I have almost completed recruiting panelists for my new project on Human Migration. All of the panelists I have recruited are enthusiastic about the project. But I am still looking for one or two more. I have been asked to explain many aspects of IF and its...
The Interactivity Foundation (IF) focuses upon three major discussion areas: sanctuary project discussions designed to develop public policy possibilities in our selected areas of concern, public discussions of the contrasting policy possibilities presented in our...
Election time is probably the time when people hear and talk about policy the most. So you may feel that you have already heard way too much about policy debates in recent months. And you may feel—just like me—completely disgusted with all the negative campaign...
What are IF public discussions like and how do they differ from other type of policy discussions? IF typically organizes a discussion series—usually 3 or 4 meetings—for small groups of people to explore the possibilities in our reports. The possibilities in our reports emanate from the different concerns, beliefs, values, goals, and interests that Americans might have about an area of concern. They thus present contrasting possibilities that emanate from conceptual differences. We ask our participants to try to consider the possibility from the perspective of someone who might propose it before they begin to assess it from their own perspective.
At the dawn of western philosophy Socrates was asking questions in the Athenian agora. The whole of western thought has arguably been developed in search of answers to the questions he asked. But our understanding of philosophy and science has developed not so much...
First, IF reports neither make recommendations nor aim for consensus. Most of the public policy reports produced today end with a list of things that must be done to avert Armageddon. It is true that IF reports often include lists of ‘possible implementations’, but...
When Robert Frost was asked ‘What is poetry?’ he replied ‘Poetry is the kind of thing that poets write’. A natural response to such a definition might be a knowing smile and a barrage of questions that try to get at the core of what poetry is or what it might be....