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Real Anti-Racism:
It’s not what you thinkPosted in Thoughts
Shaking the hand of someone you disagree with isn’t as much fun as shouting them down, but it is far more effective.
When you live in small groups on the savanna, as our ancestors did for most of our evolutionary history, it pays to be suspicious of strangers. Other groups were competition. Strangers didn’t drop by for a cup of tea and a friendly chat about our emotional well being. We couldn’t afford to see a stranger as a real person at all. It was an “us versus them” world. Fear and aggression were the only rational responses. People who did well in that world (AKA our ancestors, the people from whom we get our DNA), knew that the only safe thing was to beat strangers with a club first and ask questions later.
Fear of “The Other” is hardwired, and talking about it doesn’t help.
We may not live in small groups on the savanna any more, but our brains don’t know that. For better or worse we are stuck with our evolutionary baggage. Nothing is going to change that. When you encounter someone who your brain perceives as “other”– and by this I mean you personally, dear reader, as well as myself and every other human on the planet — all of that machinery jumps to life in milliseconds. Long before we are consciously aware of anything, our brains are screaming “Danger Will Robinson! Danger!”
Call this tribalism. Call it racism. Call it in-group/out-group dynamics. Call it identity politics. Call it polarization. Call it whatever you like. It all comes down to the same thing. When we perceive someone as other our reactions are hard wired, preconscious, and impossible to turn off.
Good intentions don’t matter. Get high and sing Kumbaya all night. Talk about it until the cows come home. Hold workshops. Post platitudes or scream about it on the internet. If you want to judge the effectiveness of those strategies all you have to do is pick up the paper. The louder the mob screams, the more ground they lose. We’ve tried those approaches. They make things worse, not better.
Quoting Einstein’s famous parable, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
There is only one solution: Humanize yourself by embracing the humanity of others.
If you perceive someone as other you will respond to them as a threat. There’s nothing we can do about that. Or is there? Take a step back and the answer is obvious. We can’t change how we react to other, but we can change who we perceive as other.
There is going on 70 years of really fascinating sociological, psychological, political and even neurological research that all supports the same conclusion: If you know and respect someone, it’s hard not to care about them. Break bread together, laugh together, talk deeply, listen, show respect (even when it’s difficult), build bridges, find common purpose and work arm in arm.
I could dig into that research, but mercifully for you I won’t. Instead I am going to share an uplifting and illustrative story of what effective anti-racism really looks like.
How did a Black musician change the hearts of hundreds of Klansmen?
Daryl Davis is a Black blues and jazz musician with a very strange hobby. He goes to events like KKK rallies not to shout or protest, but to listen, shake hands, talk, and befriend. Literally hundreds of the Klan members who Daryl Davis has become friends with have renounced the Klan. He has a large collection of their robes, including the robe of a man who, when they met, was the Grand Wizard himself.
Read that last sentence again. Then if you honestly care about fighting racism you owe it to yourself to invest 18 minutes and listen to Daryl Davis’s story in his own words.
This is not your Woke friend’s Anti-Racism.
It feels good to gang up and shout at people. The difference between the shouters and the shoutees makes it really easy to tell who is “us” and who is “them.” Our brains love that. The dopamine flows like a river.
But that is not what Daryl Davis did. There was no shouting about racism. Terms like “White privilege” and “White fragility” were never used. Daryl Davis never complained about microaggressions or political correctness. DEI workshops were not part of the program. Mr. Davis did not wear his feelings on his sleeve. Quite the contrary, Daryl Davis listened even to open hatred and tried to understand where it was coming from. There was no talk of victims and oppressors. There were no social media attacks or calls for deplatforming. There was no virtue signaling about Wokeness.
Instead, Daryl Davis treated those who were predisposed to hate him with dignity and respect. He listened. He questioned. He befriended. He humanized himself by seeing and acknowledging the humanity of others, including those with whom he deeply disagreed. In the process he did what few have ever accomplished. Daryl Davis changed the hearts of hundreds of the most committed racists in the nation.
This is what real, effective anti-racism looks like. And as Davis mentions at the end of his talk, if he can do it, so can we.
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Watching Rome Burn & Hell Freeze
The fun physics of global cataclysmPosted in For Your Consideration
What do record fire seasons in the West, record hurricane seasons in the Atlantic, record winter storms in the South and the hottest years in history have to do with each other? Everything.
This article originally appeared in the December 2019 issue of my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Schools in the Time of COVID
The Decision Will Ultimately Make ItselfPosted in Thoughts
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. Yes, schools are desperately important to kids. No, COVID-19 doesn’t care, and COVID is making the rules right now. Attempts to open schools this fall will fail of their own accord. The relevant question is how to meet the needs of children, families and the community in the face of that reality.
COVID-19 Arrives
The Humanitarian Disaster is HerePosted in Thoughts
Currently new cases of COVID-19 in Arizona are doubling every 7 days. ICU beds in the state are already full. The rest of the country isn’t that far behind us. You do the math.
Correctly Predicting Failure
It’s time for scientists to get loudPosted in Thoughts
Now is not the time for scientists to be circumspect and silent. We are on the short end of a battle over whether truth even matters. If scientists do not stand up for what is real, who will?
Typhoid Mary on Two Wheels
Spreading COVID one lap at a timePosted in Thoughts
The morning cyclist in my neighborhood may not be standing in the Michigan Statehouse carrying a gun and demanding her right to spread contagion far and wide, but she may as well be.
Pine Boxes
Invest now, the numbers are going upPosted in Success & FailureThoughts
You know those nice charts and graphs that make it look like we are over the hump of COVID-19 and that things are about to get better? Those predictions are dead wrong, with an unfortunate emphasis on “dead.”
Scientists Stuck Inside
Curiosity in the Time of COVIDPosted in For Your ConsiderationThoughts
Imagine three gregarious scientists, each with the gift of the gab, all coping with stay-at-home orders. Of course we started a livestream/podcast talk show! What else would we do? Welcome to the kickoff episode of Scientists Stuck Inside.
After COVID’s First Wave
No getting back to normalPosted in Success & FailureThoughts
Even after COVID-19 kills hundreds of thousands in the U.S. over the coming weeks, we will still be almost as vulnerable to the pandemic as we are today. We’d all love to “get back to normal” after that, but the price could be a second wave, worse than the first. Some see us facing either economic Depression or allowing vast numbers of preventable deaths, but that is a fool’s choice. There are better options if we have the will to find them.
COVID-19
Cutting through the confusionPosted in Success & FailureThoughts
There is a lot of information about COVID-19 out there, much of it misleading. When looking at the future, start with what the science really says.
Great Deceiverism 101
Explanation or Theory? Therein lies the rub.Posted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
If someone can’t tell you how they would know that they are wrong, they don’t have a clue whether they are right.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
One Step at a Time
The not-so-mysterious origin of lifePosted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
Once seemingly incomprehensible, the origin of life no longer seems such a mystery. Most of what once appeared as roadblocks are turning out to be superhighways.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
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Real Anti-Racism:
It’s not what you thinkPosted in Thoughts
-
Watching Rome Burn & Hell Freeze
The fun physics of global cataclysmPosted in For Your Consideration
-
Schools in the Time of COVID
The Decision Will Ultimately Make ItselfPosted in Thoughts
-
COVID-19 Arrives
The Humanitarian Disaster is HerePosted in Thoughts
-
Correctly Predicting Failure
It’s time for scientists to get loudPosted in Thoughts
-
Typhoid Mary on Two Wheels
Spreading COVID one lap at a timePosted in Thoughts
-
Pine Boxes
Invest now, the numbers are going upPosted in Success & FailureThoughts
-
Scientists Stuck Inside
Curiosity in the Time of COVIDPosted in For Your ConsiderationThoughts
-
After COVID’s First Wave
No getting back to normalPosted in Success & FailureThoughts
-
COVID-19
Cutting through the confusionPosted in Success & FailureThoughts
-
Great Deceiverism 101
Explanation or Theory? Therein lies the rub.Posted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
-
One Step at a Time
The not-so-mysterious origin of lifePosted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
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Shaking the hand of someone you disagree with isn’t as much fun as shouting them down, but it is far more effective.
When you live in small groups on the savanna, as our ancestors did for most of our evolutionary history, it pays to be suspicious of strangers. Other groups were competition. Strangers didn’t drop by for a cup of tea and a friendly chat about our emotional well being. We couldn’t afford to see a stranger as a real person at all. It was an “us versus them” world. Fear and aggression were the only rational responses. People who did well in that world (AKA our ancestors, the people from whom we get our DNA), knew that the only safe thing was to beat strangers with a club first and ask questions later.
Fear of “The Other” is hardwired, and talking about it doesn’t help.
We may not live in small groups on the savanna any more, but our brains don’t know that. For better or worse we are stuck with our evolutionary baggage. Nothing is going to change that. When you encounter someone who your brain perceives as “other”– and by this I mean you personally, dear reader, as well as myself and every other human on the planet — all of that machinery jumps to life in milliseconds. Long before we are consciously aware of anything, our brains are screaming “Danger Will Robinson! Danger!”
Call this tribalism. Call it racism. Call it in-group/out-group dynamics. Call it identity politics. Call it polarization. Call it whatever you like. It all comes down to the same thing. When we perceive someone as other our reactions are hard wired, preconscious, and impossible to turn off.
Good intentions don’t matter. Get high and sing Kumbaya all night. Talk about it until the cows come home. Hold workshops. Post platitudes or scream about it on the internet. If you want to judge the effectiveness of those strategies all you have to do is pick up the paper. The louder the mob screams, the more ground they lose. We’ve tried those approaches. They make things worse, not better.
Quoting Einstein’s famous parable, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
There is only one solution: Humanize yourself by embracing the humanity of others.
If you perceive someone as other you will respond to them as a threat. There’s nothing we can do about that. Or is there? Take a step back and the answer is obvious. We can’t change how we react to other, but we can change who we perceive as other.
There is going on 70 years of really fascinating sociological, psychological, political and even neurological research that all supports the same conclusion: If you know and respect someone, it’s hard not to care about them. Break bread together, laugh together, talk deeply, listen, show respect (even when it’s difficult), build bridges, find common purpose and work arm in arm.
I could dig into that research, but mercifully for you I won’t. Instead I am going to share an uplifting and illustrative story of what effective anti-racism really looks like.
How did a Black musician change the hearts of hundreds of Klansmen?
Daryl Davis is a Black blues and jazz musician with a very strange hobby. He goes to events like KKK rallies not to shout or protest, but to listen, shake hands, talk, and befriend. Literally hundreds of the Klan members who Daryl Davis has become friends with have renounced the Klan. He has a large collection of their robes, including the robe of a man who, when they met, was the Grand Wizard himself.
Read that last sentence again. Then if you honestly care about fighting racism you owe it to yourself to invest 18 minutes and listen to Daryl Davis’s story in his own words.
This is not your Woke friend’s Anti-Racism.
It feels good to gang up and shout at people. The difference between the shouters and the shoutees makes it really easy to tell who is “us” and who is “them.” Our brains love that. The dopamine flows like a river.
But that is not what Daryl Davis did. There was no shouting about racism. Terms like “White privilege” and “White fragility” were never used. Daryl Davis never complained about microaggressions or political correctness. DEI workshops were not part of the program. Mr. Davis did not wear his feelings on his sleeve. Quite the contrary, Daryl Davis listened even to open hatred and tried to understand where it was coming from. There was no talk of victims and oppressors. There were no social media attacks or calls for deplatforming. There was no virtue signaling about Wokeness.
Instead, Daryl Davis treated those who were predisposed to hate him with dignity and respect. He listened. He questioned. He befriended. He humanized himself by seeing and acknowledging the humanity of others, including those with whom he deeply disagreed. In the process he did what few have ever accomplished. Daryl Davis changed the hearts of hundreds of the most committed racists in the nation.
This is what real, effective anti-racism looks like. And as Davis mentions at the end of his talk, if he can do it, so can we.
-
What do record fire seasons in the West, record hurricane seasons in the Atlantic, record winter storms in the South and the hottest years in history have to do with each other? Everything.
This article originally appeared in the December 2019 issue of my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. Yes, schools are desperately important to kids. No, COVID-19 doesn’t care, and COVID is making the rules right now. Attempts to open schools this fall will fail of their own accord. The relevant question is how to meet the needs of children, families and the community in the face of that reality.
Currently new cases of COVID-19 in Arizona are doubling every 7 days. ICU beds in the state are already full. The rest of the country isn’t that far behind us. You do the math.
Now is not the time for scientists to be circumspect and silent. We are on the short end of a battle over whether truth even matters. If scientists do not stand up for what is real, who will?
The morning cyclist in my neighborhood may not be standing in the Michigan Statehouse carrying a gun and demanding her right to spread contagion far and wide, but she may as well be.
You know those nice charts and graphs that make it look like we are over the hump of COVID-19 and that things are about to get better? Those predictions are dead wrong, with an unfortunate emphasis on “dead.”
Imagine three gregarious scientists, each with the gift of the gab, all coping with stay-at-home orders. Of course we started a livestream/podcast talk show! What else would we do? Welcome to the kickoff episode of Scientists Stuck Inside.
Even after COVID-19 kills hundreds of thousands in the U.S. over the coming weeks, we will still be almost as vulnerable to the pandemic as we are today. We’d all love to “get back to normal” after that, but the price could be a second wave, worse than the first. Some see us facing either economic Depression or allowing vast numbers of preventable deaths, but that is a fool’s choice. There are better options if we have the will to find them.
There is a lot of information about COVID-19 out there, much of it misleading. When looking at the future, start with what the science really says.
If someone can’t tell you how they would know that they are wrong, they don’t have a clue whether they are right.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Once seemingly incomprehensible, the origin of life no longer seems such a mystery. Most of what once appeared as roadblocks are turning out to be superhighways.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Over his 30 year career as an internationally known astrophysicist, Dr. Jeff Hester was a key member of the team that repaired the Hubble Space Telescope. With one foot always on the frontiers of knowledge, he has been mentor, coach, team leader, award-winning teacher, administrator and speaker, to name a few of the hats he has worn. His Hubble image, the Pillars of Creation, was chosen by Time Magazine as among the 100 most influential photographs in history.

Saving Capitalism from Itself
VIII. Win-Win or Lose-Lose, Our Choice
Much of the economic discussion between liberals and conservatives is an argument over how to arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. The only question that really matters is how to keep the whole ship from going under. (The final installment in an 8 part series on Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.”)
Capital in the Twenty-First Century deserves the attention that it has gotten because it has changed the terms of the discussion. Piketty is impervious to ideological criticism from either the right or the left for the simple reason that he has no ideology. He doesn’t care about invisible hands or the mystical power of the individual. But at the same time he is anything but a Marxist. He has no love for planned economies, big government or the welfare state.
Piketty replaces ideology with a science of capitalism
Piketty is something very different. He is a capitalist, but instead of blindly singing the praises of free markets, Piketty looks past the rhetoric and asks, “How do capitalist economies really evolve?” He answers that question by logically examining the system, developing a theory, making predictions, and then using data to see whether those predictions hold true.
I think that is what draws me personally to Piketty more than anything else. He approaches capitalism as a physicist approaches physics. He follows evidence and analysis where they lead, and then accepts what he finds regardless of what he would prefer to be true.
The result? There is much to recommend capitalism, but that like any complex system, capitalism has flaws. The worst of those flaws is that capitalism inevitably leads to unsustainable runaway inequality.
Economic and political breakdown are natural consequences
Extreme concentration of wealth, events like the crisis of 2008, the collapse of urban centers, increasingly violent unrest among marginalized groups, collapse of the middle class, the rise of a moneyed and powerful aristocracy, the decay of democracy into plutocracy – these are not aberrations. They are not things that will go away as capitalism lifts all boats. Nor are they things that can be controlled using the traditional tools of regulation or Keynesian economics.
Instead, all of these things are consequences of how capitalist economies naturally evolve. And as runaway inequality builds, what many consider the defining benefits of capitalism evaporate. If you hold up a brick and let go, the brick will fall. If you start out a capitalist economy, runaway inequality will eventually ensue. And when it does, capitalism will destroy itself.
Conservatives, Liberals and Deck Chairs on the Titanic
Once you wrap your head around what Piketty is saying, you come to realize that most of the current heated political debate between the right and the left is really an argument over how to arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Those debates are pointless. The only question that really matters in the long run is how to keep the ship called capitalism from sinking and taking us all with it, rich and poor alike.
The only way to save capitalism from itself is to address the real problem directly. That means reigning in runaway inequality, period, full stop.
Runaway inequality is the enemy, regardless of who you are
If you are a libertarian you want all people to have an opportunity to participate in society and succeed on their own merits. Runaway inequality is your enemy.
If you are a fiscal conservative who prefers smaller government, you want the private sector economy to provide for people’s needs so that the government doesn’t have to. Runaway inequality is your enemy.
If you are a progressive who battles for the political and economic freedom and success of minority and underrepresented groups, runaway inequality is your enemy.
If you are a small business owner or a corporate retailer, your business depends on a healthy middle class with ample liquidity. Runaway inequality is your enemy.
If you are a member of the Chamber of Commerce, runaway inequality is the foremost threat to business and commerce in your area.
If you are the head of a wealthy family, you want your grandchildren to live in a world worth living in. You want your wealth to mean something, and you want capitalism to survive. Yes, even if you are a member of the top 1% of the top 1%, ultimately runaway inequality is your enemy too.
In short, if you are anyone who thinks that capitalism is the superior economic system and who wants to see it survive and thrive, then the runaway inequality that inevitably arises in a capitalist system is your worse enemy.
If Runaway Inequality is the enemy, that is what you have to address
So what can be done about runaway inequality? The best answer would be for those in possession of large piles of wealth to choose to drastically reduce their own compensation, drastically increase employee salaries, use their wealth to construct public infrastructure, and increase their philanthropy.
In short, the idea situation would be for the wealthy to choose to put significant fractions of their wealth back into the economy. The return on that investment would not be further wealth. Instead, the return would be a healthier political, social and above all economic climate in which to live and do business.
Unfortunately, in the real world that won’t happen, leaving it to society as a whole to act.
To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
The U.S. Declaration of Independence is built around a powerful vision of the core purpose and duty and responsibility of government. To fulfill that responsibility government has one duty that in the long run is more important that any other. It is the responsibility of government to reign in runaway inequality.
A Win-Win solution: Turning Inequality into Infrastructure
Piketty talks about what such a program would look like. It would need to include significant taxes on accumulated wealth. It would need to include very high marginal tax rates on upper incomes. Tax cuts for the wealthy are exactly the wrong policy if you want capitalism to thrive. Addressing runaway inequality might even include purposeful use of inflation to reduce the real value of accumulated wealth.
In one sense it makes little difference how that money is spent. The important thing is that runaway inequality is kept in check. But there are obvious things to do with it. We live in a nation and world of crumbling infrastructure. Rapidly changing times require continuous reeducation of a workforce. The research needed to lay the foundation for tomorrow’s advances is both inherently risky and typically does not offer the kinds of short-term returns needed to attract private investment.
These are things that the invisible hand of the market does not do so well, but they are all necessary for the health of the economy. Paying for them using accumulated wealth is win-win. It keeps the economy going by reigning in inequality, while at the same thing keeping the economy going by strengthening the infrastructure upon which economic prosperity depends.
The ship is seriously listing. If we don’t want it to go down, it’s probably time that we stop arguing and start bailing.
Saving Capitalism from Itself: An eight part series exploring ideas from Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Saving Capitalism from Itself ^ VIII. Win-Win or Lose-Lose, Our Choice ©
Dr. Jeff Hester
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