40 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
  2. Jan 2024
    1. https://funnyhow.substack.com/p/how-chris-rock-and-jerry-seinfeld

      Comedian Matt Ruby relates his personal experience watching Chris Rock workshopping his comedy writing in front of auciences at stress Factory in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Rock would show up unannounced and perform new material in front of small crowds to test it out. He'd read/perform material off of a yellow legal pad.

      Peter Sims included some of it in the introduction of his book Little Bets.


      This is broadly similar to my own experience seeing Rock at the Laugh Factory trying out material for the Academy Awards as well as Adam Sandler at the Improv on Melrose doing midnight sets reading straight off of a notebook.

  3. Dec 2023
  4. Nov 2023
      • for: social superorganism, MET, major evolutionary transition, MET of individuality, Michael Levin, Roy Baumeister, Adam Omary

      • insight

        • this talk inspired an insight:
          • The contrast occurred to me with this talk especially, due to the respective areas of the two guests and Michael Levin's own interest of whether the signaling and policies within the collectives within a physiological body generalize in any way to larger social collectives that are outside of those physiological bodies. Rob Baumeister, being a social scientist is the perfect person to have such a conversation with.
        • In this case, those policies are composed of informational signals and it would seem the signals currently have nowhere near the cohesion that millions of years of evolution have resulted in within the biological body of a multicelllular organism
  5. Sep 2023
    1. The invisible hand is a metaphor used by the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith that describes the inducement a merchant has to keep his capital, thereby increasing the domestic capital stock and enhancing military power, both of which are in the public interest and neither of which he intended.[1]

      See invisible hand as a force that aids us in our life journey as a metaphor of Adam Smith his metaphor of the invisible hand

      • Joseph Campbell also coined this term somewhere, in his explanation of the hero’s journey
  6. Aug 2023
    1. This is a way to make check lists that are more useful. You only fill the box when your all the way done with the task, when you are about half way done you fill the box half way. I learnedabout this from Adam Savage in his book, "Every Tool is a Hammer". He learned about it when he worked at Industrial Light & Magic.Does it have an official name? (screen shots from his book)

      Adam Savage's book Every Tool is a Hammer shows a checklist which has square bullets which can be partially filled in to show the level of completion. He learned the method when working at Industrial Light & Magic.

      via u/AZORIAN_K129 at https://www.reddit.com/r/NoteTaking/comments/15zgbvr/does_this_technique_have_a_name/

    1. Adam Smith stated the case long ago: "A man withoutthe proper use of the intellectual faculties of a man, is, ifpossible, more contemptible than even a coward, and seemsto be mutilated and deformed in a still more essential part ofthe character of human nature."

      This seems apropos to the situation in which I view Donald J. Trump.

    1. Adam Philips’ expression, “if the art legitimates cruelty, I think the art is not worth having.”

      for: quote, art, quote - art, Adam Philips - quote - if the art legitimates cruelty, I think the art is not worth having. - author - Adam Philips

  7. Jul 2023
    1. The second great separation followed the industrial revolution.
      • Second great separation
        • Industrial Revolution
          • The early enclosure movement during the 1600s
          • Prior to the enclosures, land was held in common for public use, not owned by individuals.
          • The rise of capitalism also occurred during this time.
            • Adam Smith wrote his landmark book, The Wealth of Nations, in 1776.
            • Land was privatized so the most efficient use of land could be determined
              • by market competition rather than
              • community consensus.
            • Labor then also had to be ​“commodified,” or bought and sold,
              • so non-farmers could work for wages and buy food and the other necessities of life they had been getting from the land.
            • With reliance on working for wages, buying, and selling
              • the necessity for personal relationships were diminished.
            • With the diminished necessity for personal relationships,
              • the social cohesion within families, communities and society began to diminish as well.
          • The persistence of chronic poverty and malnutrition, even during times of tremendous economic growth and individual wealth, are direct consequences of a growing sense of disconnectedness from each other that was nourished by the industrial era of economic development.
  8. Jun 2023
  9. May 2023
  10. Nov 2022
  11. Oct 2022
    1. Anybody who writes knows you don’t simply write what you believe. You write to find out what you believe, or what you can afford to believe. So when I write something and it sounds good, I leave it in, usually, to see what it sounds like to someone else. To somebody else it might sound awful or brash, but I want to be able to have the courage of my brashness. I don’t leave things in that I know to be terrible, or that I don’t, as it were, find interesting—I don’t do that—but if there’s a doubt about it and it sounds interesting, I’ll leave it in. And I want to be free to do that, because that’s why I write. When I write, things occur to me. It’s a way of thinking. But you can perform your thinking instead of just thinking it.
  12. Jul 2022
    1. 18:07 - Adam Smith - The Theory of Moral Sentiments

      He felt, in the Theory of Moral Sentiment that human beings can control themselves. The Church used to be the moral constraint and there was a big debate about getting rid of it. Adam Smith disagreed. He had faith that the empathic side of human behavior would be present to balance out the self-interest side. He was not right about this, unfortunately.

      Our poorer living conditions provide the necessary conditions for inventing technologies that would alleviate our difficult life conditions. Progress has principally been about making our human lives more comfortable but beyond a certain threshold, self-interest started to runaway as technology allowed us to go far beyond survival.

  13. Jun 2022
    1. the institu-tions in force in China in the eighteenth century were much more inaccord with Smith’s ideas than those applied in the United Kingdom.

      Piketty suggests that eighteenth century China was a better example of economic liberalism in the vein of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) than the United Kingdom was during the same period. He particularly points out lower taxes and balanced budgets in China, respect for property rights, better markets for labor and goods, competition, social mobility and freedom.

  14. Dec 2021
    1. We are all familiar with the Christian answer: peopleonce lived in a state of innocence, yet were tainted by original sin.We desired to be godlike and have been punished for it; now we livein a fallen state while hoping for future redemption.

      Compare this with the Indigenous idea of Skywoman in the opening chapter of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which tells a dramatically different story.

  15. Nov 2021
    1. On one side of the world were people whose relationship with the liv-ing world was shaped by Skywoman, who created a garden for the

      well-being of all. On the other side was another woman with a garden and a tree. But for tasting its fruit, she was banished from the garden and the gates clanged shut behind her. That mother of men was made to wander in the wilderness and earn her bread by the sweat of her brow, not by filling her mouth with the sweet juicy fruits that bend the branches low. In order to eat, she was instructed to subdue the wilder-ness into which she was cast.

      Its amazing how two origin stories with such similarities lead us to such different cultures and civilizations. The founder effects can be incredibly powerful.

  16. Aug 2021
    1. The issue of terminology is still problematic since some scholars insist that thegenre must be defined expansively in order to reflect accurately early modernpractice. Adam Smyth’s sixteen characteristics of commonplace book culture(II, A) are particularly useful in this regard

      Adam Smyth compiled sixteen characteristics of commonplace book culture. This could be an interesting starting point for comparing and contrasting all the flavors of commonplace book relatives.

      Adam Smyth, “Commonplace Book Culture: A List of Sixteen Traits,” in Women and Writing, c.1340–c.1650: The Domestication of Print Culture, ed. Anne Lawrence-Mathers and Phillipa Hardman (2010), pp.90–110

      See also possibly: Smyth, Adam. “Printed Miscellanies: An Opening Survey,” in his “Profit and Delight”: Printed Miscellanies in England,1640–1682 (2004), pp.1–31.

  17. May 2021
  18. Feb 2021
    1. Conversation around Adam Grant's Think Again.

      • Task Conflict vs Relationship Conflict
      • The absence of conflict is not harmony; it is apathy
      • Beliefs vs Values; what you think is true vs what you think is important. Be open around beliefs; be committed to values.
      • Preachers, Prosecutors, Politicians... and Scientists: defend or beliefs, prove the others wrong, seek approval and be liked... hypothesize and experiment.
      • Support Network... and a Challenge Network. (Can we force ourselves to have a Challenge Network by using the Six Thinking Hats?)
      • Awaken curiosity (your own, and other's to help them change their mind)
      • Successful negotiators spend more time looking for common ground and asking questions to understand
      • Solution Aversion: someone rejecting a proposed solution may end up rejecting the existence of the problem itself (e.g. climate change)
  19. Nov 2020
    1. When this article was first published, BioLogos was informed it was misleading (1, 2 and 3). Eventually edits were made, but this article still has issues.

      See the history of edits on this page at Peaceful Science.

    1. Asked how likely it is that we all descended from Adam and Eve, Dennis Venema, a biologist at Trinity Western University, replies: "That would be against all the genomic evidence that we've assembled over the last 20 years, so not likely at all."

      This scientific statement turns out to be mistaken. Entirely consistent with the evidence, if Adam and Eve were real people in a real past, we expect that we all descend from them. https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/2020/08/the-genealogical-adam-and-eve-a-rejoinder/

  20. Oct 2020
    1. Scottish phi-losopher Adam Smith condemned England’s trade acts f or constrain-ing the “free” market i n his i nstant best seller, The Wealth o f Nations. To this f ounding father of capitalist economics, t he wealth of nations stemmed from a nation’s productive capacity, a productive capacity African nations l acked. “ All t he inland parts of Africa,” he scripted, “seem in all a ges of t he world to have been in the same barbarous and uncivilized state i n which we find them at present.” Meanwhile, Smith praised Americans for “ contriving a new form of government f or an extensive empire, which . . . s eems very likely to become, one of t he greatest and most f ormidable that ever was i n the world.” The found-ing fathers beamed reading Adam Smith’s prediction. J efferson later called Wealth o f Nations “ the best book extant” on political e conomy.

      Adam Smith apparently held racist ideas.

  21. Dec 2019
    1. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible; its broad disk just skirting the horizon, and diffusing a perpetual splendour.

      Robert imagines the cold North Pole as a sunny garden, suggesting a kind of Paradise as the destination toward which his scientific quest is moving. This is one of many affinities to Victor, whose fall into the profane knowledge of modern science also links him to Adam's expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

    2. A new species would bless me as its creator and source

      The religious connotations of the passage connect Victor to the human project of playing God, much as Adam was said to be formed of clay. Historically, Jewish rabbis were also thought to have created golems from clay to seek revenge on enemies. However, following orders literally, the golems inevitably became destructive. Cautionary tales about technology and hubris were not only frequent in Shelley's time but have proliferated. In Karel Čapek's R.U.R (1920), for example, robots confound expectations by violently rebelling against their creators. Cadavers for anatomical training in this period were scarce, and thus a medical education meant to study and extend life also fostered serial killers who committed murders for the sake of selling fresh corpses. Such killing sprees were ended by the Anatomical Act of 1832 in England, which made corpses legally available for medical research.

    3. It was indeed a paradise

      At this moment, the Creature appears more strongly associated with Adam than with Satan, apparently born into a "paradise." However, Shelley's allusion might be to that of the serpent or snake, as in Revelation: "So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast out to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him . . . He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years (Rev. 12:9; 20:2).

    4. Like Adam

      From Milton's poem the Creature imagines himself as an Adam created by an all-powerful god (Victor). Later in the paragraph, the Creature considers if a more apt comparison for his condition might be to Satan, cast out from his companions and protector.

    5. Paradise Lost.

      By citing Adam's question to God in John Milton's Paradise Lost, Mary Shelley makes Milton's epic the most important intertext of Frankenstein. In Book II, the Creature hears the poem read aloud, and begins to think of himself as either Adam or Satan.

    6. when they were unhappy, I felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathized in their joys

      The eighteenth-century Scottish and British discourse of "sympathy" is especially vivid in the Creature's instinctive opening onto the emotions of others, echoing Adam Smith's arguments in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).

    1. While neither the feeling of remorse of self accusation mingled with my throes; although the contempt with I was treated also prevented any sublime defiance to have a place in my mind.

      The Thomas Copy qualifies the Creature's comparison of himself to Milton's Satan. Both are outcasts treated with contempt, but unlike Satan, the Creature suffers this condition without conceiving himself as proudly rebellious against his oppressors.

  22. Aug 2018
    1. Not equal, as thir sex not equal seemd;

      I suspect that this is referring to what Milton wrote earlier about Eve being created to serve Adam, or to the inaccurate translation saying that Eve was created from Adam's rib. But note the many articles (as well as contemporary translations of Genesis, such as Mary Korsak's At the Start: Genesis Made New - see http://www.maryphilkorsak.com/1publiceng.html ) that note that the Hebrew word for RIB is the same as the word for SIDE, and that word is used throughout the old and New Testament to mean SIDE, never rib. So there is no reason - except patriarchal reasons seeking to justify male superiority - to believe that this one use of the word in Genesis is an exception to use of the word elsewhere in the Bible. According to one of the stories of Eve's creation in the Bible, she was created from Adam's side and may indeed be from half of Adam; according to the other story of creation in Genesis - and there are two - Adam and Eve were created together.

  23. Dec 2017
    1. the desponding view that the condition of man cannot be ameliorated, that what has been, must ever be,

      This view that the condition of man, be it race, ethnicity, or social class, cannot be changed for the better (or maybe even seen as better) basically resulted in possibly the worst days history has ever seen.

  24. Oct 2017
    1. To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business.

      This statement is contradictory to its actual meaning in society at this time period. Although the sentence mentions giving "every citizen the information he needs" it fails to acknowledge that only white males were able to attend the school for a long period of time. Women including blacks and/ or African Americans and men not belonging to the white race were not accepted.

    2. In this enquiry they supposed that the governing considerations should be the healthiness of the site, the fertility of the neighbouring country, and it’s centrality to the white population of the whole state:

      Within this line of text, it is clearly shown that the University of Virginia was not in favor of blacks and/or African Americans on attending the school. The main points of importance were "the healthiness of the site, the fertility of the neighboring country, and it's centrality to the white population of the whole state." With this, it is shown how the inferiority and nonexistent nature of blacks was seen during this time period. Although this text was created in 1818, it relates to the ideas in the 20th century where blacks and/or African Americans were not accepted to the University. The history and documentation shows that the University was not created for people of color but rather the "white population."

  25. Jun 2017
    1. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti will light up the sky on Thursday with the Bat-signal in honor of actor Adam West.

      A great tribute! RIP Adam West!

  26. Apr 2017
    1. Dr. Ken Adam
      Dr. Kenneth Adam, who worked on the Environment Protection board during the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, spent the majority of his career working as a professional engineer with numerous engineering companies and private consulting firms. Some of his experiences included working for Templeton Engineering (for additional information, see the annotation for Carson Templeton), I.D. Engineering, Sentar Consultants, and Earth Tech Canada. In addition to working in industry, Dr. Ken Adam had a highly successful career in academia. He was an associate professor at the University of Manitoba working in the Department of Civil Engineering from 1972 to 1976. Dr. Ken Adam specialized in the construction of winter roads, specifically in the Canadian North. Due to his expertise, he was able to publish several articles on the construction of winter roads. The topics of his papers included the environmental impact of snow and ice roads, the development of improved snow blowers and pavers, and much more. His journal article entitled “Snow and Ice Roads: Ability to Support Traffic and Effects on Vegetation” was published in March of 1977 in the Arctic journal Volume 30 Number 1 (Adam and Hernandez 1977). He had another journal article published in the Journal (Water Pollution Control Federation) Volume 46 Number 12 entitled “Hydraulic Analysis of Winnipeg Sump Inlets” in December of 1974 (Adam and Brandson 1974). These are just two of many articles Dr. Ken Adam has published. These papers were researched and published for the government and private business. His clients included the Department of External Affairs, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the Izok project, the Environment Protection Board, and others. Currently, Dr. Ken Adam resides in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Elves 2009). 
      

      References

      Adam, Kenneth M., and Normal B. Brandson. "Hydraulic Analysis of Winnipeg Sump Inlets." Water Environment Federation, 1974: 2755-2763.

      Adam, Kenneth, and Helios Hernandez. "Snow and Ice Roads: Ability to Support Traffic and Effects on Vegetation." Arctic, 1977: 13-27.

      Elves, Daniel. Libraries of the University of Manitoba. January 2009. https://umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/archives/collections/complete_holdings/ead/html/Adam.shtml#tag_bioghist (accessed April 9, 2017).

  27. Sep 2015