638 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2016
    1. It is the third bucket that contains the most ambitious applications: “smart contracts” that execute themselves automatically under the right circumstances. Bitcoin can be “programmed” so that it only becomes available under certain conditions.

      In other words, it can facilitate a deferred payment system that works when the payer provides payment in escrow, like Kickstarter and other crowdfunding systems. It could manage deposits on purchase-and-sale agreements and handle escrows on legal judgments, without a third party holding title to the money. The core financial system itself could hold the money.

      Could it be made into a complete deferred payment system for managing loans, mortgages, and coupon bonds? I don’t know how, since the source of those payments is outside the bitcoin system and generally doesn’t exist at the time of the loan or bond purchase. But imagine if a financial system was entirely built around a programmable trust system, then financial instruments themselves become a part of the logic of a company’s assets and liabilities. When a corporate bond coupon comes due the company treasurer doesn't create a transaction, instead the coupon payment is automatically transferred to the holder of the bond by the financial system itself. That is, the structure of the bond has been integrated directly into the financial system for automatic execution.

      If a future government were to implement blockchain technology and legislate its adoption throughout the financial community (perhaps as an option, in parallel with the pre-existing system), it could 'write the code' for legally certified instruments like corporate bonds, mortgages, car loans. It could further write legally permissible derivatives of those instruments (yes, derivatives have tremendous value in reducing risk, when used wisely).

      At that point, financial companies like Vanguard or Fidelity could issue mutual funds whose prospecti assert that the only kind of instruments held by the fund were those certified by the government to use the legislated systems. This could reasonably allow safe and less expensive adoption of powerful financial instruments with far less risk to the system.

      Sure there are plenty of flaws and dangers in this kind of a system. But could they be worked out to create a safer, less expensive, more transparent and more accessible financial system than we currently have? Would it help engender some of the trust that has most recently been lost?

    2. This has implications far beyond the cryptocurrency

      The concept of trust, in the sociological and economic sense, underlies exchange. In the 15th-17th centuries, the Dutch and English dominance of trade owed much to their early development of instruments of credit that allowed merchants to fund and later to insure commercial shipping without the exchange of hard currency, either silver or by physically transporting the currency of the realm. Credit worked because the English and Dutch economies trusted the issuers of credit.

      Francis Fukuyama, a philosopher and political economist at Stanford, wrote a book in 1995, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, on the impact of cultures of trust on entrepreneurial growth. Countries of ‘low trust’ have close family culture who limit trust to relations: France, China, S. Italy. Countries of ‘high trust’ have greater ‘spontaneous sociability’ that encourages the formation of intermediate institutions between the state and the family, that encourage greater entrepreneurial growth: Germany, England, the U.S. – I own the book and (shame on me!) haven’t yet read it.

      I thought of this article in those contexts – of the general need for trusted institutions and the power they have in mediating an economy, and the fascinating questions raised when a new facilitator of trust is introduced.

      How do we trust? Across human history, how have we extended the social role of trust to institutions? If a new modality of trust comes available, how does that change institutional structures and correspondingly the power of individuals, of institutions. How would it change the friction to growth and to decline?

      Prior to reading this article, I had dismissed Bitcoin as a temporary aberration, mostly for criminal enterprises and malcontents. I still feel that way. But the underlying technology and it’s implications – now that’s interesting.

    1. Life is short. Avoid bullshit. Especially the bullshit that's your own fault. Identify the things that really matter to you. If there's something worthwhile that you want to do, do it. Value your family and friends, because you won't have one another for very long. Savor your moments.

    1. “I’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live - if I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.” ― Hayao Miyazaki
  2. Nov 2015
    1. a Kantian stance (categorical imperative)

      The Categorical Imperative

      Image Description

      Kant believed that as rational human beings we have certain duties. These duties are categorical: in other words they are absolute and unconditional – duties such as “You ought always to tell the truth” or “You ought never to kill anyone”. They apply whatever consequences might follow from obeying them. Kant thought morality was a system of Categorical Imperatives: commands to act in certain ways. This is one of the most distinctive aspects of his ethics. He contrasted categorical duties with hypothetical ones. A hypothetical duty is one such as “if you want to be respected, you ought to tell the truth” or “If you want to avoid going to prison, then you ought not to murder anyone”. Hypothetical duties tell you what you ought or ought not to do if you want to achieve or avoid a certain goal. He thought there was only one basic Categorical Imperative: “Act only on maxims which you can at the same time will to be universal laws”. ‘Will’ here means ‘rationally want’. In other words, the message of the Categorical Imperative is only act on a maxim you would rationally want to apply to everybody. This principle is known as the principle of universalizability.

      Source: Warburton, N. (2004) Philosophy, The Basics: Fourth Edition, London : Routledge

    1. philosopher Thomas Nagelhas written about is that one of the most important achievements of the human mind isto make sure you always remember in the vast flow of human experience and time and whereyour life is going, that things can be insignificant. That everything in some sense has a smallplace in the broader flow of human experience and laughter really helps you get there, ithelps you put things into perspective sort of a almost delightful sense of the absurd.
    1. Edmund Burke.And what he does, and really one of the most impressive books on awe ever written, is hesecularizes awe. He takes this emotion and he shows how it really is a part of everyday,perceptual experience. So he writes about how patterns of light and dark can triggerawe, how things that are powerful like oxen can trigger awe. He kind of maps out what sortof sensations create this experience that used to be the domain of religion.
    1. According to Mark T. Mitchell, professor of political science at Patrick Henry College in Virginia: Gratitude is born of humility, for it acknowledges the giftedness of the creation and the benevolence of the Creator. This recognition gives birth to acts marked by attention and responsibility. Ingratitude, on the other hand, is marked by hubris, which denies the gift, and this always leads to inattention, irresponsibility, and abuse.
  3. Oct 2015
    1. Adam Smith, the great economist, when he was thinking about what makes forcivil, kind, cooperative societies, said that gratitude is really the glue that ties peopletogether. If you move forward a couple of centuries we encounter Trivers, the greatevolutionary thinker who was making the case that altruism and sharing and generosity ofthe reciprocal kind that takes place between two individuals is really driven by feelingsof gratitude, of having a sense that other people are giving to you
    1. Freedman also points out how Siddhartha described Hesse's interior dialectic: "All of the contrasting poles of his life were sharply etched: the restless departures and the search for stillness at home; the diversity of experience and the harmony of a unifying spirit; the security of religious dogma and the anxiety of freedom."[8]

      This reminds me of a quote, which I can't currently attribute, that basically says you can have everything in life, but not everything at once. Somewhat obvious, but I think if a person isn't mindful of this idea and is afraid to get out of his comfortable zone, or is held to a set of rigid beliefs, a diverse range of experiences are highly unlikely.

    1. Cassandra tendenc

      Cassandra tendency: occurs when valid warnings or concerns are dismissed or disbelieved.

      The term originates in Greek mythology. Cassandra was a daughter of Priam, the King of Troy. Struck by her beauty, Apollo provided her with the gift of prophecy, but when Cassandra refused Apollo's romantic advances, he placed a curse ensuring that nobody would believe her warnings. Cassandra was left with the knowledge of future events, but could neither alter these events nor convince others of the validity of her predictions.

  4. Sep 2015
    1. Even compassion, the concern we feel for another being’s welfare, has been treated with downright derision. Kant saw it as a weak and misguided sentiment: “Such benevolence is called soft-heartedness and should not occur at all among human beings,” he said of compassion. Many question whether true compassion exists at all—or whether it is inherently motivated by self-interest.
  5. Aug 2015
  6. Jun 2015
    1. What is within the circle of appropriate investigation for philosophical enquiry? Demonstration by the abstract sciences should be limited to quantity and number. Reasoning beyond this boundary is sophistry. All other enquiries regard matters of fact and existence and are incapable of demonstration. It is just as conceivable that something does not exist as that it does. Both ideas are clear and distinct.

      Isolation of qty and #. It is sophistry beyond this.

    1. Schrödinger thought that the Greeks had a kind of hold over us—they saw that the only way to make progress in thinking about the world was to talk about it without the “knowing subject” in it. QBism goes against that strain by saying that quantum mechanics is not about how the world is without us; instead it’s precisely about us in the world. The subject matter of the theory is not the world or us but us-within-the-world, the interface between the two.
  7. Apr 2015
  8. Jun 2014
    1. Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard.

      "Technology leadership is....defined by...the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world's most talented engineers."

      The key components of this applied "open source philosophy" seem to be about increasing input, visibility, and collective motivation by taking fear out of the interaction equation.

    1. This later formulation points to the beginning of an important transformation of the public sphere as it moved from being a space of public authority to one in which private citizens came together to form publics capable of holding public authorities accountable.

      This is a key point, so I want to make sure I understand it correctly. Is the claim that a 'public world of readers' is already a transition away from an earlier conception of the public sphere as simply the site of dissemination for authoritarian mandates?

      How does the private/public distinction function when it comes to private citizens forming publics that hold public authorities accountable?

      Maybe the phrase 'private citizen' is throwing me off here.

    1. A fundamental task for public philosophy is to attend to the work the public is doing in developing its own self-conception.

      This strikes me as a very productive way of identifying an important aspect of public philosophy. On the one hand, it allows us to distinguish between philosophers who think more people should be listening to them and philosophers who think they should be listening to more people. On the other hand, it suggests and leaves open a number of questions that can be addressed in and through the work public philosophers are doing in developing their own self-conceptions.

  9. Feb 2014
    1. What is missing is a space between the $( and the following (, to avoid the arithmetic expression syntax. The section on command substitution in the shell command language specification actually warns for that:

      This is a very good example of why shell scripting does not scale from simple scripts to large projects. This is not the only place where changes in whitespace can lead to scripts that are very difficult to debug. A well-meaning and experienced programmer from another language, but new to bash scripting, might decide to clean up formatting to make it more consistent-- a laudable goal, but one which can lead to unintentional semantic changes to the program.

      Flat, short bash scripts are extremely useful tools that I still employ regularly, but once they begin creeping in size and complexity it's time to switch to another language to handle that-- I think that is what (rightly) has driven things likes Python, Puppet, Ansible, Chef, etc.

      Despite the syntactic horrors lurking in shell scripts there is still a beautiful simplicity that drives their use which is a testament to the core unix philosophy.

  10. Nov 2013
    1. And just as every porter wants to have an admirer, so even the proudest of men, the philosopher, supposes that he sees on all sides the eyes of the universe telescopically focused upon his action and thought.

      Wow! He has a thing against the philosopher.

  11. Oct 2013
  12. Sep 2013
    1. while the teachers of philosophy impart all the forms of discourse in which the mind expresses itself. Then, when they have made them familiar and thoroughly conversant with these lessons, they set them at exercises, habituate them to work, and require them to combine in practice the particular things which they have learned, in order that they may grasp them more firmly and bring their theories into closer touch with the occasions for applying them

      How teachers of philosophy train the minds of their students

    2. physical training for the body, of which gymnastics is a part, and, for the mind, philosophy, which I am going to explain. These are twin arts—parallel and complementary—by which their masters prepare the mind to become more intelligent and the body to become more serviceable, not separating sharply the two kinds of education, but using similar methods of instruction, exercise, and other forms of discipline.

      Nice

    3. They characterize men who ignore our practical needs and delight in the mental juggling of the ancient sophists as “students of philosophy,” but refuse this name to whose who pursue and practise those studies which will enable us to govern wisely both our own households and the commonwealth—which should be the objects of our toil, of our study, and of our every act.

      Pointing out the idea of philosophy should be reconsidered.

    1. when I see a youth thus engaged,—the study appears to me to be in character, and becoming a man of liberal education, and him who neglects philosophy I regard as an inferior man, who will never aspire to anything great or noble. But if I see him continuing the study in later life, and not leaving off, I should like to beat him, Socrates; for, as I was saying, such a one, even though he have good natural parts, becomes effeminate.

      Studying philosophy should be done in adolescence, and should not be carried on by adults.

    1. They also started to standardize and very deliberately reduce the supported infrastructure and configurations. One decision was to switch everything to PHP and MySQL. This was a philosophical decision, not a technology one: they wanted both Dev and Ops to be able to understand the stack, so that everyone can contribute if they wanted to, as well as enabling everyone to be able to read, rewrite and fix someone else’s code.

      NOTE: "This was a philosophical decision, not a technology one."