Category: philosophy
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Governing AI Is the Least of Our Problems
This week I attended the Seattle University Ethics & Tech Conference; a half-day affair with a focus on “the legal and political frameworks shaping AI governance”. Just the kind of boundary spanning problem that I love to sink my teeth into. Easily the best conference of the year you didn’t attend. For me, it felt…
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Why does the Japanese national land-use zoning system work?
Japan’s cities work in ways that feel almost impossible to replicate in the United States, and much of that difference begins with zoning. The country uses a nationally standardized land-use system that local governments apply without the power to modify. This top-down simplicity enables dense, walkable communities where homes, businesses, shrines, schools, and even light…
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Psychic morphine and the scourge of artificial nostalgia
The morning of January 20, 1961 was cold but clear in Washington, D.C.. The temperature began in the teens and never rose much higher. There is something telling in the fact that the United States installs its head of state not in the bloom of spring or the harvest of fall, but in the dead…
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War Never Changes
“War Never Changes” the tag-line for the Fallout videogame franchise. Within that fictional world, it means that even when countries and governments blow each other off the map, a brute with a club is still more powerful than a mayor with a plan. The player is invited to bash skulls just as much (or more)…
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Pink Glue
In the spring of 1972, two revolutions met in the same sentence. One had marched and shouted and chanted. One had done none of these things. By a vote of 84-8, the U. S. Senate approved the Equal Rights Amendment. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United…
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Installation
In the summer of 1971, with the Southern air thick and humid in Richmond, Virginia, 344 days after Milton Friedman’s New York Times Magazine article, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”, beneath the slow rotation of a ceiling fan a partner at the white-shoe law firm Hunton & Williams typed a…
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the illusion of stability
Why Everything You’ve Built Is on Shaky Ground You probably don’t think about the economy much. Not the big picture, anyway. You’ve got a job, a mortgage, maybe a 401(k). You pay your taxes, try to make smart decisions, and hope things work out. When something feels off—rising prices, a blown tire you can’t quite…
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the 20 worst ideas of the 20th Century
In no particular order: Dishonorable mentions that didn’t make the top 20, again in no particular order:
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The mobile internet that fits my notion of that the mobile internet is
The Mobile Internet is just The Internet. The Internet is just the Network of Networks. Networks are just “computers connected to one another so they can send messages to one another”. “Computers connected to one another …” is just Ethernet. The Mobile Internet I want is just Ethernet. Like WiFi. Like WiFi but with long-distance…
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The systemic state
Fixing a broken system is often hard because systems involve lots of parts and you might not be able to control all the parts involved in the fix. Knowing what to fix is usually pretty easy once you orient yourself to the system. Politics is this way. We know we need to fix elections by…