Maximus and Me

Citizen Philosophers To Help Save Democracy

2012-01-29T11:37:00.000-05:00

Most of the four million slaves shipped from Africa to Brazil were sold in Salvador, the first residence of Portugal’s colonial rulers. It’s still Brazil’s blackest city. In Ribeiro’s neighborhood, children play football or do capoeira, pray in Pentecostal Churches or worship African gods. Many are involved with drugs; “every year we lose students to crack,” she tells me. And they study philosophy two hours each week because of a 2008 law that mandates philosophy instruction in all Brazilian high schools. Nine million teenagers now take philosophy classes for three year.

In 1971 the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985 eliminated philosophy from high schools. Teachers, professors in departments of education, and political activists championed its return, while most academic philosophers were either indifferent or suspicious. The dictatorship seems to have understood philosophy’s potential to create engaged citizens; it replaced philosophy with a course on Moral and Civic Education and one on Brazil’s Social and Political Organization (“to inculcate good manners and patriotic values and to justify the political order of the generals,” one UFBA colleague recalls from his high school days).

The official rationale for the 2008 law is that philosophy “is necessary for the exercise of citizenship.” The law—the world’s largest-scale attempt to bring philosophy into the public sphere—thus represents an experiment in democracy. Among teachers at least, many share Ribeiro’s hope that philosophy will provide a path to greater civic participation and equality. Can it do even more? Can it teach students to question and challenge the foundations of society itself?

But can philosophy really become part of ordinary life? Wasn’t Socrates executed for trying? Athenians didn’t thank him for guiding them to the examined life, but instead accused him of spreading moral corruption and atheism. Plato concurs: Socrates failed because most citizens just aren’t philosophers in his view. To make them question the beliefs and customs they were brought up in isn’t useful because they can’t replace them with examined ones. So Socrates ended up pushing them into nihilism. To build politics on a foundation of philosophy, Plato concludes, doesn’t mean turning all citizens into philosophers, but putting true philosophers in charge of the city—like parents in charge of children. I wonder, though, why Plato didn’t consider the alternative: If citizens had been trained in dialectic debate from early on—say, starting in high school—might they have reacted differently to Socrates? Perhaps the Brazilian experiment will tell.

- via Andrew (we need this in this country as well)

Grey

2012-01-29T08:19:00.000-05:00

Neil deGrasse Tyson made this hilarious remark in a recent talk - "Three quarters of the earth, if I drop you butt-naked, you're dead ten minutes later."

Those lines pretty much sums up the harshness of life on this planet and the man vs wild struggle splendidly captured in this movie. But yet the harshness of this planet shouldn't surprises anyone. The surprising factor has always been despite the savage inside each one of us (including Max and I), how we evolved to become a reasonably pacify creatures. We often debate and get lost in Fremi's paradox but we often forget to evaluate the probability of how we make a conscious decision to die and more importantly live for someone else. This brilliant and powerful movie shows the dark side of this planet and in the process exposes that better angles of our nature. Liam Neeson has been getting better with age; this is one of his best movies yet.

Quote of the Day

2012-01-29T08:12:00.000-05:00

"They all err – Muslims, Jews,
Christians, and Zoroastrians.
Humanity follows two worldwide sects:
One, man intelligent without religion,
The second, religious without intellect."

- The Epistle of Forgiveness by Abul Ala al-Ma’arri (A blind Arab philosopher)

Lara Logan & The Unforgettable "Bill", The Puppy

2012-01-28T20:40:00.000-05:00

As Logan told Overtime editor Ann Silvio, the story of Bill takes place in Afghanistan where she was recently on assignment, reporting on brothers serving in the US Marines. While working in the field, Lara and her producer Tom Anderson caught up with a group of Marines from the 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment. They had taken on a very special duty: saving Bill, an adorable orphaned puppy that was near death when they found him.

"You know, everyone has this image of Marines as jarheads and door-kickers" said Logan. "But when we got to this patrol base, we saw these guys sitting around caring for Bill. I just watched for a little while, and it was very clear from the first moment that all these Marines loved this little dog. They were mad about him."

- More Here

Life Lessons From Judo

2012-01-28T13:46:00.002-05:00

Like a drawing in India ink of the whispering of wind in the pines, the secrets of Judo can only be suggested. Only through personal experience can one comprehend the mystic ecstasy of such secrets. It is said of Jujitsu that it would require ten years of practice to win victory over one's self and twenty years to win victory over others . . . Only by cultivating a receptive state of mind, without preconceived ideas or thoughts, can one master the secret art of reacting spontaneously and naturally without hesitation and without purposeless resistance.
Respect and kindness, fidelity and sincerity, are no doubt the essential points which Judo students should particularly observe. We come by daily training to know that irritability is one of our weakest points, and that we have to try to avoid it in our life, as it facilitates our opponent's efforts to overcome us. Not to be irritated in any emergency, but to always be calm and composed, is one of the first principles of Judo. Prudence, precaution, temperance, perseverance, presence of mind, quick discernment, decision after deliberation, animation with moderation, self-respect, and self-control--all these are surely moral qualities which are inculcated by the study of Judo. Greatness of mind, obedience to duty and abhorrence of extravagance should be among other points observed with no less attention. As we study and acquire the principles of Judo, we should naturally come to understand how these virtues can be enjoyed and utilized. The main object of Judo lies in this point. It seeks to augment human strength, morality and intellect by human means and efforts. It tends to train young people in the habits and condition conducive to the accomplishment of great undertakings.
Since the fundamental principle acquired through the practice of Jujitsu has been elevated to a finer moral concept called Judo, "The Way of Gentleness," it may well be said that the primary objective of practicing Judo is perfection of character.
Only by cultivating a receptive state of mind, without preconceived ideas or thoughts, can one master the secret art of reacting spontaneously and naturally without hesitation and without purposeless resistance.
Victory over the opponent is achieved by giving way to the strength of the opponent, adapting to it and taking advantage of it, turning it in the end to your own advantage.

- More Lessons Here

Wisdom Of The Week

2012-01-28T07:36:00.003-05:00

"Schumpeter applauded capitalism as much as Marxists despised it. But he shared the Marxist beliefs that creative destruction was at the heart of capitalism and that its inevitable consequence would be capitalism’s demise. Schumpeter feared that the very success of capitalism would give entrenched interests the power to resist the process of innovation that was at the heart of capitalism’s success. Mitt Romney is right to emphasise the role of creative destruction in the market economy, but that is not the market economy his financial backers have in mind.

And perhaps Schumpeter was right. The prescient, cynical Adam Smith had still not imagined a world in which the Wealth of Nations would cross the world digitally at the click of a mouse. Nor had he envisaged one in which legislation would be drafted by paid lobbyists."

- via FS

Quote of the Day

2012-01-28T07:34:00.000-05:00

"Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibilities."
- Daisetz Suzuki

What I've Been Reading

2012-01-27T06:24:00.003-05:00

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Gary Reylonds.

It is more difficult to process information if it is coming at you both verbally and in written form at the same time (according to John Sweller's cognitive load theory).
Let go of the past - Unlearn ineffective habits learned over the years.
Some tools are better than others but it is possible to present effectively even with older versions of PowerPoint.
No dissolves, spins or other. The presentation of the content should be simple, balanced, and beautiful.
Don't handout printouts of your slides beforehand. They don't work without you.
Don't use software tools during the initial phase of planning. Before you design your presentation, you need to see the big picture and identify your core messages—or the single core message. This can be difficult unless you create a stillness of mind for yourself, something which is hard to do while puttering around in slideware.
Always ask yourself these following questions - If the audience could remember only one thing, what do you want it to be? What's my point? And why does it matter?
Ask yourself if you can pass the elevator test. Elevator Test - When you arrive at the admin desk outside the vice- president's office, suddenly she comes out with her coat and briefcase in hand and says, "...sorry, something's come up, give me your idea as we walk down to my car..." Imagine such a scenario. Could you sell your idea in the elevator ride and the walk to the parking lot? Sure, the scenario is unlikely, but possible. What is very possible, however, is for you to be asked without notice to shorten your talk down, from, say, 20 minutes, to five minutes (or from a scheduled one hour to 30 minutes). Could you do it?
Slides are slides. Documents are documents. They aren't the same thing. Don't attempt to merge them.
PowerPoint and Keynote are not good tools for making written documents; use word processors instead.
In the book Made to Stick , Heath brothers explain simply and brilliantly the that "sticky" ideas have six key principles in common: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories. And yes, these six compress nicely into the acronym SUCCESs.
The biggest reason why most people fail to craft effective or "sticky" messages is because of what they call the "Curse of Knowledge." The Curse of Knowledge is essentially the condition whereby the deliverer of the message cannot imagine what it's like not to possess his level of background knowledge on the topic. When he speaks in abstractions to the audience, it makes perfect sense to him, but to him alone. In his mind it seems simple and obvious. The six principles— SUCCESs—are your weapons, then, to fight your own Curse of Knowledge (we all have it) to make messages that stick.
Internalize your story, but do not memorize it line by line. You can't fake it. You believe in your story, or you do not. And if you do not, no amount of hyped-up, superficial enthusiasm or conviction will ever make your time with an audience meaningful.
Formal speech and formal writing devoid of any emotion whatsoever is extremely difficult to stay with for more than a few minutes. Your conscious mind has to remind you to "stay awake, this is important!" But someone who speaks in a natural, human, conversational style is far easier to stay engaged with. Good presenters target people's "left brain" and "right brain."
Always keep the audience in mind by first keeping your talk as short as you can and still doing an effective job telling your story, and second, after you have prepared your presentation, go back and edit like crazy, eliminating parts that are not absolutely crucial to your overall point or purpose of the talk. You must be ruthless. When in doubt, cut it out.
The best visuals are often ones designed with an eye toward simplicity. Yet, this says nothing about the specifics of a visual presentation. That will depend on the content and context. For example, even the best visuals used in support of a presentation for one audience on, say, quantum mechanics, may appear complicated and confusing to a different audience. Simplicity is often used as a means to greater clarity.
Don't have to use slideware for every presentation, but if you do, the visuals should seem a part of the show, not something "over there" off to the side.
The following Zen aesthetic values can be applied to slide design and web design: Simplicity, Subtlety, Elegance, Suggestive rather than the descriptive or obvious, Naturalness (i.e., nothing artificial or forced), Empty space (or negative space), Stillness, Tranquility, Eliminating the nonessential.
You can get people's interest by violating their expectations. Surprise people. Surprise will get their interest.
Use of bullet points in slides should be a rare exception.
iStockphoto is an excellent resource to get free imagines to use in presentations.
Quotes can indeed add credibility to your story. Quotes should be short, in most cases, since it can become quite tedious when a presenter reads a paragraph from a screen.
Empty space in a design is not "nothing," it is indeed a powerful "something," which gives the few elements on your slide their power.The slides have a clean white background with plenty of active empty space that helps guide the viewer's eyes. Learn to see and manipulate empty space to give your slide designs greater organization, clarity, and interest.
Check out some great slides here and here.
Practice Mindfulness - Rather than hating washing the dishes, you just wash the dishes. When you write a letter, you write a letter. And when you give a presentation, you give a presentation. Once we allow our mind to drift to thoughts of success and failure or of outcomes and technique while performing our art, we have at that moment begun our descent.
Following five principles of Judo offer good advice for delivering effective presentations:

Carefully observe oneself and one's situation, carefully observe others, and carefully observe one's environment.
Seize the initiative in whatever you undertake.
Consider fully, act decisively.
Know when to stop.
Keep to the middle.

Remember Benjamin Zander's (author of The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life) words of wisdom - "This is the moment—this is the most important moment right now. Which is: We are about contribution. That's what our job is. It's not about impressing people. It's not about getting the next job. It's about contributing something."
Humor is a wonderful way to remind everyone around us—no matter how hard the work gets—that our true and most "central" self is not obsessed with childish demands, entitlements, and calculations but is instead supportive, confident, helpful, and even inspiring. A presentation is as good a time as any to let people see that side of you.
A good tip to always remember - It's not about us, it's about them. And about the message.
No matter how much time you are given, never ever go over time, and in fact finish a bit before your allotted time is up. We want to leave our audiences satisfied (motivated, inspired, more knowledgeable, etc.), but not feeling that they could have done with just a little less.
You will make it look easy and natural by preparing and practicing like mad. The more you rehearse, the more confident you'll become, and the easier it will seem to the audience.

Quote of the Day

2012-01-27T05:40:00.000-05:00

"What we think, we become."

- Buddha

13th Amendment To Non-Human Animals - Can Animals Be Slaves?

2012-01-26T17:18:00.000-05:00

I am sooooooooo thrilled; more on this ground breaking lawsuit here:

"The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the condition of slavery. But it does not refer to a "person" or any particular class of victims.

So, can animals be slaves?

The case - the first-ever seeking to apply the 13th Amendment to nonhuman animals – represents a growing trend among a new generation of legal advocates who recognize that society moved away from the outdated notion that animals are unfeeling things a long time ago. It is time for our laws to follow suit. The lawsuit calls for the five orcas to be released to a more appropriate environment, such as a coastal sanctuary. Protected sea pens would allow these orcas greater freedom of movement; the opportunity to see, sense and communicate with their wild cousins and other ocean animals; and the ability to feel the tides and waves and engage in behavior that is natural to their species.

In another case drawing widespread interest, a New York City woman has filed a civil suit against the pet store that sold her a puppy, named Umka, who quickly developed chronic, debilitating medical conditions. The suit seeks to establish that animals are living beings, not inanimate things, and to hold the store accountable for Umka's pain, suffering and medical bills.

The legal system currently considers animals to be "property." If the legal definition of an animal is rightfully amended to recognize that animals feel emotions such as pain, joy, fear and grief, it could significantly affect the level of compensation that could be awarded when a buyer purchases an unhealthy dog born in a puppy mill – a mass-breeding facility in which animals are kept in tiny, feces-caked cages and never given any love or attention or even a chance to roll in the grass.

If successful, the lawsuit would leave pet stores financially liable for selling animals from puppy mills. No matter what the outcome, the issue has focused attention on the miserable lives ofanimals churned out in breeding mills and the far-reaching consequences of buying animalsinstead of adopting them from shelters."

Udacity - Alex Tabrrok On Sebatian Thurn's New "Gig"

2012-01-26T12:02:00.004-05:00

"Thrun was eloquent on the subject of how he realized that he had been running “weeder” classes, designed to be tough and make students fail and make himself, the professor, look good. Going forwards, he said, he wanted to learn from Khan Academy and build courses designed to make as many students as possible succeed — by revisiting classes and tests as many times as necessary until they really master the material.

And I loved as well his story of the physical class at Stanford, which dwindled from 200 students to 30 students because the online course was more intimate and better at teaching than the real-world course on which it was based.

So what I was expecting was an announcement from Thrun that he was helping to reinvent university education: that he was moving all his Stanford courses online, that the physical class would be a space for students to get more personalized help. No more lecturing: instead, the classes would be taken on the students’ own time, and the job of the real-world professor would be to answer questions from kids paying $30,000 for their education.
But that’s not the announcement that Thrun gave. Instead, he said, he concluded that “I can’t teach at Stanford again.” He’s given up his tenure at Stanford, and he’s started a new online university called Udacity. He wants to enroll 500,000 students for his first course, on how to build a search engine — and of course it’s all going to be free."

- More Here

A Cure For Capitalism Concerns

2012-01-26T06:14:00.000-05:00

"America’s political system, especially at the federal level, is letting us down, in ways that cut across political parties and span Presidential administrations and Congressional sessions. But it would be wrong to place either the U.S. competitiveness problem or its solution at the feet of the government. Business plays a role in creating even those problems that seem to stem from public policy. Take, for instance, America’s corporate tax code. The code is convoluted in part because government authorities have allowed it to be, but also because corporate leaders have relentlessly pushed for loopholes and subsidies that serve narrow self-interest. Part of the business agenda for U.S. competitiveness is to stop taking actions that benefit one’s own firm but, collectively, weaken America’s business environment.

Moreover, business can and must be a positive part of the solution to America’s competitiveness problem. Individually and collectively, firms can upgrade the business environment in the communities where they operate—by supporting educational institutions, building shared infrastructure, investing in workforce skills, deepening clusters, and so on. We are not suggesting corporate charity here. In our survey, we asked each respondent what would happen to his or her company if it undertook more activities to benefit the local community. A full 22% said that the company itself would be more successful as a result. Another 72% said that their companies could do more to benefit the local community without affecting company success. Only 7% felt that doing more for the community would diminish corporate success. Untapped opportunities exist for firms to upgrade the competitiveness of their local communities, and to benefit themselves in the process."

- More Here

Quote of the Day

2012-01-26T05:43:00.000-05:00

"In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone."

- Rollo May

Metting Nassim Taleb In Person !!

2012-01-25T17:35:00.003-05:00

It was a sheer pleasure listening to Taleb last night at Stevens Institute, Hoboken, NJ. Lecture was a condensed version of his Antifragility (which probably would be the title of his upcoming book) talk with Russ Roberts last week (full audio and text here). Taleb was very simple and charismatic in person but as usual his limited patience for BS made the Q&A session more hilarious. Observing him at close quarters, it was very clear he would like to be remembered as a philosopher rather than an intellectual or an economist (duh!!)
Of-course I got a copy of The Black Swan signed by him!!

Quote of the Day

2012-01-25T07:21:00.000-05:00

"An educated man must have a 'curiosity in exploring the unfamiliar and unexpected, an open-mindedness in entertaining opposing points of view, tolerance for the ambiguity that surrounds so many important issues, and a willingness to make the best decisions he can in the face of uncertainty and doubt."

- Derek Bok

Learn Probability & Statistics - Larry Summers

2012-01-24T08:38:00.003-05:00

As the “Moneyball” story aptly displays in the world of baseball, the marshalling of data to test presumptions and locate paths to success is transforming almost every aspect of human life. It is not possible to make judgments about one’s own medical care without some understanding of probability, and certainly the financial crisis speaks to the consequences of the failure to appreciate “black swan events” and their significance. In an earlier era, when many people were involved in surveying land, it made sense to require that almost every student entering a top college know something of trigonometry. Today, a basic grounding in probability statistics and decision analysis makes far more sense

A good rule of thumb for many things in life holds that things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could. Think, for example, of the widespread use of the e-book, or the coming home to roost of debt problems around the industrialized world. Here is a bet and a hope that the next quarter century will see more change in higher education than the last three combined.

- Larry Summers

For What Reason People Stay Vegan - Ethics, Health Or Environment?

2012-01-24T06:16:00.000-05:00

Ethics - the clear winner (here):

"In 2009 and 2010, the pledge questionnaire administered at the beginning of the pledge asked people to nominate reasons why they decided to go vegan for the month. I broke these reasons down into categories. 93 participants nominated a total of 132 reasons.

Interestingly, health was the number one reason. “Other” comprises lots of reasons including some that were rare (e.g. girlfriend pressure) and most that were vague (e.g. wanted more info; I don’t think I need animal products; get ideas). One reason health might have been such a big factor in this dataset is because London Vegan Campaigns specifically advertised the pledge to help pledgers learn more about health and lose weight.

Only a couple of the nominated reasons appeared to have an effect on whether participants who showed up to the last meeting said they were going to stay vegan, which nearly 70% of participants said they would. Ethics was nearly significant with 84% of participants nominating this reason deciding to stay the course whereas those who viewed it as a challenge/experiment came out at only 33%."

Quote of the Day

2012-01-24T05:43:00.000-05:00

"Others inspire us, information feeds us, practice improves our performance, but we need quite time to figure things out, to emerge with new discoveries, to unearth original answers."

- Ester Buchholz

Schlep Blindness - Paul Graham

2012-01-23T06:11:00.000-05:00

There are great startup ideas lying around unexploited right under our noses. One reason we don't see them is a phenomenon I call schlep blindness. Schlep was originally a Yiddish word but has passed into general use in the US. It means a tedious, unpleasant task.

No one likes schleps, but hackers especially dislike them. Most hackers who start startups wish they could do it by just writing some clever software, putting it on a server somewhere, and watching the money roll in—without ever having to talk to users, or negotiate with other companies, or deal with other people's broken code. Maybe that's possible, but I haven't seen it.

One of the many things we do at Y Combinator is teach hackers about the inevitability of schleps. No, you can't start a startup by just writing code. I remember going through this realization myself. There was a point in 1995 when I was still trying to convince myself I could start a company by just writing code. But I soon learned from experience that schleps are not merely inevitable, but pretty much what business consists of. A company is defined by the schleps it will undertake. And schleps should be dealt with the same way you'd deal with a cold swimming pool: just jump in. Which is not to say you should seek out unpleasant work per se, but that you should never shrink from it if it's on the path to something great.

The most dangerous thing about our dislike of schleps is that much of it is unconscious. Your unconscious won't even let you see ideas that involve painful schleps. That's schlep blindness.

- Paul Graham

Quote of the Day

2012-01-23T05:42:00.000-05:00

"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it."

- The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith

How Austerity Cured 1920-21 Depression

2012-01-22T20:13:00.001-05:00

Great article in the Sunday Washington Post by James Grant on the depression of 1920-21 and how after President Warren G. Harding’s response, “the unemployment rate fell from 15.6 percent to 9 percent (on its way to 3.2 percent in 1923), while constant-dollar output leapt by 16 percent. After which the 1920s proverbially roared.”

And how did the administration of Warren G. Harding, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve, produce these astonishing results? Why, by raising interest rates, reducing the public debt and balancing the federal budget.

- More Here

On A Certain Blindness In Human Beings - William James

2012-01-22T07:54:00.001-05:00

Our judgments concerning the worth of things, big or little, depend on the feelings the things arouse in us. Where we judge a thing to be precious in consequence of the idea we frame of it, this is only because the idea is itself associated already with a feeling. If we were radically feelingless, and if ideas were the only things our mind could entertain, we should lose all our likes and dislikes at a stroke, and be unable to point to any one situation or experience in life more valuable or significant than any other.

Now the blindness in human beings, of which this discourse will treat, is the blindness with which we all are afflicted in regard to the feelings of creatures and people different from ourselves.

We are practical beings, each of us with limited functions and duties to perform. Each is bound to feel intensely the importance of his own duties and the significance of the situations that call these forth. But this feeling is in each of us a vital secret, for sympathy with which we vainly look to others. The others are too much absorbed in their own vital secrets to take an interest in ours. Hence the stupidity and injustice of our opinions, so far as they deal with the significance of alien lives. Hence the falsity of our judgments, so far as they presume to decide in an absolute way on the value of other persons' conditions or ideals.

Take our dogs and ourselves, connected as we are by a tie more intimate than most ties in this world; and yet, outside of that tie of friendly fondness, how insensible, each of us, to all that makes life significant for the other!—we to the rapture of bones under hedges, or smells of trees and lamp-posts, they to the delights of literature and art. As you sit reading the most moving romance you ever fell upon, what sort of a judge is your fox-terrier of your behavior? With all his good will toward you, the nature of your conduct is absolutely excluded from his comprehension. To sit there like a senseless statue, when you might be taking him to walk and throwing sticks for him to catch! What queer disease is this that comes over you every day, of holding things and staring at them like that for hours together, paralyzed of motion and vacant of all conscious life? The African savages came nearer the truth; but they, too, missed it, when they gathered wonderingly round one of our American travellers who, in the interior, had just come into possession of a stray copy of the New York Commercial Advertiser, and was devouring it column by column. When he got through, they offered him a high price for the mysterious object; and, being asked for what they wanted it, they said: "For an eye medicine,"—that being the only reason they could conceive of for the protracted bath which he had given his eyes upon its surface.

- More Here

Quote of the Day

2012-01-22T07:43:00.000-05:00

“Lindsay Lohan is our competitor. We have to get her off the screen and get science there instead.”
- Bora Zivkovic

How Money Corrupts Congress & A Plan To Stop It

2012-01-21T15:39:00.000-05:00

He said the type of corruption rampant in the US Congress is not the old type of bribery, where congressional representatives had safes in their offices to hold the cash they received for voting in certain directions. That is now illegal and eliminated. This new type of corruption is more subtle, indirect and harder to outlaw. Corporations legally donate money to the election campaigns of legislators, who in turn tend to vote in favor of the interests of those corporations. Non-profits like Maplight can graph the evidence that a representative voting in favor of a particular corporate-friendly law will receive 6 or 10 or 13 times the funding than someone who opposes the law. He cited studies that showed the ROI (return on investment) of lobbying to be 1,000%. It was one of the sanest expenses for a corporation.

None of this is illegal, but Lessig argues that we have a constitutional argument for eliminating it. The Constitution talks about the republic being "dependent on the people alone." But now it is dependent on corporate funders, and more and more JUST on corporate funders. His solution is to return the republic to being dependent on the people alone. His solution is an innovative kind of campaign finance reform. Give every voter a $50 campaign voucher. The $50 comes from the tax pool. It can be given to any candidate who accepts only money from the vouchers (and maybe a limit of an optional voluntary $100 per single voter). Thus all campaign money would come in very small amounts from The People. Lessig calculates that the total amount of money raised this public way would be 3 times the amount raised by private means in the last election cycles, and therefore more than adequate."

- More Here

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking & Universe

2012-01-21T09:11:00.001-05:00

via here