What’s the difference between meditation and rumination? One can open the door to calm insight, while the other can lead us into a spiral that leaves us less able to deal with the world. Both can involve sitting still and paying attention to what is going on inside us. Both can look like serious thinking. […]

This is a test

David James Olney 18 September, 2026 What’s the difference between meditation and rumination? One can open the door to calm insight, while the other can lead us into a spiral that leaves us less able to deal with the world. Both can involve sitting still and paying attention to what is going on inside us. […]

David James Olney 15 September, 2026 When the people competing to build the most powerful artificial intelligence start agreeing that they need to slow down, we have a good reason to reconsider what progress should mean. We also have a reason to ask what took them so long. More capable technology does not automatically create […]

David James Olney and ChatGPT 5 September 2026 Over the last few months, I have been my own lab rat in my own experiment. I decided to see whether I could work with ChatGPT to expand my wardrobe beyond the safe options I have historically stuck with to make life easier as a blind person. […]

David James Olney 3 September, 2026 This report applies the argument developed in How the hell did we get here? Why the West is a mess and Getting on the road to somewhere: How the West can own its mess to the United States. Executive Summary The United States is not simply experiencing a collection […]

David James Olney 1 September, 2026 This report follows How the hell did we get here? Why the West is a mess. Executive Summary The West is not condemned to remain a mess. Its problems are serious because they interact: economic insecurity weakens agency; weak agency narrows democratic participation; thin social connection increases anxiety; anxious […]

David James Olney 31 August, 2026 A systems account of political economy, social connection, emotional maturity, health, and institutional problem solving   Executive Summary How the hell did we get here? Not through one conspiracy, one election, one technology, or one generation losing its character. We arrived through an accumulation of changes that interacted for […]

  David James Olney 29 November, 2023   In late 2013 I was happily engrossed in finding and assimilating fascinating ideas, while I was preparing to teach Complex Problem Solving to undergraduates for the first time. I was focused on finding an argument and/or tool that would convince undergraduate students to believe in their own […]

  David James Olney 30 October, 2023   I just finished listening to the 4th Edition of Marilee Adams outstanding book, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life. The 4th Edition is even more comprehensive, insightful, and engaging to listen to than the 2nd Edition, the core concepts of which I have incorporated into my own […]