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Wisdom vs Knowledge

I feel like I write this blog post every few months. Or maybe I don’t actually write / publish it, it’s hard to know what I’ve been thinking about writing and what I’ve actually written((http://stephboisvert.ca/2018/04/08/wisdom/))((http://stephboisvert.ca/2014/01/11/know-thyself/)).

At some point in life you start to learn about self actualization & self transcendence and the paradoxical way that self actualization leads to self transcendence. Somehow, having a better realization of one’s self leads to a realization that there is no real “self” without everything around it. We aren’t this “self” in a vacuum, we are part of something bigger.

It’s a bit like if you think about the human body as a collection of cells. While yes, the cells are all distinct and unique((Just as everyone named Chad is “unique”)) but really they form tissues that form organs that forms a body.

The cell has no concept of me. It doesn’t understand what a “Stéphane” is. And yet, there is no Stéphane without cells.

Anyway, the original subject of this post wasn’t supposed to be on self actualization and that, but rather on how often we come to learn things, usually waves hands in the air “deep meaningful things” about the state of the world, consciousness or ourselves. On how to be compassionate or on how to self regulate or on how we always alternate between the victim, the saviour and the villain.

But that wisdom is ephemeral. We forget. Someone cuts us off in traffic and we forget about the actor observer bias and we just muter to ourselves about their incompetence.

It’s not enough to “know” stuff. We need to live it. We need to integrate it in our daily lives. And to me, that is true wisdom.

On thinking yourself smart.

I remember when I was about 15-16, that’s when I started to feel smart. That I knew things and understood things that others didn’t. That I saw the world for what it was. And while I thought I was all unique and shit, but as you dear reader know, it happens to basically everyone.

And the funny thing is that, at that time, you really believe that you may be smarter than many folks. Somehow, it doesn’t strike us as strange that people who’ve lived twice, three, four times our lives may not be wiser.

And, I mean, it’s easy to think that you’re smarter than most people, just look at the world today. Everything is a fucken mess. People don’t all wear masks, people have parties. Racism is still prevalent. I mean just looking at the US, it’s pretty hard not to feel smart….

Then, in retrospect you kinda see things you missed. Some wisdom in others that you didn’t have at the time. It’s pretty easy to see it in hindsight, but in the moment…. not so much.

So what makes us think that now is any different? I mean, as humans we have a “now” bias. We only live in the now, it’s all we know and it’s currently the smartest we’ve been((kinda, I mean, my 19 year old self was way better at calculus than I currently am)) so what makes us believe this time is any different?

Now of course you probably see the false dichotomy happening. I / We as humans may be silly and ignorant while also being smarter and wiser in different respects.

Not only that, but it varies from day to day. There are many things I “know” that I don’t incorporate in my day to day. I know how to lose weight… it’s not currently happening. I know how to be compassionate, it doesn’t happen every day….

So how do we navigate that fine line? How do we figure out what we’re currently right about and what we’re currently wrong about? How do we not fall into that trap of binary thinking? It’s easy to want categorical answers. I’m smarter than those people, or those people are smarter than me. But navigating that balance…. it’s pretty much the same pain as my other post.

Maybe the government shouldn’t be “Agile”

Folks in government love to have disclaimers everywhere that their opinion is not necessarily the one of their employers and the view presented here and their personal ones. I’ve always found that a bit tedious and unnecessary but since I’m going to post something slightly related to “Digital Government” I though I might as well just drink the whole kool-aid.

There was a good question asked on Twitter

But when reading some of the answers and from lurking at the #GCDigital hashtag, I’m not sure it’s the right question.((Also, to actually directly answer the question, I think it’s near impossible to be the “real” agile [as opposed to the “wagile” doing sprints inside a waterfall] ))

I posted a thread on twitter about it, because I think that’s what the cool kids are doing these days, but wanted to unroll it here. (And fix some formatting)

So my answer:

I wonder if that’s actually the right question. At times, it seems we’re focused on “Agile” and “Digital Transformation” but those things are meaningless. They are, at best, proxies of what the true goal should be.

In my opinion, the real goal is to deliver better services to people.

That’s it, point blank. All the other stuff, “Agile”, “Digital Transformations”, “Microservices”, “Cloud Native”, those are all distractions.

We sometimes get so focused on adopting the “best practices” from tech vendors promising the new buzzwords in nice packaging or trying to imitate other tech startups that we lose sight of the real goal.

Facebook has been agile, they use all of the tech buzzwords and all of the metrics and user research etc. So does Clearview, so does Twitter. The outcomes of those companies is not what I would want the Government of Canada to look like.

So why not focus on what we really want to achieve?
How can we serve people better in the government context?

I haven’t encountered anyone who was like: “If only I could fill out my EI claim on a serverless edge computing platform that had machine learning, was secured via the blockchain and developed via agile methodology”

The focus shouldn’t be how on do we try to change this massive institution’s project methodology to one that has been successful in the private sector.
Rather, I think it should be, how do we, in the given context((Let’s not pretend the GC is like a private enterprise. We have restrictions and parameters that, for better or for worse, are different from private enterprises)) serve people better? What will tell us that we have served them better? And from there, iterate on practices we think will achieve that outcome.

Because that’s the only really important part of agile. How do we iterate on processes that help us achieve our goal.

And the goal isn’t to be agile, the goal is to serve people better.

Dance for me

They say oh my god I see the way you shine
Take your hand, my dear, and place them both in mine
You know you stopped me dead while I was passing by
And now I beg to see you dance just one more time

Ooh I see you, see you, see you every time
And oh my I, I, I like your style
You, you make me, make me, make me wanna cry
And now I beg to see you dance just one more timeSo they say
Dance for me, dance for me, dance for me, oh, oh, oh
I’ve never seen anybody do the things you do before
They say move for me, move for me, move for me, ay, ay, ay
And when you’re done I’ll make you do it all again

I said oh my god I see you walking by
Take my hands, my dear, and look me in my eyes
Just like a monkey I’ve been dancing my whole life
But you just beg to see me dance just one more time

Ooh I see you, see you, see you every time
And oh my I, I like your style
You, you make me, make me, make me wanna cry
And now I beg to see you dance just one more time

So they say
Dance for me, dance for me, dance for me, oh, oh, oh
I’ve never seen anybody do the things you do before
They say move for me, move for me, move for me, ay, ay, ay
And when you’re done I’ll make you do it all again

They say
Dance for me, dance for me, dance for me, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
I’ve never seen anybody do the things you do before
They say move for me, move for me, move for me, ay, ay, ay
And when you’re done I’ll make you do it all again

Ooh
Woah-oh, woah-oh, oh
Ooh
Ah ah, ah

They say
Dance for me, dance for me, dance for me, oh, oh, oh
I’ve never seen anybody do the things you do before
They say move for me, move for me, move for me, ay, ay, ay
And when you’re done I’ll make you do it all again

They say
Dance for me, dance for me, dance for me, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
I’ve never seen anybody do the things you do before
They say move for me, move for me, move for me, ay, ay, ay
And when you’re done I’ll make you do it all again
All again

pseudo acoustic version

Now I’ve got that feeling once again

Hello? Hello? Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone at home?
Come on now
I hear you’re feeling down
Well I can ease your pain
Get you on your feet again
Relax
I’ll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I’ve got that feeling once again
I can’t explain you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb

Okay
Just a little pinprick
There’ll be no more, ah
But you may feel a little sick
Can you stand up?
I do believe it’s working, good
That’ll keep you going through the show
Come on it’s time to go

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb

Garden update

I realize I haven’t done a real garden update in a while.

All the garden beds are growing really well, except maybe that the squashes trying to take over the world.
The tomato plants are all over the place ( I couldn’t find any real sturdy cages for them so most of them are just out of control).
The peas are going gangbusters, and it seems like my attempt to space them 2 week out didn’t do a big thing (that or I’m in for another round of peas in 2 weeks).
The onions are doing well as are the strawberries which are still flowering like mad.
The zucchini has been really tasty, the gooseberries meanwhile have been “interesting”
Mixing flowers and plants hasn’t been a total disaster, at least not yet. (although you can see a petunia battling some peas)
The blueberries are amazing, even if they are in a pretty low count.
Raspberries are a bit disappointing in their volume, but they were just transplanted and I think most of them might be biennial (every 2 years)
I basically have too much produce right now, but I can’t really start a CSA since it would be like, “this week all you get are peas… lots and lots of peas”
As you can also see, we have a giant compost bin, it’s almost full so we’re going to be building a second one so we can let that one “cook”

You can click on the images below to see the full screen version.

The ramifications A.I.

This is a bit of a cutesy title as A.I. or machine learning or deep learning or whatever the “buzzword du jour is” is just a fancy algorithms.

You’ll find countless books, presentations, articles and more on the dangers of algorithms but it’s always interesting to see it in action.

As many have demonstrated, the AI often just reinforces existing biases and power structures. A very simple example is Facebook. Most of the traffic to my site comes from Facebook, and posts have 2 real trajectories in terms of views. Either it will get ~10 views (usually something like plant pictures, or how it’s not that bad). Or it will get ~80-100 views, and those with > 50 views usually have a few things in common, they are usually negative, on negative topics, or gossipy.

What is that Facebook is showing my post to a few people, see how they react and then, if there’s some engagement, they start to show it to a wider and wider circle of folks. In effect, the posts you read of mine is impacted by the Facebook algorithm.

Having worked with many news organization, it’s understandable how they came to worship the algorithm and employ (mostly) snake oil SEO folks to try to appease the gods.

Anyway, that’s what I tell myself when a “good” post doesn’t get as much traffic 😉