COVID hospital capacity tracker

Citizen science

Is ther progress in philosophy?

Philosophy

Always questions, no answers

Nutrition for the benefit of the planet

What to eat to save the planet and ourselves

What we eat needs to be nutritious and sustainable. Researchers are trying to figure out what that looks like around the world.
More than 2 billion people are overweight or obese, mostly in the Western world. At the same time, 811 million people are not getting enough calories or nutrition, mostly in low- and middle-income nations. Unhealthy diets contributed to more deaths globally in 2017 than any other factor, including smoking2.
But if everyone, on average, ate a more plant-based diet, and emissions from all other sectors were halted, the world would have a 50% chance of meeting the 1.5 °C climate-change target5. And if diets improved alongside broader changes in the food system, such as cutting down waste, the chance of hitting the target would rise to 67%.

Politically impossible since too much money is in big food, especially meat.

Some steps to protecting your digital life

Although probably a losing battle, 

Ars Technica  has some suggestions.

Even those who consider themselves well educated about cyber crime and security threats—and who do everything they’ve been taught to do—can (and do!) still end up as victims. The truth is that, with enough time, resources, and skill, everything can be hacked.

The key to protecting your digital life is to make it as expensive and impractical as possible for someone bent on mischief to steal the things most important to your safety, financial security, and privacy. If attackers find it too difficult or expensive to get your stuff, there's a good chance they'll simply move on to an easier target.

Part 2  lots of specifics 

You can do a number of things to reduce the risks posed by data breaches and identity fraud. The first is to avoid accidentally exposing the credentials you use with accounts. A data breach of one service provider is especially dangerous if you haven’t followed best practices in how you set up credentials. These are some best practices to consider:

• Use a password manager that generates strong passwords you don’t have to remember. This can be the manager built into your browser of choice, or it can be a standalone app. Using a password manager ensures that you have a different password for every account, so a breach of one account won’t spill over into others. (Sorry to again call out the person reusing letmein123! for everything, but it's time to face the music.)
• When possible, use two-factor or multi-factor authentication ("2FA" or "MFA"). 

Part 3  focusing on smartphones 

Criminals are using smartphone apps and text messages to lure vulnerable people into traps—some with purely financial consequences, and some that put the victims in actual physical jeopardy...

text message phishing scams that target personal data—especially website credentials and credit card data. Sometimes called "smishing," SMS phishing messages usually carry some call to action that motivates the recipient to click on a link—a link that often leads to a web page that is intended to steal usernames and passwords

… applications are presented as free but feature in-app payments—including subscription fees that automatically kick in after a very short "trial period" that may not be fully transparent to the user. Often referred to as "fleeceware," apps like this can charge whatever the developer wants on a repeating basis. And they may even continue to generate charges after a user has uninstalled the application.

To be sure that you're not being charged for apps you've removed, you have to go check your list of subscriptions (this works differently on iOS and Google Play)—and remove any that you aren't using.

Layers of reality

Lee Camp lays out the allowable discourse.

Why do we have private property?

It’s just the way it is…. 

Break free with MMT

How the global south can break free

Argues that defaulting on dollar debt paves the way for MMT inspired policies to serve the population, such as a job guarantee, universal health care, infrastructure…

Resources and labor exist but currently mostly in service to delivery of the wealth to developed nations.

Universal exploitation

Snagged from Wikipedia re Thucydides writing on the siege of Melos

Original Greek: δυνατὰ δὲ οἱ προύχοντες πράσσουσι καὶ οἱ ἀσθενεῖς ξυγχωροῦσιν
Possible translations:
William Smith (1831): "in what terms soever the powerful enjoin obedience, to those the weak are obliged to submit."
Richard Crawley (1910): "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must"
Rex Warner (1954): "the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept".
Benjamin Jowett (1881): "the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must".
Thomas Hobbes (1629): "they that have odds of power exact as much as they can, and the weak yield to such conditions as they can get".
Johanna Hanink (2019): "Those in positions of power do what their power permits, while the weak have no choice but to accept it."

I suppose that it would be nice to understand why this seems to be the case.

Maybe evolutionary theory…

Revisiting the Powell memo

The blueprint for reactionary success since the age of Aquarius failed

Powell

Limits to Growth revisited

KPMG reviews  the Limits to Growth.  I came across this book right after it was published in 1972.  I was a freshman at Stanford and it made a significant impact at the time.

John Michael Greer at

Resilience

Has a good look back at what seems to be the best econometric model.

We had a choice and the right wing, growth and exploitation gang prevailed over the hippies.

A theory of why we are in this mess

New Years 2020, B(efore) C(ovid)

Michael Hudson explains it all to us

transcript

Michael Hudson called this interview a summary of his overall economic philosophy, so I hope you will enjoy it. Needless to say, it also covers a lot of ground.

Internet search

We would like to get results that are 

• All of what we want (recall)
• Only what we want (precision)

Search is now adversarial since there is money to be made by serving up ads 

Search better

How to cast doubt

Rhetorical devices for denialism

some academic support

The conspiracy theory handbook

Stoicism

In my opinion, the most appropriate school of philosophy

a philosophy designed to make us more resilient, happier, more virtuous and more wise–and as a result, better people, better parents and better professionals. 

Counter arguments   From Benjamin Studebaker (leftist writer)

Stoics, Skeptics, and Epicureans had similar conceptions of the good life, that this conception closely resembles the conception preferred by Buddhists, and that this conception of the good life is mistaken. 

the Stoics assert an unrealistically ambitious epistemology

many contemporary political and moral antagonisms are essentially new versions of the Stoic/Skeptic antagonism, and that there is a popular Epicurean response to this antagonism.

The mind body problem

Horgan writes about...

the bewilderment you feel when you unexpectedly come face to face with yourself. The loopy feedback-ness of the sensation amplifies it. Try to analyze it, put it into words, and you might take note of your bizarre hybrid nature. You are a physical thing in a world of physical things, including other people. You have height, width, heft, you are subject to gravity and other forces, and yet you are not just physical. Others can see your body, but they cannot see your mind.

Related to consciousness but distinct

How did we get here?

And where are we going?

US centric. Looking from the perspective of civilizations rise and fall over all of human history.  Takes a view that it’s really all about energy.

Collapse, Jared Diamond’s lucid book, covers similar territory 

Adam Curtis has a documentary on BBC iplayer  following up his hyper normalization

I don’t know how to view it yet but the Guardian review is sobering.

I’ve linked before to Ian Welsh’s   political analysis

Long arc of history reveals a lot of multi century civilizations that have eventually collapsed.  Are we next?

I am generally a happy and optimistic person and I suppose I’m optimistic that “in the long run” (some) people will live good lives, but it seems like the next 50 years or so are destined to be a time of decay and continuing crapification.

Misinformation

We are in epistemologically challenging times. 

Rand And Rand  put together a guide to searching for the truth in the fog of misinformation 

Health: gut feelings...

Healthy microbiome  can have a profound impact on our health including resistance to viral infections.

Sauerkraut sandwiches are yummy so there are no excuses.

Everything is broken

Some musings about how it happened

Logical fallacies and rhetoric

from high school debate guides.  With links to deeper discussions and studies.  In these epistemologically challenging times, identifying and refuting fallacious arguments is important though not sufficient.

But, 

pointing out a logical fallacy is a way of removing an argument from the debate rather than just weakening it. 

US Oligarchy

Kind of obvious on the ground, but there are some excellent quantifications in 

the study underlying this BBC article

precarity ... is rooted not in inequality, but in a depleted public sector, in a public authority that has abandoned the public and increasingly become a vehicle for predatory capitalism.

Why cyber security is not possible

Quinn Norton

Elites and class dominance

Revolt of the Elites

From 1994 and still relevant today.

The Archetypical Cycle of Internal Order and Disorder | LinkedIn

The Archetypical Cycle of Internal Order and Disorder | LinkedIn

class and power struggles

One timeless and universal truth that I saw went back as far as I studied history, since before Confucius around 500 BC, is that those societies that draw on the widest range of people and give them responsibilities based on their merits rather than privileges are the most sustainably successful because they find the best talent to do their jobs well, they have diversity of perspectives, and they are perceived as the most fair, which fosters social stability

Non annotated lists curated by John Henry

Econ reading list

From John Henry, brilliant scholar.

More:

history of economic thought

There’s yet more but not enough time to read it all.

I’m not an amateur crastinator...

Farnam street on the differences between amateurs and professionals 

Learning

Learning is valuable. It’s often difficult though, for many reasons.  As I’m learning to play guitar I find my brain is ahead of my fingers... the work/practice/“reps” just can’t be shirked 

From the Farnham Street blog

How To Speak by Patrick Winston - YouTube

It's important to be able to communicate.  There is a whole field, actually, multiple fields (rhetoric, e.g.) which study communication.   If you want to share information, or persuade, you have to be able to send a message that is comprehended...



How To Speak by Patrick Winston - YouTube:



Summary (from comments to the YouTube)



Start

1. Do not start a talk with a joke. [thank collaborators etc but save the joke for the end]
2. Promise - Tell them what they are gonna learn at the end of your talk. 
3. Cycle – make your idea repeated many times in order to be completely clear for everyone. 
4. Make a “Fence” around your idea so that it can be distinguished from someone else’s idea. 
5. Verbal punctuation – sum up information within your talk some times to make listeners get back on track. 
6. Ask an intriguing question

Place and Time

1. Best time for having a lecture is 11 am.
   (not too early and not after lunch) 
2. The place should be well lit. 
3. The place should be seen and checked before the lecture. 
4. The place should be at least half full.  Choose venue according to the amount of listeners. 

 Tools
For teaching.

Chalk Board, white board, or projector – it’s got graphics, speed, target.

Watch your hands! Don’t hold them behind your back, it’s better to keep them straight and use for pointing at the board.

Props – use them in order to make your ideas visual.
Visual perception is the most effective way to interact with listeners.



For a Job Talk. Exposing, Slides

1. Don’t put too many words on a slide. Slides should just reflect what you’re saying, not the other way around. Pictures attract attention and people get invested in finding out the explanation.
2. Make slide as easy as you can – no title, no distracting pictures, frames, points and so on. 
3. Do not use a laser pointer – you lose eye contact with the audience. Instead you can make the arrows just upon a slide. 

 Informing

 Show your listeners that your stuff is cool and interesting.
You have to be able to:

-show your vision of that problem

-show that you’ve done particular things (by steps)

All of that should be done real quick in no more than 5 min.
Persuade your listeners you’re not a rookie (Prof. Winston contrived to do that from the very first seconds of his talk)



Getting Famous
If you want to your ideas be remembered you’ve got to have the "5 S"

- Symbols associate with your ideas (visual perception is the best way to attract attention)

- Slogan (describing your idea)

- Surprise (common fallacy that is no longer true, for instance, just after you’ve told about it)

- Salient Idea (not necessarily important but the one that sticks out)

- Story (how you did it, how it works…)



How to End

Don’t put collaborators at the end, do that at the beginning.

• Taking Questions is the worst way to end a talk. 
• It’s good to end with a Contribution slide – to sum up everything you’ve told with your OWN decision. 
• At the very end you could tell a joke since people then will leave the event feeling fun and thus keep a good memory of your talk. 
• "Thank you (for listening)" isn’t good ending, it’s trite at least. 
• You can end with a quote of a prominent person (my own knowledge), 
• or with a salute to people (how much you valued the time being here, the people over here..., “I’d like to get back, it was fun!”  

Unconditional positive regard

Treat people with a positive view.  Even if they do bad things, act as though they are good humans who are trying their best.

Carl Rogers promotes empathy and compassion.

new view of compassion

Although it is important to distinguish acceptance of the person from acceptance of the actions 

The marketing flywheel

I’m past this but if I were young and ambitious I would take the flywheel concept to heart and build sustaining systems.