We're launching a new service: curated lists of resources that help make the world a better place for everyone without discriminating against anyone because of who they are. We are looking for organizations that support the social contract of tolerance. This means that you should not have to hide who you are when working with these organizations, whether as an employee, a volunteer, or a client/customer. They should accept you as you are.

We're starting with non-profit organizations operating in the United States because that's where we are and because that's one of the "developed" countries with poor social care. Over the coming years, we'll expand to other countries, topics, and areas. This is a long-term project.

As of writing this, we have approved at least 100 organizations out of a potential 11,045. We've also marked 25 as rejected for various reasons. We're looking at information from Charity Navigator, organization websites, and Wikipedia. We will miss hidden discrimination or some dog whistles, so see below on how you can help us improve the results.

We are not showing rejected organizations because this isn't about making people look bad. Rather, we want to lift up organizations that are aligned with our vision. If you do not find your favorite organization in the database, then you need to double check their website or do an Internet search to find out if they discriminate in a way that would make you uncomfortable.

Exceptions

We do make a few exceptions to the anti-discrimination rule.

If an organization is affiliated with a religious tradition, it's okay if it requires certain behaviors from others who associate with it. For example, a Catholic organization can direct people who identify as Catholic to follow specific rules, such as being heterosexual and monogamous. Still, they can't impose those rules on non-Catholics. Discrimination may be accepted, but it must not be imposed. In this example, anyone who doesn't want to abide by Catholic doctrine can choose not to be Catholic.

It's also acceptable for an organization to create a safe space for a marginalized group by restricting the involvement of groups with structural power over that marginalized group. For example, a women's shelter might restrict access by men.

These aren't the only exceptions, but they give a sense of what we're looking for.

How you can help

If you have information about a listed organization that indicates it shouldn't be listed, please let us know. We can't see everything, and even organizations that look great on-line might have day-to-day practices that are harmful.

Likewise, if you know a local organization that isn't listed and you believe it should be, please let us know. We will prioritize reviewing these organizations. With over 10,000 non-profit organizations in the US, there are too many for us to review all of them in a short amount of time.

If you find this service helpful, please consider donating. Your donations help us keep the lights on and continue providing our services.

If you would like to see other information about organizations or have an idea for a feature, please open an issue. The source code for the service is available on Codeberg.

Effective altruism is a growing movement, but its basis in utilitarianism can lead to some seemingly outlandish results. This is not an indictment of utilitarianism but how the effective altruism movement uses it. In the long term, effective altruism will likely do more harm than good if it's the only way we measure our impact on society. But let's see if we can find a way to use the effective altruism movement without causing more harm.

We can look at how some people support effective altruism: working in a high-paying career and maximizing the amount of money they can donate to charity. This is also known as "earning to give." Other forms of effective altruism have similar personal impacts, so we aren't losing sight of the big picture by focusing on this approach.

Organizing our lives to take advantage of one group to help another group misses the point of society. People are people, and harming some to help others is not a good approach. Don't take this to mean that progressive taxes cause harm. They don't cause harm because they take more from those who can afford more.

Maybe helping some people helps us feel better about the people we harm, like a religious group giving non-adherents food and a bed on the one hand and denying their right to marry on the other. But it's not a ledger. They don't cancel out for net good.

Effective altruism is a great way for rich people to feel like they care without having to do anything other than write a check. It reduces empathy and compassion to a monetary transaction, removing the human element from the picture.

We can avoid these results by looking at why we do charitable work. It's not always about solving the biggest problem in the world. Sometimes, it's about helping others see the problems we see. It's about helping our community develop a proper sense of empathy and compassion for others.

Effective altruism applies a STEM approach to doing good. But we can't live by STEM alone. We also need the arts and humanities. As social animals, we need human connections.

Beckstead's dissertation On the overwhelming importance of shaping the far future is a hot mess of a dissertation. Part of this is because he makes assertions about fact without any evidence. This wouldn't be a problem except that the effective altruism movement uses his work to justify itself.

For example, Beckstead discusses blindness as economically debilitating and disadvantageous (p. 3) but doesn't offer any research to show how that is true. Even if we believe it is true because we've talked with some in the community, those conversations are anecdotes. Without a statistically useful survey, we won't know enough about the impact of blindness on a person in general to understand where the disadvantage enters, who's impacted, or the magnitude of the costs. Without that information, how can we quantitatively compare blindness with losing another sense?

We might not need the numbers for a similar qualitative argument to hold. But Beckstead argues for quantitative comparisons in his thesis rather than qualitative ones. So, it's not enough to know that blindness is worse than something else. We have to know how much it's worse if it is worse.

Beckstead also assumes exponential growth into the future, but current models have population plateauing and starting to fall in the next century. We don't know how the population will grow in the far future. Perhaps humanity will make its way off Earth and colonize the Moon or Mars, but we don't know. And even if it does, those colonies will depend on the Earth for quite some time.

Beckstead argues that we should abandon animal anesthetics and human hospice care in favor of developing computers because computers will have a more significant impact on the future (again, p. 3). However, anesthetics and hospice care demonstrate empathy and compassion. We can't abandon them and still be human.

We have to abandon Beckstead if we want to remain human.

Proper charity begins in ourselves: ensuring we are strong enough to help others. Do we have food and shelter? Can we thrive? Can we spend mental and physical energy assisting others without burning out?

Then, we need to look to our community. Where do people need help? These are opportunities to move the needle a little locally and get others involved in seeing the same opportunities. Working in our community helps us build more empathy and compassion for people. This can't be produced by sending money to someone else.

Finally, once we and our community are strong enough, we can look outside our community to see where we can have an impact. This is where effective altruism is most helpful. We can't rely on empathy to guide our response because we don't have day-to-day connections with anyone we might be helping (and we don't want to make decisions based on marketing that manipulates us). Nor do we need to understand human nature. That's the responsibility of the charities doing the work. Instead, we need to know how effective the charities are that we might support. This is similar to doing due diligence on companies before investing in them.

So don't throw away all of the emails, videos, and other material you come across that advocates for effective altruism. Set it aside for when you have done everything possible for those around you and still want to help a broad community.

In this newsletter, I share what I'm reading and watching during the week. I may also touch on current events. I'll try to show how the books, videos, and events tie in with ideas in the Bene Homini space.

In this newsletter, I cover one news item and two videos:

• The ongoing collapse of Twitter
• Conspiracy theories conspiracy
• Why Were Colonists So Obsessed With Tea and Spice?

In the News

The ongoing collapse of Twitter

Every day seems to bring us a new story about how not to manage a company. While financial and business decisions often need to be made without emotion, that doesn't mean they can't be carried out with empathy for those affected.

Based on what we see in the news, it seems that Elon Musk has no empathy for people. That might make him an effective decision-maker, but he needs to leave the execution to others.

I have always seen unions as a reaction to poor management. They can protect employees from the worst bosses by putting some processes in place that slow things down. Sometimes, people just need time to process what's happening. Other times, they need cover to give more context to management to help make a better decision.

Right now, Twitter is a masterclass on why we need unions.

YouTube Videos I've Enjoyed

This is another video from Potholer54. If you're wanting to break from conspiracy theories and religious dogma, he's someone to watch. Not only does he poke holes, but he also teaches us how to do this for ourselves by asking the right questions and following back to primary sources.

Often, in conspiracy circles, we're told to do our own research. This often amounts to doing some quick web searches for posts that match what we're looking for. Want to know if the Earth is flat? Do a web search and you'll find around half of the top hits confirm that the Earth is flat by offering any number of proofs. A few will try to debunk the Earth is flat, but every theory has its naysayers.

Potholer45 traces back to where the people in the shows he's reviewing got their material. He points out the tricks that people use to make the listener or viewer reach a conclusion that isn't explicitly mentioned, providing plausible deniability.

Science doesn't work through plausible deniability. It works by taking evidence and conclusions straight on. Anything that can show a weakness has to be answered, making the results even stronger.

Conspiracy theories can't withstand questioning. No one wants to be asked probing questions. And no one wants to say that they don't know. Science is completely fine with not knowing. It's an opportunity for new research!

This video touches on the economics of status symbols and the need for them to be scarce. No one can feel like they are better than everyone else if they don't have access to something that no one else has. We're comparative creatures.

There is some research into income inequality and its impact on social status, but a quick search wasn't finding any open-access articles. Years ago, there were some articles that talked about how people reacted when presented with the choice of taking a salary twice everyone else's, or everyone getting twice the salary. The participant would receive the same salary either way, but they often chose the first. My memory is that this was because the first option set them apart from everyone else.

The trick is not to compare ourselves with anyone else. To be content with what we have when it's enough, and keep an eye out for how we can help others. There's only so much happiness that money can buy.

That's it for this week. Check back next week to see what I dig up over the next few days!

If you have a favorite book or video that you'd like me to see, reply to this email and let me know about it.

In this newsletter, I share what I'm reading and watching during the week. I may also touch on current events. I'll try to show how the books, videos, and events tie in with ideas in the Bene Homini space.

I missed last week's newsletter because I was under the weather. This week's newsletter will be a bit shorter for the same reason, but I should be back in full form next week.

In this newsletter, I cover one news item and three videos:

• The Collapse of FTX
• Being an atheist doesn't necessarily mean you're rational
• What Happens When Economics Doesn't Reflect the Real World?
• Is Web3 bullshit?

In the News

The Collapse of FTX

FTX collapsed after Molly White gave her presentation in one of this week's YouTube videos ("Is Web3 bullshit?" below), but there's no causal connection.

Emily Parker wrote an insightful opinion piece for CNN. The collapse of FTX reinforces the idea that cryptocurrency and the blockchain are tools for quasi-criminal activities. They are a siren song to anyone wanting to escape the current economic system, but they don't offer any of the protections that are built into current regulations.

I have one quibble: Emily describes social media as a leaderless and decentralized technology but then talks about Twitter with an owner as if it were part of decentralized social media. Twitter isn't part of the decentralized social media. It's part of centralized social media like Facebook, Instagram, Snap Chat, and others.

There's also the assumption that businesses built on top of decentralized technologies must be decentralized. But that isn't true either. For example, even though email is a decentralized technology, Google has a large share of email addresses. Google and other large email providers have made it difficult to run your email server in the name of fighting spam.

One of the problems with FTX was that it created an FTX-centered cryptocurrency that ended up being concentrated in FTX-related businesses. Decentralization must be up and down the entire vertical to develop resilience.

YouTube Videos I've Enjoyed

Being an atheist doesn't necessarily mean you're rational.

Potholer54 has been around for a while. His videos are often sarcastic and sometimes crude, but I haven't found them wrong yet. I wouldn't say I like the tone, but I like the message.

This video makes a good point that just because we might have rejected religion doesn't make us rational. People like to believe in something. I wonder if some of this is because we want the world to be better. We want cures to be as simple as getting the right crystal rather than paying millions of dollars for the proper treatment, at least in the United States.

What Happens When Economics Doesn't Reflect the Real World?

Anwar Shaikh offers a critique of orthodox economic theory. This reminds me of some of David Graeber's comments in Debt: The First 5,000 Years regarding the stories that economists tell. However, rather than relying on thought experiments that engage with a Platonic ideal, Anwar describes going back to first principles and recognizing the fuzziness of reality. From that, he's able to reproduce many of the macro behaviors that we see in international trade.

The power of working from first principles is to get ideas about how and why things might be correlated. Of course, measuring the correlation doesn't tell us which causes which. But by developing a theory that results in the correlation, we better understand how and what to test to understand the correlation better.

The website https://www.correlated.org has a different correlation each day. There's no apparent reason why things should be correlated. F

For example, of those surveyed, 45% like radishes. But among those surveyed who also said they had a below-average typing speed, 65% like radishes. So what is it about typing quickly that makes people dislike radishes? Does eating radishes make people slow down their typing? Or is there some hidden influence that controls both?

Without a clear theory about how things relate, we're left having to construct various experiments to cover all possible options without any way to rank them from most useful to least useful.

Returning to Anwar's topic, it's not enough to find correlations or general rules that seem to work. Instead, we need to understand what's happening beneath the surface because that can hint at other relationships.

Is Web3 bullshit?

Molly White has been writing about the Crypto and Web3 scene for a while. Her approach reminds me of people who want to believe something is true but also want it to be accurate and are disappointed when it's not (rather than blindly believing something).

She's calling out the near-criminal culture around cryptocurrency-based businesses. She's trying to warn people away from trusting companies that don't have a fiduciary responsibility. Until we can regulate these companies, they will be no better than the markets before the SEC.

We might not be able to keep these companies from forming or advertising. Still, we can always try to dampen any enthusiasm, even if it's just shrugging and refusing to carry on the conversation. That might have more impact than trying to convince someone that they're wrong and we're right.

That's it for this week. Check back next week to see what I dig up over the next few days!

If you have a favorite book or video that you'd like me to see, reply to this email and let me know about it.

The news cycle has been filled recently with Twitter. People have been leaving for the Fediverse, mainly joining instances running Mastodon (see "Mastodon and the Fediverse: Beginners Start Here" for more details on the Fediverse and Mastodon). That's been great, but it's also been a struggle as instances try to absorb the crush of new people.

Our long-term intent with this site is to develop a non-profit organization that can support long-term projects that benefit society. Part of that is helping make communities resilient, which requires distributed systems (see "Graceful Degradation of Infrastructure" for more thoughts). The Fediverse is such a distributed system.

Our values are shown by our actions rather than our words (though what we say might give loud hints at what our values might be). So it's not enough to say that we support distributed systems. Instead, we need to act when and where we can.

Setting up a Mastodon instance is pretty straightforward for those familiar with managing computer systems. So that's what we did. Back in May, we created BeneHomini.Social. We've been running it since then, making sure the configuration works through updates and upgrades.

Now, we're ready to welcome people in. The instance isn't focused on this site or its mission, though conversations about that are welcome and encouraged. It's meant to put our money where our mouth is. Anyone is welcome as long as they are civil. Read the server rules for details.

By the way, if you'd like to contribute to the operating costs of running BeneHomini.Social, please consider becoming a paid member of this site. More of your contributions go towards hosting costs than if we used a site like Patreon. In addition, you'll receive a quarterly report outlining ongoing projects and finances at the higher contribution levels.

In this newsletter, I share what I'm reading and watching during the week. I may also touch on current events. I'll try to show how the books, videos, and events tie in with ideas in the Bene Homini space.

In this newsletter, I cover one news item, three books, and one video:

• Elon Musk buys Twitter
• Invent & Wander (pp. 146–175)
• The STAR Interview (Ch. 5)
• Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Ch. 3)
• Léo Lorenzo and Attila Kobori - Open Strictly Final - Bavarian Open 2022

In the News

Elon Musk buys Twitter

There have been several stories about Elon Musk buying Twitter. It's been a rollercoaster ride, but it's done. So now we'll see what happens to Twitter.

In an upcoming post, I'll go into more depth, but the short answer is that no single place can be a welcoming forum for everyone. Elon compared Twitter to a town square everyone shares, but social media is closer to a coffee house.

Coffee houses in 17th and 18th century England were gathering places for people with similar interests. For example, those interested in insuring ships might gather at Lloyd's coffee house. News traveled from coffee house to coffee house through runners and overlapping social circles.

We don't need Twitter or any other walled-garden social media platform. None of them mimic human practice or consider the human condition except for their advantage.

Instead, we can use the Fediverse, a loose collection of social media sites that federate with each other. They're like coffee houses with particular interests, overlapping social circles, and runners carrying news from one place to another.

A popular server type that replicates much of the good parts of Twitter is Mastodon. If you are interested in the topics I write about here, you can join benehomini.social, a Mastodon instance that federates with the Fediverse. But if you're on another instance, that's okay because you can still be part of the conversation. It's not a walled garden.

Books I'm Reading

Note that I'm not giving links to the books. However, you should be able to find them at your favorite bookseller, given the title and the author I mentioned in the text.

Invent & Wander

Jeff Bezos continues with his shareholder letters for 2016–2018. A couple of things stand out: insisting on quality and discovering what people don't know they need.

Quality requires managing expectations: if you don't know how long it will take to achieve quality, you might stop too soon. For example, Jeff tells the story of someone wanting to learn to stand on their hands. A coach told them that it would take daily practice for six months. Without that, the person might have stopped after a couple of weeks, convinced they couldn't stand on their hands.

Just because we want something like quality doesn't mean we have it. We have to work daily to achieve the quality we're looking for. Because we have to know what to expect to achieve quality, we can't assume that if we're good at one thing, we'll automatically be good at something else.

The trick when coaching is to know what is achievable. If we can depend on someone to coach us, then we have a head start. If not, we must learn to coach ourselves, mainly because we don't want to stop too soon.

Don't be disappointed if you're not the perfectly empathetic, science-based person you want to be. It can take time and practice. So give yourself room to grow and room to fail.

The other thing, discovering what people don't know they need, is trickier. One approach might be to put yourself in their place, perhaps using techniques I've discussed in these newsletters about The STAR Interview. We all have blind spots. You might be able to see options that they are blind to.

The STAR Interview

This week, I read the fifth chapter: Results. This chapter is about the consequences of the actions. What happened because somebody took action? What didn't occur because somebody took action? Sometimes, it's what someone might avoid that is important.

When interviewing for a job, we want to demonstrate that we understand how a business works. When telling a story about someone in a situation, we want to show that we know the person and their circumstances. This is why empathy is more powerful than sympathy or compassion. Empathy fights condescension. It helps us understand what is needed rather than what's easy for us to do.

We also want to contextualize the results. Are they comparable to typical results for others in a similar situation? Better? Worse? What can look like a bad result without context can seem like a pretty good outcome if people usually have it worse.

Debt: The First 5,000 Years

In the third chapter, David Graeber shows that credit preceded money. Money is a unit of measure, and the thing it measures is debt. That is, money is not a commodity or a store of value. Instead, it's an IOU that somebody can redeem for something of comparable value. Once IOUs start getting passed around rather than redeemed, they become currency.

One way that this comes up is through paying it forward. Rather than each person paying for their service use, they pay towards someone else's benefit. This averages the "IOUs" over the group, shifting the responsibility away from the individual to the community without any top-down structure supporting tax-funded social services. It's also different from charity because all participants are getting something in return as if they had gone to a merchant.

YouTube Videos I've Enjoyed

This video was my introduction to West Coast Swing, an improvisational dance style. Improvisation is all about embracing and extending, accepting and adding. It's about building on someone else's work to create something new.

Improvisation isn't about doing something random. Instead, performers practice different movements until they are second nature. Then, when it's time to add something, they draw on what they've practiced. The result is an expert flow that can go in unexpected directions without feeling janky.

That's it for this week. Check back next week to see what I dig up over the next few days!

If you have a favorite book or video that you'd like me to see, reply to this email and let me know about it.

In this newsletter, I share what I'm reading and watching during the week. I may also touch on current events. I'll try to show how the books, videos, and events tie in with ideas in the Bene Homini space.

This has been a busy week elsewhere, so in this newsletter, I cover two books and one video:

• Invent & Wander (pp. 133–145)
• The STAR Interview (Ch. 4)
• Harvard negotiator explains how to argue

Debt: The First 5,000 Years will return next week.

Books I'm Reading

Note that I'm not giving links to the books. However, you should be able to find them at your favorite bookseller, given the title and the author I mentioned in the text.

Invent & Wander

Jeff Bezos opens his 2015 letter to shareholders talking about how the big winners pay for the big bets. If we assume that one in ten bets pays off, but pays off a hundred times, then we're still ahead. The average payoff is still ten times the bet. Of course, if we could select just the winners ahead of time, we could increase our payout by a factor of ten. But, of course, we can't know the winners until after the fact.

Let's take a tangent. I promise it's related.

The United States has government programs to help people and businesses. Admittedly, the safety net isn't as strong or tightly woven as in other "developed" countries, but it does exist. Fortunately, neither major political party is serious about destroying it, even if they talk about modifying it once in a while.

The parties do differ in what they emphasize.

One focuses on eliminating fraud, ensuring only those who deserve help get it. But this means that someone needing help might look fraudulent. When in doubt, we want to deny an application if it could be fraud because we want to eliminate fraud.

The other focuses on ensuring no one is left needing help and unable to get it. Someone who doesn't need help might look eligible. When in doubt, we want to approve an application if it might be from someone who needs help because we want to eliminate the need.

The core group of people needing help will get help in either case. The decision to allow fraud or deny aid impacts those on the boundary.

Trying to eliminate waste and fraud is like removing the bets that won't pay off. Trying to make sure everyone who needs help can get it, even if some people who don't need it get support as well, is like letting some bets fail to make sure you can find all the bets that won't fail.

When we help people, we can't know if they are going to take advantage of us or not. But if we let our fear get to us, we won't be able to help anyone. So instead, we can look to local organizations to help mitigate that fear. Just as a business or a venture capital firm does due diligence on business bets, we can work with experts in our communities to understand how we can do the most good. Depending on your approach, you might support food pantries open to anyone who shows up, ensuring everyone has food. Or you might help a local shelter that screens people staying there, ensuring everyone is safe.

Either way, be willing to let some bets fail because that's better than not making any bets. Bets that aren't made can't pay off.

The STAR Interview

This week, I read the fourth chapter: Action. It opens with a quote from Gandhi, "Action expresses priorities." Priorities show values. And values guide our thought processes.

When talking about what someone did in a given situation, we must remember that they are rational people. They are looking at their situation and making what appears to be the best decision given their values. Therefore, we want to put ourselves in their shoes, see the problem from their point of view, and see what values and thought processes would lead to the action being the best option.

This isn't about figuring out if someone was right or wrong. It's about understanding why they made the decision they made. If we wish they had made a different decision, we need to look at the context and figure out what needs to change.

For example, if we want fewer people immigrating to the United States, we need to understand why they want to come to the US before making a meaningful change. No one wants to leave their loved ones behind, but if the only option to support them is to go, that might seem the best option. So if it's because of economic opportunities, like better-paying jobs that let them support their family back home, we might want to find ways to help them have better-paying jobs without having to immigrate to the US.

YouTube Video I've Enjoyed

It's possible, even if difficult, to discuss any topic without getting emotional. It's easy for us to get emotional if we feel attacked, which can happen if we think we must protect ourselves. This can come from things like tribalism and identity. Emotions tend to blind us to ways we can find common ground.

But if we can take our identity out of the discussion—somehow make the discussion not about us but some idea—then it's easier to find that common ground we want.

We also need to listen to the other side. This isn't about agreeing with them but hearing what they're saying. What are their values? What are your values? Do you share common values, even if you don't share all the same values? Finding common values can help find common ground. If they have different values, why do they have different values? Diving into the differences by asking questions can help us understand each other better: asking "why" rather than rejecting the difference can show us another perspective.

If we can understand the other point of view, then we've achieved some of the empathy that we're looking for. Empathy isn't something that comes out of nowhere. It's not a feeling or a gut reaction. Sometimes, it takes some effort to achieve. But it's what can help heal the divide in today's society.

In this newsletter, I share what I'm reading and watching during the week. I may also touch on current events. I'll try to show how the books, videos, and events tie in with ideas in the Bene Homini space.

In this week's newsletter, I cover three books and one video:

• Invent & Wander (pp. 102–132)
• The STAR Interview (Ch. 3)
• Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Ch. 2)
• I Surveyed 17,000+ Atheists - Here's What I Learned (Part 1 of 3)

Books I'm Reading

Note that I'm not giving links to the books. However, you should be able to find them at your favorite bookseller, given the title and the author I mentioned in the text.

Invent & Wander

Jeff Bezos continues his focus on the customer experience. This focus is laudable, though he does point out that Amazon continues to deliver more without raising prices. Over the years, Amazon has had to make this work. As a result, we get stories about delivery drivers using water bottles for bathroom breaks and people in fulfillment centers getting physically broken by the work pace.

Not everything good for the customer is good for society. We have to ask ourselves if saving money through Amazon (or any other retailer) is worth our neighbors losing their jobs as smaller companies are driven out of the market. I cover this to some extent in a post on the social costs of retiring early.

On the other hand, Amazon has been a boon for small business owners wanting to find a larger audience without having to build their online presence. In addition, some businesses complement their store with an Amazon store. So it's not hurting everyone.

The STAR Interview

This week, I read the third chapter: Task. We want to be clear about the goal or expectation when telling a story. This clarity might require us to zoom in and be specific. But, conversely, we might have to zoom out and give a larger context.

Sometimes, there might be ambiguity about what needs to be done. There isn't a clear-cut, obvious thing to do given the situation. Instead, there are several options, any of which might resolve the problem. This is where values can come into play. We know someone's fundamental values by how they act in a crisis. The choice that someone makes in a situation can illuminate their values.

This also means that if we are trying to help someone, we should leave the way forward ambiguous, so they have choices. We should let them make the choice that fits their values best rather than the one that fits our values.

Debt: The First 5,000 Years

In this book, David Graeber recounts the history of debt and money, dispelling many myths and assumptions about how money arose and the role of debt in society. This week, I'm covering the second chapter.

In the second chapter, David dispenses with the myth of bartering: that money replaces barter. The problem is that economists like to tell fables and call them "thought experiments" when real "thought experiments" have to be grounded in rigor to be helpful. That's why economists don't get anything useful from their "thought experiments" while Einstein did.

Rather than a fable about Bob exchanging chicken eggs for shoes, let's consider Bob working at home and baking a cake. He realizes he doesn't have enough sugar, so Bob goes to his neighbor, Alice, and asks her if he can borrow a cup of sugar. "Sure," she says, getting him a cup of sugar. She wishes him luck with his baking, and that's that. Later, when Bob has gotten some sugar, he'll probably give a cup or so back to Alice as thanks for letting him borrow it.

We all have these transactions in our lives with friends and neighbors. As long as the group is small, we track what we owe to whom. We all have a set of tabs open with everyone we know. Occasionally, we might settle an account. But often, it's just a back-and-forth over time until we lose track of precisely what we owe.

When our networks and transactions become too large, and we want to make sure no one is cheating, we need to find a way to quantify these tabs and settle them without having to find the right mix of goods to exchange. It's this quantifying of our debts that leads to money. Money is the unit by which we quantify debts. It comes about as a unit of account. Only after that is money a medium of exchange (synchronous settling of accounts) or a store of value (asynchronous settling of accounts).

Once we start quantifying what people owe us, we start distancing them from us. They're no longer friends, family, or neighbors. They are the other side of an equation.

YouTube Video I've Enjoyed

I tend to shy away from religion, but this video caught my eye because I consider myself to function as an explicit atheist. This video explains that atheism doesn't represent a worldview (it's just a statement about a belief in higher beings) but that many atheists share a worldview. It coincides with what we're trying to encourage through this site: the use of science to understand the universe and empathy to understand each other. If religion can help engender empathy, then it can be helpful. But faith isn't what makes computers work.

In this newsletter, I share what I'm reading and watching during the week. I may also touch on current events. I'll try to show how the books, videos, and events tie in with ideas in the Bene Homini space.

In this week's newsletter, I cover one news topic, three books, and two videos:

• The Supreme Court Reviewing Section 230
• Invent & Wander by Jeff Bezos (pp. 92–101)
• The STAR Interview by Misha Yurchenko (Ch. 1 & 2)
• Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber (Ch. 1)
• Moravec's Paradox
• How to detect baloney the Carl Sagan way

In the News

Supreme Court Reviewing Section 230

Various takes: The Hill and MSN/ABC News

First, a disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Nothing I write is legal advice. The following is only my opinion.

Section 230 shields social media companies in the US from liability for the content provided by other people. My reading of the news articles is that the lawsuits aren't fighting to make companies liable for the content that people post. Instead, the case claims that the companies can't hide behind Section 230 to avoid liability for the editorial choices they make through their algorithms. As a result, the companies are liable for the content you see because they highlight certain content, not others.

A successful lawsuit doesn't have to spell the end of social media, but it will make it more difficult for social media companies to drive engagement since they will be liable for their choices in what to show you.

The good news is that there are social media platforms that don't make any choices about what you see. Instead, services such as Mastodon show you the content as it's created without reordering, emphasis, or other algorithmic changes.

Instances might moderate people's posts based on community guidelines, which are allowed in Section 230. Because there are many servers, each with its policies, you can probably find a server that's right for you. The Fediverse has a place for everyone, even if it's not the same place as someone else.

Books I'm Reading

Note that I'm not giving links to the books. However, you should be able to find them at your favorite bookseller, given the title and the author I mentioned in the text.

Invent & Wander

This week, I read pages 92–102 of this book consisting of the letters Jeff Bezos wrote to Amazon shareholders in 2010 and 2011.

Jeff opens his 2010 letter describing various computer algorithms that Amazon uses. What's more interesting is that Amazon does not use computer algorithms only in its software. It uses them in its warehouses. Jeff doesn't talk about that part.

When we start applying computer algorithms to people, we start losing sight of their humanity. People can't operate flawlessly doing the same task repeatedly for long periods. We've learned that from assembly line work over the last hundred years. People need breaks and mental stimulation. Even animals in good zoos get mental stimulation. See the first YouTube video later in this newsletter.

Jeff has a lot of good ideas, but like anything taken to the extreme, he may have lost sight of the human condition at the local scale. This may relate to effective altruism, but I'll address that in a future post.

The STAR Interview

This week, I read the first two chapters: "Brain Dump" and "Situation." Last week was the introduction.

Misha delves into more details about the different parts of STAR and how to describe the setup. I won't spend too much time talking about that. Instead, I want to focus on a couple of things that may help us build empathy in our listeners or readers:

• Keep it short (2–5 minutes or 200–500 words)
• Avoid placing blame while focusing on responsibility

Budgets are about priorities, and with only 200–500 words, we have to focus our story on the critical parts. Unlike a news article, you can't cut a STAR-style story at an arbitrary point with the essential information surviving. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. So we have to ensure we are using the right words.

By not placing blame on anyone, even if we note responsibilities, we avoid several pitfalls that can make us appear unempathetic. First, it'll be easier to avoid sounding defensive; we don't have to worry about someone blaming us because we aren't talking about blame. Blame is also a value judgment. We aren't telling the story to judge anyone but to share the experience.

Debt: The First 5000 Years

In this book, David Graeber recounts the history of debt and money, dispelling many myths and assumptions about how money arose and the role of debt in society. I read the first few chapters a while back, but I'm going back and taking notes this time. So this week, I'll cover the first chapter.

I'll start by saying that this book is making me change how I see debt, especially for those close to me, like family and friends. So be prepared for what Graeber shares to turn your world around and maybe even upside down.

World literature doesn't offer many redeeming representations of a moneylender. We tend to see them as among the wealthiest members of a community, but their image is similar to the bad image of an executioner.

But why are moneylenders seen as evil? Is it because they seem to center their life on money rather than on the things that money can enable? Would they have a better image if they focused on using their talents and trade to ensure their community could operate smoothly, with money available where it needs to be to help the community grow and prosper?

I don't think the two are in opposition. That is, a moneylender can make a lot of money lending money while still focusing on ensuring their community grows. One way might be setting interest rates so that the pool of funds available to the community doesn't shrink and the moneylender can make a reasonable wage in line with the rest of the community, even if the market might be able to support a higher interest rate. It's about doing what's suitable for the community without trying to treat the community as "other" that somebody can take advantage of.

There are two ways to avoid the "opprobrium" of lending: either offload the responsibility to someone else (e.g., Kings would often make money lending the only legal trade for Jews in the Middle Ages) or blame the borrower. These days, we usually blame the borrower for taking on debt.

As I hinted at with my comment about charging the interest that the market can bear, debt, focusing on numbers rather than people, takes the human out of the transaction.

Here we come to the central question of this book: What, precisely, does it mean to say that our sense of morality and justice is reduced to the language of a business deal? What does it mean when we reduce moral obligations to debts? What changes when one turns into the other? And how do we speak about them when our language has been so shaped by the market?

This quote reminds me of the wergeld in Anglo-Saxon and Germanic law. In Boewulf's "Father's Lament" (lines 2444–2462), the father is old and dependent on his son. But he looks out his window and sees his son hanging on the gibbet. He laments that there is no one to care for him in his old age. In those days, there was no retirement. The only way to make up for killing someone's support was to pay a sum of money that might replace the value of the dead person. Thus, the wergeld was the practical consequence for killing someone. It wasn't about punishing someone for killing but ensuring that whoever depended on the victim wasn't left destitute. It was the payment of a debt.

We have a similar thing today. We can care for our parents as they age or pay someone else to do it for us. Our obligation doesn't go away, but we can turn it into a transaction.

The way violence, or the threat of violence, turns human relations into mathematics will crop up again and again over the course of this book.

This makes me think that treating our relationships as numbers gives us an excuse to ignore their humanity. This doesn't mean we always want to share until we can give no more. That's how we get burnout.

This gets a bit at something Peter Singer talks about in The expanding circle: Ethics, evolution, and moral progress. As a species that has developed group altruism as a path to ethics, we unconsciously keep track of debts to ensure we aren't enabling cheaters: people who take but never give. So when we say that we owe someone a favor, or someone owes us a favor, we're tracking debts. We don't want to owe everyone and never have anyone owe us.

YouTube Videos I've Enjoyed

This video explains Moravec's Paradox: things that are easy for people are hard for computers, and things that are easy for computers are hard for people.

This paradox helps us understand why Amazon's warehouses can be hard on people. While it might make sense to create a warehouse that doesn't require a person to think and places items in optimal places to avoid "collisions" from order packers, that is hard for people. From the outside, it looks like Amazon is building warehouses for robots while still hiring people. But, once they transition to robots, it'll all work well because computers (and robots) can do what we find difficult.

This video is a must-view for anyone wading through misinformation and disinformation on the Internet. Focusing on the evidence for a claim helps avoid ad hominem attacks. If all we can do is attack the messenger or the delivery of the message, then we implicitly agree with the message.

That's it for this week. Check back next week to see what I dig up over the next few days!

If you have a favorite book or video that you'd like me to see, reply to this email and let me know about it.

This newsletter is the first in a series I will write, sharing what I'm reading and watching during the week. I may also touch on current events, though I don't have any in this week's newsletter. I'll try to show how the books, videos, and events tie in with ideas in the Bene Homini space.

In this week's newsletter, I cover two books and two videos:

• Invent & Wander by Jeff Bezos (first 91 pages)
• The STAR Interview by Misha Yurchenko (first 15%)
• 9-5 Jobs Are Great Actually
• How powerful was Tom Bombadil

Books I'm Reading

Note that I'm not giving links to the books. However, you should be able to find them at your favorite bookseller, given the title and the author I mentioned in the text.

Invent & Wander

This week, I read the first 91 pages of this book consisting of the letters Jeff Bezos wrote to Amazon shareholders through 2009. It was interesting to read the letters and contrast the approach Bezos advocated with what we see at other large tech companies like Google and Apple.

The big takeaway is that Bezos is thinking long-term with Amazon. This is why he has reinvested profits into the company rather than paying dividends to shareholders.

New initiatives are given up to seven years to start being profitable. We can contrast this with companies like Google that shut down products that aren't profitable or wildly popular in only a few years.

Bezos also explains how Amazon starts with the customer and works backward to the product. This practice contrasts with a team coming up with a "cool" idea and figuring out how to market it to customers. Apple has taken this a step further and created different classes of products that fit into a single ecosystem. Unfortunately, many of Amazon's products don't seem designed yet to work within a single ecosystem, each reinforcing the next.

This next week, I'll start with his shareholder letter from 2010. It'll be interesting to see how his outlook changes, if at all, over the remaining letters in the book. Given that he supports the Clock of the Long Now, I'd be surprised if he gave up on long-term thinking too soon.

The STAR interview

This book by Misha Yurchenko is about preparing you to tell stories during a job interview. Specifically, tackling the "behavioral interview" where companies want to find out how you might react in different situations.

I've only read through the first fifteen percent, but the book is good at drawing parallels between the STAR interview format and traditional storytelling. STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result.

There's a situation—a setup that represents the status quo. Then something happens. A goal or other need (the task) demands some action. Someone does something to meet the goal or satisfy the need. And finally, the story ends with some resolution or a further complication.

This model of storytelling could help engender empathy. For example, when we see someone on the street who might be asking for help, consider what their story might be. Think of a possible situation and what their goal or need might be. How might you help them accomplish that goal? And if you did help, what would be the result?

This doesn't mean we have to do everything everyone asks of us. But it does help us put ourselves in the shoes of someone else. This may be most helpful if we assume that people are rational and will make the best decision given what they know about their circumstances and options. Sometimes, we don't have to solve the problem; we need to make another option better.

YouTube Videos I've Enjoyed

How Money Works is a great YouTube channel with short, informative videos on various financial topics. In this video, he talks about how having a regular 9-5 job shields you from all the problems that can arise when owning your own business. You can put your time in and, in exchange, get paid money—reasonably low risk.

Running your own business could give you a lot more return, but it takes a lot more effort, carries a lot more risk, and at the end of the day, it's not something you can leave behind at the office as easily.

In Deep Geek publishes videos about popular fantasy series. In this episode, Robert explores the power of Tom Bombadil from The Lord of the Rings.

Tom is a mysterious figure in the book mainly because he doesn't impact the plot in any noticeable way other than saving the hobbits a time or two.

But Robert makes some observations that help me understand Tom a bit better. The following is my interpretation of what Robert says. Watch the video to see what he says if you're curious about how we might differ.

Tom was not affected by the One Ring. It didn't make him invisible when he put it on. He didn't care enough about it to notice it as different from any other ring. All rings seemed equally worthless to him, perhaps because Tom was content with what he had and didn't seek anything else. He didn't want power. He didn't want fame. He didn't want fortune. And since that's all the Ring could provide, it had no value for Tom.

My takeaway is that power corrupts the corruptible, those who seek power, fame, or fortune. If we are content with what we have, we can make better decisions because the thought of getting more power doesn't cloud our judgment.

It might be tempting to think that getting power so that we can do good would be acceptable, but Tolkien dispenses with that idea in how Galadriel, Gandalf, and other characters deal with the One Ring.

That's it for this week. Check back next week to see what I dig up over the next few days!

If you have a favorite book or video that you'd like me to see, reply to this email and let me know about it.

Have you ever been at home and had the power go out on you? Have you had a water main break, and you lose water pressure? Have you gone to the store and been unable to find what you were looking for? It's a headache, but you know you'll get through it. You always have before.

But as climate change worsens, budgets tighten, and priorities shift, what was an inconvenience will become more noticeable and critical. For example, warmer days will require more electricity for our air conditioners. Medical devices that can withstand a few minutes without power will need larger batteries. Drier soils will require more water for irrigation. Food that could be grown in deserts will no longer be and, because of that, might be more expensive.

This degradation won't be overnight. We might not even notice it from one day to another—a brownout here or burst water main there. Repairs will take a little longer. Potholes won't get fixed. Bridges might be smaller when rebuilt. There's not a lot we can do about this alone. This infrastructure is more extensive than any person can manage. The main thing we can do is soften the impact of these changes so that we have time to adapt with less stress.

The most significant shifts will probably be due to natural disasters. Texas's 2021 winter power outage is an excellent example with significant secondary effects that magnified the problems. For example, the extreme cold burst pipes in buildings, but, possibly because of licensing issues, there weren't enough plumbers to fix them quickly—follow-on effects like this compound stress.

Let's look at a few ways we can increase resilience in the face of these challenges. We shouldn't advocate for a prepper approach that pits us against everyone else. Instead, we should look for ways to work with each other. This resilience isn't just about the built environment—we need ways to withstand disruptions in our social fabric. But this post is long enough, so we'll explore possible resilient social practices in a future post.

Energy Distribution

Right now, our power tends to be centrally generated and then distributed through the power grid to us. This grid is somewhat resilient. For example, if a power line goes down, the power company can often reroute through another line and isolate the problem. But to get power, we have to have an uninterrupted connection from us to the generator, often miles away.

If we introduce local power generation or storage, similar to the Tesla Powerwall, for example, when the power goes out, we still have the energy to run essentials. Our freezer won't thaw, and we can use some light at night. As long as the sun shines and our batteries hold out, we can get by.

A Powerwall is excellent for those who can afford their own. But not everyone can. It might make sense to work together in a neighborhood to create local power storage that can provide energy to the nearby houses if they are knocked off the grid. Part of Birmingham, Alabama, is an example of this microgrid approach.

Decentralizing power generation makes it more resilient. It's not just having a diversified set of energy sources placed in different locations. It's about having energy sources at different scales, from local to national, that allow partitioning, as necessary, to preserve or provide energy flows.

Water Distribution

Water is not as centralized as power. Cities tend to manage their water systems. Rural homes might have wells with electric pumps, hand pumps, or windmills. Homes might capture rainwater for gardens, lawns, or other non-potable uses in some areas. Ranches might have ponds or other surface water capture.

But it's much easier to get by without power than without water. When we only have a single water source, we depend on it for everything water, from cooking to cleaning to waste management. When it's not available, we have to scramble to figure out how to get clean water to drink or flush a toilet. We usually don't want to use bottled water for bathrooms. That can get expensive. This is why authorities warn us to fill containers with water before an expected water outage, such as a major storm that might interrupt water treatment.

Collecting rainwater is an easy way to get water without infrastructure or nearby surface water. The easiest is a barrel with an open top. More complex systems might channel water from a roof and have screens or other methods to keep mosquitos from breeding in the collected water. But not everywhere allows this kind of collection. For example, Colorado limits collection to 110 gallons per household.

What's something between collecting water from our roof and connecting to the water main? Like neighborhood batteries for power, it could be a cistern or other water storage that lets neighbors draw in emergencies. Places like the Mãe d'Água das Amoreiras Reservoir show that we can do this while still being a beautiful part of the area. Or it could mean neighbors in more rural areas getting together and sharing access to wells in a mesh water supply.

Decentralizing water management makes it more resilient to interruption but, unlike distributed power generation and storage, doesn't solve the entire problem of long-term availability. However, it's closer to having diverse sources and ways to get water for different uses.

Over the coming decades, places like the western United States will face more drought and tighter water supplies due to climate change and more people moving to the region. The water supply should limit population growth, but because there aren't any policies to limit that growth, it could overshoot the supply and result in more severe shortages. This will pressure governments to restrict water use or find water from elsewhere and transport it to the region, similar to how Los Angeles gets water.

Food Distribution

With globalization, many foods are available year-round. Rather than regional cuisines based on what can be grown locally or easily imported, our menus are more varied and more the same. We can have almost anything, anywhere, at any time.

Climate change may bring this to a screeching halt. As growing seasons and regions change, or water becomes scarce, where we might have farmed or ranched might not be able to sustain the level of production needed to provide the food we've gotten used to. Aquifers are falling. Rivers are drying up, especially if they are fed with meltwater from shrinking glaciers.

We need to mix up our groceries, but this can be expensive. For some communities, it's too expensive or not even available at any price. Food deserts don't have many options other than unhealthy prepared foods from convenience stores that are cheap at the moment but expensive in the long run. These deserts show that the market can't deliver the required distribution to support a healthy society.

Right now, this "mixing up" takes the form of farmers' markets, food banks, and local farm-to-market efforts such as cooperatives and community-supported agriculture (CSA) farms. These group approaches augment the food distribution behind local supermarkets. But these systems aren't sufficient to carry the basic needs of a city if the global food supply chain sees a significant disruption. For example, when Texas decided to block trucks from Mexico, store shelves in the northeast of the US started missing some of the usual produce.

What about individual action? Those with plots of land can grow gardens, but not everyone has one. Even community gardens aren't enough. They are a hobby for those lucky enough to have a section. By some estimates, a person needs at least five acres to feed themselves without reliance on food markets. The best we can do as individuals is supplement what we can buy.  

We need to invest in a greater diversity of food production, with the global trade providing many of the extras rather than the necessities. Join CSAs or purchase from non-profits or public benefit corporations that support nearby or sustainable agriculture. Reduce our reliance on food that requires intensive practices—for example, cook more with basic ingredients rather than relying on prepackaged foods.

Conclusion

Centralized management of a resource can mean more efficient management. For example, only the water needed in aggregate is pumped from the ground and distributed. Only the total electricity that's required is generated. A particular food is only grown in an area optimal for that food.

Central production can benefit more quickly from improvements in efficiency and environmental practices. When we discover a more efficient way of generating power, the small number of main power generation plants means fewer plants need upgrading. On the other hand, upgrading all power generation equipment at people's houses could be more challenging because of many installations. The problem of replacing lead pipes gives us a sense of the scale.

The most resilience comes from a mix of centralized and decentralized processes at different scales. Have everyone on the grid, but also with local power generation so that society gets the efficiency of centralized generation with the resilience of local generation. The centralized generator simply tops off the local power supply in many cases.

What's the lesson for us? We should try to find ways to mix our dependencies. It's okay to be on the grid, but be prepared to be off the grid if it fails. It will. It's just a matter of time. But by being prepared, we'll be able to still get through the days and nights while others are frantically trying to get the grid back up. We won't have to worry about our freezer thawing, our toilet not working, or our pipes freezing. We might not be able to run the heater as high or cook as many hot meals, but we'll get through it.

Resiliency and graceful degradation aren't about replacing the current infrastructure to withstand everything. It's about having enough diversification at different levels that no one incident can cripple everything everywhere. And when things are degraded, to provide enough of a buffer that we can adapt.

We'll explore the social fabric in upcoming posts and look at these issues with a progressive enhancement approach.

This article is a meditation on what constitutes moral character when assuming that empathy should guide our decisions rather than religion. Of course, the relationship between morality and religion is complex. Still, no one should have to believe in a supernatural agent watching them, accept any dogma, participate in rituals, or divide people up into opposing camps. We don't need any of that to care about people, try to practice fairness, be loyal, be respectful, or live a life that shows care and empathy for themselves, others, and the environment.

Aristotle teaches us that character derives from what we do when we aren't deciding what we should do: the innate response we have in a given situation. We do it when we've made our plans, and now they don't work. We make choices from moment to moment when we don't have time to think about the second- or third-order consequences. When we can't treat life like a chess game, it's what we do based on our gut feel.

In Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell explores how experts can make the right decisions without overthinking everything. This ability comes from deep experience that has shaped the expert's subconscious mind. Our minds like to find patterns, so when we see a problem that matches problems we've solved before, we can quickly come to a solution that might work.

In the Christian gospels, we have the story of Jesus telling his followers of a judgment day in which he would examine everyone and divide them into a group of good and a group of evil.

He would say to some that he accepted them because of the things they did without thinking. He was thirsty, and they gave him water. He was naked, and they clothed him. But, of course, they wouldn't remember any of that because they had done it without thinking, without a conscious decision.

Jesus would tell others that he rejected them because they had not clothed him or given him water. They would reply that they always had. But they remembered the times they did because they had to make an effort. There was never a time that they did without thinking.

In this story, a person is a good Christian because they do good without thinking. They do it because of who they are and not how they want others to see them. Our moral character is shown by what we do when we're not looking and when no one else is looking. It's what we do in "secret," even in public.

If we want to become an expert in empathy and show empathy without thinking, we must practice it until we become experts. It's not about supporting popular charities. There are plenty of people doing that, so we don't need to worry about them. It's not about calling attention to yourself or following everyone else. It's about understanding the need that might not be filled and finding ways to make a difference, even if it's a slight difference.

Doing something for someone we might not like will make us more likely to like them. Doing something for someone who doesn't look like how we imagine ourselves will help us our sense of self to include them. When we do something for someone, our brain figures that there must be some redeeming quality, or we wouldn't have done that. So we slowly move from not liking someone to liking them. We move from seeing them as "other" to seeing them as one of us.

When deciding what to do, consider how it helps you care about people or practice fairness, be loyal, respectful, or show care and empathy for ourselves, others, and the environment. If it's unfair, disloyal, disrespectful, or uncaring, don't do it.

Doing something good on purpose day after day is the first step on the road to gaining empathy for people who aren't like us. It's the first step towards having an empathetic character and empathetic morality. So don't worry about sometimes having to think about what to do. That's part of learning. As long as we can look back and see growth in ourselves, we are on the right path. And as we gain experience over the days and years, we will naturally be more empathetic without thinking about it.

Information is about surprise. If this comes as a surprise, then read on!

Think about the last time a friend surprised you: they did something that you didn't expect them to do. And in that surprising moment, you learned something new about your friend that you didn't know before. Maybe it was a little thing reinforcing a general behavior that you already suspected. Perhaps it was a new thing that revealed an entirely new side of them to you. Regardless, it was something new, and in that newness, you learned something about them.

These surprises come because we imagine what someone might do based on what we know about them. We think we know their values. When they don't act as we thought they might, we have to reconsider what we know. Are their values what we believed them to be? We have to rethink our understanding of their values because we couldn't predict what they did. So we end up adjusting our beliefs about them to predict better what they will do in the future.

Internal Values

If someone ends up disappointing us, it's because we liked the values that we thought they had but learned that their actual values didn't match up with what we thought they were.

When we know someone well, we know their values. We know which way their inner compass points from a set of facts and can predict what they are likely to do. The key here is that everyone makes choices based on their internal values. What we see about someone tells us what those inner values are.

Likewise, we can observe how we act to learn about our values. How do we react to someone on the street asking for help? Do we cross to the other side to avoid being accosted? Do we pretend they aren't there? Do we drop a few coins into their hands? Do we invite them into a nearby restaurant to get a hot meal? We can have reasons for any of these actions. But next time you do one of these, ask yourself why you made the choice you did. Compare that with what you want people to believe about your values. If you surprise yourself, you've learned something new!

Our ability to choose doesn't mean there isn't a biological basis for our mind. It just means that there's a lot of internal information. For example, we can predict how a friend might act without denying them free will precisely because we always risk being surprised. Moreover, we can never learn everything there is to know about a person. So even if there isn't free will, the effect is the same: we can always learn something new if we watch someone for long enough.

Useful Spaces

One way to visualize how something changes is by looking at different measurements over time.

We're familiar with our common three-dimensional space: width, height, and depth, for example. Or longitude, latitude, and altitude if we're working with a map. We can draw where we go on a trip by plotting our position on the map.

Configuration space is a way of creating a map of all possible configurations that something might have. For example, in planning a road trip, a map of roads might represent the configuration space for our road trip. We don't intend to go off-road, so we constrain ourselves to the roads on the map.

Phase space is similar to this but with more flexibility. For example, rather than keeping to longitude, latitude, and altitude, we might use other measurements that help us understand what we're studying. For example, plotting just the pendulum's position doesn't give us as much information as drawing the position and velocity together. The resulting circle or ellipse tells us that we can expect the highest speed when the pendulum is closest to the center and vice versa.

These spaces are just shorthand for saying that we want to draw some lines on a graph with axes representing something we can measure. These lines trace out how the values of the axes change over time or which combinations of values are possible. The resulting picture helps us understand how different things relate to each other as they evolve.

Personal Journies

How we choose to effect change over time is guided by our values. Another way to say this is that "what is" doesn't determine "what ought to be." Facts don't make our choices, though they can inform them or limit them. Instead, our values define our options and guide our choices. Our choices determine how those facts change over time.

A "fact" is just an answer to a question. So the color of my hair today is a fact, and the color of my hair tomorrow is a fact, but that fact could change from one day to the next if something happened that impacted my hair color.

We can consider the constellation of facts that define the "present" as a coordinate in a configuration space of sorts. How that constellation changes over time is the trajectory in that configuration space. That change over time is the trajectory that we are on.

Even more helpful is to add how our values might change as our circumstances change, creating a phase space. We can then see where changes in our circumstances might go against our values. The challenge is to find a way to reach our goal without going against our values.

The trajectory might not be consistent with our stated values. But that's why we need to know ourselves. We need to know if our internal values are consistent with our professed values. For example, do we act out of instinct the way we say we want to?

The day-to-day changes guided by our values form a path, trajectory, or course in that phase space. The resulting route might be more circuitous than we might expect, but it will be consistent with our internalized values.

Someone looking on from outside with a different set of values might wonder why we make the decisions we make. That's okay because we're true to who we are. We need to communicate our values so that our audience can understand why we make the decisions we make. If the values we profess aren't those that we act on, then our audience will become confused. If they are different enough, people might think we are hypocrites. Thus, we need to make sure we know who we are and the values we have.

What Can You Do?

So, where are you today, where do you want to go, and how do you get there?

First, take a look at your core values. Then, think about what you can do today, even if it's a small step that will align with your values and get closer to your goal. Don't worry about how many steps you might need to take. Instead, focus on the long-term goal and know that you will have reached it by being true to yourself.

For example, retirement is a long-term goal that we all want to reach. So let's say that you need $1,000,000 to retire comfortably. This target will give you at least $40,000 per year on average, with some adjustments for inflation.

If you don't have any savings yet, there are a few options to get to that million dollars: rob a bank, win a lottery, or save $100 per week for 35 years. Which of these match your values?

You probably don't want to rob a bank, but if that was the only option available—there's no lottery, and you can't find a job—then it might be the best option you have. But is it worth robbing a bank today if you could wait a while and have other options later?

Playing the lottery might not seem like a bad option. But can you depend on it? What are the odds that you'll win the lottery? States don't run lotteries at a loss. They run them to raise money. So on average, every ticket bought will pay out a percentage of the purchase price. If you play the lottery often enough, you'll win some, but you'll (on average) receive less than you paid. If the risk of losing the lottery doesn't deter you, then you'll get better returns for your risk by investing in the stock market.

Finally, consider saving $100 each week for 35 years. You'll put away $182,000 over that time but earn enough to have your million dollars (assuming 8% returns with a mix of stocks and bonds). You won't take on undue risk, either through a lottery or through crime.

You might not be able to afford this if you're working for a living wage or less. But perhaps you can delay saving for a few years while gaining experience that lets you move to a higher-paying job. Then, when you get pay raises, make sure that any additional expenses you take on are necessary and not just inflating your standard of living. Finally, consider making your savings a bill just like all your other bills that you pay each week or month. Then, even if you can only save $10 each week, perhaps by not playing the lottery, your future self will thank you.

The important thing is to look at where you want to be in five, ten, twenty years. What can you do now, consistent with your values, that will move you towards that goal? Is the goal feasible? If not, is there another goal that you can reach without compromising your values?