Insightful quote by Mark Cuban, advocating intellectual self-sufficiency:
“In the past, you had to memorize knowledge because there was a cost to finding it. Now, what can’t you find in 30 seconds or less? We live an open-book-test life that requires a completely different skill set.”
Source: ZDNet.com
Last summer Jon Udell of Infoworld had dinner with local techie Phil Windley. Phil explained that when he helps his wife with computer questions, it looks like he knows all the answers. He actually doesn’t; he just knows how to find the answers. “What I’m actually doing is figuring things out on the fly.” (The Tacit Dimension of Tech Support)
This is a principle that Brian and I have discussed and call “intellectual self-sufficiency.” It’s a matter of being able to search out answers to your questions by yourself. It’s an important part of independent thought and truth seeking.
If you’re hiring, how did the candidates for your job learn what they know? Can they teach themselves more?
I don’t believe good grades in school are half as important as knowing how to find more information, how to teach yourself something, and how to discern between sources. For some people, school gives them a fish (a piece of paper that gets them their first job) while for others it teaches them how to fish. And some people learn to fish with no formal schooling at all.
Today I sat thinking about the differences between a public bathroom in the U.S. and in Brazil. U.S. bathrooms usually have good, quality soap and often electric faucets. Brazilian bathrooms usually have cheap, watered-down soap, and often a bathroom attendant that stays inside the bathroom to make sure the faucets aren’t left on and that the bathroom is clean. How can they afford to pay an attendant but still have cheap soap?
This economics question is answered by the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem:
A capital-abundant country will specialize in capital-intensive goods, while the labor-abundant country will specialize in labor-intensive goods.
At the Utah Valley Business Expo last week I ran into a company that is fighting pornography — CP80. I had subscribed to their newsletter a while ago but didn’t know they were a Utah company. I met their president and some of the employees and was impressed by how strongly they feel about the issue.
As a bit of background, Internet traffic is divided into separate “channels” which are called “ports”. For example, port 80 is for web pages, port 443 for secure web pages, port 25 for email between ISP’s, and port 5190 for AOL Instant Messenger. There are over 65,000 ports in all, and many of them go unused.
CP80 is advocating that pornographic web sites be transmitted, by law, over a separate port. (The company was originally named Clean Port 80, implying that only “clean”, non-pornographic material should be transmitted over port 80.) This is similar to separate cable channels for TV shows.
If all pornographic material were transmitted over a separate port, it would be easy for filtering software to work — simply disallow content from the “porn channel”. This would make it easy for parents and schools to protect children from pornography. As it is now, internet filtering programs generally don’t work well because they have to maintain a database of “bad sites” or look for “bad words” in the text.
Like the idea of a separate TLD for porn sites, CP80 will only work if all porn publishers are required by law to transmit over a separate channel and the law well enforced.
If CP80 can get the right legislation passed, this is an intuitive solution to the problem. They’ve already met with all the Utah Congressmen. Senator Orrin Hatch said pornography is a “clear and present danger to children and families,” an interesting choice of words since those words represent the legal basis for limiting free speech.
This week I met someone who I believe will be a hero and role model to me for the rest of my life.
One of my life ambitions — though not the strongest — has been to go to law school and become an attorney. (I worked one summer at a great law firm in Las Vegas and really enjoyed the work, the people, and the “banker’s hours”.) I envisioned practicing law for ~20 years to support my family, then retire early and use my legal degree and experience to mount a legal front against pornography.
This week I attended a luncheon with John Harmer, Chairman of the Lighted Candle Society, who has been doing this for decades. Mr. Harmer practiced law in California, became a state senator, and then in 1974 was appointed to be Lt. Governor under Governor Ronald Reagan. He has been litigating against pornographers since 1964. At the luncheon he explained the history behind the battle:
The point of the luncheon was to raise funds for the Lighted Candle Society. They have five goals or “smooth stones” (a reference to the David and Goliath story) — Prevention, Action Programs, Research, Guarding the Light, and Healing. Money donated to the society might fund, for instance, medical research to show the negative physiological effects of pornography or resources to help local attorneys properly prosecute pornography cases.
Come with me to the Lighted Candle Society’s fundraising dinner in May. A table of 10 costs $1500 so I’m hoping to get at least 9 other people to pitch in $150 each to go in on a table with me. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland will be the speaker that night, and the money will go to what I consider a great cause. It’s on May 3 at 7:00 PM at the Little America Hotel in SLC. If you’re interested, leave a comment below or email me at richardkmiller AT gmail.
I believe time will prove that pornography is damaging enough to families and societies that it’s worth fighting like an illegal drug. I also believe there are people ensnared in it that want our help to escape it. We can be the ones to do it.