2009 January - The Emergent Fool

The Emergent Fool

Micro –> Macro –> Micr...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Causality, Climate, Economics, Emergence, Levels, Politics, Superorganism on 01 29th, 2009 | 7 Comments

Kevin has a few threads regarding the effect that micro behaviors have when aggregated to macro behaviors: Society According to Kevin I May Have Been Wrong About Macroeconomics But I Was Probably Right About Climate Models It occurred to me as I was reading this Huffington Post article that there is a...

But I Was Probably Right About Climate M...

Posted by kevindick in Climate, Models, Science on 01 29th, 2009 | 10 Comments

I try not to practice false modesty (those of you who know me well probably just did a spit take at that understatement). So while I try to stand up and admit when I’m wrong, I also like to stand up and point out where I’m right. It shouldn’t be a surprise to any of you that I came to the...

I May Have Been Wrong About Macroeconomi...

Posted by kevindick in Education, Government, Society on 01 29th, 2009 | 10 Comments

When I was an undergraduate studying macroeconomics, I came to the conclusion that it was pretty much total bullshit. Because I was in a co-terminal masters program, I was also studying graduate level decision theory, game theory, microeconomics, behavioral economics, and dynamic systems. In comparison, it...

Symposium Proposal...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Non-linearity, Point of Order on 01 28th, 2009 | No Comments

There is a proposed symposium on “Complex Adaptive Systems and the Threshold Effect: Views from the Natural and Social Sciences” on Nov. 5 – 7, 2009 in Arlington, VA. According to the details, “A final determination for scheduling this event will depend partially on the amount of...

Powerful Images...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Government, Media, Politics, Society on 01 28th, 2009 | No Comments

Click here to see the whole set. hat tip:...

Focusing Sound...

Posted by Rafe Furst in TED, Technology on 01 27th, 2009 | No Comments

Okay, this is cool. Be sure to watch to the...

Coffee Linked to Lower Dementia Risk...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Causality, Interventions, Medical Breakthroughs, Nutrition on 01 25th, 2009 | 5 Comments

The NY Times reports. Here’s my theory: someone who drinks more than three cups of coffee a day can’t possibly sit still and actually gets their ass off the couch and does shit, thereby stimulating the body and brain, a known and powerful way to reduce dementia risk. hat tip: Daniel...

Designing for Generosity...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Crowdsourcing, Management, Pop!Tech, Scarcity / Abundance on 01 24th, 2009 | No Comments

Clay Shirky is always a great speaker. Here’s his Pop!Tech from last year: @ Yahoo!...

Why It's Important to be an Optimis...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Cognition, Epistemology, Limits of Knowledge, Psychology, Self-Fullfilling Prophecy, Society on 01 20th, 2009 | 2 Comments

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. (James Branch Cabell) I am currently reading What Are You Optimistic About?, a collection of short essays by thought leaders in many different disciplines on the eponymous subject. I’m also...

Particle Physics Follow Up...

Posted by kevindick in Science on 01 15th, 2009 | 4 Comments

In the comments to this post, Rafe and Daniel asked me to tell them the punch line of Lightness of Being. I’ll do my best. Spoilers ahead. ...

Society According to Kevin: Part 1...

Posted by kevindick in Incentives, Markets, Models, Society on 01 15th, 2009 | 7 Comments

How Our Moral Compasses Fail Us From the comments on my Introduction to this series, it appears I have discovered a controversial topic. Good. My first objective will be to illustrate why we cannot rely on moral compasses to guide society. After some thought, I have decided to break the topic of moral...

The Challenge...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Crowdsourcing, Games, Incentives, Social Entrepreneurship, TED on 01 13th, 2009 | No Comments

Here’s a contest model for spurring innovation that I’d like to explore: 50 participatns ante a pre-determined amount of money Each participant submits original work (of a pre-determined type) Each participant votes for one winner (other than themselves) Winner gets the money ...

Good Particle Physics Book...

Posted by kevindick in Science on 01 12th, 2009 | 3 Comments

I apologize for the posting lull. I’ve had a bad cold and been struggling to add Monte Carlo simulation to my discrete stochastic model of the startup lifecycle (if anyone is planning on using Oracle’s Crystal Ball, I can tell you the good and bad). But I’m almost finished with my next...

Global Economic Constitution?...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Government, Interventions, Memes, Pop!Tech, Scarcity / Abundance, Superorganism on 01 9th, 2009 | No Comments

@ Yahoo!...

Red Pill or Blue Pill?...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Cognition, Cooperation, Culture, Politics, Psychology, TED on 01 8th, 2009 | No Comments

As we approach the inauguration of a new leader who trying to be truly post-partisan, I think Jonathan Haidt’s TED brilliant talk is apropos: ...

The Emergent Fool...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Point of Order on 01 8th, 2009 | No Comments

We changed the name/URL of the blog to better reflect that it’s a group blog now and not just Rafe. Same kind of content though, and we didn’t remove any existing...

Early Detection: better late than never...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Cancer, Epidemiology, Health, Medical Breakthroughs, Science, Technology on 01 7th, 2009 | No Comments

Here is the scariest image in all of cancer: Graph from Fortune Magazine article. ...

Third-Hand Smoke...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Cancer, Causality, Genetics, Health, Memes on 01 7th, 2009 | No Comments

Thanks to Daniel Horowitz for alerting me to third-hand smoke. I guess then if you pass on epigentic mutations to your children from third-hand smoke exposure it’s called fourth-hand...

Society According to Kevin: Introduction...

Posted by kevindick in Incentives, Markets, Models, Society on 01 2nd, 2009 | 11 Comments

I was recently having a conversation with a mutual friend of Rafe’s and mine. Like the two of us, he’s quite smart, well educated, and socially aware. I respect his thinking a lot. However, during the course of this conversation, it became clear to me that he holds what I think of as an...

Cancer as Evolution — 2008 Summary...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Cancer, Evolution, Invisible Etiology, Science on 01 1st, 2009 | 9 Comments

Click here to read part 4 in this series. As 2008 closes, it appears that momentum is picking up for the somatic evolution view of cancer. Here are three recently published papers of note: The Evolution of Cancer (Goymer, et al, Aug 2008, Nature) Cancer Research Meets Evolutionary Biology (Pepper, et al,...