An Open Call for Pragmatic Meliorism

Meliorism (Latin melior, better): the idea that progress is a real concept and humans can interfere with natural processes to improve the world.

What would it look like to embrace pragmatic meliorism instead of cynicism?

• Acknowledging problems while focusing on solutions
• Learning from history without being imprisoned by it
• Maintaining high standards while accepting incremental progress
• Combining skeptical analysis with constructive action

This is harder than cynicism by orders of magnitude. It takes nuance, effort, and (critically) emotional risk. But it’s also more likely to actually improve things.

From Joan Westerberg We Don’t Need More Cynics. We Need More Builders.

I was very happy with the way that Numbers handled the playlist export from Music. It inferred a delimited file and presented the contents formatted in a very easily understood fashion. It was super easy to copy the two columns I wanted to share, and Nova helped me make markdown fast.

Yesterday I found about 8 Twitter accounts that I follow mentioned or listed a Mastodon address. Did a quick Twitter search for “mastodon” on followed accounts. Today I learned of Debirdify, which helped me to find about 100 more accounts I could follow directly from Micro.blog.

LinkedIn is testing a new ‘no politics’ setting

Wishing more large services offered similar. At least some offer filtering.

Inoreader has a special for the next few days: 18 months of Pro for the price of 12.

I just renewed, carrying me into 2024. I must have done something similar last year?

Was just introduced to the ideas of Ken Wilbur’s Integral Theory via the SLOWW Sunday newsletter.

There’s a lot to unpack, here.

What if you took the opportunity to turn your secure pass-phrase into a positive affirmation?

Or a goal? A mission statement? Your intent?

TIL The Trashmen were from Minneapolis.

I am very pleasantly surprised with the most current release of the iOS Bullet Journal application. It is in no way designed to take the place of your paper journal. But allows you to photo your pages and assign them to a calendar day and page number inside of a journal. Another nice feature is the ability to assign a page to a Collection.

Most importantly, it backs up to the iOS Files application. I can use my iCloud Drive to store the backup file. No new account is required. No new subscription is needed.

The application fully supports the Bullet Journal methodology, but gives you a way to review your notes even if you are away from the physical copy.

Lastly, in a pinch, there is an ephemeral 72-hour Log for Tasks, Notes and Events. This provides a way to continue to capture until you can return to your paper Journal.

Lovely.

“The major effect of testosterone is to make effort feel good.” — “The problem is the frequency with which we reward agression."