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Recent Posts
- “toxic mix of individualism and fear”
- Insights from geology on incomplete information, uncertainty, and problem solving
- Emma Marris’s new contribution to understanding wildness & wilderness, with a critique of the notion that landscapes can (or should) be returned to a baseline date or condition
- Addictions are our human tendencies to be neurotic taken one step further into the realm of brain disease
- Scarcity and instability break down hierarchical social structures
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Author Archives: Ben Shaine
“toxic mix of individualism and fear”
A couple of weeks ago our Saturday morning discussion group in the hospital cafeteria talked about how the lack of care and medical treatment for pain and addiction patients seems to stem from a lack of empathy rooted in a … Continue reading
Insights from geology on incomplete information, uncertainty, and problem solving
Came across the following in the new issue of the Geological Society of America journal for members. A basic notion is that frequently a set of facts we know, or can know, are open to multiple interpretations, any or all … Continue reading
Emma Marris’s new contribution to understanding wildness & wilderness, with a critique of the notion that landscapes can (or should) be returned to a baseline date or condition
Emma Marris’s new book Rambunctious Garden is some of the best stuff I’ve seen on today’s wildness/wilderness issues. She critiques the notion of a “baseline” ideal for a landscape, e.g. pre-Euroamerican for Yellowstone or 1938 for Kennecott, Alaska. Her work … Continue reading
Addictions are our human tendencies to be neurotic taken one step further into the realm of brain disease
From a draft manuscript by our friend Dr. Kimber Rotchford: Addictions are our human tendencies to be neurotic taken one step further into the realm of brain disease. So, attachment, in the Buddhist sense, is psychological and social fixation on … Continue reading
Posted in Medical/Health
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Scarcity and instability break down hierarchical social structures
from Shultziner, D., T. Stevens, M. Stevens, B. A Stewart, R. J Hannagan, and G. Saltini-Semerari. “The causes and scope of political egalitarianism during the Last Glacial: a multi-disciplinary perspective.” Biology and Philosophy 25 (2010): 319-346. …For the development of … Continue reading
Posted in Complexity
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World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth: There is no conversation
Went through Google, Google News & the NY Times website looking for coverage and discussion of the climate conference recently hosted by Bolivia, the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. See the summary & … Continue reading
Posted in Effective Action
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The Dalai Lama’s martial artistry
Seeing him for the first time, on the video of his talk on ethics at UC Santa Barbara, I was surprised, though perhaps should not have been, to find that the Dalai Lama moves with the presence of a trained … Continue reading
Posted in Aikido, Effective Action
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Penetrating our most secure fortifications
Any genuine framework for effective action has to take into account the limits of rationality and go beyond them. How? Frank Rich’s column today points to the problem, but doesn’t provide answers: [The White House party gate-crashing] was a symbolic … Continue reading
Posted in Effective Action
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Consequences of choice of symbols: Framing and describing is more than an analytic tool
Framing and describing is more than an analytic tool. The words and concepts used are symbols that carry meanings, often multiple and easily unconscious, that have consequences and affect action. Writing the natural history of the Wrangell Mountains thus can … Continue reading
Posted in Effective Action, Natural History
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State of the art reasoned analysis of complex social-economic systems
Kauffman is saying that the following sort of analysis is useful, in fact essential, but also inherently incomplete and insufficient: From Ostrom, Elinor, Marco A Janssen, and John M Anderies. 2007. Going beyond panaceas. Proceedings of the National Academy of … Continue reading
Posted in Effective Action
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