Random Quick Note (RQN) My Utopia

[rqn-myutopia]

Climate change is in!

Here are some of my wandering thoughts:

Many today want to work in "climate change". What does that mean? Does it mean:

(A) people want to find jobs they can do and/or want to do while making some level of impact? What is "some level of impact" anyway?

OR

(B) people will do whatever is needed to stop climate change? Whatever is needed regardless of what?

There is possibly endless possibilities between (A) and (B) and beyond.

Where do I fit in between (A) and (B) and beyond? 10 years in the workforce, and I still don't know. Sometimes I thought I knew and had already figured it out, and then I got surprised with some new intels, knowledge, and insight that threw me back to the beginning of my inquiry, again. It's annoying not being able to identify the/a finish line.

Moving on...

92% of the world population lives with less than $50/day income My hourly salary is more than $50/hour. I make more than $400/day. I am among the world top 1% earner.

The minimum wage in my area set by the government is $15.74 per hour as of 2023. That's a minimum of $125.92/day. That should also place the minimum wage income earner among the world top 1% earner.

The US categorizes individual making less than about $62.05/day as individual living in poverty. And, 92% of the world population lives with less than $50/day income What do I do with this information?

For 4 years of college, 2 BA degrees, 1 BAS certificate, 10 years of work experiences, I was never tasked with anything remotely related to the question above. Is it not important? Where do I even start anyway? Isn't it a rich thought experiment exercise?

And to curve carbon emission, majority of the world population must do the best we can. So, what does that look like for different people with very different income levels around the world?

[rqn-myutopia]

Critical thinking skill

When I was in college (’09-’13), this was the ONE skill that everyone was talking about. It seems like in 2021, I might be the only few left in my batch that still clings onto the practice of this “ancient mythical craft". 

I had a good and well-rounded college education. Fortunately for me, even though I was very much unaware of said fact when I was going through my undergrad classes, out of habit, I paid enough attention in all of them regardless of my endless whines, frustration, and confusion [of why the heck did I have to take those “ultra irrelevant” classes!?]. You know the habit that “forces" one to finish a movie even though it is a horrible movie? Yeah, that habit. 

Because of this well-rounded college education, I formed a new habit: critical thinking, and I constantly seek to improve this habit! 

What does critical thinking habit look like? 

In short, it takes a lot of patience, compassion, and empathy to take the time to ask exploratory questions to understand the subject matter from as many different perspectives as possible in order to form a few plausible hypotheses. And then it takes some understanding of scientific research and testing methods to either confirm, or reject those hypotheses. 

Further reading here. 

How many of us are utilizing this tool to make important decisions in our lives? 

What are important decisions? I think the biggest important decision there is is to determine your values, believes, and choose the actions to carry out those values, and believes. 

For so many of us these days, including the ones like me and “better" with [many] higher education degrees, we let social media (or the popular media) decide for ourselves what we should be angry about, what should we fear, and then how we should act! We don't want to do the hard (and potentially dirty, too) work of critical thinking. We don’t want to read peer-reviewed research papers. We don't know how to access databases of those researches. We don't even want to walk next door and get to know our neighbors...

MBAs, MPAs, MSs, Directors, VPs, CEOs,... consider the following:

Mark Twain

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

Elbert Hubbard

You can lead a boy to college, but you cannot make him think.

Max Leon Forman

Education seems to be in America the only commodity of which the customer tries to get as little as he can for his money.

When you're humble, you're open-minded, and 

“You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can’t tell him much.”

Robert Buzzell

The mark of a true MBA is that he is often wrong but seldom in doubt.

Your titles do not mean much. Your critical thinking skill or habit does. It takes empathy and compassion to do critical thinking well. It's 2021: there is, indeed, untapped knowledge outside of Eurocentric viewpoints . Don’t be afraid. Reach out. Let's work together. 

It's okay to keep at things you’re not good at. Failure is normalcy. You don’t have to be good at everything. You can't.

[rqn-myutopia]

What’s your 1 thing?

Human lives on Earth have been getting better; however, at what cost and at whose expense? 

At the same time that we see improvement in areas like extreme poverty, hunger, child labor, child mortality, death by childbirth, literacy, number of people living in democracy, access to internet, and cost of solar energy; there are drastic and alarming sharp declines in areas like biodiversity, air and water quality (plastic pollution), social safety net and social equity. So is the “world” getting better or not? I think the question is more like “the world is getting better for WHO, and how many more years will it continue to get better?”

And there’s COVID.

Some say we will “recover” in a K shape, not a V shape meaning the ones that can recover will continue doing better, and the ones that cannot recover will continue doing worse with time.

How do I help? What is the tipping point for all these problems? Is there 1 thing anyone can do that will tip all these problems toward the right direction?

Which direction is the right direction? In the age of the Social Dilemma, the ones that could still emerge with sharp conscience are honestly, and disturbingly, few and far between. We now spend our times arguing (and violently fighting) about what is right rather than setting out to do the ultimate A/B testing to continue doing [a little] better. We do A/B testing everywhere, yet somehow it magically and absolutely “does not work” when it comes to choosing a more socially and environmentally just system?

I thought my 1 thing was to be a good building engineer that could tell stories, and connect with the communities. An engineer who works on combating climate change. But what do I do when the communities do not believe that I am a good engineer? What do I do when the communities do not believe that climate change is real, and urgent? In this sense, I can empathize quite a bit with Dr. Fauci (Covid-19), and the late Dr. Rosling (Ebola). The number of casual ultracrepidarian left and right, all shapes and sizes, is simply mind-boggling to me.

So now my 1 thing turns into a 1.5 thing: be a good engineer (1) while fighting the age of widespread misinformation (.5). I know how to do (1). I'm relying on the team at Center for Humane Technology to help me do my (.5).

I also wonder: if we could fold for covid, why can't we fold for climate justice–donating some capacity of the best supercomputer in our possession: our brain?

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/report/2020-report/#ExploreTheData

https://sdg-tracker.org

https://ourworldindata.org

https://www.gapminder.org/

[rqn-myutopia]

What does homeownership look like in 2020+?

Let’s set the tone for this little brain-picking with a few questions:

Did you know that anyone making ~$30,000 United States Dollars annually puts them in the 1% richest in the world? 

If you want to live close to town where you do not have to drive 10-20 minutes one way to do literally everything and anything, how much is rent, mortgage, property tax, etc? 

Would the world’s population keep increasing if each couple would only have 1-2 kids? 

How much habitable land do we have left? Let’s take a look at this fun little interactive map showing population density around the world to see where humans are congregating, and in how big of a group: www.luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen

Tiny houses have no doubt captured the mainstream attention in the recent years. The same could be said about a number of other related “movements": net zero homes, passive house, energy star rated houses, strawbale houses, Earthships, etc. Which is great! Now, we are very much aware of our many options! Yet, which options are actually affordable? And which one actually works?

As interconnected and out spread as we seem to be, majority of our population lives in and around big cities around the world - and this is quite efficient, and therefore, arguably sustainable. Buying land in more remote area to live in an off-the-grid tiny house is the opposite of sustainability according to this stream of logic.

Human's carbon footprint isn't entirely tied to how green our house is. Our carbon footprint = our habitat and that includes everything that we do as humans.

How can we make our habitat more sustainable? 

How can we be more like birds, for example, where:

we can get ourselves to everywhere we usually want or need to go 99% of the time using our own bodies

our houses are 100% compostable

our gyms are the nature

our food is nearby

our tools are nearby...

Does this habitat cost $500,000 a pop making it only available to the world's top 0.1% richest?  Does ~$60,000/person sound like a more reasonable and attainable price tag? 

Also, do we have to keep the “30-year mortgage” norm? 

Day dreaming a little here: 

Condominium “Earthships" - LEED certified, etc.: the materials we used to build our “nests" are recycled materials, compostable, and can be recycled again once we're done with them

Intentional yet flexible interior design allowing for smaller square footage yet increased usability and adaptability

High walk score or bike score

Co-op edible garden, chicken coup, and maybe a few Nigerian Dwarf goats onsite (how about on the rooftop? Think Austin central library!)

$120,000 for 650-700sqft for a small family of 3, or 4

Our nest does not need to last 100+ years 

7 to 10 years mortgage instead of 30! 

[rqn-myutopia]

Spring cleaning amid worldwide pandemic

“It's not that bad".

People are happy lining up waiting 2+ hours to go to the dump in their A/C'ed cars eating, drinking, being on their phones, listening to music. Most are actually in their “big bad trucks". They bring their kids, dogs, cats [no jokes], wives, husbands, friends along. Two hours to go through the dump to get rid of their trash. Like-new washer and dryer, couches, old mattresses, kids' outdoor toys and playhouses. Some even make 3 trips in a day totalling about 6 hours of their awake time being at the dump. Since when this is counted as “spending time with your kids" activity? It’s a rare mid-70s sunny afternoon in Seattle Spring. Cool breezes, and you could see Rainier!

The worldwide pandemic with 40 millions lost their jobs in the USA alone. “Stay home, and stay healthy", NO! Let's spend our days at the dump. Let's make excuses to go to the dump. Eighteen or Eighty years old, excuses are excuses: “Just a few CFL bulbs", “two mirrors", “an old printer", “some dried up paints”, “just some plastic bags”...

Thrift store donation processing centers are mostly closed down. If they are open, there are new procedures, hours, and they would only open a hand full of their locations. But it's spring cleaning time i.e. the season for throwing big bulky stuff away to be exact (when did this practice start? Please someone tell me! I am dying to know). We need a place to dump our unwanted stuff, and we need it now! 

If I may, “trash": stuff that cause inconveniences to humans' "precious" “busy” awake minutes. Also, “trash": that plastic packaging that just a few seconds ago houses your food. “Trash": keeping us humans “safer” and live longer and “healthier”.  On living longer and healthier note, do I want to live ‘till 100+ years old? What would I do then but consuming resources and trying not to shit myself, literally? All my zero waste and minimalist efforts would be unachievable then if I need 7 prescriptions to keep me going, am in diapers and live on microwavable single-portion meals. Hmmm... Questions of the day: who thought of burying trash in the first place? What are we going to to with our landfills 30, 40, 50 years from now? What are we going to do when we run out of virgin materials?