Mindblown: culture, urbanism, leadership, technology.
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Leave me alone (but keep doing things for me)
This is the sentiment of the people who aren’t zealots, ideologues, or assholes that will vote against a Democrat at the next poll. This isn’t an ideology. This is just people who are fine, who want to stay fine. For them the world isn’t broken, it isn’t in need of overhaul, it isn’t a disaster…
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Rank, Role, Pay
Rank is where you sit in a hierarchy. You get positional authority from it. Role is what your responsibilities and operational authority are. Pay is how you are compensated. Some places try to keep these three tightly coupled — “Only people of this Rank can hold this Role, and Pay is bound to Rank.” Only…
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PLEASE REMEMBER YOU’RE SHOPPING BAGS
“This! This right here!” He pointed at a hand-written sign that said, “PLEASE REMEMBER YOU’RE SHOPPING BAGS” while invading my personal space. “If you fix this, all the probabilities align and the world doesn’t suck!” The mania was obvious, but something was off. Too clean for a tweeker or homeless. I just need milk. “Ignore…
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Minority Rule
Today is Independence Day, 2024. As it may be the last such occurrence in more than name only, we should enumerate what stands to be lost to minority rule. The majority clearly shares common preferences for a value system where you are emancipated from those who would deny you the ability to actualize yourself because…
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power and consequences are directly proportional
“With great power comes great responsibility” — Uncle Ben in every Spider-Man media ever made We want fairness, and in that fairness we want those who are more powerful to be punished more when they use that power to harm. We want this because of a concept of fairness called “fairness as justice” which is…
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Solving the problem
There are lots of voices bemoaning the use of copyrighted materials in the training of large language models, how much energy and water is consumed by their creation, and how they are enclosing a commons to create a new generation of robber barons. Congress could, if they were a functioning part of human civilization, enact…
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Middlemen
Thirty-four years ago today I got off a bus in the middle of the night and stood on yellow footprints at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot to begin boot camp. It was a different world. The Berlin Wall had come down, the Soviet Union had effectively surrendered (though it would take another year or so…
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Scaling Standards
Level Human Geographic Organization Logical 1 Personal Device Individual Personal-Area 2 Family Home Workgroup Local-Area 3 Tribe Neighborhood Team Campus-Area 4 Community City Co-Op Metro-Area 5 Clan Region Company Wide-Area 6 Nation Continent Government Nation-Area 7 Species Planet MegaCorp World-Wide
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1600 hours
We should be using 1600 hours as the annual amount of available labor per person when we calculate how long something will take, how much it will cost, or how much someone should earn. 1600 hours is 32 hours a week for 50 weeks. $15.00/hour for 1600 hours gets you enough to support a family…
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There are only eight crimes
Despite mountains of statutes enacted by governments making things illegal, there are really only eight crimes: The first five are straightforward uses of power to directly coerce someone to do something they don’t want to do. The next two subvert the will of another, often in a way that doesn’t require their presence. And then…