I forget - what is the correct name for a form of government that combines kakistocracy with kleptocracy? Government shutdown: Interior Department is advancing Arctic drilling - Vox.
The Lincoln Memorial During the Government Shutdown - The Atlantic:
From the start of his career, Lincoln foresaw how American democracy might end—not through foreign conquest, but by our own fading attachment to its institutions. “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher,” he said in 1838. “As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
If shutdowns become routine, if politicians view the government in which they serve as a disposable tool, if we’re no longer capable of governing ourselves, this only reflects Trump’s contemptuous attitude toward democracy itself. Shuttered museums, federal workers who can’t pay their bills, national parks with stinking toilets: This is what Trump thinks of American republicanism. This is what the suicide of a great democracy looks like.
Via Stewart Brand, a bit of weekend inspiration from Mekka Okereke @mekkaokereke, posted on 5 January 2019:
Everyone loves SpaceX, and thinks of Elon as the genius founder that invents new types of rockets that are cheaper, faster, more efficient. It's fun to think of it as SpaceX versus NASA, or Silicon Valley vs Aerospace. But let's talk about D&I, and logs. Logs as in timber. 🌲
If you've seen my talk on D&I, then you are familiar with under-matching: a phenomenon where bright kids from rural areas don't pursue intellectually rigorous careers. Talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not. Under-matching affects white folk too.
Stanford research shows that with minor intervention, you can connect under-matched kids with the opportunities to reach their potential. A guidance counselor, college advisor,or mentor, can put a person on the right path.
In Idaho, a lumberjack had a son, who he hoped would also become a lumberjack. But this kid liked rockets... 🚀 He made rockets for fun in high school. He even made a rocket out of his dad's acetylene welder. He went to college not at CalTech or MIT, but at the U. Of Idaho.
In high school, he wanted to be an aviation mechanic, a big step up from lumberjack for a kid that likes rockets. His geomoetry teacher recognized the under-matching, and asked him: ‘Do you want to be the guy who fixes the plane or the guy who designs the plane?’
Like I said, he was not a rich kid. He worked as a lumberjack all 4 years at Idaho to pay for his degree in mechanical engineering. Here he is, paying for school.
Photo credit: U of Idaho.
After college, he moved to California, to work in the traditional space industry.
He worked for 15 years at traditional space companies: Hughes, TRW. He got a masters from Loyola Marymount. He was the lead engineer for the TR-106, one of the most powerful rockets ever made. But he felt stiffled by process at work. He had ideas for new types of rockets.
But building rockets is expensive, and they don't give kids from Idaho billions of dollars to start their own company, no matter what's on their resume. So he built rockets at home, building the largest amateur liquid-fueled rocket in history. Elon Musk noticed...
He joined SpaceX as a "founding employee." He designed the Merlin engine. He's CTO of Propulsion. His name is Tom Mueller. Everyone knows Elon Musk. No one knows Tom Mueller, even though Tom is the one currently designing a rocket that will put humans on Mars. 🤷🏿♂️
Somewhere in flyover country, there is an aviation tech who could be building rockets, but they didn't receive the right nudge in high school. Somewhere in Georgia there is a black woman teaching HS math at a rural school, that could have advanced the state of the art in ML.
Talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not. The goal of inclusion work is not "More black folk!" Or "More women!" The lack of black folk and women is a symptom of the root cause: opportunity to succeed and thrive is not evenly distributed.
Sometimes the interventions are easy: a nudge by a geometry teacher. Sometimes the interventions are much more work: creating a company culture that is not hostile for black women. But the net result is the same: more inclusion, better talent, and a better end product.
Sorry to burst the Tony Stark / Bruce Wayne diletante-billionaire-genius myth. 🤷🏿♂️ But to me, this is much more inspiring: SpaceX is the brainchild of a poor kid, lumberjack, rocket nerd, who's been working on this his whole life. 👍🏿👍🏿 (SpaceX Tour - Texas Test Site)
For me, the point of this article is that "opportunity" in general is one of the best things a society can provide. But, for more about the life arc of Tom Mueller in particular, see:
<humor>This wide-ranging article leaves the impression that the Green New Deal is, like the article itself, doomed by its broad scope.</humor> I will randomly quote one of its many interesting points.
The Green New Deal, explained - Vox:... climate change impacts are going to cost more than climate mitigation anyway. The GND is big, but “big things will happen,” says Chakrabarti. “The two options are, either we’re going to intentionally do the big things we want, or big things we don’t want will happen to us.”
We're screwed if we do nothing. Might as well find some interesting weak spots and start working on them.
I sometimes have trouble keeping track of people quoted in articles. Here's a playbill for this one.
Evan Weber: a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement.
Rhiana Gunn-Wright: a policy analyst employed by the nascent New Consensus.
Saikat Chakrabarti: Chief of Staff to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and a co-founder of Brand New Congress.
Greg Carlock: a researcher, essayist and podcaster who writes about U.S. policy, governance, climate change, the Green New Deal, and political philosophy. Currently works for Data for Progress. If he were a software developer, I think he would be an advocate for rapid prototyping; the article quotes him as favoring the method (for new policy/programs) of "Pilot and scale".
Sunrise Movement: a youth-led organization advocating for a Green New Deal (bold climate action coupled with efforts to address worsening social inequities).
Data for Progress: bills itself as "the think tank for the future of progressivism", and as representating citizens who believe in Medicare for all, a Green Job guarantee, and the abolition of ICE.
New Consensus: a policy non-profit that identifies itself as follows:
We are a global, distributed network of academics, creators, activists, leaders and entrepreneurs working to make the new consensus the standard operating system for national economies around the world.
Brand New Congress: an organization founded after the 2016 elections with the goal of recruiting 400 "fresh new faces" to run for Congress.
