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Google is offering kids the chance to have their drawing up as Google's logo for one day.

Here is the video for last year's contest.

---> The contest website is here.

I decided to get most of my news coverage today on the inauguration of president Barack Obama from foreign sources (over the internet). An outsider's perspective is often more accurate. I loved the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's coverage of the event - they had journalists stationed all around the world - in Japan, China, Africa, Russia, France and Britain - getting footage of folks' reactions to the event. I compared the look of poignancy and emotion on folks' faces in other countries to that of the people on the cold streets of Washington DC; the faces of foreigners seemed to show a more clear-minded and thoughtful attitude. The tears of joy were profound, and not muddied by the confusion and the conflicted feelings which stained the faces of the folks in Washington DC. The CBC also had a segment on the idea that the beginning of an Obama presidency marked a moment of "truce" in the "culture war" of the hyperbolic and unreasonable heated debates we have here in the usa. A truce! Imagine that! You would never see a usa media organization making that their big story of the day. You can't speak clearly about what you observe here in the usa, lest people get offended that you are being insensitive to the sanctity of the moment or boorish in regards to the feelings of others.

I also watched an hour or two of the New Zealand TV3's news coverage of the event. As I have mentioned on this blog, I have come to really admire new zealand. And the social dynamic which I appreciate there seems to be powered by the way the mass media there treats their subjects. They are focused on the idea of nurturing the people of new zealand. And the effect they have on their country's zeitgeist is marvelous. I really like the rational and meaty coverage of the canadian press better, personally - but I realize that it has kind of the opposite effect on the ordinary person up in Canada. A news organization drawing up a constant picture of the world which is full of dramatic doom and gloom is going to really weigh people's spirits down. And that's visible in canadian folks' attitudes. I honestly think that the mass media should treat events with a light touch. If people like me want fodder for their critical thought processes - they should be able to get that elsewhere - using the internet, for example.

I did have a strong reaction to the New Zealand coverage of the inauguration, however... and it's one which happened after a certain peculiar realization slowly dawned on me as I watched. The TV3 coverage was very two dimensional. They put the whole event into the overly simple narrative of the timeline of a country where african american slaves built the white house, to the civil rights movement, to today when an african american governs the nation in Washington DC. That may be a gentle and nurturing perspective for new zealanders to look at things within, but it ignores all the complexity of the things in the usa which create these social dynamics which go awry on an ongoing basis. Even though the news anchors weren't intending it - it seemed to be an awfully condescending perspective to put things into. New Zealand, in my estimation, is the one anglophone country which really has it together, in a way that Australia, Canada, the usa, Britain and India do not. There are four million people there. If they set their minds together to the task, they could really help folks in the usa develop a better society for themselves. But no... New Zealand is like an parent who neglects her kids to go off every night to fun social events... until years later her kid grows up and takes a wrong course in life, because of lack of that quality time and quality nurture which she or he needed.

Even when combing the internet daily, I rarely come across an insight spoken or written by a thinker which really prods me and makes me think. Most people who write are parroting some mainstream opinion or sentiment, and you can read the first sentence of a paragraph and already you know what the rest of the paragraph - or even the page - says. It's delightful to find this kind of insight. I often find them in the social commentary essays by "Paul Graham." And last night, I was taken by the words of a man by the name of "Derek Walcott"

Last night I was listening to radio new zealand over the net - and they were broadcasting a BBC program called "World Book Club." I got started about halfway through an extended interview with Derek Walcott.

One question was about something he had written in a book of his called "Omeros." He had said, "It is a crime to leave a man's hands empty." And the person asked him to explain what he had meant.

The scope of this man's reasoning astounded me. This was his (somewhat rambling) response:

In the slave ship they don't have any tools - obviously - so a sculptor (a carver) gets up and he has nothing to do with his hands; that's a penalty; that's a crime - a punishment, because there's an instinct to shape things in every human being. If you deprive the sculptor (the carver) of that instinct then he's technically dead, spirtitually dead. So that crime is a huge one in terms of removing the possibility of tools from an artist - which would make for instance the presence of a poem itself unrealizable. I couldn't write that line if I didn't have a pen. If the pen were taken from me, the thought would not be possible. And that is the punishment we're talking about. But of course, cultures do that. Entire cultures deprive people of expression - so you can't sing your native songs; you can't speak your native language. Consequently you can't write .... Now remember we know that black people can make slaves out of white people just as easily as white people can make slaves out of black people, it has happened - ok? So to deprive a race of utterance is the biggest crime you can do. Right? I mean that's why wars are fought.

So what he's saying is that he looks as it as one of the worst crimes against humanity to forbid people to have the tools they need to fulfill their own personal aspirations. And he goes further to say that this is one of the main causes of war around the globe - if outsiders or governments subjugate people to where they cannot become what they are according to their nature - the people will rebel and raise up arms. It's a fascinating perspective... and I agree with him wholeheartedly.

Another interesting thing I noted was that, in his judgement, to punish someone is a criminal act. He put those two words together as synonyms for eachother. I recognize this is true as well. And this premise of his shows that he's a very wise man, in my opinion.

• You can listen to the entire interview (until the BBC takes it down) here (mp3 audio file).

I think the term "inductive reasoning" is a misnomer - unless perhaps if you're a two year old. Generally, I believe that simple minded folks reason according to consensus, rather than according to induction. Induction is an important concept, but it doesn't have to do with reasoning, per se. Furthermore, those who pride themselves on their "logic" - are generally playing word games and idea games. They don't reason the issue through with all those details in their mind. They just write that way... and it's more about pressing their agenda, then it is about demonstrating how the system which they are describing actually works.

Indeed, induction, insomuch as it means "generalizing," is a very important tool to understand and to learn how to use.

Inducing is really a thing that has to do with making communication easier, and making the thought processes flow smoothly. It's not a reasoning method, as much as it is a tool for those two purposes.

Any critical thinker is careful about conscientiousness when drawing conclusions. It's unfair to accuse a critical thinker of jumping to conclusions or reasoning according to consensus just because he isn't expressing his ideas in a way you agree with, or in a way which is easy for you to understand.

People commonly use the historical event of the discovery of black swans to describe induction. However, back then it wouldn't have been the critical thinkers who were insisting that there never could exist a black swan. It would have been the general public who would have been insisting that. They were the ones who had to deal with fibbers and tellers of tall tales, and who generally would have had an ethic of reasoning according to consensus.

No one has the world of information in their minds at any one moment. The field of view in your mind is actually quite narrow at any given moment. So a very deep thinking person... who goes through many different topics over the course of the days months and years... is going to draw conclusions with the tool of induction being a part of that process. But every time he draws a conclusion, he will have a qualifier or two or three in mind. For example, he might think to himself, "If it is the case that I see x to be true in some other circumstance, then there will be an exception to my generalization."

• Graph of recent earthquakes

It would be a doozy if it were to happen (watch a bbc docudrama) - think hundreds of times what the eruption of mount st helens was.

If you'd rather have a textual assessment, rather than a video, here's a good few paragraphs by Cecil Adams about the scientific assessment of the yellowstone caldera.

And here's a bunch of nice graphs and stuff about what would happen in the event of a supervolcanic eruption at yellowstone.

It's not possible. ;-)

The bottom line is that the goal of a person like myself is to influence my society, and in order to have the most influence, the product has to be free. The only way a person can make money is with a good which is in scarce supply.

Furthermore, books are luxuries rather than necessities. And our Western society is a need based economy. People will always spend money liberally on what they need, and then become much more frugal when it comes to those things that they want.

This is the reason it's impossible to make a living as a writer, a photographer, an artist, a filmmaker, or a musician. Oh well.

I wrote a letter to the Obama transition committee about how we might change over to a luxury based economy - which I think would be much more fun. But it would require a very big rework of our economic systems.

Google wants to use some of its money to put a few really innovative ideas into motion which will change the world for the better. So they solicited for people to submit their best ideas along these lines for a contest. Now that the entry deadline is passed, I thought I might share with you readers my submission to the google 10 to the 100th project.

Briefly describe your idea

short Philosophy/entrepreneurship vocational school

medium Found a new kind of college/vocational school which caters to gifted students and puts an emphasis on philosophy and entrepreneurship.

long The field of philosophy in previous centuries encompassed all of intellectualism. In this first decade of the 21st century, all of its teachings have been relegated to one department at colleges and universities. And what people call "philosophy" today, is primarily a study of this ancient literature which these intellectuals of other eras wrote. I believe that this turn of events would break the heart of those ancient philosophers if they were around to see it. I would like to see a new form of community or vocational college instituted which would draw gifted young people - those who like to think independently and critically about things, those who look at the patterns of the world around them and seek to put the puzzles together themselves. I think that one could invite philosophy, art, music, and hi-tech professors from other colleges to become the entire teaching staff of this college. This college would take the montesorri ethic of primary schooling up a few notches to the college level. This college would teach entrepreneurial skills, such as how to start your own small internet business; it would teach web design, graphic design, and computer programming. It would teach public speaking skills. It would teach visual art, performance art, and music. All the avenues of communicating and seeking to employ new fresh, and exciting creative ideas would be explored by the curriculum. When young people graduated from this college, they would have the skills to know how to network socially to find others to work with and to find people to help fund their projects. They would have all the skills they need to start their own internet-based business without any capital, and pull in a reasonable income for themselves.

What problem are you trying to address?

The problem I see, is that gifted and intellectually oriented young people in the usa today are not well served by the typical college/university curriculum. To tell a person who has a passion for thinking critically and independently about things to sit down and absorb all the current models from a certain intellectual field, both correct and incorrect ones, and then regurgitate them in a multiple choice test is something such a young person balks at. History tells us of many innovative folks who were either home schooled or dropped out of formal education early on. Examples of such folks:

Thomas Edison

Henry Ford

Michael Faraday

George Washington

Walt Whitman

Wilbur Wright & Orville Wright

Walt Disney

Abraham Lincoln

Norman Rockwell

Andrew Carnegie

Christopher Columbus

Benjamin Franklin

I think the reason for this, is that traditional education techniques are not usually well suited to innovative thinkers.

Who would benefit?

Everyone would benefit. If you nurture and take care of gifted young people, more of them will come to fruition in their lives. They won't be stuck working seasonal jobs in order to reserve time for themselves to write and think. They won't become socially inept, in the way that many geniuses are known to be, today. They won't live their lives in poverty. They won't be handing out all their ideas over through their blogs/internet discussions for others to do, who actually have the resources - people who do not understand the ideas, and who end up implementing the notions poorly. If one takes care of this gifted segment of young people... then those people's ideas and insights will be given wings to go out and help the world, in much the same way as this 10¹ºº project is doing. Basically, I'm asking you to expand your project exponentially.

What initial steps would be done to set up the project?

• Gather funding
• Purchase or rent classroom space
• Send out a bulletin about this agenda to colleges across north america, asking for interested teachers and professors to submit resumes
• Have the philosophically-minded folks who respond to this invitation draw up a charter, and sketch out a vision for the school's mission
• Design a curriculum, considering (1) all the different types of students who would be interested in attending this kind of college. What would each group seek to get out of the experience, by the time they are finished at the school? and (2) the various skill sets of those who have been hired to work at the school.
• Explore ways of finding grant moneys and other financial-aid for students.
• Publicize this school broadly, and also specifically inform those in the private sector who would be interested in netting the students for employment once they are done with the program.

What would be the optimal outcome?

The optimal outcome would be that a school would be founded - first as a vocational institution... but eventually it would gain accreditation to give out standard Associate degrees. Like the Montesorri ethic of teaching children, this vision itself would catch on and become popular - and would spawn many other new colleges around the world which would have this same ethic and vision of catering to this specific set of gifted young people in a similar manner. The students from the program, after they graduate, would form organizations which allow them to draw on each other's skills, and work on projects together. They would each go on to live up to their own aspirations. Some would go on to traditional four year universities.

This is a letter sent to the Obama transition team in december of 2008. I've decided to publish it here as well - because I would like to share the insight I had, with a wider audience.

A luxury-based economy.

There is a serious problem in our economic system which is ingrained in all the Western nations. The problem is that our economies and market forces are largely guided by the fact that people spend money on what they need, and spend a lot less money on what they want. This means that there is more money in jobs which are boring and tedious, and unfulfilling. People work their whole lives at the auto factory, or at the coal mine, or at the pulp mill. Meanwhile those who set about trying to make music, or create film, or do performing art, or write for a living barely scrape by. So, ironically the things which make our world a great place to live are things which people don't support with their money.

There is a way to change this whole dynamic. And that would be for us in our communities to set up a system whereby certain needs are taken care of for free. One area where we have already accomplished this is clothing. Given the incredible expansion of manufacturing overseas in the past several decades, today anyone with a good eye can pick up things here and there over time at thrift stores and garage sales... and her or his clothing budget can be next to nothing. The other two main needs which I would like to see met in a similar manner are food and housing.

If everybody had their basic needs met for free - they would have time to spend developing new skills, and they would start working in trades doing what they were most fond of doing, and spending their money on all these things which are considered luxuries, today. They would travel, they would buy electronic equipment, they would purchase books, they would go to ballets, and operas. In this manner, the economy would shift from a needs-based economy to a luxury-based economy. And everybody in the country could spend their lives working in professions which were much more fulfilling and exciting - and which gave their lives meaning.

Now, I don't think explicit government-socialist programs are the most efficient way to create this kind of a change... although that might work to a certain degree. It would better to think about how our society could accomplish these things from the bottom up rather than the top down. The way forward would be to gather people from agriculture, and those who are landlords and ask them what they think could be done to achieve these goals.

I hope this idea isn't brushed off by the person who reads it as being hopelessly utopian. I think that anyone who is an elected representative of the people should be thinking about ways to see that the people are nurtured better. It's unfortunate that the left-wing over the past several decades has allowed its ideals and agendas to be conflated with the policies of such nations as the Soviet Union. There's a vast difference here. A good metaphor for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his policies would be a gardener who goes about giving the plants their basic needs - water, sunlight, and fertilizer... and who in this way helps each plant to grow up and bear fruit, and become what it is according to its nature. The soviet union, and to a lesser degree China, are countries where the gardener goes about tying up each plant and trying to get them to grow in ways which are against their nature.

It's interesting to watch how my writing style has developed on internet discussion boards over the past few years. I've developed a rhythm which helps me to attract other people to talk with, and allows me to have long in depth conversations with them.

The first thing, of course, that one has to recognize - is that different sites have different levels of foot traffic coming by. I love websites where you can have an in depth conversation over the course of a few hours of posting back and forth with people. At most discussion boards it takes weeks or even months to complete a single conversation. That's really unworkable, I think.

I'm thinking about starting a discussion board of my own. And I'm calling it a "mail and reader" - because it will no doubt be more like that - a place for intellectuals to exchange ideas back and forth, sporadically as if by mail; and of course other folks who walk by, can read the conversations. I'm still not sure I want to take the responsibilities of moderating a forum onto my shoulders. But I have yet to find an ideal place to chat with folks on the net. There's always a drawback that makes it hard. And I've been vigorously participating on web discussion boards for several years now. It'd be nice to have my own site, where I can set the parameters. Ideally, I think internet discussion boards ought to be moderated by the participants themselves - wikipedia style. But no one has created that kind of software yet. If no one else jumps on it over the next couple of years, I might have to create it myself.

The second thing that's important, is that it's good to challenge people. Challenge the mainstream opinion on an issue. Question the background behind someone's attitude, if you find it disagreeable. If you fish for responses in this way, you'll have more and faster paced conversations and you will have more opportunity to write. You'll get a lot more airtime for your opinions on a board, if you seek to correct diagreeable people. And it is a lot like the boat fishing which my family used to do on the lake on which our cabin was. We used to troll for fish. And one basically did nothing - sitting there for tens of minutes or even hours - waiting for a fish to take the bait on the line. You have to interject ideas into lots of different conversations, and then have a system (possibly with bookmarks) where you go through and check all your lines to see if you have a response anywhere. "Trolling" is a fascinating concept on the internet. Please don't giggle too much as you trip over eachother to comment, pointing out the similarities between my fishing allusion, and what folks on the internet decry as being odious.

There's something nice about anonymity on the internet, too. Since the dawn of literature, there have been certain topics which are taboo or controversial, which can be best discussed anonymously. These things can get people really riled up and upset. But, it's important for social progress that we talk about these issues completely and thoroughly, and allow others to put forth new models and outside-the-box appraisals about these things. Throughout even the past few hundred years of Western history there have been big public controversies over child labor, slavery, whether the earth was flat, the substances sold as food before the FDA was created (in the usa), homosexuality, communism, death. And in each of these cases, in order for the issue to be resolved, and healthy public policies to be put in place, you had to have free and open discussion about the topics. The internet has made this much easier recently, because of its tradition of anonymous public speech.

It's important to have a passion about the topic you're discussing. Although, when writing in a fit of passion, it is sometimes important to sit and look at what you're about to post, to see whether it needs to be rewritten so that it has the impact and the influence on the discussion that you intend it to have.

The most important thing I have found, is that one needs to have sincere caring about the other people in the discussion... and about the issue being discussed. If you are going to correct a troublemaker... you need to be working on behalf of her or his personal interests. And throughout the course of your conversation with that person, she needs to be able to see that (although many times she will not admit it).

The basic rhythm I've found in my in depth discussions is that deep conversations on the net is kind of like playing tennis (although in slow motion). You are sending the ball back and forth over the net. When the ball is in your court, you have the opportunity to reframe the discussion - to offer a different perspective on the issue (and optionally, you can also deconstruct your partner's motivations or try to discern the background which makes her or him write in that way). The person who can contextualize the issue the most thoroughly and most convincingly will win the debate.