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Journal Entry Alpha
Overview
This first entry is a reflection upon my journey over the last few months towards establishing new foundational academic and career goals. In so doing, I hope to bring greater focus to future efforts and to increase enthusiasm through clearer sense of purpose.
It is unpolished, but I want to prioritize getting SOMETHING up rather than becoming distracted by revision.
With future entries, I intend to move towards more direct discussion of course material.
Option Paralysis
Over the past two years, I have become increasingly conscious of the possibility that life-long attention issues have gone unacknowledged and unaddressed. The past year of law school and, in particular, the last few weeks have been an interesting journey on this path.
Internally, the past month marks my most recent struggle in prioritization. How should I appropriately balance my time and attention between academic pursuits, social duties, and personal interests? As someone who is uncertain about my specific career path, how much should I prioritize grades, prestige, career research, and professional networking to “keep my options open?”
How much should I indulge in explorations of personal academic interests that will not directly enhance my class performance? What should I make of all the time spent attempting to develop creative impactful ideas that have resulted in dead ends (and subsequent submission of compromised work that does not reflect those failed efforts)?
I am also meditating on causes of disappointing moments: a panic response in an exam, a missed deadline, accepting apathy in a course’s material, not being the partner/friend/community-member I’d like to be in order to prioritize professional aspirations.
As I mentioned in an email, it is difficult to determine how appropriate it is to blame certain issues on external causes. To dump a parade of horribles:
- unexpected trips to CA to say goodbye to the last grandparent in my family tree (father is now the oldest)
- fulfilling a promise to my partner that we could get a dog after 1L (and fulfilling my 10+ year desire to have a canine back in my life) along with the annoyance of finding a home with a yard close to a dog run only to trigger a multi-stage fiasco
- brother- and sister-in-law diagnosed with Pompe disease and beginning life-long treatments, helping my new family (married in June 2019) navigate the medical landscape of a rare disease as they have no close connections to physicians (my sister and best friend are both doctors that have been invaluable resources)
- entrance into the Covid-19 era
- all the usual shenanigans of law school, NYC, life of newly weds, life with roommates, being a human
Once, in your office hours, you advised that (paraphrasing) I needed to figure out what I am passionate about. I responded that my issue is that I am passionate about too many things and I often struggle to prioritize among them.
My guide Ram Dass sums up the conundrum nicely: “How do you begin, on the human plane, to handle all the suffering? You go to fix that one, put your finger in that hole in the dike, and that one’s leaking. And you go to do that one, and that one’s leaking. Where do you even begin? And I’m sure you are all on the good-guy mailing list just like I am. And I sit with pen poised over checkbook. Well, is it going to be the whales? Is it going to be the battered children? Is it going to be the nuclear movement? Is it going to be the Democratic congressman? Is it going to be the children of Africa? Is it going to be the Cambodian refugee camps? You know? Who’s suffering more? And everyone is saying, We are the key one, and you see that you can’t possibly deal with all the suffering.”
A recalibration is in order to reduce the sense of overwhelm and shake off some option paralysis.
Inspiration
“Everything is perfect, including the desire to change it.” - Ram Dass
“And all my creating and striving amounts to this, that I create and piece together into one, what is now fragment and riddle and grisly accident. . . To redeem those who are the past and to recreate all ‘it was’ into ‘thus I willed it!’ – only that would I call redemption! . . . And now learn this in addition: the will itself is still a prisoner. Willing liberates, but what is that called, which claps even the liberator in chains?” – Nietzsche
I could not easily find a related quote, but I have been moved by Bob Thurman’s articulation of a similar process of reframing experiences on path to enlightenment in Buddhist philosophy.
Reflection
The need to find a cause and the need to choose among many is the same in many respects. Both result in an unmoored, floating-in-the-void, directionless state. However, the states are different: rather than apathetic, motivationless stillness, the option-paralysis triggers frantic fidgeting in my puppy-like brain, pulling in one direction then another. Then, after swimming in circles, a comparable stillness follows from exhaustion.
I know myself well enough to see the familiar pattern and to know I must dedicate some effort to change. As a global learner, I am more grounded, focused, and happier when I have a decent blueprint of the journey ahead.
In an attempt to plant some new roots to firm up my mental health, my enthusiasm, and my efficiency, I have gone meandering well beyond any course material, trying to connect some dots in hopes of bringing the next big picture into focus. Once I build out the necessary empty space to complete the creative work of setting new long-term objectives, the game becomes one of filling in the interior of the puzzle or coloring by numbers, which is far easier to force my way through en route to an established goal.
The walkabout has brought about some helpful brain food that has not yet fully crystalized. Below is a survey of dots that I am working to connect (some may be discussed in detail in future entries):
1. Johann Hari
While researching my 10,000-word paper for Drug Law and Policy (tech regulation recommendations based on addiction- and health-risk management in U.S. law) I came across Johann Hari’s addiction-theory writings. Addiction as a trauma-coping mechanism reminded me of your statements regarding users’ desire to give anxiety over to their devices. I am largely unfamiliar with trauma theories of addiction and intend to learn more.
2. Tristan Harris and the Center for Humane Technology
Johann Hari led me to the Center for Human Technology. He was a guest on CHT’s podcast, Your Undivided Attention. I was moved by his interview (“meaningful connection is the opposite of addiction”) and subsequently have listened to all episodes of the podcast at least three times. I’ll discuss their work further as they highlight some interesting tech issues not covered in your courses. In particular, CHT’s multilayered approach of assessment and reform has stuck with me. The breakdown of harms I mentioned in my recent LIIS SecondEssay? draft is drawn from CHT’s: physiological, emotional, sensemaking, decision-making, social dynamics, and societal dynamics. CHT lays out a comparable multilayered model of reform.
3. Daniel Schmachtenberger
Tristan Harris mentioned that his approach and perspective are informed by Daniel Schmachtenberger. This led me down my next rabbit hole. Schmachtenberger is an odd character; I’m not sure what to make of him.
He speaks with remarkable clarity about grand visions for the future of humanity in a technical manner that led me to initially assume that he works in academia. However, he seems to have his hands in several odd, fringe projects including a nootropics company (certainly raises a red flag).
He states that his “central interest is comprehensive civilization (re)design: developing adequate capacities for collective values generation, sense-making, and choice-making, in service to coordinated conscious sustainable evolution...towards a world commensurate with our higher ideals and potentials.”
Despite my skepticism, he has introduced me to a number of impactful ideas such as Game B. I was struck by his assertion that society is in need of a fundamental phase shift. He likens our extractive, unsustainable behavior to a fetus, which, to an unfamiliar eye, might look like a soon-to-be-fatal parasite. Progressing on our current self-terminating path, we will either destroy our planet, or we must be birthed into a new epoch (like a fetus that assumes a more self-sustaining form after a phase-shift period).
He highly recommends James Carse’s book, Finite and Infinite Games.
4. Finite and Infinite Games
This book will likely be discussed in a future entry as it has quickly and deeply influenced my world view. A basic summary in Carse’s words: "There are at least two kinds of games: finite and infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. Finite games are those instrumental activities - from sports to politics to wars - in which the participants obey rules, recognize boundaries and announce winners and losers. The infinite game - there is only one - includes any authentic interaction, from touching to culture, that changes rules, plays with boundaries and exists solely for the purpose of continuing the game. A finite player seeks power; the infinite one displays self-sufficient strength. Finite games are theatrical, necessitating an audience; infinite ones are dramatic, involving participants..."
Carse quotes Marx on a few occasions (along with many others). Game B also seems to have Marxist roots in its related discussion of a necessary phase shift from rivalrous to anti-rivalrous dynamics, from extractive to regenerative behavior, from open-loops to closed-loops.
5. Communist Manifesto
Finite and Infinite Games was the proximate impetus to read some Marx.
I have no meaningful direct exposure to Marx’s work. To this day, no one has ever directly recommended reading Marx or assigned it for a course.
Upon reading the Manifesto, I was struck by Marx’s clear impact upon modern thought while his name is rarely mentioned (at least in my sheltered bubble).
The Manifesto provides valuable context for some of our prior conversations and much more.
For years, when discussing my tech-policy and futurology interests, I often expressed that society’s present path in unsustainable: once power becomes sufficiently consolidated in a few hands and/or automation sufficiently devalues the average human’s labor, the system necessarily breaks down. Yet, no one mentioned that Marx said this 150 years ago. It’s somewhat unsettling to realize the bubble that I’ve been in.
After my quick initial read, my first lingering question is: Can the transition from capitalism to communism only occur through violent revolution? That seemed to be Marx’s position. I have naïve hope that a peaceful, incremental transition is possible. Of course, some degree of conflict is necessary; “Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving…conflict is a sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity,” (John Dewey).
6. Game B
“Game~B is a memetic tag that aggregates a myriad of visions, projects and experiments that model potential future civilisational forms. The flag on the hill for Game~B is an anti-fragile, scalable, increasingly omni-win-win civilisation. This is distinct from our current rivalrous Game A civilisation that is replete with destructive externalities and power asymmetries that produce existential risk.”
“Defining Game B precisely would suffer from the reductionist Game A tendencies. One of the ways to work in navigating this problem is to do a parallax perspective, where are you looking at something from multiple angles. Here are some different constructions that point to Game B:
A. Game B is the flag on the hill for an omni-win civilisation that maximizes human flourishing
B. Game B is the environment that maximizes collective intelligence, collaboration, and increasing omni-consideration
C. Game B is building or developing capacity to navigate complexity without resorting to complicated systems
D. Game B is establishing coherence within complex systems
E. Game B is a meta-protocol for hyper-collaboration
F. Game B is the infinite game where the purpose is to continue playing. Game A is the finite game where the purpose is to win
G. Game B is the theoretically optimal conditions for creative collaboration and thus maximal innovation
H. Game B must orient it’s primary innovation capacity towards cultivating individual and collective sovereignty and an awareness of how choices actually show up in the world more than the rate at which it increases individual and collective power
I. Game B is a new mode of societal, economic, and/or political organization that leverages people's authentic, long-term interests towards a healthier, more cooperative society and increased well-being. A Game B system is any cooperative, mutually-beneficial system that can outcompete exploitative, adversarial systems through manifest appeal and willful, voluntary participation.”
https://www.gameb.wiki/wiki/Game_B
Brainstorm Task List (I welcome suggestions for further reading/research):
a. Reread Finite and Infinite Games
b. Reread Communist Manifesto
c. Read the Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse
d. Find a thorough article regarding Game B dynamics - specifically interested in generator functions of existential risk
e. Research exaptation – a trait can evolve because it served one particular function, but subsequently it may come to serve another – e.g. feathers originally evolving for heat regulation, then used for flight – are there any such opportunities in modern tech to transform engines of harm (Facebook, etc.) into benefits – How relevant is exaptation to copyleft, PUBPAT?
f. Attempt to identify more links between F&IG, Game B, and current tech issues to build out a pragmatic analytical framework - I know that CHT derives inspiration from these, but the linkage is not clearly fleshed out
g. Marinate on idea of a more anti-fragile model of tech reform – apparently, having sufficient tech is not enough; pressure should be applied to reduce utility of status quo and to ease the transition to FOSS (attempted to discuss in LIIS SecondEssay? revision)
h. Read more regarding pros and cons of CDA §230 reform – best methods for holding platforms accountable, but protecting free speech
i. Read contextual documents regarding GPL development
j. Search for other ways of flipping pro-IP mechanisms on their head a la copyleft, creative commons, PUBPAT
k. Submit question list to journal
l. Research trauma theory of addiction
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