Job One is to raise the level of intelligence behind human choice. "Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain" — sure, but can we tone down the foolishness slightly? Many tactics are widely known but seldom applied:

• placing oneself in the shoes of the other side;
• consulting with impartial experts or authorities;
• pausing before acting (especially when strong emotions are present);
• asking higher-level meta-questions, such as "Why am I doing this?"; and
• viewing the current situation within the greater context of history, human experience, and large-scale long-range interactions.

Tuesday, April 18, 2000 at 06:03:37 (EDT) = 2000-04-18

TopicOrganizations - TopicThinking

Someone once said that the British Navy sometime around the 1800's (I don't know the facts) said that it was "designed by geniuses to be run by idiots." - RadRob 12/3/2002

There is an old joke that user interface designers try to make more and more idiotproof designs, and the Universe makes bigger and bigger idiots. And so far, the Universe is winning. RadRob 12/18/2002

(correlates: ByDesign, OnGrace, SublimeNight, ...)