Arguments

Thanks to Jonathan Haigt for this one:

“Once people accept the case for why you need to be exposed to people who disagree with you, and who challenge your ideas, then the question is, how do you do it? And here I have two recommendations. One, the one that worked for me, that really helped me, because I was an arrogant argumentative teenager and young adult, is reading Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And it's so easy once you read it. It's a great book, it's a really fun book. And what he teaches you is, don't come out saying, “You're wrong and here's why.” Come out saying, “Oh, that's very interesting. I think you're right about that one thing there.” Or, “We have this in common.” Or, “I can understand why you're saying that,” or, “Here's something in my experience that confirms what you said.” And once you start by agreeing on something, then you can pivot to, “But now on the other hand, it seems to me that...” and then you can raise your point. And then you're much more likely to persuade the person ... If you're a Homo sapien, you evolved for group combat, you evolved for confirmation bias and motivated reasoning. We're not really evolved to be academics or scientists searching for truth in an unbiased way. We evolved to basically CYA, and win in social competitions. But if you learn some skills, you can actually be very effective as a teacher, as someone who persuades, as someone who changes people."

Trades transitioning

Here’s an encouraging story published by Fast Company.

“Danish renewable energy giant Ørsted reached an agreement with North America’s Building Trades Unions: The company would hire union members for a series of upcoming U.S. projects. NABTU represents 3 million workers in 14 unions, including electrical, bricklaying, cement, masonry, and more—a group historically skeptical of renewable energy because of its potential to disrupt members’ jobs. “

It deals with three matters that are frequently stumbling blocks. The workers are more than capable of bullding things. They just have to learn how to build something different and have the training provided to do so with proper earnings as they make the transition. The wages that they earn in the new jobs will be comparable to the ones they earned in previous occupations. And to sweeten the deal they will also have added benefits. These transitions are apparently common in Europe. It is time for North American companies to imitate these elements which seem obvious.

Gadgets

I’ve been reading Jason Lanier’s You are not a Gadget - and it has reminded me of a gadget that I dislike - the Chat function in Zoom. In a conversation with one of my sons, he defended the function as useful between two colleagues when watching a webinar - and on that I have no particular disagreement. What I object to is the interruption of chats to everybody. The sender assumes that the information he/she is going to provide is more important than that of the presenter at the moment. It is intended to he helpful but it smacks of self-importance.

What this does is to put a small bulletin on my gallery page view that annoyingly obscures the face of the speaker. Sometimes it is a link to a website in a font that is unreadable. If I am trying to follow what the speaker is saying, I don’t want to leap to another place and look at it now. When many are attending, “Hello” from wherever may be momentarily inspiring that the world is wide and extensive but it doesn’t survive as something important.

Lanier decries the ability of the trivial to become important and swamp attention from the main event. It is part of social media’s attempt to make everyone more important - without realizing that the herds we are creating are there for a reason - not to have more friends we hardly know or care about, but to send us more advertisements. It also shows how behaviour on one set of platforms is now influencing our behaviour on others. I won’t read your chats - and I’ll hardly ever send one.

Another outstanding site

The Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology is an important site for anyone who sees ecology as a moral and spiritual issue. It has undergone a recent update that makes it even more attractive as a resource for learning. The site tells us this:

“The Mission of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology is to inform and inspire people to preserve, protect, and restore the Earth community. The religions of the world transmit ecological and justice perspectives in their scriptures, rituals, and contemplative practices as well as in their moral and ethical commitments.” It goes on to list a number of projects and connections

You can find brief summaries of all the world’s major religions. There are equally impressive materials on climate emergency. Laudato Si, the encylical of Pope Francis, has had considerable impact and these materials have also been collected for reference. There are numerous resources including a regular newsletter. Among the many projects are those relating to to Journey of the Universe project.

For anyone interested in climate change, the foundational information here is of immense value.

Celebrate Earth Day

Happy Earth Day!

Last year was bitter sweet as I had to cancel an arts event, where several artists donated their service to support environmental efforts as part of Earth Day’s 50th anniversary. The earth continues to need our reverence. Thomas Berry suggests the need to reframe our understanding - that humans are subjects along with all the other evolutionary creatures and elements which we have too often thought of as objects for our use and exploitation.

Even in a pandemic there are ways to celebrate:

• Try the quizzes at the Earth Day 2021 site and see what you know: (I’m doing better on climate change than on climate literacy but I have work to do on both.)

• Watch one of these videos:

  • Life in Color With David Attenborough,” on Netflix,

  • “Secrets of the Whales” the project of an even bigger power player, the filmmaker and deep-sea diver James Cameron.

  • Cher and the Loneliest Elephant,” streaming beginning Thursday on Paramount+ and playing on cable May 19 on the Smithsonian Channel,

  • the three hourlong episodes of “A Year to Change the World,” being shown in succession Thursday night on PBS stations. It follows Thunberg, then 16 and 17, as she travels the world in 2019 and 2020, giving speeches at climate conferences and educating herself — and through the documentary, us — i