Viewing posts for the category ruminations
Daniel Yankelovich (1924-2017), an award-winning public opinion pollster, observed late in his career that government leaders, news organizations, and experts adhere to a dysfunctional, oversimplified understanding of public engagement. They put a premium on delivering information, often forgetting that when faced with hard choices, people make their decisions based on values and convictions more than information. This process takes time, sometimes decades. It requires conflict, dialogue, listening, growth, and deliberation.
In our digital information age, speed wins. Faster and faster. Some people suppose that democracy and technical progress are incompatible because democracy is too slow. Controversies around artificial intelligence (AI) tend to focus on the rapid pace of its growth and scale, the rapidly increasing fears and hopes around its consequences, and the difficulties of governments, businesses, and citizens in coming to grips with it all, including the explosive buildout of data centers.
American historian Jill Lepore (author of These Truths: A history of the United States) has a new book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State (Liveright, 2026). It's not just about artificial intelligence, but a larger context which she calls the Artificial State. From the book:
Dave Chapman of the Real Organic movement interviewed me in February 2023.
Since the Soil Carbon Coalition began in 2008 I've sampled soils and measured soil carbon and soil carbon change at hundreds of locations across North America. My basic question was, given that Life, and the circle of life, was the most powerful and creative planetary force, how do we humans work with it, as part of it? I knew that soil carbon was a critical factor for human health and survival. After some research and experiments I figured measuring soil carbon was a simpler task than measuring water in the soil, which was the #1 issue on the land almost everywhere--too dry, too wet, water too dirty.
In discussions of regenerative agriculture, soil health, and climate change, it's common to encounter these kinds of questions:
Soil Carbon Coalition is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization