Category: Daily updates

Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph

The future and the limits of prediction

It’s inevitable, perhaps, that whatever sort of academic or professional training you get tends to be backward-looking. The people doing the teaching have succeeded under a particular set of conditions, and it’s perfectly well-meaning for them to provide the kind of advice, assignments, and requirements that were involved in their own development.

At the same time, the last 250 years of human history have been characterized by change so profound, constant, and multi-dimensional that we cannot expect the decades ahead to be governed by the same rules as the ones people have just experienced. For one thing, we have about 15 years to collectively decide if we’re going to have a future of wild climatic destabilization, with all the political, economic, and social consequences that would involve.

The prospect of trying to prepare yourself for a future that nobody can guess is daunting. Since nobody can single-handedly establish the conditions of their own future, we all need to be prepared for a range of possibilities. We can’t know what’s going be be essential, even in what remains of our own lives.

Anything but comp prep

Partly because of its supposed effectiveness in countering stress, spending moderate amounts of time at the gym falls within what I consider acceptable procrastination. It certainly helps that the Hart House gym has pretty good hours and is only a four minute walk from my bedroom (as well as the libraries where I should generally be embedded for the next month).

Generally, I do 25 minutes of cardio on an elliptical machine, run a lap, do another 25 minutes of cardio, run another lap, and then row for 2000 metres. Even with my new glasses, I don’t find that I can effectively read during any of these activities, so it’s also a chance to catch up on Planet Money, This American Life, The Current (I tend to avoid the most depressing stories), and the Savage Lovecast (abrasive, but a useful source of perspective – like his long-running column). I wish Stephen Fry released his podgrams much more often (the one on language is wonderful, and an antidote to pedantry).

When working on exceptionally daunting and unpleasant tasks, I have to suspend the rules of my normal procrastination flowchart, since following it would easily allow me to cut study time to nothing. Beyond the gym, a few forms of acceptable non-study activity include corresponding with friends and family members (though I am still well behind); dealing with especially time-sensitive 350.org tasks; purchasing, cooking, and eating brain-sustaining food; taking and posting photos of the day; and doing a quantity of paid work that reduces the rate at which my savings are depleting.

Less justifiable activities that sometimes sneak in are the occasional ladder game of Starcraft II (seems to raise wakefulness as much as a large cup of coffee, without insomniac side-effects), reading materials unrelated to the comp, and ongoing endless correspondence with the Canada Revenue Agency.

Last luxurious lunch

Tomorrow is the last day of the summer when lunch will be served at Massey College. This is at least triply unfortunate, since lunch is often the most enjoyable social event in the college, having it provided saves a lot of shopping and cooking time, and free lunches are included in my contract with the summer residence program.

In addition to enjoying my last Massey lunch before the fall, I will also be on the radio briefly tomorrow, providing an update on the activities of Toronto350.org. In particular, that means our work on the Energy East pipeline, divestment, the September climate march in Manhattan, and incorporation.

T-31 days

My public policy comprehensive exam is in 31 days.

Levels of dread and terror are spiking.

According to the examiners, the basic requirements for students are:

  1. being familiar with the major approaches (and their authors) advanced to explain the policy process and policy outcomes;
  2. understanding how these approaches differ in terms of their ontological assumptions about what units of analysis (individuals, collective entities of social action, institutions / social and economic structure, norms, etc) best explain policy-making;
  3. understanding the strengths and weaknesses of different epistemological approaches (qualitative / quantitative) to explaining the policy process and its outcomes.

Between the core course and study group sessions, I have read a lot of the required material. The trouble is how it doesn’t really ‘stick’. I need to find ways to keep enough ideas, authors, and references in my head to satisfy the examiners on August 22nd.

Historical institutionalism! State-centred governance! Policy evaluation!

I am having real difficulty preparing for my next comprehensive exam, principally because the material to be memorized is so dull that every activity and chore holds more appeal than studying.

The only answer is a sort of sensory deprivation: declining all social invitations, banning forays into more interesting books, refusing to undertake photography projects, and forbidding as many things as possible aside from exercise and exam prep.

Looking ahead to July and August

With Clara gone, Massey suddenly seems empty and lonely. The way she is integral to this place for me is illustrated by how alien the quad has become in the absence of the distinct light pattern from her desk lamp.

For the rest of the summer, my core aims need to be dealing with the summer residence program on weekends and holidays and dedicating the maximum time possible during the week to preparation for the public policy comp. Some regular routine of Massey breakfast, time at the gym, regular sleep, and dedicated periods of reading in libraries is necessary if I am to move from my present state of woeful non-preparation into a position of comfortable readiness by the time of the exam in August.

Thoughts on the Trinity-Spadina by-election

I am deviating from this flowchart for the current Trinity-Spadina by-election.

My riding is clearly contested between the Liberals and the NDP, and I do generally have a preference between candidates from those parties. If the real race is between the Liberal and NDP candidates, and you prefer one to the other, it probably makes sense to vote for the plausible candidate who you prefer.

But for this election, I think both the federal Green platform and the local candidate in Trinity-Spadina are very appealing. I have been volunteering a bit for the campaign. It’s not plausible to think that the Green will win, despite her considerable merits as a potential parliamentarian, but it would be nice to beat the Conservative candidate.

One thing the flowchart in my 2008 post fails to capture is the possibility that only one party has a credible platform on the issue I consider most important. Continuing to expand the oil sands is a really bad investment, and the federal Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP generally support it. Generally speaking, federally, the Liberals are probably better than the NDP on climate. Locally, the NDP candidate seems more concerned than the Liberal.

Greens are great parliamentarians, with Elizabeth May deservedly-acknowledged as the star of the whole place.

Preparing for a comp, working (photography and hotel management), and remaining engaged with Toronto350.org there is only so much I can do for the campaign. At the same time, being peripherally involved so far has been the most engaging encounter with Canadian politics I’ve had in a while, and with voter turnout so lamentable, I think the power of the Greens to inspire those cynical about first-past-the-post Westminster-style electoral politics is a further good reason to support them.

Busy Monday

Tomorrow is going to be packed.

After breakfast, I am attending a lecture on the history and philosophy of science being delivered by my friend Clara to a class of undergraduates.

Then, I have lunch with my rarely-seen friend Evey.

From 2:00 to 4:00, I am canvassing door to door with Trinity-Spadina Green Party candidate Camille Labchuk.

Then, from 7:00 to 9:00, I will be photographing the all-candidates’ climate change debate Toronto350.org is hosting. Unfortunately, I still only have one flash, since the one I sent back to Canon for repair is still gone.