20 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
The Economic and Cultural Divide in America
For most of the last century, wages in poorer parts of America rose faster than wages in richer places, as inventions were put to work in the hinterlands. After Henry Ford invented the Model T, for example, workers on assembly lines all over the Midwest built it.
Now it’s just the opposite. Bright young people from all over America, typically with college degrees, are streaming into the talent hubs of America—where the sum of their capacities is far greater than they’d be separately.
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notes27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
The Enlightenment Needs Vigorous Defense
The ideals of the Enlightenment are products of human reason, but they always struggle with other strands of human nature: loyalty to tribe, deference to authority, magical thinking, the blaming of misfortune on evildoers. The second decade of the 21st century has seen the rise of political movements that depict their countries as being pulled into a hellish dystopia by malign factions that can be resisted only by a strong leader who wrenches the country backward to make it “great again.”... 1 notes
notes10 FEB 2018 by ideonexus
Imaginative Play Creates Ownership
Ultimately, the child as creator exercises a whole range of capacities that set the Stage for original thinking. We find the imprint of creative practice in the blending of experiences and ideas, the classifications of real and imagined things, the organization of systemic patterns and narrative sequences, the modeling of worlds, the generation of artifacts, and the synthesizing of all that is known and felt into one grand design.
The creating self "owns" the processes and products of make-... 1 notes
notes12 APR 2015 by ideonexus
Go make that stuff manifesto
Go make that stuff
The manifesto is this: Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use - do the work you want to see done. 1 notes
notes12 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Natural Selection is Not Chance
Even today a good many distinguished minds seem unable to accept or even to understand that from a source of noise natural selection could quite unaided have drawn all the music of the biosphere. Indeed natural selection operates upon the products of chance and knows no other nourishment; but it operates in a domain of very demanding conditions, from which chance is banned. Folksonomies: natural selection chance
Folksonomies: natural selection chance
1 notes
notesIt is an algorithm, a set of rules.
03 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
All That Goes Into A Bottle of Root Beer
Ingredients:
molasses from the United States
anise from Spain
licorice from France
vanilla (bourbon) from Madagascar
cinnamon from Sri Lanka
cloves from Indonesia
wintergreen from China
pimento berry oil from Jamaica
balsam oil from Peru
And that’s just for a bottle of peacetime root beer. 1 notes
notesIn a post-apocalyptic world, it becomes apparent how much we relied on world trade for the products we use every day.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
We are Part of the Cosmos
Charles Darwin's insights into natural selection have shown that there are no
evolutionary pathways leading unerringly from simple forms to Man; rather,
evolution proceeds by fits and starts, and most life forms lead to evolutionary
dead-ends. We are the products of a long series of biological accidents. In the
cosmic perspective there is no reason to think that we are the first or the last or
the best.
These realizations of the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are profound –
and, to s... 1 notes
notesAs it is, not as we wish it to be.
10 AUG 2011 by ideonexus
A Deceptive God
Balthamos said quietly, “The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty, those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves, the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are, and Dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself. Matter loves matter. It seeks to know more about itself, and Dust is formed. The first angels condensed out of Dus... 1 notes
notesUsually a fake god is described as someone with special powers, but Pullman's god is merely an angel that preceded other angels into existence and lied to them about their origins, when, in fact, we are all products of the natural world.
29 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Advertisers Exploit our Tendency Toward Distinction
Advertisers, politicians, and anyone else who wants your money or support are very interested in programming you with certain distinctions over others and understanding the distinctions you see the world through so that they can take advantage of them. What are you more likely to buy for breakfast: a slice of chocolate cake or a "chocolate-chip muffin"? Calling a round piece of high-fat chocolate cake a "muffin" takes advantage of the distinctions you have around breakfast food and increases ... 1 notes
notesPrompting us to distinguish their products into more positive categories.
23 MAR 2011 by ideonexus
Summary of Schopenhauer's Philosophy
[Schopenhauer] was also an atheist. He did not believe in a personal, omnipotent God.
Instead, Schopenhauer believed that the essence of the universe is Being: a blind, irrational, unquenchable thirst to exist he called Wille zum Leben, and that everything we perceive is a representation of this Will to Live.
Because we ourselves are products of Will, we spend most of our lives trapped in a cycle of striving and boredom.
We're constantly willing ourselves to attain our goals, and when we d... 1 notes
notesA brief explanation that sounds familiar to atheism/secularism.
