I‘ve just updated my Tables of Contents (at top left), and realized that some of my categories have begun to slop together. My business writing is often about business weblogs and social software, and I’m not sure if that belongs in the ‘Business Papers’, ‘Science & Technology’ or ‘Blogs & Blogging’ category. My ‘Environmental Philosophy’ posts often encroach into ‘Politics and Economics’. And do my book summaries (they’re not really reviews) that include my own rambling perspectives belong in ‘Arts & Literature’ or (since the books are often political) in ‘Politics & Economics’ ? Such is the nature of taxonomy, and it points out the futility of the efforts and dreams of some bloggers to create some kind of universal ontology or taxonomy around the whole blogosphere. Won’t work, guys. Learn to appreciate complexity. That’s why Google still rules.
This post is to let my patient readers know where I think I’m going with How to Save the World. About a month ago I listed topics I was thinking of writing about, and asked for advice on priorities. Based on your preferences, I wrote eight articles, and gave up after zealous false starts on a few others (the argument for decentralization of business, for example, is something that interests me but is a nightmare to articulate or even make a compelling case for, as decentralized businesses seem to be struggling more than most these days). I’ve decided it’s time to make a start on my book, tentatively called The World That Could Be. It will likely consist of a 100 page novella about a Utopian future (a dramatized version of what consultants call a Future State or what change managers now call an Invented Story), followed by a roughly 50-page quasi-‘Instruction Book’ (drawing from several of my ‘signature’ ‘Environmental Philosophy’ posts on New Collaborative Enterprises and Post-Capitalist Economics) explaining how that Utopian state might practicably be reached. No more preaching environmental philosophy, it’s time for vision and action. If you’re going to dream, dream big. I’m also going to put some structure around the Social Network Enablement and Social Software posts in my ‘Business Papers’ category, drawing about ten articles (some still to come) into a logical series. I have already granted two universities and a magazine permission to republish them, so it’s clearly time to organize them into something cohesive. Business Innovation and Knowledge Management, two other major threads of my ‘Business Papers’ category, will continue to have irregular but lengthy posts. There is much being written on these subjects, but, from what I can glean, precious little actually being implemented. I was recently credited as an ‘Idea Practitioner’ in Davenport and Prusak’s new book What’s The Big Idea, and have been invited to participate in a KM study for the European Commission, but haven’t blogged on either because, damn it, I want to proffer practical advice that business can actually use, and there’s far too little of that going around. Now that my first stab at co-editing VO is complete, new ‘Creative Works’ will probably await news of whether my short story The Box has been accepted for publication. The latest issue of the literary journal to which I submitted it has been mysteriously delayed. But to show I bear no grudge, I will promote the journal as soon as it comes out even if it is Box-less. That might get me writing fiction again, either way. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m no quitter. In any case look for more articles on the writer’s art. Those who can’t do, teach. I have quietly been building a website for my high school graduating class (1969, yes, I’m ancient) in an invisible category of How to Save the World, and am contemplating setting up another, more visible one for Salon bloggers’ recipes, if there is interest. Is there? My ‘Blogs & Blogging’ category has always been inexplicably popular, so if I can figure out anything new and intelligent to say on that subject, I will post more. Ideas are welcome. As for ‘Politics & Economics’, I’m discouraged. There are some very fine political writers in the blogosphere (my blogroll has more political bloggers than any other category, too many in fact to keep up with). Being a Canadian, I feel out of the loop and completely unable to understand the continuing popularity of Bush. All that hasn’t stopped me from expressing my uninformed and clumsy political opinions thus far, but you’ll notice I’ve been more coy recently. There are others that simply do a better job of it than I, including quite a few of the Salon bloggers on my blogroll at left. My hat goes off to you, for your skill, your passion, and your dedication to the vital task of ridding America and the world of the undeserving and dangerous idiot who stole your highest office. Filling in the spaces, especially on weekends, will be shorter, lighter fare, on whatever takes my fancy — travel, science, literature, film, music, photographs, and educational and whimsical posts on important subjects like ecological taxation and being good to yourself, as well as other subjects I know just a little about, but hope to learn more about by exposing you, kind reader, to my endlessly staggering ignorance and unfathomable conceit. Thank you for your patience as I figure it out. |
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Collapse Watch:
Hope — On the Balance of Probabilities
The Caste War for the Dregs
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How Do We Teach the Critical Skills
Collapse Not Apocalypse
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Post Collapse with Michael Dowd (video)
Why Economic Collapse Will Precede Climate Collapse
Being Adaptable: A Reminder List
A Culture of Fear
What Will It Take?
A Future Without Us
Dean Walker Interview (video)
The Mushroom at the End of the World
What Would It Take To Live Sustainably?
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Beyond Belief
Complexity and Collapse
Requiem for a Species
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What a Desolated Earth Looks Like
If We Had a Better Story...
Giving Up on Environmentalism
The Hard Part is Finding People Who Care
Going Vegan
The Dark & Gathering Sameness of the World
The End of Philosophy
A Short History of Progress
The Boiling Frog
Our Culture / Ourselves:
A CoVid-19 Recap
What It Means to be Human
A Culture Built on Wrong Models
Understanding Conservatives
Our Unique Capacity for Hatred
Not Meant to Govern Each Other
The Humanist Trap
Credulous
Amazing What People Get Used To
My Reluctant Misanthropy
The Dawn of Everything
Species Shame
Why Misinformation Doesn't Work
The Lab-Leak Hypothesis
The Right to Die
CoVid-19: Go for Zero
Pollard's Laws
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The Process of Self-Organization
The Tragic Spread of Misinformation
A Better Way to Work
The Needs of the Moment
Ask Yourself This
What to Believe Now?
Rogue Primate
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True Story
May I Ask a Question?
Cultural Acedia: When We Can No Longer Care
Useless Advice
Several Short Sentences About Learning
Why I Don't Want to Hear Your Story
A Harvest of Myths
The Qualities of a Great Story
The Trouble With Stories
A Model of Identity & Community
Not Ready to Do What's Needed
A Culture of Dependence
So What's Next
Ten Things to Do When You're Feeling Hopeless
No Use to the World Broken
Living in Another World
Does Language Restrict What We Can Think?
The Value of Conversation Manifesto Nobody Knows Anything
If I Only Had 37 Days
The Only Life We Know
A Long Way Down
No Noble Savages
Figments of Reality
Too Far Ahead
Learning From Nature
The Rogue Animal
How the World Really Works:
Making Sense of Scents
An Age of Wonder
The Truth About Ukraine
Navigating Complexity
The Supply Chain Problem
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Too Dumb to Take Care of Ourselves
Extinction Capitalism
Homeless
Republicans Slide Into Fascism
All the Things I Was Wrong About
Several Short Sentences About Sharks
How Change Happens
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The Perpetual Growth Machine
We Make Zero
How Long We've Been Around (graphic)
If You Wanted to Sabotage the Elections
Collective Intelligence & Complexity
Ten Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier
The Problem With Systems
Against Hope (Video)
The Admission of Necessary Ignorance
Several Short Sentences About Jellyfish
Loren Eiseley, in Verse
A Synopsis of 'Finding the Sweet Spot'
Learning from Indigenous Cultures
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The Job of the Media
The Wal-Mart Dilemma
The Illusion of the Separate Self, and Free Will:
No Free Will, No Freedom
The Other Side of 'No Me'
This Body Takes Me For a Walk
The Only One Who Really Knew Me
No Free Will — Fightin' Words
The Paradox of the Self
A Radical Non-Duality FAQ
What We Think We Know
Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark
Healing From Ourselves
The Entanglement Hypothesis
Nothing Needs to Happen
Nothing to Say About This
What I Wanted to Believe
A Continuous Reassemblage of Meaning
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A Different Kind of Animal
Happy Now?
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Did Early Humans Have Selves?
Nothing On Offer Here
Even Simpler and More Hopeless Than That
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Yikes! Categories scare me. Much easier to dump everything into the same sludge pile and forget about it. Just call me emphemeral…
Regarding your difficulties with categorization and the dilemma of whether something belongs in A or in B…Why not both?
Mark: See, that all depends on your personal organizing style, and of course it has to be respected. Bet your desktop is something to behold ;-)Frank: That’s what I’m doing now, but I keep thinking that people that subscribe to only two of my categories and find duplicate posts will be unhappy with that. And the way Radio saves stuff, it takes up more space on the server, too.
Love the content in your :environmental philosophy category. BTW – Have you read the textbook “Environmental Psychology”yet?
Check out facet classification, it will solve your taxonomy problem. I have no idea if there is any blog server supporting it.http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/ranganathan_for_ias.phphttp://iawiki.net/FacetedClassification
Kara: Thanks. As you may have ascertained from my blog, I’m not a big fan of psychology of any flavour. Tell me who the author is, and I’ll take a look though. If I don’t post as much on this while I work on the book, will that be a problem? Is there some aspect of my Environmental Philosophy that begs more elaboration?
Bart: The examples seem too simplistic, and I couldn’t get the self-test to work. I confess I’m skeptical — I’ve worked in this area a long time, and lots of things make sense in theory (natural language search engines in particular) but seem to fail the acid test when the subject matter gets very complex and maddeningly human ;-)
Environmental PsychologyPaul A. Bell Andrew Baum, Jeffrey D. Fisher, Thomas C. GreeneGood Book!
Have you read Ecotopia?
Dave: The faceted classification boils down to the fact that you can assign multiple categories to every information item. This solves the problem of creating categories which don’t overlap.It’s great for the user who wants to search something using categories because he doesn’t have to be afraid that he searched withing the wrong category.MT is already supporting multiple categories, although it’s not yet perfect.