As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been reading Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. I found this part very interesting (pages 65-67. “The Paradox of Knowledge”): In the middle of the nineteenth century Karl Marx reached brilliant economic insights. Based on these insights …
I came by this story the other day: Zen Story: Maybe. Since it’s very short, I’ll just quote it in full here: There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad …
I’ve been reading Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. In the first chapter The new human agenda, the author gives his interpretation of history and how humanity has ended up as it is today due to scientific and technological development – roughly as follows: humans seeking comfort …
The Carrot Problem seen via Hacker News: In World War II, the story goes, the British invented a new kind of onboard radar that allowed its pilots to shoot down German planes at night. They didn’t want the Germans to know about this technology, but they had to give an explanation for their …
A fun short article I found today: Fantasy Meets Reality One of my favorite things to notice as a weirdo is when the good intentions of design slam into the hard reality of humans and the real world. It’s always interesting. […] When it comes to design in the real world, there are a few …
Quantum immortality is a thought experiment that runs roughly like follows: If the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, each “choice” (however this may be defined) creates a branching point: there will be a universe that explores each possibility. Simply put, if …
At this point my blog has been alive for a few days now, and so it’s high time I mentioned Scott Alexander, and his blog(s): the Star Slate Codex and Astral Codex Ten. He writes about complex topics in a refreshingly sober, straight-forward and illuminating manner. His articles will most …