Should We Tax Poor Nutrition?...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Government, Health, Incentives, Interventions, Nutrition, Obesity on 07 28th, 2009 | 22 Comments
I just tweeted on a subject that I suspected would cause a stir, and so it has, I’m moving it here: RafeFurst: I strongly support a soda tax! RT @mobilediner: check it out:  a Soda Tax? http://amplify.com/u/dvl coelhobruno: @RafeFurst what about diet soda? Would it be exempt? RafeFurst: @coelhobruno...
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Violence on the Decline...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Culture, Epidemiology, Happiness, Interventions, Invisible Etiology, Self-Fullfilling Prophecy, Society on 07 25th, 2009 | 3 Comments
From Monday’s Washington Post: The District, New York and Los Angeles are on track for fewer killings this year than in any other year in at least four decades. Boston, San Francisco, Minneapolis and other cities are also seeing notable reductions in homicides. Full article is here, in which more...
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Shadows and Strings...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Invisible Etiology on 07 24th, 2009 | No Comments
Shadows live in a simple world. They glide effortlessly across any sort of surface, oblivious to the higher dimension of space in which 3-D bodies move, collide and sometimes block the paths of rays of light. Shadows have no idea how important that third dimension is, and how objects in it endow those very...
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A Meditation on Biological Modeling...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Cancer, Invisible Etiology, Models, Networks, Science, Visualization on 07 23rd, 2009 | No Comments
This is not my meditation, it was created by Cellucidate: ...
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Cancer as a Complex Adaptive System...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Cancer, Causality, Evolution, Genetics, Levels, Models, Networks, Science, Stability on 07 22nd, 2009 | 15 Comments
Heng, et al recently published a review paper that brings together and touches on many different aspects of cancer complexity.  I thought this an opportunity to selectively quote the paper and organize the quotes loosely around various complex systems concepts they relate to.  I’m curious whether...
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Equity Micro-Investing...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Management, Markets, Social Entrepreneurship on 07 16th, 2009 | 38 Comments
I’ve been having a serious discussion with two colleagues of mine about closing the gap that exists between two groups: People of my generation (40 and older) who have capital they want to invest in innovation but only know the VC for-profit-only value model and don’t have any true view into or...
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Coolest Bike in Town!...
Posted by acebailey in Creativity, Economics, Poverty, Social Entrepreneurship on 07 16th, 2009 | No Comments
Mike Ritchey of mountain bike fame is helping Rwandan coffee farmers cut the transport time (increasing their selling price) from the field to the washing stations by providing them with custom “Coffee Bikes” on a micro loan basis. These bikes replace the wooden bikes (including wheels) that...
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The Diamond Rule...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Cooperation, Invisible Etiology, Memes, Society on 07 14th, 2009 | 11 Comments
We all know the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  TED Prize Wish winner, Karen Armstrong, even laudably proposed that a Charter for Compassion based on the observation that all three Abrahamic traditions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) have the Golden Rule at their core. I...
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Homo Evolutis...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Evolution, Medical Breakthroughs, Singularity on 07 10th, 2009 | 7 Comments
In Juan Enriquez’ TED talk earlier this year, he made the point that humans have entered a new phase of evolution, one that has not been seen on before modern humans and their technology.  This, of course, is one of the main theses of Ray Kurzweil’s book, The Singularity is Near, and the main...
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