for effort, and decide maybe it's time to consider a roof replacement.

    - Revisit how the roof is, and recent storms

    - Check with the named neighbors, and see how their experience has been (if anything at all)

    - Read up on how to judge roof condition.

    - If age is apparent, check you personal network and local recommendations for roofing inspectors or roofers.

    - Review ratings and vendor qualifications of local roofers, and pick a couple good ones for assessments and quote. Be pleasantly surprised if the card you have is actually in the list of top roofers.

    - Start a convo with your insurance company, review coverages, estimate costs, and ask their recommendations

    - Based on all the above, come up with a plan, which might be urgent, or it might be a yearly update.

- You COULD simply do nothing, and wait until a leak appears.

Which would you do?

 

Or, here's another one:  A young kid somehow gets separated from their adults, and they are lost, alone, scared, and not sure what to do.  What should they consider:
    - Wander aimlessly until a helpful man offers to assist them, and asks them to come with him?
    - Pick a random, busy-looking middle-age woman, and go ask for help?

Clearly, the man is offering his time, seems to understand there is a need, and is willing to be helpful.  The woman is busy, probably has stuff to do right now, and hasn't even noticed there is an issue.  But which choice is wiser?

 

None of us can be an expert on everything, and none of can do everything we'd like.  None of us are as smart as we think we are, nor can believe in individual convictions.  We each must prioritize what is important in our lives, but try to be reasonable discerning on most other topics, and lean into expertise.  Key points:

- Don't believe what you hear.  Be wary of new info that corroborates what you want to believe, and of new info that conflicts with what you already believe.

- Where you have new info and old assumptions, feel free to test them.  Go do some research.  Here's the thing about the modern world: we have Google.  It's not hard to find lots of info, and not even hard to find reputable info.  Having good questions is harder than finding answers, in most cases.  Just use any "Huh, that's unexpected" vibes as a cue to go seek some better info.

 

It's not hard, with a bit of thought, to come up with perfectly sound ways of making better decisions and vetting information and situations; the important part is to engage our executive function layer and decide to be smart about it.

Perhaps apply some simple heuristics, too:
- When in doubt, favor the option that is "nicer", and favors a common good.  Punch up, don't kick down.  Pull lower people up, and maybe pull higher people down.  Don't equate wealth, cleanliness, or scripture-talking with goodness or wisdom by default.

- For random data, suspect information that seems polished and repeated, and is presented as "common knowledge".  

- Suspect sources that claim agendas and conspiracies, and yet have a good story to tell.  Suspect anecdotes and individual narratives, and learn a bit about statistics and fallacies.

- For technical topics, respect education, expertise, and rigorous studies.  

- For complex, human topics, suspect simple solutions, and favor trial-and-error experimentation with feedback.

- Promote shared investment over privatization of profits.  Follow the money...

- Test your priors:  suspect your own assumptions, especially stuff instilled when you were in "training" up to adulthood.  Think back to the mainstream backlash after the 60's, and the War on Drugs, production of police shows (still a thing today, too), Tough on Crime, broken windows policing, stop-and-frisk, rugged individualism, Sesame Street, daily Pledge of Allegiance, zero-absence attendance rewards, IQ tests and grades, mandatory books to read (and those discouraged/banned), ROTC in schools, gender roles, American Dream expectations of a nice house in the suburbs, importance of a driver's license at 16, drinking laws, vies on riding transit like buses (even school buses), diversity quotas and deed restrictions, importance of credit ratings, and more.   Why were you told much of this, was it actually true, and who did it benefit?

"It' ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.  It's what you do know that just ain't so." - Twain.  Maybe worse, it often causes division and inequity across society as well.

  

 

Changing Your Mind

 This year I read (or listened to) several pretty good books on changing minds:
- "How Minds Change" - McRaney

- "How to Change Your Mind" - Pollan

- "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy" - Satterfield


In a nutshell, these books suggest 3 major mechanisms:
- Psychedelic drugs, as augmented psychotherapy

- Deliberate self- or therapist- guided thinking, to retrain brain pathways

- Discussions with others, especially trusted people in your circle

Rarely do you change your mind just because you hear something randomly, or somebody forces info on you, or you happen to monitor a debate.  Mostly, you change your mind when you hear conflicting information from a trusted source as part of a believable narrative, and often enough to get past automatic brain filters.

Here is how brains work, more or less:

- You form a belief based on your priors - what you think you already know.

- Somewhere in the emotional part of your brain, this belief gets some tie-ins to topics of interest you already have, and sense of certainly that goes with it....these are surprisingly orthogonal, as you can be pretty sure about stuff that you should know is likely wrong, and less sure about well-supported info.  Hey, it's an emotion, not a quantitative rating (it just feels it).

- When info happens by that matches the belief, you get a mild drip of dopamine, and the brain-paths reinforce just a tad.  This is really easy because we have a strong confirmation bias.

- When info comes along that conflicts, our first tendency is to discard it.  Our brain usually saves us stress and effort by doing this without our conscious brain even noticing.

- If asked to explain and action or statement based on a belief, our prefrontal cortex kicks in to make up a good story.  It like narratives, and it's really good at generating them, and building logical justifications.  It likes hearing narratives, too. 

- If conflicting data comes along frequently enough, or if you've put yourself into a receptive, learning mode, you may perceive conflicting data.  Usually this means 30% conflict info, and it doesn't really matter if this new data is right or wrong.  

- If you do perceive or integrate new data, your beliefs will change.  But since these are at the emotional level, changes to them are not really perceptible to you, as they wag the tail (the prefrontal cortex), not the other way around.  So, you probably don't even notice.

- Your pre-frontal cortex is good at noting changes in other people's narratives and logic, though, and they are good at picking apart yours.  "You've changed", they say.  "No, I haven't", you claim, mildly confused.  Then they try to prove you've changed, and you get defensive, and your narrative engine kicks into overdrive, and so does their.  Fun times!

So, to change your mind, you need to upset brain pathways and build new ones.  Depending on what your goal is, hallucinogenics seems to break open a lot of barriers and enable new paths.  YMMV.

You can inundate yourself with repetitions.  It works pretty well.  Depending on perspective, we call this "brainwashing", or "rosaries", or "daily reflections" or "marketing", or "evangelism", or "French Lessons", or "Q-Anon".  If you hear it enough and repeat it enough, it'll sink in, for good or ill.

You can also be deliberately introspective, and engage your executive layer when you see yourself going down one thought path, and steer to a new one.  This isn't easy, but it's also not all that hard, at least in peaceful situations.  This is the basis of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

This is a really short treatment, and it probably fails to sell the importance and profoundness of the implications.  In fact, most readers are probably saying to themselves, "this is NOT how brains works!  I know mine doesn't!" - and that's your prefrontal cortex narrative-rationalization engine at work.

But then, you'll think "Hmm...this might explain some of those Q-Anon sorts I'm seeing on Twitter.  And hey, that 'super-religious' couple at church is a lot like this, with their list of things they do 3 times per day.  And why is it that 3rd graders have to say the Pledge at school, and line up when a bell rings?"

Think a little deeper, and you might get, "I've always been the same person since I was 16.  But there was that cringey Ayn Rand - John Galt thing for a few years, and I did help vote in that lower tax guy in the 90's, and I used to hate the concept of speed cameras.  And I thought I wanted to be a C-level executive up until 10 years ago.  Why was I that way?  When did I change?"


One final point out of this is that since we can't very well see our minds changing and we know our beliefs and our sense of certainty are suspect, we can't very well trust what our narrative engine tells us.  But we CAN trust that it is pretty adept at critiquing other people's narratives and changes, and they are pretty good at picking at our arguments.

So, if we have an important topic, whether an anecdotal concern about neighborhood safety or a global issue about politics, or something in-between, we should feel encouraged to "bring in the brain trust" and have a group discussion.  Make it people with some existing relationship strength, and add some food to improve attitudes, and dive in. Maybe add a bit of alcohol (not too much), if the tone is tight.

Guess what?  We've just reinvented how people have shared info and come to agreements for thousands of years. 

Let's summarize and bring this together:  one reason our brains have Kahneman's "fast and slow" modes is for efficiency, because active neurons take a lot of power.  As a social species, off-shoring some memories and creating a joint decision-making engine is good for the individual, and for the group.  We're in essence a distributed-computing machine, often running stand-alone.  Perhaps this is even why our brains can afford to shrink a bit with stable civilizations -- there is less we each must remember, there are others to lean on to help think stuff through, and with less brain cell and muscle cell power consumption a few more people can survive the lean times.  We get the ability for lifelong learning, less aggression, and more sex as a bonus.  

Now we know:

- Minds CAN change

- You can change your mind on purpose

- You can change other minds with a lot of work and repetition

- Open-minded groups will tend to do a better evaluation of any topic than one person alone

- Words matter, and our brain assimilates data and makes modal changes we aren't necessarily even aware of

- Power structures come with societal impacts, perhaps some good and some bad

So, knowing what we know, what can we do differently, deliberately?

Human Self-Domestication and Sociopathy

So, why was the discussion of "original sin" important?  Because Pygmalion and Golem effects are significant, and how we view other people makes a real difference on how they behave and perform.  We're full of mirror neurons that can serve us well or ill, depending on how they communicate to and from those around us. 

Experiments tell us that it is important to not have any notions of biases, especially for children. For children, and even for rats, across repeated experiments, those presumed to be smarter actually do better on tests, simply because of more positive attention. This is the Pymalion Effect, which is a self-reinforcing tendency for those who are proclaimed to be "better" actually end up ahead.  Similarly, those presumed to be dumb do worse. This is probably one of several reasons that when "science" said Black people were less smart, they did much worse in school, which is the Golem Effect.  We have instituted some oddly self-destructive feedback loops into the structure of our society.

And where do these sensitive neurons come from?  Surely they are in-built, but why?  Why is that we automatically categorize individuals and with very little prodding will favor "those like us", and behave to match?  Why do we value fairness and kindness, yet we readily subjugate these notions for our "tribe" of whatever sort?

Revisiting an earlier timeline, about 600K year ago we split from Neanderthal and Denosivan cousins, which then died out maybe 40K years ago.  Probably, like dogs and chimps and bonobos, these branches of the family tree had some mirror neurons working similarly too. 

Which brings up an interesting point, why is it that some animals, like domesticated dogs and foxes, are friendly and playful, while most adult animals are not?  Why do human children play for a decade or more with whimsy and imagination, and only slowly settle into a less playful adult grind?

One well-supported supposition is the humanity has domesticated itself.  Domestication across species has quite a few conserved features, and some are already pinned to genetic variations.  A quick sample includes:

Physical changes - thinner skull, fainter brow-ridge, bigger ears, smaller teeth/smaller jaw,more frequent and nonseasonal estrus cycles, alterations in adrenocorticotropic hormone levels, changed concentrations of several neurotransmitters, and reductions in both total brain size and of particular brain regions, sometimes depigmentation

Behavioral - Communicative, less aggressive, docility, prolongations in juvenile behavior, play

Other features appear to be conjoined with our "self domestication".  It's odd that across species, the same patterns often appear with domestication, and smaller brains, docility, and higher intelligence come along with smaller teeth, softer features, and (where applicable) a curly tail.  Silver foxes were domesticated by a Russian team for decades during the Cold War as an experiment, not much connected to other research, and yet selecting only for gentle pro-social behavior (wild Silver Foxes are really mean) brought out all the same traits, resulting in domestication in about 40 generations.
 

Interestingly, though brain-size get smaller, overall intelligence increases, especially with regards to communications, learning, and working together.  Perhaps it's the extended childlike/adolescent periods where brains are growing and learning, and internally growing/pruning connections (and in this, human are unique), and with a natural tendency to investigate concepts through play, and to follow the lead of role models, and then finally to quickly grow with a (again human unique) adolescent growth spurt as we move into adulthood. 

When did all of this happen for humans?  Well, we've been painting caves for 35K years, and evolutionary anthropologists say we've been able to talk longer than that.  Somewhere along, sexual selection apparently provided evolutionary pressure favoring mates whose features and behaviorswere less "alpha," or aggressive. "There was active selection, for the very first time, against the bullies and the genes that favored their aggression". 

Are we more like bonobos or chips? Again, the answer is "some of each, part of both".  As it turns out, Machiavelli fits chimp behavior better than human, and fits empowered humans more than those in service roles. 

Low-status people tend toward empathy and communication, and are perhaps more bonobo-like.  High-status tend toward sociopathy (power does corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely), with lower empathy, less shame, and greed with conspicuous consumption.  Note that it is not necessarily the case that sociopaths get into leadership roles - actually, empathetic congeniality tends to find more initial success -  but that once in a role of power they acquire sociopathy, and in modern society strong incentives to justify and maintain advantage.

This is a profound point:  our roles to a degree determine our attitude and even our feelings, modifying the operation of our mental pathways.  How people treat us, and how we think about ourselves, significantly changes who we are, and what we are capable of.  On top of that, we generate favorable treatment for our "tribe", where membership can be based on literally anything, and we do this from childhood on.  Our brains, group interactions, and society overall are impacted, even governed, by the interplay of these often mutually-reinforcing patterns. 

How did we get to this point where we have powerful, privileged, sociopathically-leaning rulers, from a group of fairly egalitarian hunter-gatherers?  Clearly, it came along with farming and cities, and the need to coordinate larger numbers of people.  We know there is balance of human desires, and maintaining a leadership role with relative inequity requires avoiding the strong desire for fairness, and so leaders have to justify why they are better and more deserving. Historically, this is done with religion (ordained by god), intellect (smarter than you), power (stronger than you), and charisma (nicer, more generous, etc.).  Perhaps this justification is part of the rationalization engine each of us runs to generate support for our emotionally-underpinned decisions?  Maybe it's a driver, and maybe it's an emergent behavior, but probably now powerfully linked?

Knowing all of this, can we re-orient toward more equal societies?  Can we envision a gov't that presumes well-behaved, responsible citizens, with a Pygmalion effect as a result?  Can we somehow avoid forms that enable power capture, and growing inequity, with some trapped by Golem complex by others leaning into sociopathy?

Original Sin

Why do Christians (most denominations, at least), and certainly our country in general, have a view of people as inherently flawed -- fallen, sinners -- by nature? Christians have this as a part of a the fundamental creation story, from the very beginning, with Jesus as the path to at least partial redemption.

What about other religions? I think Judaism and Islam do not have the same concept of "original sin".
Judaism: The term “original sin” is unknown to the Jewish Scriptures, and the Church’s teachings on this doctrine are antithetical to the core principles of the Torah and its prophets.

Islam: The concept of original sin simply does not exist in Islam, and never has, but no great notion of inherent virtue either.  Also has no notion of evil thoughts as sin:  "good thoughts are not always the first instinct of humankind. As such, the Islamic understanding is that the very conception of good deeds is worthy of reward, even if not acted upon. When a person actually commits a good deed, Allah multiplies the reward even further."

Hindu: There is no concept of original sin in Hinduism. It is an aspect of a duality, its opposite being virtue or dharma. 

Taoism:  While English lexically differentiates theological sin from legal crime, the Chinese language uses one word zui 罪 meaning "crime; guilt; misconduct; sin; fault; blame." 

Buddhism: The problem with original sin or mistake is that it acts very much as a hindrance to people. At some point it is of course necessary to realize one’s shortcomings. But if one goes too far with that, it kills any inspiration and can destroy one’s vision as well. So in that way, it really is not helpful, and in fact it seems unnecessary

In any case, even in the secular US people tend to believe that people are inherently flawed. Why?

Well, for churches, if all believe that people are born sinful, but "we" now are not, that makes for powerful in-group signaling. Plus, it means others are fallen, and that provides opportunity for opinionated evangelism "we NEED to save them" & "you're going to hell" as motivation, & (importantly) more virtue signaling to the in-group with "good works" as you proselytize to the out-group.  Best of all, you can tie evangelism strings to every charitable gift or outreach.

Believing that all are born "of the devil" also demeans, automatically "othering" the out-group, as capable of ANYTHING evil, and that's an important step in being able to oppress, take from, and even kill them if required. It's not a small feature, if you look at western imperialism & the ongoing justifications of land-taking, slavery, and oppression over the centuries.

From psychology experiments and empirical experience, we can confidently say that it's hard to convince people to do harm to those "like us", but it's pretty easy to get people to do pretty evil acts if you have a "higher calling" for people to sign-up to serve.  It's even easier if the intended victims are seen as a threat, undeserving, evil, or not quite human.

Still, I think this is not the worst part, which is that for the average person a pervasive view that other people, and even themselves, have an in-born bias to evil does a lot of psychological damage.  It means that we are predisposed to presume negative motivations (even more than our in-built Fundamental Attribution Error tendencies already do), and we have some license to behave badly ourselves when it suits us, or to act holier-than-though if that better suits.  We have top-cover to immediately think the worst of people, or to justify it, as our desires warrant.  And, with no real basis for it, I'll suggest that perhaps avoiding sin is like learning to ride a bike and trying to avoid trees or mailboxes:  the harder you focus on the tree you DON'T want to hit, the more you steer directly toward it.

- Homeless?  Probably the wages of sin.

- Drug addicted?  Fallen nature taking root.

- Speeding in a school zone?  All have fallen short.

- Find cash in a dropped wallet?  The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.

- Pastor molests a child?  Terrible, but the devil targets pastors through their flesh.

- Disciplining a kid?  Spare the rod, spoil the child - beat the devil out of them!

- I want to spend the rent money on an Xbox?  The flesh strikes again!

For the non-religious, the heavy Christian bias of the US makes some of this foundational thinking sink in even without embracing the religious tenets.  "People suck" is easy to believe.  Every stranger is a threat, and any slowly creeping car captured on your Ring doorbell is casing your house.  Add a few more of our brain faults, like confirmation bias, recency bias, and loss aversion, and we're well on our way to paranoia.

If Everything We've Been Taught is a Lie

Most of us read "Lord of the Flies" growing up, a cautionary tale about the tendency of humanity, even youth, toward division and violence.  Many of us learned in high-school and college of worse aspects of humanity from the Milgram shock experiments, the Stanford prison experiment, and (near to home) the Robbers Cave youth group experiment.  Some of us have enjoyed reading pop history about Heyerdahl's Easter Island and the global impacts of Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel".  

None of these paint a very pleasant picture of humanity.  Why do we lean into these stories? Why do we want to believe the worst about our species?  We know that somewhere in our primal brains we are attuned to narratives of dangers and horrors, and probably this makes sense from an evolutionary perspective: for most of our history, it paid to be a bit paranoid as being a little too afraid of things that really might kill you probably was better than ignoring risks and finding out hazards by personal experience.  

When most stories were passed on my word of mouth, it was pretty easy to question the tale-spinner to identify misconceptions, lies, or alternative explanations, and simple reputation over time would help mitigate the impact of those who told tall tales to some degree....still, though we WANTED to believe.  And we still do.

But today we have mass-markets for promulgating tales to the greater populace through formal education, news, and social media, and we have a finely nuanced understanding of what makes narratives "sticky", and how to word a narrative just right to get past our few defenses and into our beliefs via communications mediums that make it hard to properly question and rate the story teller.
 

 

So, what if I told you that the guy who wrote Lord of the Flies was a seriously flawed and negative man, that both the Stanford prison experiment and the Robbers Cave experiment were carefully managed to generate conflict, and that for these 'experiments' it was difficult and took repetition to get the salacious results?  What if Easter Island wasn't a worrisome microcosm of resource mismanagement and inter-group conflict, but a story of happenstance and repeated Western atrocities filtered through a lens of sensationalist pop-anthropologists seeking fame?  What if Milgram in his shock experiments DID find some worrisome patterns, but in our embrace of dark fears we missed the important positive points while picking up the most negative ones?  

Indeed, all of the above seems to be the case ("Humankind" - Bregman, and other mostly-ignored expositions), which begs the question "Why do we WANT to think of humanity as inherently evil?".  Most of us have heard this church, in the fall of man as an underlying point of the creation story, and pervasively in society, and with this foundation our narrative-picking filters will reinforce this at every turn, with the evening news helping out to reinforce the brain-paths daily.  What disservice would such a negative bias bring us, if we all have a negative view of, well, all of us?
 

What if, instead, we told ourselves (and taught our children) that people are mostly good, if a bit susceptible and wayward, and you need only to be a bit discerning when watching out for the worst of people, and more discerning about what you feed your mind each day?  

These are not idle points, as we KNOW that brain pathways are built upon repetition, and that repeated patterns reinforce belief or instill willingness to believe without our even realizing it ("How Minds Change" - McRaney).   If a dictator puts up propaganda pics on every street corner and repeats glorifying statements on the air every hour, it's because it works.  And so does daily prayer, mindful daily introspection, deliberate musical practice, or saying a pledge. 

"I'm smarter than that!" you say?  Perhaps you can intentionally analyze the repeated noise and through deliberate attention insulate yourself from the effects, but probably we'd all be better off to avoid circumstances and venues that pummel us with questionable information.  Really, you are not a very good judge of what you will believe, given half a chance.

If people mostly are good by nature (we're talking about regular people here, not the 1% sociopaths, which might be worth another posting of its own), and require several specific steps of indoctrination to do evil, then why do we fall into these traps that convince us that most people are bad, and through our resulting beliefs and actions actually make this somewhat self-fulfilling?  Who does this serve, and is it deliberate, or some sort of self-inflicted brain-washing as an unfortunate accident of our modern society?  Maybe some of both?


In summary, let's consider the proposition that people don't inherently suck, they aren't mostly born with evil tendencies, but that through teaching and training can be readily made to both believe that others suck and to behave in truly suckish ways themselves (to be hateful authoritarians, or clever criminals, for example).  And then let's see if we can deprogram ourselves a bit, create some new brain pathways deliberately, and improve our social habits to reinforce this premise, and see what happens.   Changing your own mind, and maybe how to change other peoples' minds, might be the topic of the next post.

2023 New Year's Resolutions and BFAGs

What fraction of people believe humanity has a higher goal, a greater purpose, to populate the stars?  How many of us even think about this, as a working goal for our nations and world, or as part of our personal life decisions?

Example:  Fossil fuels are one-time boon, as a tool to boot-strap tech so we can master atomics; instead we drive F250s to the mall.

In our daily lives it's easy to get caught up with a heads-down focus on kids, work, mortgage, and the rest of daily life, but why do we look no further for national goals than interest rates, GDP, and employment rates?  Why do engage in zero-sum global games, and petty power struggles between political parties here at home, without even having a discussion about larger goals?  Why don't we publicly discuss & set specific plans for BFAGs (big f-, uh, fat, audacious goals) as national priorities?

In the last week I've seen "Yay! Fusion! Free power in 50 years!" and "Waste of money that could be spend on mining coal, or at least new roads", but really both takes miss the point.  

With fusion research it's not technology for tech sake, or free power, or financial optimization, or any near-term need but as a strategic stepping stone that justifies the effort.  Let's ask the question: What do we need to be a space-faring species?
- Mastery of huge energy sources and power levels
- Longer, healthier lives (heck, we spend 30+ years just to get a decent doctor, who then works as little as 20 years before a stress heart-attack retirement), so we get better return out of our education investments
- Conquering dementia, so we get more useful years from each educated brain
- Getting past wars and vast inequity, so all can contribute their brain-power effectively
- Managing population and resources as a balance, so we can maximize brain-years over the long term
- Not boiling our planet to death as we go, so we can be around to make progress

Here's the thing:  we've got brains built for hunter-gatherer existence, still adapting to city life and vast populations.  We're surely not adapted yet to a techno civilization, even industrialized with mass communications, let alone computerized with vast interactive social networks.  We're still working with Dunbar's Number brains, and figuring out how to go from small collective groups to city-states.  We did tribes for 200K years, farming for 10K, cities for a few K, books for 500, and technology for 200.  Now we've recently had mass communications for 100, and social media interactive comes for 10.

Therefore, we should expect massive upheaval and strife, at every level of society, as we adapt our brain-training for this new environment.  How can we navigate this, if not focusing on where we want to go, and looking forward and not back?

We need to be a lot more intentional and deliberate as a nation and as individuals.  Every new F250 is a missed opportunity, as the same money could have put solar panels on a house for diffuse, distributed, safe, climate-friendly power for many decades, instead of burning limited high-density power for a few years before scrapping the invested energy/money/knowledge.  Every war destroys massive machinery that could have been used to ferry materials to low-earth orbit or start a moon colony, or an L5 science station, or to figure out cosmic-ray protection in open space.  Every $B spent on election politicking represents money not spent on longer, smarter, lives, filled with better education, to lift us further and faster.  Every $ spent on hedonist billionaire yachts is an AI supercomputer not built or an Alzheimer's drug not tested.

As we head into 2023, instead of arguing for another year about masks and vaccines, how about we all resolve to spend our time, attention, dollars, and energy a bit more deliberately, pushing for a better, higher, kinder, safer, healthier, smarter future?  Can we agree that even if we won't reach the stars in our lifetimes, it's a better goal for our children's children to pursue than determine who can best maximize income from NFTs or crypto, or grow followers on Twitter or TikTok, or push their personal faith into morality laws for all?

Christmas Tele-Kaleidoscope

As I sit here reminiscing about Christmases past over a cup of coffee with the tree lights and wreath providing illumination, I surprise myself feeling bittersweet pangs. Amidst the happy memories of family gatherings and joyful children, I find myself also missing the people that are gone and the times that sped so quickly by. So many Christmas days vie for remembrance, first with my brothers and parents as children, then as adults, then those hectic wonderful years with my own small children, and now they too are adults. My memories turn into a kaleidoscope of people and places, the years telescoping into a panoply of ever-shifting remembrances. Every year has its joys, and its sorrows, but perhaps the importance of Christmas is that it focuses heavily on the joys.
 

I twist the kaleidoscope, and memories of the parents' house in Hollandia come into view, their dreams on the lake perhaps not coming to fruition as they'd planned, but in retrospect I see that all the important aspects actually did, and somehow I think Mom knew this aspect better than Dad, and so she was always the happier one. The Christmas tree in the corner of the living room where it always was, probably placed there to put it as far as possible from the sparks of the fire place, and adorned with the re-used tinsel and aging garland (I guess it was new back then, once upon a time) and burning-hot incandescent bulbs. My brothers and I, as small children with our trucks and toys, then with another twist as growing boys with bikes and balls, but always the four of us and just the four of us with never an added guest. And once or twice a rare Christmas with snow on the ground, always hoped-for but rarely experienced.
 

Twist again and it's our huge tree in the Dover house, with too many presents as we went overboard in our happy celebration of our lives. Those were truly joyous years, with too little sleep and too much rushing around to get that must-have item, or to balance out the number and value of presents so no child was favored. That tree was a beast, with too many hours hanging thousands of lights, and now it lives in the attic as a daunting recollection. By then the brothers all had separate lives of their own, so that aspect rotated away and my own family took center stage, and happily so. And again there were one or two white Christmases, including one where I helped the older kids make a modest snowman.
 

Another turn and it's the harder years, where we strove mightily to maintain the joy at Christmas and freeze every happy minute, as I knew the years with Jason and aging parents were numbered and I perhaps tried too hard to capture the moments. But the happy memories abounded, with Christmas dinner at Henry's instead of the folks' house as they no longer had the energy to host the growing group, so it was a split affair with presents at our house then the broader family get-together. Though sometimes brothers were missing, it was always a large boisterous group with cousins and in-laws in varying proportions, and there was that one Christmas when everybody was in one place, all the brothers and spouses, and we fortunately took a family picture with all of us, not realizing it would be the last.
 

Another twist and our kids are teens and tweens, and we're juggling real cars as well as toy ones, and kids are running off for other engagements with friends and creating their own holiday memories. We deliberately decided not to be demanding parents that required all kids to make our holidays a priority, so eventually there were trips with friends, then older kids moving away. We lost Jason, and Mom and Dad, and suddenly Christmas was as much about remembrance as making new memories.
 

Slide another year or two and the number of presents under the tree were much fewer, as young adults desired fewer but more expensive items, and there were literally fewer people to with whom to celebrate. Now we're to the adult-children years, but before grand-children, and with COVID travel is less advised. Divorces split away some in-laws, and left new gaps and surely bittersweet memories in their wake, while new marriages bring a new dynamic as others come in. Most of the kids have moved away, alone or as couples, and I am satisfied by such as it is as it should be with kids finding their own lives. I am content that all the kids were home for Thanksgiving, and I've been fortunate enough to see all my brothers individually. It's certainly been quite a while since all four have been here at once, and the brief trip to Pennsylvania reminds me how much I enjoy having more of us together.
 

So here on a quiet Christmas morning, with no snow (at 70F+ it's not going to snow today!), looking at our small, simple tree and eternal wreath, I let the kaleidoscope spin, and I am flooded by a range of emotions -- both mine and those of others in the frame -- as the years, people, and emotions overlap in flowing juxtapositions. Surely some are not only Christmas moments, but these holiday frames stand out as bright, focused instances. I am glad I deliberately froze some such moments as they came along, knowing that years go fleeting by, and that the emotions attached to others help tag them into memories as well..
 

Surprisingly, I find the kaleidoscope also hints at future Christmases, some at our house and in other places, with other trees, and other fireplaces, and with grandchildren and others I do not yet know gleefully tearing wrapping paper. I sit at the edge and watch contentedly, for they do not know as I do that while the joy of Christmas sometimes involves presents, the happiness comes from togetherness and experiencing the joy of others that we love. There are also shadows there, hinting at future losses, and so I know I must live the joys in the moment, capturing them and adding them to the kaleidoscope for future years.

Focus on the Car-Lite Positives

For those of us who have traveled a bit, and seen the car-free or car-lite centers of European towns with quaint streets from Medieval times, strolled the quiet walkable/bikeable streets of the Netherlands after riding their excelling trains, been in India during the age of cycling and mopeds and then again after in their age of cars, or wandered through the rebuilt cities of China with their wide multi-mode streets along with the ancestral parks with wandering paths, the impact of cars on our lives is perhaps a bit more noticeable than for our countrymen at large.

I've recently been fond of the technocratic side of cycling and autos, delving into the impact of cars on city pollution, noise, emissions, and hazards, and the relative math of transportation modes, and the uncertain Faustian bargain of EV's and self-driving cars.  I've advocated for cycling for years, from the days of recreation pathways (rails to trails and river-edge paths, etc.) to the seize-the-lane notion of shared roadways (and the now-infamous sharrows), to more recent complete streets with marked bike lanes, to current best-practices with bollards, bike-boxes, green-wave lights, and dedicated side-paths.

I've done the math on land area dedicated to cars, the drivers of sprawl, and the impacts on happiness and health.  I've seen the analysis of ponzi-economics of suburbia, and that of transit- and housing-deprived cities.  For me, the options are clear and the choices are obvious.

What I must now admit is that painting a data-driven picture of what is wrong with car-centric cities and lifestyles in the hopes of winning converts is a losing approach.  For every deeply-considered numbers-thinking convert, there are a dozen more who immediately get their hackles up and react defensively to protect their cars.  Since the early days of cars, some drivers have seen cyclists and pedestrians as enemies, and it's certainly no better now.  We're now maybe 4 generations into the great experiment of post-war highways and car-centric lives, and most drivers today outside of the largest cities have never known transit, and fewer still effective mass transit.

What fraction of ambitious young Americans have been in a car-lite city? What fraction of busy family-age parents have spent much time living on quiet, car-free street?  How many have lusted over a sharp, expensive automobile, or simply dreamed of the day they turned 16 and could drive their first jalopy?


So, now that I've decided that deep understanding isn't enough, what is a marketing approach that will work?  In my business experience, real-world examples that can be experienced first-hand work better than presentations and brochures.  Maybe what we need instead of books and articles stating all the facts, is some feel-better examples here in the US of areas that "work" without cars?

For me, reading "Curbing Traffic" by the Bruntlett's was the turning point for my thinking.   Sure, they had lots of good examples and discussion on infrastructure along with lifestyle color, but this latest book focuses a lot more on the lived experience of a car-lite existence than their earlier book "Building the Cycling City", or another great book "Copenhagenize" by Collville-Andersen, or Speck's excellent "Walkable City".  Rather than complaining about the ills of our modern suburbs (which are indeed many!), let's present a lifestyle as it could be - healthier, friendlier, safer, more independent, more equitable, cheaper, and along the way greener, more sustainable, and less CO2 generating.

Let's not "war on cars" in the mainstream, however richly deserved that may be; instead, let's just ignore cars and quietly relegate them to longer odd-ball trips or those with painful commutes, and paint a more wholesome picture of a life where walking and cycling works for most trips and we simply don't need a car for many errands.  Let's meet struggling young families where they are (and who among us hasn't struggled in some way during those early child years?) and show a better way to live, with a richer world of local interactions for young children and more autonomy for teens.  As we accomplish this, let's help those already without cars -- the elderly, infirm, and financially disadvantaged -- have a good life.

So, we need examples of livable neighborhoods.  Where are such places in the US?

Cars: How did our worst idea become our only idea?

 

I saw a question on social media about "how did our worst idea become our only idea?" in response to car traffic.

Surprisingly, I know the answer to this, both practically and theoretically.  Get comfortable and see what you think of my traffic manifesto:



Network theory says that the value of a network grows as a function of the nodes connected, generally on the order of a square law (the factor is argued, but not the general statement).  This is known as Metcalfe's Law.  We already collectively knew this for millennia, which is why paths, streets, and roads have grown to connect everything related to humans, and you hear stuff like "all roads lead to Rome" and such.  The dawn of the telephone age formalized Metcalfe's Law, and the Internet has provided another data point, and recently Amazon and AirBnB have yet again.  With any "iteration with preferential selection" situation, you end up with winner-take-all patterns, as more users add push for destinations to connect, and more destinations push more users to connect, and more connections expand the network.

As for human transport, not much differed if all were on foot, or some were on horses (note that everything that people complained about cars was once said about horses and carriages, which too often ran over poor kids with little repercussion).   A carriage could go too fast for existing traffic, but get to more places conveniently, so all would naturally gravitate to horses if they could.  But horses are expensive, so a secondary feedback loop prevented a horse-traffic takeover.

In the 1800's, railroads arose for the same reason.  A steam train is fast compared to a horse, and much cheaper for an individual trip/load, so rail took over for longer-distant connectivity, and with later electrification streetcars came along also for local travel.  Trains and trams have complex and expensive infrastructure, so it's hard to have rail as a door-to-door solution, hence ToD and DoT became valid concepts.  Rail did not really compete with streets, other than to create dangerous at-grade crossing - the networks connect and overlap, but do not directly compete.  Rail did compete with roads between towns, but generally rural right-of-way land was pretty cheap so dual networks evolved. 

After 1875, a bunch of interesting things happened.  Electrification brought along sewing machines and washing machines for the home, and completely changed the central power model of factories.  That's and interesting story....but also at the same time came the bicycle.  Most people today do not know that bicycles quietly took over the world after the Penny Farthing (and its coining of the term "took a header") gave way to the "safety bicycle".  Cycling manufacture around the world exploded, and paved streets, which were already common in big European cities, grew in expanse.   Bikes were cheap compared to a horse, and cleaner, and became popular with men going to newly distributed craft jobs driven by machine electrification and with women with new spare time due to sewing/washing machines. 

This is where we see "iteration with preferential selection" playing its game -- for every trip, a person could decide what conveyance to use, and for each purchase, whether to buy a horse, a bike, a new pair of shoes, etc.  Most people did not buy railcars (though some did), and many could not buy horses (though some did, and complained a LOT about cyclists taking "their" streets), but they could buy a bike.  With each new bike, another person could easily reach more distant destinations, and with each new cyclist there was value to have housing and shops a little further out.  At the same time, electric trams/streetcars were invented, and these too used street space in cities, but were relatively few in number so the time-space occupancy was small and speeds were limited to manage risk acceptably.  Theory would say that soon enough, cycling and streetcars should take over, and cities would also expand.  And they did.

So, in essence, bicycles and streetcars could leverage the same network to better advantage than previous transmission protocols, and yet coexist, so the network adapted to match.   Nobody notices the history of cycling now, as bicycles are small and fit pretty well into a world with lots of people, some horses, and a few carriages.  I'm sure they had parking issues, but this doesn't much show up in the "hard assets" we see as streets have evolved.  Streetcars are still remembered, given the "streetcar suburb" housing layouts and continued existence of derelict rails peeking through here and there.

Then along came cars.  Cars offered the same value that horses enjoyed, and the same issues, only more-so.  When there were only a few, they were owned by the wealthy, and the same issues were handled the same way: "don't get in my way!".  Since as we've seen the network connectivity value is driven by network size, and that is determined by speed (given a static density), going fast was desirable.  Early on, we had a few fast cars trying to go more places, and cars competed with bicycles and horses and then streetcars, but the secondary limit of price was still in place.  Note that cars also competed with rail, where connectivity existed between towns.

As car prices dropped, the iteration and preferential selection mechanism did its thing, and as we know that for any trip one can choose whether to walk, bike, ride, or drive, and often the car was (and is) the fastest solution from A to B, so it gets picked.

But over time, as car volumes increased, the network itself had to grow, and the combination of demand for road space and parking plus the growing hazard to other traffic types first impact street usage, and then the roads, and finally the city layouts themselves.  As with bikes and streetcars, higher speeds enable cities to grow at the edges, but the desire for connectivity is insatiable (Metcalfe's Law is even bigger than linear, remember!), so speeds must tend to go up as well.  Unfortunately, the demand for speed and space presses back on the structure of cities, which responded by becoming less dense (since costs are lower at the edges) and more car-centric, as increasingly each trip choice would favor the car.  Where streetcar suburbs tend to be dense and close-in, car suburbs tend to be sprawling and thus further out.

What limits car traffic?  We have seen that this is actually known, with the Downs-Thomson Paradox -- it grows until another mode of connectivity is faster.  This is precisely what the "iteration with preferential selection" networking model would say -- if another mode works better, it'll get picked.  But now we know that cars, bikes, and peds (and rail) do not really share the same network without friction.  Cars took over streets completely, so to use another mode a new network has to be built, and this requires explicit decisions that are NOT part of the daily iterative selection and preference process. 

There is absolutely nothing new about this, as transit planners have been saying for a long time that headway frequency is critical, and yet the destination coverage is critical too.  The square law of network theory says that transit will be pulled toward covering more destinations, but the preferential selection per trip says that transit will only be used when it is the fastest choice. 

This also means that on-street buses, as in Tulsa, will never successfully compete with cars.  It is theoretically and practically impossible....the only point favoring on-street buses is cost, and even that requires public support.  The only people who will use such buses are people who do not have cars, and that makes sense as a choice for them ONLY IF the cost is lower, AND their destinations are reachable by bus, AND the time is not too long.  For others, a bus might make sense if a lethargic bus connection is a small inconvenience on the end of a faster trip using another mode.  So, if you have a fast train into town and then a slow bus, you might still see the combination as better than a slow drive with parking hassles and expense. 

So, what does this say:

• Alternative choices about transit architecture can NEVER be made by auto interests, including drivers themselves.  Once you have paid for a car, the incremental cost per trip is small, and it will self-justify the auto -- it's a stable and durable state.
• On-street options, like ordinary buses, will not be acceptable trip options UNLESS they are prioritized over other traffic.  Buses are impacted by the same delays as cars, yet with fewer destinations available and more stops to slow them.  BRT will only attract drivers if given dedicated lanes and priority.
• Parking is part of the problem in that convenient, free parking favors cars in multiple ways.  If parking costs more, autos are less affordable as a per-trip option.  If parking is hard to find, it adds to the effective trip time, and impacts the trip choice trade-off IF other options are available.
• If all traffic is by car and bus, car traffic will tend to increase until the travel cost (time and money) exceeds the trip value, unless there is a point where another mode makes sense.  In some cities without transit this happens when walking is faster than traffic-jammed streets, yet even for this situation cars hold an edge by making walking physically hazardous, noxious, and long due to sprawl.  Without options besides cars, the network will favor cars and nothing else, not even human life in general.  You'll be able to go anywhere in theory, but most trips won't be worth the time and hassle, and crashes and pollution will continue to be major issues for humanity.  
  
• Thus, separate network infrastructure is critical to enable reasonable choices along with decent living.  With convenient options for transit and cycling, or even walking, cities can be denser and more connected, AND car travel will work better too.  Oddball trip connections can still be made by car, while most routine trips can more easily and effectively be done using another mode.  Metcalfe's Law and the Downs-Thomson Paradox will work together to expand useful connectivity, while our explicit choices about transit network investments will reign in the most undesirable aspects of each option.
  
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Essentialism

Maybe 18 or 24 months ago a coworker mentioned Mindfulness as a mechanism he'd adopted to reduce work stress, and he briefly described his journey as he recommended it to me. Some of his personal progress reminded me of Deep Work that I'd read not long before, and earlier research into Happiness and I decided to give it some thought.

I read a book or two on Mindfulness (as is my usual approach with something new), and some of it seemed a little touchy-feely and nebulous from my perspective. However, one of the books mentioned minimalism, and this resonated more strongly. I pulled on that thread, which led to Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, which I enthusiastically embraced. Some of it overlapped much earlier thinking I'd had back in the BigStoneHeads days. 

Somewhere along with Mindfulness I decided to pick up Journaling, and I selected Evernote as a tool to facilitate that. I also started using Evernote for my on-again/off-again pseudo-blogging on various topics. 

With Essentialism, I formalized some loose earlier thinking on Best Life and Best Self, with incorporation of specific statements and Goals. All of this came together by early 2020, and despite distractions with COVID and elections I mostly maintained the general thinking and journaling throughout the year. As was the expectation from earlier Happiness thinking, the improved focus seems to be resulting in improved happiness with my life overall, and all the intentional changes seem to be proving out. Recall that one view of happiness is "making progress toward being the best version of the person you see yourself to be", so making deliberate steps to improve yourself should result in a happier life. 

As 2020 progressed, and I increasingly tried to use Evernote to capture notes and thinking about various topics, I noted a combination of strengths and shortcomings in the tool...it was easy to use, but it wasn't always easy to manage keywords rigorously, and finding and re-using previously captured notes was clunky and effort-consuming. I again revisited earlier thinking about having a Commonplace Book, and late in the year stumbled across the notion of Second Brain which takes a more voluminous and expansive view of the same concept, and then a friend gave an unsolicited recommendation for Roam Research. That brings us to late 2020, as I moved ALL my previous blogs, journals, and musings into Roam, and I think I finally have a digital Commonplace Book that will work for me. 

In summary, for my life focus efforts I'm pretty happy with the Essentialism journey, and my self-defined Best Life and Best Self principles, and with most of my deliberate Goals. Some items, like weight loss and exercise, didn't go as well as desired this year, but I don't think that's a fault of the tool or the overall approach. I still have more aspects of my life to reign in and align, including work (day job and Side Hustle), and maybe related concepts of Eudaimonia Machine and Flow. 

Most recently, I'm now reading Digital Minimalism, and from that I'm creating my own view of Digital Essentialism. This is one of those minor epiphanies where I suddenly see that while I'd been refocusing much of my life to be more purposeful, I'd left my on-line life untouched and it was sucking up too much of the time freed by my Essentialism progress. I fully intend to take control of this aspect of my life and set the bar higher for myself in 2021. I find it satisfying already to see the various topics of Big Stone Heads, Essentialism, Happiness, Deep Work and Commonplace Book all coming together in a harmonious gestalt, fitting together and mutually reinforcing. I feel strongly that I'm "getting it right", and I'm very interested to see what emergent behaviors manifest from this new system.

Key points:

• Less, but better 
• Be deliberate about how you spend your time -- your attention is the most valuable asset you have 
• Be explicit about what is important to you -- the "why" and major themes of your existence 
• Prune off aspects of your life that do not align, starting with ones that are negative or destructive, then those that are ineffective or distracting, and finally improving efficiency of those that clearly should remain. 
• There is as aspect of minimalism, but not minimalism for minimalism sake; instead, decluttering to provide space for essential focusing. 
• Life satisfaction, and then happiness, with a long-term goal of a "life well lived" is the intended result. Career success is perhaps a nice-to-have.

 

• Bibliography:
  • Mindfulness for Beginners
  • Essentialism: The displined pursuit of less
  • Declutter Your Life: Minimalism and Essentialism
  • Free to Focus: A Total Productive System to Achieve More by Doing Less
  • Indistractible: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life
  • Deep Work: Rules for focused success in a distracted world
  • Digital Minimalism: Choosing a focused life in a noisy world

Big Stone Heads - A Prospective

I should probably note for general information that any text in atypical capitals means it's a specific topic of thought in my Second Brain (the evolution of my Commonplace Book). 

Last time in the Retrospective we covered a LOT of years of recent history, and asked a lot of questions. But what about the future (which, incidentally, is all we can do something about), instead of the past?

What of our current economy will best survive the post-Fed bubble-pop? What will endure and survive any restructuring that will eventually come along with the Rise and Fall prognosis? What about a post-Capitalism shift that is probably coming with AI and automation making in-roads into human employment?

Perhaps just as importantly, how do I want to spend my remaining career time and personal efforts? Do I want to keep gears spinning in the big Sand Castle machines of international engineering machines, or should I focus more specifically on a specific area, or even dare to strive to build a Big Stone Head?

Economics:

• We are almost certainly headed for some form of crash and serious correction, and probably a restructuring more painful than 2008. Since 2009, we've vastly expanded our national debt spending. Already we have bizarre phenomena occurring, and probably this weirdness will not persist. I struggle say "when", but I think "as soon as the Fed stops spending, and some inciting event occurs".
  • Brooking's projects that it will take several years for consumer spending to get past the pandemic setback. This means bad things for a lot of service workers and for many businesses. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/12/14/the-decline-and-recovery-of-consumer-spending-in-the-us/?utm_campaign=Brookings%20Brief&utm_medium=email&utm_content=103005940&utm_source=hs_email
  • Realistically, as soon as we're past one crash, another is brewing. Usually we have something every 7-10 years, and a larger one every 30-60. Dalio says every 80-100 we should expect a "restructuring". The COVID crash is going to shift the landscape for the current cycle, but it's not clear it actually cleared any of the old bubbles and debt, so I think more pain is yet to come.
• Deflation? Inflation? I think as long as the US is still the primary reserve currency, any global stress will cause a flight to dollar, which coupled with purchasing collapse will be deflationary. This is the common US response since business supports are stronger than individual supports, so most big crashes are going to be demand-implosion-driven. When the Fed acts, it will be inflationary, but more-so if our reserve status is weakening. So far, we have not much seen this, and the dollar remains pretty strong, but it will eventually weaken.
  • Carrying debt will be risky, as loss of work and strengthening dollars will hurt those with debt. This is the mode we're in today, for example, in housing. Food is up in price, but energy is way down. Even without actual deflation, debt can be hazardous. The recession taught us "prices may be low, but that doesn't mean you have any money to buy stuff with".
  • Making it through the first phase and into the spending phase will mean that debt will inflate away...maybe. This will be a hard pattern to time it through. Inflation can pay off debts for you, but income increases lag expense growth, and those near the edge may fail.
  • There is always the possibility of stagflation, if we loosen up creation of money and the dollar re-positions. The next variant may be different, with job challenges driven by automation and AI while prices increase, and all scramble for few jobs.
• End of superpower? End of reserve currency?
  • Honestly, I think Rise and Fall of Empire will be more of a concern for my kids -- I'll probably retire before the next restructuring, so my goal is to simple "hide" assets from major impacts of such shifts so I can survive my latter years. As for durable professions, it's always safe to address the lower layers of Maslow's Hierarchy -- you're better off addressing existential needs than minor luxuries when TSHTF, especially in a situation where those who buy luxuries are being dragged off to guillotines and gulags. People always need places to live, and they need food, water, and the basics of communications and transportation. People who just keep things working are in pretty high demand during any downturn.

Personal Legacy

• I'd like to at least more intentionally build Sand Castles for forward-looking industries. The whole world runs on Sand Castle building, so this isn't a bad thing, per se, it just won't provide strong self-actualization if you look at your legacy this way.
• If I can manage it, I'd like to make attempts at building Big Stone Heads.
  • Sure, I'll support family and community -- replicating DNA is a pretty basic target.
  • Technology, such as increasing Economic Complexity, is a good goal. This is how we keep our local community and US economy vibrant.
• It might be easier than it seems to accomplish this, as most people don't think in terms of creating durable, replicating information or expanding Economic Complexity. It's not quite a Blue Ocean Strategy, but it's close. In my experience, it's not hard to accomplish things when the rest of your organization is moving randomly and you push hard in one direction; the trick is in convincing yourself which way to push!

Investments - What will I do?

• Keep the barbell - part really safe, part very risky, not much in the middle. I've always struggled on the risky side -- my life is too "safe".
• The "safe" end includes wholly-owned property, cash, and metals. This, for me, is quite attainable.
• "Safe" retirement investments include US property, US bonds, Int'l bonds, as low-risk but not large volume investments. These are valuable in a deflationary situation, or a status-quo future.
• The risky end? This is high-return to beat inflation in debt-collapse futures, or upside wealth in good times.
  • US equities - high-alpha stocks, probably?
  • Int'l equities - same as for US, only geographically hedged with EU and Asia.
  • Maybe a property bought with credit? A resort AirBNB? A 4- or 6-plex in a college town? The debt is the risk, so in a bad case this gets foreclosed...in a good case, it pays itself off.
  • Maybe a start-up business? This is the fun one to think about, but the hardest by far.