On Tech Weather and alignment

 

Do I take satisfaction in this?  Yes, I do.

 

 

Ruthbea Clarke, research director of IDC Government Insights, said a surprising finding was the impact severe weather and climate change will have on municipalities. She expects weather planning will play a sigfnicant role with city IT planning and technology investments in the future.

Fear and Politics

 

There's this:

 

Fear will be big in 2015, an insight no one has to pass along to Steve. The critical question is whether democracy will be even bigger?

 

And this:

 

But the intended or unintended impact of this proposal will be to cast a chill on every broadcast appearance in an era where scripted robots already dominate political discourse.

 

With the bottom line being, our political people aren't just in competition with each other, they are effectively at war.  Few partisans really want to be in verbal wars; they aren't prepared to sacrifice on behalf of their parties.  They don't believe in 'em that much.

 

Will we see less moderates, dissenters and critical thinkers in our politics?  What will the consequences of this be - or can we see that, already?

 

Which brings us to this:

 

“People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

 

We live in a democracy.  Out governments are supposed to be of the people, the common folk, not a class of their own.

 

See, when government ceases to reflect, or understand the grassroots realities of their constituencies, this is what happens.

 

Don't despair, though - there's more to the story than this.  But now is definitely the time to start paying attention.

 

The Straw Father

 

 

Every cause needs an enemy; that's common wisdom.  Whether it's a political party or ISIL, there has to be a threatening bad guy to motivate the troops.  Even in faith, there is the devil; why else would you evangelize if not to save souls from the clutches of paganism?

 

When you're fighting a war, a solid villain helps motivate troops to put their lives on the line.  Ideology can help, too, but that's more about creating a world that benefits you, but not so much as it benefits the top of whatever hierarchy you're serving (and there is always one).

 

In many cases, though, the enemy isn't all that threatening.  Sides have to exaggerate the evils of their opponents to effectively cast them as the devil.  Rank and file might buy in to the soundbites, because they're emotionally gratifying and provide membership in a group, but these are the front-line soldiers.  They will shoot and take bullets, or canvass and lit-drop. 

 

Theoretically, capitalism has done away with the need for enemies as motivation - it's money, title and the corner office that are supposed to motivate individuals now.  The more and better they do as individual actors for the collective, the more they grow in wealth and position. 

 

Which isn't how it works out in practice.  Instead, the "individual actors" get very good at putting themselves ahead of the well-being of the whole, resulting in inefficiencies, down-loaded responsibility and eventual system failure.

 

So - how do you motivate the creative, the strategists, the people who can identify and see through the spin to consciously and personally sacrifice for the cause?

 

Basic behavioural economics suggests we are primarily motivated by two things - what we can gain, and what we have to lose.  Despite the "no pain no gain" rhetoric, if you're getting things, the idea of sacrificing something you already have doesn't have appeal.  What motivates people to put everything on the line is the desire to combat loss.

 

We're back to needing an enemy.

 

If you recognize that The Other is human and has human weaknesses, they are insufficient as a foe.  Especially when their actions do not directly challenge your own life, you're motivation to act is limited. 

 

How many Wall Street lawyers have signed up to go fight ISIL?  Exactly.  They don't feel their lives or way of life is really at stake - despite 9/11, it's still all an over there problem.

 

So who makes for a motivational foe to muster those who reject partisan lenses?

 

The answer is fascinating, and perhaps a bit frightening.

 

When loss is the key driver and external actors are insufficient to present a strong enough threat to catalyze sacrifice on the part of your smartest, most strategic players, you need to change gears and look internally.

 

There is probably no more traumatic experience for a child than to realize their parents are not god, that they are fallible and even petty in their aspirations.  We're trained to believe "father knows best" and default on the side of authority, confident authority.

 

When the veneer wears off, though - when the confidence is revealed as bluster and the "knows best" is recognized as spin, we realize just how rudderless we are, and they are. 

 

If you see yourself as an actor, not an audience member, this will not do.  Especially when you recognize the landscape and emerging perils that are missed by your Stern Father (whether they themselves see the threats or not) it becomes awfully difficult to sit back and wait for avoidable catastrophe to happen.

 

There's a lesson in this that has been learned before, but not by those who need to recognize it the most.

 

Which is kinda the point.

Game's Harper

 

 

 

 

The PMO claimed no photos had been removed, and even issued talking points to MPs and supporters citing The Canadian Press story as "false." Prominent party supporters claimed the site was simply undergoing routine technical revisions.

 

"When it comes down to it, though, the real decision is inevitable: if one of us has to be destroyed, let's make damned sure we're the ones alive at the end."

 

There's the view from the inside out - call it political geocentrism, but it naturally applies to all institutions, all individuals.  We are, after all, only human.

 

There's the view from the outside in; the fishbowl effect where we see the actions of caged beasts, or forces afar and judge by what we see because we can't really know what's going on in the heads of The Other.  That's human, too.

 

For all the claims of his unmatched strategic genius, his personal petulance or his robot-like personality, our Prime Minister and his court are human, too.  He may think himself a king among men, but like any leader, the truth is he's just another piece on the board.

 

All the attempts at message control, attack-ad suppressing fire and the like are being played out on a very small field.

 

Which, as always, means that those who see themselves as writing history are missing the big picture.

 

It's a frightening one.  We're entering a period of global winter that has to do with a lot more than climate change.

 

The insular, self-assured survivors aren't insulating themselves from what's coming - they're causing it, or at least are part of the cause.  Without knowing it.  Without understanding the context.

 

Because there is no us and them.  There is us.  And, like a snake biting it's own tail, we cannot destroy The Other; we can only defeat ourselves.

 

But that's not the only choice.  Merely the obvious one.

 

Arrogance and the ISIS Parable

 

 

On its social media pages, the Islamic State has warned militants not to share location data or other information that could be useful to the group’s opponents, but Weyers said many of the militants do not appear to have picked up on the message.

 

 

ISIS is a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  It's worth noting that, for a collective apparently pursuing an Armageddon agenda, they're pretty focused on governance and infrastructure.

 

Yet what are the marketing strategies they're using for recruitment?  Are they bringing in and, once they've got 'em, training their militants for a sustained conflict and perpetual suppression of a local populace?

 

I'd say the short answer is no.  ISIS recruits aren't prepared for consequences, nor is ISIS itself.  They feel they can carve out a corner of the world, scare off outsiders and set up their own feudal enterprise.

 

They'd do well to study why feudalism fell in the first place.

 

ISIS is sloppy.  It's people are sloppy and can't but be sloppy because of their starting premise.

 

Nobody can bring about the end of the world.  But they can sure end themselves if they don't think ahead.

 

And the only way to think ahead is to think empathetically, which is exactly what ISIS-ians are trained and encouraged not to do.

 

There's a lesson in this.

Faith and Ender's Game: Let's Finish It

 

"It isn’t the world at stake, Ender. Just us. Just humankind. As far as the rest of the biosphere is concerned, we could be wiped out and it would adjust, it would get on with the next step in evolution. But humanity doesn’t want to die. As a species, we have evolved to survive. and the way we do it is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generations, giving birth to genius. the one who invents the wheel. And light. And flight. The one who builds a city, a nation, an empire."

 

What is genius?  Is a genius the person who innovates something new, or who conquers all that came before?

 

There's no great secret to humanity.  We are a product of evolution, a fibre in the ever-evolving ecosystem.  Truly, we don't matter, except to ourselves.

 

We yearn to live; more than that, we yearn to have.  But having and living are not the same thing.  The man who builds an empire, who defeats a democracy - they may be history's actors to some but in the grand scheme, they are arterial blockage.

 

Those who see themselves as superior, or more worthy, or at the least more capable of surviving than others miss the point entirely.  They don't matter.  Their ideologies don't matter.  Our species as a whole is an insignificant drop in the ocean.

 

But therein lies the real secret of humanity. 

 

The ideological leaders set themselves up as figure heads of causes.  The substance of their cause doesn't matter; if people buy in, then the cause becomes more than the sum of its parts.  People will sacrifice their resources, their lives, even their freedom if they feel the cause matters more than they do.

 

We don't matter.  Who we are doesn't matter.  Whether we're eulogized or inscribed in history books doesn't matter.

 

Why?

 

Because we're capable of so much more. 

 

Not on our own.  Not as islands.

 

We want to live.  We want to survive.

 

Nothing lives forever.  Nothing remains the same forever.

 

Change is the universal constant; genius is the ability to be that change.

 

Not to freeze a moment in time, for moments don't last.  Not to close off the outside world, for every island gives way to the sea.

 

Be more than the part you are.  Be the sum. 

 

That's where we end; that's where We begin.

 

Stephen Harper: History's Non-Actor

 

 

There’s no doubt that building those big programs was a difficult and messy enterprise. And by disentangling Ottawa from social and health policy, the Tories may well be making matters neater. They are doing this without much fanfare, quietly and incrementally — often simply by not acting — and thus largely without debate or public consideration of the consequences.

 

 

Karl Rove once declared that Conservatives like himself were history's actors; progressives would be stuck studying the impacts of Conservative actions.  The basic premise of this approach is exactly the same as that of, say, a Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi or the ISIL gang, but I digress.

 

I don't think Stephen Harper sees himself as being in the vein of a Karl Rove, or a Dick Cheney.  He probably feels he's a lot smarter than either of them are.

 

And his biggest weapon, his secret advantage, the master stroke of his strategic genius has always been this - back away.  Do nothing.  Talk big about whatever, because if you say it confidently and frequently enough while denouncing your opposition, people will believe you - but when it comes to brass tacks, just stop doing things.  Wherever possible, stop things from happening, period.

 

Has Harper changed Canada?  Of course he has, in much the same way as Toronto Council has changed things like public transit or wastewater infrastructure.  Neglect results in change.

 

Harper doesn't see himself as one of history's actors - that's too pedestrian for a genius Machiavelli like him.  No, Harper is more like a producer, calling the shots from the sidelines and doing so through production cost attrition.

 

I'll say it again - Harper is a one-trick pony, and always has been.  His success comes through the actions of others; on his own, he's the guy pouting in the washroom waiting for someone to budge.

 

You can call that many things, but leadership is not one of them.