Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.
John Maynard Keynes
Review: The Big Picture
Science
Dutton Adult
May 10, 2016
480
"Language philosophy, quantum mechanics, general relativity--they're all in The Big Picture. Sean Carroll is a fantastically erudite and entertaining writer." --Elizabeth Kolbert *Publishers Weekly #1 Most Anticipated Science Book of Spring 2016*
The Guardian Books podcast is a go-to source for in-depth and skilled author interviews. Richard Lea’s discussion with Sean Carroll on his latest book, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, is a perfect example of the edifying banter we can plug into and make our smartphones smart.
Carroll, a research professor specializing in dark energy and general relativity at the California Institute of Technology, has done a fantastic job distilling hard-core science into language that makes profound ideas accessible to most. For example, Carroll compares the difference between statements of scientific facts versus the values upon which we peg our morals. When it comes to facts, you are either right or wrong. The universe is expanding, or it is not. We don’t have the same metric for our values. There are no criteria to judge the correctness of what we believe is meaningful or not.
Carroll explains that, on average, the human heart beats three billion times in a lifetime. That’s a big number, but not that big he cautions. We feel our heart beating, slowly but surely towards an end. So short of some overarching transcendent axiom, our personal choices to attach value, meaning, and a purpose to our world are essential. In fact they are all we have. “This is not a dress rehearsal,” he says, the implication being that we had better make the right decisions. As if we needed more pressure.
Wondering why we are here and what it means is a good thing in Carroll’s mind. Of course, this requires going beyond the focus of how to survive and flourish in our material lives. Human life, says Carroll, is at its best when examining bigger, more profound existential questions. When we do that, science comes into contact with art and literature and the other ways we have of making sense of the world. For those that need a primer on the big why, The Big Picture is just what the shrink ordered.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Fiction
Random House
2014
448
***WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2014***
Richard Flanagan’s masterpiece, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” is one of those reads powerful enough to move one to tears—more than once in my case. I heard a radio interview in which Flanagan recounted how his research landed him in Japan, face to face with a notoriously brutal former Japanese prison guard known as “the Lizard.” Flanagan’s father suffered at the hands of this very man whose trademark vicious and repeated slaps were much feared. Wanting to experience this for himself, Flanagan finally persuaded the now “courteous, kindly and generous old man” to demonstrate the slaps for him. He reported that the first and second strikes were not unbearable, but that after the third one, he felt as if the whole building was shaking and swaying—because it was, thanks to an earthquake that had just hit. Flanagan went on to describe the fear he saw in the man’s eyes and his realization that, generously, it must be said, whatever evil was, it wasn’t in the room with them.
AirBnB-Version Refugee
Dear Airbnb, Kudos on your acknowledgment of the racial bias that has bubbled up in the Airbnb ether. Automatically blocking calendar dates when a guest is rejected on the basis of availability is a clever step towards accountability. And it’s a neat example of how morality can be built into technology. A bigger challenge and opportunity awaits. A PR coup of unparalleled proportions. One that would demonstrate that you, gatekeepers of the sharing economy, disrupters of the status quo, connectors of the unconnected, are willing to look beyond market share and profit margins for the sake of the greater good. Call it and own it. Airbnb—Version Refugee.
4.6 million human beings have fled Syria’s bloody five year civil war. 7 million are internally displaced. The truth is that each of us would, in the face of such unimaginable violence, do exactly the same—seek refuge. Walls can be raised. But that will not stop the flow. People will continue to flee unbearable circumstances. What choice do they have? The only appropriate response is one rooted in morality. We must rally to help our fellow human beings despite the disruption to our way of life. Sadly, this crisis in involuntary migration has triggered the worst in us. Hostility stemming from deep seeded insecurities. Xenophobic hate fanned by politicians wanting to cash in on a competitive edge sharpened with the politics of fear.
What doesn’t get as much coverage is that it has also brought out the best in us. Thousands of volunteers are doing what they can to help despite the overwhelming scale of the crisis . We know from past failures that successful integration mitigates future tensions. Shelter is a huge and primary problem. This is where Airbnb—Version Refugee steps in to do what it can do best. Connect those in need with those ready to step up to the plate and free up that extra room or clean out that attic space. What better way to begin real integration than by bringing people into our homes. Focus on families with young children. UNICEF targets the most vulnerable because this provides the biggest return on investment. Count on kids, who will have the easiest time with the language, to bridge the divide. Prepare this generation to become productive, integrated members of society. Families brought into the fold with the backing of an existing member of the community will have a better shot at success. Dare to imagine the friendships, the understanding, the dissipating of fear.
Is Airbnb going to solve the refugee problem? Of course not. But small wins with positive outcomes add up. This small win approach is key to the world’s big challenges, like climate change. Why wait for lethargic, monolithic, vanilla government responses when we, who have seen the writing on the wall, can take matters into our own hands. It’s why firms are innovating to increase energy efficiency or avoid waste. Not because it’s mandated, but because their future demands it. Our government has, given its complicity in the instability that has fueled this crisis, failed abysmally in its responsibility to take on its fair share of the burden. Airbnb could facilitate a means showing we actually do care. If Airbnb needs a boardroom friendly rationale, cast this in terms of an investment in future business. Airbnb relies on tourism, and stability is key to travel. If you need a rationale to get on board, follow the cue of Toni Robinson and the rest of the self-help gurus who agree on one thing. The key to happiness is taking care of others.
The Space Between Stimulus and Response
The noted Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl wrote eloquently on what he identifies as the gap between stimulus and response. He urges careful consideration of the choices we make in this space. Choose well, and one can further our end goals and reap growth and happiness. Choose poorly and things may tailspin unnecessarily. Clearly easier said than done, but sage advice nonetheless.
Free Cheese
The Russians say there is no free cheese except in a mousetrap. Given the heaps of stuff we get without shelling a cent, like email, a facebook page, messaging, and gobs and gobs of content, it might behoove us to wonder how it is that we actually pay. Because pay, we do. Every bit of data we generate has value, but we’re okay with giving it away for free. Collectively, we are the inventory by which billions are made. We pay in other ways too. Our new-found expectation for free content means that we get what we pay for, with potentially catastrophic implications. Local news, for instance, suffers because the new paradigm doesn’t support the cost of substantive investigative journalism. This diminished check against both public and private sector shenanigans should concern us all. Support journalism. Pay for a subscription.
NaNoWriMo
November is fast approaching and with it, the beginning of NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriWhat? If you are an aspiring author or otherwise engrossed with writing, then you probably know that NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Very simply, the idea is to commit to writing 50,000 words in the month of November. That’s an average of 1666 words a day which may not sound like a lot to someone who hasn’t sat down to pen a novel, but which is to anyone that has. Of course, no one expects to churn out a polished tome under these conditions. With a little luck, you end up with the beginnings of a first draft. The point of the commitment is an exercise in the discipline and routine so necessary to practicing the craft. A cool part of the motivation to get you through this literary boot camp is that you are not in it alone. See nanowrimo.org for a visual of the thousands that have signed up this year. If you look carefully, you’ll see a little circle in the middle of the Pacific 13 degrees north of the equator.
Hail to the Plastics Czar
“Look Daddy!” she squealed, bursting into the house. “I got a yoyo!” The beaming smile, the bright of my child’s eyes, this delight in the smallest of things is joy, pure and simple. In the split second it takes her to hand me the yoyo, I wonder whether I can still pull off the walking the dog trick, but this question becomes moot as I palm the toy. The weight is wrong. The fluorescent green wheels are but thin malleable shells, sharp with flash (the excess plastic that squeezes between the molds during injection) and void of the mass necessary to yoyoing a yoyo. The string is kinked and too short. And less than twenty-four hours later, the yoyo lands in our trash.
A similar fate awaits far too many plastic products because they fail prematurely, should never have been made in the first place, and are priced too cheaply for us to care. You may have heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling swath of plastic debris stuck in the North Pacific gyre, whose size is estimated as small as the state of Texas or as large as the continental US. It turns out the patch is not an undulating crust of floating refuse as I had visualized but something barely visible and rather more insidious. Of course, the chunky bits do exist. Google dead seabird plastic and you’ll find images of birds decomposing around digestive tracts clogged with plastic bits. We humans are discriminating enough not to purposefully eat the stuff. But that won’t stop it from getting into our systems. We should be very concerned with the concentration of particles suspended just below the ocean’s surface where they continue to photo-degrade into synthetic fragments small enough to be ingested by tiny aquatic organisms. And thus they begin their journey up the food chain.
Cans, sippy cups, water bottles, plastic wrap and almost everything else made of polymers leach chemicals. Even the in vogue “BPA free” plastics seep byproducts associated with a host of problems, including low fertility rates (perhaps not a bad thing), endocrine disruption, reproductive disorders, impotence, heart disease in females, type 2 diabetes, breast cancer, asthma, and strangely, the effectiveness of chemotherapy.
In 2015 a team of environmental scientists conducted a forensic analysis of the patch and calculated that China and Indonesia are responsible for 30 percent of the mismanaged plastic waste that washes out to sea. The United States placed 20th in the rankings of responsibility for the mess. Be that as it may, it’s time that we all assume some personal responsibility for our consumption of plastic.
MR. McGUIRE
I just wanna say one word to you. Just one word.
BEN
Yes Sir.
MR. McGUIRE
Are you listening?
BEN
Yes I am.
MR. McGUIRE
Plastics.
BEN
Exactly how do you mean?
MR. McGUIRE
There’s a great future in plastics.
It’s unlikely that Charles Webb, whose novel inspired the 1967 film, The Graduate, anticipated the scope or irony of Mr. McGuire’s prescience. Of course, plastics have been beneficial too. Think food preservation and disposable medical devices. But look around you for a plastic product. Ask yourself, does that product perform as intended, will it continue to do so for an appropriate length of time and are you really better off with it?
President Roosevelt throned a slew czars, including a transportation czar, manpower czar, production czar, shipping czar, intelligence czar and synthetic rubber czar, mainly to manage the wartime allocation of resources. These were not just feel good titles, but positions invested with the statutory power and executive backing necessary to make things happen. If I were Plastics Czar, I’d mandate a digital platform designed to bridge the disconnect between the end user and manufacturer and give customers a direct say in the triggering of government action. What? How?
First a PLASTICode––Product Longevity Accountability Suitability Test of Integrity Code––akin to the unique ISBN number for books, would be assigned to every plastic product. To obtain the code, the manufacturer would have to provide product specific information including a Declaration of Performance (what the product promises to do), the type of plastic used, whether it can be recycled, its propensity to leach, the expected life-span of the product, the year the product went on the market, country of origin and other useful information. Anybody could access this data online.
Importantly, a rating and review functionality would channel customer feedback directly to the manufacturer. That way instead of feeling helpless the next time your dishwashing rack fails after a couple weeks use, you could avail yourself of a voice directly into the ear of the source of the problem. If I were in the business of making things, I’d want to know what my customers are thinking. Products generating enough negative reviews would be subject to audit. If found to be substandard or in non-conformance with the Declaration of Performance, then tariffs (in the case of imports) or penalties (in the case of domestic products) would be levied. True government of the people, by the people, for the people.
I can already hear the chorus line. We don’t need more regulation. The free market is the best arbitrator of commerce. This would be expensive and complicated. To that I say, the too big to fail, socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor ethos we saw play out in the 2008 meltdown made amply clear that free markets are anything but. As to the expense, these are mitigated if the real costs (externalities) of our infatuation with plastics are factored into the analysis. Empowering the citizenry with direct connection to the manufacturers of the stuff that clutter our homes and lifestyles, and tangible consequences when products perform poorly, might just trigger the cultural shift necessary to caring about product integrity and ultimately result in reduced consumption.
Review: The Unwinding
History
Macmillan
May 21, 2013
434
George Packer’s “The Unwinding” is told through the personal stories of characters plucked from both ends and all over the middle of the wide and varied demographic landscape that is America. While these individuals lead lives that are diametrically different, one realizes that they are all intimately entwined, even if the strength of the fabric they form is not assured. Rarely pedagogical, Mr. Packer’s important book, allows readers to, through the intimate details of real lives, come to their own conclusions – mostly that, as the title of the book suggests, all is not well in America. And yet, one also gleans that if only those in power acted for the greater good, then America could realize its full and untapped potential. If only.
Paper Love
My fourth grader received a note. A five to six sentence declaration of feelings, slipped into his textbook, discovered at home to the squealing delight of his younger sister. It reminded me that I, too, long, long ago, scratched out bold proclamations of affection on small scraps of paper. Paper! Imagine that. For a moment, my wife and I wondered whether this was the real McCoy or just a practical joke crafted by his guy friends. Our forensic analysis led us to this conclusion. Boys would not have used the origami square upon which the sweetness had been composed nor be nuanced enough to dot the “i” in his name with a little heart. I was charmed by the penmanship and the texture of pencil on paper. I remembered the courage it took to act on my desires and was comforted by the thought that some things are still the same.
Two Word Secret to Life
NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me recently featured Norman Lear, one of television’s most influential writers and the producer of 1970’s sitcoms like All in the Family, Sanford & Son, The Jeffersons, and Maude. At 94, Lear is still as sharp as the proverbial tack. When asked whether there was any secret to his longevity, success, and happiness, Lear said it boils down to two words – OVER and NEXT. Once something is over, it’s over. Time to move on to the next thing. No point in regrets. Brilliant! Incidentally, Lear’s thoughts on Trump are that we “beat his ass, to discredit his message for all time.”