Why Wall Street Always Blows It

Collin has alerted me to an excellent article in Atlantic, Why Wall Street Always Blows It,by Henry Blodget. Here are some keepers:

"...But most bubbles are the product of more than just bad faith, or incompetence, or rank stupidity; the interaction of human psychology with a market economy practically ensures that they will form. In this sense, bubbles are perfectly rational—or at least they’re a rational and unavoidable by-product of capitalism (which, as Winston Churchill might have said, is the worst economic system on the planet except for all the others). Technology and circumstances change, but the human animal doesn’t. And markets are ultimately about people."

***************

"...So what can we learn from all this? In the words of the great investor Jeremy Grantham, who saw this collapse coming and has seen just about everything else in his four-decade career: “We will learn an enormous amount in a very short time, quite a bit in the medium term, and absolutely nothing in the long term.” Of course, to paraphrase Keynes, in the long term, you and I will be dead. Until that time comes, here are three thoughts I hope we all can keep in mind.

First, bubbles are to free-market capitalism as hurricanes are to weather: regular, natural, and unavoidable. They have happened since the dawn of economic history, and they’ll keep happening for as long as humans walk the Earth, no matter how we try to stop them. We can’t legislate away the business cycle, just as we can’t eliminate the self-interest that makes the whole capitalist system work. We would do ourselves a favor if we stopped pretending we can.

Second, bubbles and their aftermaths aren’t all bad: the tech and Internet bubble, for example, helped fund the development of a global medium that will eventually be as central to society as electricity. Likewise, the latest bust will almost certainly lead to a smaller, poorer financial industry, meaning that many talented workers will go instead into other careers—that’s probably a healthy rebalancing for the economy as a whole. The current bust will also lead to at least some regulatory improvements that endure; the carnage of 1933, for example, gave rise to many of our securities laws and to the SEC, without which this bust would have been worse.

Lastly, we who have had the misfortune of learning firsthand from this experience—and in a bust this big, that group includes just about everyone—can take pains to make sure that we, personally, never make similar mistakes again. Specifically, we can save more, spend less, diversify our investments, and avoid buying things we can’t afford. Most of all, a few decades down the road, we can raise an eyebrow when our children explain that we really should get in on the new new new thing because, yes, it’s different this time.

Dust to dust, ashes to ashes

image by Simran Gleason, 1997

Jeanette has alerted me to a fine Lenten devotional resource, Journey to the Cross. It's done by the d365 people. This was tonight's entry into the journey:

Ashes: what the fire leaves behind. Dust: what wind, rain and decomposition leave behind. What can you leave behind on this Journey to the Cross?

Tonight I am thinking of a dear woman who is in a skilled care facility. C.F. has Parkinson's, osteoporosis, dementia and a broken leg. She is turning into dust before our very eyes.

Tonight I am thinking of another dear friend whose husband has left her for another woman, and who now faces the dissolution of her marriage, the sale of her beloved home, worry, anger and loneliness. She is has been tasting ashes for months now.

I'm wondering if Lent is not only about what I choose to leave behind, but about my response to life's storms and firestorms. And I remember how I am dust, and that I will return to dust. I ask for the grace to sit still, so that I can be re-formed, now and in the hour of my death.

"Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still." --T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

QUOTE: Barack Obama, 2-24-09

"...In a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger, or yield to the politics of the moment. My job — our job — is to solve the problem. Our job is to govern with a sense of responsibility."

--Barack Obama, in his first address to Congress

With a few changes, couldn't this be spoken to the church? "...we cannot afford to minister out of anger, or yield to the outlook of the moment."

What do you think?

Meditation for Worship: February 22, 2009

It is Transfiguration Sunday.

Our readings are:
Mark 9:2-9
2 Cor 4:3-6
2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6

The person who was to have done our mediation has gotten sick, so I am filling in on short notice. I am using this prayer (with minor adaptions) by Bruce Prewer, of the Uniting Church in Australia, at Text This Week

Father,

Our days are spent between light and darkness.
Often, as the result of our own sin, or the evil of others,
we find ourselves in the darkness.
On other precious occasions we find ourselves caught up in your light and love.
More often we are in between, busy in the half light,
trying to make the best of a compromising existence,
stumbling and falling,
rising and achieving.
With your help we make some headway,
but still fall far short from the light of your glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Most gracious God,
please persist with your mission of saving us all.
By your grace, banish our darkness and enlighten us today.
Do not allow us to linger dolefully in guilt or self pity.
Make us bold to move to where the shadows are fewer,
even though the brighter light shows up more of our flaws.
Please give us more of the light of Christ that our lives may declare your praise.
In his name we pray;

"A Crustaceous Crowd of Post-Christendom Christians"

From First Things, this blog entry speaks to the importance of preserving and transmitting Christian culture, as well as protesting against it. I love the imagery of hermit crabs and turtles, and note that the ocean contains both. But all you missionals out there: do you agree with Milliner's claim that you "disparage cultural Christianity?"

Cold-Blooded Christianity
By Matthew J. Milliner

Friday, February 13, 2009, 8:24 AM

To scan the popular Christian publications today is to conclude that the category of heresy has not been lost, but it has been relocated. The new anathema is “cultural Christianity.” “Missional Christians” disparage it. The supposed demise of Christendom is the rallying cry of young, hip evangelicals. Many would prefer to be labeled “Arian” than derided as “Constantinian.” They suspect even classical Christian doctrine, infected as it supposedly is with the cultural categories of Greek thought.

For them, culture is as dispensable to Christianity as a hermit crab’s shell is to the crab. The true essence of the gospel might don cultural attire when necessary, but only to just as quickly cast it off, seeking new garb to attract a fresh set of converts. Hence the jettisoning of one more outgrown shell—the Mainline Protestant ascendancy of American Christianity—is cause for the post-Christendom crowd to rejoice. From this perspective, glorious stone edifices in Manhattan such as Fifth Avenue Presbyterian and St. Thomas’ Episcopal are but discarded seashells scattered on the church’s historical shoreline. The Holy Spirit has found new and better habitations, like house-churches and theology-on-tap sessions in bars.

For others, culture is less easily distinguished from Christianity. It is almost as indispensable to Christianity as a turtle’s shell is to the turtle. A turtle is permanently fused to its habitation by its backbone and ribs; the shell is inextricable from the creature itself. Removing it would rip the animal apart. In its single shell lie a turtle’s protection, distinction, and beauty. This unique relationship to its hardened exterior is what places turtles among the earth’s oldest reptiles—contemporaries of both dinosaurs and us. This relationship to culture calls to mind St. Patrick’s Cathedral, also on Fifth Avenue. When one thinks of “American Catholicism,” one does not think of an abstract idea—one thinks instead of the shimmering stone edifice packed with worshipers at 3 p.m. on any given weekday in a way that its neighboring churches, say St. Thomas’ and Fifth Avenue Presbyterian, are not.

This turtle/hermit crab distinction may not rival H. Richard Niebuhr’s typology in Christ and Culture, and by no means is it a perfect analogy. But it may prove instructive nonetheless.

These differing ideas of Christianity and culture—the expendable versus the essential—play themselves out in how different scholars grapple with one of the biggest religion stories of the hour, the explosion of Pentecostal Christianity in the Global South. For the hermit crab approach, consider Alister McGrath’s characteristically lucid history of Protestantism, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea. He knows that the Protestant brain drain to older traditions—converts to Catholicism or Orthodoxy—constitutes a problem. Finding himself in a difficult field position, he punts to Pentecostalism, and in this passage one can almost hear his foot hitting the pigskin:

"So what of the future of Protestantism? Those who base their answer on its fortunes in Western Europe, its original heartlands, may offer a somewhat negative answer. But for those who have reflected on its remarkable advances elsewhere, such an answer is inadequate. Yes, the sun may set on a movement—but it is too easily forgotten that the sun rises again the next day. "

Protestantism has had its moments in the past; it will have them again in the future.

The growth of Pentecostalism enables McGrath to end his history of Protestantism on a triumphal note. He rejoices that Pentecostals “see no need to engage with past memories of Christendom or modernity, proceed[ing] directly to the next generation of ideas and approaches.” Here is a movement liberated from “captivity to the cultural habits of early modern Western Europe,” and now fully adapted to the forces of globalization and entrepreneurship. The hermit crab crawls on, happily leaving the shell of European and American Christendom behind.

Others, however, have reflected on Pentecostalism’s remarkable recent advances, and remain less than sanguine about the Protestant future. Robert Louis Wilken, writing in the January issue of First Things, is among them. “True,” he admits, “one can point to the astonishing growth of Christianity in the Southern Hemisphere, especially in Africa and Asia, and to the unbounded enthusiasm evangelicals and Pentecostals have brought to Christian mission. But energy and enthusiasm are no substitute for deep roots, vital and durable institutions and a thick and vibrant culture.”

Wilken asks some serious questions that McGrath’s need for Pentecostal relief from Protestant problems may have led him to avoid: “Will the younger [Pentecostal] churches have the staying power to pass on the faith in its fullness generation after generation and give rise to distinctly Christian societies? And how will they fare in the face of aggressive Muslim communities alongside which some live?”

....continued here, and concluding:

True, there may be room in Christianity for relationships to culture that resemble both the hermit crab and the turtle. But should the Church wish to produce further generations of Christians with the luxury to protest Christendom, she needs to preserve and transmit Christian culture in addition to faith. Eliot, no stranger to nuance, on this matter expresses himself quite plainly: “I believe the choice before us is between the formation of a new Christian culture, and the acceptance of a pagan one.”

In an arresting passage, he warns that to neglect the transmission of Christian culture is to destroy “our ancient edifices to make ready the ground upon which the barbarian nomads of the future will encamp in their mechanized caravans.” He would be unsurprised to see those edifices further eroded today. He might be surprised to see a crustaceous crowd of post-Christendom Christians celebrating the loss.

The Adventures of Flannelgraph Jesus

Stumbled on this over at Call Me Ishmael's blog. Great satire!

Is the Stock Market a Ponzi Scheme? Part 2

In November of 2002 Dan Goldstein wrote The Stock Market as a Ponzi Scheme: FAQs.

In May of 2004 Dave Pollard wrote The Stock Market as a Ponzi Scheme."

What is especially interesting to me is that both were written several years before the recent "bubble burst." What do you think? What is wrong with the arguments these guys are giving? Or are they right? Again, please 'splain it to me.

Is the stock market itself a Ponzi scheme? Part 1

Listening to Tess Vigeland interview Roger Lowenstein on Marketplace tonight didn't do much to inspire confidence. Read or listen to "Rethinking the Long Term" here. Note how Lowenstein never really gives a clear definition of "long term."

Lowenstein: The way most of us get our reward day in, day out, is because the stock goes up and we can sell at a higher price. And what does that mean, the stock goes up? It means other people are coming in and bidding it up. So, you know, at least in the short term, even us normal investors -- people who wouldn't associate ourselves with people who invested in Bernie Madoff -- we're dependent on other people coming in and buying those stocks in an absolute sense. That's what a Ponzi scheme is.

Vigeland: But at least we think that we're investing in something besides air, right?

Lowenstein: Well, we are. I mean, I think you're asking me, is there really a difference. And yes, there is a difference, because underneath the Ponzi scheme, as you say, there is nothing but air in the long term. You know, when you invest in the stock market, you do own a share of a productive enterprise and they have the power to pay dividends. And by long-term that ought to mean that you think this is a good business, it's got a good franchise, it has, you know, customer base and so on. And the point I was making is, if you're very dependent on the short term -- let's just say you got to sell by next Tuesday, you're going to sell on Tuesday or Wednesday at 3:30, or whatever it is -- you're really on the hook for whether other people come in or not.

Vigeland: When we think of the short term versus the long term, I wonder if that definition has changed at all because of the economic crisis? I love your point in the article where you say, look, if you are actually watching what is going on from day to day, even month to month in this thing, you are not truly in it for the long term. What is the long term?

Lowenstein: Right. Well, you know, I don't think it's that the definition has changed so much. It's how we perceive it has changed because of how things are going. When markets were going up -- and it was a good long time where, with some fluctuations along the way, they mostly did go up -- everybody's a true blue, got religion, long-term investor, I can withstand the downturns.

Vigeland: Right.

Lowenstein: Yada yada yada. But I think what we're seeing now, and not so much the definition of the term or the long term has changed, is we're realizing what it really means to withstand the fluctuations or the down periods. This is a pretty severe down period. And so, you know, while we may have said to ourselves and to others we're in it for the long haul, I don't think we really tested ourselves or understood what that can mean.

Vigeland: Then it sounds like maybe we do need to change our notion of what the long term is. If we're not factoring in a market like we've seen over the last year, then maybe we're not as long term as we think we are?

Lowenstein: You really have to know why you're in a stock. If you're investing long term, it's got to be money that you're not going to need in eight, 12, even 24 months. You know, if you're worried because you're going to have to pull that money out to pay college tuition or something, that money shouldn't be in the stock market -- it never should have been in the stock market.

So long term means over 24 months? Over five years? Over a decade? To me, Lowenstein's final remarks sound like a person shouldn't sink any money into the stock market that she wouldn't mind losing. But then the words of the Oregon Lottery disclaimer immediately flash in my mind: "[this]is a game of chance and should not be played for investment purposes. Lottery games should be played for entertainment purposes only."

I'm no economist. There's a lot I don't understand, so I need your help. It seems to me that in the "long term"-- whatever that is--no less than in the short term, "we're dependent on other people coming in and buying those stocks." But isn't that just what we mean by a Ponzi scheme?

Somebody, please, "'splain it to me."

QUOTES: from John Maynard Keynes

Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests which are dangerous for good or evil.


--John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

(Thanks to Joanna for bringing this quote to my attention.)

40ft stack of books sculpture at the Berlin Walk of Ideas. The Walk of Ideas is a set of six sculptures made for the 2006 FIFA World Cup football event at Berlin in Germany. The set of sculptures was unveiled on 21 April 2006 at Bebelplatz, a square near the Unter den Linden, at the entrance to Humboldt University. The exhibition was part of the event entitled, Welcome to Germany, the land of ideas and the opening of the exhibition was covered by reporters for the international mass media. The sculptures were displayed until September 2006. (via Wikipedia

Happy 1234567890 Day!

It was Time for Unix Nerds to Celebrate --

On February 13, 2009 at exactly 23:31:30 (UTC), Unix time was equal to '1234567890'. Parties and other celebrations were held around the world, among various technical subcultures, to celebrate 1234567890 day. (Wikipedia)

Thanks to Mike M for the heads up. Unfortunately I missed the magic moment, as I had to leave the computer screen to go pick up Joanna from school. Guess I'll just have to content myself with the memories of the changing millenium.

Cookies, Christ, and the Koran

Tonight at our High school youth group the conversation turned to the question of whether Jesus is the only way, or if other religions are also ways to God. I had made chocolate chip cookies, and three were left in the plastic container. They became the perfect teaching aids. What follows is a transcript of the evening (more or less.)

ME: Okay, well, as I see it, everybody has a front door and a back door into their souls. The front door is reserved for God to speak directly to you, through the testimony of His holy word or through direct encounter. (We read 2 Tim. 3:16, 1 Peter 1:16-21.) The back door is the way He comes into you, indirectly, through the creation. (We read Romans 1:20).

Let's let the container represent you, and let the lid be your "front door." (Having already removed the two cookies, I take the lid off the top of the container.) Let's talk about front doors tonight, and save back doors for later. Now, one way of approaching the question is to consider the other religions' scriptures. Let's let the cookies represent God speaking to us.

1. Now, we could say that everything is Cookie. This is what Hinduism does. They believe that everything is god. Hindus don't think there is any distinction between the container and/or the cookies, or between them and us. I am cookie, you are cookie, we are all Cookie.

(I imagine one kid proceding to bite another kid.) But see? That doesn't seem to fit our experience very well. It would be rather difficult to live out that belief. We'd have to constantly tell ourselves to ignore or deny what was happening to us. So let's shelve it.

2. Another thing we could say is that there are no cookies. That would be like believing there isn't any God speaking to us. That's what naturalists say, people like Dawkins and Hitchens and others who claim that reality reduces to matter in motion.

However there are cookies, aren't there. "Ahh," says the naturalist, "Maybe they are an illusion. A projection of your own consciousness, a wish fulfillment, an opiate to help ease the pain of life: whatever, they are something you dreamed up."

Poppycock! I'm here to tell you I was there when those cookies came out of the oven. I saw them and smelled them and I tasted some crumbs. Do you trust my testimony? Am I a reliable witness? (More nodding heads. This would have been a great point for somebody to have read 1 John 1: 1-4.) It's very important who you trust, who you take to be your authorities. But that's a class in itself. What's the bottom line? There are cookies here!

3. So, do we all agree that there are indeed some cookies before us? (Heads nod.) Well, now all we have to do is decide how many cookies we should put in the container. Let's let one cookie represent the Old Testament, and one the New Testament. People who say there is only one cookie are Jews. They don't believe the other cookies belong in the container. They believe only the OT is the word of God. (I put one cookie in the container.)

Now, we are Christians. We believe that the NT is God's word, too. (I put the second cookie in the container.) But we don't think the third cookie belongs. Let the third cookie represent the Koran.
KID A: How do we know that the third cookie doesn't belong? Or for that matter, that the second cookie does belong? Maybe there should only be one cookie!

ME: Good for you! That's the crux of the problem, isn't it. What should we do?

KID B: Well, the OT has prophecies that the NT fulfills. If you can demonstrate that, you can accept the NT.

ME: Excellent! That's exactly the strategy that Peter uses in his Pentecost sermon. (We read Acts 2:14-36).

(Kid C reads Acts 2:17-21.) See, this is straight from the OT, Peter directly quotes the prophet Joel. Now look what Peter says. (Kid D reads Acts 2:22-24). Peter specifically reminds his listeners of all the miracles, wonders and signs Jesus did, and of his ultimate sign: resurrection.

To further nail his point, he quotes Psalm 16:8-11, a psalm of King David himself. (Kid A reads Acts 2:25-28.) Then he shows how even though the Jews thought it referred to David, it actually is fullfilled in Jesus: (Kid B reads Acts 2:29-36.)

Okay, so there are two cookies in the container. But how do we know there shouldn't be a third?

ME: A crucial question, which we must face if we are to have mature faith. The usual contender for third cookie is the Koran. What criteria do you think we should we use for admitting it into the container?

KID C: The same one as what got the second cookie in.

ME: Okay, and this is where we have some problems. If the OT promises a coming Messiah, and if the NT claims that Jesus is the Messiah, and that He has arrived claiming to be the Son of God and has proved it by dying and rising again, the Koran contradicts that message. Muslims honor Jesus (Isa) as a prophet, but not as God incarnate. Furthermore, they do not believe that "he was crucified, dead, and buried, and that on the third day he was raised from the dead." Rather than fulfilling and completing the NT (as if there was anything more to be fulfilled!) the Muslim narrative requires denying its main character and plotline. It looks like it the third cookie fails the admission test. It may look a lot like a chocolate chip cookie, but in reality it isn't. It shouldn't go in the container.

KID D: Then what if I were a Muslim, who never heard of Jesus? I'd have three cookies in my container from the day I was born. Would that mean I would go to hell?

ME: Another important question, and time is running out. Quickly, I'll just say that if it is true that only two cookies actually belong in our containers, then someone who has three cookies or just one cookie is closer to the truth than someone who has none, or someone who has a dozen, or someone who thinks everything is a cookie.

Look at Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and the other OT saints of Hebrews 11. They only had one cookie in each of their containers--Christ hadn't even been born!--yet they are listed in "the rollcall of the faithful." They aren't in hell. I side with C. S. Lewis on this. Remember Emeth in The Last Battle? Aslan accepts all Emeth's Tash-worship and considers it as directed to Him. But when Emeth thinks Aslan is Tash and Tash is Aslan, Aslan lets out a huge, angry roar. God is merciful, but He is also "jealous."

Muo Li Hua: The Jasmine Flower

Tonight our dear foreign exchange student, Lu Lu Yao and her fellow students from Beijing High School #159 sang a beautiful traditional Chinese folksong, along with the Shasta Middle School Choir and the Young Men's Ensemble. (More about Lu's visit later.) It is called "The Jasmine Flower."

When they began it was immediately familiar to me, as the brief tune the children sing in the first scene of Turandot. Of course, Puccini puts his own stamp on it, but it is still charming:

Là sui monti dell'Est (Over on the Eastern Mountains)

la cicogna cantò. (the stork sang. )

Ma l'april non rifiorì, (But April did not bloom again,)

ma la neve non sgelò. (the snow did not thaw.)

Dal deserto al mar non odi tu (From the desert to the sea do you not hear)

mille voci sospirar: (a thousand voices whisper:)

"Principessa, scendi a me! (Princess, come to me!)

Tutto fiorirà, tutto splenderà!" (Everything will blossom, everything will shine!)

Ah!

"Tutto fioria" indeed! Now if I can only learn it in Mandarin: "Muo Li Hua..."

Lyrics:
好一朵美麗的茉莉花，

好一朵美麗的茉莉花。

芬芳美麗滿枝椏，

又香又白人人誇。

讓我來將你摘下，

送給別人家。

茉莉花啊茉莉花。

(And if only I can learn how to download videos onto my blogs!)

This version has Song Zuying at the Kennedy Center.

This version is done by the Vienna Choir Boys.

And here is a more updated arrangement for harp, violin and cello.

Atheist Bus Ads in London

Scot McKnight wrote:

Have you seen this? What do you think of the approach? The Bible verse chosen? What verse or verses would you choose?

The word of God is on the move in London -- literally. Beginning Feb. 9, three separate Christian groups will launch advertisements on more than 200 of London's buses to convince pedestrians of God's existence. "It may be unpopular and unpleasant, says David Larlham, the assistant general secretary of London's Trinitarian Bible Society, a group that distributes bibles worldwide, "but there is a whole lot of truth in the bible that people need to get to grips with." His organization has paid $50,000 to display posters on 125 of London's red double-decker buses that quote Psalm 53: "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God."

Here's my two cents:

It's too bad a potentially interesting conversation is happening in such an unfortunate venue. Psalm 53 inspired the venerable Ontological Argument, which Alvin Plantinga has retooled in a thought-provoking modal form. It cannot be captured in a bus ad! Admittedly, these days most people consider it unfashionable to argue for God's existence, but does that mean philosophical conversation must be marginalized? ;)

The very fact that these atheists are using bus ads to further their cause indicates that they are more interested in people's hearts than their minds. While this is a legitimate approach--one that the Holy Spirit uses constantly!--the atheists cannot have it both ways. They cannot pretend to be appealing to "reason," while simultaneously they are using media which frustrate and undermine it.

So, the bottom line: Christians don't further the kingdom when we perpetuate contradictions. Let's imitate Paul and "become all things to all people" by fighting the bus ad battle using Travis Greene's method*, and fighting the International Philosophical Quarterly battle using Plantinga's.

*Travis Greene's method: Put up bus ads that read: "There is a God, and he's saving the world. Come join him."

Cultural ADD

GKC wrote, "It is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most." If this is true, should we be on the lookout for an Asian Christian who is able to contemplate Christ for more than three minutes?

(If you find the article below, stimulating, see also Formation in an Electronic Age )


Digital Overload is Frying our Brains

(via Brad) Wired talks with Maggie Jackson

...In Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, Jackson explores the effects of "our high-speed, overloaded, split-focus and even cybercentric society" on attention. It's not a pretty picture: a never-ending stream of phone calls, e-mails, instant messages, text messages and tweets is part of an institutionalized culture of interruption, and makes it hard to concentrate and think creatively...

...Wired.com: Is there an actual scientific basis of attention?

Maggie Jackson: In the last 30 or 40 years, scientists have made inroads into understanding its underlying mechanisms and physiology. Attention is now considered an organ system. It has its own circuitry in the brain, and there are specialized networks carrying out its different forms. Each is very specific and can be traced through neuroimaging and even some genetic research.

While there is still debate among attention scientists, most now conclude that there are three types of attention. The first is orienting — the flashlight of your mind. In the case of visual attention, it involves parts of the brain including the parietal lobe, a brain area related to sensory processing. To orient to new stimuli, two parts of the parietal lobe work with brain sections related to frontal eye fields. This is what develops in an infants' brain, allowing them to focus on something new in their environment.

The second type of attention spans the spectrum of response states, from sleepiness to complete alertness. The third type is executive attention: planning, judgment, resolving conflicting information. The heart of this is the anterior cingulate — an ancient, tiny part of the brain that is now at the heart of our higher-order skills. It's executive attention that lets us move us beyond our impulsive selves, to plan for the future and understand abstraction.

We are programmed to be interrupted. We get an adrenalin jolt when orienting to new stimuli: Our body actually rewards us for paying attention to the new. So in this very fast-paced world, it's easy and tempting to always react to the new thing. But when we live in a reactive way, we minimize our capacity to pursue goals.

Wired.com: What does it mean to be distracted?

Jackson: Literally, it means to be pulled away to something secondary. There's also an a interesting, archaic definition that fell out of favor in the 18th century: being pulled to pieces, being scattered. I think that's a lovely term.

Our society right now is filled with lovely distractions — we have so much portable escapism and mediated fantasy — but that's just one issue. The other is interruption — multitasking, the fragmentation of thought and time. We're living in highly interrupted ways. Studies show that information workers now switch tasks an average of every three minutes throughout the day. Of course that's what we have to do to live in this complicated world.

Wired.com: How do these interruptions affect us?

Jackson: This degree of interruption is correlated with stress and frustration and lowered creativity. That makes sense. When you're scattered and diffuse, you're less creative. When your times of reflection are always punctured, it's hard to go deeply into problem-solving, into relating, into thinking.

These are the problems of attention in our new world. Gadgets and technologies give us extraordinary opportunities, the potential to connect and to learn. At the same time, we've created a culture, and are making choices, that undermine our powers of attention.

Wired.com: Has a direct link been measured between interruptions and neurophysiology?

Jackson: Interruptions are correlated with stress, and a cascade of stress hormones accompany that state of being. Stress, frustration and lowered creativity are pretty toxic. And there are studies showing how the environment shapes brain development in kids.

But I can't say if attention fragmentation really rewires our brains. When you sit at a desk for six hours multitasking like a maniac, are you actually rewiring parts of your attention networks? That's difficult to say right now.

Wired.com: Is establishing that link the next scientific step?

Jackson: It's one priority for future research. Right now, the field of attention science is especially concerned with attention development in children. The networks develop at different paces. Orienting is largely in place by kindergarten. The executive network is largely in place by age 8, but it develops until the mid-20s. Understanding the sweet spots for helping kids develop attention is where the science is at.

Wired.com: So adults are out of luck?

Jackson: We do know that people's attention networks can be trained, though we're not sure how long-lasting the gains are. There are exercises and computer games designed to strengthen attention, sometimes by boosting short-term memory.

The only sort training going on now in the office world is meditation-based, and that's being used more for stress rather than to boost attention, although it does do that. In terms of mainstream research, there's nothing I'm aware of that's being done to help the average adult, though there's tremendous interest in what's possible.

But there are ways to cut back on the multitasking and interruptions, shaping your own environment and work style so that you better use your attentional networks. If you have a difficult problem or a conundrum to solve, you need to think about where you work best. Right now, people hope they'll be able to think or create or problem-solve in the midst of a noisy, cluttered environment. Quiet is a starting point.

The other important thing is to discuss interruption as an environmental question and collective social issue. In our country, stillness and reflection are not especially valued in the workplace. The image of success is the frenetic multitasker who doesn't have time and is constantly interrupted. By striving towards this model of inattention, we're doing ourselves a tremendous injustice.

Wired.com: The subtitle of your book predicts a "coming dark age." Do you really believe this?

Jackson: Dark ages are times of forgetting, when the advancements of the past are underutilized. If we forget how to use our powers of deep focus, we'll depend more on black-and-white thinking, on surface ideas, on surface relationships. That breeds a tremendous potential for tyranny and misunderstanding. The possibility of an attention-deficient future society is very sobering.

A Metaphysics Quiz for Physicists

Are periodic tables of the elements

1) discoveries, or

2) inventions?

That is, does a periodic table correspond to something that exists independently of it, pointing us toward that reality; or is it a way human minds can impose an arbitrary order upon an otherwise confusing set of perceptions?

Are there really such substances as helium and polonium "out there" or are they just conventions that enable us manipulate matter in the ways we want?

If you choose 1) explain why there is a correspondence between such tables and reality.

If you choose 2) explain why these tables "work."

You have one hour. ; )

Thoughts on watching "Network" (1976)

Tonight I watched Network, after seeing it for the first time over 30 years ago. It is a powerful film with a brilliant script. So much of what was then scathing satire has now become commonplace. It is tempting to think that Arthur Jensen's sermon to Howard Beale--while dated--still is prophetic.

Then I remember today's OT reading, Deuteronomy 18:15-20. Reading further, to verse 22, Moses instructs the Israelites: "You may say to yourselves,'How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?' If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously."

So, contrary to current appearances, this is what is true:

1) Not everything can be bought and sold.

2) The world is NOT a business.

3) The evangel is not that we are saved by they market, but rather that we are saved by Jesus Christ.

4) The totality of life on this planet is not determined by the international system of currency, or the banks, or the stock market, or the Fed, or Davos or any other financial tool or institution, but by "one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and ...one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live." (Today's NT reading, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13).

I believe that Arthur Jensen will someday be shown to be a false prophet. Do you?
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Arthur Jensen: [bellowing] You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU...WILL...ATONE!
Arthur Jensen: [calmly] Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those *are* the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that . . . perfect world . . . in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.
Howard Beale: Why me?
Arthur Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.
Howard Beale: I have seen the face of God.
Arthur Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.