Star Trek + XPrize ~ Roddenberry's Worldview!

Thanks to my MIT Sloan colleague Anjali Sastry for spotting Gene Roddenberry's Worldview on the XPrize Foundation site!

R.I.P. Nicholas Winton ~ Rescuer of WWII Kids++

Sad to hear Sir Nicholas Winton has passed in his sleep at 106 years. He's one of the few who acted -- both at-scale and by-all-means-necessary -- to save children, mostly Jewish, caught up in Nazi craziness in the early phases of WWII.  And he did so quietly -- and quasi-legally -- but totally morally.  Unsung, he, with the help of his own mother, and colleagues Beatrice Wellington, Doreen Warriner, Trevor Chadwick and others in Prague, managed to organize the rescue of several trainloads totaling 669 children destined for Nazi concentration camps. A last train was stopped by the next escalation in fighting -- most (if not all) those ~200+ children died.  No one knew any of this until pretty recently.  Beyond his WWII efforts, he also cared about the elderly and infirm, setting up homes to support those in need.  And most recently, his story has been shared widely.  All together, Winton was a truly extraordinary and epic hero!

Making Meaning ~ Tyson on Life & Happyness...

Neil deGrasse Tyson on making one's meaning in life...

Cultural Map ~ Values Differences @ Global Scale

Brandon Ambrosino at Vox spots the Ingelhart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World...

How Doctors Die ~ Desiring Quality Over Quantity

Dr Ken Murray, Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at USC, writes at Zocalo Public Square about How Doctors Die...

"Doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently. Of course, doctors don’t want to die; they want to live. But they know enough about modern medicine to know its limits. [...] Almost all medical professionals have seen what we call “futile care” being performed on people. [Instead, doctors want] a life of quality, not just quantity. Don’t most of us? If there is a state of the art of end-of-life care, it is this: death with dignity."

Listen also to Dr Diana Hsieh's Philosophy In Action radio show interview with UChicago Medical School geriatrician Dr William Dale speaking about End-Of-Life Medical Choices.

In Science We Trust ~ Al-Ghaili's Homage!

Masdar Prof Hector Hernandez shares In Science We Trust compiled by Hashem Al-Ghaili...

Boston Cluster ~ On BBC's Next Silicon Valleys...

The BBC's Richard Taylor reports in the Next Silicon Valleys series that Boston breaks through: Speed reading and life-size robots making a lot of noise over the supposed east vs west coast rivalry...

"What grates here is that Mark Zuckerberg famously started Facebook from his Harvard dorm room, but before long took the social network to the other side of the country [...] all too often Boston start-ups end up being snapped up by their bigger, West Coast brethren; witness Google's recent purchase of another local robotic success story, Boston Dynamics. The challenge for Boston, it seems, is not just to develop the talent, but to hold on to it too."

Sorry, what most grates is that Taylor entirely missed the real story which is that Boston has intentionally been exporting innovation -- i.e. successfully distributing the enabling pieces, processes, and philosophy of progress and prosperity -- for over a century.  MIT people, for instance, went out to co-found Stanford University and then later Stanford's Research Park, Hewlett-Packard, Watkins-Johnson, Shockley Semiconductor, Fairchild Semi, Intel, Kleiner-Perkins, and dozens more essential elements which actually made Silicon Valley possible in the first place.  The problems of our planet are too many for us to be geographically parochial and not spread the innovation ethos everywhere.

This I Believe ~ Heinlein's Broadcast Creed...

Thanks to the Heinlein Prize for Accomplishments in Commercial Space Activities for posting the audio and transcript of science fiction grandmaster Robert A Heinlein's broadcast of This I Believe on the Edward R Murrow radio show in 1952...

Design Thinking ~ David Kelley and IDEO on 60'

Charlie Rose interviews David Kelley and Tim Browne about IDEO, creativity, and design thinking on 60 Minutes...

Reach for the Stars ~ Inspiring Young Minds!

The Atlas Society shares creative entrepreneur Kerry O'Quinn's inspiring reading from his forthcoming book, Reach for the Stars...

Religulous ~ Ridiculing Really Almighty Bullshit

Religulous by Maher and Charles ridicules religious bullshit...

Venn Philosophy ~ Seeking Bliss Amidst Circles

Venn views from the Energy Project... (Not exactly sure how Charity = What World Will Pay For)

Not the Center? ~ Human Courage & Depth...

Nice video by The Thinking Atheist on Humankind’s Place in the Cosmos...

Final Words ~ Last Things Said Before Death...

Moving piece by Kerry Egan in CNN Belief blog...

"I am a hospice chaplain. I visit people who are dying -- in their homes, in hospitals, in nursing homes. [...] What do people who are sick and dying talk about with the chaplain? [...] Mostly, they talk about their families: about their mothers and fathers, their sons and daughters. They talk about the love they felt, and the love they gave. Often they talk about love they did not receive, or the love they did not know how to offer, the love they withheld, or maybe never felt for the ones they should have loved unconditionally. They talk about how they learned what love is, and what it is not. And sometimes, when they are actively dying, fluid gurgling in their throats, they reach their hands out to things I cannot see and they call out to their parents: Mama, Daddy, Mother."

Read the rest, heartwrenching stuff including Kerry's discussion of her learning experiences and personal faith beliefs. I'm not of her creed but I honor her humanity and admire her goodness. In any case, I personally think dying and specifically death due to aging are the ultimate genetic disease -- a devilish DNA defect we all inherit from ancestors who were never naturally selected for longevity, nevermind immortality. Maybe with enough investment in life sciences and biotechnology we can end this scourge?

I Have A Dream ~ Let Freedom Ring Everywhere!

Worth viewing on this day -- MLK's August 28, 1963 speech in DC...

Life Vest Inside ~ Yes, Kindness Boomerangs!

UniqueDaily spots Life Vest Inside's Kindness Boomerang...

"...the camera tracks an act of kindness as its passed from one individual to the next and manages to boomerang back to the person who set it into motion"

(It's worth noting that I champion this very human and ethical message entirely independently of and thoroughly disconnected from the messianic wingnut nature of the singer and any other irrationally theistic and stupidly religulous backers of this movement.)

Xmas Wishlist ~ Ingersoll’s Essential Wants!

Thanks to Cynical-C for spotting Robert Ingersoll’s What I Want for Christmas. Some favorite highlights...

"If I had the power to produce exactly what I want for next Christmas, I would have all the kings and emperors resign and allow the people to govern themselves [...] I would have all the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and clergymen admit that they know nothing about theology, nothing about hell or heaven, nothing about the destiny of the human race, nothing about devils or ghosts, gods or angels. I would have them tell all their “flocks” to think for themselves [...] I would like to see all the politicians changed to statesmen -- to men who long to make their country great and free -- to men who care more for public good than private gain -- men who long to be of use. I would like to see all the editors of papers and magazines agree to print the truth and nothing but the truth, to avoid all slander and misrepresentation, and to let the private affairs of the people alone. [...] I would like to see the millionaires unite and form a trust for the public good. I would like to see a fair division of profits between capital and labor, so that the toiler could save enough to mingle a little June with the December of his life [...] I would like to see the whole world free -- free from injustice -- free from superstition. This will do for next Christmas. The following Christmas, I may want more."

R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens ~ Silenced By Cancer

Terrible to hear iconoclastic oracle Christopher Hitchens has been consumed by his cancer. Never one to hold back or engage in half-measures, Hitchens was fighting life's scourges -- social, political, philosophical, and biological -- till the last possible moments. Writes Juli Weiner in Vanity Fair...

"At the end, Hitchens was more engaged, relentless, hilarious, observant, and intelligent than just about everyone else -- just as he had been for the last four decades. “My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends,” he wrote in the June 2011 issue. He died in their presence, too, at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. May his 62 years of living, well, so livingly console the many of us who will miss him dearly."

CH's brother Peter remembers him in the DailyMail and salutes his courage. See here VF's pointer to all CH's appearances with Jon Stewart on the DailyShow. The Guardian summarizes CH's best bon mots. Here's CH's last interview with Richard Dawkins in the New Statesman. And thanks to Cynical-C for spotting Best of Hitchslap clips...

Giving Thanks ~ Ingersoll's 1897 Epic Sermon!

Thanks to Cynical-C for spotlighting Ingersoll's 1897 epic Thanksgiving Sermon! This is just an excerpt, my favorite parts...

"Standing here at the close of the 19th 
century -- amid the trophies of thought -- the triumphs of genius -- here under the flag of the Great Republic -- knowing something 
of the history of man -- here on this day that has been set apart for thanksgiving, I most reverently thank the good men. the good women of the past, I thank the kind fathers, the loving mothers of
 the savage days. I thank the father who spoke the first gentle 
word, the mother who first smiled upon her babe. I thank the first
 true friend. I thank the savages who hunted and fished that they 
and their babes might live. I thank those who cultivated the ground
 and changed the forests into farms -- those who built rude homes
 and watched the faces of their happy children in the glow of
 fireside flames -- those who domesticated horses, cattle and sheep
 -- those who invented wheels and looms and taught us to spin and
 weave -- those who by cultivation changed wild grasses into wheat 
and corn, changed bitter things to fruit, and worthless weeds to
 flowers, that sowed within our souls the seeds of art. I thank the 
poets of the dawn -- the tellers of legends -- the makers of myths
 -- the singers of joy and grief, of hope and love. I thank the
 artists who chiseled forms in stone and wrought with light and
 shade the face of man. I thank the philosophers, the thinkers, who
 taught us how to use our minds in the great search for truth. I
 thank the astronomers who explored the heavens, told us the secrets 
of the stars, the glories of the constellations -- the geologists 
who found the story of the world in fossil forms, in memoranda kept 
in ancient rocks, in lines written by waves, by frost and fire -- the anatomists who sought in muscle, nerve and bone for all the 
mysteries of life -- the chemists who unraveled Nature’s work that
 they might learn her art -- the physicians who have laid the hand 
of science on the brow of pain, the hand whose magic touch restores
 -- the surgeons who have defeated Nature’s self and forced her to
 preserve the lives of those she labored to destroy. I thank the discoverers of chloroform and ether, the two 
angels who give to their beloved sleep, and wrap the throbbing
 brain in the soft robes of dreams. I thank the great inventors -- those who gave us movable type and the press, by means of which
 great thoughts and all discovered facts are made immortal -- the
 inventors of engines, of the great ships, of the railways, the 
cables and telegraphs. I thank the great mechanics, the workers in
 iron and steel, in wood and stone. I thank the inventors and makers
 of the numberless things of use and luxury. I thank the industrious men, the loving mothers, the useful
 women. They are the benefactors of our race. The inventor of pins did a thousand times more good than all 
the popes and cardinals, the bishops and priests -- than all the
 clergymen and parsons, exhorters and theologians that ever lived. The inventor of matches did more for the comfort and
 convenience of mankind than all the founders of religions and the 
makers of all creeds -- than all malicious monks and selfish
 saints. [...] I thank the statesmen who have preserved the rights of man. I
 thank Paine whose genius sowed the seeds of independence in the
 hearts of ’76. I thank Jefferson whose mighty words for liberty 
have made the circuit of the globe. [...] I thank the great scientists -- those who have reached the
 foundation, the bed-rock -- who have built upon facts -- the great
 scientists, in whose presence theologians look silly and feel
 malicious [...] I thank the 
scientists one and all [...] I thank the heroes, the destroyers of prejudice and fear -- the dethroners of savage gods -- the extinguishers of hate’s
 eternal fire -- the heroes, the breakers of chains -- the founders
 of free states -- the makers of just laws -- the heroes who fought 
and fell on countless fields -- the heroes whose dungeons became
 shrines -- the heroes whose blood made scaffolds sacred -- the 
heroes, the apostles of reason, the disciples of truth, the
 soldiers of freedom -- the heroes who held high the holy torch and
 filled the world with light. With all my heart I thank them all."

Amen!

Jobs Advice ~ Pursue Dreams, Think Different

Jobs keynoted Commencement at Stanford in 2005...

"Do what you love. [...] Keep looking, don't settle. [...] Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

PS Special bonus! New Apple CEO Cook keynote at Auburn in 2010...