07 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Why the Pioneer Anomaly is Worth Investigating
In the short run, knowing the gravitational constant to one more decimal digit of precision or placing even tighter limits on any deviation from Einstein's gravitational theory may seem like painfully nitpicking detail. Yet one must not lose sight of the "big picture." When researchers were measuring the properties of electricity with ever more refined instruments over two hundred years ago, they did not envision continent-spanning power grids, an information economy, or tiny electrical signa... 1 
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notesThe effect is tiny, but magnified over great distances, and if we are meticulous now, we make it possible for future generations to traverse the solar system.
04 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Shifting From Labor to Capital Reduces Demands
Finally, it’s easy to see how a shift in income from labor to capital would lead to a similar reduction in overall demand. Capitalists tend to save more of each marginal dollar than laborers. In the short run, a transfer from laborers to capitalists reduces total consumption, and thus total GDP. This phenomenon is summarized in a classic though possibly apocryphal story: Ford CEO Henry Ford II and United Automobile Workers president Walter Reuther are jointly touring a modern auto plant. Fo...Folksonomies: employment automation
Folksonomies: employment automation
1 Because the workers automated out of jobs can't buy things.
08 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
We Cannot Return to Nature
This much is certain: The future of the planet wall not be a reprise of the past, a return to "a state of nature." The future will certainly be technological, increasingly globally homogeneous, and, in the short run at least, will embody the connectivity of the computer chip and the contrivances of genetic engineering—in conformity with Chaisson's law of rising complexity. American conservationists frequently offer Native American attitudes toward nature as the solution to our environmental... 1 notes
notesEven the America before the Colonists was somewhat domesticated by the Native Americans, and we cannot give up our leisurely lifestyles.
04 MAR 2011 by ideonexus
Philip K Dick's Perception of Fate
Phillip Dick was intrigued by devices that allowed him to examine the mechanisms by which life unfolds. I think he voted for free will in the short run (the span of intelligent life on Earth, say), evolution for the middle distance (things develop according to underlying principles) and predestination in the long run (the universe will entropy and cease). A man and a woman whose eyes Meet Cute need only be concerned about the very short run.Folksonomies: predestination fate
Folksonomies: predestination fate
1 notes
notesEbert suggests Dick saw us having free will in the short term, with the long term dictated by certain rules, and the extreme long term having a set fate.
