25 OCT 2017 by ideonexus
The Web Enslaves Us With Convenience
In The Matrix, Neo learns that humanity is enslaved by machines. The populace “lives” in a virtual world, unaware that their body heat is being used as an energy source. I see a sort of low-fi parallel of this in our relationship with Facebook. Every member operates in that “free” forum, largely unaware that they’re powering the thing by relinquishing their user data.
This scenario is in stark contrast to what we once hoped the web to be. We imagined it as a means of liberating peo... 1 
notes
notes23 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
A Library is Not a Cathedral
"Crazy?" He rounded on her, all angles and motion, and shook a finger under her nose. "I know your type and your pathetic delusions. Oh, yes, I do. You think of a library as being like the mind of a great and noble Scholar—catholic, universally educated, and precisely organized. Every opinion balanced against its opposite, every fact quickly retrievable. The only biases those that exist in the knowledge itself. If a gap exists in the collective omniscience, a horde of servants will scurry t... 1 notes
notes23 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
A Library is Not a Cathedral
"Crazy?" He rounded on her, all angles and motion, and shook a finger under her nose. "I know your type and your pathetic delusions. Oh, yes, I do. You think of a library as being like the mind of a great and noble Scholar—catholic, universally educated, and precisely organized. Every opinion balanced against its opposite, every fact quickly retrievable. The only biases those that exist in the knowledge itself. If a gap exists in the collective omniscience, a horde of servants will scurry t...03 FEB 2014 by ideonexus
Religion is More than the Supernatural
Most developers are religious about technology
It’s true.
Don’t be ashamed, you are not alone. Myself, and just about everyone else, is with you.
Some of use are recovering from our self-imposed brain washing. Others of us are blissfully unaware of our predicament. But most of us have at least one religion we’ve managed to craft ourselves.
It is perfectly natural because most programmers got into the field of software development because they were passionate about it.... 1 notes
notesProgrammers are religious about their technology choices. What other biases are we religious about?
22 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Point of Argument
The point of a good argument isn’t for one person to simply win over the other. It’s ideally for both to come away with cognitive gains.
Even if the goal of an argument is to reach a decision, the goal isn’t to win, the goal is to define the parameters for a good decision and then make the best possible decision with that in mind.
I’ve come to believe that when two reasonably smart people disagree on a subject, at the core, it is often because one of the following:
One or both of the ...
1 The goal should be to define the parameters of where everyone can agree.
12 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Hedgehogs Do Worse the More Information They Have
Academic experts like the ones that Tetlock studied can suffer from the same problem. In fact, a little knowledge may be a dangerous thing in the hands of a hedgehog with a Ph.D. One of Tetlock’s more remarkable findings is that, while foxes tend to get better at forecasting with experience, the opposite is true of hedgehogs: their performance tends to worsen as they pick up additional credentials. Tetlock believes the more facts hedgehogs have at their command, the more opportunities they ... 1 notes
notesThey selectively take in the information to reaffirm their biases.
23 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
Sherlock Holmes Guards His Mind
Holmes and Watson don’t just differ in
the stuff of their attics—in one attic, the
furniture acquired by a detective and selfproclaimed
loner, who loves music and
opera, pipe smoking and indoor target
practice, esoteric works on chemistry and
renaissance architecture; in the other, that
of a war surgeon and self-proclaimed
womanizer, who loves a hearty dinner and
a pleasant evening out—but in the way
their minds organize that furniture to begin
with. Holmes knows the biases of his attic...He is keenly aware of how emotions can doom him, and is ever vigilant against letting corrupt memories into his mind to corrupt his judgement.
05 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Using Google is Like Watching Fox News or MSNBC
That's something I picked up in science, I suppose -- wanting to know the other side of the story, testing one's ideas against the alternative. Of course, one is naturally predisposed to what one already believes. Early nurturing and education is not to be discounted. One might even have a genetic nudge toward liberality or conservatism. Still, it behooves one to approach alternative views with an open mind, or at least as open as one can manage.
[...]
And now I read Sue Halpern reviewing ...Folksonomies: bias
Folksonomies: bias
1 notes
notesThe search engine caters its results to your biases.
18 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
It's Okay for Scientists to Have Biases
...why does it matter what biases and emotional predispositions scientists bring to their studies, so long as they are scrupulously honest and other people with different proclivities check their results? Presumably no one would argue that the conservative view on the sum of fourteen and twenty-seven differs from the liberal view, or that the mathematical function that is its own derivative is the exponential in the northern hemisphere but some other function in the southern. Any regular peri...Folksonomies: objectivity bias
Folksonomies: objectivity bias
1 notes
notesBecause facts are the same despite our leanings.
18 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Ann Druyan on the Humility of Science
I think that science tolerates the unknown in a way that religion doesn't. My argument is not with people who search for god. My argument is with people who feel that our understanding of god is completed. And those are the people who make so much of our existence on this planet such a hell, because they really think that they have the right to kill other people, to hurt them, because of what they understand god's will to be. That's a very destructive thing.
So science... Science is--the who... 1 notes
notesArguing that the ability of science to admit what it doesn't know and adapt it thinking to new evidence demonstrates the greatest humility.
