~C4Chaos

It's Getting Hot, Flat, and Crowded in Herre!

Yesterday I watched Thomas L. Friedman's keynote address on BookExpo 2008 America. Friedman presented his upcoming book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America.

"People say to me: How can we afford to transform our whole economy in order to prevent climate change when climate change could turn out to be a hoax?

"To which I say: If climate change is a hoax it is the most wonderful hoax ever perpetrated on the United States of America because transforming our economy to clean power and energy efficiency to mitigate global warming is the equivalent in training for the Olympic triathlon. If you make it to the Olympics you have a much better chance of winning because you have developed every muscle. If you don't make it to the Olympics you're still healthy or stronger, fitter and more likely to live longer and win any other race in life. And like the triathlon you don't just improve one muscle or one skill but many which become mutually reinforcing and improve the health of the whole system." [watch the video of Friedman's keynote]

Exactly. I'm now looking forward to reading Friedman's book.

And speaking of energy efficiency, here is an excerpt from Friedman's NYTimes article, The Power Green.

"Because a new green ideology, properly defined, has the power to mobilize liberals and conservatives, evangelicals and atheists, big business and environmentalists around an agenda that can both pull us together and propel us forward. That’s why I say: We don’t just need the first black president. We need the first green president. We don’t just need the first woman president. We need the first environmental president. We don’t just need a president who has been toughened by years as a prisoner of war but a president who is tough enough to level with the American people about the profound economic, geopolitical and climate threats posed by our addiction to oil — and to offer a real plan to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels." [read more]

Now check out who's greener, Obama or McCain. Ok, Nader looks green too.

I'm In Obama's Book Club

When I saw Fareed Zakaria's interview with Charlie Rose I immediately got interested on reading, The Post-American World. I got my order last week from Amazon and I'm currently reading it. It's now part of my creepy library. Very fascinating, eye-opening, and informative. It's a must-read for those who are interested to have an overview of the current state of geopolitics and economics in our globalized landscape.

I'm not suprised that Obama is also reading it. Based on this photo, it looks like me and Obama are on the same page. It's good to know that the future president of the U.S. is gearing up for a post-American world, while looking like a rock star.

The Post-American World

Yesterday I went to Barnes & Noble to check out the book, The Post-American World. I got interested with this book after watching Fareed Zakaria on Charlie Rose. But since the book is still in hardcover it's a bit pricey ($25 bucks in store). So I opted to just order it from Amazon, saving me more than $10. How very American of me ;)

I'm looking forward to reading this book to have more detailed understanding of Zakaria's thesis: the Rise of the Rest. Growing up outside of the U.S. and having had an experience living in Europe, my gut feeling tells me that Zakaria's thesis is very sound. But the devil, as they say, is in the details.

That said, my first impression on this book is favorable. Other political books are too politically divisive, too much engaged in partisanship, too conservative, too liberal, too American-centric, or too anti-American. What I like about this book is that it's neither American-centric nor anti-American. It does critique American leadership (i.e. GW Bush's failed foreign policies) but all in all it's a constructive criticism of U.S. foreign and economic policies, as well as a peek on what's happening around the world. Coming from someone who is constantly exposed to international issues (Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International) this book looks promising.

But I'll withhold the rest of my praise or critique until I've read the book. Will post my review soon.

For those of you who have already read it, feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

SL4Dummies

As I've mentioned previously, it's about time that I hone my SL skills, and fast. So I grabbed Second Life for Dummies. I'll be immersing in the virtual world in the next few days. At the rate of speed the metaverse is changing (and improving) there's a good chance that this book will be obsolete a few months from now. So I better digest it fast.

Speaking of Second Life (and virtual worlds in general), Philip Rosedale is scheduled to appear at the first U.S. hearing on virtual worlds. Now that's Mirrored Flourishing in action!

Review: The Black Swan

"Imagine a speck of dust next to planet a billion times the size of the earth. The speck of dust represents the odds in favor of your being born; the huge planet would be the odds against it. So stop sweating the small stuff. Don't be like an ingrate who got a castle as a present and worried about the mildew in the bathroom. Stop looking for the gift horse in the mouth -- remember that you are a Black Swan." -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

I started reading two books. But I ended up finishing just one. I just can't put the damn book down. I'm talking about the book, The Black Swan. I felt instant connection with the author, Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I jive with his philosophy on improbability, no-nonsense "skeptical empiricism" and his audacity. He took me on an intellectual thrill ride into chaos, uncertainty, and serendipity. In this review I will share a portion of that journey.

Taleb started out with a very short autobiographical account (Chapter 1: Apprenticeship of An Empirical Skeptic) to give the reader a sense of where he's coming from -- his roots and cultural background, education, experience, profession, passion. Immediately, I get the sense that I'm not just reading another author. This author is a polymath -- speaks and writes fluently in different languages, is educated with the classics (Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic), accomplished mathematician, a proud skeptical empiricist (in the tradition of Sextus Empiricus), had been a trader by profession, and has now dedicated his intellectual life in doing research on chance & improbability. He calls highly improbable events as, Black Swans -- after the discovery of Black swans in Australia wherein prior to that people believed that all swans were "white." A Black Swan event has the following three attributes: "rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability."

The basic thesis of the book is this: Our human tendency to categorize (Platonicity) and explain the causes of everything with theories (narrative fallacy) backed up with partial evidence (confirmation bias; fallacy of silent evidence) while concocting models of reality (ludic fallacy) make us blind to Black Swans.

Sounds like a bunch of philosophical jargons, eh?

But where Taleb really shines is in his style of writing, and his intellectual audacity. As much as he dislikes narratives, he used narrative "for good" -- using literary craft by mixing narrative, semi-autobiographical fiction infused with philosophical, scientific and technical knowledge backed up with empirical research.

Parts 1 and 2 of the book were dedicated to dispel our delusions that we understand reality while disregarding random events. To explain the two problems of randomness, Taleb resorted to metaphors of two worlds:

Mediocristan -- a utopian province dominated by the mediocre (such as economists, politicians, historians, philosophers, and social scientists) where "particular events don't contribute much individually--only collectively." This world represents the soft problem of randomness.

Extremistan -- a scalable world where extreme, unpredictable and highly improbable events occur. This is the world of the Black Swans. This world represents the hard problem of randomness.

According to Taleb, in reality, we all live in Extremistan. What pisses him off is that our economic models, scientific and mathematical tools (i.e. Gaussian Bell Curve--which Taleb calls,"that great intellectual fraud"), politicians, journalists, and even vanguards of knowledge, the philosophers, view and approach our world as if we're living in Mediocristan! In short, we just can't predict extreme random events.

But this book is not all rant. In Part 3, Taleb proposed a solution on how to adapt to the impact of Black Swans, even if we're powerless to predict them. He championed the Mandelbrotian fractals over the Gaussian model because fractal representation is a more useful way of approximating randomness. With the Mandelbrotian factals, "We can turn these Black Swans into Gray Swans... reducing their surprise effect."

"Fractals should be the default, the approximation, the framework. They do not solve the Black Swan problem and do not turn all Black Swans into predictable events, but they significantly mitigate the Black Swan problem by making such large events conceivable." (p. 262)

That is the gist of his (technical) solution, specifically for economic, political, and scientific domains in the business of "prediction", or forecasting.

When it comes to the practical and personal domain, I ride with his philosophy.

"Prediction, not narration, is the real test of our understanding the world." (p. 133)

"...have the integrity to deliver your "because" very sparingly; try to limit it to situations where the "because" is derived from experiments, not backward-looking history." (p. 120)

"...be human! Accept that being human involves some amount of epistemic arrogance in running your affairs. Do not be ashamed of that. Do not try to always withhold judgment -- opinions are the stuff of life. Do not try to avoid predicting -- yes, after this diatribe about prediction I am not urging you to stop being a fool. Just be a fool in the right places. What you should avoid is unnecessary dependence of large-scale harmful predictions -- those and only those." (p. 203)

"...be prepared! Narrow-minded prediction has an analgesic or therapeutic effect. Be aware of the numbing effect of magic numbers. Be prepared for all relevant eventualities." (p. 203)

"Put yourself in situations where favorable consequences are much larger than unfavorable ones." (p. 210)

In short, "maximize the serendipity around you." I like that. Very Zen. As regular and long-time readers of this blog already know, I'm a sucker for serendipity ;)

However, my gripe with Taleb is not what he's written in the book, but what was left unsaid. Although he cited the 1987 stock market crash (this single event vindicated him when he was still in the trading profession), 9/11, and World War II as examples of Black Swans, I feel that he intentionally left out the biggest and most controversial Black Swan of all: Global Warming. There was no mention of it in the book. I think Taleb avoided this controversial topic since his book is already controversial in the domain of business and economics. Adding the controversy of Global Warming will only take away the attention from his main point. And besides, Global Warming is a long-term predicted event that had already sunk in the collective consciousness of masses. It's a Black Swan either way -- the prediction coming to pass, or *not* coming to pass.

In any case, due to Taleb's withholding of opinion on Global Warming, I can only speculate that, with his distrust of models and narratives, he  would fall on the Michael Crichton side of the Global Warming debate spectrum. Crichton's argument on nonlinearity, unpredictability, and unreliability of global climate models fit well with Taleb's thesis (see Crichton's interview with Charlie Rose). Simply put, on the topic of Global Warming, compared to Crichton, Taleb's audaciousness (or in this case, foolishness) didn't live up to my expectation.

But I still like the guy. After reading the book, I found an intellectual hero in Taleb. I groove with his skeptical empiricism, and his no-nonsense philosophizing. However, this somewhat puts me in a state of cognitive dissonance since I also have an affinity with Ken Wilber's integral philosophy (aka AQAL) which "explains" events and perspectives via a meta-map called, Four Quadrants. I wonder how Taleb would receive integral theory. Would he consider this as another instance of Platonicity? Or will he groove with it, like me? Likewise, what is the place of randomness and uncertainty within the integral model? Based on my understanding, even randomness is included in the integral model (i.e. philosophy of "oops"). However, Wilber's propensity is to map out models and do extemporaneous narration based on those models. So I suspect that there would be an intellectual clash between Taleb and Wilber. This remains to be seen. But consider these quotes from Taleb and you'll get an idea where he stands when it comes to grand sweeping theories.

"The way to avoid the ills of the narrative fallacy is to favor experimentation over storytelling, experience over history, and clinical knowledge over theories.... Being empirical does not mean running a laboratory in one's basement: it is just a mind-set that favors a certain class of knowledge over others." (p. 84)

"I care more about premises more than theories, and I want to minimize reliance on theories, stay light on my feet, and reduce my surprises. I want to be broadly right rather than precisely wrong. Elegance in the theories is often indicative of Platonicity and weakness--it invites you to seek elegance for elegance's sake. A theory is like medicine (or government): often useless, sometimes necessary, always self-serving, and on occasion lethal. So it needs to be used with care, moderation, and close adult supervision." (p. 285)

Bottom line: this book is a must-read. It's a literary crash course on the uncertainty in economics, science, politics, and philosophy, all rolled into one. When I picked up the book I didn't know it was the #1 Highest Selling Nonfiction book in 2007 on Amazon. So there goes another serendipity. This book is, literally, a Black Swan.

Finally, upon reading the book, this classic Rumsfeld quote ceased to be funny; it actually makes sense.

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are "known knowns"; there are things we know we know. We also know there are "known unknowns"; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also "unknown unknowns" — the ones we don't know we don't know."

Here's to chaos, uncertainty, and serendipity!

Affluenza, Black Swan, and F*** You Money

After reading the book, The Hot Topic (check out my review here), I was encouraged to read more books from a European perspective (I'm still here in Ireland as of this writing). So me and ~myDakini stopped by Eason bookstore yesterday so I could check out new books to read.

"You're addicted to books," ~myDakini said as we passed by the counter.

"Yeah, I am," I said with a proud smirk. "But be thankful I'm addicted to books, and not with booze, drugs, or women!"

"Fine. But you're still addicted to books." She's right.

I went to the new and best sellers section to scout for more books that would peak my curiosity. Most books in front of the store are fiction, celebrity biographies, and cheesy feel-good stories. Europeans (at least here in Ireland) are obsessed with celebrities and stories (judging by the placement of celebrity magazines, biographies, and fiction in bookstores.) I like stories and fiction, but I groove with nonfiction the best. If I want a good story I go to the movies. When I read books I want ideas not stories. Scanning the book section two books grabbed my attention.

The first was Affluenza, by British psychologist Oliver James. This book tackles the "global" social epidemic called, affluenza, which is "a painful, contagious socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more." The other book was The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. All I knew about this book was that it's about the Black swan theory (i.e. uncertainty and unpredictability) and that it's popular among LongNow and Edge thinkers. So I picked up the books and paid for it by credit card. Expensive. I wish I were in Seattle right now ordering from Amazon.com instead.

On the way home I felt like I was coming down with a flu. The weather here is still very cold and my body is not good at coping. By the time we got home I already had a runny nose and a slight fever. In the meantime, ~myDakini boiled hot water for my Lemsip medication. Great. This flu is a perfect excuse to stay in bed all day and read my books! I know. Very sleazy. But hey, it works!

So I did nothing but read my books the whole day until past midnight. At first I thought the two books were completely unrelated, but upon reading them in parallel I caught a of glimpse of serendipitous connection. (Note: I often read multiple books in parallel; a few chapters from one book and a few from another. The more engaging the book, the sooner I finish it.)

Here's the serendipitous connection.

So far I have only read the first few chapters of Affluenza, but it is quite clear that James had already made up his conclusion in the Prologue. For James, Selfish Capitalism is the root cause of the Affluenza Virus. James wrote,

"The Affluenza Virus is a set of values which increase our vulnerability to emotional distress. It entails placing a high value on acquiring money and possessions, looking good in the eyes of others and wanting to be famous." ....

"...my new theory is that the nasty form of political economy that I call Selfish Capitalism caused an epidemic of the Affluenza Virus, accounting for much of the increase in the distress since the 1970s.

"By Selfish Capitalism I mean four basic things. The first is that the success of business is judged almost exclusively by their current share price. The second is a strong drive to privatise public utilities, such as water, gas and electricity, or in the case of America, to keep them in private hands. The third is that there should be as little regulation of business as possible, with taxation for the rich and very rich so limited that whether to contribute becomes almost a matter of choice. The fourth is the conviction that consumption and market forces can meet human needs of almost every kind. America is that apotheosis of Selfish Capitalism, Denmark the nearest thing to its Unselfish opposite."

(I told you it's interesting to read contemporary books from European perspective. Americans should do this from time to time ;))

In the very beginning of the book (before the Prologue) there is a self test -- "Have you contracted the Affluenza Virus?" -- in which, "If you answered 'yes' to any of the questions, then you have, like most people in the English-speaking world, contracted the Virus. The more you answered 'yes', the more infected you are and the greater your likelihood of becoming emotionally distressed."

I answered 'yes' on the very first statement which is, "I would like to be a very wealthy person." I think this question is very vague and misleading because "very wealthy" is a relative term. For example, for me (who grew up in a developing nation), people who make $200,000 a year, own a car, and a decent house are very wealthy. Multi-millionaires are appallingly wealthy. Billionaires are mindblowingly, appallingly wealthy (with the exception -- on the appallingly -- of Warren Buffett as my ultimate role model of uber-compassionate-wealthiness). Nonetheless, I answered 'yes' and then I answered 'no' on all the remaining questions. This means that by James' definition, I'm mildly infected with the Affluenza Virus. Fine. So be it.

After reading a few engaging chapters of what James called, "mind tour" -- he went around the (industrialized) world interviewing appallingly rich, middle-class, and low-income people, with focus on those who are afflicted by the said Virus -- I switched to The Black Swan. The Prologue of the book is very engaging. I've always been fascinated with uncertainty, chaos (hence my pseudonym), impermanence, and serendipity. In short, the Black swan theory is very appealing to me.

The first chapter of the book is a very short autobiography of the author which put in context his being a "skeptical empiricist." But what I connected with best with the author is his attitude on learning and money. Based on his own account, Nassim Nicholas Taleb is not infected with the Affluenza Virus. Here's how he described what he calls "f*** you money". (emphasis by the author)

"It was hard to tell my friends, all hurt in some manner by the [stockmarket] crash, about this feeling of vindication. Bonuses at the time were a fraction of what they are today, but if my employer, First Boston, and the financial system survived until year-end, I would get the equivalent of a fellowship. This is sometimes called "f*** you money," which in spite of its coarseness, means that it allows you to act like Victorian gentleman, free from slavery. It is a psychological buffer: the capital is not so large as to make you spoiled-rich, but large enough to give you the freedom to choose a new occupation without excessive consideration of the financial rewards. It shields you from prostituting your mind and frees you from outside authority--any outside authority. (Independence is person-specific: I have always been taken aback at they high number of people in whom an astonishingly high income led to additional sycophancy as they became more dependent on their clients and employers and more addicted to making even more money.) While not substantial by some standards, it literally cured me of all financial ambition--it made me feel ashamed whenever I diverted time away from study for the pursuit of material wealth. Note that the designation f*** you corresponds to the exhilarating ability to pronounce that compact phrase before hanging up the phone."

In one paragraph, Taleb eloquently summarized my own attitude towards money. For instance, I'm not too crazy about getting very wealthy. What I actually want is to have f*** you money so that I could provide the needs of my loved ones, spend time with them, while pursuing my interests without fear of financial repercussions. From this perspective, I'd like to think that I'm *not* afflicted with the Affluenza Virus. Then again, I'll revisit this self-assessment after I've read both of these books.

In the meantime, check out these books if you haven't read them yet. I'll post my review as soon as I'm done reading them. I think that it would be interesting to riff on important and polarizing issues, such as health care in America, using the Selfish Capitalism perspective, as well as look at Global Warming using the lens of the Black Swan theory.

               

Review: The Hot Topic

As promised, here is my review of The Hot Topic. My apologies for the delay. I had to read the book twice to make sure that I digest its essence.

But first, allow me to share my personal context on the global warming issue. I have never read any non-fiction book on global warming prior to The Hot Topic. Ironically, the only book I've read about global warming is the controversial novel, The State of Fear by Michael Crichton. However, after reading Crichton's novel, my curiosity peaked. Crichton raised my awareness on the very issue that he tried to debunk. Since then I've devoted some of my time looking at the spectrum of debates on global warming. I've read countless news articles on the Web, watched debates, documentaries, and interviews, and skimmed the IPCC Reports. In short, I did my best to understand this issue from an environmental, technological, geopolitical, economics, and even religious and spiritual perspectives, all the while sharing my explorations on my blog (hint: search this blog for "global warming" or "climate change"; see also my bookmarks on global-warming and climate-change).

In my curiosity to understand global warming, along the way I also learned that there is a massive disinformation effort to cause confusion on the issue, not to mention ignorance, delusion, denial, and outright hysteria brought about by doomsday scenarios perpetrated by movies and mainstream media. This is not surprising. I find it kind of funny. I find it kind of sad. Our competing values, political ideologies, self-interests, and psycho-social stages of development put our collective in a state of cognitive dissonance causing leaders and policymakers to delay or sabotage appropriate actions based on the best scientific information we've got. From this perspective, we really are living in a "Mad World."

Now on to the book review...

The Hot Topic - How to Tackle Global Warming and Still Keep the Lights On is one of the latest books on global warming. In fact, as of this writing it's not yet released in the U.S. (April 2008 is the scheduled release). Fortunately, I'm in Ireland right now so I was able to pick up a copy. One of the reasons I decided to read the book was that it was highly recommended by Chris Mooney (one of the ScienceBloggers I regularly read). The other reason is that the authors of the book, Dr. Gabrielle Walker and Sir David King, are both scientists with impeccable credentials. They are both experts on climate science. In fact, Sir David King is one of the central figures on the subject of climate change. He served as Chief Scientific Adviser in the U.K. and was very influential in making the U.K. a leader on climate change policies. So I thought, why not get first-hand information on climate change from those people who understand it rather than depend on the interpretation of journalists and politicians who have an "axe to grind"? A no-brainer.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I (The Problem) explained global warming issue in plain and easy-to-understand language. It addressed the common myths, misconceptions, and areas of contention among climate scientists. It presented uncontested evidences as well as the unknowns in the current state of climate science. But the general conclusion is this:

"Human activity is to blame for the rise in temperature over recent decades, and will be responsible for more changes in the future. There are plenty of areas for debate in the global warming story but this is not one of them. If anybody tells you differently they either have a vested interest in ignoring the scientific arguments or they are fools." (p. 37)

Take note that this conclusion is not based on the "consensus" of scientists. This is what the available scientific evidence suggests. So from the perspective of climate science, Al Gore's presentation on the movie An Inconvenient Truth is spot on. Whether we agree with Gore's environmental ideology or not, there's no denying that Gore had done his homework on the climate change issue. Gore's passion is backed by solid science. The man deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, and our collective intellectual respect.

That said, thanks to the progress of climate science in recent years, the book presented an even more alarming scenario.

"All evidence suggests that the world will experience significant and potentially highly dangerous changes in climate change over the next few decades no matter what we do now.

"That's because the ocean has a built-in lag. It takes time to heat up.... The same principle applies to global warming, but on a longer timescale: because the oceans gradually soak up the heat generated by the extra greenhouse gases, the full effect won't be felt for decades to centuries." (p. 53)

So that's the bad news. Not to mention other climate wildcards that could possibly be triggered by various feedbacks and unknowns that scientists were unable to take into consideration into global climate models (GCMs).

In short, the latest scientific findings and evidence not only solidify the global warming problem and put to rest the argument that humanity's addiction to fossil fuels is not to blame, but they also show that previous studies and reports (such as the IPCC) proved to be conservative. Global warming has arrived on our doorstep. From the perspective of climate science, humanity ought to take Samuel L. Jackson's advice. "Hold onto your butts."

But fear not. All hope is not lost. Our generation can still curb the effects of global warming provided that we act now, and fast. However, a big part of the moral responsibility and leadership rest on the shoulders of developed nations.

"The climate change that is already in the pipeline will hit hardest those countries that are least equipped to deal with it -- and that have been least responsible for releasing the emissions that caused the problem in the first place. Because of this, we believe that developed countries have a moral responsibility to help the developing world cope with the coming damage." (p. 70)

"Our generation is the last to have the chance of averting the worst of these scenarios. All we need is the right combination of new technologies, and economic, political, and social will." (p. 86)

So that's the problem in a nutshell. Very gloomy, but still hopeful.

As a technology junkie, Part II (Technological Solutions) is what I enjoyed reading the most. Personally, I'm tired of all the lemon-eating debates on global warming. I already understand that the problem is real and we're a big contributor to it. What I'm really interested in is how we're gonna pull together to adapt and avoid the catastrophic effects of droughts, rising sea levels, pollution, environmental degradation, with or without the fear of climate change. I believe that accelerating technology will be our "easy" collective salvation from this mess. The bigger issue is our collective political and social will to take action. Technology is rapidly accelerating, but politics, coupled with self-interests and warring ideologies, hinder economic solutions and the technological acceleration.

However, in order to take action, it is imperative that we know what to shoot for. And here's what the authors said.

"The very serious problem, which few people appear yet to have noticed, is that it’s now almost certainly impossible to restrict warming to 2°C. If we had started two decades ago we would have had a good chance. But now, that target looks increasingly out of range." (p. 95)

Therefore, according to the authors, climate change policies should be updated and it should include adaptations, along with cutting CO2 emissions and technological solutions (i.e. renewable energy sources). When it comes to thresholds, the authors strongly suggest to update the current policies with 450 ppm CO2eq as the magic number.

"...we believe the only choice we have is to keep greenhouse gases at the lowest level we can possible get to. In other words, we have to go for 450 ppm CO2eq. This is the number to look for in every policy statement, and every climate agreement. Note that this number is lower than many climate policies that were set in motion in the past decade — including that of the UK. The reason for this is that the latest science tells us that our earlier estimates were too optimistic." (p. 98)

With the target greenhouse emissions threshold in mind, the authors broke down the solutions into manageable chunks, called " wedges." And therein lies the good news. We can still curb greenhouse gases with technologies that are *already* available (i.e. hydroenergy, geothermal, bioenergy, nuclear power, wind energy, solar energy, carbon capture and storage, and nuclear fusion). No need to wait for breakthrough technologies such as fusion or solar-powered generators. (Note: See this extract from the book for a more detailed explanation of the "wedges" strategy for reducing future greenhouse emissions.)

However, in the topic of automobiles, although the authors favored all-electric vehicles, I find it lacking that they didn't mention Tesla Motors -- the company making waves with its fully electric Tesla Roadster. There was also no mention of Zero Pollution Motors' Air Car. Also, die-hard environmentalists would very likely object to the inclusion of nuclear energy as part of the solution. But here's what the authors have to say about their stance on nuclear power.

"If your gut instinct is to react against nuclear power, do consider the arguments here very carefully. Individual and community support will be vital for new nuclear power stations to go ahead, and the problem of climate change will require us all to make some very hard choices. ...nuclear power is one of the very few low-carbon technologies that are already on hand, and although it is not necessarily and ideal way to make energy, the dangers of climate change are certainly far worse." (p. 143)

And finally, in Part III (Political Solutions) the authors discussed the economic and political aspects of climate change, as well as our individual responsibilities and roles on how to put pressure from below to ensure that our politicians are taking the right actions. In this section, the authors took the readers around the world to show that most of the developed nations (i.e. European Union--UK, France, Germany, Russian Federation, Canada, Japan) and rapidly developing nations (i.e. China, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, India) have already committed to reducing their greenhouse emissions. However --

"Though the rest of the world is not sitting on its hands, the new global treaty will have little chance of success until and unless the U.S. takes a position of responsibility and global leadership on the issue of climate change." (p. 217)

At this point in the book, as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases (per head of the population), no wonder the U.S. (specifically the GW Bush administration) had been criticized not only for its lack of political will, but also for its apparent attempts at suppressing climate scientists and undermining post-Kyoto treaties (i.e. putting pressure on Australia not to ratify, disinformation campaigns against climate change, and business ties of key government officials with fossil fuel industries). As an American citizen, I find this both shameful and disturbing. Thankfully, with the current popularity of the Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and even the more open attitude of Republican candidate John McCain, the result of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election would almost certainly turn the tide in favor of a much more progressive stance on climate change. And that is something to hope for.

In conclusion, this book had masterfully condensed all the information I've gathered on global warming so far. At the same time, it raised my awareness on the technological, economic, and political solutions and that are *already* on their way. But most importantly, it put the global warming problem, not in a doomsday, but in a rather more selfless and long view perspective.

"Whatever we do today to reduce emissions will matter for our children's generation and beyond, but not for our own. The problem of climate change is one of legacy." (p. 54)

Don't get lost in the avalanche of information, misinformation, and lemon-eating debates on the internet and mainstream media. Read The Hot Topic, and then proceed from there. The book delivers on its promise: "Everything you need to know about the challenge of climate change without the spin." Whether you're skeptical of global warming or not, you owe it to yourself to understand the science, the technologies, the economics, and the politics of this very important issue of our time.

See extracts from the book, The Hot Topic, at http://www.thehottopic.net

I'm Reading "The Hot Topic" Right Now...

If you've been following the debates on Climate Change, with minimal preconception and bias, chances are that you're already in a steady state of cognitive dissonance. Spend an hour or two reading Climate Debate Daily and you'll get the idea. Even the IPCC Reports, due to its technical lingo and scientific tone, need special translation and interpretation for laypeople to digest. So it's not surprising that majority of people probably have a skewed understanding of Climate Change (whether they're a "believer" or a "denier"), not to mention just plain ignorance on the whole thing.

Like other important polarizing topics, the information and mis-information on Climate Change and Global Warming are so overwhelming that it's almost impossible to tease out the credible information from the propaganda by special interests groups and/or by those who "have an axe to grind." That's why I've refrained from reading books about Climate Change because I simply don't know who to trust anymore. Until today.

Per Chris Mooney's recommendation, I picked up a copy of The Hot Topic - How to Tackle Global Warming and Still Keep the Lights On by Sir David King and Gabrielle Walker. This is one of the latest books about Global Warming by authors with impeccable credentials. In fact, it's so new that (as of this writing) it's not released yet in the U.S. Good thing for me I can walk the streets of Dublin, enter a bookstore, and snag a copy. Sweet.

I'm halfway done reading the book. It's very engaging. Although the book is authored by two scientists, the writing is clear and concise -- targeted for laypeople, like myself. The book debunks the myths (of climate skeptics and climate doomsdayers) while explaining the scientific facts and consensus on Global Warming. But more importantly, the book discusses what governments around the world are already doing about Climate Change and what we (as individuals) can, locally, do to take action.

The authors of the book are humble enough to admit the limits of today's climate science (i.e. Global Climate Models, available data, etc.) but they don't pull any punches on areas where evidence is overwhelming and where there is a consensus among scientists. Take this quote for example, in the chapter, WHODUNNIT?

"Human activity is to blame for the rise in temperature over recent decades, and will be responsible for more changes in the future. There are plenty of areas for debate in the global warming story but this is not one of them. If anybody tells you differently they either have a vested interest in ignoring the scientific arguments or they are fools."

I'll post a more detailed book review as soon as I'm done reading it. In the meantime, if you can get your hands on this book, make it so.

Why Sam Harris and B. Alan Wallace Should Talk

Scott Parker has a succinct review of Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation over at Integral World. Nice. Below are some relevant quotes:

"It is a silly thing for a book such as Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation to appear atop the bestseller lists. A wise nation might find such a trenchant criticism of religion almost charming in its quaintness, yet moot musings no longer relevant to the concerns of serious people. But, Harris didn't write his letter to a wise nation. He wrote it to America. And the only thing sillier than the need for a book like Harris' is how desperate that need is....

"For integral thinkers who are inclined toward the subjective, even the mystical, there is a danger here of wanting to form an ally with religion, as the latter at least offers some space for inner exploration. The implied contrast being that science offers no space for such explorations, and some space, even if it is squarely enclosed in the four walls of a church, is better than no space. This is exactly where integral could be helpful in using the subjective to complement science, rather than rejecting it, as religion would have it. But that opportunity is lost if integral builds on that faulty foundations of religious mythology."

Very well put. Parker continues:

"And Harris would espouse something similar; his letter betrays no scientism. He understands that people have wide-ranging subjective experiences that cannot be explained away in the language of cells and action potentials. "There is no question that it is possible for people to have profoundly transformative experiences. And there is no question that it is possible for them to misinterpret these experiences, and to further delude themselves about the nature of reality" (89). The problem is not the experience. The problem is that, because we lack alternatives, these experiences are held up to support religious worldviews.

"That, I believe, will be the divided response of the integral types. Some will find Harris' letter harsh and hyper-rational. Others will agree that religious sympathies are consequent to nihilistic concessions."

Exactly!

I think Parker hit on a crucial point here. I noticed that a lot of integrally-informed people have negative response to Sam Harris in particular and the New Atheists in general on their confrontational approach to the science and religion. I, however, choose to align myself with the New Atheists in general and Sam Harris in particular on applying "conversational intolerance" when it comes to religious dialogues and intellectual debates. On matters of faith and reason, I prefer not to be a fence sitter. Integrally-informed people who are trigger-happy on critiquing postmodernism, New Age, and scientism should be as equally passionate in confronting magic and mythic beliefs (when appropriate) which are inherent in all religions, especially when the stakes are high (e.g. intelligent design vs. evolution, injecting religion into politics, questioning religious faith of political and leaders, etc.).

In my observation, the knee-jerk reaction of integrally-informed people are that of dismissal of the New Atheists coupled with an aloof attitude (i.e. their philosophy is not sophisticated enough; nothing new with their arguments about God; they don't define religion; science is not that great; they don't get subjectivity; they are rational fundamentalists; etc.). Yet they seem to miss the point that the critiques of the New Atheists are targeted at those people who don't give a hoot at integral ideals to begin with. Without first talking to each other and taking the discussion to the next level, the result is immediate disconnect between the New Atheists and integral thinkers. They tend to start off on the wrong footing.

Here's a case in point.

In B. Alan Wallace's review  of Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation, Wallace re-iterated the argument that early scientists "were devout Christians who acknowledged that their religious beliefs strongly influence scientific thinking." He then went on to lecture Sam Harris on the history of science, as if Harris doesn't already know that. Then he brought up the "subjective experience" gambit, as if Harris is not a proponent of meditation. But worst of all, Wallace regurgitated the atrocities of atheistic regimes to critique atheism, as if Sam Harris hadn't already addressed that argument in his book The End of Faith. I give B. Alan Wallace the benefit of the doubt. It seems to me that he didn't take the time to read the other book of Sam Harris, or read his essays, or watch his interviews. Hence, the disconnect.

So naturally, Sam Harris responded to B. Alan Wallace with an equally sharp intellectual aloofness.

"Consequently, I am at a loss for how to reply. I will grant that Mr. Wallace appears to have read Letter to a Christian Nation, as he quotes and misquotes from it readily, sometimes without attribution. But he has not understood it. While it would, of course, be very sportsmanlike of me to concede that Wallace has put forward many fine points that demand my further reflection, he hasn’t—and I am left to reflect only on the evident limits of written communication. I have neither “idealized” science, nor denied the profundity of contemplative experience, nor committed any of the other sins with which Wallace seems so (over) eager to charge me. There is only one point on which Wallace has offered a useful criticism: I am now convinced that I should have used the phrase “do not accept the idea of God” rather than “reject the idea of God” when referring to the religious attitudes of our most elite scientists. There is undoubtedly a difference between these two phrases, and I am embarrassed not to have caught it prior to the book’s publication. And yet, it is a difference that does not make the slightest impact upon my argument as a whole. The truth is that Wallace’s reaction to my book is symptomatic of the very political correctness and intellectual apathy to which Letter to a Christian Nation is itself a response. While my book undoubtedly has many flaws, Wallace appears to be precisely the sort of reader who cannot find them."

Unfortunately, their conversation seemed to have stopped there. I find this tragic. Why? Because Sam Harris and B. Alan Wallace have more in common than their bickering about science and religion. Let me to count the ways:

-- They are both passionate with meditation and neuroscience.

-- They are both Tibetan Buddhist practitioners. Wallace is a Tibetan Buddhist scholar and practitioner, while Harris also practices Dzogchen.

-- They are both proponents of Contemplative Science. See B. Alan Wallace's talk at Google, Towars the First Revolution in the Mind Sciences. See Sam Harris' infamous speech during the 2007 Atheist Alliance International (AAI) Conference.

-- They are both integrally-informed. Harris cited Wilber's Sex, Ecology, Spirituality in his book The End of Faith. Wallace is one of the teachers at Integral Spiritual Center.

-- And, lastly, I'm quite sure that they both want to have a saner and more peaceful world where fundamentalism of any kind (whether science or religion) would give way to reason and expanded awareness.

If there is something they should be debating/dialoging about it should be on fleshing out their ideas about Contemplative Science. Wallace favors integrating neuroscience and Buddhism, while Harris goes even further as to strip off meditation of its Buddhist roots. Now that's the level of discussion I want to see. As of now, I could only wonder.

And that, my friends, is one example of why I think the New Atheists and Integral Camp should talk.

Review: The God Delusion: Memes, Moral Zeitgeist, and Spiral Dynamics

I've just completed my second pass on The Gospel of Dawkins (a.k.a. The God Delusion). I owe you, my readers, a long overdue review of this book as part of my Creepy Library: New Atheists series. One of the reasons it has taken me longer to post my review is that I want to treat this book with reverence and respect which most reviewers had failed to do. Whether we agree with Dawkins or not, there is no denying the fact that this book is the most influential and one of the most boldest, lucid, honest, scientific, passionate critique of God and religion, in recent times.

As I write this, The God Delusion continues to sell like hot cakes (1.5 million copies and counting; translated to 31 languages). Not bad for an "irreverent" book. Indeed, with this single book, Dawkins had, arguably, accomplished more than what the Enlightenment thinkers had done during their time (in terms of ubiquity) on "raising consciousness" and bringing religion on the level playing field of rational discussion in politics, universities, conferences and mainstream media. So it is with deep respect and humility that I offer my review and critique of this book.

Originally, I've planned to do a single post as a review. However, after reading the book for the second time, armed with a yellow Hi-Liter I've become more aware of the philosophical, psychological, social, and political implications of this book. I find that it would be intellectually lazy of me to just post a short review and move on. This book is so juicy that I decided to do a multi-post review. This post is the first part.

Most reviews had reacted on the controversial parts of the book (God vs. Science, Atheism vs. Theism, Religion vs. Science, etc.). Theodore Dalyrymple's review is a good example. As expected, religious fanatics and apologetics came in droves like fleas on Dawkins' back to collectively denounce his ignorance of religion, theology, philosophy, sociology, (insert your favorite branch of knowledge and pet theory). Though some had raised valid points on the limitations of Dawkins as a philosopher and his championing of Darwinism, few had honed in on the partial truths that Dawkins had eloquently and elegantly argued about. There are already tons of negative, lazy, smug, arrogant, ignorant, and intellectually dishonest reviews of The God Delusion out there. I choose to take no part of them. In this multi-post review I will attempt to hone in on those partial truths while gently taking Dawkins' views, hopefully, to another level.

That said, I'd like to start my review on two of my favorite chapters in the book, where Dawkins had laid down his arguments on morality: "Chapter 6: The Roots of Morality: Why Are We Good," and "Chapter 7: The 'Good' Book and the Moral Zeitgeist."

As Richard Harries (Lord Harries of Pentregarth and retired Bishop of Oxford) had observed in his article in The Observer:

"Philosopher Michael Ruse has written: 'The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist.' But in all the hype and embarrassment over geneticist Professor Richard Dawkins's anti-religious arguments, there is an important strand in his argument that has been overlooked: his views on morality. These are interesting and significant, and well worth weighing very seriously."

Exactly! In the chapters about morality, Dawkins had argued that "we don't need God to be good" and that morality doesn't come from the Bible (or any other Holy book). Theologians, philosophers, and scientists can bend over backwards to show respect to world religions but, in my opinion, they have to refute Dawkins arguments on morality if we are to give their arguments equal respect as that of Dawkins. I'm still waiting for theologians to offer a better alternative to Dawkins arguments on morality.

Although Dawkins had started his arguments on morality with his bias (or more appropriately, expertise) on Darwinism (which are excellent arguments in their own right, btw), he had the decency to move on to philosophy and anthropology. What I especially like about Dawkins' arguments is that they are clean, simple, lucid, and, most importantly, supported by arguments from moral philosophers, as well as backed by case studies and scientific research. I wonder if theologians and philosophers who continue to talk down on Dawkins' ignorance (on matters of theology and philosophy) would have the same decency and honesty to pull together knowledge from different domains in support of their theological and philosophical arguments.

Here is a case in point: As part of his arguments on morality, Dawkins cited the work of Harvard biologist Marc Hauser, author of Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong and moral philosopher Peter Singer on their case study in the roots of morality (see: Morality without Religion [pdf]). Here is the part why I think Dawkins is onto something big. Here is Dawkins quoting Marc Hauser:

"The message of Hauser's book,... is this: 'Driving our moral judgments is a universal moral grammar, a faculty of the mind that evolved over millions of years to include a set of principles for building a range of possible moral systems. As with language, the principles, that make up our moral grammar fly beneath the radar of our awareness.'"

In my own integrally-informed interpretation, based on the above quote, the principles of morality is shaped and guided by movements, shifts, and mutations of "structures of consciousness" (see Jean Gebser) rather than by religion. Taking this argument further and using a Wilberian argument, I would say that religion is a by-product of structures of consciousness instead of the other way around. That's why there are archaic religions, magic religions, mythical religions, mental religions, and integral religions (and who knows what other structures to come). Dawkins (and his fellow New Atheists) are waging battle on the archaic, magic, and mythical forms of religions. God bless them all :)

The reason I brought up the *integral gambit* is to affirm Dawkins' eloquent and solid arguments on morality (and religion) and take them to another level. By his own (humble) admission, Dawkins is not equipped to take his moral Zeitgeist argument further. Here is the part of his moral arguments where Dawkins expressed his insight and humility. Allow me to quote him extensively.

"Something has shifted in the intervening decades. It has shifted in all of us, and the shift has no connection with religion. If anything, it happens in spite of religion, not because of it."

"Where, then, have these concerted and steady changes in social consciousness come from? The onus is not on me to answer. For my purposes it is sufficient that they certainly have not come from religion. If forced to advance a theory, I would approach it along the following lines. We need to explain why the changing moral Zeitgeist is so widely synchronized across large numbers of people; and we need to explain its relatively consistent direction."

"First, how it is synchronized across so many people?.... One way to put it would be in terms of changing meme frequencies in the meme pool, but I shall not pursue that."

"Some of us lag behind the advancing wave of the changing moral Zeitgeist and some of us are slightly ahead. But most of us in the twenty-first century are bunched together and way ahead of our counterparts in the Middle Ages, or in the time of Abraham, or even as recently as 1920s. The whole wave keeps moving, and even the vanguard of an earlier century (T.H. Huxley is the obvious example) would find itself way behind the laggers of a later century. Of course, the advance is not a smooth incline but a meandering sawtooth. There are local and temporary setbacks such as the United States is suffering from its government in the early 2000s. But over the longer timescale, the progressive trend is unmistakeable and it will continue."

"It is beyond my amateur psychology and sociology to go any further in explaining why the moral Zeitgeist moves in its broadly concerted way. For my purposes it is enough that, as a matter of observed fact, it does move, and it is not driven by religion -- and certainly not by scripture. It is probably not a single force like gravity, but a complex interplay of disparate forces like the one that propels Moore's Law, describing the exponential increase in computer power. Whatever its cause, the manifest phenomenon of Zeitgeist progression is more than enough to undermine the claim that we need God in order to be good, or to decide what is good."

(from The God Delusion pp. 268 to 272).

Notice how Dawkins used the words shift, meme, wave, progression, consciousness, interplay, and the phrase "not a smooth incline but a meandering sawtooth," as if Dawkins is trying to describe a spiral? Ok, I admit that's a bit of a stretch ;) But seriously, Dawkins' arguments on God, religion, and morality would have been richer, more informed, more solid, more elegant, if he used the theory of human development known as, Spiral Dynamics.

Note that I'm making the assumption that Dawkins is not familiar with the theory of Spiral Dynamics (SD). However, it's also possible that Dawkins is aware of Spiral Dynamics but, for some reason, he doesn't take it seriously or disregard it altogether. I think it's logical to assert the former (Dawkins unfamiliarity with SD) than the latter, for two reasons:

1) Spiral Dynamics makes use of memetic theory, building upon Dawkins' work on memes. In SD lingo, it's called vMemes.

2) Spiral Dynamics is compatible with Dawkins' critique of religion and morality. Its human and cultural development theory is compatible with Darwinian evolution as well (i.e. memes, life conditions, etc.)

That said, a possible counter argument is that, Spiral Dynamics "is not currently supported by mainstream anthropology, social sciences, and evolutionary biology" that's why Dawkins is unaware of it, or chooses to ignore it at this time. I can only speculate.

In any case, I think the onus is on SD proponents to reach out to Dawkins (and to the the academia and popular media at large) than the other way around. That's the premise of my previous post, "The New Atheists and Integral Camp Should Talk."

Regardless whether Dawkins embrace Spiral Dynamics or not in his future writings, his arguments on religion and morality stand on their own. But it would do Dawkins (and his fellow New Atheists) more good (i.e. give them more"'ammo") if they have a solid theory of human and cultural development to back them up.

More musings on The God Delusion coming soon. In the meantime, I highly recommend that you pick up this book, read it with curiosity, while setting aside its irreverence. It's one of the most important books in the "spirit of our times."

See also:

Review: Letter to a Christian Nation

Review: End of Faith

Five Favorite Dharma Books

I've been tagged by Bill @ Integral Options Cafe to present my five favorite dharma books. Here they are:

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind - Shunryu Suzuki
The Crystal and the Way of Light - Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying - Sogyal Rinpoche
Ethics for the New Millennium - The Dalai Lama
One Taste - Ken Wilber

So, I tag seven people for good luck :)

Ryan @ Zaadz
Jake @ Zaadz
Albert @ Zaadz
Brian @ Zaadz
~Matthew @ Zaadz
Mikaila @ Zaadz
Jim Paredes @ Multiply

Jared Diamond: Taking the Middle Way of Environmentalism

"My view is that, if environmentalists aren't willing to engage with big businesses, which are among the most powerful forces in the modern world, it won't be possible to solve the world's environmental problems. Thus, I am writing this book from a middle-of-the-road perspective, with experience of both environmental problems and of business realities."

The quote above is excerpted from the prologue of Jared Diamond's very timely book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. I just picked up the paperback edition from a small bookstore here in Ireland. It's a long read, so it might take a while for me to finish and digest its insights. But here's the gist: a combination of five factors leads to the collapse of human societies.

-- environmental damage
-- climate change
-- hostile neighbors
-- loss of friendly trade partners
-- society's responses to its environmental problems

Diamond used what is called, "comparative method"--to compare natural situations differing with respect to the variable of interest--to analyze which factors were responsible for collapse of previous societies.

I dug up an old collection of mixed reviews on Dave Pollard's How to Save the World. Some reviews were critical because of Diamond's pessimistic outlook while others are wary of his friendly-to-big-business "middle-of-the-road" approach. My open-ended gut thinking tells me that Diamond is more correct to embrace both environmentalism and big business in solving Climate Change and other environmental problems. I think this is the same reasoning that Adam Werbach relied on when he decided to work with Wal-Mart. This is also the core of WorldChanging's Bright Green philosophy.

However, it's too early for me to form an informed opinion based on Diamond's book since I just got started reading it. But I'm an impatient person so I'm taking a shortcut by watching Jared Diamond's presentation on the Long Now Foundation. (watch the video).

Reading and listening to Diamond is like having a thorough bird's eye view of history.

P.S. I still haven't read Jared Diamond's classic, Guns, Germs, and Steel. So many books, so little time. So I'm gonna cheat by watching a National Graphic documentary based on that book.  I've collected the three-hour documentary here. Watch and be awed.

Freakonomics: Freaky and Fluffy

I'm a latecomer when it comes to Freakonomics – one of the best books in recent years that has been described as “melding pop culture with economics.” It would take a 4-hour layover in Philadelphia airport before I had the chance to read Freakonomics: Revised and Expanded Edition.

The book was a good companion during my flight to Ireland. It made the flight shorter and more interesting. Each chapter contains nuggets of wisdom that goes against “conventional wisdom.” With narration by journalist Stephen J. Dubner mixed with research and insights from a “rogue” economist, Steven D. Levitt, the book lived up to the hype. Malcolm Galdwell is right. It is absolutely dazzling.

I laughed at the chapter that asked the question, ”Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?” But I got teary-eyed when I learned of the answers. The common perception is that crack dealers are wealthy. But extensive analysis of the economics of drug-dealing revealed otherwise. The organizational structure of drug-dealing street gangs are no different than McDonalds. Only those on top of the organization gets the wealth. The street dealers (i.e. foot soldiers) make less than minimum wage while their risk of death (not to mention the risk of incarceration) is 1-in-4. Environment and poverty transform people for the worse.

But the biggest (and most) controversial idea in the book is in the chapter that asked the question, ”Where Have All the Criminals Gone?” Simply put, the legalization of abortion (Roe v. Wade) was the single biggest factor that caused the dramatic decline in violent crimes by the mid 1990s. This theory was based on the 2001 research by Levitt and Donohue, The Impact of Legalized Abortion of Crime. As expected, this theory had received extensive criticisms, but Levitt continue to stand his ground and refute their critics. I find the abortion-crime-link theory fascinating and very plausible. Levitt's approach is not coming from a moral standpoint but from a perspective of an economist who looks at the data of how the world really works as opposed to how we think it works.

For more book summary check out this video.

See also Part 2 and Part 3.

If you haven't read the book yet, better grab it. Soon you'll be thinking like a “rogue” economist, looking at a bigger picture, pondering on available data, while questioning conventional wisdom. But always remember that it's only one perspective, from a higher altitude of the ITS perspective.

Lessig: Is Google (2008) Microsoft (1998)? (aka Supercapitalism)

Last night me and my good friend Dave attended a lecture by Lawrence Lessig at the University of Washington. The title of the lecture: Is Google (2008) Microsoft (1998)?

As usual, Lawrence Lessig delivered another brilliant and insightful presentation. He deserved the standing ovation. He more information in one hour of lecture than I can digest. Good thing I took some notes. Here are some bumper sticker notes:

-- "the data is the platform"
-- "comedy of the commons"
-- "lawyers are not innovators"
-- "silly to moralize a corporation"
-- "Microsoft is not evil"
-- "support the competition"
-- "politics diverted"

I hope that Lessig posts a video of that presentation so I can share it with everyone. Really good stuff.

In the meantime, allow me to share some of the nuggets of wisdom I got out of that lecture.

First, the title of the lecture is a bit misleading. It's more like a hook to get people to pay attention. Mention Google and Microsoft and heads would turn immediately. But I'm not disappointed one bit. In fact, Lessig delivered more than what was promised by the title. Here's my attempt at summarizing the lecture.

Lessig started his trademark Powerpoint presentation with the story of how Microsoft lost its "coolness." And then he proceeded with the story of how Google now dominates the tech industry, while still maintaining its "coolness" factor -- the data is now the platform. In his storytelling he covered his usual topics such as copyright, creative commons, read-only/read-write culture, economies of culture (e.g. hybrid companies), and corruption. But those topics, as interesting and fascinating as they were, were only ingredients to the meat of the lecture.

The real meat of the lecture is: the eroding of trust by the public on the government and the misplace of this trust on "good" corporations undermine our democracy.

Lessig concluded his lecture by pitching the book Supercapitalism by Robert Reich. The arguments in this book (which Lessig agrees with) go contrary to the popular idea of Corporate Social Responsibility. Here's an excerpt on Lessig's blog:

"The problem, from Reich's (and my) perspective, is that the other half of us - the part that thinks not as an actor in a market, but as a citizen - has atrophied. That is, the half of us (again, of each of us - Reich's point is that each of us has these two parts) that demands that government set sensible and efficient limits on private action has atrophied. Deep skepticism about government has made most of us turn away from it as a tool of sensible policy making. We instead (and this is a truly brilliant part of the book) turn to corporations to make good policy in government's stead. We push for "corporate social responsibility" and praise corporations who agree to do the "good" thing, imagining that this means something other than the "money making" thing. This, Reich says, is "politics diverted" - trusting companies to do good policy rather than getting government to set good policy, imagining "corporate social responsibility" will produce something different from corporations maximizing profits."

....

"Corporations are not more efficient governments. They are instead increasingly efficient money making machines. And while there's nothing at all wrong with money making machines -- indeed, wealth and growth depends upon them -- there is something fundamentally wrong with trusting these machines to restrain the drive for profits in the name of doing the right thing."

And this, for me, is the most important nugget of wisdom from that lecture. As much as I support and love the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility and Conscious Capitalism, I also admire Lawrence Lessig's brilliance so I pay attention to his arguments. So I'll be adding Supercapitalism to my reading list. It would be interesting to see how I can hold these opposing views and still manage to do the right thing, at least in my own sphere of influence.

For more info on Supercapitalism, keep watching this bookmark tag:
http://coolmel.zaadz.com/bookmarks/tagged/supercapitalism

I now leave you with this excerpt from a Robert Reich interview on Forbes:

---

Forbes.com: Doesn't the increase in consumer power allow the average American a greater opportunity to act as a citizen both of the U.S. and of the world?

Robert Reich: If consumers were willing to sacrifice good deals for the sake of some social goal they believed in--for example, paying more for a garment with a label guaranteeing it's not made by children in a poor country or for a book that's made with recycled paper--then you're right: Supercapitalism, as I've called it, would serve the interests of us both as consumers and as citizens. But the overwhelming evidence shows that consumers are not willing to make such sacrifices. If items are priced the same, consumers will choose the one that better matches their personal ethics, but they won't pay more for one that does.

Consumers are acting logically, because they have no guarantee that other consumers would make the same choice--meaning that their sacrifice would be pointless. The only way to make sure any such economic sacrifice is effective is to seek laws and rules that match one's ethical values.

That's where citizenship and democracy come in. It's through the democratic process that the economic "rules of the game" are determined--rules that all consumers and all private-sector competitors have to play by.

Bill Clinton @ Seattle

I just found out that Bill Clinton was scheduled to drop by Seattle today to do a book signing for his latest book, Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World. At first I wasn't sure whether to go or not because it would be a hassle to wait in line. But at the last minute I decided to go and check it out.

Just as I expected, there was already a long line when I got to the University Bookstore. They've alloted 500 book vouchers for the book signing. The line extended from the basement floor up to the second floor. I ended up midway at the basement floor. I read science text books to pass the time.

Clinton is still very popular. The crowd was as diverse as you can get. He still has that charisma, especially with young people. Too bad we weren't allowed to take pictures. For security reasons we had to check in our stuff before we even got close to him. Secret service agents were strategically positioned. They reminded me of the agents in The Matrix. The students behind me were betting whether Clinton would be wearing casual (jeans) or formal clothing. Clinton was wearing a suit. He was standing there, looking as presidential as ever, as he signs copies of his book.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," was all I could say as I shook his right hand while he signs my copy of the book with his left. He's taller than me. He has that dignified look. He looks older in person. The lines on his face reminded me of Robert Redford. He smiled and expressed his gratitude. His smile looked sincere yet his motions seemed robotic. Well, there was just too many people and no time for small talk. He had to crank out those signatures to accommodate everyone. The experience was over in 5 seconds. As soon as he signed his name the line had to move on.

The book looks interesting. The theme matches well with my work at Zaadz and my interest with social enterprise. And how many times do I get the chance to shake hands with an ex-President of the United States, and potential First Gentleman, should Hillary Clinton win the 2008 Presidential election? The 4-hour wait was worth it.

Review: The End of Faith

"How can we encourage other human beings to extend their moral sympathies beyond a narrow locus? How can we learn to become mere human beings, shorn of any more compelling national, ethnic, or religious identity? We can be reasonable. It is in the very nature of reason to fuse cognitive and moral horizons. Reason is nothing less than the guardian of love."

....

"We do not know what awaits each of us after death, but we know that we will die. Clearly, it must be possible to live ethically--with a genuine concern for the happiness of other sentient beings--without presuming to know things about which we are patently ignorant. Consider it: every person you have ever met, every person you will pass in the street today, is going to die. Living long enough, each will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?" 

-- Sam Harris, The End of Faith

I finally finished reading The End of Faith by Sam Harris. It took me more than a week to finish this book because I only have time to do my reading at night before I sleep. That's bad, because I tend to sleep after 20 pages or so. This book had been my sleeping pill for the past week.

I'm not saying that the book is boring. Far from it! In fact, I'm glad that I took the time reading it because I now have a deeper understanding of where Sam Harris is coming from. If you think this book is only about the boring and tired science vs. God/religion debate, then you probably have a shallow reading of it or that you're too defensive of your own beliefs, religious or otherwise. If you think Sam Harris is an ultra-rationalist who reduces consciousness and spirituality to its neurological correlates, or that Harris is evangelizing his own flavor of Buddhist spirituality then you probably didn't take the time to digest the End Notes. Speaking of End Notes, a whopping one fourth of the book consists of end notes and bibliography. A patient reading of the end notes would reveal that Sam Harris is a broadly-read philosopher, a non-conventional scientist when it comes to the ultimate mystery of consciousness, and, for lack of a better secular description, a hard core non-dualist mystic in the Buddhist (specifically Dzogchen) tradition. Here's what he has to say about Buddhism, on Notes to Page 215 (end note 12):

"Attentive readers will have noticed that I have been very hard on religions of faith--Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even Hinduism--and have not said much that is derogatory of Buddhism. This is not an accident. While Buddhism has also been a source of ignorance and occasional violence, it is not a religion of faith, or a religion at all, in the Western sense. There are millions of Buddhists who do not seem to know this, and they can be found in temples throughout Southeast Asia, and even the West praying to Buddha as though he were a numinous incarnation of Santa Claus. This distortion of the tradition notwithstanding, it remains true that the esoteric teachings of Buddhism offer the most complete methodology we have for discovering the intrinsic freedom of consciousness, unencumbered by any dogma. It is no exaggeration to say that meetings between the Dalai Lama and Christian ecclesiastics to mutually honor their religious traditions are like meetings between physicists from Cambridge and the Bushmen of Kalahari to mutually honor their respective understandings of the physical universe. This is not to say that Tibetan Buddhists are not saddled with certain dogmas (so are physicists) or that the Bushmen could not have formed some conception of the atom. Any person familiar with both literatures will know that the Bible does not contain a discernible fraction of the precises spiritual instructions that can be found in the Buddhist canon. Though there is much in Buddhism that I do not pretend to understand--as well as much that seems deeply implausible--it would be intellectually dishonest not to acknowledge its preeminence as a system of spiritual instructions."

Word. Sam Harris is no ordinary atheist. He's a Buddhist Geek ;) Anyway....

A lot has been said already about the God/religion vs. science perspective that this book had covered. In fact, during the first year of its publication, Sam Harris had taken heat from different camps--religious camps for his "angry" and non-compromising critique on religion (particularly the Abrahamic religions); liberal camps for his critique on postmodernism and moral relativism; atheist camps for his championing of Buddhist practice and his non-conventional scientific views on consciousness. Harris had addressed most of these criticisms in the Afterword section of the paperback edition of the book. If you're interested in other critical reviews of the book, you can start with the The End of Faith entry on Wikipedia and the customer reviews on Amazon.

My main criticism with this book is that, although Sam Harris had acknowledged the stages of moral development of culture and society (for example, he compared the violence and non-tolerance in contemporary Islam to fourteenth century Christianity), he didn't expound on the moral and psychological development of individuals (i.e. stages of faith) which could've shed more light and supported his argument that blind mythic faith belongs to a lower rung of psychological development than reason. I've pointed this out in my review of his book, Letter to a Christian Nation. So I won't repeat it here.

I'm not suggesting that Sam Harris is ignorant of the moral stages of development and even multiple intelligences in people. Far from it. Harris is a wide and deep reader. So I suspect that he has a solid grasp of those ideas as well. In fact, I was a bit surprised that he's also familiar with integral theory/philosophy. He even cited Ken Wilber's pre/trans fallacy in the End Notes. (Yep, Wilber's Sex, Ecology & Spirituality is included in the bibliography along with other mainstream and academically recognized philosophers.) In some sections of the book, I can sense Wilber's influence on Harris (or at least the similarity in their views) especially when it comes to his critiques of postmodernism, New Age and his championing of nondual spirituality.

Speaking of Wilber, I wonder if Harris had read Wilber's Marriage of Sense and Soul. I find it interesting that it's not included in his recommended reading list since I see a lot of similarities in their views. So I'd like to hear his take on it. For example: How would he classify Wilber's approach at integrating science and religion? Would he agree with it? Would he object to it? Would he embrace Wilber's view on integrating spirituality and science yet maintain his non-compromising stance on religion? I can only wonder at this time. But the main difference I see between Wilber and Harris is that, while Wilber's Integral Spirituality uses a conveyor belt metaphor when dealing with religion, Sam Harris wants to teleport everyone (or at least the key people--leaders--in society) to a rational view of reality. A dialogue (or even a debate) between those two thinkers would shed light on their similarities, as well as their differences.

But in the meantime, take for example, Wilber's approach. In his Liberalism and Religion - We Should Talk article, Wilber wrote:

"The way it is now, the modern world really is divided into two major and warring camps, science and liberalism on the one hand, and religion and conservatism on the other. And the key to getting these two camps together is first, to get religion past science, and then second, to get religion past liberalism, because both science and liberalism are deeply anti-spiritual. And it must occur in that order, because liberalism won’t even listen to spirituality unless it has first passed the scientific test."

In contrast, instead of getting religion past science, then getting religion past liberalism, so that he can integrate authentic spirituality with science, as Wilber suggested, Harris had declared war on religion, spit on the moral relativism of postmodern liberalism (e.g. he made a case against the war on illegal drugs, a philosophical defense of torture, and a pot shot at pacifism), and happily took a stab at integrating spirituality and ethics with science, all in one book. Very ballsy. As a result, Harris had put himself smack in the middle of those warring camps (science and liberalism; religion and conservatism). No wonder he's getting heat from all sides, including from his fellow atheists. Take this excerpt from the Afterword:

"I have also taken considerable heat from atheists for a few remarks I made about the nature of consciousness. Most atheists appear to be certain that consciousness is entirely dependent on (and reducible to) the workings of the brain.... The fact is that scientists still do not know what the relationship between consciousness and matter actually is. I am not suggesting that we make a religion out of this uncertainty, or do anything else with it. And, needless to say, the mysteriousness of consciousness does nothing to make conventional religious notions about God and paradise any more plausible."

And this speech by Sam Harris at the Atheist Alliance Conference:

“While it is an honor to find myself continually assailed with Dan [Dennett], Richard [Dawkins], and Christopher [Hitchens] as though we were a single person with four heads, this whole notion of the “new atheists” or “militant atheists” has been used to keep our criticism of religion at arm’s length, and has allowed people to dismiss our arguments without meeting the burden of actually answering them. And while our books have gotten a fair amount of notice, I think this whole conversation about the conflict between faith and reason, and religion and science, has been, and will continue to be, successfully marginalized under the banner of atheism.  

“So, let me make my somewhat seditious proposal explicit: We should not call ourselves “atheists.” We should not call ourselves “secularists.” We should not call ourselves “humanists,” or “secular humanists,” or “naturalists,” or “skeptics,” or “anti-theists,” or “rationalists,” or “freethinkers,” or “brights.” We should not call ourselves anything. We should go under the radar—for the rest of our lives. And while there, we should be decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them.”

(see also Rational Mysticism wherein Sam Harris responded Tom Flynn, editor of Free Inquiry magazine, and Response to My Fellow 'Atheists', Sam Harris's response to prominent Atheists who criticized his speech).

Whether Harris infuriated those different camps on purpose–knowingly playing the role of a martyr or a sacrificial lamb (religious pun intended)–or out of machismo and naive foolishness, only Harris can say. But I imagine Wilber snickering in the background whispering, “I told you so.”

Most readers of this blog are probably already bored and tired of the whole God/religion vs. science debate. Me too. So to save space and time and spare you of boredom, I resisted the urge of going there, at least in this post. Instead, I'll just focus on Harris's attempt at integrating science, spirituality and ethics. And I quote from the book:

"Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reasons for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. The roiling mystery of the world