The Limits of Knowledge and Saving the World

Of course there's not limit to how much can be known about this bloated universe, and of course no human can know everything about anything, much less everything.  But when you read and think broadly for long enough, you start to see the parallels between almost any given domain, and have a strong and deep grasp of the main forces shaping human existence (evolution, neuroscience, physics, sociology, learning, human development, genetics, psychology, biochemistry, the human condition, culture, dialectics and logic, linguistics, economics, geophysics, etc.), it becomes a matter of time.  How much time do you spend processing, challenging, discussing, writing about, creating, or otherwise interacting with various domains of knowledge and understanding.  I like the idea of a very broad exposure to all of the main domains, and a few deep dives into different elements of life.  Once a person reaches this place, it's nice to pick one and apply the whole of what you've mastered to furthering that chosen domain for the betterment of all.

I think of the many brilliant early Americans who applied themselves to establishing our initial institutions, and as we progress, I wonder if breadth of knowledge has become so much less a thing (with the waning of liberal arts as a thing), that the fully educated statesmen have been replaced by specifically trained wonks and fluffy leaders.  The prevalence of non-readers, disengaged citizens, and the dearth of broad/deep knowledge of the engaged has left is in quite a difficult state.

There are, to be sure, those who get themselves involved in broad/deep endeavors, and it's a pretty impressive thing to see.  I think of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Charlie Rose.... But I just wonder if there are enough of them, and if there are enough associations/collaborations/organizations/institutions that exist to take advantage of the small proportion of those who have applied themselves to that endeavor.  When I read of Jefferson and Madison and Hamilton and Bacon and Newton and Einstein and Boorstin and Bryson and Bolden.  They are impressive.

With the scope and nature of the challenges and obstacles that are staring us in the face here on earth, notably the immigrant/refugee crisis, virus proliferation and the spread of antibiotic resistance disease, climate change, energy and water shortages, increasingly aged population...  All of these need many levels of leader, from the global to the local level, and what we're turning out from schools are students who are uninterested in learning because they've been inculcated with a culture of paper achievement.  We virtually ignore the most important aspects of education: psychology and relationships, and leadership married to a mastery of another specific domain of knowledge.

This is the real crisis, because all of the other crises are going to be coped with by effective leaders of people who are able to fully (as much as is possible) comprehend the gross and nuanced full scope of the issues.  The fact that we turn out most students who don't read and students who just want the degree instead of the learning that the degree is supposed to certify.  We've got it backward, and we're perpetuating a back-dated idea of how we eventually deal with the problems of the world.

Finally, building a better conduit for transmitting what is known about things to the populace in general is going to be needed if we expect the average American to have a pretty good command of the state of affairs that require our active work to solve.

Charity 2016

If your wondering where to give your hard earned dollars this year to give back to the greater good, consider this.  We're a nation of 360 million relatively rich people.  We absorb immigrants and refugees from around the world, and, for the most part, have jobs and support waiting for them so they, for the most part, can become contributing members of our society.  We have some pretty amazing infrastructure for such things compared to most countries.

In Greece and Turkey, with a total of 85 million people between them, whose economies that don't do nearly as well as we ours, are now absorbing hundreds of thousands or millions of refugees from Syria.  Their citizens are making real, palpable sacrifices to take in and process these people simply because they happen to be adjacent countries.

Now, consider the Syrians, leaving everything behind, risking life in ways dearly more extreme than what the Mexicans coming to the US and more extreme than the original colonists coming to America.  When I thought of asking my Turkish friend what he thought of the situation, I felt the connection that has been there there all along: I know that this is a devastating situation for the entire region, and aside from my taxes funding some marginal support from the US military, where can I contribute to directly help them?

IRC, the International Rescue Committee.  This organization not only resettles refugees from all parts of the world, helping them become contributing members of San Diego, and helping the students directly at Crawford, where I teach, learn English and understand America and what it means to be here, but does so all over the world.  They are on the ground in the places around the world where suffering is the greatest and doing their best to alleviate it.

Please entertain the idea of pushing some of your bounty in their direction.  People over there giving until it hurts even more than normal.

Even in you don't give personally to this particular cause, please feel free to forward this to others who may not have considered this particular organization and its mission.  They willingly occupy one of the most difficult and perilous nexuses between warring nations, sometimes hostile natives, governments, bureaucracy, and the most destitute humans.  Be part of the solution!