The Junk Drawer Metaphor

**This will be the last post on this blog. I am moving it all to another wordpress blog: Craig A Maciolek**

How far back do I go? I used to keep a little notebook in my pocket to write down the ideas that would float into my head. Actually, sometimes they would float and other times I would ruminate for hours and end up writing down the pearl of all that mental work. Then, with piles of those little notebooks stacked up, I got the notion of consolidating those ideas into larger concepts. I built a webpage for myself and wrote essays and things. I didn’t have enough money to keep the webpage going, and I am not any good at marketing myself, so that is when I started blogging.

My first blog was fun. I enjoyed the interaction and all the comments going back and forth with my new blog friends, however, I noticed that I was being distracted and pulled away from pursuing the things I was most interested in; from the ideas that were popping into my head. i was being pulled away from the ideas popping into my head in order to focus on the comments other people made. Sometimes that is a good thing… when it is dealing with real people, face to face, in your real life. But, when it is only typed comments made by people you never met before, and it only involves crazy ideas that interest you, it gets a little tedious. On top of that, I began to notice a distinct pattern in my writing which made me want to reorganize further. Just like taking all those little notebooks and using the ideas to build bigger concepts, I wanted to take my almost one thousand blog posts and start putting them together into even larger formats. I tried several cheap, easy and sloppy attempts at it without reorganizing, but realized in the end that I would have to go all out if I was going to do anything at all.

The next step was to shut down the first blog and start four others… well, three others really. I began to filter through all my blog posts and separate them according to my new ideas of structure with the notion that it would be just like cleaning out a junk drawer. You know, we all have them. And every now and again we pull the drawer out and empty it onto the dining room table, sift through everything, throw away the junk, and reorganize the rest. So, the three blogs were stacks I was organizing the blog posts into, while the fourth was going to be the drawer that I put it all back into in the new and fancy organization.

This was all going well and good in my usual kind of slow manner when I was rear-ended in a car accident. I wasn’t hurt too badly or anything, but it did knock me out of whack for a year. I am only now getting back into whack and have regained the thread on this idea of a new structure and process for playing with the ideas that I find in my head. This will be the last post on the three stack blogs (Craigianity, Designed Evolution, and this one: The Management Party) and the first post on the new reorganized drawer (Craig A Maciolek). I will leave all the old blogs up while I slowly take the concepts of the old posts and work them into the pages of the new blog. It should be a constant work in progress as, when I finally finish with the old three blogs, every new post will carry and idea that will find its place on one or more of the constantly evolving pages.

A Facebook Thingy

I cannot tell you why, but I have had a Facebook thingy going through my head for a little while now. I am hoping that if I write it down it will go away. I am not on any social networks. I tried for a while, but I just didn’t like it. But, it is a good excuse to share this funny formula of mine:

• 1) Knowing too many people – too extroverted.
• 2) Not knowing enough people – too introverted.
• A)Everyone we know likes us – too selfless.
• B) Everyone we know dislikes us, too selfish.

And then it all breaks down like this. A person could be…

• 1-A) A famous wimp.
• 1-B) A famous jerk.
• 2-A) A reclusive wimp.
• 2-B) A reclusive jerk.

(Interestingly, in my forty-two years I have experienced first hand all four of these conditions, and found none them enjoyable.)

I have learned that our social life is a bell shaped curve. From my perspective, a good solid person knows a moderate number of people and half of those people like them, while half do not; with a decreasing curve extending in both direction that terminates with the one person who absolutely loves them on one end, and the one person who completely hates them on the other. To me, that is a healthy solid person. Having people who do not like us in our lives is just as important as having people who do like us in our lives. The people who don’t like us will always challenge and test us, and keep us, if not honest, at least sincere. Social networking, and the internet as a whole, tends to push impressionable people into being famous wimps. However, their famous wimpiness is only virtual. In reality they end up being reclusive jerks.

Anyway, that was all just an introduction to what I actually came here to write. What has been going through my head is how I would set up a social networking site to help parents nurture their children into the situation while protecting them from bad habits, mistakes, and weirdo’s. (Come to think of it, this all probably came from reading a thing a week or two ago about how many young kids physically meet up with strangers they meet on-line.)

If I were King of Facebook:

1. A person would have to be sixteen to have their own account.
2. A parent could have a sub-account for their child, but they would have to list the number of children they have in the profile and that would be how many sub-accounts they would be allowed to set up. (I am thinking of way to dissuade weirdo’s from setting up child accounts.)
3. The parent would have total access to their child’s account.
4. The parent would have special security options available to control their child’s access and use of the site and features of the site. These special options would be designed to allow parents to slowly release their oversight of the child so that, when they turned sixteen, moving to their own account would be experienced as a simple step in an ongoing process. Such security options would be:

• A) Being able to lock the account and set a time period for use. The parent would be able to set a time period in their options for when the child could have access; like 2-4pm. Then ,the parents could make steps to slowly give their child more access.
• B) Total control over the friend list. Initially it would be the parents of the children that decided who they would be friends with. Then, three steps would be 1) the parent could relinquish total control over the list but still have approval authority, then 2) simple monitoring of list and activity. 3) The third step would be complete release.
• C) The parent would have total control over all of the features that were available to the child so that they could start with the bare minimum and add a new feature periodically; giving the child time to get accustomed to each feature one at a time before moving on to another.

Well, that is all that was in my head. I would think that the ideal would be that a parent would set their ten year old up with such a monitored account, and slowly nurture them over the next six years. Because, if I remember being a kid correctly, of all the mischief that I got into, none of it was pre-planned; it always just kind of evolved one step at a time. Everything always began with the best intentions, but slowly, step by step, we ended up doing something unbelievably stupid. And that is how I see these kids going out to meet strangers. They never intend to do something so stupid… it’s just that… well, there was a friend request… then, chatting with them was nice enough… then they said they had a CD I wanted a copy of… and they ended up not living too far away…

My point is, I and everyone on this planet has much experience with how things can evolve in a bad way. Demand that things be designed so that they can evolve in a good way.

Are Dreams Conspiracy Theories?

** This is a story built from a dream. It is probably 70-75% dream, and 25-30% me adding to it to make it more fluid and to accommodate the other thoughts going through my head as well. This is not a conspiracy theory. (Unless it turns out to be true. If it does, than I am psychic and I will have to start wearing purple and burning incense.) **

It is an old and well known fact of psychology that the harder a person works for something, the less likely they will let it go if it turns out to be wrong or becomes obsolete. This is the backbone behind the whole concept of boot-camp, hell-week, and/or hazing; not only to break down any sense of independence and individuality, but to make the new members really work to become part of the group. What I am interested in, however, is taking this concept to the macro scale and using it to look at governments and societies.

Starting back around the turn of the twentieth century a concept was born and stuck around for a while called eugenics. (From wikipedia: Eugenics is the applied science of the bio-social movement which advocates practices that improve the genetic composition of a population, usually a human population.It is a social philosophy advocating the improvement of human hereditary traits through the promotion of higher reproduction of more desired people and traits, and reduced reproduction of less desired people and traits.) From my perspective eugenics was a response by an established society to the changes that modern transportation had introduced – specifically a greater mixing of th races and cultures. Prior to modern transportation, nations, cultures and philosophies were structured around the concept of homogeneous races. It wasn’t something that people tried to do, it was simply how things were prior to modern transportation. However, once people started to move around and mix more, the established power structure began to scheme and fight to maintain the old structure; the structure that was known and comfortable to them; the structure that they learned to be prosperous in. Thus, eugenics generally ended with the most blatant example and effort being that of the Nazi’s. A great example of taking an idea to the absolute extreme only to find it is completely nuts. (How many of us have done exactly that in our individual lives. (I hope I am not the only one raising his hand.))

Anyway, this dream I had was about this group of powerful military men and oil executive types in a command bunker somewhere planning out there next move. Their game was that they needed to reduce the population of the Earth because the resources were dwindling and, since they worked so hard to become powerful in a world of fossil fuels, they fought against any other solution but to reduce the population. Killing people was the only way to protect the self image that they worked so hard to create in a world that doesn’t exist anymore. Or, in other words, instead of adapting to the changing environment, they chose to try and change the environment. And they went to great lengths to achieve this goal. In the dream they were going over their checklist of things they had to do for their plan to work. The plan was to fake a big meteor hitting a major city. They had already launched the top secret satellites into space to orbit the Earth so that they could be brought back at the right times and places so that they would leave a big smoky trail for people to see. The second step is to have a very large bomb placed somewhere in the city so that the satellite could come in and then the bomb goes off. This is the fun part, because in the dream that Russia thing was a test run, and the Miami and California ones were simply events to implant the idea of it’s possibility into people’s mind so that when it actually happened it was easier for them to buy the “official” story.

So, I was watching all this happen in my dream like I was Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve, and all I could think at the end of the dream was that if these half-wits put a tenth of the amount of energy into realistically solving problems in a progressive way, instead going through all sorts of gymnastics to justify their antiquated insecurities, we would all be flying around in Jetson-like cars that ran on turning urine into 18 year old scotch. And just before I woke up, the thought went through my mind at how funny it was because these powerful people had no clue about evolution. That the harder they worked to kill off the population, the harder the population will fight to survive. And since the population will be fighting to survive by adapting to the changing environment they will be far more successful than the people fighting to survive by trying to change the environment. Or, in other words, the meek shall inherit the Earth. So, either way, they will fail.

That is it… just a dream, not a conspiracy theory.

My Advice To the Post Office

So, the US Postal Service is trying to streamline and save money. Recently they announced that Saturday delivery will be cut. That is fine by me. Actually, I would go much further… but in stages.

If I were the Postal King,  my goal would be to get rid of the fleet of door-to-door mail trucks. It is having and maintaining that fleet of vehicles where the Postal Service losses most of it’s money. I would still have door to door service in cities and densely populated areas where the mail was delivered by foot, but in the suburbs and such I would phase it out. Instead I would make Postal Centers that were consumer and community friendly. Firstly, people in the suburbs drive everywhere anyway, so I don’t want to here any griping about how it is an inconvenience. To cut back on that griping I would make those centers to have a nice seating area and a few retail places to lease out (another source of revenue) such as a coffee place and the like. this way the Postal Center could be more of a meeting place, with free wifi for the traveling sales-people to meet with clients and the soccer-moms to complain about each other after their yoga class. Every home owner would get a free box for every home they owned, but it would only be of a certain size – if they wanted a bigger one then they would have to pay. Everyone else would have to rent one as usual. there would be a regular Post Office counter that would have longer hours to be more friendly to the consumer, with big recycle bins to throw away the junk mail and a coin operated industrial shredder available for the privacy concerned. The work force would be reduced by not delivering door-to-door, so I would add a second shift at the counter, making the counter stay open from 9am to 9pm… or something like that.

People in the small towns and suburbs are driving around town all the time, so for me it is more than a little stupid (and very spoiled) to have a mail truck driving their mail out to their house while they drive right past the post office six or seven times each day while running their errands. (Just think of all the fuel savings!! And how green it would be!!) However, it would only work if they did it right.

Truth In Labeling: Corporate Names

This may just be me, but I think corporations should name themselves according to who their owner/s is. If I wanted a cup of coffee, I would go to Disney-Starbucks. Well, maybe not that overt. Maybe simply Starbucks with the trading symbol for Disney(DIS) after it like we do with Trade-Marks(tm). And the logo of a company would need to reflect that as well, since an entity like Starbucks(DIS) is recognizable by it’s logo alone, there should be a clear Disney thing in it. Perhaps some mouse ears.

Comcast-NBC, or NBC(CMCSA)
Disney-ABC-ESPN, ABC(DIS), ESPN(DIS)
And so on….

Also, I would like to see the listings on the Stock Exchanges be put into outline/ tree structure based on corporate ownership. Sure the individual companies could still be traded individually, but when a person looked at the listings they would immediately know who owned who and what the lay of the land was. (I would set up an example, but I simply cannot figure out how I would do such a thing here. It would have included the symbols for Disney and Starbucks in outline/tree format.) Which would not only be very useful for traders, but concerned consumers as well.

That it. That is all I got. Make that happen, OK?

If This Were Israel…

I just watched this story on the TV about the recent mass murder. It was a story that focused on the psychological and neurological things that could have led to the murders. All psychologists and neurologists talking about what electro-chemical reaction could have triggered the violence in the young man. As I watched it, all I could think of was, “If this were Israel, and a young man did there what was done here in Newtown, Connecticut, we would all assume two things; first, that he was a deranged and disillusioned young man, and second, that someone had recruited, trained, and encouraged him to do such a thing.” Now, I am not saying that those scientists are wrong with their opinions, and they did point out that they really didn’t know what caused his actions. Which is what is jumping out at me. Because we do know how this happens in other parts of the world. We do know how it happens and how it works. Disillusioned young person recruited, trained, conditioned and encouraged by a nefarious organization to commit some heinous deed. We know that this happens, it is not just a guess or an opinion. It seems to me that people do not want to think of this as an option because “this is America, and something like this that wouldn’t happen here.” It should be at least considered as a possibility. Why did he smash his hard drive? Because he was talking to someone he didn’t want anyone else to know he was talking to? If so, what were they talking about? And why hasn’t the person that he was talking to step forward saying, “I thought he was just joking”?

I guess all I am saying is that the possibility of organized influence should be a part of the conversation. If people are willing to put in the planning, effort, and sacrifice to hijack planes and fly them into important buildings in order to hurt this country, knock us off balance, and divide us, then recruiting a disillusioned young person to commit mass murder seems right up the same alley. Especially since we see that the effects of these mass murders is hurting us, knocking us off balance, and dividing our country.

Political Terrorism vs. Psychological Terrorism

Terrorism is terrorism. Terrorism is using violence and/or fear of violence to manipulate people’s behavior and beliefs.

Political Terrorism is where a violent act is perpetrated and then a political group comes forward and says that they did it and why they did it. The goal of the Political Terrorist is to become known as a person (or group) of power and influence.

Psychological Terrorism is far more insidious. Psychological Terrorists do not wish for anyone to know who they are or what they are up to, because not only is it their goal to create fear and chaos, but it also their goal to control the perspective of why and how the violence occurred. They are not interested as being seen as powerful and influential. They are only interested in getting the results they desire, and subsequently feeling powerful. It would be a very good management perspective if it wasn’t so evil, sick and twisted to begin with.

Groups that would practice Psychological Terrorism have a sociopathic ideology. (See Leo Strauss. His political philosophy was sociopathic because he felt that leaders needed to lie to the public.) This is where they do not feel they can get what they want by being open an honest, through open and honest communication. They will first develop an ideology, or rationalization, to justify their need for covert action, which is followed by developing a covert infrastructure and tactics to manifest and produce what they desire. Even Political Terrorist are not necessarily sociopathic; they are open and honest about what they are doing and what their intentions are.

While Psychological Terrorism is far more insidious and difficult to detect, it is actually easier to defend against and override the effects of than Political Terrorism is. Political Terrorism tries to use the current established communication structure to spread their message and influence opinions. On the other hand, Psychological Terrorists will try to break down the current communication structure – they will try to make people afraid and distrustful of one another and not speak at all – which gives them a greater ability to control perspective and influence behavior. Thus, to overpower the Psychological Terrorists, a society only need to put their energy into developing strong and healthy communication rituals, and then put their energy into maintaining those rituals throughout any and all events. To overpower Political Terrorists a society needs to maintain its own ideology throughout any event… which is more difficult. The reason the affects of Political Terrorism is harder to override is because the reason Psychological Terrorists resort to their tactics is because they already know their ideology is unpopular.

As an example, imagine that there is a group who wished to get all the Palestinians out of Israel. Imagine that this group was neither Palestinian or Israeli, but people who had vested interest in the region. The fist thing they would need to do as Psychological Terrorists is to make sure that there is no communication between the Israelis and Palestinians. This first step could be achieved by staging terrorist attacks on each side and make those attacks appear to be from the other side. Now, with communications broken between the two sides, the third party could now have an easier time influencing policy on both sides.

For a homework assignment, consider what kind of covert psychological attacks would be needed to break apart the communication structure of a strong nation that enjoys tight social bonds. The tactics could involve a bell-weather issues… like firearms for instance. Perhaps it might involve recruiting disturbed individuals (just like terrorist suicide bombers) to carry out acts that would divide the nation along the bell-weather issue. And to make sure that the pressure was maintained long enough to drive a deep and decisive wedge in the society.

Hypothetically, of course.