The Intersection of Technology and Philosophy

The Inevitable Swing to Distributed Technology

“We think that the world is limited and explained by its past. We tend to think that what happened in the past determines what is going to happen next, and we do not see that it is exactly the other way around! What is always the source of the world is the present; the past doesn’t explain a thing. The past trails behind the present like the wake of a ship and eventually disappears. [Read More]

Who is in Charge?

Just as terror, even in its pre-total, merely tyrannical form ruins all relationships between men, so the self-compulsion of ideological thinking ruins all relationship with reality. The preparation has succeeded when people have lost contact with their fellow men as well as the reality around them; for together with these contacts, men lose the capacity of both experience and thought. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (ie, the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (ie, the standards of thought) no longer exist. [Read More]

We Need Justice

“You are very kind, I said; and would you have the goodness also to inform me, whether you think that a state, or an army, or a band of robbers and thieves, or any other gang of evil-doers could act at all if they injured one another? “ “No indeed, he said, they could not.” “But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they might act together better?” [Read More]

The Problem With Our Economy

we are in the wake of a great shifting awaken you better free your mind before they illegalize thought there’s a war going on the first casualty was truth and it’s inside you the universe is counting on our belief that faith is more powerful than fear and in that the shifting moment we’ll all remember why we’re here — Climbing Poetree “Awaken” Reality is not just facts. Facts are interpreted through a lens of understanding. [Read More]

Mantra

Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions. The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. [Read More]

This one secret they don’t want you to know

Nearly everything about how we live is open to change, if you’re able to look past social constructs. Our species hasn’t changed much, biologically speaking, in the last five centuries (or far longer). The amazing differences in our diversity in manners of living are due to differences in group knowledge and narratives. Our behaviors change as our knowledge and the world around us change. What shapes the world are the actions of the masses, which are driven by internal narratives formed through lived experience in our collective shared reality. [Read More]

State of the (dis)Union

It is in our best interest to pay attention to the growing extremism. “peace dove” by Jeff Attaway is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Copy People view the world through internalized narratives. We each have limited, flawed and subjective understandings of reality, which then shapes how we expect to act and be treated in the world. Each human experience is unique, but you can see patterns of understanding within the culture of a given group. [Read More]

Our politics are not based upon reality

The Trump Presidency is often (rightly) portrayed as being divorced from reality. I believe these are the symptoms of his worldview. “Trumpism Projection SumOfUs Final 1” by SumOfUs is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Copy Trump believes that he has been successful in his life because he is genetically superior. He regularly talks about coming from “good genes”. In his eyes, his success is not the result of his starting with millions of dollars, or his willingness to make decisions that hurt other people for his benefit. [Read More]

Finding Truth

The unexamined life is not worth living. — Socrates (in Plato’s Apology) In the software world there’s a handy utility called diff, which gives you the ability to take two similar files or groups of files, and find out how they differ. This type of comparison can make small changes stand out. If a roll-out of some new software caused an unexpected behavior, examining a diff of the old and new versions can help highlight which code is likely the trigger for the new issue. [Read More]

How The Last Four Years Should Have Gone

“Objective judgment, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance-now, at this very moment-of all external events. That’s all you need.” — Marcus Aurelius The only time to act is Now. This is always true. From the moment Donald J. Trump became unfit for office, removal from office should have been the number one priority of every American who cares about our country. [Read More]