22 SEP 2017 by ideonexus

 Outsourcing our Thinking to Algorithms and Those Who Engi...

...even as an algorithm mindlessly implements its procedures – and even as it learns to see new patterns in the data – it reflects the minds of its creators, the motives of its trainers. Amazon and Netflix use algorithms to make recommendations about books and films. (One-third of purchases on Amazon come from these recommendations.) These algorithms seek to understand our tastes, and the tastes of like-minded consumers of culture. Yet the algorithms make fundamentally different recommend...
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15 JUN 2016 by ideonexus

 Living Things Renew Themselves

Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued a...
Folksonomies: life entropy syntropy
Folksonomies: life entropy syntropy
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24 OCT 2013 by ideonexus

 Better to Believe and Be Wrong Than Not Believe Anything

He who says “Better to go without belief forever than believe a lie!” merely shows his own preponderant private horror of becoming a dupe. . . . It is like a general informing his soldiers that it is better to keep out of battle forever than to risk a single wound. Not so are victories either over enemies or over nature gained. Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart se...
Folksonomies: debate belief
Folksonomies: debate belief
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If you believe a thing and are wrong, you can improve your beliefs in light of new evidence.

22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus

 Save Species to Eat Them

The creativity behind social marketing can be alarming. A recent television ad depicted water disappearing into a storm drain as a voice warned that lawn fertilizer in the spring can wind up in the Chesapeake Bay. "No crab should die like this," the announcer opines. Later, the announcer appears on screen with a small tub in hand, exclaiming "they should perish in some hot, tasty melted butter!" This promotion by the Chesapeake Bay Program, a subsidiary of the U.S. Environmental Protection Ag...
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A different way to reach people concerning endangered species is to point out they will no longer be available as lunch.

19 APR 2011 by ideonexus

 Using Nagasaki as a Place for Diplomacy

The gravest indictment that can be made of our generalized culture is, in fact, that it erodes our sense of the context in which judgments must be made. Let me end with a practical example. When I returned from the physical shock of Nagasaki, which I have described in the first page of this book, I tried to persuade my colleagues in governments and in the United Nations that Nagasaki should be preserved ext actly as it was then. I wanted all future conferences on disarmament, and on other iss...
Folksonomies: war peace diplomacy
Folksonomies: war peace diplomacy
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J. Bronowski suggests the idea, but it is shot down because it would leave the delegates uncomfortable.