Society

Less interrupting please

May 20, 2015

I have seen this happen more times than the number of yaks I’ve shaved. At nearly every job I’ve had, I’ve walked this fine line. I’ve had performance reviews where I’ve been called pushy, aggressive, assertive, abrasive, or bitchy simply for speaking up in a similar manner to that of my male colleagues, and on the other side of things, I’ve been interrupted and spoken over more times than I can count. I’ve worked at places where I was the only one being interrupted (backstory: I’ve been the only woman in a lot of engineering departments), which has bothered me. But I’ve also worked at places where everyone interrupts each other all the time. For a while, I thought that was better. “At least I’m not being spoken over because I’m the only woman; the guys get interrupted too,” I thought to myself. But everyone interrupting everyone else really isn’t that much better.

~ Katherine Daniels from, http://beero.ps/2015/01/13/on-interrupting-interrupt-culture/

For, let’s say, the first half of my life, I was always the one doing the interrupting. As I’ve begun to listen, I now realize how much everyone interrupts everyone else. When I’m relaxed and on my game, I try to have a meta-listening happening so I can tell when to stop talking to keep the conversation working. As best I can manage, when I’m interrupted, I simply stop talking.

But sometimes, just for fun, I like to toss this in quietly while the interrupter is still speaking…

Oh! I’m sorry, did the middle of my sentence interrupt the beginning of yours?

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Dunbar’s number

April 27, 2015

Dunbar’s Number is a favorite blunt diagnosis for the pains that affect rapidly growing teams. The number, which is somewhere between 100 and 250 describes a point at which a group of people can no longer effectively maintain social connections in their respective heads. What was simple from a communication perspective becomes costly. What was a familiar family that you saw wandering the hallway becomes Stranger Town.

~ Rands from, http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-old-guard/

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Also, Dunbar’s Number on Wikipedia.

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Why peak oil predictions haven’t come true

April 13, 2015

It seems to me, though, that a third outcome is not only possible, but is what is actually happening.

3. Diminishing returns from oil limits are already beginning to hit, but the impacts and the expected shape of the down slope are quite different from those forecast by most Peak Oilers.

~ Gail Tverberg from, http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/10/06/wsj-gets-it-wrong-on-why-peak-oil-predictions-havent-come-true/

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The forsaken art of pedagogy

April 8, 2015

In other words, you actually belong to a wider group: you are one of the increasingly commonplace factions of society that takes pride in not bothering to make yourself understood. You feel entitled to let others worry about what you really mean, and even revel in the tribalism of `being in the know’ rather than letting others into your secret world, as if playing the role of an ignorant tourist in a foreign country.

~ Mark Burgess from, http://markburgess.org/blog_pedagogy.html

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Measuring our successes

March 15, 2015

It happens in homes, in our relationships and our jobs, in learning, and even in innovation (as ‘technical debt’): the sense of being trapped by circumstances.

Many have felt themselves in a situation of hopelessness, of not having time to claw their way out of survival mode, and get their head above water. Often conflicting interests stack up to trap you in indecision, and it’s when you are at your most vulnerable that others tend to attack rather than help.

~ Mark Burgess from, http://markburgess.org/blog_poverty.html

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Communities versus networks

March 8, 2015

Unfortunately, true community in our modern world is hard to find for soldiers and civilians alike. Instead, we increasingly live out our lives as members of networks. This transition from community to network life is truly at the heart of the increasing feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and anomie that many people experience in the modern age. We’ve never been so “connected” — and yet so isolated at the same time.

~ Brett McKay from, http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/07/01/communities-vs-networks-to-which-do-you-belong/

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Fish don’t know they are in water

February 7, 2015

If you know a little history, you might see some of this, and think that today’s culture battles are part of a tradition that goes back to FDR …

If you know a bit more history, you might see that this culture war stems from North Eastern progressive tradition dating back to the US Civil War.

The truth is that our culture war does date to the Civil War. Just not the US Civil War in 1861. It’s the English Civil War in 1640s I’m talking about.

~ Clark from, http://www.popehat.com/2014/10/10/strange-seeds-on-distant-shores/

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Religious freedom turning into passive-aggression

February 6, 2015

To make this work, conservative Christians need to divert attention from the people they are mistreating by portraying themselves as the victims. And that requires cultivating a hyper-sensitivity to any form of involvement in activities they disapprove of. So rather than sympathize with the lesbian couple who gets the bakery door slammed in their faces, the public should instead sympathize with the poor wedding-cake baker whose moral purity is besmirched when the labor of his hands is used in a celebration of immorality and perversion.

~ Doug Muder from, http://weeklysift.com/2013/07/08/religious-freedom-means-christian-passive-aggressive-domination/

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The distress of the privileged

January 25, 2015

If you are one of the newly-visible others, this all sounds whiny compared to the problems you face every day. It’s tempting to blast through such privileged resistance with anger and insult.

Tempting, but also, I think, a mistake. The privileged are still privileged enough to foment a counter-revolution, if their frustrated sense of entitlement hardens.

So I think it’s worthwhile to spend a minute or two looking at the world from George Parker’s point of view: He’s a good 1950s TV father. He never set out to be the bad guy. He never meant to stifle his wife’s humanity or enforce a dull conformity on his kids. Nobody ever asked him whether the world should be black-and-white; it just was.

~ Doug Muder from, http://weeklysift.com/2012/09/10/the-distress-of-the-privileged/

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The real American discipline problem

January 20, 2015

I agree that America faces a major discipline problem, but I see the lack of discipline at the top: the bankers, the billionaires, the CEOs. Like Mike Rice, they’re out of control and need to face the consequences of their actions.

The Rice video was seen by Rutgers officials months ago, and their response was a wrist-slap: Rice was suspended for three games and told not to do it again. Isn’t that typical of how things go in America?

~ Doug Muder, from Mike Rice, Sean Hannity, and the Real American Discipline Problem

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How to be polite

January 19, 2015

The practice of politeness is a collection of habits of mind and expression you do on a daily basis. You learn to say “thank you” because you are honestly grateful and “I’m sorry” because you honestly don’t want to contribute to the pain of the world. You learn to say “it’s ok” because you’re honestly forgiving and letting go of small things other people do wrong. This practice makes the rate of unproductive and acrimonious conversations go down, and the enemies you make are usually only the unavoidably unpleasant.

~ Quinn Norton, from How to be Polite… for Geeks

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Religious liberty and marriage equality

December 30, 2014

In my view, one basic principle is: No one should be forced to participate in a religious ritual. That’s why I don’t want teachers leading prayers in public school classrooms, especially when the children are too young to make a meaningful choice about opting out. For the same reason, it would be wrong to sue a priest who refused to perform a Catholic marriage ritual for a marriage his church did not sanction.

~ Doug Muder from, http://weeklysift.com/2014/03/03/religious-liberty-and-marriage-equality/

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Cult of self esteem?

August 30, 2013

In addition to disparaging routine labor, these films discount the hard work that enables individuals to reach the top of their professions. Turbo and Dusty don’t need to hone their craft for years in minor-league circuits like their racing peers presumably did. It’s enough for them simply to show up with no experience at the world’s most competitive races, dig deep within themselves, and out-believe their opponents. They are, in many ways, the perfect role models for a generation weaned on instant gratification.

~ Luke Epplin from, http://m.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/you-can-do-em-anything-em-must-every-kids-movie-reinforce-the-cult-of-self-esteem/278596/

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