It is a monologue written by Mike Daisey and performed/read by Spencer T. Christiano which is a first-person account of how a fan of technology (and especially products of Apple) became disillusioned by visiting a factory in China. Christiano did a fantastic job voicing Daisey, who interweaves three tales: one is his own, personal relationship with technology, the second is the story of Apple, and the third is the story of his visit to Shenzhen, China. I found his style fantastically conversational and personal. The way he writes about technology demonstrates a deep understanding, and he genuinely seems like an eyes-wide-open kind of guy who is willing to lay any judgmental views right in the open.

But you don’t have to take my word for it: you can go to his site and download the whole monologue as a PDF and read it for yourself (it’s licensed with his unique open-source-like agreement).

I was drawn in to the story quickly. I grok the lust for technology, and his description of that experience fits with my own (for an example, one of the things he loved about his first computer — an Apple IIc — was that the keyboard was in Garamond; if that makes no sense to you, then you might not fully appreciate his geekery.) I have a fairly good understanding of the origins of Apple, and Daisey’s details fully corroborated my own. And when he began describing the “retail” side of Shenzen, it fit with what I had heard, such as when SparkFun visited there (although I far more appreciate his description, “Shenzhen looks like Blade Runner threw up on itself. LEDs, neon, and fifteen-story-high video walls covered in shitty Chinese advertising: it’s everything they promised us the future would be.”)

So when he started talking about what the “manufacturing” side of Shenzen was like, I could only assume it was just as accurate. I realize it’s a logical fallacy — a twist on the “ad hominem” fallacy — where I believe a fact to be true solely because I found other facts true.

He then outlined the conditions in the factories which were different from, and, by my gauge, worse than what I had envisioned. I had an impression of workers on an assembly-line putting together and testing electronics.

But I didn’t expect it to be in gigantic rooms where absolute silence is enforced. I didn’t expect such a lack of machinery (it’s cheaper to pay a Chinese worker to install a screw than to make a machine to do it, presumably until some astonishingly large scale.) I didn’t expect there to be suicide nets on the outside of the building. I didn’t expect regular working hours to be so extreme (although the government-approved union-busting and blacklisting would naturally make that so). I certainly didn’t expect these factories to employ the “best and the brightest” — a college education in China gets you a job assembling iPhones.

But then, like I say, you can read all about this yourself in a far more engaging and entertaining form.

So stepping out of the writing, and stepping out of the monologue and the performance, there’s an interesting twist to the story. NPR radio show This American Life had Daisey perform an abbreviated form of the monologue for the January 6, 2012 show. But then they did something unprecedented: on their March 16, 2012 show, they retracted the episode, claiming that Daisey lied.

Now this is unique, first because it’s the first time This American Life actually retracted an episode. But more important, it’s not a retraction because the facts of the account are false, it’s because they didn’t happen to Daisey personally as he had claimed. According to the after-performance discussion with Spencer T. Christiano, producer John W. Borek, and director Kelly Webster, Daisey does not dispute the fabrications and says it is a work of theater, not journalism. On the Star Wars Modern blog titled What Mike Daisey Did Wasn’t Fair – It Was Right., John Powers puts it better than I can: “when did Ira Glass graduate from being a talk radio Casey Kasem to NPR’s Dan Rather?”

I’ll briefly mention that there’s a flurry of activity about this. My take [I'd add, "as if you care", but you, dear reader, are indeed reading this, so I'll meta-self-referentially say it parenthetically] is that journalists like to believe the rules of journalism produce a work that is closest to reality. The truth is, no writing is remotely close to the truth. No account of any event — be it written, photographed, filmed, or recorded — has ever been an adequate substitute for reality. However, it is a new truth, just as this blog entry is a new essay that’s about a new performance of a new monologue by Mike Daisey which is a new transcript based on new performances of Daisey which is a new account … umm … etcetera.

But what I think is so valuable about The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs is the way it paints a picture of the hierarchy that exists. A journalist could play by-the-book and quote a business person, and a worker, and a technology geek, and a Foxconn liaison, and Steve Jobs — and they could never manage to put it together to describe the chain of events. For instance, here’s an attempt to explain the hierarchy I’m talking about:

• An evangelical Apple geek eagerly awaits the newest product from (although having never met the man)
• … Steve Jobs whose staff designs a new version of their latest product and sends a representative to Foxconn in Shenzen, China to meet (a group of strangers, both in relation and in culture)
• … the representatives at Foxconn and they all go to dinner and mingle and go to the shiny factory meeting room and discuss the product when the Apple representative asks to see the factory floor, so the Foxconn people make a call to (knowing they should show an idealized version)
• … the factory manager who sets up (not wanting to lose work and get fired)
• … a mock factory — well, a real factory floor with real products, but with the child labor replaced by their oldest workers who (desperate for employment)
• … go along with the charade and work hard and say all the right things so the representative can report back about the great working conditions (all the while wondering why American workers can’t be so happy for work).

So go back in that list and find the bad guy — find the person who caused the dangerous working conditions, or the child labor. This is where journalism falls down: there is no person who is at fault.

Those parenthetical phrases are key: they describe the gaps that are filled in by the systems we have. Ergo, it is the system itself that is the problem. The system rewards people for making small lies to preserve its own profitability and we humans have created this new life form.

Richards and his staff outlined the situation and attempted to lead the audience to avoid cuts to police (e.g., paraphrasing, “the school budget is out of our hands, and many people say, ‘don’t cut the police force’ so we can consider those two biggest bars on the graph off-the-table.”) He also avoided mentioning the millions of dollars of tax exemptions on certain commercial properties in the city — but thankfully Alex White was there with a brochure describing exactly that. Relatedly, there didn’t seem to be line items for equipment costs for the police (e.g. how much does a patrol car cost for a year?) except for the mounted patrol which, I guess Richards wants to eliminate. I also noted that there was a budget item for the pension fund in addition to paying for pensions in the cost of individual employees.

So I migrated to the Public Safety table and made suggestions that the extreme surplus of police officers should be reduced. I attempted to outline a system that used conviction rates as a benchmark: officers who arrest people who are then convicted of those crimes are “good cops” (who we should keep) and officers who, say, arrest people in a park illegally and don’t get convictions are “bad cops” (who we should let go). Another person at the table brought up the security cameras, and I dovetailed jeir suggestion that we eliminate them unless there is proof they work (specifically: being admitted as evidence in court, since we were sold them on the claim that if someone commits a crime, jeir face is on camera and jee can be arrested.)

But my genius suggestion was that we could create a health plan that any city resident can buy into (expanding from all city employees) which, since it’s a larger pool of participants, will further reduce costs. And it will provide a valuable service to citizens (and particularly small-business owners in the city) as an inexpensive, quality health plan.

Chappell grew up being taught that world peace is a “naïve idea”. Central to the argument is that human beings are naturally violent. But is that true?

According to him, the greatest problem of every army is getting soldiers to be willing to die, and it’s even hard to get people to fight. An effective technique is to instill the notion of a “band of brothers” so everything becomes self-defense. For instance, West Point teaches to treat your fellow soldiers as your family.

Second, no war has ever been fought for money or oil — at least not officially. In fact, people desire peace so much that every leader claims to be “fighting for peace”. War is traumatizing because people are naturally peaceful.

An army study conducted in World War II (specifically Combat Neuroses: Development of Combat Exhaustion by Roy L. Swank, M.D.; Walter E. Marchand, M.D.) showed that after 60 days of sustained day and night combat, 98% of soldiers become psychiatric casualties (the 2% that can go on indefinitely already aggressive sociopaths).

Chappell spoke about how reading On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society gave him new hope for peace. Like other animals, humans have an innate aversion to killing one’s own kind. All of military history supports this and uses three techniques to thwart this instinct:

1. Create psychological distance such as derogatory name-calling — everything from “barbarian” (which comes from Greek interpretation of foreign language sounding like “bar bar bar”) to a more subtle term like “illegal alien”.
2. Create a moral distance by declaring your enemy to be evil.
3. Create mechanical distance (physical distance). For instance, the Nazis switched to gas chambers because shooting was too traumatic for the soldiers — they were protecting the executioner from psychological damage.

Chappell asks, “why would this be necessary if humans were naturally violent? If we are not naturally violent, why is there so much war?”

We’re told we need war to stop war, violence to stop violence violence. Most soldiers want peace but that is not the means they are taught to use.

Chappell notes that at West Point he learned that the nature of war is drastically changing. It’s now about “winning hearts and changing minds”. This leads most directly from media coverage, since “collateral damage” is no longer acceptable: you can’t kill any civilians. Yet, historically, the most people killed in past war were civilians.

So how do you win hearts and change minds? The masters of this were peaceful like Ghandi: someone able to transform an enemy into a friend; someone actively waging peace. This includes peace marches such as were used for civil rights or for attaining voting rights. (From Chappell’s example, consider that prior to the 1830′s, only a small percentage of tax paying people could actually vote, and it was through peaceful protest that we now take for granted that “no taxation without representation” is the bedrock of our country.) These peace movements of our country should be taught in schools as being at least as important as the wars.

Waging war or waging peace share many needs: people, strategy, unity, tactics, and winning hearts and changing minds. However, Chappell points out that there are tremendous differences as well:

• Peace has truth on its side, war has myth.
• War is about killing people versus peace which is about making a friend.
• All war is based on deception. (He pointed out that in all cultures, the fundamental behavior of the “devil” is that of a deceiver.)
• The people who perpetuate war control lots of wealth and power — just as the enemies of the civil rights did.

So what does being “pro-military but against war” look like? Well, pretty much like Star Trek in a lot of ways. For instance, what if the army was chartered with disaster relief and we had the worldwide reputation of arriving to help then leaving?

Chappell said that Eisenhower was the first to ask why the Middle East dislikes the U.S. He found it was because our policies block democracy and instead support or install dictatorships — they are angry that we don’t live up to our ideals. As such, we need to hold our politicians accountable to change foreign policy so it is in line with the ideals we profess.

Chappell concluded by saying that war is not inevitable, and world peace is possible. Consider that 200 years ago, the only democracy in the world was America and even it was only fractionally so. And we don’t need to convince everyone — for instance, the Civil Rights movement succeeded with only 1% of the population actively participating.

During the question-and-answer, some evocative questions were asked.

First off, can the world be united? Chappell noted that in the United States, we have moved from state-identity to national-identity. And consider Europe: can you imagine Germany declaring war on France today? This progress can be expanded to all nations.

I asked about how, prior to the Iraq war, 250,000 people marched to protest it yet it happened anyway, so is protesting dead? He said that people romanticized the past: while the Vietnam War was being debated, it was not uncommon for students to try and attack peace protesters. To my specific example, he said that the government learned how to defuse protest from what happened in Vietnam: to avoid risk of a draft, they censor the media by embedding journalists in military units, privatize the military, and by propagandizing “if you don’t support the war you don’t support the troops”. As such, protest needs to evolve too.

In a later question, Chappell was asked what techniques should we use? He said we have lost our way to positive change. Consider how the Tea Party movement called attention to issues that were the same everyone cares about, but liberals were too busy calling them stupid. Remember to never demonize your opponent: identify with your opponent. In many cases the problem will boil down to hatred and ignorance. Remember that the government retains control of people by dividing them. So start with common ground and don’t reinforce divisiveness.

In another question, someone asked, given that peace is an active task, what would non-violent passion look like? Chappell said it’s easy today to isolate yourself today in peer groups and reinforce demonization of others. To be passionate is to defeat ignorance and to defeat hatred.

Another question had to do with conscientious objection: that by paying taxes, we are actively participating in and supporting war. To that, he said we should focus on how war makes us less safe, and how preparation for war is economically destructive. Consider Eisenhower’s “Cross of Iron” speech where, in the central argument against “the way of fear and force”, and what would be the worst- and best-case scenarios, he says:

The worst is atomic war.

The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms in not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Chappell echoed this, reiterating that our infrastructure is hurting because of war. He suggested we seek out the works of Douglas MacArthur and President Eisenhower as he had.

The concluding question asked if peace is based in truth, yet battle and conflict is a fact of nature, how can we be truthful? Chappell said the language of “waging peace” is accurate. We are trying to defeat ignorance and hatred, but the person is not the enemy. So ask yourself: how can I most effectively attack ignorance and hatred without hurting the person?

Adam Walker kicked things off talking about a project he’s involved with: The Kosovo Wind Gardens. The idea is to create small electricity-producing windmills all around countries without infrastructure for a reliable electric grid. Kosovo is one example, as it has very few power plants (their largest is a 1950-designed coal-burner with disastrous emissions) and simple things like dairy milk production are hampered by unreliable power. The windmills are designed with “appropriate technology” in mind: not just something from an industrialized nation, but a design that relies on simple materials and manual labor (rather than efficiency of mass-production) to better suit local self-sustainability. I was impressed with Walker’s presentation and the keen sense of appropriateness and a focus on the people being assisted.

Next was Andrew Perry who discussed Visual Literacy and Graphic Narratives. His thesis was an attempt to show that the means of storytelling and communication are changing — whereas the poem was central to literature prior to the 16th century the novel became the dominant form starting around then, and now we are seeing a new form that integrates text with images and diagrams (in a creative, literary way, not solely for factual reference). There is a new manner of storytelling that goes with it and, while I’m not sure it will become a dominant form, it has definitely come into its own as a rich and complex literary form.

Ashley Aberg then spoke about the difficulties of changing medical thinking when it comes to gender. She centered her talk on what medicine calls “intersex” — neither dominantly male nor female. It is because the male/female binary-gender system influenced the medical community that the medical community considers it worthy of “correction” that typically involves surgically modifying the appearance of a child’s genitals. Aberg’s point is that there is nothing life-threatening or unnatural about intersex, and as such, it is society that should adapt to it. In some ways a radical concept, but in others, it is solely habit that keeps society’s view of gender from matching what nature produces.

Next, Christopher Azzarra spoke about Improvisation: Musical Literacy Beyond the Page. As a music teacher, he observed that formal musical training does more to hamper individual music development than it helps. Since the measurement and analysis of music is so mathematical and sterile, it is hardly the place to start. Instead, he provided some examples of how natural it is for children and for professional improvisational performers to communicate with one another purely with music. Music touches us deeply because it is a fundamental part of our being.

Next was a video presentation of Raymond McCarthy Bergeron‘s La Lune et Le Coq — an amusing animation wherein the moon and rooster compete at the end of the night.

Dr. Tim R. Mosmann, Ph. D. gave a presentation on the complexity of the immune system. He gave a depth-first tour of immune response and how astonishingly complex it is. At each of a half-dozen levels (from the body to the lymph nodes to the chemistry of the lymph nodes to the cellular interaction to sub-cellular and so on) a huge amount of information is known on how it all works. But then we can extrapolate the exponentially large amount of information, since each specific example was only a fraction of the interaction at that level. In essence, the amount of information is too large to aggregate, so we need new tools to handle it.

In another radical turn, next was Jim Maddison who gave a case for building the The Roc City Skate Park under the eastern terminus of the Freddy-Sue Bridge. Like the shift to accept graphic novels or intersex individuals, skateboarding is a perfectly acceptable leisure activity that offers a mix of exercise, creativity, and accomplishment. Maddison and his team have been working to break down the entrenched view of skateboarders as ne’er-do-wells and hoodlums.

Xanthe Matychak presented Make Better Stuff: the rise of social business and distributed manufacturing. She sees a major shift in manufacturing where it will be possible to build on-demand at nearly anywhere in the world, alleviating the need for the manufacture/transportation cycles we have now. I tend to agree that these new technologies are a game-changing development. But I don’t think it will have as nearly a large impact as she thinks or hopes, unless we see a major change in how people view money and cost that would permit local artisans to overshadow the desire for cheap mass-production.

Emcee Howie Jacobson presented his own project: Vote Be Heard. The gist is to encourage primarily poor, primarily black, and primarily inner-city people to vote in major elections to make their world better. Although I think the effort was valiant, it did not strike me that much care was given to the voices in those communities. In other words, it seemed like some comparatively wealthy white people got together and made what they thought would be powerful messages for a group they largely do not interact with. As I see it, the inner-city poor (like the Occupy Wall Street movement) have little idea what they can do to improve their situation without the benevolence of the wealthy people who keep them there. Because of that, voting has comically little effect, and the oppressed are wise enough to know that.

Theresa B. Mazzullo followed that talking about a group she’s involved with, $eedNY. They have financial resources to fund start-ups and other technology ventures. I spent her entire talk trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I was seething as I wondered why people with great ideas and people with the ability to produce things (and often some of both in one person) were not already rewarded with great wealth — and those who have great wealth have neither ideas nor means? Further, I seethed at the whole “venture capital” concept where a person with an idea presents it to those with money, and if they are given money to proceed, either they fail and the gambled capital is lost (and they probably have to pay off crippling debt regardless) or they succeed and the bulk of the profits go back to the investor, reinforcing the cycle.

In another topical twist, Jon Schull presented a history of transportation, paying particular attention to bicycling and human-powered vehicles. Although his talk was interesting and sometimes enlightening, it lacked a call-to-action punch. Rather, it seemed to advise going along for the ride and to be prepared for things to change in the future. Having lived a zero-automobile lifestyle for 4 months now, I feel deeply relieved that I need not worry about all the maintenance owning an automobile brings. I tend to work from broad goals — even in 1994 when I bought my Civic, I was already thinking about rising gas prices (which never hit until 10 years on), and since then, I tended to steer my life toward eliminating the need for a car. Having finally achieved that, I feel well positioned for the future. I advise people to do the same: it’s much easier to plan to live close to work 10 years from now than it is to try and achieve next week, so start now thinking how to adapt to our world in 10 years.

Mark Noble presented some recent developments in stem-cell research. Again, an informative lecture, but pretty much just that. And again, part of me gets annoyed that (in America, at least) this lifesaving technology is reserved for the rich people who can afford it. It’s kind of disheartening to know that I’m less valuable as a person than someone else.

Triggering more irritation was Hasan Elahi‘s video lecture from TED titled Hasan Elahi: FBI, here I am!. In this case, I was annoyed with the totalitarian police state we live in, not in Elahi’s lecture. He talked about how he was interrogated by airport security because of a name mix-up and how he now lives his life under constant government scrutiny. His solution was to publish the minutia of his life: he uses his smart-phone to periodically (and frequently) document his whereabouts along with other things like photos of his hotel rooms or the urinals he uses. In the end, it’s a clever redirection of energy that is resulting in a surreal art project on surveillance.

Prove Your World was next: a group of people who are working on a science-based program for children that tries to be better than either dry lecturing or vacuous demonstration. By that, they mean that (like Christopher Azzarra said about music) exploring the theoretical side of something first turns people’s interest away, yet by simply offering a flashy demonstration without explanation leads to no learning (or, for that matter, curiosity) whatsoever. Their technique is to start from a simple question (in their demonstration it was, “what’s a supernova?”) and use demonstration as a tool for learning. Of all the lectures, this was the one I want most to get involved with. Of course their pilot episode is about how airplanes fly, and I cringe that they will reinforce the “equal-transit-time myth” of the airfoil.

Jim Gresko and Dave Vogler paired up to talk about how design is similar to jazz improvisation. I thought it was an innovative approach to discuss the concepts and it worked well.

Next was a discussion of Empathy in Education by Timothy Cottrell. He runs a program called The Center for Mindfulness and Empathy Education which pairs high-school students with people in Hospice care. Students’ own testimonials revealed a surprising maturity for people in young adulthood.

BELIEVE/Visual Intervention is a film by Ian Wilson and Philip Night that documents a street-art project bringing in international talent side-by-side with Rochester’s own on projects on Troup Street and the Union Street railroad bridge near the Public Market.

Relatedly, closing the show was Joan Hildebrand — “the Voice of the Public Market”. She had simple, straightforward observations on adapting to change, as she went from a mid-time TV personality to being nearly unknown in this small town, but rather than harp on what she lost, she found new vitality in her work with the Market.

Overall, I found this year’s TEDx Rochester to be an even and varied distribution of good discussions. I found it a little heavy on money and products in that many lectures centered on either an existing or future product or project, or gave significant focus to money and profitability. Of course, that may be more my own bias as I tend to seek TED lectures that are more philosophical or human-centered, and tend to ignore those that highlight a new technology or product. I find it a little off-putting, though, that in their re-cap blog post, they note that they “partnered with RIT & U of R to help us recruit new talent for the stage” and add that in the coming year they are “looking to also partner with groups like The Entrepreneurs Network and High Tech Rochester to expand our net.” To me this means even more focus on money, product, and project rather than ideas and exploration.

I’d say there were about 15 people there, and most of them had attended the other meetings and read the associated articles — it’s something of a free-school model. I think everyone expected a more lively discussion because the topics were so emotionally-charged, but the ground we covered between was fruitful and interesting.

In short, Capitalism depends on exploiting value to gain more than is spent. Through that, it seems to demand an underclass: a group of people who are considered lesser and therefore are free to be exploited. (In fact, the only way great wealth and power is achieved is by exploiting others.) And the way to identify the underclass is to tie the “underclass-ness” to a defining characteristic: woman, gay, black, Irish.

Anarchism, by eliminating the presumption of authority, denies the creation of an underclass. In other words, anarchism (when considered “self-defined rule”) does not permit the creation of people having authority: it is up to each individual to grant that authority. So there is no way for an authority to declare that you are X and therefore shall be exploited; rather, you as an individual would have to grant an authority that power, and permit yourself to be exploited. Presumably you would never volunteer for that.

The trouble is that the system I live with (that is, in America) will always find a new underclass to exploit. Lately it seems Hispanic people and followers of Islam are the newest targets (not that they were ever considered equals). Although we have also exploited the Chinese in their own land to that end, and I suspect the next source of cheap labor will be on the African continent. I find it a distasteful cycle that I’d like to see end sooner than later.

Last week I decided to introduce myself to the group. I mentioned that I wanted to refrain from contributing in conversation as I want to try and give my legal-system thinking time to adapt to the possibilities of something else. In other words, I’d probably ask the same questions as anyone, starting with, “if you offer an alternative to punishment, won’t that give criminals free reign?”

Anyway, lurking lasted all of a half a day. Kit Miller sent out an message that they were looking for additional people to join the group for a dinner with Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, and Ronald Cotton, co-authors of Picking Cotton at The Asbury First United Methodist Church (1050 East Ave.) I had intended to go to the lecture and discussion anyway, so I immediately agreed.

Ronald and Jennifer have the most awkward answer to “so how did you two meet?” In 1984 Jennifer was raped in her apartment. She had the presence of mind to study her attacker and memorized his face. Through the course of the investigation, the closest match was Ronald Cotton, and she confidently believed he was her attacker. He went to prison for 11 years until he was granted permission to have the DNA evidence tested and, as he had claimed all along, he was not the man who raped her. Eventually Jennifer sought to meet Ronald to resolve her fear that he was steeped in resentment toward her. As it turned out, she was mistaken, and they became friends as both were victims of the actual perpetrator who was later convicted of Jennifer’s rape and six others after hers.

The first time I heard their story, I thought, “that’s wonderful” (albeit in a heavily qualified way). A more common reaction is to be incredulous that there can be any healing and forgiveness. But what alternative to forgiveness is there? And in this case, it was neither Jennifer’s nor Ronald’s fault, so it seems obvious to me. I don’t mean that I’m holier-than-thou, but even when I’m angry at a transgression against me, I cool very quickly and generally conclude that staying angry — or generally believing in the winner/loser model — offers less value than forgiveness and resolution. That said, I’m less amenable when the other party stays remorseless and confrontational. Thankfully that’s usually not the case, especially when I can genuinely offer a solution through forgiveness.

The things that resonated most with me were about the ways our justice system failed. Racism and prejudice aside (not from Jennifer or Ronald, by the way), I was once again jarred by the unreliability of eye-witness evidence, I reinforced my opposition to the death penalty, and I am saddened that people justify the bad things they do by believing that they have some kind of credit for being a “good person”.

On prejudice, I’ll just note that the police, after hearing Jennifer’s description and seeing her composite sketch, probably swayed the whole case by presenting Jennifer a 3-year-old photo of Ronald that better matched her description.

Having watched things like The Selective Attention Test, I’m amazed at how bad my perception really is. Like everyone, I live every day with the persistent, tenacious illusion that what I perceive is a perfect reflection of reality. Yet when I’m presented with something like that video, I’m always astonished. I keep that knowledge close at hand, however, and even if I fully believe in my perception, I deliberately apply uncertainty to the way I express my perception to others. Yet nobody teaches us that fact — that our perception is lackluster — so our justice system is still rooted in an ancient belief that an eye-witness is proof-positive. Thankfully, I think this is changing (even lawyers who claim this is true are not considered as deceitful as they once were).

Relatedly, would this not be the kind of case that warranted the death penalty? What if the real rapist had gone on to kill his other victims — and Jennifer was the only one who survived? It is far too big a risk to potentially kill an innocent person. In addition, they had mentioned in the talk that the DNA evidence from the case was slated to be destroyed 3 days before Ronald requested the test, so had the justice system acted at its normal geologically-scaled rate, Ronald would still be in prison, and all the good that happened wouldn’t have.

And finally, my favorite topic: religion bashing.

Ok, actually it’s only tangentially related. The fundamental problem is believing in the possibility that a person can be good or bad. It’s as illogical as claiming a glass of water is happy or sad: it is not the kind of assessment that makes sense. Only individual actions, taken in isolation, can be considered good or bad. And even then, the moral judgement is largely based on the observer.

The trouble in this misattribution is that belief in morality within a person dilutes the perception of morality in their actions. And I’m talking about belief in the self: if I believe I’m a good person, then any action I do must necessarily be good (or at least better than a bad person who does the same thing). Likewise, if I think I’m a bad person, then it’s in my nature to do something bad.

So how does this relate to religion bashing? Well Jennifer mentioned that when she doubted herself — when she doubted her actions were the most right thing to do — she remembered her religious upbringing and reinforced her belief in her inherent goodness, ergo the goodness of her actions. I think that the failing of religions is teaching “you are a good person”. As I said, the nature of that statement is in error.

A better teaching would be that your past does not dictate your behavior — that there is not inherent good or bad in people, but that whatever you do or don’t will benefit some and harm others. I get stuck at this point because no guideline is adequate. Everyone desires to do good (that is, for ones actions to have beneficial consequences): it’s at the heart of what lets us as individuals and us as a society survive. Any attempt to codify that dilutes what it is to be human.

Anyway, she’s a cartoonist — a self-described not-very-good writer and not-very-good artist that combine to form a rather excellent cartoonist. Her lecture was titled Drawing Words, Reading Pictures. If you had heard of her before, it’s likely as a “lesbian cartoonist” with a long-running strip called Dykes to Watch Out For, or perhaps the misattributed Bechdel test for movies (conceived by her friend Liz Wallace and documented in a strip in 1985 … or so Wikipedia says).

She went into great detail about how she constructed one strip and quipped that you just need to repeat that a thousand times or so to make a book. She spoke a lot about her childhood, dovetailing into her most recent book, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. She spoke about her journal as a child where she began to realize that words alone were not adequate to relate an idea, adding small “I think” bubbles in sentences wherever meaning could be ambiguous. Later she started using a large caret-like gesture (^ only bigger) through words, and eventually discovered she could “protect a whole page” with one overlying notation. This eventually led her to using the comic form as a way to reduce ambiguity.

I was thoroughly excited by this notation. A growing panic and frustration develops inside me whenever I begin to discuss the utter inadequateness stemming from the bleeding ambiguity in language. I mean, “the sky is blue” makes perfect sense even though there are clouds that are part of the sky, or it might be the night sky, and blue … wow … I assure you it’s not blue like my old Ford Escort which was also blue. So, stealing Bechdel’s notation in typographic form, “the ^sky^ is ^blue^” makes much more sense to me. I had to ask if she finds that ambiguity relieved by cartooning (which she did) but I was more surprised at her surprise that I felt that way too. They had microphones up front, and when I was addressing her she probably took two steps back when I relayed essentially what I just wrote.

As such, I felt a kindred connection. I deduced who she was prior to the lecture (an easy task even though I’d never seen her photograph) and had felt that a bit already. I was warmed by the way she stepped partway up the auditorium to observe how the stage and computer projector were set up. And I was amused at a male crew-member gingerly adjusting her lapel microphone as if he were defusing a bomb.

In any case, I bought her book and had a chance to meet her and have her sign it. She even “^” notated my name and sketched her face with a cartoon bubble, “what is Jason really saying?”, then with a wry smile added below, “we might never know.” [Curiously, I recalled it from memory as "what is Jason saying really?", and "we may never know."]

I’m thoroughly enjoying the book. What I’m finding is that the cartoon format doesn’t resolve ambiguity as much as it amplifies the ambiguous parts of the text. So like that “^” notation, it’s another way to say, “this is how I think it happened, but you’re never going to get it.”

Registration was easy and our passes had a little surprise. I hadn’t realized until I was approached by Chris Horn — a former co-worker — who pointed out that on the back of our passes, we had a list of three people. His said, “Ask Jason Olshefsky about a ‘tadpole trike’,” a project I mentioned when I had originally signed up. I thought it a near-perfect ice-breaker (although, in general most attendees migrated to people they already knew … this is Rochester, after all). A curious serendipity was that the other person who found me by name was another former co-worker from a different company. People speculated that TEDxRochester did some Internet snooping, but I was pretty sure it was just random.

Anyway, the presentations were generally good although only a couple approached the lofty goal of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design): Ideas Worth Spreading. One of my college techniques was to take virtually no notes, expending my effort listening and thinking and referring later to reference materials. To my [mild, mild] horror, the brochure listed the presenters alphabetically with biographies rather than a title (or even a taste) of what their presentation was about. Thank goodness for TEDx Rochester Live blogging or else I’d have no idea who said what in what order.

Kicking off was Almeta Whitis who presented a “song of welcome”. I found it enjoyable and impressive that she inspired me and most of the audience to join her in the chorus. An idea worth spreading? Yes — in a very unique way. She attacked the issue warmly, honestly, and with a flair for entertainment: we are all human and should behave as such. In essence, “it’s the humanity, stupid”, not the iPhone nor the pressing project.

Next was Dr. Benjamin Miller. He talked about detection of proteins and antibodies as markers for disease and how new technology works to do that instantly with silicon chips. His broad topic was one of understanding through a triangular diagram of vision (our ability to observe), direction (a selected methodology of exploration), and control (a defined set of target results) — essentially, a subtly different view of the scientific method. As such, technically an “idea worth spreading” but one that is spread pretty far and wide already, particularly to the largely technical-minded audience attending. I also noted a severe defect: he presented an underlying assumption (the “protein-interaction problem can be solved by drugs”) was one that can be questioned. Why is that the best path? Or is that the most logical one — the one that is most likely to yield results that are easy to fit into the model of scientific exploration? Alas, I feel a far more interesting talk would have discussed that question.

Karlie Robinson spoke next. She owns Webpath Technologies (40 Charles Ave., Henrietta). She talked about how hard it is to find courses in basic computer literacy. She gave the example of how we all know basic operations (cut, copy, paste, undo) are similar across all kinds of different computer systems — something we take completely for granted but which is really a pivotally important idea. Like Miller’s discussion, this one is sort-of an “idea worth spreading”: more “a problem whose solution is an idea worth spreading”. And (also like Miller’s discussion) I found myself dismayed at ignorance of the underlying assumption: that technology is a good thing and should continue to be applied all the time. A more interesting discussion would concern why menial labor can’t simply show up, work, and get paid — what value have we added by tracking names, addresses, Social Security numbers, pay, and taxes. Is this really optimal?

I think Darren Stevenson (co-founder of PUSH Physical Theatre) gave one of the best discussions. He started with a demonstration of a performance then went on to define what art is. At least that was his topic which he attacked with wit, humor, and insight. His point was that creating and experiencing art is subjective and personal. Our culture tries to make everything objective and communal — to give things dollar-values and quality-values that everyone can agree upon. However, art is defies that very notion. It even defies explanation, another facet of our culture: we try to explain everything in words because explanations make things safe; things we understand are safe. We don’t look at an autumn tree [how creative, Jayce: did you just look out the window?] and try to understand “what is the tree trying to tell us?” It just is, and we can enjoy it for that. Yet somehow when it’s a creation of man, we feel it must be a simple metaphor instead.

The bar was set high at the start — three very good discussions. Then Jane Andrews, a Nutrition and Product Labeling Manager for Wegmans Food Markets (1500 Brooks Ave.) gave a commercial for Wegmans. Ok, so it wasn’t literally a commercial — she was talking about the techniques developed at Wegmans to foster good nutrition. My own bitter bias about Wegmans and how they abandoned the city neighborhoods (especially mine) led me to ask the underlying assumption: “why do only rich suburbanites deserve good nutrition?” Regardless, the ideas she presented were good ideas run through the hot-dog factory of marketing so they’d be palatable to the general public, such as “split your plate”: fill half with salad, then have whatever else you want on the other half. Unfortunately, it’s extraordinarily similar to the “small plate” movement (such as outlined in the 2008 book The 9-Inch Diet by Alex M. Bogusky.) Alas, I couldn’t tell if the “idea worth spreading” was “here’s some ways to eat better for the simpleton”, or “Wegmans, gosh, isn’t it great?”

Moka Lantum, co-founder of The Baobab Cultural Center (728 University Ave., formerly on Gregory St.) spoke next. Although his presentation style was not nearly as polished, his idea was one that I felt warranted TED: in areas with that have a high prevalence of earthquakes, we should build homes that are locally-sourced and earthquake-stable. The underlying assumption of earthquake relief efforts is that they help — but is there a better way? Lantum impressed me by attacking that very question — and again with broader scope, “is there a better building technique than the platform-framed wood houses we take for granted?” Lantum outlines a building technique that uses bags filled with local, sifted dirt for the primary structure then covered with a locally-generated stucco-like surface. The high thermal mass works well to regulate temperature, particularly in hotter climates like Haiti where these structures were given a test as temporary emergency shelters. I thought his topic was perfect TED material: it’s something that I’ve thought about before, and I can’t think off-hand of a way to significantly improve upon the presented solution. (My only lament is that he didn’t say where to find more information; a little searching leads me to an article on The Honey House which I believe is the specific technique Lantum was talking about.)

Next was Shanterra Randle, an associate coordinator at The Center for Teen Empowerment (107 Liberty Pole Wy.) Her speech could easily have been a free-form poem. She encouraged us to take the ideas we have and hear, and put them out there — to make our community better. We all have good ideas, but a good idea laid dormant is just as good as no idea at all. Another worthy candidate for what TED is all about, and as a bonus, brief, creative, and directed.

Dr. Ralph Spezio gave an impassioned and emotional lecture on his experiences as principal of School 17 and how lead poisoning was revealed as the cause of educational problems in his school. If there’s one thing to take away from his speech, it’s to consider the possibility that when assessing the quality of education, sometimes great teachers and great parenting is not enough. Likewise, Michelle Cardulla presented her work as Executive Director of The Museum of Kids Art (MOKA) (90 Webster Ave.) I felt her presentation could have been better rehearsed, and the idea that kids are natural artists could have been more central. Clarinetist Dr. Ramon Ricker presented an interesting topic of making your life about you and your skills. He was largely talking about marketing yourself in terms of what you are good at and what you like to do rather than what you think other people want to hear. It may have resonated more with others, but me (and I think a lot of people in the audience) were already aware.

Jim Tappon, Communications Manager of COOL Rochester gave a commercial for COOL Rochester. He spent as much time talking about vague methods to conserve energy as he did talking about how you can download information and present it to your friends and acquaintances. I think his idea of conservation through small steps is generally good, but his insistence that we become the carriers of this information à la pyramid scheme was downright offensive.

Finishing up, Jen Indovina, President and CEO of Tenrehte Technologies, presented the nearly opposite view: that it is impossible for people to change their behavior in any appreciable way, so we should make technology that lets us live exactly as we do, only makes it efficient. I found it patently offensive that adaptation is impossible, and further offensive that more products can make things efficient. As someone with a custom remote system to control lights and such, I can tell you it’s nearly impossible to make a machine that can predict your behavior and not irritate the hell out of you. To buy something off-the-shelf that would work is an absurd concept. I tried to do some research on the products at the Tenrehte Technologies website, but all the products and catch-phrases presented on the website appear to be nothing more than vaporware marketing-speak: there is not even a description of what anything does, much less any technical information. Without a physical address, I can’t fathom how any production is taking place, and I’m strongly suspicious that the whole company is just a scam.

As such, I left this year’s TEDx Rochester in a thoroughly pissed-off rush. Walking home, I could only think fo Indovina and her insistence that we can’t change our behavior; if I were driving a car I’d have classic road-rage. Thankfully I headed into Mt. Hope Cemetery (791 Mt. Hope Ave., the North Gate) and got a chance to chill out before getting home.

Anyway, the film is excellent and human like Forsyth’s other films, but also just a bit disconcerting. It’s the story of Ruth and Lucy, orphans who get bounced through the family lineage until they are cared for by their Aunt Sylvie, but what makes it disconcerting is how I was forced to judge Sylvie: are her actions eccentric, insane, misplaced, enlightening, or harmful?

She goes just a little “too far” with what would otherwise be just personality traits — for instance, finding old newspapers useful, but collecting them to an obsessive degree (and yet, she also seems perfectly able to part with them). On the one hand, that kind of thriftiness could prove useful in a time of scarcity, especially when compared with one who is wasteful. On the other hand, she doesn’t seem to be making conscious effort to drive her life, allowing whatever whim suits her to guide her.

I found the question-and-answer session afterward to be enlightening, revealing Forsyth as a modest fellow who wasn’t particularly driven to make films, yet ended up producing work that is warm, unique, and expertly-made.

I had been tipped off before the film that he might go on to socialize with some of the Eastman House staff afterward, but I forgot.  I intended to join a couple friends on the staff to walk with them until they got to their house, but when they went instead to The Strathallan (550 East Ave.) I considered excusing myself out of courtesy as I hadn’t been invited, but I decided instead to leave it up to those who were there to ask me to leave if they so wished.

The conversation was fun and interesting as one might expect. We had some laughs and talked about movies, people, and the state of the world. Ordinarily I wouldn’t think of myself as excessively brash, but next to the quiet gentle wisdom of Forsyth and the woman he traveled here with (who I assumed is his wife), I felt like some loud-mouthed, opinionated, know-it-all, American stereotype.

On the actual walk home with my friends, we talked about some of the quirky people and their unusual mannerisms. One example is a guy who supposedly couldn’t get Forsyth’s traveling companion’s name right — yet we also know that he’s said he has Asperger syndrome, so his unusual behavior is somehow acceptable. Another case was a friend whose palpable social discomfort was given attention in friendly mockery — yet since we know of no diagnosed disorder, it was somehow acceptable to do so.

In the film, Sylvie’s behavior was likewise dead-center in the gray/grey area between unusual and insane. Why is there a difference in how we react to someone we know has a psychological problem versus another who acts the same but is not diagnosed? One’s individual reaction to any other person is certainly unique, and perhaps it’s the “political correctness” drummed into our psyches that causes a reactionary rift between those afflicted by a proper disorder and others who are not. If that’s the case, then perhaps the best course of action is to assume everyone you meet is somehow disabled and should be treated cordially nonetheless.

So anyway, the film. It’s basically an essay film that argues that dirt is, as I said before, an essential, living part of plant and animal life on this planet. Some cute animations and a half-dozen or so talking-heads plays into the standard structure for such a film. I don’t recall whether it mentioned how much of today’s food comes from non-natural farming techniques, but since I figure it’s a large percentage, I think that’s an important fact to remember. The film spends more time highlighting the efforts of CSA farms — “Community Sponsored Agriculture” — that provides a counterpoint to the debt-based system we’ve attempted to apply to farming. The overall message is that the artificial structures we’ve created that are supposed to increase farming efficiency and feed us all are not sustainable in the long-run, and we must develop a sustainable model if we are to not go extinct.

Now, about that “debt-based system”. In modern farming, farm owners are expected to have capital up-front to buy seed and equipment they need at the beginning of the season; they recoup their expenses by selling their crops throughout the year. Typically they will get a loan — often a mortgage — for those initial expenses and hope to pay it back. However, forces of nature and market forces play a huge role and a farmer may not be able to match their upfront expenses. CSA’s do away with the risk associated with a loan because members of the farm pay dues up-front to pay for the crop, distribute the risk of farming, and result in farmers not going into debt.

Anyway, they also gave out door prizes and I won a DVD set of New York Wine and Table along with a coupon for Patty Love to perform a consultation on “permaculture” in my back yard. I was trying to decide whether to join the CSA at Mud Creek Farm (McMahon Rd., Victor), so I took it as a sign and (once I pay my taxes) I’ll buy myself a membership. I have felt the push to start getting into farming and sustainability — I think I’m going to start paying less attention to my technical skills and start focusing on more plain, traditional techniques and steer toward laziness through innovation.