Not a post with any import or anything. Just more of the same.
I'm in Chicago and searching for employment, that's my news.
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
contra-post
Shawn wrote about the cult of the modern and designer dog breeds in a recent blog post. I´d like to tack on some similar thoughts. I would call this a counter-post, but ¨contra¨ is more daring.
Everything that´s new is also shallow. Some shallow things become complex things through evolution, but most don´t. We have appetites for both the new/shallow and the old/complex, but too much of one or the other is bad. In the cases of the US and Korea, it´s safe to say that the perceived value of the new/shallow is unsustainably high.
An affinity for the new is coincident with the impulse for differentiation. The more my tastes diverge from the tastes of the past or of my family, the more different I feel as a person. The sense of freedom and independence that comes along with this is good.
But there´s also the fact that human nature doesn´t change. If we get to the point where our consumer choices and personal tastes define us -- and where it becomes impossible to understand people at historical or geographical distance -- then we´re just deluding ourselves into thinking we´re more different than we are. This mindset doesn´t lead to liberation. It leads to atomization and isolation, which are the most un-human of human conditions.
Luana and I were in a 500-year-old town over the weekend. When we arrived on Friday, we didn´t know how to get to the beach, so we started walking. Within five minutes, a couple on the road stopped to offer a ride -- luckily for us, it turned out the beach was 5 kilometers away. The couple showed us around and found us a place to stay. The next night, a lady who worked at the place we were staying found us in town and introduced us to her family, which was everyone. We ran into both of them at the bar in town on Sunday afternoon, where the old folks were playing samba. Sometime in the late afternoon, the young people took over. They played the same music, but without the rust and fog of their predecessors.
I guess my lesson was that people who connect with the past are also naturally more inclined to extend their sympathy in the present. In any event, it´s about overcoming those superficial differences and connecting with the truth, which is that all people are more or less the same.
As for the US, I have to imagine that consumerism and the false idea that every new generation is essentially different will subside. In an honest and transparent system, such ideas have to lose in favor of ones that correspond better to the ways humans behave and feel. We just have to hope that when things change it´ll be in the context of a natural correction rather than a crisis.
Everything that´s new is also shallow. Some shallow things become complex things through evolution, but most don´t. We have appetites for both the new/shallow and the old/complex, but too much of one or the other is bad. In the cases of the US and Korea, it´s safe to say that the perceived value of the new/shallow is unsustainably high.
An affinity for the new is coincident with the impulse for differentiation. The more my tastes diverge from the tastes of the past or of my family, the more different I feel as a person. The sense of freedom and independence that comes along with this is good.
But there´s also the fact that human nature doesn´t change. If we get to the point where our consumer choices and personal tastes define us -- and where it becomes impossible to understand people at historical or geographical distance -- then we´re just deluding ourselves into thinking we´re more different than we are. This mindset doesn´t lead to liberation. It leads to atomization and isolation, which are the most un-human of human conditions.
Luana and I were in a 500-year-old town over the weekend. When we arrived on Friday, we didn´t know how to get to the beach, so we started walking. Within five minutes, a couple on the road stopped to offer a ride -- luckily for us, it turned out the beach was 5 kilometers away. The couple showed us around and found us a place to stay. The next night, a lady who worked at the place we were staying found us in town and introduced us to her family, which was everyone. We ran into both of them at the bar in town on Sunday afternoon, where the old folks were playing samba. Sometime in the late afternoon, the young people took over. They played the same music, but without the rust and fog of their predecessors.
I guess my lesson was that people who connect with the past are also naturally more inclined to extend their sympathy in the present. In any event, it´s about overcoming those superficial differences and connecting with the truth, which is that all people are more or less the same.
As for the US, I have to imagine that consumerism and the false idea that every new generation is essentially different will subside. In an honest and transparent system, such ideas have to lose in favor of ones that correspond better to the ways humans behave and feel. We just have to hope that when things change it´ll be in the context of a natural correction rather than a crisis.
Thursday, 13 December 2007
the next post
I exaggerated grossly when I said in my last post that I could see the signs of a healthy Brazilian economy all over the place. I have no idea what a healthy economy really means.
I think that what I meant was that I find a lot of people who are living in the moment in Brazil. Living in the moment is the opposite of living in suffering, and it´s the opposite of living in fiction.
To live in the moment, to seize the day, all that stuff is common advice, but it´s also the best advice. Everything that´s good -- art, surprise, feelings -- is in the moment, and everything that´s bad -- especially anxiety and physical pain -- is about fearing the future (in the case of pain, it´s the fear that your body will break), which doesn´t exist, or regretting the past, which also doesn´t exist. Obviously, physical pain is much harder to master than is anxiety.
So my definition of a healthy economy is one where people are able to engage in their lives without thinking too much about the future. Of course, planning is great; it´s obsessing and fantasizing that´s the problem. The future is fictional, and the more we obsess about it, the more we delude ourselves, and the more we commit foolish errors. Let me get to examples.
People pursuing the fantasy of wealth for its own sake end up destroying people on the end of the transactions and creating a toxic business environment. This is my completely naive diagnosis of the American business landscape. Once they get beyond subsistence, the more people or businesses focus on future wealth as a primary goal the less inclined they are to care about present values -- quality, respectful relationships, business as a service to the world rather than a zero-sum game, etc. And sure enough, this kind of thinking leads to deception and lies in exchange for short-term gains, which is what the whole subprime crisis seems to be about.
Organized religion can also be about organized fiction and I don´t need to go into that.
I´m getting tired and this post is way too rambly.
building homes
pride in work
pro-intellectualism
awareness of the world
general aversion to capitalist values -- growth for its own sake
sense of attachment to history, family, and pride in country
I think that what I meant was that I find a lot of people who are living in the moment in Brazil. Living in the moment is the opposite of living in suffering, and it´s the opposite of living in fiction.
To live in the moment, to seize the day, all that stuff is common advice, but it´s also the best advice. Everything that´s good -- art, surprise, feelings -- is in the moment, and everything that´s bad -- especially anxiety and physical pain -- is about fearing the future (in the case of pain, it´s the fear that your body will break), which doesn´t exist, or regretting the past, which also doesn´t exist. Obviously, physical pain is much harder to master than is anxiety.
So my definition of a healthy economy is one where people are able to engage in their lives without thinking too much about the future. Of course, planning is great; it´s obsessing and fantasizing that´s the problem. The future is fictional, and the more we obsess about it, the more we delude ourselves, and the more we commit foolish errors. Let me get to examples.
People pursuing the fantasy of wealth for its own sake end up destroying people on the end of the transactions and creating a toxic business environment. This is my completely naive diagnosis of the American business landscape. Once they get beyond subsistence, the more people or businesses focus on future wealth as a primary goal the less inclined they are to care about present values -- quality, respectful relationships, business as a service to the world rather than a zero-sum game, etc. And sure enough, this kind of thinking leads to deception and lies in exchange for short-term gains, which is what the whole subprime crisis seems to be about.
Organized religion can also be about organized fiction and I don´t need to go into that.
I´m getting tired and this post is way too rambly.
building homes
pride in work
pro-intellectualism
awareness of the world
general aversion to capitalist values -- growth for its own sake
sense of attachment to history, family, and pride in country
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
just to take up space
i felt bad that i only had one post in november, so i´m just writing to take up space so i can say i did more than one in december.
the dollar fell again relative to the brazilian real -- it´s at 1.75 reais per dollar. i see the signs of a stable and growing brazil all over the place, but maybe i´ll get into that in the next post.
the dollar fell again relative to the brazilian real -- it´s at 1.75 reais per dollar. i see the signs of a stable and growing brazil all over the place, but maybe i´ll get into that in the next post.
Monday, 3 December 2007
consumer reports
A few weeks ago, I read a really interesting book about Toyota and the policies behind its reputation for excellence and dominance of the auto market. I had bought the book for a dollar on clearance at Borders, a few days after one of my first posts about how the decline of US auto manufacturing was worrisome to me.
-- 30 minute interruption because a guy randomly walks in and asks me to do a computerized drawing of a construction plan ... what the hell, i accede --
This book -- The Elegant Solution by Matthew May -- talks about how, from the start, quality was never a question at Toyota. A basic principle from the inception of the company was that good business is about maximizing quality and minimizing cost. Notice how quality is the goal, not revenue -- though the implication is that rational people will always buy high-quality stuff for a good price. Quality is sustainable and attainable, and it adds value to the world. Maximizing revenue without attention to quality, on the other hand, is evil. It´s all about cutting corners and being manipulative, and it eventually burns out and hurts everyone, just like GM and Chrysler and subprime loans have.
In the book, May invites readers to take Totoya´s philosophy into their own places of work. As a starter, he says we should think about how a job isn´t just a job, but is something that adds value to the world. If we want to take pride in our work, we should start out by reminding ourselves of its positive benefit on the world. As I read this, I stopped to think about whether this could really apply to all jobs. In the end, pretty much any job I could think of provided a worthy service to the world. Except advertising.
I remember when, in the last year of high school, my good friend Max told me he was thinking about studying advertising. To be a good advertiser, he told me, you have to be creative and sharp and you have to have a good understanding of American demographics and tastes. This is all true, I replied, and I had no doubt that some of the funniest and most creative Americans work in advertising. But, I also reminded Max, advertising is fundamentally about tricking people. It´s about fooling them to buy certain products against their independent judgment. What could be more degrading? Max agreed -- he´s doing civil engineering now.
Luana is a huge fan of this Japanese snack food company called Yoki. I think they´re the Japanese equivalent of Frito-Lay. As we were munching on surprisingly addictive ham-flavored corn shells -- enriched with 10 vitamins! -- I told her how nice it was to be able to open up a bag and see it completely full. Opening bags of junk food in the US -- rarely more a third full -- can be so depressing. But it´s exactly what you come to expect when you know that Frito-Lay is pumping its money into ads, manipulating the American consumer to crave a decidedly bad product. And if Frito cuts prices by putting less food in the same bag, we know the competitors are going to be screwed if they don´t do the same. If a competitor put more food in the same bag for a slightly higher price, Americans wouldn´t have the willpower to do the math and determine the smartest buy. (Grocery stores do a great service by calculating price-per-ounce ratios, but snack bags from vending machines and counter lines fall outside of this system).
As I told Luana about this frustrating state of affairs, she reminded me that if advertising is evil, it is a necessary evil. How else could people learn about new products? My response that word-of-mouth and impartial consumer reports are sufficient sounded characteristically naive. But then again, I wondered, doesn´t the internet make reliable and effective consumer reports laughably easy? There are already tons of smart consumers who turn to internet for product reviews. If there were just one centralized, user-friendly site dedicated entirely to consumer reports, I imagine that we´d have a stronger shield against advertisement.
Web advertisement is much simpler and much less manipulative because it just places product links in places where people are likely to find them helpful. When Google becomes the epicenter of all our media, I think we´ll all be refreshed to encouter this less intrusive kind of advertising in our lives. As in other parts of the world, manipulative advertising -- especially in politics -- will be viewed as an insult to intelligence.
No major updates from Brazil. Things are the same. I skimmed through Antonio Damasio´s Descartes´Error (much of which I read in college) last week and now I´m reading Peter Brown´s The Rise of Western Christendom. See everybody in three weeks!
-- 30 minute interruption because a guy randomly walks in and asks me to do a computerized drawing of a construction plan ... what the hell, i accede --
This book -- The Elegant Solution by Matthew May -- talks about how, from the start, quality was never a question at Toyota. A basic principle from the inception of the company was that good business is about maximizing quality and minimizing cost. Notice how quality is the goal, not revenue -- though the implication is that rational people will always buy high-quality stuff for a good price. Quality is sustainable and attainable, and it adds value to the world. Maximizing revenue without attention to quality, on the other hand, is evil. It´s all about cutting corners and being manipulative, and it eventually burns out and hurts everyone, just like GM and Chrysler and subprime loans have.
In the book, May invites readers to take Totoya´s philosophy into their own places of work. As a starter, he says we should think about how a job isn´t just a job, but is something that adds value to the world. If we want to take pride in our work, we should start out by reminding ourselves of its positive benefit on the world. As I read this, I stopped to think about whether this could really apply to all jobs. In the end, pretty much any job I could think of provided a worthy service to the world. Except advertising.
I remember when, in the last year of high school, my good friend Max told me he was thinking about studying advertising. To be a good advertiser, he told me, you have to be creative and sharp and you have to have a good understanding of American demographics and tastes. This is all true, I replied, and I had no doubt that some of the funniest and most creative Americans work in advertising. But, I also reminded Max, advertising is fundamentally about tricking people. It´s about fooling them to buy certain products against their independent judgment. What could be more degrading? Max agreed -- he´s doing civil engineering now.
Luana is a huge fan of this Japanese snack food company called Yoki. I think they´re the Japanese equivalent of Frito-Lay. As we were munching on surprisingly addictive ham-flavored corn shells -- enriched with 10 vitamins! -- I told her how nice it was to be able to open up a bag and see it completely full. Opening bags of junk food in the US -- rarely more a third full -- can be so depressing. But it´s exactly what you come to expect when you know that Frito-Lay is pumping its money into ads, manipulating the American consumer to crave a decidedly bad product. And if Frito cuts prices by putting less food in the same bag, we know the competitors are going to be screwed if they don´t do the same. If a competitor put more food in the same bag for a slightly higher price, Americans wouldn´t have the willpower to do the math and determine the smartest buy. (Grocery stores do a great service by calculating price-per-ounce ratios, but snack bags from vending machines and counter lines fall outside of this system).
As I told Luana about this frustrating state of affairs, she reminded me that if advertising is evil, it is a necessary evil. How else could people learn about new products? My response that word-of-mouth and impartial consumer reports are sufficient sounded characteristically naive. But then again, I wondered, doesn´t the internet make reliable and effective consumer reports laughably easy? There are already tons of smart consumers who turn to internet for product reviews. If there were just one centralized, user-friendly site dedicated entirely to consumer reports, I imagine that we´d have a stronger shield against advertisement.
Web advertisement is much simpler and much less manipulative because it just places product links in places where people are likely to find them helpful. When Google becomes the epicenter of all our media, I think we´ll all be refreshed to encouter this less intrusive kind of advertising in our lives. As in other parts of the world, manipulative advertising -- especially in politics -- will be viewed as an insult to intelligence.
No major updates from Brazil. Things are the same. I skimmed through Antonio Damasio´s Descartes´Error (much of which I read in college) last week and now I´m reading Peter Brown´s The Rise of Western Christendom. See everybody in three weeks!
Monday, 12 November 2007
november
No news. Everything´s pretty much the same. I got my tourist visa renewed last weekend, which means I´ll actaully be able to stay in Brazil legally until I go back to the states for Christmas.
I went to church last night with Luana. The husband of the other employee here at school is the pastor of the Presbyterian church. We´d agreed to go a couple weeks ago but then ditched, so it was harder to dodge the second invite.
I guess most of the things I´ve been thinking about have to do with trying to observe things without attaching words or concepts to them, so I have a tough time putting the church experience into words. But all in all, it was nice to step in to a room where everyone was loved and accepted on the basis of their mere shared humanity. It´s so important to remember that all of our instincts for physical aggression and competition via hatred are pretty useless in a safe world. It´s actually okay -- and advantageous -- to accept everyone as family, or as Peter Singer puts it, to open up our circles of ethical consideration to the world. Sorry about the terrible writing style.
I went to church last night with Luana. The husband of the other employee here at school is the pastor of the Presbyterian church. We´d agreed to go a couple weeks ago but then ditched, so it was harder to dodge the second invite.
I guess most of the things I´ve been thinking about have to do with trying to observe things without attaching words or concepts to them, so I have a tough time putting the church experience into words. But all in all, it was nice to step in to a room where everyone was loved and accepted on the basis of their mere shared humanity. It´s so important to remember that all of our instincts for physical aggression and competition via hatred are pretty useless in a safe world. It´s actually okay -- and advantageous -- to accept everyone as family, or as Peter Singer puts it, to open up our circles of ethical consideration to the world. Sorry about the terrible writing style.
Thursday, 18 October 2007
bored
i´m alone and there´s not much to do here, so i´m throwing away my reais in the internet cafes.
i´ve never been more convinced, after reading schlesinger´s essay on the topic and evaluating the current disgrace in the white house, that the office of the vice president should be abolished.
it also interesting to put the current situation in context and realize how conservative our government has been since kennedy. there actually hasn´t been a public-minded democrat since then. in the profile on justice john paul stevens in the current nyt magazine, he made the comment that every justice appointed since him (which happened in 1975) has been progressively more conservative, with the exception of ginsberg, i think.
i think the next discussion topic will be about trying to understand why this conservative period has lasted so long, appearing to break the 30-year rhythm that´s been more or less constant since the eighteenth century.
i´ve never been more convinced, after reading schlesinger´s essay on the topic and evaluating the current disgrace in the white house, that the office of the vice president should be abolished.
it also interesting to put the current situation in context and realize how conservative our government has been since kennedy. there actually hasn´t been a public-minded democrat since then. in the profile on justice john paul stevens in the current nyt magazine, he made the comment that every justice appointed since him (which happened in 1975) has been progressively more conservative, with the exception of ginsberg, i think.
i think the next discussion topic will be about trying to understand why this conservative period has lasted so long, appearing to break the 30-year rhythm that´s been more or less constant since the eighteenth century.
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