Multiscale objectives

In spite of our primate origins, prestige among apes is important but not the only meaningful goal in life.

Trick question

Are polarizing questions more likely to: (a) be ill-posed and not bear repeating, or (b) show others to be much stupider than you?

Winning hearts & minds

Sell democracy by showing not that it has bigger bombs but that it works better sustainably.

In this context niche-network layer-multiplicity might serve as a cross-disciplinary measure of how well democracy works.

Like available-work & species-diversity, NNLM is a measure of complexity defined by the standing crop of correlated-subsystems.

Seen this lately?

Idea makes hay while bad guy catches glare! Where is this sometimes a problem?

Multiscale values

What does your conscience do to balance the doctor, mentor, parent, community-leader, cultural-guardian & scholar-scientist inside you?

Puzzle solving or evolving?

Is the fact that the beak of the New Zealand wry-billed plover slopes to the right, thereby helping the right eye quide the beak toward food under small river stones, related to the fact that right and left handed people respond more quickly to unexpected stimuli with their left hand?

This article suggests that the left brain in vertebrates supports solving behavior & in humans language. The right responds to the unexpected.

Which side do you rely on most?

Taste in questions?

There are empirical reasons to think that the appeal of black-and-white answers to uncritically-chosen questions is especially difficult to resist for communities under stress. This may be why demagogues sometimes thrive in bad economic times.

Hence it's probably a good idea to beware of folks who enthusiastically criticize others by monoscale categorization or in true-false terms. That's because ill-chosen questions, with simple answers, are likely one path by which complex life on our planet will begin to fold up its tent.