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I’m not speaking of the declining competence of tech support for a phone or Internet service, but more about things like restaurants or coffee shops, i.e. places that are supposed to be providing an experience.

And perhaps that’s just it. I think that if you care enough to hire people to create a logo, and put up signs, and promote your brand, then you should care about the impressions given off by the people representing you.

Basically, for a top-end experience, the people you interface with should exemplify that experience. For a coffee shop, it should be someone who’s an expert in coffee, drinks coffee, loves coffee, and is associated with “coffee culture” — whatever that means.

Reading comes to mind. Traveling. Stimulating conversation. Books. Mystery. Curiosity. Study. Learning. Etc.

This is just my wordcloud associated with coffee. So when I go into a so-called “coffee shop” and find people who are uneducated, don’t know the difference between dark and light roast, can’t tell me what kind of coffee they enjoy because they don’t, etc. — that’s a poor experience.

And it’s the same for any industry.

Restaurants. In any restaurant that expects to be considered high-end, I would like to be served by those who embody the culture of the place. Language. Dress. Mannerisms. Etiquette. Protocol. Etc.

I don’t want to be served high-end Italian food by some Midwesterner with no passport. I expect to hear Italian and see the signs of a high-end wait staff. I also want the customers to conform to that standard via dress code, noise level, etc.

It’s the same for any kind of high-end experience because we’re not just there for one component. The ambiance magnifies or detracts from the overall experience. Hot Dogs. Mexican Food. Thai. Italian.

And not just food. There are other types of services that need to understand this as well.

It’s not as if there aren’t many who do — there are. But I wish more people understood why it bothers me when they don’t.

::

Perhaps the most obvious and powerful of changes in our world is the penetration of computers into our personal lives. This is penetration to the point of integration — to the point of augmentation. No surprise there; everyone’s talking about it.

One less obvious result of this monumental shift, however, is that the skill of programming will move from a field specialization to a life skill. It will become a method of optimizing and improving oneself, much like diet and exercise is today.

This will involve coding skills only incidentally. Even more important than prowess with a given language will be the ability to conceptualize a problem, break it into pieces, and design a solution. This ability is the true life skill worth having, and it will soon become the new literacy.

Just as the industrial revolution transformed fitness into a means of self-improvement for the masses, the integration of computers into our personal lives will do the same for programming.

Take advantage of being among the first to see this happen. Learn to code. Tell your friends. Teach your kids. Early.

::

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Unfortunately, this translated to not telling him when he was making a safety mistake, such as an incorrect fuel or course estimation. As a result, this fear-based hesitation essentially nullified the entire purpose of having two people in the cockpit, i.e. to serve as a check against one-another.

The same thing seems to have happened in a recent child-rape case at Penn State. Story after story I hear about, “Delicate situations”, and so and so being, “a very senior coach”.

Fuck that. That’s how plane crashes happen. It’s also how priests get away with child rape. Their positions are so respected that you basically need something on video before you’ll push beyond that sacred stiff-arm.

These are all the same problem: co-pilots respecting pilots too much, junior coaches worrying about the anger and legacy of a senior coach, or priests getting moved to another Parish instead of being fired. In all cases it’s a force of authority that suppresses an acolyte’s sense of conviction — whether that be morality or security-related.

This has to stop. The airline industry stopped it by giving very strict training on how there is no rank in an airplane. When people are there to check one another, rank means fear, and fear means holding your tongue, and holding your tongue means a chance of people dying.

We need the same sort of anti-authority training for any other arena where powerful people are not reported for crimes because the juniors are in awe of them, or because they think it’ll hurt their careers in the future.

If you find yourself in such a situation, step away from it. Look at it from the perspective of someone outside the system. You’ll see instantly what should happen, and don’t be afraid to take action. Rank and authority be damned.

::

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I’ve always been attracted to the idea of identifying unifying characteristics of desired society, and defining those ideals as sacred to the group that embraces them. The Constitution does this, of course, but it deals with principals where I aim to talk about behaviors. I come to this from decades of observing dissimilar people living with each other. I’m struck by how different they are, and most importantly, how much they dislike one another.

I’ve always wondered if there was a way to insist that people be nice to each other. A way of building unity and pleasantness into a society through a philosophy, or a set of ideals that everyone is pounded in by parents, taught in every grade of school, pushed through public service announcements, etc. Here’s a first attempt at capturing ideas that will go into such rules (which I’ll create properly later):

1. You should be pleasant to those who pass you on the street. Smile, give a greeting. Nod. Whatever. Do not ignore someone unless there is a reason (you’re on the phone, talking to someone else, etc.)

2. Speak quietly while in public. Whether on the phone or speaking with others, attempt to use a volume that will reach your audience and nobody else.

3. Smoking in public is extraordinarily rude. Smoke can be detected and cause annoyance hundreds of feet away, and going to the entrance of a building to do so will not help, as that’s the door for non-smokers as well.

4. Assume the best of others at all times.

5. A standard language.

6. Give people ample personal space in public. Do not crowd or rush them to gain advantage in some way. We are not competing here. We are cooperating.

7. When in public, be aware of those around you, and be willing to engage them in eye-contact, polite conversation, or a simple smile. Do not tune out to those around you because you consider them different than you or somehow unimportant.

8. The tenets above are behavior-based, and these metrics, i.e. how people treat each other, are the only grounds on which someone can be judged. Membership in our country/city/whatever is based on these concepts alone, and judging others negatively based on any other criteria will not be tolerated by our society.

9. A belief in education. Work is not enough. You must be educated in order to participate as a full citizen of an advanced society. The nuances of building a society, and the ability to filter bad information and avoid being manipulated all depend on education. The question is not whether you will do well in school, it’s which school you’ll do well in.

10. Others…

[ Not really sure about a couple of these... ]

Finally, and most importantly, the purpose of the charter is to say that if you can’t embrace these ideas you’re simply not welcome here (wherever the place is that embraces this). If you wish to be rude to others, think yourself separate and above interacting with those around you, or better than someone because of their race, religion, etc. — you simply can’t play in our sandbox.

And our sandbox will be the best one, because we’ll have the best people here from everywhere in the world. The only thing we’ll have in common is an agreement on the Constitution (think U.S.) and these core behavioral beliefs. These combined make us the most pleasant place to live, with the smartest people in the world clamoring to join the community.

We must end the Balkanization of our largest cities and countries. This is how to do it. Insist on cohesion and unity. Make it part of the identity of society.

::

I recently read perhaps the best book ever written on the American class system, and it set me to thinking quite a bit about the subject.

First, I put this together as a capture location for what I learned.

Then I began to process it. The concepts listed there are appealing to me for a very basic reason: I am obsessed with growing my ability to predict unseen behavior based on observed behavior. It’s modeling. Class models us, and to the extent that it does that accurately I am interested in it.

So that’s one piece.

Another angle to this, however, is what I ultimately find to be respectable in life, and this question doesn’t really have much to do with class. Namely, I value more than anything the exploration of our world, a pursuit of understanding, a respect for logic and reason, compassion for our fellow humans and creatures on this planet, and overall a sense of appreciation for the world and the fact that we’ve been given the privilege of living in it for a spell.

Many people at the bottom layers of “class” excel at this, and many at the top are fairly horrible individuals. In my mind, this class structure (how much you care about compassion and knowledge) is without question superior to the material class discussed in the book. It is true that the book does touch on some of these behaviors, but that’s not its main focus.

I suppose what I’m saying is that material class as discussed in the book is a means of anticipating additional behaviors, be they positive or negative, and I find that fascinating. Furthermore, those types of behaviors that are correlated with success or failure should be evangelized or looked down upon based on how they tend to manifest.

This is quite in line with The Moral Landscape, which promotes using science to help increase happiness and reduce suffering.

I’d like to come up with some sort of visual way of describing these various behaviors and traits in terms of their ultimate worth (in my view). Perhaps mapping the presence of books in the home to one thing, or the belief that the poor deserve to be poor as another. Or mapping the willingness to try exotic foods to education level, or the preference for sugary foods to salary.

Actually, that’s not quite it. That’s all within the realm of material (the book). I want to map those to the real class designations, i.e. caring for others, producing art or literature, producing tools for doing the above, etc.

This is all very interesting to me. I’m eager to hear your thoughts.

::

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via laurennicoleroth.tumblr.com

Thanks to Lauren for this link.

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This is the chart of the day — easily.

Notes

¹Source article.

Hasn’t read a book since grade school, check. Loves team sports, check. Loves Jesus, check. Groups and dislikes ethnic groups other than his/her own, check. Pretty standard, really.

Then I imagine how much suffering this person commonly endures. Low pay, low station in work, He doesn’t smile. He works three jobs for crap pay to barely afford rent and beer and cable. I wonder why it is that this person exists, and why it is that people think it’s normal and ok for him to create offspring with impunity. To me, he’s in pain and he’s bringing more of that pain into the world.

Lately I’ve been catching myself when thinking such things, and it’s rather unpleasant. Don’t I reject absolute free will? Doesn’t my belief system dictate that this person doesn’t have an option? Yes. Well, then what kind of idiot accepts this as truth and then still gets upset by watching dominoes fall? My kind, evidently.

I then ease myself into a much more healthy, empathic state of mind–one in which my ideas turn to offering help of some sort.

But on re-evaluation, I feel it’s ok to notice the insidious nature of poverty and ignorance. And it’s ok to observe and analyze the ways these things manifest in individuals and groups. But it’s only ok if the purpose is to learn about a problem and trying to fix it. It’s not ok to just stare and turn up one’s nose–or scowl, in my case.

So this is how I go through life looking at failures to live the good life of love guided by knowledge. I move unpredictably between the worlds of elitism and sympathy. I simultaneously want to identify, call out, and address these manifestations of ignorance and suffering, but I feel bad about even calling attention to it. So I’m left to act like a good San Francisco liberal and pretend the suffering taking place 20 miles away isn’t all that bad.

The places on the news are bad, but it’s ok for countless poor and ignorant people five minutes from me to barely speak the national language, toil their lives away doing physical work for minimum wage, waste most of their money on alcohol and lottery, and pine for a large family. That’s ok, right? Let’s not talk about that. No, let’s pretend those people don’t exist.

I want these people not to suffer, and I want them to stop creating more suffering. And I want people to realize that they’re here and that they’re not happy. Pregnant, working at McDonalds, with more kids at home, not speaking the language, with no education. I often feel like a criminal going through that drive through. Like I’m willfully participating in the illusion that there’s nothing wrong with that picture. It’s a fucking travesty. It’s a travesty that she lives that life, and that she’s likely creating more to live one just like it.

Seeing it makes me angry. Seeing it hurts me. I respond with disdain, but then I see how innocent and faultless this person is. She did nothing wrong and she has no options. She’s in pain because she rolled bad dice, and I’m in my nice car at the window because I got as lucky as she did unlucky.

Shame on me for being angry. Shame on me for noticing all the signs of her failure and lack of sophistication. She has those characteristics because she was unlucky, and I noticed them because I wasn’t. I don’t deserve anything good, and she doesn’t deserve anything bad.

It’s all luck. The prosperous are the fortunate; they are one and the same.

So all I have left is pity, but pity doesn’t spawn action. It spawns complacency and politically correct avoidance of problems.

I need to determine how it is that I can stay observant of the world, and notice it’s patterns of failure and suffering, while simultaneously maintaining my mentality of empathy and thankfulness.

I abhor those who fail to notice how destructive these lifestyles are, and how they propagate suffering throughout the world. But I dislike even more the guy who sees it and gets turned into a snob by the information. I have news for you, snob. You’re lucky and nothing else.

I am both of these people at different times. I’m mostly the compassionate one, but too often the haughty one, and I don’t like either. If you’re empathic and compassionate without seeing the cycle of pain this person is contributing to, then you’re part of the problem. And if you see the problem but don’t do anything but analyze the ways the person is beneath you then you’re just another delusional asshole sold on the concept of “deserving” something.

Don’t be either. Be better somehow. ::

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