Sunday Open Thread – March 4, 2009

Posted on March 4, 2007 by Dave Pollard

What I’m planning on writing about soon:

What a Fair Tax System Might Look Like: Taxing bads (to discourage socially and environmentally destructive behaviour) and excess wealth (to remedy the dire consequences of gross inequality): A tax system with a purpose other than funding war and corporatist handouts.
The Fourth Turning: The coming era of repression and violent reactionary tyranny? (I gave away my copy of the book, so this one will have to wait until I pick up a new copy).
Religion as a Form of Slavery: The God Delusion and all that. And technophilia as the fastest growing religion of them all.
Finding & Working With Others to Save the World: Ways to enable billions to sync with us, on their own terms, in their own context, developing their own plan of action, and then to connect and collaborate in powerful ways, in experiments and in creating and refining working models in their own self-selected Earth-stewarding intentional communities, so that they no longer need the systems that are destroying our world.
The ‘M’ word: One of the last taboos to talk or write about.
Controlling one’s temper in the face of provocation.
Do our frames enable independent thinking or preclude us from thinking objectively?

What I’m thinking about:

How we can increase our resilience, and our energy level. So many things, events and people in the modern world are exhausting (physically, emotionally, intellectually) or distracting, or simply diluting of one’s attention and energy, so that there’s not enough of either to focus on “doing one or two things really well” and not enough time or enthusiasm left at the end of the day to push a few more important projects a step forward. I sense that more collaboration (“many hands make light work”) is part of the answer, but probably not enough. I’m also concerned that so many of us trying to make the world a better place are still working alone.

What’s keeping you awake this week?

Image above is from the New Yorker’s weekly cartoon caption contest, drawn byTom Cheney. Some cartoons are so great they don’t even need a caption. Buy his stuff at Cartoon Bank.

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7 Responses to Sunday Open Thread – March 4, 2009

Robert 'Groby' Blum says:

March 4, 2007 at 17:05

The ‘M’ word might be a taboo for your generation. (Hey, I’m not the one calling it the “M word” and then referring to a Cyndi Lauper song!). As far as I can tell, masturbation is not a taboo once your 35 or lower…. In fact, it is a topic for a few relatively long running Internet jokes now. See http://www.ceilingcat.com/ as well as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:God-kills-kitten.jpg and http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/Letgodmasturbate.jpg
Dave Snowden says:

March 4, 2007 at 17:45

If you are going to deal with Dawkins then you might want to look at the following blogshttp://thinkingmeat.com/newsblog/?p=699 http://thinkingmeat.com/newsblog/?p=697 http://theobvious.typepad.com/blog/2007/02/the_boss_delusi.htmlI fear from your title that you are about to pass down the same route as others …
lugon says:

March 5, 2007 at 07:57

“I’m also concerned that so many of us trying to make the world a better place are still working alone.” We need to think about that one. We need apropriate technology how-tos, social how-tos (open space, some kind of open lateral thinking tools), complementary currency how-tos … and then just use them. I’m starting to half imagine how we refocus our strength from sustainability into resilience (as a path towards sustainability) and use whatever is available now. I can even imagine a set of tools that work equally well for survival, resilience and sustainability. You start using them in a summer or weekend camp (as a fun thing to learn), and then use them in your free time, and then when you’re without a job, and then you just stay there. How fast can we go, once we have the tools? It will be viral and grassroots. It will take *us* by surprise.
Mariella says:

March 5, 2007 at 18:13

About frames : I guess both…. the more rigid the frame, the more limitant. Frames made of beliefs hold as truths… only see the objectiveness of what that truth allows … I would like to have loose frames, … ever changing, flexible, adapting to everyday news… ¿would that be healthy? I don´t know…. maybe frames are needed to be able to belong somewhere.
lugon says:

March 8, 2007 at 05:32

Someone talked about frames that make us slaves (such as cages) and frames that allow us to do more things (such as ladders). We may need to treat frames as objects of design.
Dave Pollard says:

March 11, 2007 at 10:08

Robert: It seems to me that your online examples, and the apparent need of people to giggle like a schoolgirl about the subject, indicates that the taboo is just as entrenched as ever. Dave: I have a habit of passing down different logically fallacious routes from others’. I look forward to your blog article on the subject, and your comments on mine (probably late this coming week). I agree with your points on Euan’s and Mary’s blogs, BTW, but I’m not a fan of the use of the ‘moral’ adjectives of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to make arguments; there are always better and less slippery adjectives. My argument will be that organized religion is all cult, as is the wistful technophilia so in vogue today, and that because it discourages people from thinking for themselves it is all detestable. Preemptive criticism welcome.Lugon, Mariella: Interesting thoughts, which I’ll take to heart in my posts. Thanks.
Robert 'Groby' Blum says:

March 18, 2007 at 21:02

Hm. So if you can make fun of something, it’s a taboo? That’s an interesting way to look at it, I suppose… From Wikipedia: “A taboo is a strong social prohibition (or ban) against words, objects, actions, discussions, or people that are considered undesirable by a group, culture, or society”. (No, not appeal to authority. Just looking for a concise definition of the word that coincides with my use of it)I’d posit that at least the culture of under-35 year olds doesn’t consider masturbation undesirable in any way. They’re comfortable enough with it to openly joke about it. They talk about it – and not always to “giggle like a schoolgirl”.