What Pictures Miss

If you get on the internet and google beautiful scenery you will find a lot of very nice pictures of beautiful landscapes all over the world. I really enjoy pictures of nature and have a few hung up in my windowless cube at work. However, there is something missing.

In high school and through college I did a lot of hiking and backpacking all over the country. I saw firsthand the subjects of a lot of the pictures you see in the google search, and I have to say, the most perfectly composed picture just misses it. There is a depth and wholeness that is lost when a scene is represented in a picture.

I don't know what the difference is exactly. Even sitting on my back porch at the little patch of woods, that I can see the back of a shopping center through, carries something that the best nature photographer is not able to reproduce.

Being outside, feeling the sun and wind, hearing the breeze, seeing the beauties of things big and small, far a near, carries a fullness that nurtures my soul like nothing else. Sometimes on my way home from work I'll stop by the shore and watch the waves in the bay. Even if it's chilly I'll roll my window down to hear the water and birds and to smell the air.

The world is too big and too beautiful to always sit inside looking at poor reproductions of the glorious natural beauty that is out there.

Legacy - Part 3: Applying It

{Now that I have my whole life figured out} it would be silly to not come up with some kind of plan to implement that knowledge. {sarcasm brackets}

The two areas I was drawn to were my kids and affecting lives. What can I do starting today to start investing in those things?

Kids

I need to make a more focused effort to spend one-on-one time with each of them to build relationship and get to know them as individuals and not just as part of the local kid tornado.

They are still young so there are a lot of things they are not ready for yet, but simple regular interactions are probably what they need the most.

Affected Lives

This is a bit harder. I have to find people who want/need help. I have some good relationships with people at my church, but at most those are peer-to-peer relationships, and while they are rewarding and I think I am helping, having a more mentor/mentee relationship holds the promise of being more productive.

A guy I work with runs a robotics team here at the local high school. That might be cool to help with. I think I have enough perspective beyond high school to be a meaningful mentor for teenagers.

We will see. I don't want to overextend myself. Three little kids might be as much mentoring as I can handle for the time being.

You should try this out. Give it might not do much for you, but then again, if you don't have a broader perspective than the here and now you don't know if you are lost.

Legacy - Part 2: Developing It

Yesterday I discussed why I have avoided thinking about my legacy. Today I want to explore what I want my legacy to be.

To start, I need to define for myself what a legacy is. There is the proper definition of course, but that doesn't really give me a very practical list.

Things that I can leave behind that could constitute a "legacy":

1. Children

2. My work be it physical or intellectual

3. Memories

4. Affected lives

I want to have a positive effect in all of those areas. Let me look over each one.

1. Children: I have had three. So my impact on them will outlive me.

                a. I want to teach them to love G-d, and to fulfill the gifts and purposes He has for them.

                b. I want to teach them how to be productive and highly functional members of society.

                c. I want to help them succeed in their lives even more than I have in mine.

2. My work:

                a. Physically... yeah, that's not really my thing. I can do hands on if I really need to, but no one is going to remember me for anything I physically build. I have been part of the creation of some cool projects though so that kind of counts. No one is going to remember me for that though. I'm a little cog in a very big machine and probably always will be.

                b. Intellectually is a bit different. I have ideas. I have dreams. I would like to have had an impact on the world with my ideas. I have a few that could be valuable.

3. Memories: Well, memories are the easiest to make and the most fleeting. I don't really care if I am remembered though. I am not so special that I must be remembered.

4. Affected lives: This is the one that is probably the second most important to me after kids. I want to do the same thing for other people that I want to do for my kids. I want to help them live the fullest lives they can. I want to help equip them to embrace their G-d given dreams and purposes.

So wrapping that all up into something that is a little more put together:

My desired legacy is that a trail of people who have met their full potential with my help.

That was helpful to me. I have never worked through it like that. I hope seeing a little of my internal process helps you think about what impact you want to have.

Legacy - Part 1: Avoiding It

What do you want your legacy to be?

I've heard this question asked a number of times. How do you want to be remembered? What will your obituary say? I'm sure you've heard them. Well, I for one have soundly ignored those questions and not thought about them. Intentionally not thought about them in fact. Avoided it really.

So here is me finally not avoiding the topic. Maybe I'll learn something.

Now, to give you an idea of my process I usually don't know what I am completely going to say when I sit down to write a post, and today I have no idea. This is an adventure. :D

Let me start by listing reasons I avoided this up to now.

1. It's complicated. I mean, there are a lot of different perspectives. My role as a father by my kids. My role as a husband by my wife. My professional role by my colleagues and wider society. I might end up with a simple answer, but I have to work through a lot. I'm not going to just jump to something trite like "he loved much" or something.
2. Analyzing something like this means that I presumably will then know the answer to the question... Duh, but that means that I might have to do something about it. That means changing my life in one or more ways. So I have been afraid.
3. There has been a bit of "I'm too young to be worrying about that kind of thing" sprinkled in there too, but I'm turning 30 in a few months, and while that is far from old I am not a kid anymore. So it's harder to use that excuse.

I have been realizing that I am reaching a new period of my life.

1. Awareness: I have come to know G-d and what what I want to do (kinda)
2. Learning: I have learned theology. I have learned my craft.
3. Action: I have served and been acted on my theological understanding. I have developed my career.

I have been feeling stuck here though. Like I am hitting a wall. The new period of my life that I am entering into now is a journey inward. Developing a real mature understanding of myself. Understanding MY relationship with G-d. Not just a generic "what it means to be a Christian" or something. Understanding how I am best able to be a husband, father, and engineer.

I can't embrace this new journey and avoid answering the question of legacy. Not anymore... Well, I can, but only until tomorrow.

Confession

I've been thinking about how G-d is like a computer programmer and we are in a simulation of His recently. Especially the part where He has the ability to provide anything he wants to us. I have realized that I do not act like it sometimes though.

I have been having a poverty mentality. I have been acting like I don't have the resources I need. I have been selfish in both attitude and action. But what justification do I have for that? How does that line up with reality? G-d loves me. He has a purpose for me. So given that He has literally unlimited resources and He wants to see me succeed I really shouldn't be concerned about resources at all. He kind of lays that out in Matthew 6:25-34.

I basically write on a topic that I have been thinking a bit about that day, and the reason this is a thing is, like I said, I wasn't doing this. I "know" the stuff, but "knowing" doesn't translate to knowing a lot of times. But then over the past couple weeks we wanted to do something. It wasn't huge, but we didn't have the money to pay for all the stuff we needed to do it. Then out of the blue resources appeared. Things that were not on our radar at all, that we couldn't have planned. And BAM. We had everything we needed to do it. Not any more, but enough.

It really helped me understand in a fresh way (I've learned this before unfortunately) that worrying about resources is not going to help things. G-d can and will sudo provide what I need.

2 Thessalonians 3:10 and the Singularity

As technology continues to improve, the number of tasks that robots/automation/AI can do will continue to increase. Based on my reading I expect the plurality of jobs will be absorbed into the machine within my lifetime. Not just the jobs can be done, but will be done by automation. When that happens the means of production will not require human input for the most part. Therefore we will have little necessary work to do.

2 Thessalonians 3:10 says if if you are "unwilling to work you shall not eat". But what if there is no work to be done? Beyond the scripture we already on average spend 11 hours a day looking at a screen. A lot of that is work, but a lot of it isn't. We already know it isn't healthy and the social interactions via texting and social media are not as healthy and meaningful as more direct communication. So the question is this, when humanity does not need to work what do we do?

I really don't know the answer to that question... Economically we couldn't compete with the quality, speed, and price of automated systems. So unless there was some kind of subsidy or a "made by humans" premium people were willing to pay, work could have no real economic impact for the most part.

People could do work that was economically unnecessary. Like gardening, beautification, mending, crafting, writing, and the like. We could make the world beautiful. Not because we needed to, not because we were getting paid, but because there was nothing else to do with ourselves.

I don't know. I don't want this to be all depressing, but I just don't see it working out well. Even if we managed to craft a system where we all got paid a base wage so even without a job you'd be able to live ok I think things would go south pretty quickly. With most of the population left to their own devices, with no need to be productive ever again I think a lot of the newly freed up focus would get used poorly. A grand scale version of the old saying "Idle hands are the devil's workshop."

I think the very stability of society rests on the NEED that people have to HAVE to be productive. When most people have to do things to keep their life working well they stay out of trouble for the most part. Take that away and... things don't work so smoothly.

Maybe I should get a sandwich board that says "The End is Near" and stand on the corner yelling at people.

The Hard Side of Love

Our culture loves love. We hold it above all other values. "Love" can never be wrong. It must not be questioned or squelched. It is sacrosanct. To act against this, to allude that maybe there are other things that are more important or sometimes should take precedence instantly translates into the alluder being labeled as hate filled racist/bigot/scum/etc.

However, the warm fuzzies, the star struck lovers, the puppies and rainbows of love are not all there is. There is a less comfortable side of love that seems to get lost in the mass euphoria that our culture gets swept away in. This is the side of love that our parents and we as parents get to exercise on a regular basis. The love that brings us to punish and restrict in order to protect. It is not fun for anyone. It is not pleasant.

It reflects the fact that there is a larger reality beyond the emotions and whims of the fuzzy side of love and desire. It would be nice of we could all give and love and play and run with no care for consequences. But there are unhealthy loves, dangerous games, scissors to trip on and consequences for even the most well intentioned ignorance and stupidity.

Like I said, it is hard and unpleasant to say no. To speak truth when everyone seems to be having so much fun. It is unpopular. It makes you a killjoy and a party pooper, a prude and a hate filled racist/bigot/scum/etc. There aren't a lot of people thanking you for taking a stand. Especially in the moment. But it is needed.

We need leaders who will risk the tantrums and name calling. Who will step in and say "this is for your own good". Someday we will thank them. Someday we will look back and appreciate the hurts we avoided because they stood up and protected their kids, their employees, their constituents. Let's just hope we don't lynch them all before they have a chance to protect us from ourselves.

"Love" is great, but it's often very very stupid.

Analogies - Computers and the World

We are able, as humans to make amazing digital worlds. We can make them in any size and shape you can imagine. They have whatever things you want them to have. Trees, buildings, fantastic creatures, and even truly bottomless cups of coffee. Our imaginations are free to create what we want.

So as a thought experiment lets create a digital world. Let's call it digiTown. It has people in it. It has houses and cars and everything a normal town would. As the programmer, we have access to every single bit of information about that town. We know how many people are in it exactly. We know the exact characteristics about every person in digiTown. We know where everyone is, what they are doing, and since we control the program we can run back and forth in the timeline so we know what will happen too. We know everything that can be known about it.

We are the programmer too. So we can add things we want and take out things we don't want. Being that it is digital, we have can bestow unlimited resources at our whim. We could put a brand new digiCamerro in every driveway in digiTown and it doesn't reduce our unlimited digital resources one iota.

We even have control over the very fabric of space and time in digiTown. If we wanted to change the characteristics of a material, say water, or if we wanted to pause the day/night cycle and make it day for 24 hours we could. We could control every little aspect of every digiAtom.

This is the analogy I use to understand G-d and His interactions with us and our world. I suspect it is a bit off, but it fits in every way I know of. It makes me more able to understand His limitless power and knowledge. It is still just as mind boggling, but it helps me relate a little more.

Elegence in Design

When I was in college I was introduced to the design and performance of jet engines. They are very interesting machines and they have an amazing ability to generate large forces with relatively little fuel (compared to other types of engines). Jet engines revolutionized flight and made air travel affordable for the mass transit it is used for today.
 
The air goes in the intake, is compressed going through the compressor, the fuel is added and then burned in the combustion chamber and the hot expanded gas shoots out the back powering the turbine which powers the compressor at the beginning. The high speed and hot exhaust (in this case) is what produces thrust and makes the plane go. There are a lot of variations of jet engines, but this is the basic design.

The reason the jet needs the compressor is because it is needed to increase the pressure of the air so the combustion process can work efficiently. It's like the piston in a car. It presses the air into a little space and then explodes it. The jet engine just does this constantly without a four stroke cycle.

The reason I've explained all this is, beyond the fact that it is interesting in and of itself is what it leads to when you start to speed up. The faster the jet goes the higher the air pressure is coming in the intake. Eventually the pressure gets so high that... you guessed it, it doesn't need the compressor anymore. That then logically leads to the engine not needing the turbine since it isn't needed to power the compressor.

And that ladies and gentlemen is how you end up with one of the most elegant designs of any machine that exists in my humble opinion.

The scramjet.

The scramjet is the most powerful air breathing engine in existence. It can propel an aircraft at over Mach 5. Imagine flying from LA to New York in under 3 hours. That's the kind of crazy speeds a scramjet can get.

My main point here being the elegance here is a diagram of a scramjet:
 


There are 0 moving parts. The air goes in, gets compressed just by the shape of the inlet, the fuel is injected and combusted and shoots out as super hot exhaust all without a single little moving part. Now this is hard to do. The amount of time any single particle of air is in the jet is less than a hundredth of a second. So every single aspect of the design has to be perfect.

Speeds of over Mach 5 have been achieved and a good number of companies and countries are working feverishly to perfect the technology. Mostly for military applications right now, but it could eventually enter the commercial market and make the world an even smaller place. [Here is Lockheed Martin's SR-72 concept designed to replace the SR-71 as the US's spy plane]

Sometimes engineering and design has to be complicated. However, occasionally things work out and the result is incredible elegance, and it is just beautiful.

Eternal Pragmatist - Part 2

G-d is the ultimate pragmatist. He created the world. He knows how everything works because he made it. He sees all of history from start to finish. So He KNOWS what works and what doesn't. He has given us the Bible which tells us the story as well as what we can expect from Him and how to talk to Him for more up to date and specific information.

I say this because I am a pragmatist and it works. My life works proportionally to how well I actually align myself with G-d and follow what He says.

Based on what the Bible says we can adjust how we live our lives because the creator of the universe has told us what the mechanics are. Here are some things that He has told us and how that can change our lives:

1. G-d loves you unconditionally and wants the best for you. He wants a relationship with you more than anything else. He created you specifically to be in relationship with Him.

2. Sin is defined as actions that separate you from G-d. Sinning puts other things above G-d in your priorities. This is bad because that brings us out of alignment with our created purpose. It doesn't work.

3. Following G-d and being in relationship with Him allows us to live the fullest version of our lives possible. He has the resources, knowledge, power to allow us to completely fulfill our designed purpose here on earth. That is the epitome of doing what works.

To be an eternal pragmatist then we simply need to put our relationship with G-d as our first priority above every other ambition and relationship we have. Then with His help we can find and weed out sin in our lives wherever it is found.

As we get closer to Him and rid ourselves of sin He aligns us to be the most productive and useful versions of ourselves that are possible.

That's what works.

Kid Dates

Tonight I took my two daughters on a date. We went to the store, bought toilet paper and a snack and then went to the shore to watch the moon play on the water while we talked and ate our "yummies".

It wasn't complicated. It wasn't expensive. It didn't take very long either. We kind of needed the toilet paper anyway. But it was a great time. The older one and I talked about how she wanted to be an astronaut. The younger one went on and on about "it's Christmas!" because of all the lights on the water. They both ooed and aahed over the full moon and the sparkles on the waves.

It really made me appreciate the time I get to spend with them. The lack of nuance or complication that childhood embodies. They didn't complain about the snack or where they rather would have gone, or the show they were missing or anything else. They naturally took in the beauty around them and enjoyed the time we had together.

Unfortunately it isn't something I do often, but I want to make sure it happens as much as possible. I want to take advantage of the simplicity and earnestness that comes with their youth. I want them to remember these times for the rest of their lives and think of them fondly. We are not promised tomorrow, but we have the ability to make the most of our now.

Eternal Pragmatism - Part 1

Politically I have consciously been an independent since I was in high school (I was Republican before I knew better). As it is the first rule of politics that you have to pigeon hole yourself I defined myself as a conservative. However, over time I began to dislike some of the inherent policy associations connected to "conservative" so I appended it with pragmatic. So now I consider myself a pragmatic conservative. That has enough lack of definition to allow me to give my opinions on any topic without someone trying to argue with me over how I labeled myself.

I dislike the necessity of labeling, but I have found if you don't give someone a starting point it makes conversations harder. So thus I am labeled.

I have been thinking about the pragmatic label. As it is true with most words it gets used a lot of different ways. Some good and some bad. It really depends on the perspective of the person using it. What works isn't always clear. Things might look like they are working for a while, but if you don't understand the system you are working with you can run into real problems.

DDT for example. It was the obvious choice in the 40's and 50's. It led to the eradication of malaria in large regions and was an effective crop insecticide. The creator of it even won a Nobel prize. However, by 1962 it was found to have a laundry list of bad effects on people as well as nature. It was eventually banned in 1972 in the US for agricultural use.

So the pragmatist would say in 1950 that we should use DDT, but looking back we see that that wasn't necessarily the best idea. Lack of understanding the full ramifications of our actions led to a lot of damage.

Just because it looks like a good idea in the short term doesn't make it a truly good idea. Short term pragmatism, taken to the extreme could also be considered hedonism. So what we really want to strive for is long term pragmatism, or eternal pragmatism.

Eternal pragmatism requires understanding the fundamental reality of existence. Knowing what works and what doesn't, not just in time-spans of days or years, but for lifetimes and beyond. This brings about an interesting quandary though. You could have more short term pragmatists looking at eternal pragmatists and tell them they are being idealists or just being dumb. But in fact they don't have a long enough perspective.

So how do you become an eternal pragmatist? Well, that's for part 2.

Operation Catchup - Followup

Way on back in the beginning of January I talked about Operation Catch Up. I thought it would be a nice little thing to help keep up with my friends. It has been that, but it really has been a bit more. It has contributed to several relationships that I had in the past getting stronger and functioning on a level that I haven't had since I lived near them. It has been really great.

I have started developing a stronger feeling of having a place in the world. Where I feel like I belong in a network of people, and that I really matter. I wouldn't say I felt useless or anything before, but I definitely felt alone quite a bit. Having this group of people I consistently communicate with makes me feel more connected.

None of this is earth shattering or even new. It probably borders on painfully obvious for some people. However, this kind of relational focus has not been something I have had before. And I have to say it is pretty great.

I was a little apprehensive to start. I was concerned that the people on my list would not be interested in the gesture, or at least respond to it apathetically. However, I the response has been overwhelmingly positive, and it has even resulted in people contacting me. Which is not something that has ever happened to me with any kind of frequency.

So I would highly suggest, for anyone who doesn't come naturally to maintaining a large number of relationships, trying this. It is worth it.

The Fear of Learning

I am in the process of transitioning to a new job. It is a good thing and I expect to enjoy it a lot. However, there is a lot of new stuff that I have to learn that I have never done before. I spent a good deal of time over the last couple days drinking from the fire hose of knowledge and noticed something interesting.

This is not the first time I have gotten a fire hose of information pointed at me. This is my... 13th? unique position in my career to date. Each time I have gotten inundated by new information that I had to learn relatively quickly. And something I noticed the other day, each time it has been scary.

I get scared that I won't pick it up. That I will make mistakes. That I will not be able to do a good job in this new role. And every time I pick it up, I make mistakes, and I have generally done a decent job. So as the fear started pushing it's way to try to make me pee myself a little, after hearing the tenth acronym that I didn't know, I struck back with the knowledge that I have been here many times before and won. I have overcome my ignorance. I have worked through the fear and nothing bad has happened.

Getting information dumped on you over a short period of time is scary. Uncertainty plays havoc with your emotions. But it doesn't have any real bearing on reality. Emotions don't dictate the truth of the situation. So push through. Gird your loins and make war against your ignorance. You will conquer it.

The Limit of Ideas

I am an ideas kind of person. I am constantly imagining better ways of doing any and everything. Part of that is I notice flaws and weaknesses in the way things are done.

Over the years I've begun to notice something. As much as I get excited about ideas, by themselves they are very limited. Like I said, I have had tons of ideas. I've even started collecting them for later just in case. However, I'm not a millionaire. I'm not a thought leader. I don't even use ideas in my job much.

So what is wrong with all my ideas? What is missing from my internal fount of innovation? It's simple. Implementation. I have not executed on any of my ideas. Now, I have limited resources. So maybe if I just had a million dollars I could take my ideas and become a billionaire right?

Well, maybe. But implementation is more than just going and acting on an idea. Lots of people have had brilliant ideas and gone out and tried to implement them. That hasn't guaranteed success either.

The Concorde was a supersonic commercial jet that was operated by British Airways and Air France between 1976 and 2003. It was eventually retired due to the downturn in the aviation industry during that time.

It was based on a good idea. Fast transatlantic flights between the US and Europe. Who wouldn't want that? It wasn't even an overly complex idea. I would consider it a great idea, even today. However, it never did gain widespread success despite the idea. The planes were expensive. The maintenance was high. They used a ton of fuel. The tickets were therefore expensive and only appealed to a small market. They lost money almost every year they operated. So the idea died.

About the same time a guy named Gary Dahl had, what most people would consider a really dumb idea. He decided to try to sell rocks, just plain old rocks, on the consumer market. He bought the rocks, packaged them (they cost $1) and sold them for $4.  He sold the rocks in little boxes with air holes and straw and included a 36 page booklet on "The Care and Training of Your Pet Rock". He sold millions. His "Pet Rocks" were a huge hit and he became a millionaire.

So what is the difference between these ideas? They both were executed, but the good idea failed and the bad idea succeeded. So what gives? It comes down to implementation. No matter how good an idea is, if it is implemented poorly is a no go. And even an apparently bad idea can see real success if it is implemented well.

That is really where the I see inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement. It is where my ideas largely come from. Places where people had potentially good ideas, but fell down on the implementation.

Ideas are easy. Implementation is where it gets gnarly.

The Value of Employees

I have worked at a number of jobs in my career. Each organization had an collective attitude on the value of employees. Most were somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. The employees were taken care of, but I didn't feel any special focus.

Two jobs were special in that the companies seemed to take special interest in taking care of their employees on one hand and took no interest at all on the other. The way each company made me feel was obviously significantly different. One made me feel like a faceless cog and the other made me feel valued and appreciated.

Bad Example

At this company things were going a little rough. It was the 2008 time frame and the economy was not playing well with others. They needed to cut costs because sales were down so they started laying people off. Now layoffs are necessary sometimes. However, over the roughly three years I was there they had six rounds of layoffs. Basically every six months. That really destroyed moral. No one felt like they were safe. No one could plan ahead. It was rough. What was worse though was the company hired people between every round of layoffs. I remember being in a meeting where they talked about needing to hire over 100 engineers in the next few months. There were layoffs two months later. It made me think the leadership of the company had no idea what they were doing.

The worst thing about it all though, was the fact that it made me feel like we as employees were nothing but numbers to the company leadership. Fungible assets that could be purchased and disposed of as needed to meet the quarterly financial goals. It was demoralizing.

Good Example
The program I am currently on will be ending sometime around the end of this year. The site I work at will not close at that point, but it will see a significant reduction in the number of people working here. That means jobs are going away. However, unlike the bad example the leadership put together town hall meetings with 20-30 people in each one for everyone on the sight at the end of last year. In the meetings they told us their plans for scaling the site down and that a lot of jobs where going away. They gave us a whole year warning. That says to me they value us. Then in those meetings they opened the floor up for questions and concerns. That showed me they were listening. Then they said that they wanted all of us to tell our managers what we wanted to do whether it was to stay at the site after the program was over or move to a different job immediately. They showed me they cared about what we wanted. Then they said they would try their best to help everyone do what they wanted.

It has been a few months since those meetings and everything I have seen points to them really trying to follow through on those promises. I am not sure if all the upper leadership in my company are like my site director, but at the very least he has won my respect, and he has made me feel like my company cares about its employees as people. I never want to leave (the company, southern Maryland is... meh).

Conclusion
I don't know what the deal was with the bad example company, but they made a lot of poor choices. The good example though made good choices, and those choices, as best as I can tell, didn't cost them anything. They were up front, honest, transparent, and sympathetic. They are addressing a difficult transition for what it is and not hiding or ignoring it. I'm sure it has led to some difficult choices and conversations for the leadership, but not half as difficult as they would have been if they told us what was happening at the end of THIS year. 

Measuring Personal Growth

The past few years have been challenging for me and our family to say the least. It has been tough, but times of testing are where character is formed. I have held on to that even when I haven't seen any other benefit.

However, I have been struggling recently with how much I have actually grown through all this. The worst possible outcome would be where I spent years going to hell and back only to find that I forgot to pick up what I was there to get. So how do you measure maturity? How do you determine that a difficult experience has molded you for the better?

I am in the middle of this, so my thoughts are most likely half baked, but this helps me finish them out.

1. Ask people who have known you the whole time. A lot of change is slow. And being that I am eternally self-present it is hard to notice gradual change. Asking friends or family for their perspective shines light on things from a different angle.

2. Think back to what you were struggling with back then (whenever that was). The questions I was asking five years ago were probably quite a bit different than what I am asking now. Those questions may look silly to me now, or not. One example that springs to mind was about four years ago I was very frustrated with having to help around the house as much as I was. I specifically was annoyed at having to do the dishes. I had to be asked every time and I almost always had a bad attitude about it. I don't know exactly where things changed, but I don't have a bad attitude about it now and I almost never have to be asked. In fact at this point doing dishes is a stress relief.

3. What are your dreams? As you mature your dreams and ambitions will shift. You will develop a stronger understanding of what is important and that will change how you view success. Even over the past few months my career goals have shifted some. Not more or less ambitious, but prioritizing different things.

I guess keeping a journal would make an evaluation like this a lot easier. It isn't something I am good about doing, but if I did this would be a bit more quantitative.

Intentional Conversation

Today's thoughts come from "Find Out Anything from Anyone, Anytime" by James Pyle and Maryann Karinch. The title seems a bit combative, but it is really about how to ask good questions.

There is a lot to asking good questions. Here are three tips to asking more productive questions.

1. Only ask one question at a time. Now this seems like a simple thing, and it is, but it is amazing how often people ask a barrage of questions. This almost guarantees that the person being asked will not answer them all to the questioners satisfaction. They will most likely pick the one they like the most and answer that. Even if they want to answer them all chances are they will miss some.

2. Avoid Yes/No questions. Most of the time when you ask someone a yes or no question they will expound on the answer and give you more, but if the person is distracted or otherwise unmotivated to respond you will end up with a one word answer. Asking open ended who/what/when/where/why/how questions forces more thought and opens the way for a more illuminating response.

3. Ask "what else?" When you want to know how someone is feeling or what they did at school you don't have to settle for the initial response they give you. Asking "what else" can go a long way to finding out a more complete picture of what is going on. Doing tech support I learned that this was a valuable tool. The customer would give a single issue that they were dealing with and many times I discovered later that there were other issues that they knew about that they didn't tell me. So when I kept pushing and asking what else until they said "that's it" I ended up understanding much more about where they were in regards to their problem so I could fix it. It save me a lot of time on multiple occasions.

There is a lot more to asking good probing questions than you might think. Taking the time to evaluate how you question can go a long way to improving the information you get.

Significant Technological Advancement

This is one of, if not the most, significant technological advancements in the past few years. If you don't want to click on the link it is a video of SpaceX landing a first stage rocket back on earth after launching a satellite into space. The crowd is going crazy and rightly so.

The reason this is significant is the cost of building a rocket and going to space is 97% taken up by the rocket itself. Only 3% is the fuel. So if most of the rocket can be reused that drops the cost of following trips to space a LOT cheaper. SpaceX's goal is to be able to have a rocket take a payload into space, return, and be on it's way back up in three hours. THREE HOURS! That's crazy folks.

Now to further break down why cheaper space travel is significant let's talk about money. Today it costs about $10,000/pound to get stuff into Earth orbit. So everything that goes up has to have a very good reason for going. Nothing is extra. Every component is designed to be as robust and light as possible. Also, because of the cost, there isn't going to be any resupply or maintenance missions to fix something that breaks. This means that every system on a satellite has multiple backup systems. This makes building a satellite very expensive on top of the high launch cost.

So if the cost of launching satellites drops significantly it means that satellites themselves can be a lot cheaper. They can be more robust to last longer. The ability to go up and fix them also gets a lot more achievable. It means we can use space a lot more.

Another less obvious benefit is that the since the cost (read financial risk) of putting a satellite goes down the willingness to try new things goes up. Even brand new satellites are sent up with decades old technology because it is proven in a space environment. It would amaze you the archaic circuit boards and computer chips that are used in most satellites because of this. Very far from "space age".

Finally, this means that fulfilling the dreams of going back to the moon to establish a more permanent human presence and going to Mars become achievable like never before. When SpaceX meets their goal of a three hour launch turn around you will see space tourism and moon colonies become a reality.

An Impossible Decision

Over the past few months I have been faced with several impossible decisions. They all involved potential opportunities with real benefits, but hazy and unclear, but real downsides. When I looked at them it was easy to imagine scenarios where the downsides clearly outweighed the upsides and where the upsides clearly outweighed the downsides.

The thing that made it impossible was that the variables that differentiated the upside vs downside outcomes where completely unknowable and largely beyond my control even at the point that I got there. There were no clear choices. There were no intellectually satisfying strategies that could be used to come to a decision.

I talked to wise people about what to do. I didn't get much back. I mostly got "you should pray about it" answers. To be honest I hate that answer. I don't disagree with it, but in my past experience the answer is never "go do this". I end up making a decision and I only see how it turned out afterwards. I like being sure.

Well, I did pray. I did ask. I pushed for more information on the different options I had. Then all of a sudden the decision I was leaning towards just didn't work. It might have been able to, but it got to that point where trying to do it anymore was just unreasonably convoluted to the point that it didn't look like an option anymore. So that was the answer. It was quite satisfying to be honest.

Now I'm in the middle of another one. I guess I will try again and see what happens.

Retirement - Part 2

Yesterday I talked about why the concept of universal retirement is economically challenging. It is an unnecessary expense that restricts options earlier in life. Or burdens others unnecessarily.

Here are some objections that I have based on emotional and relational dynamics.

First, older people are more experienced and when they drop out of the work force or from viewing themselves as constructive members of society they don't provide that wisdom and experience to those around them as much. I have known a number of guys who have retired in my career who were walking encyclopedias of engineering knowledge. When they left they took that with them. If they continued working they could provide another 10 or 20 years as a valuable resource to those of us who are just starting.

Also, if you have someone who has 60 years of perspective that can be hugely valuable in recognizing trends and helping to avoid mistakes that a younger person would have never heard of. It helps increase organizational and cultural continuity. Knowing our past helps us know where we should go in the future.

The second objection I have to the concept is one of emotional health. The assumption that retirement is a right, or at least a natural end to someone's working career has several affects. It subtly undermines the cultural perception of the value of work. Work should not be something that one does in order to be able to do the things you actually want to do. Every job has bad parts, but ideally work should be an end in and of itself to some extent. This can't be the case all the time, but it should be something everyone strives for.

Everyone has a purpose and something constructive to offer society and those around them. They should spend their whole lives living that purpose out and contributing to the health and prosperity of their community. The idea that you can put in your 30 or 40 years and then kick back is a selfish. We should never stop contributing regardless of how.

And finally, retirement is also not healthy. We are built to do. Studies have shown that like most things our brains are a use it or lose it resource. Especially as humans get older our brains if not stretched will degrade. There is even evidence that actively using your brain reduces the risk of Alzheimer's.

 I think our society would be better served if "retirement" was saved for the truly old. Where it was what you did when you couldn't work anymore. Not just didn't have to. Increasing societies focus on "how can I fulfill my purpose" instead of "how can I save and plan for retirement" will make the world a better, more prosperous, and less stressful place.

Retirement - Part 1

The concept of retirement is one that has only existed recently. The first retirement program was started in Germany in 1888. It provided financial support for people over 70. The kicker here is that the life expectancy at the time there was 50. So the number of people who were able to take advantage of it was quite small and their life expectancy at that point was very short. It made sense though because at that stage they probably were not able to contribute much economically and were at higher risk of needing financial assistance. It made sense.

Pensions made their entrance into the US in the 1920's initially in the banking and railroad industries. These programs helped usher in the implementation of Social Security in 1935. Again though, the age to collect benefits was set at 65 when the life expectancy of men was 58.

Over time with these programs began shifting our cultural perspective on what you did when you were older. It went from most people, even rich people, working until they couldn't anymore to what it is now. A perceived right. No matter my economic status or skill set I shouldn't have to work a day after 65.

There are two problems with this model. I'll talk about the economic side today and the social side tomorrow.

In the US today our life expectancy is 79 years. An average couple would need to save $728,000 to have the US median income in retirement savings for the 14 years between retirement and the end of the average lifespan. Today interest rates are so low we will be generous and give them a 3% rate of return on their investments. They would need to save 12% of their income every year from being 20 years old until 65 to have enough for retirement. That is certainly possible, but most people can't or won't do that.

Social Security is supposed to be a fix for this issue, but with the retirement age as low as it is, life expectancies where they are, and the population growth rate as low as it is it just doesn't add up. Universal retirement at an age below the median life expectancy is economically unsustainable. Regardless of the means of funding. Personal or public.

Expectations need to be adjusted to reality. If Social Security is to continue to exist it needs to be changed so the retirement age is phased up to and locked in at least 5 years above the median life expectancy. That is the only way it can be kept permanently solvent.

Dystopia or Utopia? - Part 2: The Fork

So yesterday I proposed that we are fast approaching a point where a significant amount of the economy will be automated making jobs largely a thing of the past, and that the signs of this can already be seen. So what happens then?

Before we can explore that I want to dig into something I mentioned in passing last week. Virtual reality (VR). We are just now hitting the point where virtual reality is reaching the level of technological refinement that it is both affordable and enjoyable. In the time frame we are talking about, say 20-30 years in the future, VR will have become THE medium for entertainment and media. Non VR entertainment will exist I'm sure, but VR will be considered the pinnacle. Not only that but it will be incredibly immersive even by today's standards and will probably not cost much more than it does now if not a bit less $600 (Oculus Rift).

I believe this is important on a much deeper level than simply an example or showing technological progress. Truly immersive VR promises to shift the balance of economics in a fundamental way. The digital world is limitless. If I write a piece of software I can make unlimited copies of it and theoretically give it to every single person on earth without increasing my production costs at all. That was a huge shift that brought about what we see today as the internet age. With VR you are taking a person and putting them into a digital world. And with high level immersive VR you are putting them into a digital world that they may very well be happy to stay in a significant amount of the time. A world where they can have any digital belongings they could want. Any identity they want. Anybody they want. All at effectively zero economic cost.

This would be the final disassociation between supply and demand. Economics does not work here.

What would this look like? It would mean a significant percentage of the population would not need to work, and quite possibly couldn't even if they wanted to. However, given the high level of automation we would not need them to. They would be free to plug in to the VR world of their choosing and live whatever VR life they wanted to. As long as they had basic food, shelter, and an internet connection they could and many would be happy enough to stay there.

Here is where the fork enters. Is this, as described a utopia or a dystopia? Partly it depends on your perspective and partly it depends on what happens next. Unfortunately I am not sure that we can predict that outcome. Even if I am 100% right that this happens the next part is unpredictable I think. It could be a close parallel to internet use today, or it could be some kind of emergent effect that only makes sense when you look back at it and maybe not even then.

The freedom it would give would be amazing. It would unleash human creativity beyond even what the dawn of the internet brought about. Freed of economic concerns we could focus on creating beautiful and amazing things. We could connect with the world and each other more intimately than this physical world could ever allow.

However, it could be the most draconian dystopia imaginable. Constant control and surveillance. Ultimate suppression of all dissent and unauthorized thought and activity. Every part of every action you take could be observed and evaluated.

It really comes down to how we implement it. Because I don't think it is a question of if, but of when and how.

Dystopia or Utopia? - Part 1: The Setup

Many smart people who think about that kind of thing are saying that a significant percentage of jobs will be under the threat of automation in the near future. See here and here and here. The timelines given are in the range of only a couple decades. Now, many people say that this isn't a big deal. Jobs have been automated for eons. The wheel put stuff carriers out of business. The lever put stuff picker uppers out of business. The powered loop put weavers out of business. The airplane put birds out of business... wait, no. Anyway, new jobs will come up and we'll be fine... Right?

Well, no. Here is why. There are three parts of this. First skilled versus unskilled labor. In the past, most of the jobs that were being automated were unskilled labor. The cotton gin for example. It didn't require a lot of training to deseed cotton. So it put a lot of people out of work. However, there was a TON of unskilled work to be done back in 1794 so the workers weren't too hard pressed to find something else to do. Today however, unskilled work that gets automated puts the displaced workers in a bind. There isn't a lot of unskilled or low skill work out there. And almost none that does exist pays well. We are seeing this happening already.

The second part is that in the past when the cotton gin took all those jobs there was a lot of peripheral work that came along with it. Salesmen, mechanics to fix them, and manufacturers to build them. These were higher paying jobs too. So while it did shift the economic picture around some it was largely a positive shift. Our country became more prosperous and well to do than it was previously. Today however, the automation is compounding upon itself. When we build a robot that can weld a car frame together better than any human worker the number of jobs associated with the creation of that robot is not anywhere close to how many aren't needed anymore. The robot is made by another robot and they are all connected to the internet so a single technician can monitor hundreds and fix most problems without leaving his desk.

Another point onto this is that because of software there is a lot of automation that is invisible. Take QuickBooks for example. How many accountants has that software not necessarily put out of work, but made unnecessary to begin with? And with software there is no manufacturing at all. That leads me to my final part.

The final part is skilled workers aren't safe. Like the missing accountants from QuickBooks there are a lot of white collar and skilled jobs that are under serious threat to automation as well. When you stack all that together you end up with, to reference the article from before, an expected 45% of jobs being lost in the next 20 years. The vast majority of which are not going to be replaced. There isn't a huge wave of computer programming computer programmers that are about to be needed (I realize that isn't clear, I mean people who program computers to program computers).

Here are a few additional anecdotal arguments for why I think this is true and already happening.

1. Fewer people are working already. The US labor participation rate is 62.4% which is the lowest since the mid 70's, and it is showing no sign of going up. Automation is making it harder to find a job as well as making it so a lot of people don't need to.
2. In the past new inventions freed people up to do new productive things. At a certain point you run out of productive things to do. The internet has allowed music, gaming, art, and entertainment to explode like no other time in human history. This is great, but it means that a huge number of people are making a living doing something that is a luxury (economically speaking).
3. Many of the big engineering efforts in recent years involve how small you can make a phone, or how to create a more immersive virtual reality (VR) experience (this might come up in Part 2).

So where does this all go? Well, you will have to tune in next time...

Reality and Energy Management

The past few weeks have been rough. Debra and the kids have all taken turns being sick so my workload has been higher than normal. I'm fine with that, but it is making the fact that I am a finite mortal very apparent. I haven't been writing a lot about my personal "quest of intentionality" mostly due to the fact that I haven't made a lot of progress recently. It has been quite discouraging to be honest.

I have been thinking about it some the past few days though and I don't think my priorities have been wrong. I haven't been wasting a lot of time or energy on dumb or even ok things. My familial responsibilities have just been a lot higher. I am unhappy that I have not been making progress on my other priorities, but the things that have been falling off my to-do list have been falling off from the bottom.

Some days I don't make it much past "1. Don't die" but hey, that's good. Life doesn't always allow all of the things we want to do to to get done... like mine, right now. However, how I manage that is important. I am realizing that I need to give myself some slack and allow myself to only get so much done. Seasons come and go and this will get better. So I will do my best to be ok with only hitting my two top to-dos.

1. Don't die
2. Keep everyone else from dying

Economic Thoery

I don't know enough about economics to know if this is original or not, but I came up with this idea independantly.

Different industries have different values based on their role in the overall economy. Basically there are two categories. Producing industries and enabling industries, and you can tell which category an industry is using the "perfect world filter".

The perfect world filter works like this, in a perfect world a certain kind of good or service would not be needed, therefore it is an enabling industry. For example healthcare. In a perfect world, no one would get sick, and no one would get hurt. So the healthcare industry wouldn't exist. Obviously we don't live in a perfect world so we need healthcare, but it is a useful tool to help categorize things. Other industries that would fit into the enabling column would be transportation (everything would already be where it is needed), education (everyone would already know what they needed to), and communication (similar to education, everyone would already know what the other person wanted to say).

Producing industries on the other hand would need to exist, even in a perfect world. Manufacturing would be needed to make stuff. Mining would be needed to collect resources. Even entertainment would exist.

I realize the "perfect world filter" seems a bit silly, but I think the resulting conclusions can be helpful for building an understanding of what kind of emphasis these different industries need put on them. Let's go back to healthcare. We need it. There are lots of sick and busted up people who would like to not be that way and healthcare makes that better. So until we really are in a perfect world we will need a healthcare industry. However, the smaller and more efficient it is the better off the whole economy is going to be. The less obtrusive it is in our lives the more time, energy, and resources can be put into other things that produce end results. This isn't an argument for spending less on healthcare. In fact in the short run it might mean spending more. What it does mean though is that given that the healthcare industry is a full third of the US economy it is ripe for massive disruptions that will bring it in line with its enabling nature.

On the other side manufacturing is a producing industry. Hypothetically it could be 50% of the whole economy and that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. It is bound to change and has been significantly with the advances in 3D manufacturing and advanced materials. However, there is no upside to making the industry smaller.

Putting it simply, when an industry, or part of an industry, is simply an enabler there is opportunity to streamline it. To make it smaller, and less obtrusive into the overall economic mix. A specific example of this is the impending tidal wave that is set to turn the transportation industry on its head. In 2014 there were a little over 5.7 million commercial drivers in the US. Self driving technology is set to take most of those jobs in the next 20 years. The transportation and logistics industry is worth 1.33 trillion dollars a year. So if those 5.7 million drivers were replaced by automation at a savings of say $10,000 a year per driver (which I think is conservative) it would cut overall transportation spending by $570 billion dollars or 44%. Imagine that. An industry that makes up about 8% of the entire us GDP being cut in almost half. That is a huge shift.

That is why I think this concept of producing and enabling industries is important. It allows us to see which industries are potentially on the chopping block for enormous upheaval and shrinking.