Odd How Long It Takes For This To Sink In

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

"Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction." James Madison

And Madison took his examples from Greek & Roman writings 2000 years old!

The problem can't be one of education alone. Rather, our sea of people is simply expanding faster than are our old methods for encouraging cultural diffusion of ideas.

If HOW we run student education & workforce training doesn't change, fast enough .... we inevitably end up with "dead zones" at the bottom of our expanding sea of (changing) citizens.

It's not just factions, it's all aspects of all Union or team or workforce interactions.

If you don't like change ... you can't love your own kids, or our changing world.

Recombination. Ya gotta love it. There's no alternative.

Lars P. Syll — The human capital controversy

Lars buries "human capital" with increasing returns to scale. "Human capital" is a modeling move to deal with increasing returns to scale, because ideas involve increasing returns to scale and increasing returns to scale is incompatible with the neoclassical model. The move does't work. If you are following this debate, you will want to read this.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
The human capital controversy
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Umair Haque — Let's Save Great Ideas from the Ideas Industry

What was your favorite TED talk this year? I found both Amanda Palmer's and Nilofer'sspectacular. Yet, this year, TED made me wonder about Great Ideas, and our relationship with them. And I began to ask myself: even if we enjoy a great TED talk, should the rise of "TED thinking" concern us just a tiny bit?

Let me be very clear: I use that phrase not to refer to the extravaganza that is TED, and though I use TED as an example, this post isn't really just about TED — but let the phrase "TED thinking" serve as a shorthand for the way we've come to think about ideas and how we share them, whether it's through an 18-minute talk, an 800-word blog post, or the latest business "best-seller." Hence, this post isn't really about TED (so please don't leave me raging comments saying "But my favorite TED talk!!!"). "TED thinking" is just a symptom: and the underlying syndrome is our broken relationship with Great Ideas. Herewith, my tiny argument:

TED thinking assumes complex social problems are essentially engineering challenges, and that short nuggets of Technology, Edutainment, and Design can fix everything, fast and cheap. TED thinking's got a hard determinism to it; a kind of technological hyperrationalism. It ignores institutions and society almost completely. We've come to look at these quick, easy "solutions" as the very point of "ideas worth spreading."

But this seems to me to miss the point and power of ideas entirely. Einstein's great equation is not a "solution"; it is a theory — whose explanations unravel only greater mysteries and questions. It offers no immediate easy, quick "application" in the "real world," but challenges us to reimagine what the "real world" is; it is a Great Idea because it offers us something bigger, more lasting, and more vital than a painless, disposable "solution."

Yet in the eyes of TED thinking, it is of limited, perhaps little, value....

The Harvard Business Review — HBR Blog Network
Let's Save Great Ideas from the Ideas Industry
by Umair Haque | Director of Havas Media Labs
(ht Michel Bauwens at P2P Foundation)

Dani Rodrick — Ideas over Interests

The most widely held theory of politics is also the simplest: the powerful get what they want. Financial regulation is driven by the interests of banks, health policy by the interests of insurance companies, and tax policy by the interests of the rich. Those who can influence government the most – through their control of resources, information, access, or sheer threat of violence – eventually get their way....

Yet this explanation is far from complete, and often misleading. Interests are not fixed or predetermined. They are themselves shaped by ideas – beliefs about who we are, what we are trying to achieve, and how the world works. Our perceptions of self-interest are always filtered through the lens of ideas.

Read the rest at Project Syndicate
Ideas over Interests

by Dani Rodrick | Professor, Harvard University Kennedy School of Government

There may be trouble with this like due to something amiss at Project Syndicate. I got in initially but am having difficulty now. UPDATE: Link working again now.