Jan. 27 2012

Often, we’re hesitant to identify a problem out of fear we can’t solve it. Knowing that we have to live with something that we’re unable to alter gives us a good reason to avoid verbalizing it—highlighting it just makes it worse.

While this sort of denial might be okay for individuals (emphasis on might), it’s a lousy approach for organizations of any size. That’s because there are almost certainly resources available that can solve a problem if you decide it’s truly worth solving.

Put yourself and your people on a path to finding problems without regard for whether or not they are capable of solving them. Queue them up, prioritize them and then go find the help your organization needs to solve them.

Just because you don’t know what to do about it doesn’t make it less of a problem.

Seth’s Blog: Solving problems (vs. identifying them)

Nov. 06 2009

Radical Presentism

syntheticpubes:

When he’s not jacking off to steampunk bullshit, Cory Doctorow can write some pretty compelling sentences. This particular essay neatly lays out the reasons I value Science Fiction. (Please no wedgies.)

Mary Shelley wasn’t worried about reanimated corpses stalking Europe, but by casting a technological innovation in the starring role of Frankenstein, she was able to tap into present-day fears about technology overpowering its masters and the hubris of the inventor. Orwell didn’t worry about a future dominated by the view-screens from 1984, he worried about a present in which technology was changing the balance of power, creating opportunities for the state to enforce its power over individuals at ever-more-granular levels.

[Since that site has a layout best described as buttshit, I recommend you use Readability.]

i wrote my college application essay to nyu about frankenstein.  i can’t remember what i wrote but i’m sure if i had written about something similar, i might’ve actually gotten in.  or maybe i did and 10 years ago my writing wasn’t good enough to articulate a pretty intense point inside of 500 words.

…

there is a correlation between technology, elegance and power.  it’s an arms race.  no, not a virtual one - a real one, as mr. doctorow points out.  i suppose this point is pretty veiled but pretty obvious at the same time.  consumer technology vs. national security.  satisfying needs.  preventing.  prohibiting.  providing.  protracting.

also, using it to communicate directly.  here i am using a top-of-the-line computer and publishing platform; trying to show and tell you about something that is interesting to me.

how different is sharing from trying to be persuasive?

Jan. 12 2009

When that ineffable compound of depression, sadness (these two are not the same), anxiety, self-hatred, sense of failure and fear for the future begins to steal over you, start telling yourself that what you have is a hangover… . You have not suffered a minor brain lesion, you are not all that bad at your job, your family and friends are not leagued in a conspiracy of barely maintained silence about what a shit you are, you have not come at last to see life as it really is.

Kingsley Amis describes the “metaphysical hangover” in “A Few Too Many” from The New Yorker.

via twitter/gotophilk

(via lonelysandwich)