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The Fatal Blindness of Unrealistic Expectations
I wrote the article below in January 2013, but never published it. The strong response to last week’s post on the hubris and hype of Silicon Valley, as well as this recent interview, jogged my memory and inspired me to dig this out of the mothballs. I was pleased to see how relevant it remains 2.5 years later.
My old employer, Yahoo!, has been in the news again of late.
Its latest CEO (and former Googler), Marissa Meyer, is currently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where she has just given her first televised interview detailing her strategy for the beleaguered web giant.
I wish her and the current team at Yahoo! well with their plans, I really do. The saga of Yahoo!’s descent over the past decade was heartbreaking to watch and experience from the inside. I’d love to see the company find a way to become a leader again.
But I don’t have faith.
In my opinion, the company can’t be “fixed.” At least not the way the tech pundits and the past parade of Yahoo! CEOs have touted it can.
Why? Because of a congenital failure to define its identity, paired with a chronic refusal to be honest with itself.
I get asked a lot for my opinion regarding Yahoo!’s fall from grace. I believe the seeds of its failure were sown from the beginning, and I’ve come up with the following analogy to make it as intuitive as possible. It all starts at the very formation of the company.
The Importance of Clear Vision
First, look at Google. When the founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page first started collaborating, the Internet had been around for a while and they were insightful enough to realize that the data on the Web was growing exponentially. They reasoned that the company who made it possible to sift through all this data and find the most useful content, when needed, would create immense value.
So, they designed the Google platform from Day 1 to optimize around their core goal: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” This gave them a maniacal focus that enabled them to target talent, refine strategy, and prioritize resources. To this day, while there are many other businesses that Google has become involved in (from alternative energy to self-driving cars), everything revolves around first making sure that the central mission is protected and enhanced, and then leveraging the core platform to do ever more innovative things.
In this way, you can think of Google as the Borg of the Internet, following their mission of technical perfection with a methodical, measured dedication; unwavering in its focus.
Now, look at Yahoo!. Yahoo! is the Internet’s Jedd Clampett.
If you don’t know the story, the founders Jerry Yang and David Filo shared a trailer while graduate students at Stanford in the early 1990s. (It was literally a trailer. Stanford’s graduate campus housing has improved much since then.) The graphical pages of the World Wide Web were just emerging, and as interested computer science students, David and Jerry spent a lot of time exploring them. As the number of Web sites multiplied, they created a simple directory – really nothing more than a page of bookmarked links – to help them keep track of the growing number.
This was the Internet’s equivalent of Jedd Clampett missing a varmint with his shotgun, only to find “a-bubblin’ crude” spilling out of the earth.
As simple as this directory was, nothing like it existed yet. So word got out, and people started flocking to it in ever-greater numbers. Pretty soon, the founders realized they had a phenomenon happening before their eyes, and they were savvy enough to enlist some seasoned help in structuring a business around it and monetizing it through advertising.
Well, the rest is history. Yahoo! experienced mind-boggling, stratospheric growth over the next several years. For a period of time for most people,Yahoo! WAS the Internet. For everyone else, it was the Internet’s front door: occupying the best real estate within the new virtual universe of the World Wide Web.
But the key element to note here is that there was no fundamental vision or guiding mission that preceded Yahoo!’s creation. The company simply sprang into existence; a “happening” created by an unforeseen, rapid and gargantuan transmogrification of the world’s analog audience base into digital ‘users’.
And it’s because of this lack of central identity that Yahoo! has floundered. What is Yahoo!? is a question that has plagued its executives since before I walked in the door in 2001. You would not believe the amount of manpower, brain cycles, and advertising agency dollars that have been thrown at answering this – and yet no enduring answer has emerged.
The Cost of Willful Blindness
Without knowing what its “core” is, Yahoo! hasn’t known where to put its focus. It has tried to do everything, and as a result, its diluted efforts allowed pure-play competitors to claim the dominant position in each of the important verticals that it wanted to win. Google became the dominant player in search (helped along in its early days, ironically, by Yahoo!’s patronage). Ebay won auctions. Amazon won online retail. Facebook dominates social media. YouTube cornered the online video space. The list goes on…
As the early 800-lb gorilla, Yahoo! could easily have claimed any or all of these industries. But it didn’t. And I know why: Unrealistic expectations.
I personally was involved in several of the neverending attempts to resolve this need to define Yahoo!. Each one ended up devolving into inaction – or worse, producing some declarative statement of vague pablum that only made folks even more confused. (Examples: Yahoo! is a “life engine,” Yahoo! is “the premier digital media company,” Yahoo is “you.”)
The main reason for the failure to craft a clear vision is that the executive staff was unable to imagine giving up on major existing lines of business, even if there was no clear strategy for why they existed. Because there were so many directions Yahoo! could go in, you could make a compelling reason for why Yahoo! should retain its foothold in any multi-billion-dollar market segment. So again and again, after all the pontificating, theYahoo! executive team would convince itself it could indeed be all things to everyone.
Of course, having a clear identity means you know what you are and you know what you AREN’T. That second part is easily as important as the first. It’s what gives you the discipline to say “no.” To look at alluring market opportunities and pass on them, knowing that your core competencies aren’t a good enough fit. To avoid wasting time and treasure chasing a losing game.
Without this clarity and discipline, Yahoo!s diluted and aimless efforts have resulted in its services becoming less and less relevant as the Web has evolved and matured.
I used to believe very passionately that the company could be turned around. But as time went on, I lost that hope, for two reasons.
First, I witnessed enough changings of the executive guard to conclude that the courage and ruthlessness required is simply not likely to happen. There are business lines at Yahoo! that are like Tolkien’s Ring of Power. Every new CEO thinks they can withstand their allure as they unsheathe their cutting sword, and then soon finds themselves jealously protecting their “precious”.
The second is that too much time and damage has occurred. Yahoo! has been rotting for years, resulting in unwieldy infrastructure, underperforming talent, poor partner relations, and consumer apathy. If the new CEO was suddenly bestowed from above with the “next big idea” for the Internet, why would you possibly want to saddle that gift with all of the albatrosses around Yahoo!’s neck? She’d be much better off starting a new company from scratch, with the right talent, the right culture, the right platform, and a clean shot at defining the brand.
The Hard Truth
So why am I going on so much about a struggling tech company?
Because I read this today from Robert Reich:
Brace yourself. In coming weeks you’ll hear there’s no serious alternative to cutting Social Security and Medicare, raising taxes on middle class, and decimating what’s left of the federal government’s discretionary spending on everything from education and job training to highways and basic research.
“We” must make these sacrifices, it will be said, in order to deal with our mushrooming budget deficit and cumulative debt.
But most of the people who are making this argument are very wealthy or are sponsored by the very wealthy: Wall Street moguls like Pete Peterson and his “Fix the Debt” brigade, the Business Roundtable, well-appointed think tanks and policy centers along the Potomac, members of the Simpson-Bowles commission.
These regressive sentiments are packaged in a mythology that Americans have been living beyond our means: We’ve been unwilling to pay for what we want government to do for us, and we are now reaching the day of reckoning.
The truth is most Americans have not been living beyond their means. The problem is their means haven’t been keeping up with the growth of the economy — which is why most of us need better education, infrastructure, and healthcare, and stronger safety nets.
He goes on to make the argument for a wealth tax on the richest Americans to pay for that education, infrastructure, and healthcare.
I’m not going to tackle the wealth tax concept here (though I have strong opinions). But I want to point out that I see the same blindness to reality, the same unrealistic expectations, in Reich’s commentary as I did in Yahoo!.
Reich mentions but then dismisses the only point that matters: America does not have the wealth to meet the entitlements it has promised. Nor can it sustainably meet its operating costs.
Why is that? Because we, as a society, have very much indeed lived beyond our means. By building up such a tremendous amount of debt through our profligacy that a small rise in interest rates would be catastrophic. That our children and children’s children will be “paying backwards” for our largess, unless some debt-clearing event transpires (which I think will).
Being unwilling to acknowledge this unpleasant but fundamental truth dooms any attempts to avoid it, via wealth redistribution or any other means. It’s the same flavor of willful ignorance that caused Yahoo! to convince itself it could claim all mountaintops until it eventually begrudgingly realized it wasn’t summitting any.
There were many times in my years at Yahoo! where I would listen to the “rah rah” all-hands presentations by the executives and walk away disconcerted. Despite the assurances of the great talent within the company and the wonderful ideas currently on the drawing board, it increasingly appeared that they were not admitting the obvious: The strategy was flawed, the company was failing, and radical change was needed if we wanted to succeed again.
That’s exactly how I feel when reading Reich’s piece. If this is the logic that our country’s leaders are using in their decision-making, then Houston, we indeed have a problem. Having seen this movie play out in the smaller Yahoo! microcosm, I have no appetite for watching a sequel at the national level. But I fear that’s what we’re in store for.
I don’t know how much influence Reich has these days, as he’s not working in the current Administration as he did for three other Presidents (Ford, Carter and Clinton). But from the current fiscal and monetary policy we’re pursuing, it sure seems like his mindset is not that far from those currently in DC.
So I find myself reflecting on how I reacted when I decided Yahoo! wasn’t going to change course. I decided I was going to need to change mine, instead.
I invested in self-discovery to identify work that was meaningful for me. Fulfilling work that I’d be happy doing no matter the compensation. I cut the cord, resigning before I knew what I would do next. Staying on would only delay the hard work I’d need to do to create my future. I started developing the skills I’d need for my new chosen profession. And I began to tap the power and goodwill of other people who could help me (and whom, in turn, I could help back).
Seems to me this is good advice for our national predicament.
The ride from here is likely to get bumpy as reality punctures our leaders’ unrealistic expectations. But if we, as individuals, invest in living authentically, working hard, and fostering supportive community, we’ll enjoy the benefits of a resilient life regardless of what transpires.
33 Comments on "The Fatal Blindness of Unrealistic Expectations"
onlooker on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 10:29 am
This article reminds me very much of the 10-step process of alcoholics anonymous whose core message is you can solve your addiction until you accept you have it. Then taking methodically whatever steps to solve it. Good article describing how humans on a individual level and collectively must face and confront reality before they can attempt to solve or adapt to it.
Rodster on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 10:36 am
Even John Michael Greer the ever homo sapien optimist wrote in last weeks blog that he now feels it’s quite possible that humans could go the way of the dodo bird.
Davy on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 10:54 am
Onlooker minor correction 12 step program. IMA, worth reading in contemplation especially if you are stuck in the blame game of deadly serious resentment, hatred, and self importance. Further adding IMA we all suffer from being humans.
onlooker on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 10:56 am
Davy what does IMA mean?
Boat on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 11:21 am
Most of the education is wasted in the medical profession and customers pay out the ass for skills not needed. Here is one example. In 2012 it was estimated there were 50 million diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetics.
Most older Americans did not grow up with healthy eating and the internet for information. TV did little to educate. We grew up not going to a doctor unless you were falling down.
A typical diabetic also has high blood pressure, high cholesterol all from that meat and potatoes we grew up eating.
So a blood test requires a nurse to take the blood. It is sent to the lab. The lab report lists a couple dozen tests that show a normal high, low and your result. This is $50. Then for another $50 a doctor spends 10 min saying the patient is in range and then writes out the three prescriptions for the next 5 months.
We don’t need a nurse with an education to draw blood. It is a very simple procedure. We don’t need a doctor with 12 years of education to read a report.
Millions of people have the same condition so a simple data base could change the prescription of a med needed. The lab report should suffice for a prescription. A $75 savings per visit times 50 million people and growing could easily be squeezed out of the health care system.
How many other diseases are like this where medication is repeated with little change and no need for high priced help except at initial diagnosis. More taxes is stupid. Think outside the box and cut costs. The governments job should be to add to list of generics and start the data base.
John on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 11:32 am
C’mon. The author completely misses the point. Once again, we are focused on financial accounting, rather than resource depletion. Everybody should know by now that the accumulated debts are unpayable; this has been obvious for at least 10-15 years. One should assume that every major world power recognizes the upcoming problems with resource depletion, and is doing whatever it can to manage the impossible situation, while battling each other in an economic death match for the remaining riches. Does anybody really think the U.S. has any intention of repaying debts, or even reducing them? Standard of living will go down with resource depletion, not because of some paper accounting system.
jjhman on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 11:53 am
Boat: Your description of medicine fits nicely into a larger picture.
I often ask myself what it is about our basic nature that does not allow us to make rational decisions about a specific circumstance.
My conclusion is almost always that modern commercial industrial society has so many distortions from reality in it that we simply cannot separate the reality from the fiction.
Examples are rife. Nutrition? We are bombarded with advertising which, almost by definition, is dishonest. Government programs meant to assist are corrupted by lobbyists who manage to distort the programs into weird support for unhealthy choices. “Alternate” sources are crowded with anti-science crackpots.
Elections? Don’t make me laugh.
Education? Special interests fighting over the crumbs. Arrogant no-nothing parents threatening to sue if their worthless brats are inconvenienced. Private schools skimming the best students and leaving the troublemakers behind, resulting in condemnation of public schools for not matching private school performance, resulting in pulling more money from public schools.
We encounter so many circumstances where rationality doesn’t pay that we begin to question reality.
Boat on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 12:06 pm
John,
One should assume that every major world power recognizes the upcoming problems with resource depletion.
And yet there are not many leaders willing to take on overpopulation. Leaders have yet to really take on climate change despite decades of warning.
Many leaders still don’t believe in evolution despite the evidence. Religion trains them to believe in creation.
Are you sure they can handle the idea of resource depletion?
BC on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 12:18 pm
Boat, correct.
Here are some appalling statistics for US “health” care, i.e., for-profit, prohibitively costly dis-ease promotion and treatment:
http://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_files/publications/st448/stat448.shtml
Private and public “health” care (HC) spending in the US is:
18-19% of GDP.
$10,000 per capita.
$26,000 per household (equivalent to ~50% of the median household income).
$22,000 equivalent per working person.
~50% equivalent of private and public wages and salaries.
~100% equivalent of US gov’t spending.
TWICE corporate profits after tax.
50% of HC is spent on the sickest 5%. Yes, 5%. 66% is spent on the sickest 10%. ~87% is spent on the sickest 25%.
The bottom 50% accounted for LESS THAN 3% of HC spending.
The healthiest bottom 50-75% of the population are paying extortionist HC insurance premia for the benefit of incomes and profits of insurers, doctors, for-profit hospitals, pharma/biotech, biomedical, etc.
The vast majority of spending on the top 5-25% is to treat chronic conditions after age 45-50 resulting from the cumulative effects of smoking, alcohol abuse, unhealthy diets, and lack of exercise, as well as obscenely costly late-life treatments and procedures for those 65 and older that does not increase longevity or quality of life.
The for-profit nature of HC and medical insurance exacerbates the costs by requiring that insurers effectively get paid profitably first before HC is provided. Now with the ACA, the gov’t is enabling, subsidizing, and protecting this cartel-like, prohibitively costly system that is bankrupting households, firms, and gov’ts.
The vast majority of Americans I encounter have no knowledge of the foregoing statistics about the appalling costs of US HC. Therefore, they cannot make an informed assessment about the utility of the HC system and how to change and optimize it for the vast majority of the society.
Moreover, most eCONomists argue that the US should spend EVEN MORE on HC (and “education”).
Madness.
HC is the sector that will be most disrupted by the accelerating advances in Big Data analytics, medical robotics, bioinformatics, intelligent systems, biometrics, nano-electronic sensors, telepresence, etc.
For-profit insurance must be eliminated from the system for the bottom 50-75% to 90% healthiest people, who should be rewarded for healthy outcomes and pay very low premia with higher deductibles for the little HC services they require. Gov’t should then provide necessary care for the chronically ill but ration costly procedures for effectively dying elders.
If Americans actually knew how much we are spending on so-called HC and the infinitesimally small share of the population who disproportionately benefits, I suspect that they would be collectively appalled and outraged.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/28/news/economy/health-care-spending/
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/28/1-of-every-5-spent-in-us-will-be-on-health-care.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-18/u-s-health-care-spending-is-on-the-rise-again
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=2njO
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=2mP8
BTW, HC spending is again growing at more than TWICE the rate of overall final sales. From the chart at the last link above, the differential growth of HC to final sales (shown as the reciprocal for comparison) is again recessionary as in 2008 and 2001.
Finally, if the above is not unsettling enough, consider that at the differential trend rate of growth of HC to GDP, HC/GDP will rise from ~19% today to 33% by the 2030s and 50% by mid-century.
Needless to say, this is mathematically impossible and will resolve with HC/GDP and per capita peaking while remaining a structural drag on growth of economic activity and gov’t budgets indefinitely hereafter.
Boat on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 1:59 pm
BC,
Bankruptcies resulting from unpaid medical bills will affect nearly 2 million people this year—making health care the No. 1 cause of such filings, and outpacing bankruptcies due to credit-card bills or unpaid mortgages, according to new data. And even having health insurance doesn’t buffer consumers against financial hardship.
This was in 2013.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148
John on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 3:53 pm
Boat,
Strong post about health care. Great job.
Overpopulation is another problem hampered by religious influence. In my opinion, part of the overall philosophy is not only to be fruitful and multiply, but also that God will provide for the faithful.
GregT on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 4:40 pm
“Many leaders still don’t believe in evolution despite the evidence.”
If evolution had been proven to be correct, it would be known as the “Law of Evolution”, not the “Theory of Evolution”. Whether one believes in a theory or not is somewhat redundant. A theory is not a fact. It is an ideology. Just like religion.
GregT on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 5:02 pm
Overpopulation can be attributed largely to sanitation, and modern medicine. Modern medicine can be attributed mostly to fossil fuels. Disease is one of natures ways of controlling population, which she will do again, eventually. The widespread use of antibiotics is creating genetic mutations in viruses and bacteria. The medical community is keenly aware of the implications. It is only a matter of time.
GregT on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 5:06 pm
Sorry, should have written:
The widespread use of vaccines and antibiotics are creating genetic mutations in viruses and bacteria.
apneaman on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 5:10 pm
Big difference between a scientific theory and the everyday use of the word theory. Gravity is a scientific theory. Evolution by natural selection has such overwhelming evidence that it essentially a fact – same as AGW. Scientific theories must be falsifiable to be a scientific theory. Which means that the opportunity for anyone with the evidence to prove them false is always there. Be very interesting to see someone explain shared DNA in living things outside of evolutionary theory.
GregT on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 7:20 pm
Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation:
“Every point mass attracts every single point mass by a force pointing along the line intersecting both points. The force is directly proportional to the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the point masses.”
Which gives us a formula for what something will do in response to gravity. This is not falsifiable, and is not essentially a fact. It is a fact. Which is why it is called a law.
Einstein’s general theory of relativity helps us to describe why gravity works. The theory of relativity is open to revision as more information becomes available, as has been, and continues to be the case. It is a theory. It is not a fact, and neither is it essentially a fact. Which by the way could also be described as almost a fact, or virtually a fact.
The heat absorption qualities of CO2 can be demonstrated in a laboratory in a controlled environment. Global warming is not a theory. It can be measured and is quantifiable.
The theory of evolution is a theory. While it is the best theory that we have at the moment, it is not a fact. Essentially, virtually or otherwise. To believe it to be a fact, is to believe in an idea. IE: an ideology, just like religion.
John on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 7:22 pm
Wow, dude. You’re harshing my buzz. Yeah, just like religion, except for the whole “overwhelming evidence” thing.
makati1 on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 7:56 pm
John, perhaps GregT has some religious indoctrination to overcome? Evolution has been proven correct for so long and by so many that it is essentially fact in every way. It has never been disproven by any honest evaluation or method.
Only religious nuts would build a museum to try to prove their unproven beliefs in an educated world. But then, great cathedrals are built for the same reason. Indoctrination.
apneaman on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 8:02 pm
Evolution as fact and theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_fact_and_theory
not just a theory
“You’ve been told that “evolution is just a theory”, a guess, a hunch, and not a fact, not proven. You’ve been misled. Keep reading, and in less than two minutes from now you’ll know that you’ve been misinformed. We’re not going to try and change your mind about evolution. We just want to point out that “it’s just a theory” is not a valid argument.
The Theory of Evolution is a theory, but guess what? When scientists use the word theory, it has a different meaning to normal everyday use.1 That’s right, it all comes down to the multiple meanings of the word theory. If you said to a scientist that you didn’t believe in evolution because it was “just a theory”, they’d probably be a bit puzzled.
In everyday use, theory means a guess or a hunch, something that maybe needs proof. In science, a theory is not a guess, not a hunch. It’s a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations.2 It ties together all the facts about something, providing an explanation that fits all the observations and can be used to make predictions. In science, theory is the ultimate goal, the explanation. It’s as close to proven as anything in science can be.
Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it’s proven, it becomes a law. That’s not how it works. In science, we collect facts, or observations, we use laws to describe them, and a theory to explain them. You don’t promote a theory to a law by proving it. A theory never becomes a law.
This bears repeating. A theory never becomes a law. In fact, if there was a hierarchy of science, theories would be higher than laws. There is nothing higher, or better, than a theory. Laws describe things, theories explain them. An example will help you to understand this. There’s a law of gravity, which is the description of gravity. It basically says that if you let go of something it’ll fall. It doesn’t say why. Then there’s the theory of gravity, which is an attempt to explain why. Actually, Newton’s Theory of Gravity did a pretty good job, but Einstein’s Theory of Relativity does a better job of explaining it. These explanations are called theories, and will always be theories. They can’t be changed into laws, because laws are different things. Laws describe, and theories explain.
Just because it’s called a theory of gravity, doesn’t mean that it’s just a guess. It’s been tested. All our observations are supported by it, as well as its predictions that we’ve tested. Also, gravity is real! You can observe it for yourself. Just because it’s real doesn’t mean that the explanation is a law. The explanation, in scientific terms, is called a theory.
Evolution is the same. There’s the fact of evolution. Evolution (genetic change over generations)3 happens, just like gravity does. Don’t take my word for it.4 Ask your science teacher, or google it. But that’s not the issue we are addressing here. The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is our best explanation for the fact of evolution. It has been tested and scrutinised for over 150 years, and is supported by all the relevant observations.
Next time someone tries to tell you that evolution is just a theory, as a way of dismissing it, as if it’s just something someone guessed at, remember that they’re using the non-scientific meaning of the word. If that person is a teacher, or minister, or some other figure of authority, they should know better. In fact, they probably do, and are trying to mislead you.5
Evolution is not just a theory, it’s triumphantly a theory!”
http://www.notjustatheory.com/
Why Evolution is True and Why Many People Still Don’t Believe It (Jerry Coyne, 2012)
“”
Jerry Coyne, a professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago and author of the seminal book, Why Evolution is True, is one of the world’s most eloquent defenders of evolutionary science in the face of legal, religious, and cultural opposition. In this talk, Coyne explored the evidence for evolution, why Americans are so resistant to accepting the theory, and what can be done to make the country more evolution-friendly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW9G2YVtBYc
GregT on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 8:04 pm
Sorry about your Buzz dude, bummer. You could always try another bong hit.
Davy on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 8:09 pm
MaKster, you are as stupid as you are hilarious. What do you know about cathedrals? There is some very deep meaning within the stone and architecture of cathedrals that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the meaning of life but you are too ignorant to see past your prejudices. You went from a Mormon priestess to a hateful pissed-off silly man. Stalin was once in the seminary too. There are plenty of books on the deeper meaning of cathedrals. Try reading them and get back to me on the subject.
GregT on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 8:21 pm
Interesting how this always degenerates into an argument for or against organized religion. I’m not religious by the way.
I found this to be of particular interest from your above post Apnea:
“Frequently, evolution is said to be a fact in the same way as the Earth revolving around the Sun is a fact.”
The discovery that Earth revolves around the Sun was revolutionary. It fundamentally changed how we viewed the cosmos, as well as ourselves. But the Earth does not revolve around the Sun. At least, not exactly. Time to get pedantic. “Technically, what is going on is that the Earth, Sun and all the planets are orbiting around the center of mass of the solar system,” writes Cathy Jordan, a Cornell University contributor.
http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/08/technically_the_earth_does_not_orbit_the_sun.html
apneaman on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 8:43 pm
Gravity: It’s Only a Theory
http://ncse.com/rncse/27/5-6/gravity-its-only-theory
GregT on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 9:23 pm
“Only religious nuts would build a museum to try to prove their unproven beliefs in an educated world.”
Would that be the same “educated” world that is destroying it’s only home, and driving itself to extinction. Perhaps it needs to re-educate itself.
Maybe the human ape isn’t quite as educated as he believes that he is.
GregT on Sun, 1st Nov 2015 9:37 pm
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Mark Twain
makati1 on Mon, 2nd Nov 2015 1:49 am
Guess we shall see what prayer will do in the next few years to ‘save’ mankind from itself. My bet is nothing, but it may make dying easier for the believers.
Which god will they be praying to? There appears to be hundreds across the world, ALL the ‘one and only’ according to their congregations. Such is what wars were/are fought over in ignorance and fear of a death, without reward and/or eternal life. The opiate of the masses.
GregT on Mon, 2nd Nov 2015 6:00 am
I’m not religious Mak. As I said above, I find it interesting how whenever the topic of Evolution comes up, it always seems to degenerate into an argument for or against organized religion. I find that rather strange. My view goes much deeper than that and is based on Quantum Physics.
You think that the world is educated? I think that the world is suicidal, and it is our education that we are using to kill ourselves. Most of the stuff that we humans have created is unnecessary for our survival, and if our species hopes to survive we need to stop doing most of that stuff. Call it educated if you like, I call it stupidity. Shitting in ones own bed is not what I would consider to be smart. As a matter of fact, the more I think about it, the more I believe our species to be wrong about pretty much everything. Human beings do not make sense.
Davy on Mon, 2nd Nov 2015 6:24 am
Those who discount and discredit religion are as bad as those who fervently believe without any support other than blind faith. I am not religious but I respect thousands of years of traditions. I practice a small amount of it in respect and to be part of a community of faithful. My kids are learning a faith. I will show them other faiths at some point. I will show them what I have discovered and in the end tell them to find what works for them.
I do not know if there is anything after death. I sure and the fock don’t think I am going to drift up to the pearly gates talk to some man dressed in white and enter into a place where I talk to my dead family. When you are dead you are dead. You are worm food and nothing more. Even going into death we humans want to be exceptional and immortal.
There is more to life than the human mind. There is something deeper to life and that is life itself. I suspect there is something more for us humans if nothing more than a return to the eternal now or a reconnection to that which was disconnected from through human duality. I say this from years of study on the subject. I have had spiritual experiences where the stars were aligned with me. Could this be delusional, a connection to something more, or all the above? Who knows? I will say this being normal is delusional so why bash spirituality?
To blindly bash religion is to show hubris and ignorance. Most organized religion is just a life system meant to create community and find superficial meaning. I find in the Catholic faith at the level of the perish where people take care of each other and support each other there is something higher. The tradition of the mass is special because it is over 2000 years old. Do I feel much meaning in the shallowness of some of what I hear? No. Do I find meaning in people who care for each other? Yes.
If you dig into the writings of multiple religious traditions for their deeper meaning you find a common denominator. Some approach it at different directions and their meaning links up. In the end your search stops because there is no more. At the spiritual level the sacred (whatever that is) is off limits. Knowledge and understanding seem to go on and on and there is that potential but spirituality ends at the sacred.
These writings on deeper meaning are nothing of what you will get in the distilled organized form through organized religion once it is processed like some natural food ingredients into something like American sliced white bread. Most organized religion is wonder bread. I am talking about the dark rich nutritious bread.
If you discount and dismiss these things then you are worse than the ignorants that go to church and believe without any further research. Many of these people are not capable of deeper research. They are not smart or don’t care to go deeper. They find what they need. Many are lost and stay lost.
Tell me you guys that think you are so smart where does it end? I mean how smart is smart? Where is the cutoff? In most cases the cutoff is “smart ass” because many really smart people are assholes. That’s right pride and prejudice is the end result of really smart. If you are not other orientated with all those higher human values that allow a community to survive then you are just an asshole. We have so many assholes running around today in this world. There are so many people who think they are smart and “ain’t”. There are psychopaths both smart and dumb who could give a shit one way or another as long as they get what they want.
To bash the doctrines of organized religion is fine. To bash the people in communities of the faithful is wrong. You can blame all the worlds’ ills on religion but you are wrong. It is man himself at the most basic level that you need to blame. Man’s very hyper intelligence that leads to a duality and separateness from nature and his fellow man is to blame. In most cases in primitive man there were structures for the community and the individual to be connected. We have little today to find this connection except religion and spirituality. If you don’t have these then you are a scary person. You are the type that would play God and pull the trigger of death either at the individual or macro level. I have gone to the deepest levels I could find and I came back because you can’t stay there. It is not for you to have. There is something deeper and sacred to life far and above anything human.
John on Mon, 2nd Nov 2015 12:21 pm
Davy,
I have no problem with the tradition and importance of religion in human history. I will say that from my experience, “something deeper and sacred to life far and above anything human” has nothing to do with cathedrals. For me, nature provides the greatest sense of wonder.
“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:19
I fear that modern evangelical Christians ignore warnings about climate change and dwindling oil resources because it is believed that God will take care of their needs. For this reason, I consider the modern evangelical movement to be among the most dangerous trends in society. In 50-100 years it won’t matter, though, and those folks will be looking for another way to distinguish themselves.
apneaman on Mon, 2nd Nov 2015 12:38 pm
Deeper meaning?
http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/
apneaman on Mon, 2nd Nov 2015 12:44 pm
Best Sam Harris Arguments – 2 Hour Compilation! – Debate, Interview, and Lecture Footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i08oZmUXZ4
Davy on Mon, 2nd Nov 2015 1:59 pm
John, obviously you missed the whole point in the comment. It is not an even or comment but it sounds like you are an even or type of guy. You don’t find meaning in only one place. My comment was in regards to Mak dismissing cathedrals as useless constructions. This just shows how shallow some people are and how difficult it is for people to open their minds to other meanings.
John on Mon, 2nd Nov 2015 5:33 pm
OK, Davy. I understood a bit better than portrayed, but thanks for clarifying.