
Episode 46: Mark Mykleby
Col. Mark “Puck” Mykleby is a former marine and co-author (along with Capt. Wayne Porter) of A National Strategic Narrative for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, a document that encouraged broadening the concept of defense to include sustainability. Currently Mark is a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan policy institute dedicated to questions about the American future. We learned about Mark through our 41st interviewee, John Fullerton.
There are a lot of ideas packed into this episode: America as an organism in a strategic ecology, sustainability as national narrative that succeeds containment, and the broadening of sustainability to include everything from an engaged populace to new metrics for growth. Mark also talks about America’s lack of a society-wide conversation about the future and the difference between being a resident and being a citizen.
Topically, there are connections to Laura Musikanski’s work at the Happiness Initative, David Korten’s new myth, and John Fullerton’s financial thinking. You’ll also want to ponder the connection between Mark and Lawrence Torcello. Is Classical Liberalism the best path to achieving conversation?
So much talk about sustainability! Don’t you guys know we’re feeding the monster? http://xkcd.com/1007/ Sustainable sustainable sustainable.
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Incidentally, it seems like Puck’s idea of The Conversation relates more to what Professor Torcello thought of as the conversation: an ability to have disparate sides engage peaceably. … or at least, that’s what my impression of the ever-dubious “adult conversation” he was referring to.
This is originally what I thought the intent of this project was, but the more I listened, the more I understood Aengus’ idea of The Conversation to be a particular sort of historical construct that happens at specific points in history when things are in need of it, rather than a continuous and ongoing thing which is constantly at work (at various paces) yet also constantly at risk. Do you guys intend for these things to be the same concept? Or are they two different things? Or are they two sides of the same coin? Or what?
I’ll repeat my recommendation to get James P. Carse in on things. I’d love to see if The Conversation is a finite or infinite game.
It’s a top down problem. Housing in LA is prime example – how can I be content or my lifestyle sustained when my landlord raises my rent by 15% on the space of 10 months? I can’t. If the system encourages hoarding and stifles competition, they can get away with it and prevent my life from ever being sustainable. And so they do.
To me, this line by Mykleby is significant: “I’m not worried about being right; I’m worried about learning.” It’s an evolutionary or complexity-based or learning-based worldview. I always notice people or schools of thought that take this approach.
Where is this on your concept map? Is that what you mean by “biological continuity” (which is not currently linked to Mykleby)?
This so called Darwinian survival of fittest notion is getting worn out. origin of species by means of natural selection. unpick and define and stop using poor Darwin as some explanation for bad behaviour.
Some have said species and individuals survive better by helping each other. Dont ask me why a bird comes back for days feeding its sick mate till she’s better. I’m sure he isn’t obeying an ideology which says mutual aid will be best for the survival of the red wattle birds. If it’s some avian version of universal compassion its off my radar. Can a being with no sense of personal identity, though how would we know, living in an eternal present, though how would we know, have such a thing? Then again they well may. They show unmistakable signs of pain and fear so why not? Its on my mind because there has been a an animal cruelty practice exposed here, live baiting training to make dogs run faster, over last two days. Its been suggested that drones and other high tech surveillance gear was used to get the evidence. Good.