Today in the fall of western civilization: Capitalism, unmasked.
tag > Politics
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Billions around the world now clearly see that this system is broken beyond repair - the corruption, the abuse & extreme inequality, the rotten infrastructure, the gerontocratic kakistocracy and religious belief that digital jesus will magically fix it all. Change is inevitable.
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Follow Howard Rheingold's advice and Ignore Alien Orders
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For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul? Or what will a man give as an exchange for his soul? - Matthew 16:26
And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed? - Luke 9:25
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Iran has declared that it owns Antarctica. The country's naval chief Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Irani in September announced that Tehran has 'property rights' in the South Pole. “We have plan to raise our flag there and carry out military and scientific work,” Irani said. More...
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When is risk the highest? - Quote from an interview with Peter Bernstein (1919 - 2009)
Vermeer's The Geographer, 1669 "The riskiest moment is when you’re right. That’s when you’re in the most trouble, because you tend to overstay the good decisions. Once you’ve been right for long enough, you don’t even consider reducing your winning positions. They feel so good, you can’t even face that. As incredible as it sounds, that makes you comfortable with not being diversified. So, in many ways, it’s better not to be so right. That’s what diversification is for. It’s an explicit recognition of ignorance."
Q: What investing and personal advice do you offer your great-grandchildren? A: As they are four and two (and about three months in the womb), they are not likely to take much of my advice, nor should I be giving them the kind of advice you have in mind. But I would teach them Pascal’s Law: the consequences of decisions and choices should dominate the probabilities of outcomes. And I would also teach them about Leibniz’s warning that models work, but only for the most part. I would remind them of what the man who trained me in investing taught me: Risk-taking is an inevitable ingredient in investing, and in life, but never take a risk you do not have to take.
In 1703 the mathematician Gottfried von Leibniz told the scientist Jacob Bernoulli that nature does work in patterns, but “only for the most part.” The other part — the unpredictable part — tends to be where things matter the most. That’s where the action often is.
Pascal’s Wager doesn’t mean that you have to be convinced beyond doubt that you are right. But you have to think about the consequences of what you’re doing and establish that you can survive them if you’re wrong. Consequences are more important than probabilities.
Related: WHAT is Risk, by Peter L. Bernstein - Peter. L. Bernstein WIkipedia
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The City of Rome unveiled a new statue of Emperor Saint Constantine the Great; after centuries, St. Constantine overlooks Old Rome once again. Constantine the Great, was emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first emperor to convert to Christianity.
Empires don't fail, they transform: The Roman empire became a church. The British empire became a bank. The American empire became the internet.
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Nazi Design Legacy
It is telling that the currently leading design language in western tech is heavily inspired by a design tradition which evolved in Germany before, during & after the Nazi time. Dieter Rams' guiding philosophy "Das Chaos beseitigen" ("Clean up the chaos") has a dark history.
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"It is not true that virtually all news in a totalitarian state is false." - Konrad Zuse
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Harry Potter and the Quantum Timebomb: Physics is war. War is Terrorism. Terrorism is Physics.
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Science for the People poster from 1971 - "Computer workers - join with other workers; make computers serve the people!"
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People that can imagine super intelligent machines becoming real soon, yet struggle to imagine that our age-old systems of governance - from copyright & ownership to economic & political structures - might profoundly change, are a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
