Here’s links and commentary on recent reading. 1. Status as a Service. It’s a nearly 20,000 word (70 page) post by Eugene Wei. Long but great! At least if you’re into understanding tech and social media. Wei explains how social networks can be thought of Status as a Service, acronym StaaS. Some quotes below in… Continue reading Saturday links 30-Mar-2019: status as a service, niche superstars, screentime, Model T as hatkiller
Results for "haidt"
Monday Links 5-Nov-2018: Printing and Populism, Psychologists and free speech, new Apple maps
Here’s my weekly list of links and commentary. 1. Printing, Populism and Social Media. Razib Khan has a scathing take down on the ahistorical belief that the populism unleashed by social media is sui generis. I often think of what’s happening now with US politics as a return to normalcy. The post World War 2… Continue reading Monday Links 5-Nov-2018: Printing and Populism, Psychologists and free speech, new Apple maps
Saturday links 8-Sep-2018: Kessler space junk, unsupervised play is good, white flight Asian edition
1. Kessler syndrome and space junk. Nature news has an article on the accumulation of space junk (dead satellites, rocket shards, etc) in low Earth orbit. The chart below is a nice visual. Of the 20,000 tracked objects, half come from two events: 1) Chinese government blew up a satellite in a missile test in… Continue reading Saturday links 8-Sep-2018: Kessler space junk, unsupervised play is good, white flight Asian edition
Dan Kahan’s cultural cognition shows why climate-splaining is a fail. Plus applying it to Paul Krugman.
The past few decades have seen a lot of excellent research into figuring out why partisan cultural battles never seem to get to agreement. Of course David Hume was on to this centuries ago, famously claiming that “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to… Continue reading Dan Kahan’s cultural cognition shows why climate-splaining is a fail. Plus applying it to Paul Krugman.
Let’s get real about Selfish Genes, Group Selection and Altruism. Towards a less impoverished view of humanity.
The Reproducibility Crisis in Science. Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love nukes with a side of bacon.
On the left, Peter Sellers from the classic cold war satire “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb“. On the right, a side order of bacon. Here’s how I learned to love them both.
Atheism as a sacred belief
The image above is taken from this nice 15 minute video interview of Jonathan Haidt (on left) by David Sloan Wilson (on right). I’m a big fan of Haidt and Wilson, and did a previous post on Haidt’s views on Republican science denialism. A key Haidt insight is a) all groups have sacred beliefs, and b)… Continue reading Atheism as a sacred belief
Understanding Republican Science Denialism. Haidt is right. Mooney is wrong.
With the Presidential election cycle hitting it’s partisan peak, let’s talk about Republican science denialism since it’s a subtext of the election.
Partisan Incomprehension. “You didn’t build that” edition.
The theme for the first day of the Republican convention was “We Built It.” What struck me was not that the Republicans twisted an Obama quote to make a tag line. Rather it was how some people found the focus on that line simply incomprehensible. And yet that incomprehension has a story to tell. In… Continue reading Partisan Incomprehension. “You didn’t build that” edition.
The Enduring Appeal of Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand is in the news this month since Congressman and VP hopeful Paul Ryan cited her as a major influence. In reaction, Paul Krugman wrote that Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged is “a perennial favorite among adolescent boys”. And in regard to the G.O.P.:“What does it say about the party when its intellectual leader evidently gets… Continue reading The Enduring Appeal of Ayn Rand