Category Archives: Culture

How important is the extended work family?

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Mariner has discussed the extended human family and its newer version, the nuclear family. Nuclear families consist of one parenting unit and growing children. In recent times the benefit of having several generations nearby and even several in-laws provided a more fulfilling experience for all kinds of reasons from babysitting, to great holiday festivities, to fiscal assuredness, to a frequent communal sharing of love and association. Today, only the lucky families have brothers, sisters, cousins and older generations close by.

It turns out that there are benefits to an extended workforce that are similar to extended family relationships. A benefit of everyone working at the same workplace encourages allegiance to the business. Another important element is the cordiality among workers that makes tenure and job satisfaction more stable. The business benefits from team creativity and team commitment.

The new work force imposed too rapidly by Covid is one where an employee works in a nuclear environment at home or from anywhere in the world. Business administrators have noticed a drop in productivity not necessarily from individuals alone but from  general business production. Most notable is less spontaneous creativity by employees yielding only task-based productivity.

On the one hand, business can take advantage of dropping the overhead of large office space; for example Disney has a huge office building in Burbank that is virtually empty today. On the other hand, babysitting large employee operations that are spread all over the place has added a layer of coordination that is not easy to manage.

Administrators are tinkering with new ideas that will help manage a ‘nuclear’ workforce. For many reasons every business needs large scale coordination of its employees, e.g., changes in corporate policy, legal changes for employees and, importantly, a unified production force.

How about prepaid vacation for three days for employees while performing corporate-wide business? Palm trees and shorts are more inclusive than shirts and dresses!

How about overnight team retreats to work on specific issues?

How about restoring the old company picnic that looked almost like a fair? Maybe smaller businesses could take employees to a major league sports event.

These suggestions are among many serious ideas emerging to restore the magic of an extended workforce – the word ‘extended’ referring to the cohesiveness of an extended family.

Ancient Mariner

 

Today’s News

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This excerpt is taken from a Politico news item today. The survey was taken by several elite colleges and was peer reviewed:

“HUMANITY IS DOOMED” — Climate change is taking a toll on the mental health of teenagers and young adults in a way that could be broadly damaging to society and even democratic institutions. That’s among the findings in a first-of-its-kind survey of 10,000 teens and young adults aged 16 to 25.

“The numbers: 83 percent said people have failed to care for the planet; 75 percent called the future frightening; 39 percent said they’re hesitant to have children.

“Most worrisome in the big picture was a widespread mistrust of government. Among U.S. respondents, only 21 percent said government could be trusted, the worst showing of any country. In India, nearly 3 in 4 teens and young adults said humanity is doomed. In Brazil, 78 percent said the government lies. Ninety-two percent of Filipinos called the future frightening.

“We’ve heard this story before. Teen activist Greta Thunberg took on former President Donald Trump. Teenagers are marching in the streets. Young adults are suing the U.S. government in a case that could go to trial next year. Large employers say they’ve been forced into climate action in part by demands from their young workers.

“The survey is the first time climate anxiety has been quantified and documented in young people.

“You needed the proof? OK. Here’s the fricking paperwork,” said van Susteren, a forensic psychologist. “The era of denial and disconnecting is over.”

– – – –

Mariner was in a doctor’s waiting room today. Five others were in the room as well. He overheard the following short conversation between ‘Bob’ and ‘John’.

Bob – Hello, John. It’s been a long time. How old are you now?

John – too fuckin’ old.

You must at least be in your 90’s. What’s your secret?

John – I fucked everything I could get my hands on, ate everything I could get my hands on, did whatever I wanted and went anywhere I wanted when I wanted. [Mariner assumes this was a stock bravado answer that evolved because everyone kept asking him that question.]

Bob – Wow. That’s how to do it, John. How are the wife and kids?

John – ‘Mona’ died 7 years ago. The older boy lives in Panama; haven’t heard from him in years. The younger one lives in Dallas; he calls me every Christmas.

Bob – That’s tough. Where do you live now?

John – I live in Mona’s niece’s converted garage over on ‘South Street’.

The conversation dwindled.

– – – –

And that’s the way it is.

Ancient Mariner

 

How are consumers in charge of global warming?

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A few posts ago mariner wrote a post in response to an article that suggested “If everyone in the Nation would stop eating beef for one day each week, the Colorado River disappearance would be reversed.” The implication was that private citizens, as consumers, can have a more immediate effect on global warming than is possible through government and corporate politics, which are burdened with self-interest and ignorance.

The idea of consumer-managed reversal of the causes of global warming extends to other causes as well. If each citizen would not use air conditioning or heating for one day each week, carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced by a notable percent. The same applies to automobiles, airplanes, buses and trains. Perhaps if everyone wore each day’s clothing two days instead of one thereby using less water for laundry, the amount of potable water in the world would stabilize.

These observations are relatively true and the impact would be significant. The fallacy is how does one ensure that 350 million citizens participate? Nevertheless, as an old trope says, ‘A dollar has 100 pennies.’ Even if a small percentage of citizens accept this responsibility, it helps.

In that recent post, mariner cast about looking for substitutes for beef one day per week. He thought Friday may be more acceptable because of various religious traditions of meatless Friday. He was dismayed that so many seafood options are suffering from overharvesting; one source cited that only ten percent of the world’s original large fish population exists today. Wild salmon and tiger shrimp have become a delicacy.

The vegans have the moral high ground with the meat issue. Still, mariner thinks our ancestors may not have made it without meat, if only carrion. Isn’t it true that the bone marrow, liver, heart and brains were the magic sources of protein that allowed today’s human brain to develop? . . . Maybe the vegans have a good point.

However, dealing with global warming is not a game. Around the world already weather and flooding have caused trillions of dollars in damage, wiped out family sustainability for billions, leaving not even a home or possessions. The rich nations have been able to hold their own in covering the obvious financial cost to the economy but certainly have no means to restore lives and families of those who suddenly have been wiped out.

The United States is in a cantankerous mood today. Irrelevant political conflict prevents the governments from performing with rationality in the face of a worldwide global crisis beyond any that humans have faced. In the US alone, millions will be forced to move away from disaster at a time when housing is inadequate, expensive and likely the economy may suffer accordingly, suffering a severe stagflation.

While wearing one’s clothing for two days is admirable, it is inadequate. Disaster will come anyway. The electorate’s job is not to stop beef or automobiles; its job is to elect rational individuals who will turn the politics around and start doing the representative job they are supposed to do.

Ancient Mariner

Times are changing more than one realizes

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For example, using bitcoin did you know you could buy a piece of art that exists only on the Internet? No physical representation exists. You can buy the art but you don’t own it. You can sell shares to people who won’t own it either. “Oh,” you say, “isn’t that just like leasing?” Perhaps but unlike leasing you can’t use the art or take it anywhere. Besides, thousands of other bitcoin investors are buying the same art so they can sell shares, too.

Try to set your mind in the most abstract position possible. This buying and selling of art shares takes the place of a bank and associated trading of debt between banks. Bitcoin was invented the year after the 2018 recession which was caused entirely by crooked bank dealings with something called collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Passed off as triple A mortgages, the mortgages in fact were not triple A and contained all manner of mortgage failure.

Eventually, the false value of the CDO, very high because the whole intent was to make profit, came to light as mortgage after mortgage failed due to nonpayment. Caught ‘holding the bag’ so to speak, banks suffered unexpected losses; simultaneously real estate values plummeted because of the collapse of mortgage valuation in private investment markets.

So instead, bit coin users don’t buy real estate debt, they buy an artificial internet object that takes the place of real estate and is not subject to CDOs or any other bundling of debt because in the bitcoin world, every transaction is saved in one massive database where, to coin a TV theme, “everyone knows you’re name.”

Unless you have extra Monopoly money, don’t run out and buy an emoji. The bitcoin world is very fluid because it is not anchored to a three-dimensional world of physical things and human investment like jobs and commerce. It behaves more like a commodities market where prices are flexible based on availability instead of the value of the dollar. Bitcoin values – there are several different coins – can fluctuate wildly for no realistic reason. Still, one can avoid the shenanigans of Wall Street and the banks if one has a lot of Monopoly money to invest.

Eventually, paper money and even credit cards may disappear as the cloud and Internet become the financial platform for economics. Mariner wrote a post in February 2020 comparing North American Indian wampum to Kenya’s “first nation to do so” no-bank system by transferring cash with smartphones since 2007. The smartphone application world already has the software that can handle cash transfer but there are legalities in the way. For now, one needs a bank or card number.

Mariner still carries cash in a wallet he bought ten years ago. The bitcoin, bankless world doesn’t fit in the wallet. Where’s a cashier when you need one?

Ancient Mariner

Generational impact on retirement

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Mariner has written about the conflicts between younger generations and older generations during this rapid shift in culture, economics and technology. Primarily because of the pandemic – a literal meth dose for culture – and delay of a more orderly change in culture between 1960 and 2021, the split is unusually focused between baby boomers (born 1940s-1960s) and generation X (born 1980s-1990s). Millennials are in the middle with older ones tending to be more traditional and the younger ones tending toward contemporary views.

Noting the perception of social morality between the two generations is akin to the Grand Canyon split of Arizona. Everyone is familiar with the many populist uprisings – more a social class issue than an age issue – but the generational conflict has more to do with institutions. Any and all institutions are included from government to business to public service to Wall Street itself.

The central issue between the generations has three parts. First is the manner of social interaction, that is, the ‘intrusion’ of smart phones, privacy, and altered ways of fulfilling human-to-human social relations. The second part is the interpretation of a successful life, that is, the 40 year career is a thing of the past; living in an era of better resources like housing, college cost, and flaunted family vehicles as a measure of success is disappearing. It is the third part that is the subject of this post: The role of institutions in the new world social order.

Below are a few examples.

Tenure is a term you’ll often hear associated with professors. Academic tenure means a professor has been granted lifetime employment with a college or university. It also protects them from being fired without cause. Tenured professors are smart and educated and have demonstrated good skills and many are past normal retirement because tenure protects their job. In other words they are baby boomers and a few from the silent generation (born 1920s-1940s). The role of colleges in society already is beginning a full transition to a new era where colleges are not staid, building-rich fortresses with an insulated student body. The new college will need to diversify its role moving out into the community, partnering with business, other public and private institutions and creating subjects and majors that mean more to the younger generations. Will colleges trim their baby boomer administrators and professors? Frankly, it is do or die time for colleges to rise like a phoenix from traditional classrooms.

Like colleges, other private service institutions like churches, retirement homes and libraries, the emerging culture is less interested in sequestered services because modern technology has provided any individual the opportunity to engage in personal activities more independently. A few examples are listed:

Churches struggle to keep an active outreach program because older parishioners are more comfortable sitting in pews or watching online services.

Small nursing homes have difficulty enlisting enough residents to sustain operability. More health services are easily available outside of retirement homes.

Community services for senior citizens have difficulty sustaining participants, e.g., lunch and dinner programs have dwindled because seniors can order meals online and have them delivered.

Libraries are caught with rooms full of books that go unread because of internet browsers. In each of these examples, the administrators typically are older millennials or baby boomers. These older administrators, like the professors, are classy, responsible people. But they are old. They did not have the same reality in their active years that the current generations are experiencing.

Speaking brutally, retirement is the solution to help institutions redefine their functions. Making mandatory retirement fair will take new government regulations and financial guarantees for the retirees.

As mariner has advised for Congressional elections, do not vote for any candidate over 55. The emerging culture demands that institutions redefine themselves to be ‘out on the street’ dealing with the citizenry on their turf instead of being sheltered within the comfort of stationary buildings.

Ancient Mariner   (Talk about old . . .)

Humanism

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Someone suggested mariner should expound on humanism, referenced in his last post about ABBA. He proposed that computer intelligence was damaging the humanistic elements of society.

Generally, humanism refers to a focus on human wellbeing and advocates for human freedom, autonomy, and progress. It views humanity as responsible for the promotion and development of every human, advocates the equal and inherent dignity of all human beings and has concern for humans in relation to the world not only politically but in the human relation to the planet as a whole. Wikipedia uses the word ‘agency’ which means capability to perform as intended.

Humanism has no theology; the core ethic is the responsibility of humans to do what is best for humans. Humanism often is compared to secularism because both philosophies espouse a human-based morality that includes self-imposed responsibility for the wellbeing of humans, including the reality within which humans must exist.

The difference between the two is that secularism focuses more on the separation of church and state while humanism has no argument with the existence of theological beliefs – as long as it improves the agency (ability to perform as intended) of its believers. Humanism depends on science and existential circumstances to define both reality and moral agency.

What is important to humanism is its concern for success in life for all people and extends that concern to all of reality such that humans and reality are in concert. A large part of that position is the inclusive nature required. Many of the ethical principles are similar to those in the New Testament, that is, respect everyone without prejudice, do no harm, bond with humanity using compassion and assuring one’s agency is focused on the wellbeing of humanity.

Caring for humans is a natural instinct for the species. The ability to read the emotional state of a person by the expression on that person’s face, without even realizing one is analyzing, is a simple example of how important human emotion is. Compassion is a particularly strong emotion in humans but it is damaged by being abused or by constricting normal behavior. Humanism is a political advocate for equality and freedom and it promotes the agency of society generally.

When an individual frequently withdraws from interaction with humans in order to focus on a smartphone, does that improve the wellbeing of humanity? When the information on that smartphone is unreliable or manipulative, does that improve the wellbeing of humanity? When too many trees are cut down and it affects global warming, does that improve the wellbeing of humanity? When economic policy is unbalanced by classism, does that improve the wellbeing of humanity? Whatever the issue, humanists will ask: Does that improve the wellbeing of humanity?

Ancient Mariner

Life in the fast lane

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It is too fast for mariner and other elderly folk. It is common knowledge that the beginning of the twenty-first century is a tumultuous border between a disappearing culture and an emerging one. Computers began the transition seventy years ago, and then the internet emerged. These two advances alone changed how a person views daily reality. In fact, reality itself is subject to revision.

Mariner read in his email today that the hottest market in software-related purchases is to buy and register an avatar that represents you while you are logged on. First, accessing the internet required a simple password; then it was a password and a clue; then the passwords had to be extraordinarily complex; then many services required the names of relatives; then a four-digit pin was added. Taken together these identifications assured others on the internet that the linked person was actually the real person. But now all that folderol will be unnecessary because you will be an animated creature or thing when you are logged on.

Two movies come to mind: The Matrix and Avatar. At least Neo retained his human form in The Matrix. In Avatar Jake Sully had to have blue skin and a funny nose. Facebook has been in the news for its aggressive pursuit of metaverse, a three-dimensional internet that seems lifelike similar to your representation in an online game. When you log on to Facebook, you won’t just be logged on; you will be one of the creatures in a bizarre zoo.

Ironically, mariner is reading a book about how we define factual reality.[1] The central point is that truth is not a finite object. The human perception of truth is just that – an ever changing perception based on what is judged to be the most dependable information at that moment. Unfortunately the computer combined with the internet has loosed Pandora’s Box in the form of unsubstantiated ‘truths’. Social media is the evil device that can use false information flamboyant enough to sway our perception of reality.

The clue that hints at the future culture is the dependence on unsubstantiated information – including an electronic shaping of our interaction with reality. Google makes billions of dollars selling access to our personal profiles, shaping what we know, believe and depend on as a full and truthful reality. Mariner often makes the point that opinion doesn’t need facts; today, manipulating opinion is out of control and is the biggest threat to the new culture.

Ancient Mariner

[1] The Constitution of Knowledge, A Defense of Truth by Jonathan Rauch. Published by the Brookings Institution 2021, ISBN 9780815738862.

GIG Work

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Mariner is acutely aware that the Internet and its future iterations definitely will change the world of work. One of the new work models emerging is the GIG world of employment. GIG means that jobs are in response to corporate need rather than in response to career development and all the trappings of lifetime security that the +60 crowd understands.

Gig workers, generally, enjoy the freedom of earning an income providing the link between corporate automation and the corporate need to have personalized service. A simple but common example is food delivery services. With the Internet as a tool, GIG workers have unparalleled  opportunities to live where they want, with their lifestyle from living in cars with an Internet link to living in Thailand to enjoy better benefits than are available in the U.S.

Statistical studies have shown that the freedom to travel, to live eccentric lifestyles, to earn just enough to sustain their lifestyles, is all that’s needed. While it is a world of independence, it suffers from the lack of unions, standardized employment models that provide insurance, retirement and minimum wage. In the United States, a more traditional labor relations society, these shortcomings have become a court issue.

In some respects the GIG movement and the homesteader movement have a lot in common: Society has become an intense competition for assets – not lifestyle. It is not possible for everyone to be successful in the world of dollar security; especially not in the world of self-identity and personal gratification in life.

Mariner discovered a pleasant review of GIG work (that is, not politically abused) on PBS Passport/ROKU. It may be available as a local PBS documentary – mariner doesn’t know since he switched to a smart TV. The program is titled “The World Of Work – The Next Generation: Why I choose to live and work in my car”. It provides an insight into the conflict of pressurized economics versus the desire to live an unencumbered life.

Check it out.

Ancient Mariner.

Removing Polarity

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Mariner was challenged to describe how polarity could be overcome. He did imply a few things that need to be corrected but it is true that he did not address ‘how’. So here are a few examples; some already are ideas that have been discussed in the press and documentaries.

֎ About colleges. Already a ‘socialist’ issue in Congress is legislation that would abate or eliminate the cost of a student’s tuition. If college administrators were smart, they would know the swings in population and the races of that population are swinging away from the white, financially capable market served today. However it occurs, colleges will be forced to step back in line with inflation. And students haven’t been asked yet to pay their student athletes’ salaries.

Mariner and his father went to a high school that had a full community college on the top floor so this is not a new idea but it may become popular. Mariner is aware of several small liberal arts colleges that are considering mergers with other colleges, community colleges and even independent locations; examples include public libraries, large corporations, labor unions and other agencies that focus on special careers. One mariner is familiar with is agribusiness classes taught in state department of agriculture offices.

Another idea already being discussed is a student body selected not only by grades but balanced by appropriate representation based on where the students live – even to the extent of which neighborhood. Public schools already abuse representation selectively by using it to keep unwanted students out; the intent of the new college version is to assure representation from every quarter. This instantly would correct several issues:

֎ The implied failure of nonwhites because they have no college degree.

֎ Reduce by a significant amount the tendency for a person to say “I’m successful, you’re not.”

֎ Focused more on public schools, build curricula based on real-life interest and talent, e.g., shape classes around teams of students with a curriculum that includes dealing with life experiences along with the abstract subjects that are typical today. If nothing else, the student experiences what a team relationship is, thereby softening much of the identity conflict present today.

Mariner has been reading about Anabaptists. Each colony is such a tight team that no individual is paid for their labors and everyone receives support from all members. Admittedly, Anabaptists practice a communist economy that would not work in open markets but the United States could use a little ‘communisty’ accountability.

֎ Perhaps another old but good idea is to require that a police officer live on his beat and/or walk the beat. Mariner has made this suggestion before; the change in behavior of the policeman can only be positive. Not that cruisers would disappear but the beat cop would be the first contact for residents and for crime response. With a beat policeman on a response team, incidents like entering the wrong house and killing Breonna Taylor may not happen.

֎ As to reforming the government, mariner is quite positive that regular readers already know his attitude toward American governments. He will not pursue further abuse to his readers in this post.

Ancient Mariner

Polarity

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Given the impressive article by David Brooks that has laid the issue of social conflict at the foot of the Democratic Party, there are several issues that lend themselves to why there is class conflict in the United States today. Colleges, for example, have increased tuition costs at a rate close to three times the inflation rate thereby assuring that individuals from lower income families cannot participate in the college requirement for entry into the ‘creative’ class.

Other examples are private schools and charter schools which cull students with talents that may not be academic in nature or even worse, may be racist or are denied attendance because of jurisdictional limitations. Last but not least, is the grading system in the U.S. which focuses on individual scoring but ignores group scoring. (Much of mariner’s work in his career required team-building before progress could be made). Education, it seems, is the defense mechanism to keep mainstream culture from joining the one class that feels it can claim success.

The reader may recall from an earlier post the Trump election victory map that showed 2,547 of America’s 3,056 counties voted Republican but the popular vote was the opposite, showing 81,268,924 for Biden versus 74,216,154 for Donald. Apparently, being successful means living in a city and having a non-agrarian career.

This post could run on and on about cultural structures that have caused conflict in the United States today. For example, one could dig into a sociological argument claiming that the nuclear family emerged because so many children moved from the countryside so they could be a ‘success’ in the city; one could say the image of success began with the GI bill in the 1950s; one could say that not resizing Congressional representation and political gerrymandering has caused a false representation of cultural ideology in government.

It’s all about polarity. Everything on the planet has polarity. Polarity works fine from atoms to stars but when one pole has a lot more of something than the other pole, that’s when sparks fly. If the United States wants to avoid sparks, it must balance social polarity.

Ancient Mariner