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Something I’ve been thinking about for a while yet I’ve not found a “long form essay” way to spell it out so I’ll put my brief and disjointed thoughts here as a place holder and to spur further discussion…

• Culture change is very slow. An event or policy or law may be a trigger — a starting point — but the actual change is a process that often takes generations.

• We often like to believe that an action or a law comes as a result of a societal change. That somehow passing a law makes everything suddenly better. When, in fact, the law is simply a step that is generally near the start of the journey. A road that will take many generations to walk. Also, that road is not a straight line. That journey is a wave. It is often two steps forward and one step back or worse — the converse of that.

• Racism didn’t end with Civil Rights Act of 1964. We are now 3-4 generations past that time and still fighting many of the same fights with things often seemingly getting worse, not better.

• Segregation did not end when Ruby Bridges crossed the threshold of that school. Even with laws in place, we largely in American culture and society still segregate ourselves willingly despite it.

• All culture change is performative… It is all “fake it until you make it”. I would make the argument that most laws and policies are in place to force the faking.

• So, it should be no surprise when a company that was doing DEI way before it was cool can suddenly turn on a dime and decades of DEI policies and practices suddenly disappear or go in reverse. They were faking it all along and, you know what? That’s…

• Well… How it works. That’s how culture change happens. It happens by faking it until it just becomes the thing we do and it has been so long that people have largely forgotten that it wasn’t always this way or look at the way it was as completely abhorrent to who we are as a society and culture now.

Like I said, many of these thoughts are still forming into a more logical “Rhone Unified Theory of Culture Change and Societal Progression” but I’ll leave these here for now and welcome any feedback or further discussion.

Update:

I received a wonderful and important comment on these ideas from someone who wishes to remain anonymous but has allowed me to include it here:.

imo the missing idea here is that people create social change. It does not happen simply because a law was passed, or even that some people decided to fake it for a while. Social change is about the dominant culture changing, and culture only changes because people help other people change their beliefs or actions (or they are replaced in the culture by others). It’s people changing others that creates the change:

There are two types of activists: One who believes their side is right, and therefore banishes anyone who doesn’t yet agree. And one who believes their side is right, and therefore tries to convince anyone who doesn’t yet agree. I’ve lived in both camps. The latter is tougher, but it’s the one that fosters social change.

Of course, it’s never all of the culture that changes. Just the dominant part, the right now part, which is why that can shift over time. You can pass laws or change policies but not complete the necessary social change, and—bam—things can revert in a hurry in response. Faking it isn’t enough; if you’re not changing others (or keeping them changed), then the “other side” can do the work of changing others, and unwind the change they want.

I recently drafted the following thoughts to share with the Academic Dean of my daughter’s school. These were driven from a thread I recently started around these ideas on Micro.blog. I wanted to post them here for archives sake also/and to share them with my broader audience for further thinking and discussion.

A few days ago, I didn’t know the right settings for cooking white beans in my Instant Pot. So, I Googled it. The top result was Google’s AI telling me exactly what I needed to know. I did not need to click further. I now know the right method going forward.

Did I use AI for the answer? Did I learn?

Yes.

The point being that AI is everywhere now. If I search for something on Google the top result is increasingly often Google’s AI driven answer with the information I need. If I type in my word processor or email program and it makes word suggestions or offers sentence completion, AI is driving that. In fact, everything students and teachers write or post online — including everything in Google Classroom — is being used to train the very LLMs that the AI is using to provide the answers.

The truth is, AI is a tool. A tool that will very soon (1-3 years maximum in my guessing) be everywhere and in everything and the answers/solutions it will produce will be so accurate it will be indistinguishable from actual learning and, in fact, teaching.

AI is quickly becoming the first and final step of learning something new on the internet. My Instant Pot story is an example of this. I did not ask for AI but it was the first answer presented, had the right answer, and I learned from it. So, I “used AI” for the result.

Therefore, if a student uses AI to learn a better method for doing stoichiometry for Chemistry class because the one being taught is not making sense or if they learn the same thing from their learning coach, what’s the difference? Especially if they can now use that method going forward to get the right results? And if the student has learned something, what makes either instruction superior to the other? Now, what if the learning coach learned that new method from AI?

These are the sorts of things, of many, I believe schools of all levels will need to think about and should be having conversations about right now.

The bottom line is that without a specific AI policy that addresses what is appropriate and not appropriate use, I would argue that the school has neither the standards, understanding, or clarity about it to make any objective accusations about when/how/why/how much it was used. And if the school does not have a clear, communicable, policy regarding this, it can’t possibly expect the students to know the difference between proper use of a tool to learn versus intellectual dishonesty.

Especially without proper policy built from thinking about what AI is, the many ways it might manifest, how one might use it for valid reasons and learning, or even how one may not even realize they are using it at all (the typing an email example).

With a lack of clear specific AI policy, teachers are left without any objective way to test or defend against its use and this leads to a desire to use subjective suspicion as a basis for accusation.

If the school is going to remain all-in with using Google Classroom, then it must at least acknowledge the potential conflict of interest this might reveal; i.e. the students and teachers themselves are likely training the very LLM’s Google is using for their AI programming and results using the very coursework we are asking the students to do. What then happens when the AI result is something another student wrote or even the student themselves using the AI wrote previously? Is plagiarizing yourself possible? I suspect we’re about to find out.

I suspect within the next 2-3 years, any school policy broadly and unilaterally against AI — or as only mention in a broad cheating policy – will seem silly as it will be nearly ubiquitous, everywhere, and impossible to truly avoid using. It’ll be like being broadly against eyeglasses. The smart schools will realize this now and start to draft policy around how to use it ethically as a tool for learning more so than simply tying to ban its use with no clear guidance.

For what it’s worth, I remember similar arguments about pocket calculators when I was in grade school in the 1970s. I still remember a section in a mathematics class where we used a calculator to get the result but — with a creative twist – the result requested was the word the result numbers appeared to spell when you turned the calculator upside down. A very creative way to incorporate new technology seen as a potential threat! The more things change…

To summarize, AI is here. It is everywhere. It’s going to only be more so. It is being used right now to even write this. We can’t avoid it. We have to learn how to live with it and use it properly or go back to pencils and blue books, proctored exams, and lean more heavily into live (unassisted) discussion and presentation.

Thinking recently about how places — houses, buildings, land — are not just things to me. They are talismans and time machines. When I walk on the grounds of Handy Heights, for instance, not only am I flooded with my own memories of times spent there when young, I also can vividly imagine my ancestors walking in the very same steps, looking at very similar views. When we are at my wife’s family’s cabin, I can help but feel the hands of her great grandfather touching the same logs on the original cabin or her grandmother sleeping in the same Murphy bunk our daughter now calls her own.

I sometimes look at the 1886 piano in the corner of our living room, built the same year as the house, and see the music teacher daughter of the woman who built it giving piano lessons to a younger student. The same golden hour light streaming alighting the keys.

And when these places are lost, due to catastrophe, sale, or otherwise, more than just the structures and their contents are gone. In a significant way, those direct tangible connections to the past are as well.

Perhaps I have an overly active method of loci.

A place very dear to our family was recently lost to wildfires. The land is still there. Perhaps it will be rebuilt and nothing has burned our memories but I can’t touch the places I once touched there again. I can’t marvel at the hand built structures of the woman who founded the place. How it was is only a memory now. A certain tangibility gone for good.

On the subject of food, my most recent food obsession is the humble Jambon Beurre — the unofficial national sandwich of France (more than three million jambon-beurre sandwiches are sold in France each day).

So simple. Only three ingredients. But, in discussing this with my Dad today another side thought occurred to me… Because of its simplicity the quality of each ingredient matters that much more. And, I believe this to be a general rule of thumb. The simpler the dish, the more important the quality of the ingredients — the mediocre simply has no where to hide!

You can use canned peas in a casserole and folks will likely never notice. Use them for mushy peas and they’ll likely be terrible.

So, with the jambon beurre I’m careful to use good ham (usually a lightly smoked prosciutto actually), a generous slather of Président butter and a fresh baguette.

I’ve tried the cheap quality alternatives to all three and, well, let’s just say it is not why I keep making them.

This idea came up in conversation with my dad this morning (credit mostly to him):

If you use a microwave until it dies, no problem. You can buy a new one.

You can drive a car until the wheels are practically falling off. Then replace it with a new one.

You only have one body. It can’t be replaced.

Just like the car or the microwave, how well you maintain them and carefully you use them will have an effect on how long they last.

But your body, once it’s done, it’s done.

So, it’s even more important to use and maintain it as well as you can, for as long as you can. Because it’s irreplaceable.

So, put the best fuel (food) in it you can. Make sure that fuel is clean and high-quality (organic, sustainable, balanced, chemical free, ingredients you can trust, etc.). Keep your regularly scheduled maintenance visits (doctors, dentist, etc.). Run it regularly at both cruising and highway speeds (regular walking and exercise). Give it regular washings and keep it looking good (clean cars run better and last longer, so do bodies). These things may cost you more, but that’s because they are better and better for you.

I like this way of thinking about it and making choices for what I do and consume based on this line of thought.

Pairs well with a conversation I had with a friend many years ago, explaining why the added expense often kept me from shopping at the wonderful natural food co-op that’s just a block and a half away as often as I should. He turned to me and said, “Patrick, it’s an investment in your health”.

All these years later, these words ring in my head whenever I shop there.

My faith journey has been, well, complicated. But a large and very influential part of that journey was as a Catholic. I converted from Methodist around age 12 and, though I’ve long journeyed away from the practice of faith, my true spiritual heart was forged there.

While I never felt any particular feelings towards any of the other Popes of my lifetime, Pope Francis was the outlier. Though I did not know him personally, I felt a particular respect and admiration for him.

Reports of all who have met and known him indicate he was a truly pious and humble man who stayed steadfast to his Jesuit practice of service to the poor. Mixed reports early in his tenure of him sneaking out of the Vatican at night to feed the poor had more a ring of truth than some actual verifiable actions of any previous Pope. One would hear such a story and not really question whether it was something he would do if he could.

I even have one direct loose connection to him — I did the graphic design for a report on The Overlooked Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad that was presented to him personally and he received many briefings on. The intended use was as a possible blueprint for modern peace between Abrahamic religions. An effort that is well expressed in his Fratelli tutti encyclical.

All of this is to say that the loss of this Pope weights heavily more than others, and I pray for those who must pick the one to fill his humble shoes.

Rest in peace, Francis.

From what I’ve gleaned from the few conversations I’ve now had with the admissions staff at the few colleges and universities we’ve toured (a dozen or so at this point), they really have no idea what is about to happen to them. Everything they’ve come to expect — in fact count on — is about to get upended.

Sure, many know about the enrollment cliff that begins with the incoming 2026 class (those born in 2008). Of course, many had a plan. That plan included leaning more heavily into recruitment and enrollment of international students. Of course, that will likely not be a viable option going forward. Not only will international students likely not be able to come in the first place but they will likely soon lose many they currently have due to mass revocation of student visas and other measures.

One we spoke with talked about reaching out to rural areas, but those kids and their families are going to be some of the hardest hit in the current back and forth of trade policies and destruction of federal agencies and services. Families desperate to hold on to their livelihoods will be unlikely to send their kids off for a liberal arts education to a school far away.

Then there’s the fact that Federal loan and grant services are currently up in the air and likely to be greatly curtailed if not all out eliminated so paying for college will be difficult for all but a few.

Add to that the war on higher ed, funding, international student visas, and anything that might have the faintest whiff of “DEI” and what I’m left with is a sense of impermanence. Many college and universities will not survive such all out assaults. The drop in enrollment that will happen over the next few years due to all of the above has gone from a cliff to a straight drop off.

In fact, at this point it all sounds like these institutions are still stuck in a world and spouting a script that should just as well be part of some course called “101: History of Collegiate Admissions 1900-2024”.

Therefore, as we’ve gone on these college tours, looking at schools for our current high school junior, I’ve taken in every piece of data regarding acceptance rates, diversity, financial aid availability, touting their status as a “research institution”, study abroad programs, etc. with the firm understanding that none of it is correct. All of it has already changed or will change in the next few months – let alone the next year when Beatrix is, hopefully, getting accepted to the places she likes and is having to make choices about her future.

I’m unsure what to make of it all. I’m hoping that someone would just be honest with us about the whole thing. I’d love to walk into a info session and have the Associate Director of Admissions get up at the podium and say, “Everything I would normally tell you in the next hour is likely no longer applicable and we have no idea about our very future as an institution let alone anything about your young person’s.”

I feel like I’m being gaslit by the entire process.

I’m begging for someone brave enough to admit the truth of not knowing and bold enough to say it and to recognize the challenges that face my kid and so many others.

At least I’d feel some comfort in the unknowing. Less alone in the murky depths of now.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Especially if you work at a college or university, Please feel free to reach out.

Today is one of my wife’s favorite days on the calendar, She likes it because March 4th is also a command, a call to action; March forth!

Two of my favorite writers recently wrote about thinking seasonally and using March as a starting point for the real action of the year.

Mike Vardy writes,

The calendar year starts, and you make plans. You set goals. You even build routines that feel solid. But somehow, it still doesn’t feel like the year has fully started.

That’s because January is a test. February is a warm-up. March? That’s the real beginning.

Seth Godin chimes in with,

January feels like the start of the year, but there’s always a hangover from the holidays. In the northern Hemisphere, February is dark and dreary and we’re mostly hunkering down waiting for the short month to end.

But March? Around the world, March can be a chance to get down to the work we committed to do.

I read both of these following a great session of home repair project planning for the coming Spring with my wife. All of this within 24 hours of each other. It felt like the universe was trying to tell me something…

Carpe diem. Seize the day.

So, I’m going to use this month to continue to, um, march forth on the goals I’ve set for the year.