I know it's been a REALLY long time since I last posted, but I found something to fire me up again.
I just finished reading The Death of Common Sense by Philip K Howard.
This book is amazing. It's one of the best reads I've had in a long time. It's not hard or long and has enough anecdotal horror stories to keep you both entertained and equally enraged for the entire read.
The synopsis of the book is as follows:
America is drowning: in law, legality, bureaucratic process. Abandoning our common sense and individual sense of responsibility, we live in terror of the law, in awe of procedure, at war with one another. Philip K. Howard has written the explosive manifesto for liberation – one of the most talked about sociopolitical treatises of our time. Citing dozens of examples of bureaucratic overkill – everything from the labeling of window cleaner as a toxic substance to the U.S. Department of Defense spending $2 billion on travel and $2.2 billion processing the paperwork for that travel – The Death of Common Sense shows how far we have wandered, how we got into this mess, and how we can – and must – get out.
I originally saw the author on The Daily Show and have kept it on my list of must-reads. I'm glad I did.
If you're at all interested in politics, improving social services, economics, bureaucracy, etc., this book is for you! It helps you take a step back and really assess the effectiveness of current practices and implementation. It helps identify the road blocks many of us have seen or faced when trying to help, serve or attempt to make improvements to the world around us. It shows how companies, businesses, government and others have been able to take advantage of the system and essentially defraud taxpayers.
America is drowning: in law, legality, bureaucratic process. Abandoning our common sense and individual sense of responsibility, we live in terror of the law, in awe of procedure, at war with one another. Philip K. Howard has written the explosive manifesto for liberation – one of the most talked about sociopolitical treatises of our time. Citing dozens of examples of bureaucratic overkill – everything from the labeling of window cleaner as a toxic substance to the U.S. Department of Defense spending $2 billion on travel and $2.2 billion processing the paperwork for that travel – The Death of Common Sense shows how far we have wandered, how we got into this mess, and how we can – and must – get out.
I originally saw the author on The Daily Show and have kept it on my list of must-reads. I'm glad I did.
If you're at all interested in politics, improving social services, economics, bureaucracy, etc., this book is for you! It helps you take a step back and really assess the effectiveness of current practices and implementation. It helps identify the road blocks many of us have seen or faced when trying to help, serve or attempt to make improvements to the world around us. It shows how companies, businesses, government and others have been able to take advantage of the system and essentially defraud taxpayers.
The basic premise is that our society has come to expect salvation through law. We create policies and legality with contingencies for every possible outcome and by doing so, those required to follow, and execute, the law cannot possibly keep up with it, and therefore forget the intent for which these laws were created. This dependence has ultimately allowed us to shift responsibility from human beings to "the law" . . . as expected, without accountability, our society has turned into one of expectation, blame, distrust and ultimately no common sense.
The book is part of a larger movement called "Common Good" which seeks to replace policy and regulation with more accountable government and policies. The movement has already seen successful progress and adoption over the last decade or so and, as more people become aware of these issues and are willing to risk changing the fundamental flaws we encounter, the more we will progress toward an accountable citizenship and greater freedoms.
The book is part of a larger movement called "Common Good" which seeks to replace policy and regulation with more accountable government and policies. The movement has already seen successful progress and adoption over the last decade or so and, as more people become aware of these issues and are willing to risk changing the fundamental flaws we encounter, the more we will progress toward an accountable citizenship and greater freedoms.
I highly recommend you read it. (Yes, you.)
The book is available in both regular and ebook format at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
The book is available in both regular and ebook format at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
And if you're interested, here's the original clip from the author's Daily Show appearance (it was the same day that Bin Laden was assassinated):
And here's a longer clip from a TED seminar he did in 2010:
And here's a longer clip from a TED seminar he did in 2010:
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