In a recent critical essay about economist-philosopher Friedrich Hayek, Jesse Larner notes:

… Hayek understood at least one very big thing: that the vision of a perfectible society leads inevitably to the gulag. Experience should have taught us by now that human societies are jerry-built structures, rickety towers of ad hoc solutions to unforeseen problems. Their development is evolutionary, and as in biological evolution, they do not have natural end-states. They are what they are continuously becoming. Comprehensive models of how society should work reject the wisdom of solutions that work and deny the legitimacy (indeed, from Lenin to Mussolini to Mao to Ho to Castro to Qutb, deny the very right to exist) of individuals who demonstrate anti-orthodox wisdom. Defenders of these models are required by their own rigidity to invent the category of the counterrevolutionary. To Hayek, this is what socialism, communism, and collectivism—he makes little distinction between them—mean: the dangerous illusion of perfectibility. …

ZhurnalyWiki: Illusion of Perfectibility

What I DIDN’T do this summer

  • Create accounts on my MacBook and really get a handle on securing it.
  • Create a custom search engine in Google that would search the sites I tend to read the most: Lifehacker, Marginal Revolution, Kevin Kelly’s sites, 43Folders, Web Worker Daily, my delicious bookmarks, Ask Metafilter, etc. I created a custom engine of usability sites for my User Interface class last spring, so it’s not that hard.
  • Update my blog’s template and add cool plugins.
  • Read some recent SILS master’s papers to get an idea of what these papers are about.
  • Set up my turntable so it hooks into my PC.
  • Organize my CDs.
  • Organize the office closets.
  • Picasa.
  • Buy an extra power adapter for the MacBook.
  • Get my ClaimID site looking complete and purty.
  • Write to Sue.
  • Write to Cara.
  • Learn how to get FTP working on this blinkin’ site.
  • Clean up the categories and tags on this blog.
  • Research whether I could hook my Airport Extreme router to my current Verizon modem/router box.
  • Lose 5 pounds of unsightly flab.

I’ve never been impressed by middle-ground or art-of-the-possible stuff,” he says. “Why would people bother with politics if that’s all they wanted to do? If you weren’t trying to see if you could expand the art of the possible, break the limits of the feasible, redefine it, expand it—why would you bother? Who wants to be just a manager?

‘Christopher Hitchens’, Prospect Magazine issue 146 May 2008 – Printer Friendly Article

Advice to a 40-odder on re-entering school

When I let it be known around the office back in 2006 that I was interested in going back to school, and that I’d targeted UNC’s SILS, an acquaintance introduced me to a friend of hers who had just gotten her MSLS degree from there. I think we talked in January or February and I was amazed at the impromptu compactness and pointedness of the excellent advice she gave me. It was a great example of how, when you make your intentions specific and known, life opens its hand and leads you where you want to go.
Anyway, here’s the advice she gave me, with a few tips and embellishments from me.

  • Read the professor’s bios and see what their backgrounds are. Focus on the ones whose interests match yours. One of them could be your advisor after you enter BUT–start talking to your fellow students after you arrive and get their advice on potential advisors as well.
  • Avoid applying for the fall semester. Apply in January instead–the application pool is smaller and there’s less competition.
  • One of the things that made me an attractive candidate was not just my work experience, but also that I wouldn’t require a scholarship.
  • Information Science is wide open and encompasses a broad field. Even if you don’t know exactly where you’ll land in SILS, you should be able to find a place in it.
  • Feel free to call the office and ask to set up a visit. The staff is very friendly and they often conduct tours of the building and surrounding area to prospects.
  • The GRE is a formality if the admissions committee thinks you’ll contribute to the program. (That didn’t make the GRE any more pleasurable!)
  • This was the best advice: she suggested taking some SILS classes, even online classes, as a continuing ed student via the Friday Center. The courses are cheaper than if you’re in a degree program, and provide some familiarity with the school and professors (though adjuncts often teach the online courses). I took two classes this way and those hours transferred in very easily after I was accepted.
  • I scheduled my first cont-ed class during a summer session. This allowed me to get familiar with campus and the bus schedules at a more relaxed pace than I could have done during the general crush and chaos of the fall or spring semester. And no long line waiting to get an ID card!
  • Be aware that the Friday Center and the Graduate School are two separate entities. If you fill out the North Carolina residency form for one, you also have to fill one out for the other. An instance of the bureaucracy being set up for the bureaucracy’s convenience rather than the student’s. (And no, no one tells you this. You either have to find out on your own or read some big dumb blogger passing on his hard-won wisdom.)

Related post: Studying for the GRE