2008 November - The Emergent Fool

Incidentalomas...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Cancer, Causality, Interventions, Invisible Etiology, Medical Breakthroughs, Models on 11 30th, 2008 | 1 Comment

An incidentaloma according to wikipedia is “a tumor (-oma) found by coincidence (incidental) without clinical symptoms or suspicion.” The provocative NY Times article below suggests that indolent tumors (i.e. ones that do not need treatment) may come and go as a normal part of life. With...

Rebooting America...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Government, Socio-technical systems, Technology, Voting on 11 27th, 2008 | No Comments

Anyone interested in how technology and policy can work together to form us a more perfect union should read Rebooting America. If your budget is tight right now, you can download the PDF version for free. While you are at it, check out the Personal Democracy Forum which is the larger effort that...

Superorganism and Singularity...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Agency, Singularity, Socio-technical systems, Stability, Superorganism on 11 25th, 2008 | 7 Comments

There is an aspect to The Singularity which is not discussed much, an orthogonal dimension that is already taking shape, and which is perhaps more significant than what is implied by the “standard definition”: The Singularity represents an “event horizon” in the predictability of...

AT&T Stepped Up to the Plate and Mad...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Point of Order, Socio-technical systems on 11 25th, 2008 | No Comments

When I emailed AT&T about an outrageous international roaming charge that I wanted reversed, I wasn’t expecting much in the way of a positive response. But I got one, and I am making good on my promise to let people know about it. If anything is a complex system, cell phone customer service...

Metabolism Boosters...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Health, Medical Breakthroughs on 11 24th, 2008 | No Comments

Pop Quiz: what are the four ways that vegetables and fruits act as a superstar health shield? Find out here. Click here for more Dr. Ann...

Obama's Must Do List...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Government, Interventions, Society on 11 22nd, 2008 | No Comments

Everybody has their wishlist and “must do” lists for the new President. Back in March of 2007, the NY Times published this Op Ed piece that I personally believe is critical and outlines what needs to be done above all else. The article goes into much more detail about specifics, but the...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Autism, Cancer, Causality, Cooperation, Emergence, Epistemology, Evolution, Interventions, Invisible Etiology, Levels, Medical Breakthroughs, Models, Non-linearity, Science on 11 20th, 2008 | 1 Comment

The following is a recent paper by Henry Heng published in JAMA. I’ve linked concepts mentioned in the paper to corresponding explications from this blog. JAMA. 2008;300(13):1580-1581. The Conflict Between Complex Systems and Reductionism Henry H. Q. Heng, PhD Author Affiliations: Center for...

Change.gov...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Climate, Crowdsourcing, Government, Interventions on 11 20th, 2008 | No Comments

Okay, Kev, here’s your chance on affecting climate policy, go...

How Grandma Saved Democracy...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Media, Technology, Voting on 11 20th, 2008 | No Comments

Visiting my 90 year old grandma a couple of weeks ago, I saw the opportunity for a product that I think would have a lot of success in the marketplace. Like the iPhone though, it’s not so much the idea — I’m sure someone is working on or already has the idea — but rather in the...

From the Heart...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Interventions, Medical Breakthroughs on 11 19th, 2008 | 1 Comment

I have a bicuspid aortic valve, a congenital condition which exists in up to 2% of the general population: ...

Autocatalytic Systems...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Agency, Autocatalysis, Evolution, Scarcity / Abundance, Singularity on 11 17th, 2008 | 2 Comments

The above is a self-replicating dynamic structure from a class of systems called cellular automata (click here to run the simulation). Below is a self-replicating dynamic structure from a class of systems called “life”: ...

Historical Inflection Point...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Politics, Society, Voting on 11 16th, 2008 | No Comments

Click here for election night...

Required Reading on Financial Crisis...

Posted by kevindick in Markets, Models on 11 12th, 2008 | No Comments

Remember Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis about 80s Wall Street excess? Well, he has a terrific article on some guys who saw the subprime meltdown coming and bet heavily on it. It’s great narrative and a reminder that whenever someone’s model departs substantially from reality, there is an...

What is Cancer?...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Blog Comment, Cancer, Causality, Crowdsourcing, Invisible Etiology, Pop!Tech, Science on 11 5th, 2008 | No Comments

[ I'm asking for your help in answering this question, read past the fold to see how ] In my post on invisible etiology, I challenged us all to be as open-minded as possible when dealing with our most complex problems, for this is the only way to make the invisible become visible. Here’s where I...

Invisible Etiology...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Causality, Epidemiology, Infection, Interventions, Invisible Etiology, Memes, Pop!Tech, Science on 11 4th, 2008 | 3 Comments

One of the most poignant moments of this year’s Pop!Tech for me — which, BTW had many — was Gary Slutkin’s talk on the idea of violence being a virus. You may have heard about his work in stopping violence in Chicago in a NY Times Magazine cover article earlier this year. The...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Common Knowledge, Crowdsourcing, Government, Mutual Knowledge, Politics, Voting on 11 1st, 2008 | 10 Comments

Back in June, I suggested that public voting records would be healthy for our democracy if the populace were comfortable revealing their voting records. There is now a movement* and new web site for this called Who Voted? though they are not going as far as I am in advocating for revealing your actual...