• THE ‘PAPERLESS’ OFFICE OF THE FUTURE, predicted for so long by so many, is far from fruition. As logical as it sounds, and even apart from fears of lost data from long-term power outage and/or generational technology changes that make digital data irretrievable, “the gravitational pull to stay with paper is so strong because how you do stuff with paper is built into the DNA of every human. We all went to school, learned how to play with construction paper and glue and pencils, then got to be adults and are just doing a sophisticated version of that.” Transition with successful implementation involves technology, processes, information governance protocol, time & financial resources – but the costs of keeping and retrieving paper versus relatively instantaneous access “is just nuts” and ‘paperless’ business is indeed slowly progressing. [LEGAL TECH NEWS – Aug 16]
  • WITH P.C. POLICE HOUNDING COLLEGE ADMINISTRATORS across the nation, at least one top university has finally responded to the ludicrousness of Political Correctness on campus. A recent poll found 80% of undergraduates favor “liberal conception of campus free speech rights,” but the problem is that a fraction of the other 20% are the ones that win out too often. The University of Chicago Dean of Students welcomed new students this term with a widely-reported letter “rejecting the culture of political correctness that has stifled free speech at campuses…advising students that U. of C. does not support ‘trigger warnings’ or condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives other than their own… Students should expect to be engaged in rigorous debate that may challenge and even cause discomfort.”
  • 56% OF EMAIL RECIPIENTS AND 40% OF FACEBOOK USERS “CLICKED ON A LINK FROM AN UNKNOWN SENDER that could have been crawling with malware.” The 1,700 college student experiment then subsequently sent each a questionnaire which explained the study and asked why they did or didn’t click on the link (which had displayed a message about “photos from a week earlier New Year’s party”). It turned out that while 78% of participants responded they were “aware of the risks of unknown links,” a large majority of those who clicked said that they did it simply out of “curiosity – either wanting to see the photos or were curious to know who the sender was… without regard for malware infection or identity theft.” [NAKEDSECURITY.COM – Sep 1, 16]
  • HUMAN HISTORY “AMOUNTS TO LESS THAN AN EYE-BLINK IN THE SPAN OF A PLANET SOME 4.6 BILLION YEARS OLD.” The earth has (or will very soon have) entered a new epoch – with Holocene, the present epoch which has lasted around 12,000 years, is transitioning to a new episode of geological time known as the Anthropocene. The definition is based essentially on acknowledgment that “humans, far from being mere passengers on the planet’s surface, now fundamentally affect the way it works.” Elements which have led atmospheric chemists and scientists to this conclusion include growth of carbon-dioxide concentration in atmosphere & ocean acidity, nitrogen levels in soil & living organisms, shrinking river deltas, plastics & ash fallout (from nuclear weapons tests) in the rocks, radioactive decay levels, and so forth. “On present trends, numerous species will vanish… and techno-fossils will appear in the nearer rather than distant future.” [THE ECONOMIST – Sep 3, 16]
  • “WE AND OUR KIDS ARE RAPIDLY BECOMING THE ‘NOAH’ GENERATION, charged with saving the last pairs… Our natural world is rapidly disappearing…as we are bump up against and pierce planetary boundaries – on forests, oceans, ice melt, species extinctions and temperature – from which Mother Nature will not be able to recover” (at least in foreseeable lifetimes). The Oxford Junior Dictionary, aimed at elementary students, purports to do its part by dropping certain ‘nature’ words and introducing vocabulary deemed more “relevant to the lives of modern children… OUT are: acorn, dandelion, fern, nectar, otter, pasture and willow; IN their place are: broadband, blog, cut-and-paste, MP3 player, and voicemail.”  [LEVINE BRIEFING NOTES – Sep 7, 16]

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. // A study in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that people in their 20s and 30s have the “highest levels of anxiety, depression and stress, while people in later generations had higher levels of happiness.”  

    “I spent years searching for the meaning of life, only to find that it had no practical business application.”