On this page, I will link to my essays and give some ideas that I've had which might eventually evolve into essays. Here are links to the pages on my blog with the essays I've written:
And here are some ideas that I've had that may or may not become essays. Feel free to take any of them and write something of your own if you feel so moved. Chances are that I am not the first to think of any of these things, either, so if you can suggest something that I aught to read, then go ahead and .
Something on mentally solving numeric problems, but I'm not sure what exactly. Let me know if you have an idea of something that might be useful. I thought about writing up an explanation of how to calculate the day of the week for a given day, although there are already descriptions of different ways of doing that on the internet, so I'm not sure how useful it would be. (Basically, months are 28-31 days, or four weeks and 0-3 days depending on the month, and years are 365-366 days, or 52 weeks and 1-2 days depending on whether or not it is a leap year, and all methods flow from that. My reason for mentioning it isn't so much that I consider it to be useful knowledge in itself but, rather, to illustrate that many different things can be learned.
My technology essay was originally going to discuss the non-linear correlation between the development and resource usage of technology and the benefit brought by it, as some of the benefit becomes lost as people begin to treat resources as abundant and not work to conserve them. Computers provide an example of this, as disks being a thousand times larger than they were 15 years ago does not imply that a thousand times as many modern programs can be installed. It is probably along with lines of what Ivan Illich wrote about. However, as I started writing, some of the original material no longer fit.
When people disagree on things, they sometimes see the issue through different frames (to borrow George Lakoff's term). I'll use abortion as an example, where some people call themselves pro-life while others call themselves pro-choice. It is not a coincidence that these terms are not at all opposites but, rather, suggest emphasis of particular ideals. However, the terms "anti-choice" and "pro-abortion," terms sometimes used by those of one persuasion to describe the other, are opposite or close to opposite of pro-life and pro-choice, respectively. This indicates to me that the polarization is done in the frame rather than being a result of opposite values. When considering the values of people who do not agree with us, we often consider the difference from our own frame rather than from the frame of the person who disagrees with us. The terms "anti-choice" and "pro-abortion" arise from this sort of thinking. However, people who are pro-life will not consider themselves any more "anti-choice." than the average person. They would only say that they are against choices that result in lives being taken. Most people who are pro-choice would also hold that position but would probably have a different definition of what constitutes a life than a person who is pro-life. They consider a fetus to be a life separate from the mother, so they would not see themselves as opposed to the rights of women but, rather, as defendors of the rights of children yet unborn. Conversely, people who are pro-choice would not consider themselves "pro-abortion." They would object to that term because it would suggest that abortions should often be carried out, and this is not their position. They would argue that it is a difficult decision that should be left to individuals who know their own situations rather than decided for everyone by a government. When dealing with people who one disagrees with, it may be helpful to make an effort to understand the frame used by the other person. This may allow solutions to be found that respect the needs of all involved. The Search for Common Ground has done some good work along these lines. Thinking that a person is pro-war or a terrorist sympathizer is also a likely result of frame-based thinking since the person to whom the thought applies would not identify with the description or even recognize the frame to which it applies. Where else in life is frame-based thinking apparent? What are the consequences? How could we benefit by thinking differently, by expanding our consciousness so as to identify the frame and values of those we disagree with as those who specialize in conflict resolution would have us do?
We all have beliefs about all sorts of things. Usually the term "beliefs" refers to spiritual beliefs, but it can also refer to other things such as history or notions about what others think. Where do beliefs come from? We all choose to believe some things even though we do not have direct knowledge of them. If we did not, then our understanding would be much more limited since, for instance, we could not know anything about history, and not knowing history can be dangerous, since, as they say, we would be doomed to repeat it. So we wind up gaining ideas from sources such as family, clergy, teachers/professors, textbooks. We make decisions about who and what to trust for our information and form our beliefs based on such decisions. What are the consequences of this? What should we believe, and what shouldn't we? Ultimately we all need to decide that for ourselves.
There is a proverb that says that "sometimes there is silver at the end of a cloud." Often, when change is made and something is lost, it creates space for something new to be created, as conditions which would prevent the new state are no longer there. For instance, when dinosaurs died out, there may have been a reduction in the number of predators which may have allowed mammals to develop unmolested whereas they otherwise could not have. This principle can also apply to human experiences. For instance, in the present, I would not leave my job to move out of state since I do not wish to unnecessarily risk being unemployed for a long period of time. However, if I were laid off, then I would have the risk either way, so moving would not involve adding any extra risk. How does this apply to peak oil and sustainability? What lines of silver lie on the end of the clouds of peak oil and global warming?
Sometimes we end up using a non-optimal technology. Take the qwerty keyboard as an example. It was started so as to slow people down on typewriters that couldn't handle fast typists, and we became stuck with it. There are undoubtedly similar examples with implications for a sustinable future.
This may fit in with the discussion of frame-based thinking. We often focus on our differences rather than our similarities. There are many religions of the world, and we have often fought wars seemingly over religion even though the religions of both sides have much in common. Most religions, at their core, suggest the following of the Golden Rule, that we should treat others as we would want to be treated. I suspect that religion is often the prtext rather than the real reason for a war, but our interactions with people would be different, both on a personal and a global scale, if we sought common ground with people. We would see that, more often than not, we are much more similar than different.
Possibly write some fiction to take place in the future as I see it where we are dealing with the consequences of peak oil and environmental destruction. Have a character truying to help his/her family to cope and finding an ecovillage living sustainably (perhaps I should visit the ecovillage in Ithaca to get a description of it in order to realistically write about such an ecovillage). Somewhere in the novel or short story, have conversations about unselfish love and not judging people (perhaps one character being angry and judgmental of people in the past and working through that). Have all characters learn from each other to illustrate that everyone has something to give. Have a character with a disability who performs many tasks differently from the way that they are normally done, and have the group benefit somehow from this.
There are similarities between personal choices in handling resources (money) and social choices in handling resources. When things are going well for us economically, we may be tempted to start living a more expensive lifestyle, possibly moving into a bigger house and borrowing more under the assumption that our affluence will continue. We can also make the choice to save the extra. Like people with their money, societies go through periods of abundance and scarcity with their resources, and the choices that they make during their time of abundance will have profound effects in their time of scarcity. As Jared Diamond discusses in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, societies during a time of abundance often choose to expand, depleting their resources and growing their population to a point where the environment will no longer support it when the climate changes or resources that have not been used sustainably are depleted. Diamond asserts that societies often collapse very rapidly soon after peaking in population and organization. If this applies to our society, then it does not matter if the collapse seems implausible, as it would have also seemed implausible that past societies at their peak would veyr soon collapse. If our society collapses due to loss of resources, however, then each person having saved money will not do any good; it will only cause inflation, as too much money will be chasing after too few resources. So what we do on a societal scale is a much harder question. Given that we are not living sustainably and that our population is still growing, I do not plan on bringing any children into the world, since I think that it would exasperate problems that we must face in the future, and, besides, there are children looking to be adopted. We must focus our energies on learning to live sustainably so as to mitigate the turmoil that will come when resources become scarce, as they already are in many places.
When making a change, it is important to understand the consequences as much as possible. A system considered negative may have a hidden positive role. Removing a system that is in place can have unexpected negative consequences if the positive role played by the system is not replaced. This is especially important to remember for an outsider who may look at a system and see the negative but not the hidden positive. For instance, abortion is seen by may as a negative, but it does play the positive role of curbing overpopulation. If it is eliminated without any other changes being made to compensate, then population growth will increase, and, if not brought under control by benign methods, it will ultimately contribute to problems such as depletion of resources, famine (a with Tikopia in 1953) or conflict (as in Rwanda).
Much wisdom can be gained from books such as the Bible and the Koran. However, it is dangerous to assume that either of those are inerrant in containing the word of God, particularly because of the age of these texts. For one thing, at least in the case of the Bible (possibly also the Koran, but I am not really familiar with it), the original texts were written in Greek and Hebrew. They have been copied many times and translated. How do we know that alterations were not made? Also, not all scriptures have been included in the Bible (the Gospel of Thomas, for instance, was not); do we understand the motives for deciding what will or will not be part of the Bible? Are we sure? Another issue stems from the books having been written for a different culture from ours. A certain type of behavior may have been recommended for some reason that was relevant to the cultural of the time but not to today's culture. If scripture is read without understanding the motivation behind it, then what was originally a meaningful piece of advice can turn into an arbitrary thing that must be done in order to please God, show faith, and avoid eternal damnation with there no longer being any other explanation for it. When reading these texts, we must try to understand the cultural context as much as the scriptures themselves.
Both moral relativism and moral absolutism have their dangers that arise from our separate consciousness and consequent inability to see the consequences of our actions. If taking a relativist stance and allowing a normally reprehensible action because we feel that the ends justify the means, then there may be unforeseen consequences, especially if we neglect the rule to treat others as we would want to be treated. If we declare that we have the right to torture foreigners if we feel that it will improve our security but are not willing to allow our own citizens to be tortured in another country if that country feels that it would be beneficial to its security, then our hypocrisy will cost us credibility which might make it harder to accomplish other things in the future. In addition, in performing an action which would normally not be justifiable, we may send the message that it is justifiable in some cases and make it more likely that others will take the action with justifications that we may not approve of. The danger of moral absolutism lies in the lack of consideration of other values which we may neglect in the persuit of one absolute, and this neglect could cost us in the long term, even in protecting the absolute that we are ostensibly protecting. Unfortunately, I see no good answers other than to do as we can to move toward achieving universal consciousness.
Another fiction: one that takes place in a world where nearly everyone can communicate telepathically, but a few people can't, even though everyone has the five normal senses. It is difficult for the people with only the five senses because everything is done with the assumption that people can communicate telepathically. Employers do not want to hire these disabled people because then they would have to start communicating in a way that isn't telepathic. But, perhaps, some groups start doing that with the intention of accommodating ESP-impaired people, and it winds up somehoow benefiting the society?
Is the reason, or at least part of the reason, for all the problems in the cities, that it is less obvious how people might relate to each other when there are so many people around? In a village or a small town, there are a finite number of people, so each person matters more to the people immediately around her? (I aught to post this on Livejournal somewhere, sinc eI have only ever lived in a city or something like a city.)