Reshares welcomed, discussion to original preferred.
#Questions #BigProblems #Hope #Fear #ChangeMyMind #Certainty #AvailableForChildrensBirthdaysAndBarMitzvahs
...Narratives that see widespread economic and technological stagnation setting in sometime around the mid-1970s have become fairly common. And it’s pretty clear that the 1970s were some sort of inflection point, a time when we fell off established income, innovation, and progress curves on a number of fronts. The big question is why....
A book exerpt by Andrew Potter, from On Decline, with a pretty good discussion, set of references, and treatment of the question.
https://thewalrus.ca/its-not-in-your-head-the-world-really-is-getting-worse/
#progress #SecularStagnation #technology #decline #AndrewPotter #BigProblems #collapse #books
[T]he solution to America’s housing crisis, both politically and technically, comes down to three coequal priorities that I call the Three S’s: Supply, Stability, and Subsidy....
[A]ll indispensable ingredients in the affordable city recipe book... One without the others will not bring true affordability and stability to a community—certainly not to all who need and deserve it. Nor can we simply enact the strongest possible intervention for one goal without considering its impacts on the others. Often, the most aggressive solution to one problem will undermine the best response to another.
Book: https://islandpress.org/books/affordable-city
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26854819
#housing #homelessness #property #PublicOwnership #ShanePhillips #TheAffordableCity #books #BookReivews #BigProblems
@Peter Oram wrote a draft manifesto, inviting comments, for ...
balancing my concerns about the world/society with my well-being? Perhaps you have some suggestions. Basically, I want to work towards co-creating a fairer society that pays attention to climate, inequality, and justice, but I don’t want to get so caught up that I feel unhelpful anger or helplessness.
I suggested some reordering and edits, whilst trying to preserve the spirit. This ties as well with @Phil Landmeier (ᚠ)'s letter-writing proposal, my feet to the fire and pull where you want to go posts.
I'd suggested these ten topics on Phil's discussion, and it still seems a good start.
I'll admit that this is where I feel I'm weakest. Political change is about deploying tactics, actions, toward goals. There's a fairly standard playbook of community activism methods, a key and underutilised one being working within your community.
I'd written a long bit on Phil's thread but the upshot is: Letter-writing to politicians is about signalling, not persuading.
Persuasion and planning should, mostly, occur within your own community, or in public communications and think-pieces.
Repetition is more effective than argument.. Though to very occasional good argument may help refine taking points.
Looking at past campaigns, corporate, oligarchic, or popular, and seeing what contributes to success or failure, is useful. Note that corporate campaigns largely don't rely on mass-movement techniques, though they may attempt to emulate them.. Fascist and nationalist campaigns are a notable exception, though the rely strongly on fear, anger, and intimidation.
Companies and institutions are notoriously risk-averse, and often respond to shifts in risks faced.
Organised movements are vastly more effective than unorganised ones. Build community.
#activism #politics #SurvivalManifesto #BigProblems #CommunityOrganising #EconomicJustice #MedicareForAll #BLM #ClimateChange #ZeroCarbon #NoJusticeNoPeace #Antitrust #DecriminalizeDrugs #EconomicJustice #MediaReform #democracy
"Boeing’s 737 Max Is a Saga of Capitalism Gone Awry":
... What made the crashes so vexing is that it was impossible to pin the blame on one central villain. Instead, the whole company seemed to be at fault. Time and again, Boeing executives and engineers didn’t take warning signs seriously enough, opted against adopting additional precautions and made decisions for the sake of saving money or raising profits. ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/sunday-review/boeing-737-max.html
In this case, maybe, morality is to blame. There were individual technical, regulatory, design, and management errors, yes, but the common underlying cause is a fundamental misalignment of moral values. Of engineering excellence and passenger responsibility versus short term profits, bonuses, and above all, Milton Friedman's murderous bugbear, "shareholder value".
Or was it just short-sightedness, short-term thinking, denial, and scapegoating?
See previously: Treating systemic problems as moral failings … is why California is on fire.
#boeing #737max #MoralisingPathology #CorporateCulture #ShareholderValue #EngineeringDriven #ShortTermism #ShortSightedness #risk #trust #RegulatoryCapture #blame #denial #scapegoating #distributedResponsibility #BigProblems #ethics #morals #MiltonFriedman #JackWelch #DennisMuilenburg #HarryStonecipher #DaveCalhoun
I'm leaving this open-ended, there's no specific criteria for responses.
I'm interested in both your list and the reasons why. Submitting your list before reading others' contributions would be preferred.
Optionally: who is (or isn't) successfully addressing them. Individuals, organizations, companies, governments, other. How and/or why not?
I've asked this question periodically on several forums (G+, Reddit, HN Tildes, Mastodon) for eight years now.
From BusinessInsider, a graph of Top 5 Global Risks in Terms of Likelihood as identified by the Davos conference from 2007 - 2013.
BI focuses on How Occupy Wall Street Won In One Chart in identifying income inequality as the leading risk for the past four years running, and yes, absolutely, Occupy has changed the debate.
I still see this as missing the bigger problems....
Continued at the dreddit
#BigProblems #Davos #population #resources #environment #sustainability #changetheconversation #OWS #Occupy #OccupyWallStreet
