IF activities and interactions do not end at the U.S. border. Since the very beginning Jay Stern had a project in Hungary. IF’s strongest foray into the international arena was made by Fellows Mark Notturno and Ieva Notturno when they developed a 50 Hour Training...
“Quite often good things have hurtful consequences. There are instances of men who have been ruined by their money or killed by their courage” Aristotle Actions have consequences. Whatever we do in both our private and public lives has consequences. The policies...
Another New Year is here! One of the most popular things to do before a new year rushes in is to conjure many new beginnings—or to make a list of New Year’s resolutions—or, in other words, to set some personal goals to be achieved within a year. If you are like...
I was somewhat naïve and, like many other people, believed that information flows on the Internet are still like the wild, wild west. But the reality is very different. If you and I google the same term—but differ in age, political views, gender, and browsing history—we would get different results. What's so bad about this?
What does it mean to develop a policy possibility? And why do we spend so much time doing it in our sanctuary projects? Most IF projects follow the same discussion process: the panelists first develop concerns that Americans may have about the issue; they then...
One of the things that the Interactivity Foundation does is to teach people how to think about public policy possibilities. This will sound patronizing only if you misunderstand why, what, and how we do it. I heard an interview with former Supreme Court Justice...
There are many different kinds of the interactivity going on in IF public discussions. But the interactivity of ideas is one of the most important ones. Our reports are developed by two groups of people who meet every month for over a year to explore, develop, and...
On this April Fools’ Day, I have been thinking about people lying, and accusing other people of lying, and human folly in general. There are all sorts of lies: white lies, prevarications, fibs, half-truths, exaggerations, and other kinds of deceptions. There are...
‘What should we do?’ seems to be a fulcrum of our public discussions today. This is a question that is raised in the streets of Madison and Washington alike. The question—‘What should we do?’—is a precursor to action. It recognizes certain problems and wants to do...
I recently participated in a conference on immigration policy in Washington DC. One of the speakers forestalled criticism by saying that his recommendations were neither new nor original, and that that none of the ideas in the current discussion of immigration...