Ming the Mechanic
The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
Monday, October 6, 2003day link 
 Seeing change
picture
Another pattern.

In contexts where a person or group is behaving in a certain fashion, which they potentially should be able to control:

Deliberate change can only happen when you can distinguish what you previously have been doing.

Said a different way, you need to be able to see something a bit at a distance before you really can notice it, and articulate it, and then change your mind about it, and choose a different path.

You can't change something you are BEING

You can only change it after you, at least for a moment, step back and perceive it from a meta-perspective. You dissociate from the state of being.

Whether you can talk about the subject matter or not is part of the equation. If you don't have language to talk about a certain kind of situation, you're not very likely to be able to decide to change it. If you have words for it, or if you have a mental model for it, a mental abstraction for it, then you can make a decision about it.

And, to change into a different mental model, a different paradigm, one needs to be able to perceive that paradigm. One needs to be able to examine it, and say something about it. So, there are a lot of possibilities that aren't really available, just because they are so far removed from one's normal frame of reference that one just can't see it.

You can only change into a new state if you can perceive it as a possibility

Of course I'm only talking about conscious, deliberate change here. One can change other ways too. External circumstances might suddenly hit you in ways you didn't expect. Evolution might happen without your conscious involvement.

(Gee, I could use a drawing pad. Drawing with a mouse sucks)
[ | 2003-10-06 14:29 | 7 comments | PermaLink ]  More >

 Successful propaganda
According to this press release a series of polls carried out between January and September in the U.S. shows the correspondence between the prevalence of certain key misunderstandings about the Iraq war and the news source people primarily used. People were asked if they believed that evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda has been found, whether weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and whether world public opinion favored the US going to war with Iraq. The correct answer to all three is NO. But here's the result of the polls:
One or more misconceptions:
FOX – 80%
CBS - 71%
ABC - 61%
NBC - 55%
CNN – 55%
Print Sources – 47%
NPR/PBS – 23%

None of the three misconceptions:
NPR/PBS – 77%
Print Sources – 53%
CNN – 45%
NBC – 45%
ABC – 39%
CBS – 30%
FOX – 20%
It shouldn't be any great news to thinking people who've watched Fox News that they're leading the pack in mis-information. But it is great to have it measured. And it paints a rather dismal picture. Government propaganda is 80% effective in the leading network. I'd bet that's much better percentages than any communist or fascist country has ever achieved.
[ | 2003-10-06 15:06 | 4 comments | PermaLink ]  More >

 Dude, where's my country
picture Ha, I just love Michael Moore saying it as it is. Guardian UK via zendancer. Read the whole thing. Some good questions to George W. Bush, which he ought to answer. Excerpts from Moore's new book, "Dude, where's my country". Good stuff like:
4. Why did you allow a private Saudi jet to fly around the US in the days after September 11 and pick up members of the Bin Laden family and fly them out of the country without a proper investigation by the FBI?

Private jets, under the supervision of the Saudi government - and with your approval - were allowed to fly around the skies of America, when travelling by air was forbidden, and pick up 24 members of the Bin Laden family and take them first to a "secret assembly point in Texas". They then flew to Washington DC, and then on to Boston. Finally, on September 18, they were all flown to Paris, out of the reach of any US officials. They never went through any serious interrogation. This is mind-boggling. Might it have been possible that at least one of the 24 Bin Ladens would have possibly known something?

While thousands were stranded and could not fly, if you could prove you were a close relative of the biggest mass murderer in US history, you got a free trip to gay Paree!

Why, Mr Bush, was this allowed to happen?
Yes, why indeed?
[ | 2003-10-06 16:45 | 6 comments | PermaLink ]  More >

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