How To Break Anything

Zimbabwe – Score: 110.2 (out of 120)

Life in Zimbabwe has undoubtedly gotten better since a power-sharing agreement between Robert Mugabe, who has ruled this southern African country since 1980, and Morgan Tsvangirai, his most prominent opponent and the current prime minister, entered into force in February 2009. Inflation is down from 230 million percent, goods are back on the shelves, NGOs are able to work again (though they are often still harassed), and the country is able to tap into foreign credit lines from regional banks and China. The bad news is that Mugabe has kept up his dictatorial rule as if nothing had changed; for example, he celebrated his 30th anniversary in office to the spectacular fanfare seen here, where children display militant loyalty to the ruling party. Mugabe and Tsvangirai operate autonomously, holding occasional talks to resolve disputes over cabinet appointments, land expropriation, opposition arrests, and media freedom — among other things. With little sign of progress for months, both leaders are now looking forward to fresh elections as the “only way out” of the political stalemate, as Tsvangirai has put it.

Optimization may be a difficult thing to pin down, but there's a lot of good ways to think about (the opposite of) optimized states here in the 2010 Failed States Index. States are measured on 12 metrics of decay, capturing ideas of human rights, security, stability, and sociocultural mobility.

We’re looking at how to push users into passive-consumption mode, a lean-back experience,” Mr. Davidson says.

This whole article laments the problems of users doing things like "making decisions" and "leaving to do something else besides watch psychologically sugary content for hours on end."

I kinda feel like you should start questioning your role in the world when you start saying things like "hey how can we get people to just slouch over in a chair and sort of.... you know... not think... for as long as possible??"

All you need to know...

is that it's possible.

Mike sent me a great story about an ultra-lightweight backpacker:

"Wolf was carrying a super-small pack which weighed 14 pounds including food and water. When asked how he got his pack weight so low, Wolf would reply, 'All you need to know is that it’s possible.'"

One of the under-reported stories of the internet is this: it constantly reports on what's possible. Somewhere in the world, someone is doing something that you decided couldn't be done. By calling your bluff and by pointing out the possibilities, this reporting of possibility changes everything.

The statement "all you need to know is that it's possible" might sound a bit sugary or idealistic.

But it's precisely why I'm so big on exposure and experience. It's about worldview, perspective, etc.

The age old idea is that you don't know what you don't know; you only like or hate what you've been exposed to. On some level its a simple idea but on another level it completely explains to me why the kids I grew up believe completely in the Mormon faith and all it comes along with, when across the world others believe completely in something completely different and neither can seem to figure out why when they think about the other.

In fact, I drew a chart recently that I originally considered for #makeachartday:

To me, "all you need to know is that it's possible" captures why it's so important to understand that you're entirely blinded to what you don't think exists - whether physical things, declarative facts, procedural knowledge or abstract concepts.

The only cure is exposure.

@calebkramer pointed me to this book; as you might expect I find the subject matter fascinating, neuroscience/perception/culture and all. I'll be reading it.

I'm mostly just curious to see how he solves the problem of "not making the same Socrates-esque case that's been made for centuries, that '[insert new media here] is ruining humanity'."

"The best-selling author of The Big Switch returns with an explosive look at technology’s effect on the mind. “Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the Net is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. A gripping story of human transformation played out against a backdrop of technological upheaval, The Shallows will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds"

If you've been following you may have discovered that I'm not too keen on dystopian/doomsday scenarios. I'll say again that if the future is going to be a scary place, well, it's been happening for centuries.

In fact, I watched this incredibly compelling video a few hours ago on scientific progress; perhaps not directly related to the above, but something along the lines of the goodness of progress:

Take a mundane question: Do you choose to brush your teeth in the morning? Or do you just do it? Can a habit or custom be a choice? When Iyengar asked Japanese and American college students in Kyoto to record all the choices they made in a day, the Americans included things like brushing their teeth and hitting the snooze button. The Japanese didn’t consider those actions to be choices. The two groups lived similar lives. But they defined them differently.

The NYT reviews Sheena Iyengar's The Art of Choosing. The above is one of my favorites of the many excellent ideas expressed within.

Exit Through The Gift Shop is an excellent story, and I do recommend you watch it. I like this analysis, particularly the last paragraph below (though as in the title above I'd argue that entrepreneurship is art):

"At first I was pissed at Thierry for desecrating the art world, in fact I thought Banksy was too; but then I had an idea of what Mr. Brainwash was. He's not an artist, he's an entrepreneur. The film starts out with an anecdote explaining how he became successful selling vintage fashion. He found a profitable model for buying cheap clothes and marking them up 400%. It worked because people bought it. Well the same was true with his art; but then I thought, what if that was Banksy's plan from the start - after all he did get a lot of investors to spend their money on what has now been outed as superficial art."