Most Utopian Communities Fail. Why? “One aspect of that struggle is that business models for many intentional communities remain elusive, or unformed. Self-sufficiency, for example, often means not taking advantage of economies of scale that can support growing populations. At the same time, many communities are chagrined to find themselves servicing voyeurs and tourists for […]
Monthly Archives: February 2017
Twitter, Live, and Luck
2017.02.27 – 12:18
Twitter, Live, and Luck from: February 27, 2017 at 11:35AM
Defense Against the Dark Arts: Networked Propaganda and Counter-Propaganda
2017.02.27 – 12:12
Defense Against the Dark Arts: Networked Propaganda and Counter-Propaganda “Debunking doesn’t work: provide an alternative narrative. Telling people that something they’ve heard is wrong may be one of the most pointless things you can do. A long series of experiments shows that it rarely changes belief.”
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds
2017.02.27 – 11:55
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds “The Gormans, too, argue that ways of thinking that now seem self-destructive must at some point have been adaptive. And they, too, dedicate many pages to confirmation bias, which, they claim, has a physiological component. They cite research suggesting that people experience genuine pleasure—a rush of dopamine—when processing information […]
The Future of Not Working
2017.02.25 – 15:13
The Future of Not Working from: February 25, 2017 at 03:04PM
The Future of Not Working
2017.02.25 – 11:27
The Future of Not Working NY Times: “Moreover, cash might force aid workers and nongovernmental organizations to confront the fact that they could be doing better by doing things differently — often by doing less. “It’s easy to muster evidence that you should be giving cash instead of fertilizer,” said Justin Sandefur of the Center […]
How to be a Stoic
2017.02.24 – 11:48
How to be a Stoic “The first line of Epictetus’ manual of ethical advice, the Enchiridion—“Some things are in our control and others not”—made me feel that a weight was being lifted off my chest. For Epictetus, the only thing we can totally control, and therefore the only thing we should ever worry about, is […]
Centrism is Dead. Time to Rebuild the Left.
2017.02.23 – 23:26
Centrism is Dead. Time to Rebuild the Left. “What is required now is broad recognition that centrists cannot resolve our deepening crisis. Structurally, they are too dependent on the Washington party system and its false equivalency. Intellectually, they suffer from a poverty of imagination. Philosophically, they have few core commitments. And temperamentally, they are too […]
The real assimilation dilemma
2017.02.23 – 14:31
The real assimilation dilemma from: February 23, 2017 at 02:26PM
[REPOST] The Non-Libertarian FAQ
2017.02.22 – 22:10
[REPOST] The Non-Libertarian FAQ from: February 22, 2017 at 10:02PM
Why Do New Atheists Hate Group Selection?
2017.02.21 – 15:12
Why Do New Atheists Hate Group Selection? “To admit group selection, for Pinker, is to admit the genuineness of human altruism. Barring some very strange argument, to admit the genuineness of human altruism is to admit the adaptiveness of genuine altruism and broad self-sacrifice. And to admit the adaptiveness of broad self-sacrifice is to admit […]
Some thoughts on the Cost Disease
2017.02.21 – 14:31
Some thoughts on the Cost Disease Matthew Skala: “So there’s a thing that seems to be related to the unimaginably extreme decrease in clothing prices: the decrease in prices has gone hand-in-hand with the shifting of labour, mostly to machines but also to human beings in other countries, away from the end users. Instead of […]
Neoliberalism: the deep story that lies beneath Donald Trump’s triumph
2017.02.21 – 13:54
Neoliberalism: the deep story that lies beneath Donald Trump’s triumph “Thatcherism and Reaganism were not ideologies in their own right: they were just two faces of neoliberalism. Their massive tax cuts for the rich, crushing of trade unions, reduction in public housing, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services were all proposed by Hayek […]
Manifestos and Monopolies
2017.02.21 – 09:07
Manifestos and Monopolies from: February 21, 2017 at 08:53AM
Baseball Therapy: Is Win Probability Broken? by Russell A. Carleton
2017.02.21 – 08:52
Baseball Therapy: Is Win Probability Broken? by Russell A. Carleton from: February 21, 2017 at 08:40AM
Did post-Marxist theories destroy Communist regimes?
2017.02.20 – 09:52
Did post-Marxist theories destroy Communist regimes? “…the arbitrary nature of Communist state, overseen by the Communist party, prevented it from ever developing a responsible and impersonal machinery of Weberian bureaucracy. Such a machinery that follows well-known and rational rules cannot be established if the power is arbitrary. And without such a machinery, the project of […]
A Comparative Guide to Russia’s Use of Force: Measure Twice, Invade Once
2017.02.19 – 19:54
A Comparative Guide to Russia's Use of Force: Measure Twice, Invade Once “Russia’s gradual approach is inherently vulnerable, since it is based around fielding the bare minimum amount number of troops in the battlespace to achieve desired political ends. In order to deter and dissuade peer adversaries Russia will often introduce high-end conventional capabilities, such […]
How the Like Button Took Over the Internet
2017.02.19 – 10:19
How the Like Button Took Over the Internet “But the place where Like diverges from typical human vanity is the way it powers Facebook’s increasingly omniscient News Feed algorithm. Facebook takes into account thousands of factors to determine what posts to prioritize in people’s feeds, but Like is one of the most straightforward ways that […]
Free online lessons in storytelling & moviemaking from Pixar
2017.02.18 – 19:20
Free online lessons in storytelling & moviemaking from Pixar from: February 18, 2017 at 06:14PM