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211 posts under this tag.

What would change everything? 2
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9
 Jan
18

Edge’s 2009 Question is out!: What would change everything?. The list of answers by some of the most interesting individuals in the third culture individuals out there is as inspiring and thought provoking (and atrociously designed, interface-wise) as ever. Kevin Kelly’s answer my favorite so far:

It is hard to imagine anything that would “change everything” as much as a cheap, powerful, ubiquitous artificial intelligence—the kind of synthetic mind that learns and improves itself. A very small amount of real intelligence embedded into an existing process would boost its effectiveness to another level. We could apply mindfulness wherever we now apply electricity. The ensuing change would be hundreds of times more disruptive to our lives than even the transforming power of electrification. We’d use artificial intelligence the same way we’ve exploited previous powers—by wasting it on seemingly silly things. Of course we’d plan to apply AI to tough research problems like curing cancer, or solving intractable math problems, but the real disruption will come from inserting wily mindfulness into vending machines, our shoes, books, tax returns, automobiles, email, and pulse meters.

This additional intelligence need not be super-human, or even human-like at all. In fact, the greatest benefit of an artificial intelligence would come from a mind that thought differently than humans, since we already have plenty of those around. The game-changer is neither how smart this AI is, nor its variety, but how ubiquitous it is. Alan Kay quips in that humans perspective is worth 80 IQ points. For an artificial intelligence, ubiquity is worth 80 IQ points. A distributed AI, embedded everywhere that electricity goes, becomes ai—a low-level background intelligence that permeates the technium, and trough this saturation morphs it.
Great stuff—it’s people like Kelly that make me miss California ;)

Jeff Bezos had remarkably similar, equally inspiring ideas at a recent TED talk, comparing the web to electricity but Kelly pushes it further, to ”intelligence as electricity”
tagged america, artificial intelligence, future, future shock, inspiration, interesting people, quotes, recommendations, web | 2 Comments

Insomnia 2
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9
 Jan
14

Insomnia’s hitting me hard so I thought I might as well write some of the thoughts swirling in my head…

I got almost 20,000 songs in total, having recently recovered most of my music library from a backup I had in Mexico. Some 2,000 of those songs I absolutely love and keep track of them with a special playlist. Funny thing but that playlist alone is worth to me more than all my thousands of (illegal) songs.

Anyway, been listening to that playlist for hours now. Climaxing to is a better word. Music is such pure pleasure, ain’t it? (I wonder if the pleasure will fade with age as they say—does that mean that it is fake then? Do dogs listen to music?) This is why I tell you I just can’t stop marveling at technology: so much marvelous music, from all over the world and all over time, available for so little money to me—a 100 years ago it  would have been unthinkable, to die for.

It shocked me that you didn’t know the meaning of “marveling” today girl, because it’s such an important word to me. Like, about what we talked at Ice Berry, people bore me not because they don’t share my interests but because they’re barely interested at all.

I’m so hungry for passion, for intense and unreasonable interests, for people with dreams, for people to wonder and marvel with, you know? Pretty much all most people seem to care (superficially, unreflectingly) about is gossip, fucking, or kids.

So people are mostly uninterested, unawed, unmoved—or when they’re not they’re unbelievably pessimistic, negative, catastrophist, paranoid, bitter… People who marvel are so exceedingly, saddeningly rare.

Any dimwit can be bitter (and most are), it’s the easiest thing to do, human nature (have you ever wondered how common clinical, biological chronic depression is, while its opposite, biological, chronic euphoria, is so weird as to be almost unheard of?).

Marveling, being hopeful, is the exception, it’s what takes effort and imagination and daring.
tagged inspiration, original content, quotes, rants, technology, technolyricism, things I've learned, writing | 3 Comments

Mumbai 2
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8
 Nov
30

I’m increasingly impressed and admiring of the vigor, originality, and sheer bravado of many Indian thinkers. (Venturesome Economy recent case in point.) The country with the most favorable opinion of America, India at its best out-Americas America as the country of hope, as in this breathtaking reaction to the Mumbai attacks (referred by an Indian commentator as the Indian 9/11).


MY bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai? There’s something about this island-state that appalls religious extremists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.
But the best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever. Dream of making a good home for all Mumbaikars, not just the denizens of $500-a-night hotel rooms. Dream not just of Bollywood stars like Aishwarya Rai or Shah Rukh Khan, but of clean running water, humane mass transit, better toilets, a responsive government. Make a killing not in God’s name but in the stock market, and then turn up the forbidden music and dance; work hard and party harder.

If the rest of the world wants to help, it should run toward the explosion. It should fly to Mumbai, and spend money. Where else are you going to be safe? New York? London? Madrid?

So I’m booking flights to Mumbai. I’m going to go get a beer at the Leopold, stroll over to the Taj for samosas at the Sea Lounge, and watch a Bollywood movie at the Metro. Stimulus doesn’t have to be just economic.
Suketu Mehta, What They Hate About Mumbai
New York Times
tagged america, inspiration, quotes

Star
a theory of finance 2
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8
 Oct
23

Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it?
Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Apropos of the many pundits awoken by the finance crisis:

Foretelling MUST be part of any worthwhile understanding.
(We can all come up on demand with plausible histories after the fact
and “description—often bad description—hiding behind obfuscatory rubbish.”)

Speculation’s to finance, what experimentation’s to science: THE TEST.
No one salubriously rich can claim to understand finance.
Whoever REALLY understands it is welcome to big bucks any day.

Heard that Douglas Adams’s creation story?
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexeplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Same thing may happen with finance:
Any understandable glimmer of it is too good an opportunity not to be instantly complicated away in the efforts to milk it.

This all but an instance of a bigger theory that claims:
your inability to foretell things foretelling abler (smarter) than you.
The future, society, others, and even you, among such things.
tagged aphorisms, economics, essays, favorites, finance, metaphors, original content, quotes, rants, science, story

Star
Technology is the exercise of love 2
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8
 Oct
01

David Friedman ELZR introduces a fascinating classification of human cooperation in The Machinery of Freedom ELZR. There’s
    force (imposing my end on you),
    trade (“I’ll help you achieve your end if you help me achieve mine”),
    and love (“making my end your end”).
 
The definition of love alone is, I think, a great achievement. It surely doesn’t include everything we mean by that impossibly burdened word (it doesn’t mention romance, liking or sex) but it does reveal one of love’s most important yet often implicit threads. It is abstract yet the more likely we are to call a love pure, the more likely it is about A caring about B for B’s sake alone.

An interesting exercise came to mind after reading the classification: What human activity/field corresponds to each kind of human cooperation?

The first two kinds are straightforward loosening words up a bit: Politics is the exercise of force. Economics is the exercise of trade. With love, I stumbled for the longest time. I have an answer now.

The exercise of love is… technology. A tool is the purest embodiment of love, of making someone else’s end your end. That’s why technology is so ambiguous, its ends are its users’ ends. Giving you a tool is the ultimate act of love, the more so the more control of it I give you, because by doing that I make my end your end, whatever your end may be—defending your life or stealing. Think of the geeks that cobbled up the internet, ignoring wtf the thing would be used for, coding only so that it would allow for it.

Don’t dismiss this as one geek’s techno-euphoria. There’s something deep in here. Technology is the exercise of love. “If you want to do good, work on the technology, not on getting power.” Nothing less than the meaning of our lives could be here.

tagged aphorisms, david friedman, definitions, economics, epiphanies, ethics, favorites, inspiration, love, lyricism, original content, personal, philosophy, politics, quotes, sex, technology, technolyricism, web | 2 Comments

Star
Why is there something rather than nothing? 2
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8
 Sep
30

Life Results from the Non-Random Survival of Randomly Varying Replicators.
Richard Dawkins, Revolutionary Evolutionist

My answer to life, the universe, and everything:

Randomness begets persistence
For among things that vary a lot,
and vary varyingly (= non-independently = causally),
what varies little remains (duh!)
Persistence begets replication
For among things that persist,
what copies itself is an outbreak
Replication begets complexity
For among the ways to copy oneself,
the more successful ones are among the more complex
(for there are many, many more complex ways than simpler ones)
tagged aphorisms, favorites, formist, fun, lyricism, math, personal, philosophy, quotes, science, sex, statistics, whimsicist

Let's (Not) Change the World! 2
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8
 Sep
29

Both for what has happened to me and for what lies ahead this year, I knew I had to read Harry Browne’s How I found freedom in an unfree world (download PDF) sooner rather than later.

I just finished it yesterday and can’t believe how different I am already. How freer (me, always so proud of my freedom!). It really is a handbook for personal liberty. It’s so selfish that at times it even angered me (me, selfish as they come!). But then, well looked, the book’s an extended version of that famous parable, existing in some version in most cultures:
When I was young, I wanted to change the world. I found it was too difficult, so I tried to change my country. When I realized I could not change that either, I began to focus on my town. I could not change even that and being older, I tried to change my family. Now being old, I realize the only thing I can change is myself. Suddenly I realize that if long ago if I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the country and I indeed could have changed the world.
Or as Harry put it
As you view any situation in which you have a goal, there are basically two types of alternatives available to you. I call them direct and indirect.

A direct alternative is one that requires only direct action by yourself to get a desired result.An indirect alternative requires that you act to make someone else do what is necessary to achieve your objective.

Once you’ve seen the positions and attitudes of the other people involved, a direct alternative requires only that you make a decision; an indirect alternative requires that you change the attitude of one or more other persons so that they will do what it is you want.
The recognition of the two types of alternatives is one of the most important keys to freedom. Most people automatically think in terms of indirect alternatives — who must be changed, how people must be educated, what others should be doing. Consequently, they spend most of their lives in futile efforts to achieve what can’t be achieved — the remaking of others.

In any situation, a free individual immediately looks first at the identities of the other people involved and appraises the situation by the simple standard: Is this what I want for myself? If it isn’t, he looks elsewhere. If it is, he relaxes and enjoys the situation to the maximum — without the problems that most people take for granted.

He automatically thinks in terms of direct alternatives. He asks himself, “With things as they are, what can I do by myself to make things better for myself?�
I’m gonna be Switzerland. Mind my business. Be my own man. Neutral. Flexible. Pragmatic. Quiet. Living my own, happy, private life. Free in an unfree world.
tagged definitions, epiphanies, ethics, future, libertarianism, liberty, quotes, recommendations, wisdom | 1 Comment

Chimera fetish 2
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8
 Sep
26

The text below was when I fell in love with China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station. I wasn’t sure for many pages, never one to care much for fantasy. But this, this is what fantasy should be.

Reading the book, as many things else, got interrupted by the exile, but I’ve been possessed downloading ebooks lately and I just found a great HTML version of the book. Let the reading recommence!

Isaac and Lin sat naked on either side of the bare wooden table. Isaac was conscious of their pose, seeing them as a third person might. It would make a beautiful, strange print, he thought. An attic room, dust-motes in the light from the small window, books and paper and paints neatly stacked by cheap wooden furniture. A dark-skinned man, big and nude and detumescing, gripping a knife and fork, unnaturally still, sitting opposite a khepri, her slight woman’s body in shadow, her chitinous head in silhouette.

They ignored their food and stared at each other for a moment. Lin signed at him: Good morning, lover. Then she began to eat, still looking at him.

It was when she ate that Lin was most alien, and their shared meals were a challenge and an affirmation.As he watched her, Isaac felt the familiar trill of emotion: disgust immediately stamped out, pride at the stamping out, guilty desire.

Light glinted in Lin’s compound eyes. Her headlegs quivered. She picked up half a tomato and gripped it with her mandibles. She lowered her hands while her inner mouthparts picked at the food her outer jaw held steady.

Isaac watched the huge iridescent scarab that was his lover’s head devour her breakfast.

He watched her swallow, saw her throat bob where the pale insectile underbelly segued smoothly into her human neck … not that she would have accepted that description. Humans have khepri bodies, legs, hands; and the heads of shaved gibbons, she had once told him.

He smiled and dangled his fried pork in front of him, curled his tongue around it, wiped his greasy fingers on the table. He smiled at her. She undulated her headlegs at him and signed, My monster.

I am a pervert, thought Isaac, and so is she.

tagged art, beauty, droll, fetishy, food, love, lyricism, porn, quote collages, quotes, recommendations, remixes, sex, writing

Pies 2
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8
 Sep
24

Liking David Friedman’s Hidden Order a whole lot. Not trivial reading, but rewarding. Through intuitive graphs and simplification he comes up with some interesting economics theory (with my math background the hand waving and naivete of the presentation’s obvious but I’m still rather unconvinced of a formal, math-based economics).

But perhaps the part I liked most is this inspiring little quote, awfully important in an age when technology allows contracts to make the dreams and nightmares of both sellers and buyers to come true, from DRM to discography torrents.
Suppose you are a businessman or an attorney negotiating a contract. It is tempting to go through the contract term by term, trying in each case to get whatever term is most favorable to you or your client.
    But a more profitable strategy may be to go through looking for the contract terms that maximize the combined gain to both parties. Only when you get to the final term—the price—do you shift back to trying to make it as favorable as possible, thus collecting as much as possible of the gain produced by your well-designed contract. Most of your job is maximizing the size of the pie. The bigger the pie, the bigger you can make the slices for both sides.
tagged david friedman, economics, future, inspiration, quotes

The Stem-Cell Cancer Hypothesis 2
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8
 Sep
15

The cover article of this week’s Economist brings the stem-cell cancer hypothesis to the mainstream. This is over 3 years after Eva Vertes talked about it at TED in one of my favorite video pieces ever. And is very, very exciting.

..just occasionally, a finding revolutionises the field and cracks open a whole range of diseases. The discovery in the 19th century that many illnesses are caused by bacteria was one such. The unravelling of Mendelian genetics was another. It now seems likely that medical science is on the brink of a finding of equal significance. The underlying biology of that scourge of modern humanity, cancer, looks as though it is about to yield its main secret. If it does, it is possible that the headline-writer’s cliché, “a cure for cancer�, will come true over the years, just as the antibiotics that followed from the discovery of bacteria swept away previously lethal infectious diseases.

The discovery—or, rather, the hypothesis that is now being tested—is that cancers grow from stem cells in the way that healthy organs do.

The Economist, The root of all evil?


tagged announces, biology, future, interesting people, medicine, quotes, science, technology, the economist, videos