Milgram Experiment: Obedience to Authority (Allegory of the Clan)

We continue to explore the darker side of human behavior through the Allegory of the Clan, a hypothetical philosophical thought experiment that allows us to examine uncomfortable topics in a safe environment where we can learn and grow together.

(Illustrative Only)
We learn by sharing
stories and understanding
each other. It reduces
hate and corruption 
by raising collective
awareness of the dangers
of not focusing on
our shared interests
and those of the next
generation. It is 
the people who should
be the ultimate stakeholders
of all institutional effort.
Elect the best and brightest
and not the most connected
or vetted. 

The Milgram experiments examined what happens when people blindly follow authority. Participants generally did not want to hurt anyone, yet many continued what they believed were increasingly dangerous electric shocks because an authority figure told them to continue. The research was partly motivated by questions surrounding obedience during the Holocaust and other acts of mass violence.

This raises an important question: What happens when obedience is combined with hatred, discrimination, or the belief that certain people are less worthy than others? Would that issue be compunded in places were corruption was also present?

Now, think what would be the overall solution to increase togetherness, strengthen checks-n-balances, and support those who work with honor for the public good while minimizing the impact of those engaged in misusing systems.

That pressure to do what is good over what is wrong comes from our collective will and pressure.

If people are discouraged from speaking up, questioning authority, or defending important values, harmful behavior can become normalized. Over time, unwritten rules can develop that reward conformity and even collective hatred. Speaking up slows that process by increasing awareness and reflection. 

The Allegory of the Clan explores how this process can happen. It reminds us why freedom of speech, rule of law, checks and balances, and the ability to challenge authority are important. We should carefully consider who we place in positions of authority, including judges and other leaders, while recognizing that most people want to do the right thing.

Ultimately, this is not about punishing people. It is about justice, accountability, and creating a society where fairness and the rule of law become deeply held expectations and part of our social contract.

*As a learning allegory you may come to change around the elements, find new solutions, disagree, etc. As long as you thought about it then all is well. Take with a grain of salt.

The Milgram Experiment: Obedience to Authority

• Milgram studied how people respond to authority, even when instructions conflict with personal values.

• Participants believed they were giving increasingly strong electric shocks to another person.

• About 65% continued to the maximum 450-volt level when instructed by the experimenter.

• Obedience decreased when participants were closer to the person receiving the supposed shocks.

• The study influenced psychology while also raising important ethical concerns about deception and participant stress.

Lewis, T. T. (2024). Milgram experiment. EBSCO Research Starters. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/health-and-medicine/milgram-experiment

The Creative Innovation that Comes from Blankspaces and Coffee

September 26th, 2026

GLADSTONE, MI.-You're thinking about a project, a solution, something at work, or a creative outlet. You want to accomplish your goals, so you stay busy and work on it every day. That's wonderful. But we also tend to fill every second of every day with something—TV, video games, activities, work, or whatever it happens to be.

(Illustrative Only)
Blank Spaces
Can Create Innovation.
Just reflect on that.

Yet some of the highest levels of innovation come from combining learning and exploration with blank spaces where you're simply doing nothing. Maybe you're just sitting with a cup of coffee and reflecting. That quiet time gives your brain an opportunity to make new connections and discover new solutions.

Once you have those ideas, you can go back out into the world and explore their practical applications. Innovation needs both: time spent learning, experimenting, and doing, paired with time to simply stop and think. There's a time for each.

An interesting article,

Why Creativity Lives in Silence: The Neuroscience of Mental Gaps

• Silence allows the brain to process information and form new connections.
• Quiet periods can support reflection, mind-wandering, and creative thinking.
• Mental breaks may help with idea generation and problem-solving.
• Constant digital stimulation can reduce opportunities for creative reflection.
• Taking short periods of quiet time can encourage creativity and mental renewal.

The Whimsical Shots. (2025, December 24). Why creativity lives in silence: The neuroscience of mental gaps. Medium. https://medium.com/@thewhimsicalshots/why-creativity-lives-in-silence-the-neuroscience-of-mental-gaps-ae192c393221

The Durable Goods Orders Level/Flat August 2026

(Illustrative Only)
Bringing their organice
farm products to the 
market.

The durable goods orders are one assessment of the overall health of industrial manufacturing section. It tracks new orders, shipments, and backlogs. In this case it is flat. That is interesting because consumer sentiment declines, the economy is expected to be healthy, interest rates are high, and some indication that manufacturing expanding. 

U.S. Durable Goods Orders Remain Nearly Flat in August 2026

• New orders for manufactured durable goods in August were $338.6 billion, essentially unchanged from July after a 0.9% increase in July.

• Orders excluding transportation equipment increased 0.3%, suggesting modest underlying manufacturing demand despite weakness in transportation.

• Orders excluding defense increased 0.1%, indicating that the overall manufacturing picture was relatively stable when defense-related activity is removed.

• Transportation equipment orders declined 0.6%, or $0.7 billion, to $114.1 billion. Transportation has now declined in three of the past four months.

• The Census Bureau's M3 survey provides monthly information on shipments, inventories, and orders and is used as an indicator of current manufacturing activity and future business trends. The August advance report was released September 25, 2026, with the full report scheduled for October 2.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2026, September 25). Monthly advance report on durable goods manufacturers' shipments, inventories and orders. U.S. Department of Commerce. Census Bureau report

Consumer Sentiment Declines Some for September 2026

A decline in consumer sentiment is interesting because the economy appears to be expanding. Most economists, researchers, and economic theorists are saying that the economy continues to grow, while consumer confidence is moving in the opposite direction.

That creates an interesting disconnect between what economists see and what consumers are experiencing or expecting. Whether this becomes a long-term trend is uncertain. It is worth watching to see whether the optimism is concentrated among investors and economists while workers, consumers, and the average person feel differently. For now, we can simply keep following the economic data and see whether that gap continues to grow.

Consumer Sentiment Remains Weak in September 2026

• Consumer sentiment fell to 47.8 in September, down from 51.7 in August.
• Current economic conditions declined slightly to 50.9.
• Consumer expectations dropped to 45.8 from 51.5.
• Sentiment remains below September 2025 levels.
• Weak consumer confidence may influence household spending and economic decisions.

University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research. (2026). Surveys of consumers. https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/

Justice and Economic Development (The Allegory of the Clan)

Justice matters for economic development. Societies grow stronger when people have the freedom to worship, participate in the economy, speak openly, and take part in public life.

Laws and institutions should protect those freedoms and include meaningful checks on power. Without those checks, laws can be used to divide society or deny people equal treatment—and the consequences can be both social and economic.

The Allegory of the Clan, like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, can be used as a thought experiment of enlightenment principles (i.e. the one's in which a nation was founded.): What happens when institutions prefer some people while treating others as less equal (think morality and perception)?

(As a thought experiment you should take with a grain of salt but explore the deeper purpose and meaning. Think of what brings good and what brings less than good.)

The answer matters because cooperation drives growth. Societies are more likely to innovate and adapt when people can work together, share ideas, and manage their differences.

Small differences in laws and institutions can create large differences in people's lives. A society can share a common history and patriotism while still treating some citizens as second-class.

Justice, therefore, is not only a moral principle. It is also an economic one. Strong institutions protect individual freedom, promote equal participation, limit abuses of power, and create the conditions for people to work together and prosper.

To preserve and strengthen an system one must recognized what is working. Change is a constant. This is why we should always elect the best and brightest versus the most connected. Many people have sworn a level of profession or oath to those principles-even when inconvenient. 

The Judiciary and Economic Development

• Effective judiciaries are presented as a key component of the Rule of Law because courts enforce contracts, protect property rights, and provide mechanisms for resolving disputes between private parties and the state.
• Research discussed in the paper links stronger and more effective courts with greater access to credit, increased business investment, and growth of both small and large firms.
• The paper argues that improving laws on paper is not enough when legal institutions are ineffective. Evidence from transition economies suggests that institutional effectiveness can matter more for financial-market development than the quality of written law alone.
• Judicial efficiency involves more than simply adding judges or increasing budgets. The paper points to case backlogs, administrative practices, procedural design, incentives, and the broader legal environment as factors affecting court performance.
• Judicial independence is examined both structurally and behaviorally. The paper emphasizes that judges need sufficient independence, security, competence, and integrity to resist political pressure and corruption and to enforce the law effectively.

Dam, K. W. (2006). The judiciary and economic development. John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics Working Paper No. 287, University of Chicago Law School. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/law_and_economics/287

Swim Coaching: It's All In the Hips!

(Illustrative Only)
Strong
core muscles
form from swimming.
Hula Hoops
work great for this.
The history of 
the Hula Hoops

September, 25th, 2026

IN THE POOL-Swim coaching is going pretty well. It’s also giving me a good excuse to brush up on my own swimming skills. I’m a good swimmer, but competitive swimming is a different animal. Apparently, just getting from one end of the pool to the other isn’t enough anymore.

There’s a surprising amount of fine-tuning involved—how your fingers enter the water, the angle of your body, finding the most efficient line through the water, and reducing drag. All those little details add up, and unfortunately, they require practice.

One thing we worked on recently was rotation. Some swimmers were having trouble rotating enough to generate power while also reducing drag. You don’t want to swim flat across the water like a floating board. There needs to be a noticeable rotation through the hips and torso.

That rotation helps generate power and forward momentum while making the stroke more efficient. Of course, getting all those body parts to cooperate at the same time is where the fun begins.

I found a video that explained the concept pretty well, so I watched it and thought it was a useful demonstration of what we were working on.

The conditioning of the athletes continues, along with the never-ending quest to make swimming look effortless—which, as any swimmer knows, usually means working really hard to make it look easy.

 

Eating Local, Developing Local Food Supply Chains, Better Overall Health (Log Cabin Cooking)

Eating locally and cooking at home may be two of the simpler ways to improve your diet—and you don't necessarily need a television chef, a $500 blender, or 47 ingredients to do it.

Much of the American food supply is highly processed. While processing has its advantages, preparing more meals from fresh ingredients gives people greater control over what they are actually eating. It also means knowing where some of that food comes from, which is generally a good thing.

(Illustrative Only)
Working on Catching
my own fish
somtimes.

A stronger local food system could also improve food security. Farmers, fishermen, gardeners, food producers, and local artisans can supply communities through farmers markets, local grocery stores, and other outlets. COVID-19 provided a reminder that having multiple sources of food can be useful when larger supply chains run into problems. Having a significant portion of our food available locally could provide communities with another layer of protection.

Local agriculture can also create economic opportunities. Vacant land could potentially support hobby farms or small agricultural operations, allowing people to grow food without needing millions of dollars and a corporate boardroom to get started. Selling directly to local consumers can also help keep more money circulating within the community.

Cooking at home also becomes easier with experience. Once people learn basic techniques, they can prepare meals without relying heavily on recipes. A recent meal included cod served over salad, along with a homemade apple pie using apples simmered with butter, sugar, cinnamon, brown sugar, and lemon. Hungry? Homemade.

I have a fitness trainer license, and yoga instructor license, do a little coaching, so let me know if you need some help and send me a message to the right. 

Health Benefits of Eating Locally

• Buying locally can provide access to fresh foods while also supporting farmers and local food systems.
• Shorter supply chains may mean less handling and allow produce to be harvested closer to peak ripeness.
• Fresh fruits and vegetables provide important nutrients, antioxidants, and other compounds associated with a healthy diet.
• Farmers markets, community-supported agriculture, and gardening can provide opportunities for physical activity, social interaction, and learning.
• Buying seasonal products, visiting farmers markets, and growing some food at home are practical ways to increase local food consumption while supporting regional agriculture.

McCurdy, M. (2022, May 17). Health benefits of eating locally. University of New Hampshire Extension. https://extension.unh.edu/blog/2022/05/health-benefits-eating-locally