2009 August - The Emergent Fool

Posted by Rafe Furst in Complexity, Education, Invisible Etiology, Science on 08 31st, 2009 | View Comments

Should be of interest to everyone who reads this blog. Here’s the program, here’s the website, and here’s some more info that you can’t get from either yet: Dear all: Just wanted to share with you all a couple of updates for our Fall Symposium. We’re very pleased to have two...

I’m a Nutritarian...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Health, Nutrition on 08 30th, 2009 | View Comments

For the past year or so I’ve been eating about 80% vegan. I hate the word “vegan” because it has political/ideological connotations I don’t ascribe to, and also because by definition that’s not what I am. I think Dr. Fuhrman’s neologism, nutritarian sums up my position...

Posted by plektix in Complex Links, Complexity, Games on 08 27th, 2009 | View Comments

My good friend and computer scientest Kyle Burke has recently started a highly interesting blog on his research field: combinatorial game theory. The idea of this field is to use games as a tool for studying issues of complexity. Though his blog is only a month old, some important foundational ideas have...

Should You Use Sunscreen?...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Cancer, Causality, Epidemiology, Health, Interventions, Invisible Etiology, Memes, Science, Science 2.0 on 08 25th, 2009 | View Comments

This is a very complex topic, as the following talk suggests: The main takeaways from this that I got are: Cancers for which sunlight deficit is a risk factor are orders of magnitude more prevalent than the few for which overexposure is a risk factor. People who are using sunscreen regularly are precisely...

What Obama Needs to Do...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Cognition, Cooperation, Government, Health, Language, Politics, Psychology on 08 21st, 2009 | View Comments

The old philosophical theory says that reason is conscious, can fit the world directly, is universal (we all think the same way), is dispassionate (emotions get in the way of reason), is literal (no metaphor or framing in reason), works by logic, is abstract (not physical) and functions to serve our...

The Trust Ecology...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Interconnectedness, Markets, Networks, Social Networks, Socio-technical systems, Trust on 08 18th, 2009 | View Comments

NPR’s On The Media recently had a series of interesting segments on the future of the internet: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. A theme that ran through...

Celiac Disease on the Rise...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Causality, Epidemiology, Health, Invisible Etiology on 08 18th, 2009 | View Comments

According to a new report in Gastroenterology (July 09), Celiac Disease is now 4 times more common in the US than it was during the 1950′s. The disease results from an intolerance to the protein gluten, found in wheat, barley, and rye. When celiac patients consume gluten, they suffer an...

Health Care Parallels Education...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Economics, Education, Government, Health, Incentives on 08 15th, 2009 | View Comments

I was listening today to a Fresh Air interview from a couple of weeks ago on the reasons for the high cost of health care: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your...

Something Fishy About Mercury...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Causality, Epidemiology, Health, Interventions, Nutrition, Politics, Psychology, Science on 08 10th, 2009 | View Comments

Here is a fascinating discussion on NPR’s Forum from earlier this year on the subject of mercury and fish: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. If you’ve...

The Criminalization of Poverty...

Posted by plektix in Government, Homelessness, Society on 08 9th, 2009 | View Comments

Barbara Ehrenreich had an excellent article in yesterday’s New York Times on the many ways that being poor can land you in trouble with the law. One striking example: ...

Name That Financial Debacle!...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Economics, Government, Incentives, Interconnectedness, Interventions, Markets, Non-linearity on 08 4th, 2009 | View Comments

The following quotes are from a book describing a real set of events: [The incident] is an extraordinary example of what happens when you get… a dozen people with an average IQ of 160… working in a field in which they collectively have 250 years of experience… employing a ton of...

The Evolution of Bad Ideas...

Posted by plektix in Economics, Evolution, Incentives, Uncategorized on 08 3rd, 2009 | View Comments

It is by now common wisdom that our current financial crisis is due in large part to misplaced incentives in our financial system. Analysts and fund managers were rewarded for short-term thinking and risk-taking. If we can rework our financial system to reward long-term, careful planning, it is often...

Providing Global Energy Needs...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Energy, Scarcity / Abundance on 08 1st, 2009 | View Comments

Derek Abbott says Australia alone could solve the world’s current and future energy needs using solar thermal and liquid hydrogen. Saul Griffith says, practically speaking this is not feasible and we need to use all available clean energy technology and reduce and conserve substantially or we are...