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Lies and lawlessness poisons good discourse on complex subjects.  Two examples:

Our climate is changing (as it has done throughout history). Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” presentation was loaded with lies.  He hammered home an agenda with selective data and manipulated data presentation.  Example:  the UN forecast he cited was 10 foot ocean rise by 2100, yet his global map showed a 100 foot rise because 10 feet didn’t alter the coastline dramatically enough.  This presentation persuaded millions of people to believe in an immediate and existential threat to the planet.  Now it is quite difficult to have a reasonable dialogue with broader data about what can and should be done.

Immigration to the US can be an important positive good, bringing in talent, energy for innovation and entrepreneurship, and supporting our demographics.  The Bible has much to say about how we treat migrants.  The current administration policy is violating established law.  The effects and backlash is such that now a conversation about positive controlled immigration is far more difficult. 

Watch for this pattern.  The correct response is still to seek out opportunities for good discourse.

Do I lack patience, or do I lack the courage to remain in the moment and in the season?

Am I just being lazy, or do I lack the courage to lean into that far-far-better thing that I’m called to accomplish?

Do I love that person enough to confront them, or do I lack the courage to do it?

It’s not hard to grasp why our ancestors considered courage the first virtue.  What good happens without courage?

A reader agreed with my assessment of troubled years ahead and asked my thoughts on how civic leaders could navigate the turbulence, especially financially.   My outline for him:

Prioritize spending:

                National security – military, food, critical supplies, energy, cyber

                Civic security – law and order, local leadership responsibility

                Investing in infrastructure and capacity – people, facilities, health, fundamental innovation

                Provide incentives for entrepreneurs and business owners

Implement means testing for benefits, and recover the Victorian idea of the “deserving poor vs. the undeserving poor”

Pay down debts

Require adults being adults:

                The “man on the street” must understand the necessity to bear more burdens because the reality of our collective situation.  Decisions and promises in the past created consequences we now must live through. We must celebrate maturity rather than indulging immaturity.

                The wealthy and investors need to accept, as Cicero suggested, that half a loaf is better than a full loaf with rebellion and anarchy.

                Politicians must accept that doing the right thing might not help their re-election.

Churches must step up to care for both souls and physical needs.  This will require less energy on narrow matters and more focus on the authority of Christ and practice walking in step with the Spirit. 

There is much more to say but I would begin with these.

I recently heard a brilliant pair of questions from James Tour, a materials scientist exploring the origin of life:

“A cell just died.  All the material components are still there.  What was lost?  And how would we restart it?”

That’s a useful way to think about the past of teams and organizations.  We had a high-performing team for a time, and then we didn’t.  There were those special days in the non-profit when everyone was in sync, and somehow it came undone. At one point the project was chunking along, hitting milestones, and then we foundered and sputtered.  There was a shining time, full of struggles, where trust was high, and then we collapsed into a low-trust, zero-sum set of arguments and excuses.  What was lost?  And how would we restart it?

The mystery of organizational dynamics is akin to the mystery of life in a single cell.  Fractal!  

One can see the pattern in marriages, friendships, neighborhoods, and volunteer associations, too.  There are special intangibles, moments and seasons, seemingly robust and endless — and in the end you realize they’re fragile. 

…

One moment after a person dies, all the physical components are still there.  You can recover organs from the corpse for a few hours which will be viable when transplanted into a living person.  Heart, kidneys, liver, corneas, skin.  I’ve been present at multiple deaths; one moment someone is there, and the next moment they’re a corpse. What was lost when the person died? 

The idea that life is a meta property of the physical seems a poor fit to the observable data.  Is Genesis 2:7 more reasonable? “[T]hen the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

I make this argument for my areligious friends because we know from history what happens when you adopt the view that humans are nothing more than a transiently cohesive bunch of atoms, and we substitute the State or ourselves as an ultimate authority.  I wish more people were taught the full horrors of the 20^th century; what the Nazis did was a sliver of what the Communists did.

…

Dennis Prager asks atheists a revealing question: “Do you hope that you’re right or you’re wrong?”  An atheist who hopes he’s correct is a fool.  Not all atheists are fools, just as not all religious people are wise.

When I think about heaven and what that will be like, I tend to imagine reunion with my parents and grandparents.  I imagine doing creative work unconstrained by sin and bodily weakness.  (As I age I resonate more with the older people arriving in Aslan’s country in The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis who remark, “I chiefly feel unstiffened.”)  What I should think about most of all is being in the presence of God, the central reality of heaven.  The fact I don’t think about this first tells me (1) I’m not thinking biblically enough, and (2) I am still immature. 

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Loneliness is a kind of death, a separation from community which sustains us.  Restarting relationships and community is difficult once loneliness becomes your primary companion.  I have a friend who points out that all formation happens in the whitespace between individuals.  We long for community.

Many of my readers are significantly introverted – meaning, social interactions are fine with the right people, and numbingly awkward with everyone else. They’re uncomfortable in noisy, crowded situations.  They get embarrassed about things they’ve said.  They recognize they should be leading in some way, and too often fearful to do so.  They’re quick to see their faults and deficiencies.

Me, too. 

I share this to encourage you: I am better because I put my writing out there.  I am better because I share honestly and candidly.  I am better because I externalize a bit of my interior, which allows me to truly see it, and get feedback from others.  I am better because I force myself to articulate uncomfortable, fuzzy thoughts and ideas.  I am better because I engage with people and get my rough edges chiseled and sanded off.  I am better when I push past awkwardness and discomforting social situations.  We are better together. 

It’s accurate when God refers to His people as sheep in the Bible, but it’s not a compliment.  Sheep are quite stupid,  practically defenseless, and can’t clean themselves. Sheep do best in flocks and die alone.  There are necessary moments of loneliness, solitude, and discomfort.  But it is the enemy of all that is good that wants you truly isolated and alone.

…

Perhaps what is lost at the moment of death is the togetherness connection, genuine but difficult to describe in engineering terms.   What do you think?

How do you handle critique?  It’s an important part of maturity, right? 

Someone contacted me a few weeks ago, not a regular subscriber but a person who had been forwarded a few newsletters.  To say “He reamed me” would be a kindly characterization.  According to him, I am ignorant, read the wrong translations of classics, don’t know biology or engineering and am especially stupid about ai, have drawn the wrong conclusions from history and sociology, can’t write a good sentence, and am part of the crowd that will doom humanity because I… well, you get the idea.

This man, too, is made in the image of God.  This man, too, is probably correct about a few things.  He’s probably battling with anger, just as I do. I confess my default desire is to “kick him with the right foot of fellowship through the goalposts of life.”  I do that in my mind even if I won’t do it in the physical world.

Critique, even unfair and unrealistic critique, can help us.  We can learn where we need to improve.  We can strengthen our self-control.  We can make choices about what to accept and what to reject or ignore.  (I say “we can” because we have agency and are responsible.)  Observation: It’s easier to deal with outrageous critique than a little critique which is largely correct. 

I won’t deny that sharing this is, well, a satisfying riposte to his attack.  I’m sharing because I handled this only partly well, and need to continue to improve.  Maybe that will help you, too.

Let’s review the end of Hans Christian Anderson’s fable, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”:

So now the Emperor walked under his high canopy in the midst of the procession, through the streets of his capital; and all the people standing by, and those at the windows, cried out, “Oh! How beautiful are our Emperor’s new clothes! What a magnificent train there is to the mantle; and how gracefully the scarf hangs!” in short, no one would allow that he could not see these much-admired clothes; because, in doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit for his office. Certainly, none of the Emperor’s various suits, had ever made so great an impression, as these invisible ones.

“But the Emperor has nothing at all on!” said a little child.

“Listen to the voice of innocence!” exclaimed his father; and what the child had said was whispered from one to another.

“But he has nothing at all on!” at last cried out all the people. The Emperor was vexed, for he knew that the people were right; but he thought the procession must go on now! And the lords of the bedchamber took greater pains than ever, to appear holding up a train, although, in reality, there was no train to hold.

When were kids we loved the part that it was a little child who pointed out the truth to the adults.  Now that I’m an adult I’m horrified by (1) how adults went along with the charade at all, and (2) when confronted by the truth the Emperor decides “the procession must go on.”

The phenomenal strength of our wiring as social animals enables us to do so much more together than we can alone.  This same wiring makes our species incredibly vulnerable to social pressures, propaganda, and lies.  Let us remain sober about this reality.

Simple fact:  We get more of what we celebrate. 

We should celebrate that which enables a thriving civilization:

Moms and dads

Good teachers, coaches, and mentors

Productive work

Innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship

Respect and responsibility

A framework of stewardship

Humility

Strength

Rule of law

Sacrifice for others

Maturity with self-control and wisdom

Faith, and confidence in a larger and better future

Language which builds up

The arts

Preserving the best of our traditions

Leadership, followership

By contrast, consider how much in our cultures today celebrate:

Death

Pride

Truth defined only by selfish interest

Greed

Violence

Cynicism

Anarchy

Prolonged adolescence

Entitlement

Indiscriminate sex

Coarse language

Escapism

These erode civilization, undermine, divide, and weaken relational life. 

There is a real world.  Foolish people believe there is no real world, only narrative.  They think that if they change the narrative it becomes the real world. 

Is it ok to trust machines (specifically, ai) more than people to give you useful guidance?  We like the convenience and speed of asking Alexa for the weather report, and Google answers to straightforward questions like “What is the population of Summerhill, PA?”  We should be more cautious about queries like “Why do Muslims hate Jews?” or “What are the strengths and weaknesses of the US Constitution?” because the responses will reflect perspectives in the source data. So far, so good.

What about “How should I handle this situation with my marriage?” and “How can I stop feeling resentful of my dad’s dementia?”  Will people trust an ai more than a person to provide guidance about career choices, business strategy, international diplomacy?  These are huge leaps from “What is the weather in Boise?” because they require judgment and wisdom.

I expect ai will be most disruptive short-term (in businesses) for marketing, including copywriting and SEO.  It’s rapidly replacing human work in those domains.  Any situation which can be represented mathematically (e.g., it fits into a spreadsheet) is prime for algorithms and machine-learning.  Generating new text, audio, and video content from prompts will continue to get better – though it’s all derivative of what already exists.  Powerful tools, indeed.

That leaves a lot for humans.  Including the imagination to prompt an ai. 

Reminder to self, you’re welcome to listen:  AI cannot change human behavior problems. 

Even a cursory study of system dynamics and economics helps you become better at analyzing situations via incentive structures. 

Few politicians can get re-elected after saying “I was wrong about X.”  Saying “I was wrong” is hard for any of us.  Therefore, we should not be surprised that politicians have excuses, lie about their previous position, or try the artful “I’ve evolved.”

It’s easy for legislators to yammer about simplifying regulations and tax codes.  Significantly changing it?  The power to implement regulations and tax codes is their primary power tool.   Sincere individuals also find out that the power of the larger system with many participants benefitting from the status quo is much larger than the individual trying to change it.

Where else can you spot incentive structures?

Our species is addicted to comfort. Change is difficult.  Progress always requires going through discomfort. 

Fire investigators distinguish the initial source of the fire, and accelerants which made the fire worse. 

People blame many things for our social struggles:  glut data and information, social media amplifying narratives, poverty, unequal opportunities for education and jobs, drugs, alcohol, ultra-processed foods and obesity, identity confusion.  (Surely I’ve missed some.)  These aren’t root causes, they’re accelerants. 

You can also distinguish core strengths, and force multipliers.  A great product or service is a core strength; the sales system and customer service are force multipliers.  Employee resilience and capacity to learn are force multipliers, as are alliances in your supply chain.  Neighbors caring for neighbors might be a core strength of a community, but certainly neighbors who are alert to events and threats is a force multiplier. 

Truly great products don’t need accelerants to succeed.  It’s often easier to add accelerants and force multipliers to a weak product than to build a great product from scratch.  Smart leaders should be thinking about everything together to shape superior systems of systems.