An Oasis of Calm

Dear Reader

It is the ethos of Mighty Pluck to invent, experiment, build, play, and revise. So when Asa Franz decided to tackle a practical approach to fighting authoritarianism, we were intrigued.  

There’s plenty of room for improvement in how democracy is practiced around the world, and Futureland will no doubt produce a better system for governing. But for now, social or market democracies feel like the best method that mankind has found to fairly govern the messiness of human beings.

Democracies are guided by an objective system of rules and regulations that can be replicated and sustained past the life of a dictator or autocrat. Up till now, humans are not immortal; eventually power will be handed to someone else. Therefore, government needs a system that is sustainable beyond the leader, beyond individual personalities and personal abilities. 

Even democracies that aren’t functioning too well have a greater likelihood of sustaining stability and growth over oppressive systems of government, because democracy allows for critical open debate. 

We can only perfect a thing if we are inviting new ideas, regularly testing what works and what doesn’t, and revising accordingly. Look at today’s autocratic governing structures that impose drone-like agreement, punish dissent, and prevent experimentation. They have not proven to yield great innovations or growth. They are not leading in any major sectors, products or services. They are not transforming to meet and benefit from future opportunities. Their economies are stagnant.  

It is by being open to ideas, criticism, and revision that societies will arrive at great solutions, innovations, and needed reforms. 

We are curious to hear what you may be doing to resist or reverse the erosion of rights in your own country. 

You can also sign up for our free and occasional newsletter; find us on instagram and linkedin or visit our back pages.  

Thank you,

Robin D Rusch

Dear Readers,

As a hiring manager, I’m regularly frustrated at the typical approach corporations take to evaluating resumes, recruiting, and hiring for salaried, office positions. 

A candidate must have a four-year or higher college degree to even be considered for employment in many U.S. based companies. Beyond that, which school, what degree was obtained, and even how long it took to graduate are all up for scrutiny.

Companies tend to recruit from the former universities of their top leadership or from colleges that confer some universal stamp of quality upon all who graduate from their heavily-branded halls. This may seem normal or at least understandable; after all, if the school was good enough for Madam CEO or produced 90% of the Fortune 500 executives then it’s probably a smart starting place for recruiting the next generation of spectacular leadership. 

It’s also easier to manage when everyone thinks the same and has the same background. But all that familial coziness has consequences.

• Hiring from the same handful of colleges does not breed the diversity of thought that encourages critical thinking and pioneering ideas. 
• A lack of variety in lived experience or socio-economic levels makes it harder to understand and therefore meet the needs of an organization’s more diverse customer base. 
• Discounting the value of non-grads assumes that there are no geniuses among those who did not have the means or interest to attend a four-year college.
• According to the US census, only 38% of people over the age of 25 have a bachelor’s degree or higher. Why would companies limit themselves to such a small population of possible candidates?  

Relying on a diploma or the imprint of a prestigious college to affirm suitability is lazy and lacks imagination. It also encourages students to take a transactional approach to their higher education. Going to college incurs both direct (e.g., tuition, room and board) and indirect (e.g., time) costs. Students might naturally expect to earn that investment back with a higher salary and a perceived better job. Higher education becomes a cursory step on the way to earning money, rather than a gift of its own.  

When hiring managers look beyond the diploma and instead evaluate candidates based on their qualities and experience, it reduces the pay to play taint of the college to corporate job racket.

For the view from the classroom, we encourage you to read James Falzone’s three areas where higher education can improve.   

You can tell us your own ideas for improving the state of hiring or higher education; you will reach a human. 

Regardless of accreditation, you are welcome to sign up for our free and occasional newsletter; find us on instagram and linkedin or visit our back pages.  

Thank you,

Robin D Rusch

Dear Reader,

Coincidentally, while preparing publication of  Peter Albert’s proposal for Clearing a Path through California’s planned community, I’ve been in Northern California’s Silicon Valley, spending weekdays shuffling between hotel and client in an office park just outside San Jose. 

From my hotel window, I see only cars, highways, parking lots, and low-slung office buildings. Nothing of interest or use is within walking distance of my hotel or the office. I cannot reach the area’s airports, cities, public transportation, entertainment or recreational options. Getting dinner requires either that I drive or delivery is driven to me. Activity beyond where I am at any one moment requires me to drive at least thirty minutes or more accurately to sit in traffic. 

If you’ve been to this overbuilt area, you know that it’s relatively flat—bay level with mountains surrounding. There is a train line (Caltrain, with plans to increase frequency) and bike paths, but I never see anyone on a bicycle or walking, and when I ask locals about the train, they raise an eyebrow and admonish me: “No one takes the train.” 

Why not? Reach, frequency, lack of funding, competing interests, habit, image. All of these are reasons, but look at the Netherlands, another flat place where a variety of public transportation options can move a low-lander from a houseboat in Rotterdam to her job at the Ministry of General Affairs in the Hague as a normal commuting option. 

It does help that the Netherlands is relatively small—a tenth the size of California, but it also helps that they have put in place the big and the small to support a door-to-door commute. Intercity or regional public transport options are accessible and linked with intracity modes of transportation. Travelers transfer from train to tram to bus to subway with a swipe of a preloaded card (the unlovely named OV-Chipkaart) or a credit card. It shows what a community can achieve when it makes public infrastructure a priority. 

Whether you are stuck in traffic or enjoying an efficient train ride, you can sign up for our free and occasional newsletter; find us on instagram and linkedin or visit our back pages.

Thank you,

Robin D Rusch

Dear Readers,

Recently, approaching the town of Porto Empedocle in Sicily, we drove over a hill, and saw a large squash-colored building, surrounded by a high fence, topped with concertina wire—an old structure repurposed to contain refugees and migrants. 

Hundreds of young, working-aged men crowded together on the roof. Some were lying down, or stretched out, propped on one elbow, but most sat with their arms wrapped around their knees, balanced on the sloping roof, staring southward. 

It was the middle of a hot sunny day, but either it was cooler to be on that roof than sitting in the building itself or overcrowding of the center left no choice. 

Imagine being locked up at 22 years old, in a foreign country, unable to work or provide for yourself. 

This image returns every time the topic of global migration arises. It’s one thing in the aggregate, but it’s another when we are confronted by the individual. And while it’s not reasonable to expect that the resources and infrastructure of Porto Empedocle or even Italy could provide for the number and needs of an ongoing migrant influx, it is also not reasonable to expect that, left uncared for, this issue does not impact the rest of the world in some shape or form. 

Cared for, however, it can be seen as an opportunity. Taking inspiration from the namesake of Porto Empedocle, a Greek philosopher and himself an immigrant, we can all benefit from the energy and drive of a person making his way in a welcoming world.

How do we create a welcoming world? Working alone as one entity or one country increases potential negative impacts to the host, such as over-burdening services and infrastructure. Working together, however, in alliances such as the European Union or across public-private entities, we can broaden the opportunity to match supply with demand. 

Put simply, at any one time in history, some countries will have a surplus of working-age people and some will have too few. For instance, wealthy countries, such as Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK, have growing aging or old populations, which threaten GDP and a country’s taxable income base. 

Of that list, Germany, which has been making ongoing efforts to integrate immigrants and refugees, is in the process of passing rules to ease citizenship. In addition to shoring up labor needs, an influx of youth will help off-set the drag of an aging population.

This issue of the Mighty Pluck includes a proposal to recast our approach to migration as an opportunity by building a system to match migrants with unfilled jobs in the US. It’s not a solution for every migrant crossing a border, but it solves two problems in one go, and leaves money and resources to focus on the thornier cases.

If you have ideas for solving thorny cases tell us; you will reach a live human being. You can also sign up for our free and occasional newsletter; find us on instagram and linkedin or visit our back pages.

Thank you,

Robin D Rusch

Dear Reader,

We like a whimsical idea here at the Mighty Pluck, even if it’s absurd or unlikely to succeed due to immutable givens. So-called crazy ideas can be the basis for eventual change, especially where entrenched systems need rethinking. They also can serve as a nudge to move enemies to compromise on a temporary, if flawed, band-aid or encourage skeptics to produce a “better” solution. 

For instance, if I were to posit that the only way to protect riders of a bus headed for a cliff is to build a giant rubber band midway down the slope that propels the bus back up to the top, you might counter with a better idea: driver safety training; brake maintenance; guardrails; a giant air pillow that inflates around the bus, enabling it to bounce off any surface. Without the prompt of sheer madness, however, you might not have seen the urgency, the possibility or the potential in solving the problem from the start.  

The United States is heading for a cliff of its own making if it doesn’t raise its debt limit by June. This is not just a unique problem for citizens of that country, but rather affects the whole world, since the U.S. owes money beyond its borders and credit ratings affect economies, which upset other economies, and well, you get the picture.

The giant rubber band solution that some respected economists and former government treasurers are suggesting is a trillion-dollar coin that the U.S. could draw against to stay inflated.

Is it a good idea? I’m not an economist. My relative ignorance on the topic leads to fear that it would allow lawmakers to delay the hard messy work of actually revising policies or rethinking spending to prevent these situations from the start. After all, actioning crazy ideas can lead to bad outcomes. 

What the Mighty Pluckers do like about the trillion-dollar coin is that it invites conversation about a rather unsexy topic. No one wants to think about debt: their own, their country’s or their trading partner’s.

That this idea has led to debate in the press, on social media, and in private homes of wonky individuals is rather hopeful. Preposterous ideas may just produce a solution of some sort by June.

If you would like to donate your trillion-dollar coin to the Mighty Pluck or tell us a better idea, please do. If you just want more of us for free, you can find us on instagram and linkedin or visit our back pages.

Thank you,

Robin D Rusch

Dear Reader

Many of us at Mighty Pluck are caring for aging relatives and young children. Staff meetings are frequently peppered with side chatter about these two extremes on the lifecycle. In between young and old are us: editor, art director, UXers, advisors and contributors. 

We are taking care of our youth and elderly at a time in our lives when we are breadwinners and bread makers; business partners and romantic companions. We are struggling with our own health and aging issues; trying to land a job or trying to work less. Wanting to read a book when there’s laundry to be done, dinner to be made, someone to bathe. 

We don’t want to abandon our caretaker roles; spending time with loved ones is a reward. But we would like some balance in our lives.

That is why a solution to shared care for the young and the old, struck us as prime Mighty Pluck material. A formal approach to integrated care for children and the elderly began in Tokyo at a facility called Kotoen, started by Masaharu Shimada and continued by his daughter Keiko Sugi. 

The idea has grown to other countries and studies show mutual benefits, so why aren’t there more of these? Older people have a lot of love and hugs to share; babies and toddlers are irresistibly huggable. Youth can overflow with vitality, older people need a jolt of that too.

Regular interaction between these two age groups is a connection across generations, a reminder of absent family, a nourishment for the soul.

And for those of us in the middle, it’s a comfort to know that someone may be hugging our loved ones when we are not able.

If you have a solution to a challenge that you would like to highlight or discuss, let us know. You can also sign up for our free and occasional newsletter; find us on instagram and linkedin or visit our back pages.

Thank you,

Robin D Rusch

Dear Reader

This summer we are witnessing a national experiment in Germany.

In the very place where the automobile was invented, the autobahn is storied, and horsepower is worshipped, the German government introduced a bold approach to transitioning drivers en masse to public transportation. 

The 9 euro pass, which residents and visitors alike can use, buys a month of travel across most public transportation from June through August. The idea is to reduce petrol consumption, promote climate-neutral travel, lessen dependency on Russian gas as a response to the war in Ukraine, and encourage adoption of public transportation as the default mobility mode.  

It could even encourage travel and tourism within country, helping promote and support the local economies at a time when global tourism may be down due to regional instability, pandemic concerns and effects of inflation.

A lot could go wrong. Naysayers are predicting chaos and collapse as transportation is overwhelmed with demanding travelers. First class and some trains and buses are excluded from the deal, so anyone not up for experimentation can still pay full price to have a presumably more predictable experience. 

But while it may be rare to see such a bold approach play out across an entire country, the program does not feel unsupported or slapdash. The government designated 2.5 billion euros to finance the program. The Deutsche Bahn provides a clear, coherent explanation of how it works, with simple purchase options, scheduling and FAQs. All of which can help break down barriers to change, such as fear of the unknown, or perceived inconvenience or loss of control. 

We at the Mighty Pluck are encouraged by this summer of adventure. If a nation of +80 million people can transform from car dependency to shared transport, there’s hope for the rest of the world. We love to hear more about this and other programs around the globe.

Please stay in touch on instagram and linkedin or visit our back pages. If you want to tell us your summer travel ideas, you can email a real person. 

Thank you,

Robin D Rusch

Dear Reader

At any one point in time our world can appear to be in chaos.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging war against Ukraine. Historic droughts plague Madagascar, Angola, and the North American west, while killer floods and mudslides afflict Malaysia and Brazil. Hong Kong is in the midst of its worst covid outbreak. Inflation and supply chain issues amplify disparity in so-called rich countries. Cybercrime proliferates. 

It’s natural to feel overwhelmed, paralyzed or apathetic. But the antidote to despair is to take action. 

Some of us are in a position to aid in Malawi’s polio outbreak or help repair Lebanon’s economic crisis or prevent coral destruction, while others will have insight in their own areas of interest or expertise to lend a solution or fresh idea toward improvement. 

Because when the going gets tough, the hopeful look for solutions.

We invite you to tell us your solutions, join our occasional newsletter, find us on instagram and linkedin, or visit our back pages.

Thank you,

Robin D Rusch

Dear Reader,

Welcoming a new year is joyous for us at the Mighty Pluck. The annual change sparks our appetite to embark upon new adventures. 

Last year, our contributors tackled childcare, environment, homelessness, inventions, museums, and taxation.

With the advent of a new year, we are hopeful that someone will invent a pitcher that doesn’t drip, propose a form of government that accounts for human messiness, create a method for ending migraines, or find a way to defog glasses when wearing a face mask. 

Depending on custom, there are several opportunities to celebrate a new year, which means we can start fresh multiple times throughout the year—and we do. 

To enjoy bold ideas all year round, sign up for our occasional newsletter, find us on instagram and linkedin, or visit our back pages.

Thank you, 

Robin D Rusch

Dear Reader

The world is at a transitional moment. 

This is arguably true at any given point in history, but especially so as we are experiencing consequential climate change, a pandemic and massive technological shifts. 

What can we do differently to meet our modern world and all of its challenges? It’s too broad a question for one person or one answer. 

Fortunately, we live alongside brilliant, capable, compassionate people with the ideas, resources and spirit to find solutions for any challenge we face. How might we support and inspire each other to connect solution with problem at any given time in any given field? How can we disrupt stale ideologies and routines, as if we have a blank sheet—as if we were bold?

The Mighty Pluck is a space to exchange solutions, inventions or improvements on existing structures, services, laws or products. Solutions can be practical, whimsical, demanding, provocative or visionary. Topics include agriculture, art and culture, business and organizations, environment, health, lifestyle, public affairs, science, and technology, on behalf of humans, plants or animals.

Our ambition is to connect those who have good ideas with those who may need them, those who may be in a position to execute, build upon or experiment. We want real changes. We are ready for big ideas and incremental revisions. 

Join us. Meet our contributors and staff. Let us know what you find and what you think. 

And thank you, 

Robin D Rusch