Here’s a fascinating article about the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue at Firdos Square in 2003 – a great case to examine how our desire for compelling stories and images makes us deceive ourselves. Some argue it may have made things worse — enabling the infamous “Mission Accomplished” announcement and causing people to overlook real problems. (More [...]
Tagged as:
attention,
conspiracies,
deception,
iraq war,
journalism,
self-deception,
war
The WikiLeaks story is really becoming a saga. It’s like a new chapter is added every week, with new characters and new ethical questions raised. The latest one helped me work out at least one big answer to move forward with. The answer hinges on trust. It used to be that knowledge was power: it [...]
Tagged as:
attention,
crime,
culture,
diplomacy,
feminism,
information,
institutions,
integrity,
julian assange,
justice,
keith olbermann,
michael moore,
news,
open government,
openness,
press,
rape,
society,
transparency,
trust,
wikileaks
We have to make a choice: divert more & more energy to avoid & repair leak after leak or come to terms with an open world. # This is the big ethical and practical choice we need to confront. Every time we choose to keep even the smallest secrets we sow seeds that’ll grow into [...]
Tagged as:
cablegate,
epistemology,
foreign affairs,
government,
history,
internet,
julian assange,
knowledge,
love of learning,
news,
open government,
philosophy,
politics,
process,
secrecy,
transparency,
truth,
wikileaks
Revitalizing downtown is an ever-relevant topic in London, as I’m sure it is in most cities. (There may be cities where downtown isn’t an important part of the story; those are cities I don’t want to live in.) Last night we had a bit of a thing here as part of Downtown London and the [...]
Tagged as:
cities,
downtown,
heritage,
history,
location,
mobile,
planning,
poverty,
strategy,
transit,
urban design,
urban planning
It took me most of my young life to figure this out. After growing up as a precocious political junkie I got jaded pretty early. I grew up in a rural conservative family but somehow, deep-down I’m an urban technophile who often hopes there’s no problem that walkable neighbourhoods and Twitter hashtags can’t solve. In [...]
Tagged as:
cities,
conservatism,
democracy,
design ego,
elections,
government,
ideology,
moral psychology,
motivation,
politics,
pragmatism,
progressivism,
purpose,
relevance,
values,
voting,
will to relevance
It’s great to do “meaningful work” and have “meaningful dialog” and make “meaningful contributions.” But do you really know what it means? It’s often just a synonym for “good” — which can be , um, good — but at its worst it merely means that something “feels good” or “resembles good.” When it’s done right, [...]
Tagged as:
charity,
generativity,
good,
hedonism,
ideas,
ideology,
marketing,
meaning,
meaningful,
morality,
motivation,
narcissism,
objectivity,
purpose,
rhetoric,
work
I just had a crazy thought about The Social Network. It turns on this controversial and often-repeated remark (found here) by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin: I don’t want my fidelity to be to the truth; I want it to be to storytelling. I’m #TeamInternet all the way but I appreciate where Sorkin is coming from. I’m sort [...]
Tagged as:
cultural evolution,
facebook,
fiction,
film,
generativity,
internet,
movies,
narrative,
stories,
storytelling,
truth,
web,
writing
We had an interesting exchange on Twitter the other day, about the lack of attention given by the media to lesser-known election candidates. Partially aside, it was the kind of thing I’ve been hoping to see for a while — a lively backchannel discussion about how local politics news is covered — and I hope [...]
Tagged as:
blogging,
conversation,
elections,
ideas,
journalism,
leadership,
linking,
politics,
reporting,
social media,
twitter
It’s amazing how much insight and inspiration can come from babies, as I was reminded after visiting my seven week-old nephew yesterday. Most of time we were there we listened to “the baby’s music” which is supposed to make him happy (I’m a baby-newbie so forgive me if I’m embarrassing myself), but it made the [...]
Tagged as:
babies,
behaviour,
change,
development,
emotions,
groups,
growth,
learning,
mood,
music,
nurturing,
psychology,
relationships,
social,
switch
The gist of Connected, the excellent book about the power of social networks, is that the most important factor in whether a person will do something — e.g. donate to charity, gain weight, steal a car, or simply smile — is whether the people around them are doing it too. It isn’t true of everything, [...]
Tagged as:
apathy,
changecamp,
connected,
elections,
mobilization,
networks,
relationships,
social networks,
sociology,
voter turnout,
voting
They’ve done a good job of making moderate people critical. I tend to give police the benefit of the doubt, and I was one of the people thinking, “well it’s not an easy task” last week, but the way complaints have been handled (i.e. not) since then is deplorable. Both the police and people in all [...]
Tagged as:
authority,
competence,
courage,
g20,
government,
law,
police,
power,
protests,
security,
toronto,
trust
