Environmental Ideology and The Ascetic M...
Posted by kevindick in Climate, Cooperation, Evolution, Genetics, Society on 06 30th, 2008 | View Comments
I've always been ambivalent about environmentalism. On the one hand, my gut instinct is usually to conserve and preserve as a default policy. On the other hand, a lot of environmentalists seem to adopt an absolutist posture. Any harm to the environment is bad. No tradeoffs. No cost-benefit analysis. No...
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Top 10 TED Talks...
Posted by Rafe Furst in TED on 06 27th, 2008 | View Comments
There's a great highlights reel here with links to the top 10 most popular so...
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Dynamic Architecture...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Architecture, Technology on 06 26th, 2008 | View Comments
Here's the architect's website, and here's a video: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq-QUkE1DGM] Hat tip: Michael...
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TED Talk: Larry Lessig...
Posted by Rafe Furst in TED on 06 17th, 2008 | View Comments
How Creativity is Being Strangled by the Law [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs] Click here for Discussion...
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TED Talk: V.S. Ramachandran...
Posted by Rafe Furst in TED on 06 16th, 2008 | View Comments
A Journey to the Center of Your Mind [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl2LwnaUA-k] Click here for Discussion...
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TED Talk: Bill Clinton...
Posted by Rafe Furst in TED on 06 15th, 2008 | View Comments
World-class Health Care for Rwanda [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft24bHtNJwY] Click here for Discussion...
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TED Talk: Robert Fischell...
Posted by Rafe Furst in TED on 06 14th, 2008 | View Comments
Medical Inventing [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiUS82JBu80] Click here for Discussion...
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Band Aids and the Copenhagen Consensus...
Posted by kevindick in Interventions, Poverty, Socio-technical systems on 06 9th, 2008 | View Comments
I recently alerted Rafe to the latest Copenhagen Consensus, which aims to set priorities for the most cost effective interventions to improve global welfare. Items (1) and (3) were micronutrient supplementation and fortification. Rafe expressed concern that these were a "band aid approach". After pondering...
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National Popular Vote...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Government, Interventions, Politics, Voting on 06 6th, 2008 | View Comments
Yesterday I blogged about personal vote verification.  At the group level, I recommend supporting the National Popular Vote.  While most people (70%) favor a popular vote for president, the U.S. Constitution calls for an electoral college system.  The National Popular Vote movement is extremely clever in...
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Crowdsourcing Election Verification...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Crowdsourcing, Government, Politics, Voting on 06 6th, 2008 | View Comments
I take it as accepted fact at this point that the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election would have gone to John Kerry if everyone who attempted to vote that day were able to and all the votes were counted correctly.  Here's the the Wikipedia entry on the subject and here's a documentary to get you...
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TED Talk: Steven Pinker...
Posted by Rafe Furst in TED on 06 5th, 2008 | View Comments
The myth of violence [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk] Click here for Discussion...
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TED Talk: Susan Blackmore...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Agency, Culture, Memes, Socio-technical systems, TED, Technology on 06 4th, 2008 | View Comments
Memes and "temes" Apropos of Kevin's post yesterday on the "Singularity", we need to be taking more seriously cultural agency (which includes technological and socio-technological agency): [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ_9-Qx5Hz4] Click here for Discussion...
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Stray Thought About the Singularity...
Posted by kevindick in Alternative Institutions, Cooperation, Government, Singularity, Society, Socio-technical systems on 06 3rd, 2008 | View Comments
Rafe's post on complex systems defending themselves randomly collided in my mind with this post and paper by Robin Hanson on the Singularity to spur a stray thought. What if the Singularity were catalyzed by changes in organizations rather than intelligence or manufacturing? For those of you that don't...
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Complex Systems Defend Themselves...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Agency, Autocatalysis, Socio-technical systems, Stability on 06 1st, 2008 | View Comments
I've talked on here about the importance of taking seriously the notion of agency as it applies to systems other than biological.  In reading a recent Wired retrospective on what they called wrong, I was struck by feeling that their error was the same in all three cases, and that is underestimating the...
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