08 JAN 2018 by ideonexus
Focus on Producing Information, Not Consuming
The production of information is critical to a healthy information diet. It's the thing that makes it so that your information consumption has purpose. I cannot think of more important advice to give anyone: start your day with a producer mindset, not a consumer mindset. If you begin your day checking the news, checking your email, and checking your notifications, you've launched yourself into a day of grazing a mindless consumption.
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But there's something else that being a producer do...
2 05 FEB 2016 by ideonexus
Anarchism Extends from Socialism
Rudolf Rocker describes modern anarchism as “the confluence of the two great currents which during and since the French revolution have found such characteristic expression in the intellectual life of Europe: Socialism and Liberalism.” The classical liberal ideals, he argues, were wrecked on the realities of capitalist economic forms. Anarchism is necessarily anticapitalist in that it “opposes the exploitation of man by man.” But anarchism also opposes “the dominion of man over man.... 1 
notes
notes30 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Risk of Childhood Kidnapping are Very Low
A generation ago 70 percent of children played outside; today the rate is down to 30 percent.209 In 2008 the nine-year-old son of the journalist Lenore Skenazy begged her to let him go home by himself on the New York subway. She agreed, and he made it home without incident. When she wrote about the vignette in a New York Sun column, she found herself at the center of a media frenzy in which she was dubbed “America’s Worst Mom.” (Sample headline: “Mom Lets 9-Year-Old Take Subway Home A... 1 notes
notes30 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Three Types of Faith
philosopher Paul Kurtz, in his book The Transcendental Temptation, defines three distinctly different kinds of faith, derived from the amount (or total lack) of evidence drawn upon to support it. Kurtz defines the first kind as “intransigent faith.” By this is meant faith that will not be affected by any sort of contrary evidence, no matter how strong. My own experience with some few persons who persist in believing in certain paranormal claims that have been conclusively proven false ena... 1 notes
notesType I is belief in what is proven false, type II is belief in what has no evidence, and type III is empirical scientifically-proven belief.
24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Umwelt
In 1909, the biologist Jakob von Uexküll introduced the concept of the umwelt. He wanted a word to express a simple (but often overlooked) observation: Different animals in the same ecosystem pick up on different environmental signals. In the blind and deaf world of the tick, the important signals are temperature and the odor of butyric acid. For the black ghost knifefish, it’s electrical fields. For the echolocating bat, it’s air-compression waves. The small subset of the world that an ...Folksonomies: perception senses
Folksonomies: perception senses
David Eagleman on how each species of animal senses only a small portion of the world, and assumes that small fraction is the entire world.
13 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Today's Problems Are Too Complex for Individuals to Solve
The human race has had a long and romantic tradition of crediting great breakthroughs to the tribulations of single individuals: Einstein, Archimedes, Benjamin Franklin, Van Gogh, da Vinci—the list is lon^g. Interestingly, every story about an epiphany is similar: An eclectic individual attempts to solve a complex problem that has stumped humankind for centuries, when suddenly he stumbles on an "aha!" moment. At first his revelation is rebuked by everyone, and then, over time, the inventor ... 1 notes
notesHistory is filled with the names of inventors who made great discoveries, but it took teams to invent the Internet, Cell Phone, and Semi-Conductor.
04 OCT 2011 by ideonexus
Class Warfare: Moochers VS Producers
Marx did basically believe in two classes, and one was in fact a producer class. The other, however, wasn't the "moocher" class, but the capitalist class. Marx saw that a small segment of the population was able to become rich off of the labor of others without lifting a finger. They are the "overseers," "owners," "CEOs," and "Boards of Directors." They own capital, while the other 99% of society "owns" only their own ability to perform labor for someone else for money. If, Marx said, these 9... 1 notes
notesBut the way Marx described it, the Producers were the labor class and the Moochers where the managers getting rich off all their hard work without lifting a finger.
06 APR 2011 by ideonexus
Printed Book Readers are Hermits Avoiding the Global Village
The printed, bound and paid-for book was — still is, for the moment — more exacting, more demanding, of its producer and consumer both. It is the site of an encounter, in silence, of two minds, one following in the other's steps but invited to imagine, to argue, to concur on a level of reflection beyond that of personal encounter, with all its merely social conventions, its merciful padding of blather and mutual forgiveness. Book readers and writers are approaching the condition of holdou... 1 notes
notesUpdike's response to Kevin Kelly's article on digitizing library's in the New York Times.
