My Enemy: The Internet?

When I started writing these blogs, I had the idea that they would account some of the more interesting parts of my adventures in working for Insight Resources (then Safari Insight Mission). Recently, the entries have been more along the lines of news shorts and not insights into what is going on. So here's a change back to my original idea - explaining why, despite evidence to the contrary, the Internet does NOT hate me.

The story begins when I received word that the donation buttons on our main website were not working. This caused slightly more concern than had I found out the website had crashed completely - after all, no donation buttons means no donations...something vital for our nonprofit organization. Our previous webmaster, Doug Berry, had just passed away, and he had asked for a memorial donation to be set up, so this was even worse than normal - lack of donations plus a PR mess, as there were many people who were visiting the site to donate.

I did some checking, and found that PayPal (who we use to handle our donations) had a very simple setup for installing donation buttons. The site had pre-generated code that would tweak itself based on our account information. Thus, all I had to do was copy the code and paste it into the appropriate part of our website - easy!

Or...not so easy, as it turned out. I copied the code as instructed, only to find that my administrative interface for the website would delete the newly-imported code as soon as I published the change to the internet. So I could copy the code all I wanted, and it would paste normally, but when I hit "save" part of the code disappeared, causing the buttons to malfunction. Clearly, I was doing something wrong - time to call the experts.

I contacted our web page provider, who also doubles as my impromptu tech support for all things internet. Amy, who helps us with our webpage troubles, politely explained that the solution was quite simple...and then walked me through the exact same series of actions I had been performing. I explained that I had tried this, so she tried it herself. It worked. After much consternation, discussion, and head-banging, we discovered that while I could not paste the needed code without it imploding, Amy could do so without trouble. Clearly, there was something in my interface (read, my Firefox browser) that was messing up the code. No problem - I could switch to another browser and make the changes that way, instead. So I switched to another browser and tried again...and failed.

To make an already long story short, it turned out that every time Amy updated the code, it saved without trouble. Whenever I added the code, however, part of the code would delete. This persisted across multiple browsers and even multiple computers! Eventually, Amy just updated the page for me and we called it done, but the experience left me with an odd feeling...the feeling the Internet (or at least, my website) was out to get me.

I'm sure this is a pretty common occurrence for many of us - something bad happens, and some part of us gravitates toward the idea that, somehow, it is a conspiracy by something to cause us frustration. In our seminar, we address this issue as an example of a type of poor thinking.* Still, habits are what they are - even though I know that the internet is not alive, intelligent, or vindictively trying to make me look like an idiot, I still tend to think like it is. This led me to wonder why we do this...if I know the universe isn't out to get me, why do I sometimes want to think it does?

This is an important question for me, because I routinely interact with cultures whose belief systems do hold that personal forces in our universe are constantly guiding, manipulating, or even disrupting our lives. Note that I am not talking about God causing a miracle - I'm a Christian, I believe that can happen. Miracles are a disruption of the natural order, which otherwise functions in a predictable way (that's why we recognize them as miracles - they don't fit the pattern). What I am talking about is the idea that some kind of power - be it gods, demons, angels, or CIA conspiracies - exert control over everything we do. Because of this, we do not have any real control over our lives - we just spend our lives being manipulated by others. If I am going to claim that the universe is an understandable, predicable, controllable environment, it is not unreasonable to ask why we sometimes act as if it is a person (who is often out to get us).

I think the main reason for this feeling stems from two primary factors: 1) we are intelligent, thinking beings and 2) we all, to some degree, desire justice. Item 1 contributes to this phenomenon through the process of personification - attributing human characteristics (e.g. personhood) to non-human things. We do this all the time: we talk about our dogs, cars, computers, corporations, and other non-human things as if they were persons. We assign them personal thoughts and motives, because we ourselves have such thoughts and motives, and it helps us connect with them. Nevertheless, this is a mistake. Even in the case of animals, treating them as people is a mistake that can harm both the animals and ourselves (read some literature on animal psychology or just go listen to the Dog Whisperer talk to learn more). Most of the time, however, this is harmless - but it gets us into the habit of thinking of non-human things as personal, which contributes to my sense that the internet is out to get me (a personal goal), even though it really cannot have such a goal.

On to item 2. Now by "justice" I simply mean we want to see retribution for evil done - especially when that evil is done to us. We like to see the "bad guy" get "what's coming to him" in stories. We like it when criminals are caught and punished. I am not going to make any statement here about why we have this feeling or even if it is right - I only point out that we do, in fact, feel this way. Given that this is a fairly common desire, it makes sense that we would want to think of the universe as a person - people can do evil and be punished, where simple causal forces do not have any intent - evil or otherwise - and are not something we "punish." Punishment requires the person being punished understand they are being punished (otherwise it can never rise above cruelty). An impersonal reality cannot understand punishment (or anything else, for that matter). Thus, thinking of reality as personal helps us cope with trouble by giving us "someone" to blame and direct our desire for justice upon, even though we are really only dealing with natural cause-and-effect.**

These two factors together are enough, I think, to explain why we tend to personalize the universe - be it the universe in general, or specific items like computers or cars. One last note needs to be made here - I am not arguing against the existence of spiritual forces (as a Christian that would be a bit inconsistent), but simply noting that, under normal circumstances, the universe just is a place of cause-and-effect relationships unless something acts to interfere with that process (like God or us). In all cases, I believe that the first avenue of investigating any event is to check for natural causes, unless there is immediate evidence that the cause is personal (for example, if someone leaves a note). This does lead to a third reason that we may personalize impersonal things in the universe, however - if we believe that personal but invisible forces really do exist, then there is a question of possible intent even if there is no human responsible. For me, however, this is similar to the difference between knowing that the CIA exists, and believing that they are at the core of a global conspiracy that controls everything I do. Yes, the CIA can (and will) act in certain cases, but that does not mean everything that happens is an act of the CIA.***

I don't know if this has been helpful to anyone - it has probably enraged someone - but I thought I would actually start adding my observations to this blog, like I said I would some time ago. This was related to the work we are doing, so it seemed a good place to start.

Oh, and our donation buttons are working now - but you should go test them to make sure.

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* The seminar emphasizes the causal nature of our universe and our need to investigate causes for events, not simply jump to investigating persons who we think are responsible
** Note that this argument doesn't necessarily apply to animals, as they do seem to understand punishment in some sense - how and to what degree are a matter of debate, and not something I will get into here
*** Given the number of times I've used CIA, I can't shake the feeling that someone at the agency will eventually end up reading this...

WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT!

What do the following situations have in common:

1.      A business that cannot seem to “get it together” and follow through on its obligations

2.      A “culture of poverty” among communities in the inner-city

3.      A growing sense of apathy in many communities across the U.S.

4.      A high rate of “business churn” – local businesses that start and fail in a matter of months

The answer? Their way of thinking. All the situations above result from ways of thinking that lock their people into patterns which hinder social, economic, and spiritual development. In addition, these patterns are self-reinforcing causing each successive generation to become more and more entrenched in negative or contradictory lifestyles. These destructive ways of thinking are pervasive in all cultures and people around the world. The problems created by these destructive attitudes is immense, but there is a solution.

INSIGHT RESOURCES INTERNATIONAL INVITES YOU to their first official U.S. pilot of the Insight Workshop. This workshop is designed to break down negative and destructive ways of thinking and provide a new perspective on how to approach, understand, and take control of our lives. The principles found in this workshop have been successful in helping people break their self-destructive patterns both in the U.S. and in Africa. This is an basic two-day workshop that will discuss ways we can: develop a new perspective on the world, build critical thinking and problem solving skills, improve our time-management, take responsibility for our work and dreams, and work with others to accomplish our goals.

Location: Torrington, Wyoming in the Wyoming Room of Pinnacle Bank.

Date: Friday, April 20 6-9 pm and Saturday, April 21 9-4pm.

Admission: Preregistration $100 per person by April 16th, $120 per person at the door,

includes all necessary workshop materials and refreshments.

50% refund if canceled before April 16th.

Payment can be made to Insight Resources International

PO Box 1030

Torrington, Wy. 82240

For more information contact Jason Nichols.

Come join us for this first-of-its-kind workshop!

Incoming Workshop!

So I've been away a while again. Originally, we were planning on me being in South Africa by now en route to Mozambique. Unfortunately, a shortage of funds (airlines actually want you to PAY them to fly you places...crazy) demanded that I stay in the U.S. for another month. On the plus side, this provided an opportunity to conduce a pilot workshop here in Torrington, WY. One door closes, another door opens...

The workshop is designed to be a short "core principles" version of the full Insight Seminar we use as part of our work in Mozambique and elsewhere. The full seminar tends to run about 40 hours - a huge time investment for most people - and costs, at minimum, around $600 per person,* making it quite pricy. While I believe the seminar is worth both the time and cost, I have wanted to put together a simpler, more basic presentation to help people grasp some of the core ideas and raise awareness of the principles behind what we are doing. Thus we came up with the idea for the Insight Workshop - a 9-hour workshop which costs substantially less than the full workshop, but still helps people develop new ways of thinking about their lives that can help them live better. I will be posting our full "workshop notice" soon, so anyone who is interested can make reservations.

IN OTHER NEWS...

We are in the process of creating a new website! The new site will combine the old Safari Insight Mission website and the Insight International website into the Insight Resources International website! We're really excited about having a new site with updated information (and working links). I will post when it is up, so please get ready to check it out when it comes - look for the new site in about a month or so.

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*That's just to cover the cost of venue and materials. To generate any kind of revenue (or pay any of our staff), the seminar runs closer to $1200 per person.