Today’s Bloganuary prompt is, “What is a cause you are passionate about and why?” The prompt brings charity and non-profits to my mind. While I support organizations trying to make the world better in that manner, I think my cause or principle is more closely related to seeking a specific kind of truth related to figuring out how things effect things. The joy of discovery is why I am drawn to data and science.
To that end, I have enjoyed seeing some of the effective altruism movement. I am fascinated that supplementing salt could be a cheap and effective education intervention or that reducing poverty clears up some historic problems on its own.
However, I also believe that we will never have a perfect understanding of the world and that there will always be more left to discover. That means leaving respect and room for what we can’t measure. It’s still worth being kind to me, even if there is no measurable benefit. I believe in throwing sidewalk earthworms back to the dirt after a rain even if I know I can’t help them all. I aim to live in balance with nature and our environment. I’d prefer to invent a systemic engineering solution that solves this problem for all earthworms everywhere, but that’s not the world I live in yet. Until then, I do what I can where I am.
In that sense, I am passionate about principles of how we relate to each other. I’m passionate about democracy, though I hope to see an even better solution emerge in my lifetime. The fundamental rights that I care about include voter’s rights, freedom of speech, press, belief (also referred to as religion or opinion and expression), assembly, protest, privacy, travel, and equal protection under the law including rights of the accused to a trial where they are innocent until proven guilty. Whenever possible, I think communities should be self governing in that they should both have agency and responsibility for their decisions.
It is also important to me that when we disagree, we do so with decency. It feels to me that the society I participate in has gotten meaner and more self-centered in my lifetime and I try to counteract that, but am also pragmatic that survival requires a certain toughness. Life is hard enough. Let’s not purposefully make it harder on one another.
