30 DEC 2016 by ideonexus
Whole Earth Catalog Purpose
We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far, remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this p... 1 
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notes21 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
The Tyranny of Public Opinion
You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberias, but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbour. What espionage of despotism comes to your door so effectively as the eye of the man who lives at your door? Public opinion is a permeating influence. It requires us to think other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits. Folksonomies: public opinion
Folksonomies: public opinion
1 notes
notesIt influences our thoughts more than any individual.
29 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
The Actuarial Math of Altruism
I have talked in elemental
terms of suicidal genes for saving the lives of particular numbers of kin
of exactly known relatedness. Obviously, in real life, animals cannot be
expected to count exactly how many relatives they are saving, nor to
perform Hamilton's calculations in their heads even if they had some way
of knowing exactly who their brothers and cousins were. In real life,
certain suicide and absolute 'saving' of life must be replaced by statistical
risks of death, one's own and oth... 1 notes
notesIt's not just intra-species, but the closer the relative the more altruism. Also the potential to reproduce affects the relationship as well.
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Knowledge Can be Transferred, but Not Wisdom
Positive, objective knowledge is public property. It can be transmitted directly from one person to another, it can be pooled, and it can be passed on from one generation to the next. Consequently, knowledge accumulates through the ages, each generation adding its contribution. Values are quite different. By values, I mean the standards by which we judge the significance of life. The meaning of good and evil, of joy and sorrow, of beauty, justice, success-all these are purely private convicti... 1 notes
notesWisdom relies on an accumulation of personal experiences.
30 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
The Importance of Large Samples
Any experiment may be regarded as forming an individual of a 'population' of experiments which might be performed under the same conditions. A series of experiments is a sample drawn from this population.
Now any series of experiments is only of value in so far as it enables us to form a judgment as to the statistical constants of the population to which the experiments belong. In a great number of cases the question finally turns on the value of a mean, either directly, or as the mean diffe...Folksonomies: statistics sampling
Folksonomies: statistics sampling
1 notes
notesSmall samples introduce two potential errors.
30 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Social Darwinism of Wealth Consolidation
While the law [of competition] may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race. Folksonomies: social darwinism
Folksonomies: social darwinism
1 notes
notesAndrew Carnegie argues that economic inequality is good for the species because it promotes natural selection.
24 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Scientific Truth Must Come Out of Controversy
Scientific truth, like puristic truth, must come about by controversy. Personally this view is abhorrent to me. It seems to mean that scientific truth must transcend the individual, that the best hope of science lies in its greatest minds being often brilliantly and determinedly wrong, but in opposition, with some third, eclectically minded, middle-of-the-road nonentity seizing the prize while the great fight for it, running off with it, and sticking it into a textbook for sophomores written ... 1 notes
notesThere is the ideal of scientific facts taught without passion and the reality of impassioned conflict within scientific exploration.
04 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Worth of Opinions are Determined by the Facts of Thei...
I submit a body of facts which cannot be invalidated. My opinions may be doubted, denied, or approved, according as they conflict or agree with the opinions of each individual who may read them; but their worth will be best determined by the foundation on which they rest—the incontrovertible facts. 1 notes
notesFacts are incontrovertible, and the opinions that grow from them must be evaluated on the interpretation of those facts.
21 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
Technological Revolutions Don't Remove the Need for Chara...
During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think. 1 notes
notesA nice quote.
16 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
Thomas Jefferson on the Sharing of Ideas
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me...
1 Sharing an idea does not make my ownership of it any less, but rather makes it spread like lighting one candle from another.
