Unmaking Sense

Episode 4.24: All our political-economic systems are Protection Rackets.

Protection rackets are things whereby gangsters present themselves as the solutions to problems of which they are themselves the cause. Specifically, the system in which we find ourselves having to live presents itself as the solution to life‘s problems when the problems that we have with life are caused by that same system. Yes, that is how the world has evolved, probably how things have always been, but it need not be - and cannot be - how we will render life sustainable and fulfilling in the future.

Episode 4.23: We are born into a prosumer society, so we need to be reborn to live differently.

We are not born free. We are born into a society that limits us and even enslaves us with its practices and assumptions. To escape those chains we need to be reborn with new assumptions.

Episode 4.22: We should beware of adopting quantitative solutions to qualitative problems.

One of the reasons why we have a climate change, sustainability, environmental and existential crisis is that the system into which we are born teaches us to believe that we can solve qualitative problems by quantitative methods, that the solution to dissatisfaction with life is more material wealth.

Episode 4.21: Extracting as much meaning from the present as we can; engaging with what’s before us.

Different levels of engagement with what is before us can help to determine a different level of appreciation of what it is we experience. By engaging art different levels we enrich the experience of the present and so are better able to live the present. Resonance as I metaphor for how we respond to what we have around us all the time. The significance of boredom.

Episode 4.20: Live your questions as the best guide to your self-education that is available.

Never allow anyone to tell you that a question that you feel the need to ask is a silly question or a sign of your ignorance or foolishness or stupidity. If it is your question, then ask it, because it will be the best guide to where you are and to what you need in order to move forward which can possibly be found. The first great commandment of education is to live your questions with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; and the second great commandment is to love your neighbour’s questions as your own.

Episode 4.19: Education and The Goldilocks Principle with special reference to AlphaGo Zero.

Work that is too hard discourages; work that is too easy bores. The best work is “just right”: stretching; inspiring; interesting; affirming; satisfying; it builds self-confidence and resilience. Lessons from the DeepMind AlphaGo Zero self-play training experience courtesy of David Silver.

Episode 4.18: True Happiness will Save the Planet.

We need to break the cycle that pretends that we need to endure lives of drudgery to buy things that will make us happy. They won’t. Only by learning to enjoy the present, to enjoy the experience of today today, will we find happiness. But that would make us consume fewer resources and so save the planet at the same time.

Episode 4.17: New ideas rarely find acceptance; the ears on which they fall can barely hear them.

New ideas fall on ears trained in another language that employs other concepts; they fall as alien seeds on ground prepared for other crops. Only by repeatedly disturbing that ill-suited soil can they take root and grow.

Episode 4.16: We have to break the stranglehold of a self-reinforcing education system to survive.

Any system which attempts to reduce its evaluation of the worth of a human being to one dimension, particularly by ranking students on a single scale as if that scale represents their value, is misleading and destructive of human self-regard. There is no justification for such measurement at all. We need to learn to appreciate the multidimensional aspects of human life that mean that every human being has much to contribute to society, and not only those who can do well in narrowly-defined examinations with barely any connection to real life. This academic pretence, which has dominated education for centuries, has got to be challenged and broken because it has destroyed more lives than it has created and it has discouraged more people from fulfilling their part in the world than any other single human institution. It is time for change.

Episode 4.15: Our self-reinforcing web of values and beliefs is a major part of the problem.

Education inevitably reinforces and teaches whatever set of values and beliefs are already woven into the web of a culture. Therefore, if that web is part of the problem rather than a key to the solution, education teaches the very things that are the source of the problem rather than a key to its solution. Inevitably those schooled in that culture will say of any radically new proposal “that will never work“, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t voice alternatives to the system because the system is incapable of reformation from within without those additional initially unpopular and misunderstood impulses and stimuli.