Interesting fact-oid: the Bank of England says that, of the average 3-4% growth in GDP worldwide over the past 30 years, negative 0.2% can be attributed to technology. It’s all outsourcing (“new sources of labour”) and better education. Meanwhile, regression of the middle class has been masked by debt.
Time for a change
A Government of One http://quillette.com/2018/01/26/a-government-of-one/
Almost. There were observers during the Obama administration warning of the power of the Presidency.
Omoshiroi Blocks: Japanese Memo Pads Reveal Intricate Buildings As The Pages Get Used http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/omoshiroi-blocks-japanese-memo-pads-reveal-intricate-buildings-as-the-pages-get-used.html
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/14/facebook-warrant-pipeline-protest-whatcom-county-justice-department/
Let’s focus on creating a vision of how we want to live, together. What all the elements of making that work need to be. How to get there from here. Let’s stop paying attention to the people that aren’t on board, and bring more people with us by outlining where we want to go and how to do it. Let’s ignore the troll king and his minons, and all the politics that surround them. Let’s stop agonizing over how we got this way. Let’s stop pining for a society that was, and take the one we have, figure out what will make it better, and go do that.
County commissioner calls prosecutor ‘snake,’ liar | South Whidbey Record. I posted a comment here.
Dynamicland. In Oakland, a whole building instrumented to read input and produce output. Fill the building with people, paper, clay, tokens, … let them make things that the building sees and responds to. Community computing.
But they’re thinking that this is the way computing will go forward into the world. Carnegie-library-style institutions everywhere!
Resisting Reduction: A Manifesto. Interesting.
A Simple Fix for Our Massive Inequality Problem – The New York Times. Use a government-administered mutual fund. Someone else thinking along the lines of using shares/dividends instead of UBI.
Back in the day, the Empire was run by the Oxbridge crowd. The uniformity of opinion was stultifying and self-satisfied, and eventually came to look ridiculous when the whole affair was overtaken by history.
In the more recent past and present, the Empire is run by the Ivy League crowd. Again, uniformity of opinion, self-satisfaction, inability to understand the world shifting.
(edit: OK, a little harsh. But the parallels are interesting.)