“ In the beginning there was the Skyworld. She fell like a maple seed, pirouetting on an autumn breeze. A column of light streamed from a hole in the Skyworld, marking her path where only darkness had been before. It took her a long time to fall. In fear, or maybe hope, she clutched a bundle tightly in her hand.
Hurtling downward, she saw only dark water below. But in that emptiness there were many eyes gazing up at the sudden shaft of light. They saw there a small object, a mere dust mote in the beam. As it grew…
In line with my previous post, a key thing I think we need to all get better at is civic engagement. And, as discussed at length in the news media and elsewhere, one of the big challenges to effective civic engagement is dis/misinformation. While there are myriad issues wrapped into dis/misinformation, an important action to counteract it is to be able to recognize when someone is using a non-argument.
By non-argument, I mean they make a claim or say something that is meant to be a counter-argument or to be used as evidence to make a case for a certain…
Like others, I’m both shocked and, sadly and simultaneously, not at all surprised by the events that occurred on January 6, 2021. I call the date out with intention as I think this should be a day we all remember, just like how we remember 9/11/2001.
This is my understanding of January 6, 2021.
On 1/6/21, we had an insurrection against US Democracy within the US Capitol, with the explicit goal, at best, of delegitimizing the votes of millions of Americans, seeking to stage an unsuccessful coup over our government [thankfully, few actually in government, particularly our military or the…
I recently finished listening to a fantastic podcast miniseries the other day called Timber Wars. It is about the battle between environmentalists and mill town/timber industry communities in the Pacific Northwest. It starts with a discussion on the evolving science and, by extension, the perceptions of forests. For some time, forests that included very old trees, fallen trees, and a good deal of things that are rotting, were perceived as largely dead forests; they were places ripe to be cut down and cleared so that “fresh” trees and forests could be planted in their place. …
In a previous post, I wrote a way of thinking about the story of humans in a non-human-centric way. I brought up this idea that humanity grew out of a series of emergent properties coming out of increasingly more complex systems built upon and interacting with other systems, including the physical, life, eco, social, and technology systems. Central to this idea was that each system has concrete rules and ways of balancing out the countervailing pressures between resonance and diversity, but those pressures manifest differently within each system.
I’ve realized now that what I wrote was probably way to abstract…
In my previous post, I suggested that, if we want humanity and the current level of biodiversity to survive, we must become more than super-apex predators. If we don’t, then the natural checks on apex predators — famine, dehydration, disease, natural disaster, or self-destruction — will result in mass extinction, including our own species. And, we know this is quite possible as it has already happened at least 5 times on our planet.
How do we become more than super-apex predators? Well, to answer that, a good first step is to better define the problem.
My wife and I watched David Attenborough’s Witness Statement on Netflix the other night: David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. If you’ve ever watched a BBC Nature documentary (e.g., Planet Earth, Blue Planet, Planet Earth 2) then you’ve heard David Attenborough. He is that calming voice with a British accent that narrates and helps you to understand nature, wildlife, and the world around us. He has been doing that since his 20s and, now, at 94, has created a documentary, his witness statement, on what he has seen happen to the natural world during his lifetime. His assessment is…
The bible has been and continues to be one of the best-selling and most-read books of all-time. It is a book that more than a billion people (and arguably more) look to for comfort, advice, and stewardship. Based on this, even for non-Christians, it is hard to deny the greatness of the Judeo-Christian Bible.
Why is the bible great?
This is not an idle question as, in my view, it has implications on how we read it and learn from it.
The common argument on why the bible is great is because it is the word of God. Through Jesus…
We need a new origin story. Our current human-centered narrative, with it’s missive to resculpt the world solely for human benefit, is failing. The Earth itself is under siege by us. The governments and institutions that were built to ennoble and enrich our population are buckling under their own weight and, ironically, we are hurting ourselves. A new story, equipped to tackle the new challenges presented by this moment in the human condition, will necessarily consider our collective capabilities and understandings of humanity. We must leverage science, technology, engineering, arts, culture, music, religion, etc in concert with a distinct purpose…
The stories we tell about where we come from define who we are, what we do, where we are going, and why. From the Book of Genesis or the Big Bang Theory to the Popul Vuh or Hopi creation myths, these stories help groups of people to understand how order can come from chaos and how we fit into something larger than ourselves.
A good creation story must be able to balance collective knowledge with also a strong sense of what is “good”, providing a foundation for higher virtues like truth, purpose, morality, and beauty. …
Eric Hekler
Reading and writing about ideas for creating a society of health, well-being, and equitable participation. Science | Design | Behavior | Psychology
