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It's tough to tear one's eyes from the world, which appears to have accelerated its frantic move toward hell (climate change, oil shortages, ID barrages, and an imminent draft). With Claudia away (2 weeks), my solution is to bury myself in work and reading.

I recently put together a syllabus for a course in Human Systems Dynamics, and I'm looking for feedback or additional pointers. Read the PDF and reply! A syllabus for an Artificial Intelligence Workshop is on the way.

Like one LJ friend, I recently started my first Philip K. Dick (Do Androids...?). The first few days I tried to read single chapters only between studying my other two current books: a pre-mammoths-and-angels version of The Way Things Work (I've been curious), and my Handbook of Hypnotic Suggestions and Metaphors (with which it looks like I'll be able to do about anything). Damn SciFi for being so much more engaging than the books I should be reading. I should be done by tomorrow.

Current Mood: pensive

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From: (Anonymous)

i'm unconvinced we're headed to civil war. our citizens are too ignorant and apathetic to stand up and fight for anything, as long as there is another season of American Idol coming up. can you elaborate on what cultures you see dividing the nation? are you talking about different economnic groups? personally i think America is made up of too many separate subgroups and microcultures with too little in common and no concept of a common enemy to ever organize and act up for a civil war. even a foreign war is something we can only semi-agree on when it has no bearing on our lives like the Iraq war. tell people to dodge their own bullets and conserve their own metal and they'll shut up and go watch Fox's latest special, 'when animals attack...magicians.' comments? Jake B

From:

jrising.livejournal.com

Four years ago, I would have agreed that America was composed entirely of thousands of micro-cultures. Now, I think we're coalescing into two groups: the red states (republican) and the blue states (democrat), and I think that the divide is actually a spiritual vs. secular one. Apathy is ultimately an unstable state-- it leads to a build-up of tensions both within and between people (and w.r.t. their societal situations), and the only way for that tension to be released is for everything to eventually snap.

Predicting history is next to impossible, but I think that it's clear that this decade is not like the last one. As Bob Dylan said, "The times they are a-changin'" (albeit of a different time); whatever the end result, this is probably to be one of the most interesting times in American history, and in some inconceivable way, all the reality shows and terrorist fears will fit together to make it that way. We can see all the juggling balls in the air, even if we don't know what the juggling pattern is yet.

From: (Anonymous)

is there somewhere else you would prefer I respond? or, indeed, should I just shut up already? red states vs. blue states? yes, to a sickeningly polarized degree within the voting population, but it is vital to remember that 50% of eligible voters don't even bother to drag themselves to the presidential polls, and only close to 1/3 for the off year elections. If we can just get that nut out of the white house and stop starting wars and pissing off as many new terrorists as possible, which i hold out hope for, i think the mounting tensions can diffuse themselves naturally. pot will help...