Mid-year goals!!

This is a tale of "be careful what you wish for" -- one that I hope can be turned into a plan for making those wishes come true.

I've told everyone the setup to this tale about a million times, but in case you missed it, let me get you up to speed:

A few years ago I got the impression that my career was stagnating. I took a look at my experience and skill set and determined that the job I'm most qualified for is CTO of a tech startup. (Check out this article I wrote for The Startup with some of my insights on the subject.) And so I took a risk, worked my butt off at a new company, and now I find I have succeeded in becoming the highly-valued CTO of a tech startup! One that is actively fighting climate change -- another of my big goals!!

But... The problem is that while growing my career was an important goal -- it's not my only goal or dream. Working full-time-plus kind of crowds out everything else, and I'm left with this constant background of stress of wondering when I'll have time to pick up this or that project again.

Being undervalued, on the one hand, was enraging and depressing -- but on the other, there's something to be said for being in a dead-end job where you're overqualified enough to just phone it in (and where you only have to work three days per week). I sure had the time and energy to get a heckuvalot else done, and I miss that... :(

It looks like I am on track to get my IT department into a state where I can reduce my hours to 80% -- or ideally even 60% -- in the beginning of 2019. That's great, but it means another almost six months of postponing all of the other junk I want to do. So, I was thinking that -- maybe if I outline it all here -- I might get some of it done on evenings and weekends...? Also note, I'm currently taking off Fridays for the Summer in order to make some progress on drawing my comic book, and I am really, really hoping to finish at least the dining hall scenes before this vacation time is up.

So, aside from my comic book (which is dream/goal #1, always), here are the other things I would like to have time to do, organized into categories:

2. Organize my apartment

This perhaps shouldn't be #2, but it is. I hate the feeling of being slowly buried in clutter, and I don't want to just throw stuff out. I want to go down to my basement, donate or give away online everything that is usable (but not by me), and hence free up a bunch of space down there.

Then, I have this dream of constructing my own "Ikea-hack" Lego table (which I have designed in my mind) so that I can free up a huge amount of floor and shelf space in Nico's office (a.k.a. the guest room), and have a beautiful place to sort the whole Lego collection -- and build an awesome city! (I would love to do some of this stuff again!)

I'm thinking I might be able to get the table constructed during Christmas break if everything works out. Then, naturally, I'll be in a position to organize/donate the rest of the clutter, and for a brief moment, I will live in a blissfully clutter-free home.

3. Articles, conferences, and MAA Books!

Here's what I would like to do:

• Promote MAA Books in general, and Donna's awesome book in particular -- It would be really great to be able to get enough reviews and listings for this book so that we could realistically start working on finding, editing, and promoting our next book.
• Stoke up the fires of Main Street Plaza -- unfortunately I don't seem to even be able to keep Sunday in Outer Blogness alive. :( Fortunately, Donna has helped recruit another author, but in my fantasy universe we would have a collection of people writing regularly (and be able to pay them...).
• Write a couple of more articles for The Startup. I have the drafts ready, it's just a question of focusing and doing it.
• Give a lecture on startups in a tech lecture series (this is in the works).
• Help organize a Mormon Stories Workshop in Switzerland. This one actually has a deadline (plus I'm not the primary responsible), so it looks like it's really going to happen.
• Write more articles for this blog. It's not that I think I'll ever have a non-trivial readership here -- it's that I really enjoyed having this sounding-board for my ideas here in the past. After a while I got to the point where I'd written about all the subjects I was really burning to write about, so I stopped. But now it's been long enough that I have a backlog of topics again, and I'm just having trouble getting started.

There are a couple of additional things standing in my way from getting this sort of stuff done. For some reason I can't seem to start writing a simple blog post without many hours of psyching myself up to do it. Not sure why. Even on a topic that I've been churning over in my head and constructing arguments and phasing for weeks or years -- sitting down and composing it is daunting.

Additionally, I haven't been reading books regularly for the past couple of years because I used to read in the tram -- and that time has of late been almost entirely eaten up by Pokémon Go. On one level, I feel like this is a shameful waste, but I can't dismiss it as entirely wasted time.

Pokémon Go has two big advantages for me: (1) it is very Zen -- it allows me to relax and shake off all of the stress while I'm commuting to and from my stressful job, and (2) I am -- really for the first time -- regularly socializing with actual Swiss people. Not just people like me -- international, third-culture folks, mathies and techies -- but really random people of all walks of life who live in Zürich.

Actually, not everybody who plays is Swiss -- Pokémon Go seems to cut across all categories, immigrants from all countries, locals, tattooed youths, bankers and finance guys in their suits, moms & dads with kids, moms who don't bother to bring their kids (like me), old, young, guys, gals, you name it! And to do it right, you really have to make an effort to meet people and make friends. This has meant stepping outside of my comfort zone in a major way and growing my perspective, so I can't really beat myself up for obsessing over whether I managed to catch this or that shiny pokémon, etc.

4. Other stuff that should be on the list

Here's the grab bag of stuff I would love to do if I had an infinite amount of free time:

• More projects with my kids. I would like to do some of the Kangaroo math challenges with Léo, and help them both to create more image and music assets for the video games they're developing,
• Political activism. I'm ashamed to admit that I'm one of those people that is watching the news, aghast at what is currently going on, and saying, "Wow, I hope somebody (else) does something about this!!!!" I did register to vote (I can legally vote in the US and France), so I guess that's better than nothing.
• My own podcast -- yeah, that's a fantasy, but maybe someday if our species lasts a few more decades.
• Figure out more recipes for the herbs in my balcony garden. That said, I think my garden has been a bit of a success story. I tend it a bit and it produces more foods that I would expect from a balcony.

I was going to include a list of the blog entries I'm hoping to write -- to see if there's interest -- but let's leave it at this. And we'll see how much I can get done!!

My Post-Mormon Publication List

It just hit me that I have written and done quite a lot of Mormonism and atheism related stuff, and I don't actually have a list of it all. Well, until now:

writings:

• Main Street Plaza: I've done more than 10 years of Mormon-related blogging, including regular features such as Sunday in Outer Blogness, the Brodie Awards, and the William Law X-Mormon of the Year Award,
• ExMormon: I wrote a novel composed of nine intertwined novellas about growing up Mormon and leaving the church (2006),
• I wrote a personal essay published in the 2011 Mormon-themed issue of Free Inquiry magazine (which inspired Mormon apologist Louis Midgley to publish some personal criticisms of me).
• I wrote a personal essay (short memoir) published in the collection Baring Witness, 36 Mormon Women Talk Candidly about Love, Sex, and Marriage (2017, University of Illinois Press)

presentations:

• I was interviewed about my novel and blogging in July of 2008 by Atheists Talk Radio (the other guest interviewed in the same program was P.Z. Myers).
• Sunstone Symposium 2009: I presented in the panel "Bridging Stereotypes Through Blogging"
• Sunstone Symposium 2012: I organized and presented in the panels "Who Gets to Say What Former Mormons Are Like?" and "Do Good Online Fences Make Good LDS Neighbors?" -- and presented in the panel "The Vagina Testimonies"
• I have organized Mathematics workshops at Camp Quest Switzerland in 2015 and 2016,
• I participated in a panel discussion with a former Muslim and a former Orthodox Jew for the "Abend der Apostasie" for "Welthumanistentag 2017" (in German).

organizations:

• I am the primary organizer/contact person for the Switzerland chapter of the post-Mormon network and of the Mormon Spectrum in-person communities.
• With Donna Banta, I am launching an indie publishing house: Mormon Alumni Association Books.

I think that's it. It's all I can think of at the moment...

State of the me: 2017-2018

Well, I'm not out of the woods yet, but I've found the path. I guess that's my theme for this past year.

You may recall that this time last year was a pretty low point. Unfortunately, the big, overarching problems seem as intractable as ever. We're heading into a climate catastrophe, and -- while some are trying -- humankind is really not on track to solve this problem in time. Probably not ever. The thing is that you just can't convince people to just stop consuming the resources until they're all gone -- whether it's burning fossil fuels, eating meat, eating the last fish, or burning the last forest for farmland. I've thought about this problem from every angle, and I conclude that it's just simply not possible to convince everyone to do the selfless thing. Too often it's a question of asking people to sacrifice their own livelihood for abstract goals.

We can try, of course. The fact that I've taken a job in the rolling-back-climate-change industry is a sign, I guess, that I haven't given up hope. But people don't realize how quickly things can and will go from "our problems are more-or-less tractable..." to a runaway temperature feedback loop that we have no hope of managing. The possibility that we will succeed in creating a sustainable human society is an incredible long-shot. It's more realistic to see our future as a question of "do we have fifty years or do we have five...?" I hope that 50 years from now other people will be saying "I told you so" to me on this one...

The recovery of US democracy would help -- and there have been some positive developments -- but it's far from clear that the arc of history will bend toward justice. The fact that the Internet has basically killed the journalism industry (especially local journalism) is a major problem that people don't have the faintest clue how to solve.

So where's my path out of the woods? Well, I guess it's more personal than political. Specifically, I started 2017 looking for a job, then I found one and spent the whole year working like a maniac in order to get to the position where I'm in charge of the IT department. And now, starting in January 2018, my path is finally clear to begin fixing the problems. It won't be easy, but I think/hope I am up to the task.

I also finally finished part 1 of my comic book at the end of the Summer 2017:

I really hope that in 2018 I'll have time to finish part 3 and to begin real dealings with a publisher -- plus I hope to have time to work on other projects like Mormon Alumni Association Books. And maybe I'll even have time to do some fun projects with my kids.

So, yeah, 2017 has meant some progress, but the situation is still uncertain and precarious. I have a steep climb ahead of me in 2018, but I hope that by the end of the coming year, I'll be in a more solid position with respect to all of my goals.

A New Hope...

Mitt Romney released a statement yesterday calling out Donald Trump by name and forcefully denouncing his shameful response to recent Nazi events in the US. Romney's position is correct and his statement hit all the right notes.

Was it politically expedient for Romney to release such a statement? Possibly, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Strategic skills are important in a leader.

The problem with Trump goes far beyond the question of ideology. I disagree with Romney's ideology. I'm bringing up Romney to illustrate that -- ideology aside -- there's a big difference between someone who is qualified to be president and someone who, fundamentally, is not.

The endless stream of verbal diarrhea spewing out of Trump's mouth and Twitter feed is, unfortunately, one of his selling points in the eyes of some (very stupid) voters. Because he speaks his mind; he doesn't play games like a politician. But those supposedly positive qualities are just symptoms of Trump's underlying problem:

He's an idiot.

Trump does not have the faintest clue how the government works, and he is, frankly, too stupid to learn it. His skill level is not in the same universe with competence.

Both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush unfortunately convinced the American people that it's not important for the president to be a smart person; that as long as he shares your ideology, it's OK for him to be a drooling moron -- because he can always delegate all that "knowing stuff" and "running the country" to underlings. This is a deadly belief because it has led the country to elect a man who is a full order of magnitude stupider than either Reagan or GWB (astonishing as that is).

At least Reagan and GWB recognized the need to delegate tasks to more competent people. Trump is so dumb that he believes his own bullshit. He sincerely, Dunning-Krugerly believes that he is a smart, savvy guy.

And now we are seeing the entirely predictable consequences of this deadly mistake. Hostile authoritarian regimes easily manipulate Trump with flattery. Crucial allies are at a loss as to how (and whether) to continue working with the US. Homegrown violent extremists receive encouragement from the highest level of government. Decades of delicate diplomacy over nuclear arms have been undone -- we're now one tantrum away from seeing millions of innocent people get killed by a nuclear bomb. In the space of a few months we've gone from relative stability (for those in the global North, at least...) to the most dangerously precarious situation we've seen in half a century.

Fortunately, the quality that makes Trump so dangerous may be his undoing.

Serious political commentators are finally starting to predict that Trump will be removed from office soon. Up until last week, it was still reasonable to dismiss that idea as wishful thinking, but the whole Nazi straw finally broke the camel's back. It's not just the that the statements themselves were so much more horrible than all of the other shit he's done -- it's also the weight of the accumulation, plus the fact that he has alienated essentially all of his allies.

The critical point is that the Republicans in Congress are finally starting to turn on him. Trump doesn't seem to understand that those Republicans in the House and Senate are currently the only people standing between him and jail. And he is just too. damn. stupid. to do a bare minimum of maintenance on those alliances that are so critical to his survival. Instead he has repeatedly demonstrated that teaming up with him is the fast track to finding yourself under a bus.

The thing is that -- regardless of what Muller's investigation turns up -- the things Trump has already done out in the open are sufficient to convict him. He is openly profiting from foreign governments through his hotels and other businesses, and he has admitted to firing James Comey for the express purpose of stopping an investigation of his campaign's ties to Russia. Muller's investigation will almost certainly turn up extensive money laundering and other crimes, but it's kind of the icing on the cake. The Republicans in Congress have more than enough evidence already to put him in jail -- the minute they decide it's in their interest to do so.

A Facebook friend recently made the astonishing claim that people have been trying to link Trump to Russia for nine months and have yet to turn up any "real evidence." In reality, the fact that Trump isn't standing before a court of law (yet) has nothing to do with lack of evidence. You've heard the expression "possession is nine-tenths of ownership"...? Well, we need a similar expression for the law. Nine-tenths of it is what those in power choose to enforce.

The Constitution of the USA does not automatically enforce itself. It is not going to magically come to life, jump out of its display-case, and snatch those foreign emoluments out of Donald Trump's thieving hands. People have to enforce it. And if Trump leaves office without facing justice for his crimes, then the United States of America will have a new precedent: the USA will simply become a country where the president is allowed to openly abuse his office to line his own pockets. This is why it is so critical for Trump to be impeached rather than simply voted out of office at the end of his term. The USA needs to establish a clear legal precedent regarding this type of corruption.

As an example of what I mean, consider the USA's current informal precedent with respect to torture. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are known to have had a hand in it. Torture, BTW, is a war crime, and they still need to stand trial for it. But instead of pursuing justice, Obama chose to merely issue an executive order that his administration would not torture people.

The problem with that choice is that Obama transformed torture from a crime to a choice that a president is at liberty to make. Thanks to that precedent, Republican candidates (including Romney) have promised to bring torture back. Naturally Bush/Cheney's choice to torture is worlds worse that Obama's choice to look the other way, but Obama's choice was nonetheless unacceptable. Torture is not an issue where it is OK to be the "compromise guy."

My hope for the United States is that Trump's flame-out will be so spectacular that the mainstream of US society will finally insist on fixing that legion of grotesque problems with the current American electoral system: gerrymandering, Citizens United (and all other legalized bribery), voter suppression, the Electoral College, electronic voting machines, unequal representation among the states and territories, etc., etc.

The only thing that could possibly redeem this monstrous nightmare reality show we've been living since January would be if the country learns something from it. And I mean really learns something.

The Last Fish

Why shouldn't I be the one
to eat the last fish?

Do you think
that all these people
will all let it be...?
Let it swim away and restore the sea?

No, that will never be.
Someone will catch it
and kill it
and eat it.
It might as well be me.

"A second homeland..."

Well, at least Trump has succeed in uniting people. Nothing brings people together like a common enemy.

He has succeeded in energizing people; in convincing people that they can't just sit around assume everything will turn out OK. He has totally discredited the (popular but wrong and dangerous) belief that rich businessmen must be competent and intelligent and deserve their wealth and power.

I hope it will be enough....

I agree with the author of this Mary Sue article that it was totally inappropriate and horrible of Susan Sarandon (and others like her) to encourage people to allow Trump to win because that would energize people and "bring on the revolution" faster. That is a deadly gamble, and one that someone of her level of privilege has no business making -- considering that she's betting other people's lives, not her own. If Trump's incompetence leads to nuclear war and/or if our inaction leads to climate change becoming irreversible, it's today's kids who will be paying for that with their lives. Anyone who has led a long, full life and then went ahead and bet our kids' future on Trump should be deeply ashamed.

But since we're stuck in this mess, let's hope this new-found unity and purpose will be enough to get us out.

France's new president, Emmanuel Macron, just got a softball opportunity lobbed at him for his first big photo-op as president: the meeting with the G7 leaders, including Trump. Your mission is to meet with Trump and look good by contrast -- kinda hard to mess that one up. But he took that softball and hit it out of the park!

First Macron beat Trump at Trump's own stupid handshake game. Then he took a walk in a lovely flower garden with Trudeau, whom everybody loves -- prompting even some serious news outlets to cover the question of who's handsomer. Then he wrapped up by giving a forceful speech about how the Paris accords will go forward -- and not be watered down -- including this awesome special bit directed to the American people, in which he brazenly poaches America's smart people for France:

Apparently Macron figured out that nobody but nobody hates Trump like America's smart people hate him. 

It made especially good optics considering that many of Macron's political rivals were pushing to exit the EU. But the recent rottenness of the US and the UK makes Germany look like the most awesome best friend ever! (Points to Merkel for her courageous statement that Europe can't count on those guys anymore.)

So President Macron is off to a good start with people like me -- people who didn't know much about him, and only voted for him because he was the "not Le Pen" candidate. Yes, it was my first vote as a citizen of France, and now I'm feeling pretty good about it! (Though I assume he'll do something to piss me off soon enough, like Trudeau with those oil pipelines -- grrrr!)

I especially loved this part of Macron's address:

To all scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, responsible citizens who were disappointed by the decision of the President of the United States, I want to say that they will find in France a second homeland. I call on them, 'Come, and work here, with us, to work together on concrete solutions for our climate, our environment. I can assure you, France will not give up the fight.'

This part is personal to me because I left the US to settle in Europe and become a French citizen (though I am currently living in Switzerland, an adjacent, also awesome country). I also recently quit my job in educational software and took a new job in climate-change software -- specifically, I'm working with scientists and fellow engineers on software to compute the carbon footprints of different meals (for restaurants). 

Sure, I don't need to have the President of France give a speech welcoming me and affirming my personal life decisions, but, hey, it doesn't hurt! :D

Last two puppet shows of 1990!!

Here are the last two in the series, "Three Silly People Save the Kingdom: And the one we made about us and our blue-and-pink castle-shaped puppet theater! This was probably the funnest summer job I've ever had. It's unfortunate that I didn't make videos of the shows from the other two years I did this...