Sender: Bentley Davis
Subject: Re: Fwd: important article, reply
Date: Sat, Apr 12, 2014
Msg: 100919

Steve,

I also found the article extremely interesting. You bring up an important point that "we don't actually get to the bottom of things; we go just deeply enough to confirm our prejudices, then we stop."

It's hard to go deeper unless you are discussing it with someone that has the opposite belief. I have been working on structure and tools to help get people to the bottom and my most recent one is http://SettleIt.org (not a great name but it was available). It encourages groups of people to keep going deeper and deeper into the conversation by constructing an argument tree to keep items in context. The person on the other side keeps us from stopping by inputting cons against our biased statements that we would prefer to ignore.

This little experiment might give us some insights in how to practice group wisdom. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Best regards, Bentley Davis 214-566-3522 http://BentleyDavis.com

On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 7:33 PM, Steven H Johnson wrote:

> Thanks, Michael, for the link to Ezra Klein's very intriguing article. >> >> Here's my take on the issue Ezra's raising. I don't think we have a >> culture of seeking wisdom; I think we have a culture of seeking certainty, >> and that folks of all political stripes participate in it. The result is >> that we don't actually get to the bottom of things; we go just deeply >> enough to confirm our prejudices, then we stop. >> >> Here's a few examples. Social Security solvency. Framing the global >> warming problem. Figuring out how to create better schools for poverty >> children. Clever certainties displace wise inquiry in each of these areas. >> >> >> >> Social Security. Liberals will tell us that Social Security is in good >> shape. Even Alan Greenspan brags in his book about how the reforms of 1983 >> put Social Security on the right track. But it isn't in good shape, and >> one of the many reasons for that is that the program's dominant metric, a >> tool called "actuarial balance," isn't really a solvency metric. It's an >> insolvency postponement metric. A reform that achieves actuarial balance >> is a program that postpones the program's insolvency crash until a few >> seconds after the end of the forecasting period. >> >> A wiser approach to Social Security would lead folks to set aside >> actuarial balance as their metric, and choose one that reflects genuine >> solvency. A steady Trust Fund ratio, perhaps. If the ratio of the Trust >> Fund to annual benefit payments were holding steady, over the years and >> decades to come, that'd be a trustworthy indication of lasting solvency. >> >> >> Global warming. Or what about the way in which the global warming issue >> has come to be framed as an "emissions reduction" issue, as though we were >> engaged in a rerun of the Clean Air Act? >> >> The logic of this situation tells us otherwise. The greater the total >> stock of CO2 in the atmosphere, the warmer the Earth becomes. The warmer >> the Earth becomes, the more climate change we get. Warming may be governed >> by rules of proportionality, but climate change is trickier than that. >> Climate change is also a matter of tipping points. Small adjustments in >> temperature can cause major changes in behavior. >> >> Work the logic backward and it leads to a hard conclusion: Climate >> change cannot end till global warming ends. Global warming cannot end till >> total CO2 has been capped. And total CO2 cannot be capped till the the >> consumption of fossil fuels has ceased. And the consumption of fossil >> fuels cannot cease till we've had a complete changeout of our energy >> technologies. >> >> It is a mistake - given this logic - to characterize our situation as an >> "emissions reduction" situation, as though we were engaged in a rerun of >> the Clean Air Act. That's a seriously inapt analogy. We're in a >> technology replacement situation. The Montreal Protocol is a better model. >> As old refrigerators wear out and need replacement, the new ones will use >> ozone-safe refrigerants. The heat pump we bought last summer is >> ozone-safe; the one it replaces was not. >> >> "Emission reduction" is a friendly term, but it badly understates our >> responsibilities. One wonders why our environmentalists are so weak in >> thinking this through. >> >> >> Schools. Or what about the way in which the challenge of educating low >> income children has been framed by policy partisans? Let's measure. Let's >> test. Let's grade teachers by the amount of progress children make. Let's >> shed teachers whose kids make no progress. In short, let's address this >> challenge by fiddling with the way we manage the adults. >> >> There is another, and wiser, way to explore this opportunity. It's to >> pay close attention to the principals who have done especially well, and >> dig deeply enough to figure out why. >> >> What one finds - in doing this - are principals obsessed by reaching >> every child, motivating every child, and making sure every child learns. >> One discovers a few implicit hypotheses: Children succeed when (a) >> they're highly motivated, (b) the lessons are learnable, (c) coaching from >> teachers is perceptive and on point, and (d) they invest enough time. >> Great principals find a hundred and one success factors that can help them >> motivate kids. They test kids to learn how far along they are, and then >> they pitch their instruction to kids at a level they're capable of >> understanding. They promote teacher observations and discussions, so that >> every teacher gets regular feedback on how well he/she responds to each >> child in the room. And they put in longer school days and bring kids to >> school on Saturdays. >> >> If we started by asking, "what's it take for every child to learn," >> instead of "what's it take to manage the grownups better" we'd make more >> progress. One gets fast certainties by asking how to manage grownups. One >> gets more wisdom by asking what it takes for every kid to engage, and >> learn. >> >> >> So I'd push back on the issue of information and certainty. I'd say that >> Klein's article confirms a larger theme - that our culture cultivates >> shallowness, not wisdom. We cannot be a mature public till we learn the >> difference between clever certainties and genuine wisdom, and our hearts >> begin to lead us toward wisdom. >> >> How do we become wise? I can spot symptoms of not being wise. I'm not >> sure I have the knack to practice wisdom. Or inspire wisdom. I do think >> it's a higher quality, one that we need a lot more of. >> >> Best to all, >> >> Steve Johnson >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Apr 8, 2014, at 3:10 PM, Michael Strong wrote: >> >> Thanks, Michael, that was an excellent and highly relevant article. This >> statement by Kahan, >> >> " I asked Kahan how he tries to guard against identity protection in his >>> everyday life. The answer, he said, is to try to find disagreement that >>> doesn't threaten you and your social group -- and one way to do that is to >>> consciously seek it out in your group. "I try to find people who I actually >>> think are like me -- people I'd like to hang out with -- but they don't >>> believe the things that everyone else like me believes," he says. "If I >>> find some people I identify with, I don't find them as threatening when >>> they disagree with me." It's good advice, but it requires, as a >>> prerequisite, a desire to expose yourself to uncomfortable evidence -- and a >>> confidence that the knowledge won't hurt you." >> >> >> articulates an appropriate norm for a transpartisan group. >> >> Political scientists who study political ignorance are also acutely aware >> that more information usually leads to greater political polarization. I >> see this well-established empirical fact as devastating to those who would >> believe that "more information" or "better informed voters" would lead to >> any improvement in outcome. >> >> >> >> On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 6:49 PM, Michael Briand wrote: >> >>> Here's a link to a very good *article* ( >>> http://www.vox.com/2014/4/6/5556462/brain-dead-how-politics-makes-us-stupid) >>> that's directly relevant to the challenge of achieving >>> transpartisanship. It explains why, if we want dialogue instead of >>> "dueling monologues," we need to deal with the human need for a robust >>> personal identity. >>> >>> Michael Briand >>> >>> ------------------------------ >>> >>> To unsubscribe from the TRANSPARTISAN list, click the following link: >>> >>> http://lists.thataway.org/scripts/wa-THATAWAY.exe?SUBED1=TRANSPARTISAN&A=1 >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Michael Strong >> CEO and Chief Visionary Officer >> FLOW, Inc. >> www.flowidealism.org >> >> For the definitive Conscious Capitalism book, see Be the Solution: How >> Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World's Problems, >> by Michael Strong with John Mackey, CEO Whole Foods Market, Muhammad Yunus, >> founder of Grameen Bank and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Hernando de >> Soto, Co-Chair of the U.N. Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, >> and others, and listen to John Mackey's audio CD Passion and Purpose: The >> Power of Conscious Capitalism, both available at amazon.com or >> www.flowidealism.org. >> >> Liberating the Entrepreneurial Spirit for Good >> >> When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with >> your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will >> always long to return. >> >> Leonardo Da Vinci >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> To unsubscribe from the TRANSPARTISAN list, click the following link: >> http://lists.thataway.org/scripts/wa-THATAWAY.exe?SUBED1=TRANSPARTISAN&A=1 >> >> >> > > > -- > Michael Strong > CEO and Chief Visionary Officer > FLOW, Inc. > www.flowidealism.org > > For the definitive Conscious Capitalism book, see Be the Solution: How > Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World's Problems, > by Michael Strong with John Mackey, CEO Whole Foods Market, Muhammad Yunus, > founder of Grameen Bank and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Hernando de > Soto, Co-Chair of the U.N. Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, > and others, and listen to John Mackey's audio CD Passion and Purpose: The > Power of Conscious Capitalism, both available at amazon.com or > www.flowidealism.org. > > Liberating the Entrepreneurial Spirit for Good > > When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with > your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will > always long to return. > > Leonardo Da Vinci > > > > ------------------------------ > > To unsubscribe from the TRANSPARTISAN list, click the following link: > http://lists.thataway.org/scripts/wa-THATAWAY.exe?SUBED1=TRANSPARTISAN&A=1 >

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