02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Chess is the Drosophila of Reasoning
Much as the Drosophila melanogaster fruit fly became a model organism for geneticists, chess became a Drosophila of reasoning. In the late 19th century, Alfred Binet hoped that understanding why certain people excelled at chess would unlock secrets of human thought. Sixty years later, Alan Turing wondered if a chess-playing machine might illuminate, in the words of Norbert Wiener, “whether this sort of ability represents an essential difference between the potentialities of the machine and ... 1 
notes
notes12 DEC 2017 by ideonexus
Feminist Portrayal in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Writing
All day the memory of this interview haunted him. He felt that he had come very badly out of it. She had showed herself to be his superior on his own pet subject. She had been courteous while he had been rude, self-possessed when he had been angry. And then, above all, there was her presence, her monstrous intrusion to rankle in his mind. A woman doctor had been an abstract thing before, repugnant but distant. Now she was there in actual practice, with a brass plate up just like his own, comp... 1 notes
notes21 NOV 2017 by ideonexus
Attention Capitalism
As someone who works in tech, I like the analogy of a DoS attack. The root of the issue is attention capitalism. Our attention is essentially a resource being exploited for profit. In that scenario, we're effectivley no longer in control of our own free will as long as someone else can profit by controlling it. On an individual scale, we can give it relatively benign labels like "distraction". But when you look at it from macro scale it's effectively a DDoS attack on our free will perpetrated... 1 notes
notes29 DEC 2016 by ideonexus
Most current-events-related conversations are just people...
“Because it helps you participate in everyday conversations!” is a weak but at least meaningful answer to the “What is accomplished” question. But when you quit playing the current events game, and observe others talking about them, you might notice that almost nobody really knows what they’re talking about.
There is an extraordinary gulf between having a functional understanding of an issue, and the cursory glance you get from the news. If you ever come across a water-cooler conve...
1 09 NOV 2015 by ideonexus
The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself
The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself. We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.21 JUL 2014 by ideonexus
Climate Forecasts vs Projections
"Projections are essential for giving us information on long-term trends, but the timescale is beyond what many policy makers (and the public) consider to be relevant to their decision-making processes. Climate forecasts seek to address this issue by providing information on a shorter term (decadal) that can be used directly to inform policy," he said.
"As climate forecasts improve, they will become more and more important in providing reliable information on what is likely to happen to the c...Forecasts are short-term predictions intended to inform policymakers because projections, which predict the long-term trend, are beyond political scope.
28 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
Tension Facilitates Change
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the ... 1 notes
notesBrilliant words from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr that apply to many facets of life, but strongly to the purpose of social change.
15 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
Parkinson's law of triviality
In the third chapter, "High Finance, or the Point of Vanishing Interest", Parkinson writes about a finance committee meeting with a three-item agenda.
The first is the signing of a £10 [4] million contract to build a reactor, the second a proposal to build a £350 bicycle shed for the clerical staff, and the third proposes £21 a year to supply refreshments for the Joint Welfare Committee.
The £10 million number is too big and too technical, and it passes in two minutes and a half.
The bi...
1 Summary provided from Wikipedia until a direct quote can be found. Concept is that the more trivial an issue, the more debate weighed on it because everyone understands the issue enough to have an opinion.
30 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Humans are Nothing Special
Asian Homo erectus died without issue and does not enter our immediate ancestry (for we evolved from African populations); Neanderthal people were collateral cousins, perhaps already living in Europe while we emerged in Africa... In other words, we are an improbable and fragile entity, fortunately successful after precarious beginnings as a small population in Africa, not the predictable end result of a global tendency. We are a thing, an item of history, not an embodiment of general principl...Folksonomies: evolution
Folksonomies: evolution
1 notes
notes"We are a thing, an item of history, not an embodiment of general principles."
30 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Research, Like Learning, Requires Practice
People who are unused to learning, learn little, and that slowly, while those more accustomed do much more and do it more easily. The same thing also happens in connection with research. Those who are altogether unfamiliar with this become blinded and bewildered as soon as their minds begin to work: they readily withdraw from the inquiry, in a state of mental fatigue and exhaustion, much like people who attempt to race without having been trained. He, on the other hand, who is accustomed to r... 1 notes
notesQuote from Erasistratus, Greek Physician.
