Why You’ve Never Been In A Plane Crash

How the authorities choose to handle such a mistake says a lot about our society’s conceptions of justice, culpability, agency, empathy, and even vengeance, because the moral dilemma of what to do about Robin Wascher exists as a struggle between diverging values and, in fact, diverging value systems, rooted in the relative prioritization of individual and systemic responsibility.

Cutting straight to the case, Wascher was not punished in any way. At first, after being escorted, inconsolable, from the tower premises, her colleagues took her to a hotel and stood guard outside her room to keep the media at bay. Months later, Wascher testified before the NTSB hearings, providing a faithful and earnest recounting of the events as she recalled them. She was even given the opportunity to return to the control tower, but she declined. No one was ever charged with a crime. 

As the aviation industry has learned through hard-won experience, that’s usually how it should be.

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It’s often much more productive to ask why than to ask who. In some industries, this is called a “blameless postmortem,” and in aviation, it’s a long-standing, internationally formalized tradition. In the mid-20th century, when technical investigations of aircraft accidents were first being standardized, an understanding emerged that many crashes were not the result of any particular person’s actions. Most famously, in 1956, the Civil Aeronautics Board’s Bureau of Aviation Safety, the predecessor to today’s NTSB, concluded that no one was at fault in a collision of two airliners over the Grand Canyon because the two crews likely could not have seen each other coming until it was too late. The cause of the accident, they determined, was the lack of any positive means to prevent midair collisions. 

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If 35 people can die because a single controller made a single mistake, that’s not a system in which we can place our trust. Humans are fallible creatures who make poor decisions, misinterpret data, and forget things. In a system where lives may depend on the accuracy of a single person, disaster is not only probable but, given enough time, inevitable. Barring cases of anomalous recklessness or incompetence, it won’t matter who is sitting in the controller’s chair when the collision happens. And the only way to fix such a system is to end the reliance on individuals by putting in place safeguards against error.

- More Here

Meta Value - 19

I avoid using the word "they".

Kevin Kelly puts it eloquently:

Trust me: There is no “them”.

That is the point of these meta values; I try to make them innate. Do whatever you can in your lifetime without outsourcing (and worse just debating and talking) - to reduce pain and suffering. 

The FDA Modernization Act & Alternative To Animal Testing

It takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal.

- Joaquin Phoenix

It's legal to torture animals, inject them with cancer and zillions of other diseases for the lifestyle choices humans make. 

Understand - dogs like Neo, cats like Fluffy and Garph are also tortured as part of this legality. 

This is the world we live in where "pursuit of happiness" is part of the declaration of independence. 

In 2024 even this FDA Modernization Act doesn't ban this legal torture but wants to reduce it (good step for sure). 

Animal testing doesn't work. To be clear to most humans who don't care about animals - these drugs don't cure you and it is harmful to you since testing was not done apples to apples (don’t trust me? read the side effects of every medicine we have under the sun) 

So why are we testing on animals? In Bill Clinton's famous phrase - because they can. 

Nobody gives a fuck about animals. But I am sure you give a fuck about you and your family so this is not good for you. Plus bad for shareholders too. 

I lost Max to cancer and my favorite Oncologist Azra Raza lost her husband to cancer. I read her a book few months after Max passed away (three part post here, here & here) and had a huge emotional impact on me. 

Now Dr. Pandora Pound sets out an argument against animal testing in here new book Rat Trap: The Capture of Medicine by Animal Research - and How to Break Free:

Like most people, I have friends and family who have suffered – or are suffering – from a common condition for which there is no known cure. Given that we are so technologically advanced – we can send people into space for months at a time! – why have we been unable to make significant inroads into our most common diseases? Why are there so few options for people with stroke and Alzheimer’s disease (AD)? Why, for some cancers, are we still using the same toxic drugs we used 50 years ago? 

At the beginning of her career in the 1970s, Azra Raza, from the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University, treated acute myeloid leukemia patients with a toxic combination of drugs known as “7+3.” All she has to offer them today is the same noxious cocktail.

What went wrong? Why are the billions of dollars we pour into research not coming up with the goods? Well, let me share the argument I set out in Rat Trap: The Capture of Medicine by Animal Research - and How to Break Free. In short, I believe that much of the problem can be blamed on our reliance on animal models. Experiments on animals are justified on the basis that they produce benefits for humans, but can we honestly say – after decades of research using animal models of human diseases – that we have really benefited? 

Of course, there are cases in which animal use has been associated with medical progress, but surely a successful paradigm needs to get it right reliably and consistently. We often hear that 90 percent of drugs tested for safety and efficacy in animals go on to fail when tested in humans. But in some areas, the failure rate is even higher (it’s closer to 100 percent for stroke and AD, while for traumatic brain injury it is 100 percent) – and that’s after 70 years of trying. Animal models are simply not good at generating effective drugs for humans. Nor are animal tests able to reliably ensure the safety of medicine. If a test shows that a drug is not toxic in an animal, there is no guarantee that the results will be reflected in humans.

As 2022 drew to a close, President Biden signed into law the FDA Modernization Act, replacing a 1938 Act that mandated that all new drugs be tested on animals. In other words, the FDA is now able to consider data obtained from a wide range of research methodologies, including human cell-based approaches, such as organoids and organs-on-a-chip, in silico modeling, and AI. The new law doesn’t ban the use of animals, but it does recognize the limitations of relying on them in drug discovery and development. Organ chips can outperform animal tests in detecting drugs that will be toxic to humans, and experts claim they are capable of doing things that animal models have never been – and never will be – able to do. US companies now have the freedom to choose whatever method they consider most scientifically appropriate when developing and testing their new drugs.

[---]

Now that the US regulator has acted, perhaps others, such as the EMA, will follow suit. There is certainly a great desire for change within Europe. In 2021, the European Parliament voted by a staggering 667:4 in favor of an EU-wide plan to phase out the use of animals in experiments. But if regulators don’t take the hint, perhaps shareholders will force change. Whether motivated by a desire to invest in ethical companies or companies that deliver greater profits, shareholders will find much to interest them in biotech companies that are developing human biology-based approaches. Such companies, by focusing on technologies that are directly relevant to humans, are likely to provide benefits to patients, improve public health, avoid harm to animals, and deliver larger dividends to shareholders. 

I want to see this legal torture end before I die but I don't want to be alive with the assistance of the drugs developed from this legalized torture. 

Sleeping Beauties Of Science

Many scientific papers receive little attention initially but become highly cited years later. What groundbreaking discoveries might have already been made, and how can we uncover them faster?

The scientific literature is vast. No individual human can fully know all the published research findings, even within a single field of science. Regardless of how much time a scientist spends reading the literature, there’ll always be what the information scientist Don Swanson called ‘undiscovered public knowledge’: knowledge that exists and is published somewhere, but still remains largely unknown.

Some scientific papers receive very little attention after their publication – some, indeed, receive no attention whatsoever. Others, though, can languish with few citations for years or decades, but are eventually rediscovered and become highly cited. These are the so-called ‘sleeping beauties’ of science.

The reasons for their hibernation vary. Sometimes it is because contemporaneous scientists lack the tools or practical technology to test the idea. Other times, the scientific community does not understand or appreciate what has been discovered, perhaps because of a lack of theory. Yet other times it’s a more sublunary reason: the paper is simply published somewhere obscure and it never makes its way to the right readers.

What can sleeping beauties tell us about how science works? How do we rediscover information the scientific body of knowledge already contains but that is not widely known? Is it possible that, if we could understand sleeping beauties in a more systematic way, we might be able to accelerate scientific progress? 

[---]

Indeed, one of the most famous physics papers, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen (EPR)’s ‘Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?’ (1935) is a classic example of a sleeping beauty. It’s number 14 on one list that quantifies sleeping beauties by how long they slept and how many citations they suddenly accrued.

The EPR paper questioned whether quantum mechanics could truly describe physical reality. The stumbling block was the phenomenon of ‘quantum entanglement’, where two quantum particles have a history of previous interaction and remain connected in such a way that means any measurement of a property of one of them influences that property in the other, regardless of how far away from each other they are.

[---]

The first is Karl Pearson’s 1901 paper ‘On Lines and Planes of Closest Fit to Systems of Points in Space’. It looks like a classic case of a sleeping beauty: it was published in a primarily philosophical outlet with the rather unwieldy name of The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, and seems to have slept soundly for a whole century, only being fully awakened in 2002 with a huge surge of citations.

It’s certainly true that the twenty-first century brought with it many more ways to use Pearson’s 1901 insights. What he had described was what eventually became the statistical workhorse known as principal components analysis (PCA) – which became particularly useful after the advent of digital ‘big data’ to discover patterns and summarize large, unwieldy datasets in a smaller number of variables. But even without those datasets, the technique of PCA itself was well used across the entire twenty-first century, from psychology to palaeontology.

It’s hard to say why the 1901 paper suddenly started being cited around 2002 – the explanation could be pure luck and social dynamics, with one study happening to cite it and others following suit – but it wasn’t because PCA, which by that point was taught in every basic statistics course, had been ‘rediscovered’.

- Lost Science

Against Nostalgia!

Two funny and insightful tweets unpacking why I am against nostalgia. 

- via here

And this is my life when I eradicated nostalgia; without extraordinary effort, I let time lead me to grow and change with it: 

- via here

 

Meta Values - 18

 I know too many morons who spend their life to make a unique creative mark in their life. 

What those morons don't understand is that creativity is a continuous process over generations. 

I cannot write a novel without the idea of nonfiction being seeded and going back in time - alphabet's.  Whoever created idea of non-fiction needed the concept of alphabets and before that a way of communication. 

Even Darwin had to depend on a boat, the concept of latitude to navigate and captain/sailors to bring us the most important creative book - Origin of Species. These morons are no Darwin (just because they can draw, create music or write - it's just another talent like cleaning toilet properly is a talent)

Misinterpretation of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self Reliance is has spread like a plague (morons don't know the seeds were laid by in that book) 

I am so negative because the easiest way to be more creative is not to be these morons. 

So my creative process is that I don't search for new ideas. I read, write, listen, talk, observe and act on everything under the sun. And one day, an insight comes out of nowhere. I don't give a crap if its "creative" enough as long as its actionable and has a good impact on all living beings. 

The biggest compliment I get is when another person I shared an insight with forgets that I shared the insight with them. And one of these days in the middle of the conversation they tell me causally how their thought process about a particular issue or just their new normal is based on that insight I shared. 

They don't recognize me and I don't care. What matters is they are a little better now and the world is a little better. 

I am grateful they listened to me and put up with me. And that’s that. 

How To Love An Oyster

While sapiens destroy a beautiful species in name of appetizers; once again sheer hard work few good humans might help Oysters: 

And you pretty much have to be a zealot to love an oyster. Just about anyone can fall for a whale. A select few might grow fond of an octopus. An oyster, immobile and nearly brainless, is hardly even an animal, despite what the taxonomists tell us. Some plants possess more personality: They sport showy flowers, fuzzy leaves, colorful fruits. They grow and change with the seasons, luring in pollinators and herbivores. Loving an oyster is like loving a rock. And a person who advertises their love of Olys is like that insufferable friend who rides around town on a fixed-gear bicycle and listens to bands you can’t stream on Spotify.

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These researchers are all conducting objective, rigorous science. But it’s clear they’re also gunning for a particular outcome: proving to their families, their friends, and the rest of the world that the invertebrate indie band they care so much about is worth the trouble.

“This species has a PR problem for sure,” admits April Ridlon, past coordinator of the Native Olympia Oyster Collaborative who’s now with the Monterey Bay Aquarium. “I think it’s hard for people to envision that these things are even alive.” At the very least, she says, we need to know what we will lose if these oysters vanish and what we might gain if we succeed in bringing them back.

When oyster populations are healthy, they spread billions of microscopic larvae that drift and sway with the currents before rooting themselves on terra firma, where they clean the water of detritus—including algae that they magically transform into sumptuous, edible protein. Like beavers or termites, they are ecosystem engineers, shaping the habitat where they live.

[---]

For the Olys, one of the most persuasive reasons to restore them is that they belong here, and bringing them back isn’t like resurrecting the Tasmanian tiger or the wooly mammoth. Although Oly populations are undoubtedly lower than they once were, they are still hanging on in most parts of their range. They just need a helping hand—typically, a better substrate for their spat to settle on to increase survivorship.

Over the last decade, at least 39 Olympia oyster restoration projects have gotten off the ground, according to the Native Olympia Oyster Collaborative. That’s an increase from the 24 projects launched the previous decade. Most of these projects are small efforts, costing a few hundred thousand dollars and covering less than a hectare. But they are making a difference: most of the projects that kept track of oyster numbers and densities over time have reported success.

Why Do Doctors Use Treatments That Do Not Work?

Wow! What an insightful article. 

The potential causal reasons (my thoughts):

• The lack of our understanding of limits of human knowledge; this leads to lack of epistemic humility. 
• Follow up to the above, illiteracy on complex systems (all living beings are complex systems). 
• Doctors like humans have life outside of work. In other words, "busyness" creeps in (kids, spouse, family, sports, politics et al.,  limits their time to increase breath of knowledge). 
• Lastly, this is the worst - illiteracy of what we already know because of "busyness" or Dunning Kruger effect or sheer lack of interest in updating their current knowledge (in both patients and doctors).

Read the whole piece here: 

One of the surprising things about James Lind's celebrated trial of citrus fruit for scurvy was not just that he ignored the evidence from his own trial but that in clinical practice he continued to advocate treatments that he himself had found ineffective, including those containing sulphuric acid. The history of medicine is replete with examples of treatments once common practice but now known not to work—or worse, cause harm. Only because the French surgeon Paré ran out of boiling oil did he discover that not cauterising gun shot wounds with it created much less pain and suffering. Leeches and blood letting were used for thousands of years for almost everything. Attempts to show that they were ineffective were resisted with great passion by the medical profession. More recently, we have had treatment with insulin for schizophrenia and vitamin K for myocardial infarction. In case we are all feeling too smug about silliness in the bad old days, we have the recent crisis on finding that hormone replacement therapy does not prevent cardiovascular disease. Why do we still use ineffective treatments?

One reason is that our expectations for the benefits of treatment are too high. As Voltaire said, “The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.” Or, in modern parlance: most drugs work in only 30% or 50% of people. Because patients so often get better or worse on their own, no matter what we do, clinical experience is a poor judge of what does and does not work. Hence the need for adequately powered randomised controlled trials.

A second reason is we are taught that because medicine is based on the sciences, understanding the pathophysiology of disease is essential to effective treatment. And so it is for many treatments. Use of insulin for diabetic coma needs a full understanding of the pathophysiology. Similarly, our appreciation of how parachutes slow falls means we do not need a placebo controlled trial of parachutes. But we have many examples where this approach, without empirical testing, is wrong. Until recently, medical students were taught the pathophysiological reasons why β blockers are contra-indicated in heart failure (they are a good treatment for heart failure); why colloid is more effective than crystalloid for fluid replacement (it is worse); and that because the vascular supply of the scaphoid places it at risk of non-union, any suspected fracture requires a cast (active mobilisation results in better outcomes). Lind's belief in the humoral basis of disease caused his resistance to his own trial evidence, and the medical profession to reject Louis's data on blood letting.

Even when empiricism is satisfied we can be misled by looking at the wrong outcome. Fluoride increases bone density. But it also increases the fracture rate. Flecainide for the treatment of supraventricular tachycardia makes the electrocardiogram look normal, but only after clinical trials (that some thought unethical) did it emerge that it increases mortality.

Some treatments have harms that outweigh their benefits and are not evident in trials. It was only after licensing in the United States and postmarketing surveillance that troglitazone was found to cause liver failure and had to be withdrawn.

Let us not stop at ineffective treatments. Much of the clinical examination and diagnostic testing is more of a ritual than diagnostically useful. We continue to order routine blood tests before surgery without controlled trials to show benefit, and several case series that show that these tests rarely change outcomes or even management. Alternatively, what was once perhaps useful is now superseded by better investigation. When did whispering pectoriloquy last clinch a diagnosis of pneumonia?

Clinicians want to relieve suffering. We find it difficult to do nothing (the aphorism “Don't just do something, stand there!” seems ludicrous). So we send in the counselling teams after psychological trauma, probably making things worse.11 Perhaps it is societal opinion (for which one ear of the medical profession is always pricked) that errors of omission are more reprehensible than errors of commission that is at fault. Is missing a rare diagnosis so much worse than harm from over-testing? 

What hope is there for not using treatments and tests that don't work? Medicine is not just a science—it is a human activity. It entails ritual, custom, and the expectations of doctors, patients, and society. To safeguard against ineffective or harmful health care we need doctors who want to do the best they can for their patients, who are willing to continually question their own managements, and who have readily available sources of information about what does work.

Very Good Sentence On Microbiome, Diet & Health

Inulin, a fiber that we know supports the growth of beneficial bacterial strains, and found we could dampen down the neuroinflammation that is often associated with cognitive decline in aging. This fiber is present in our everyday diet — there is a lot of it in vegetables like leeks, artichokes and chicory. So perhaps if you’re thinking of having a midlife crisis, forget about the motorbike and start growing vegetables.

- Neuroscientist John Cryan (Man and the Microbiome: A New Theory of Everything?)

Meta Values - 17

It doesn't take a village to raise a kid. 

Instead, it's our moral responsibility to preserve the "village" and teach a kid that he/she is a part of the village and not a lone "hero". 

These are seeds to develop gratitude and humility.

Lone "hero" syndrome transforms kids into the omnipresent "legend in their own mind" adults. 

It's better to compliment a kid with a timeless phrase - "hard working" and avoid the word "smart" like plaque. 

Smartness translates into a miraculous innate "gift" while hard work translates into life long compounding  effect to be a better living being. 

The Holdovers!

There's nothing new in human experience, Mr. Tully. Each generation thinks it invented debauchery or suffering or rebellion, but man's every impulse and appetite from the disgusting to the sublime is on display right here all around you. So, before you dismiss something as boring or irrelevant, remember, if you truly want to understand the present or yourself, you must begin in the past. You see, history is not simply the study of the past. It is an explanation of the present.

- Paul Hunham 

It's been while I laughed every few minutes in a movie!

Paul Giamatti and Co., have delivered an instant classic. This is an insanely great movie; a perfect cocktail of poignancy, comedy, and reality. I miss the Hollywood which made movies like this often. 

These days in real life too; they don't make teachers like Paul. 

Paul Hunham: You're not your father. 

Angus Tully: How do you know? 

Paul Hunham: Because no one is his own father. I'm not my dad. No matter how hard he tried to beat that idea into me. I find the world a bitter and complicated place, and it seems to feel the same way about me. I think you and I have this in common. But don't get me wrong, you have your challenges. You're erratic and belligerant and gigantic pain in the balls, but you're not your father. You're your own man. Man, no. You're just a kid. You're just beginning. And you're smart. You've got time to turn things around. Yes, I know that Greeks had the idea that the steps you take to avoid your fate are the very steps that lead you to it, but that's just a literary conceit. In real life, your history does not have to dictate your destiny.

Tracing The Origins of Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

I am so grateful for these people who do this grinding work. 

Their research is better than Arthur Conan Doyle's books. These are real life Sherlock Holmes who do work on problems which matter.  And it is not easy work nor they get proper recognition. 

I salute you. 

Here's a beautiful findings about origins of MS  and other brain related "disorders" which we have no clue how to treat leave alone cure: 

There are about twice as many cases of multiple sclerosis per 100,000 people in north-western Europe, including the UK and Scandinavia, compared with southern Europe.

Researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Copenhagen and Oxford spent more than 10 years delving into archaeology to investigate why.

MS is a disease where the body's own immune cells attack the brain and spinal cord, leading to symptoms like muscle stiffness and problems walking and talking.

They discovered that genes which increase the risk of MS entered into north-western Europe about 5,000 years ago via a massive migration of cattle herders called Yamnaya.

The Yamnaya came from western Russia, Ukraine and Kazhakstan, and moved west into Europe, says one of four Nature journal papers published on the topic.

The findings "astounded us all", said Dr William Barrie, paper author and expert in computational analysis of ancient DNA at University of Cambridge.

At the time, the gene variants carried by the herding people were an advantage, helping to protect them against diseases in their sheep and cattle.

Nowadays, however, with modern lifestyles, diets and better hygiene, these gene variants have taken on a different role.

In the present day, these same traits mean a higher risk of developing certain diseases, such as MS.

          [---]

Another Nature paper uncovered even more clues about our genetic past - that the Yamnaya herders could also be responsible for north-western Europeans being taller than southern Europeans.

And while northern Europeans carry more genetic risk for MS, southern Europeans are more likely to develop bipolar disorder, and eastern Europeans more likely to have Alzheimer's disease and type 2 diabetes.

DNA from pre-historic hunter-gatherer people raises the risk of Alzheimer's, but ancient farmers' genes are linked to mood disorders, the research explains.

To state the obvious for the millionth time; sharing your data is so crucial for making progress. This morning in the cold, I stood with Neo talking to my neighbor's wife. I have known him for 20 years and he has Parkinson's for a few years now. 

Listening to her talk was heartbreaking. 

Why is this suffering? Yes, its limitations of human knowledge and most importantly, lack of awareness of that limitation. This is worse than Dunning Kruger effect. 

Stop talking about nationalism, how you love humanity and other bullshit. 

Show that you care in action; register for Michael J Fox foundation's  Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative - PPMI.

Meta Values - 16

This is a weird value. Weird because of the very premise that I cannot share details but yet it is important is an innate paradox of it. 

There are some things in the world unintentionally got better because of 

• second order effect 
• or emergent effect
• or may be, most humans put their focus on a lesser evil (say x) and because of that worse of all evils (say y) is not omnipresent
• or a combination of above or other factors  

I will never reveal nor talk about any specifics those unintentional "good" in the world since humans has a immense capacity to fuck things up.  

No one is going to get Noble for this nor any groups of people will get recognized for this (plus none did it this on purpose). 

The only possibility is in the future someone will distill this "good" from history. Good news is by then we all would be dead and the "good" most likely would have been too foundational for humans to fuck it up. 

The only way to keep this "good" is by keeping quiet.

So I am going to call it the "shhh paradox". 

It is like you see these good things and want to scream in joy but you should not. 

The value is keeping it quiet and smiling internally. 

You might have a few "shhh paradoxes" which I might be blind too. 

Please don't tell me or anyone what those are. Shhh... keep it to yourself. 

Maximus & Me And Arnold Schwarzenegger!

For 18 years now, my morning has been an immense gift. 

The ritual of feeding Max would cast all my worries away. Max had an unique routine. While I am prepping his breakfast, he would start playing with his toys or ball. I would be commenting continuously and Max would jump and run around bringing his toys to me and I would throw it.  Those five or so minute rituals were the perfect way to start my day. 

Now with Neo, Fluffy and Garph the morning ritual continues but they are different from Max. 

Neo, Fluffy and Garph crowd the kitchen making impatient voices while I am prepping their breakfast. It's different dynamics than Max but yet its beautiful. 

The ritual for the last 18 years is very similar to... I never thought I would write this... it's very similar to Arnold's morning routine with his animals (donkey, pony, dog and pig)!

Plus like Arnold I don't check my emails etc., until I feed them. 

Listen to his interview here. 

His words: 

I wouldn’t know how life would be life without them. It is amazing how much joy can bring to your home. It’s unlike anything else the amount of fun they provide. 

I developed a deep respect for Arnold when he became a Vegan. Here's a man who achieved everything in life by eating meat but yet he quit eating meat and became a vegan, 

So if you want to get inspired don't watch his classic documentary "Pumping Iron" instead watch his Game Changers documentary. 

Ground Up Moral Change - Pigs With Children in Playground

"The pigs are animal therapy for the children," he said.

"They help us to feed them, muck them out and it gets them in in the morning.

"It gives them something to come into school for and once they're in they feel settled, they feel emotionally ready then to get into the classroom."

Pupil Yvie has become known as the "pig whisperer" said Mr Hamlyn, thanks to her affinity with the mud-loving companions.

Yvie said: "Mr Hamlyn came over one lunchtime and said 'you know if you tickle their bellies they fall over sometimes'.

"I tried that and I was the first one to do it, then I taught Oreo a few months back how to sit down."

- More Here and check 2010 post about children and their pets

When these kids grow up, my bet is "bacon for breakfast" will make them puke. 

The Failed Experiment

What I've Been Reading

When a true opening of the heart develops collectively, miracles are possible. 

This is perhaps the most difficult point of all to accept in today's cynical world, and I will not try to argue abstractly for what Adam illustrates so poignantly. 

By miracles I don't mean that somehow everything turns out for the best with no effort or uncertainty. 

Hardly, if anything, the effort required greatly exceeds what is typical, and people learn to embrace a level of uncertainty from which most of us normally retreat. 

But this embrace arises from a collective strength that we have all but ceased to imagine, let alone develop: the strength of a creative human community grounded in a genuine sense of a creative human community grounded in a genuine sense of connectedness and possibility, rather than one based on fear and dogma. 

- Forward by Peter Senge

Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities by Adam Kahane.

Max's holiday card for 2024 was quoted from this brilliant 20 year old book. 

We in America think that the political and ideological problems here are unsolvable because of polarization and people don't even look in each other's eyes, leave alone talking to each other. 

Adam beautifully explain in this book,  how even people who wanted to kill each other, worked together for a better future. 

This book teaches us that: 

A transformation in our ability to talk, think and act together. 

These are actual events from countries much worse than most countries in the world. We are talking about South Africa after Mandela's release, drug lords ridden Colombia in early 2000's, Argentina post their economic fallout to Guatemala.  

We are not talking abstract "hope" here but actual transformative events. If these people in these countries can do it, anybody in any country can do it. And we can do it at home too. 

In order to embark on that better future, read the quote from Max's holiday card. 

There are three kinds of complex problems: 

• Dynamically complex—Causes and their effects are separated by space and time, making the links between them difficult for any one person or group to identify.

•  Generatively complex—They are unpredictable and unfold in unfamiliar ways. A problem that is generatively complex cannot be solved with a prepackaged solution from the past. A solution has to be worked out as the situation unfolds, through a creative, emergent, generative process. 

• Socially complex—The people involved are extremely diverse and have very different perspectives.

Our common way of talking and listening therefore guarantees that our complex problems will either remain stuck or will get unstuck by force. (There are no problem so complex that is does not have a simple solution ... that is wrong.) We need to learn another, less common, more open way. 

There are four different ways of talking and listening based on the work of Otto Scharmer of MIT: 

• Downloading: we merely repeat the story that’s already in our heads, like download- ing a file from the Internet without making any change to it. When we download, we are deaf to other stories, we only hear that which confirms our story. This is the kind of non-listening exhibited by fundamentalists, dictators,  experts, and people are arrogant or angry.

• Debating: When we debate, we listen to each other and to ideas (including our own ideas) from the outside, objectively, like a judge in a debate or a court room. 

• Reflective Dialogue: We engage in such dialogue when we listen to ourselves reflectively and when we listen to others empathetically - listening from inside subjectively. 

• Generative Dialogue: We listen not only from within ourselves or from within others, but from the whole of the system. 

There is a remarkable story in the video below. One can sense generative dialogue when: 

The team sensed that something important and special happened during that story telling. One story seemed to flow into another, as if the tellers were all telling parts of the same larger story. 

Time seemed to slow down: I wasn't sure how long the five minutes of silence actually lasted. 

The normal separation between people seemed lessen: the team shifted from listening to each other's individual perspectives to being, for a while, a whole collective "I". 

Meta Values - 15

Don't get "numb" to the wrongs in the world. And start doing wrong yourself. 

Mostly likely, you are doing lots of "conscious wrongs".

• Don’t get numb and feast on joyful, playful, and sentient non-human animals in the name of traditions, culture, delicacy, celebrity cooks or worse for "protein".

• Don't get numb by the saying "world's oldest profession" and have sex for money. It could be your mom, spouse, sister, daughter, granddaughter, or worse great granddaughter. 

• Don’t get numb by wrongs done by your loved ones, your family, your religion, your politics, your nation, your tribe or team.

General Rule: 

Never excuse yourself and get "conformable in an uninvolved innocence". 

Most people do this shit. 

You are never innocent. You are not the part of system; you are the system. 

Remember - your life is better because someone stood up against wrongs in the past. 

And worse, there is only a very fine and thin line between civilization and barbarism. 

You have a moral obligation to stand up against wrongs in you, your family, town, country and the world. 

Kill your numbness. 

This Is What You Shall Do...

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone who asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy. 

Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem.

- Walt Whitman, from the preface of Leaves of Grass

Meta Values - 14

Epistemic humility begins with the awareness that I don't know what non-human animals, plants and every other living being on earth know. 

And most likely I will die without knowing it. 

If one misses this foundational humility then everything else is mere signaling.  

I am grateful that I get to share this blue planet with my fellow living beings. 

I am part of them and one day, when there is no physical me, I will still be part of them. 

Every morsel of food, every sip of water, the air we breathe is the result of work done by other species. Nature gives us everything we need to survive. Without them, there is no us.

- Enric Sala