27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Human Progress Confounds -isms
It should not be surprising that the facts of human progress confound the major -isms. The ideologies are more than two centuries old and are based on mile-high visions such as whether humans are tragically flawed or infinitely malleable, and whether society is an organic whole or a collection of individuals.43 A real society comprises hundreds of millions of social beings, each with a trillion-synapse brain, who pursue their well-being while affecting the well-being of others in complex netw... 1 
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notes22 MAR 2014 by koo5
What You Can't Say
To launch a taboo, a group has to be poised halfway between weakness and power. A confident group doesn't need taboos to protect it. It's not considered improper to make disparaging remarks about Americans, or the English. And yet a group has to be powerful enough to enforce a taboo. Coprophiles, as of this writing, don't seem to be numerous or energetic enough to have had their interests promoted to a lifestyle.
I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggl...Folksonomies: taboo
Folksonomies: taboo
http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
26 FEB 2014 by ideonexus
Science is Growing Bigger and Bigger
The history of physics is littered with unrealized grand experiments: old blueprints buried in file drawers, half-built machinery packed in crates, excavated earth filled with pooling rainwater—the detritus of Big Science. As the frontier of human knowledge pushes forward, so, too, does the cost and the complexity of further exploration. Telescopes grow larger. Space is probed at greater depths. Atomic particles are smashed more forcefully. Many scientific questions now demand resources tha... 1 notes
notesAnd in order to keep expanding it is requiring more and more collaboration between countries and more resources to build more and more epic experiments.
28 MAY 2013 by ideonexus
Geological and Social Impact of the Himalayas
When you look at the planet from low orbit, the impact of the Himalayas on Earth’s climate seems obvious. It creates the rain shadow to beat all rain shadows, standing athwart the latitude of the trade winds and squeezing all the rain out of them before they head southwest, thus supplying eight of the Earth’s mightiest rivers, but also parching not only the Gobi to the immediate north, but also everything to the southwest, including Pakistan and Iran, Mesopotamia, Saudi Arabia, even North... 1 notes
notesThey scorch the Earth and scorch the societies that live there. (Note: I disagree, this is overgeneralizing and ignores social ills of societies in more temperate climates)
28 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Santa Clause and God
It’s hard to even consider the possibility that Santa isn’t real. Everyone seems to believe he is. As a kid, I heard his name in songs and stories and saw him in movies with very high production values. My mom and dad seemed to believe, batted down my doubts, told me he wanted me to be good and that he always knew if I wasn’t. And what wonderful gifts I received! Except when they were crappy, which I always figured was my fault somehow. All in all, despite the multiple incredible improb... 1 notes
notesOne is a myth meant to expire, the other is a myth meant to last a lifetime.
19 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Mendelian Genes are All-Or-Nothing
A Mendelian gene is an all-or-nothing entity. When you were conceived, what you received
from your father was not a substance, to be mixed with what you received from your mother as if
mixing blue paint and red paint to make purple. If this were really how heredity worked (as people
vaguely thought in Darwin's time) we'd all be a middling average, halfway between our two parents.
In that case, all variation would rapidly disappear from the population (no matter how assiduously
you mix purple ... 1 notes
notesGenes are on-off switches, carrying either mother or father's version of it, not a blend of the two.
