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Tag Archives: resource insights
The greatest good for the greatest number: A doctrine of acceptable losses
The greatest good for the greatest number: A doctrine of acceptable losses In 1776 philosopher Jeremy Bentham wrote a phrase that continues to be central to our modern way of thinking: “[I]t is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.” That phrase has morphed into the familiar one […]
Democracy, truth, fallibilism, and the tech overlords
Democracy, truth, fallibilism, and the tech overlords In a recent conversation a friend of mine offered the following: “There would be no need to vote on anything if we knew the truth.” That statement has such profound implications that I will only scratch the surface of it here. First, democracy presupposes that none of us […]
Drones for Christmas
Drones for Christmas I’m beginning to think that unmanned aerial vehicles—usually referred to as drones—are going to be next year’s must-have Christmas gift after their stunning Christmas-time performance at London’s Gatwick Airport. For those who missed the excitement, mysterious drones appeared at Gatwick last week and shut down the entire airport for three days as […]
Uber, Moore’s Law and the limits of the technofix
Uber, Moore’s Law and the limits of the technofix Uber remains a darling of the tech world. It is regarded as a disruptive upstart that recognized the unused capacity of privately-owned automobiles and their owners. It unleashed that capacity on cities worldwide using cellphone technology to provide discount rides to customers, ones who might otherwise […]
Australia’s drought, climate change and the future of food
Australia’s drought, climate change and the future of food There’s a reason that few people are thinking about world grain supplies. Last year saw record worldwide production of grains and record stocks of grains left over. But this year worldwide production slipped about 2 percent, owing in large part to the plunge in Australia’s production […]
Connected and vulnerable: Climate change, trade wars and the networked world
Connected and vulnerable: Climate change, trade wars and the networked world The increasing connectedness of the global economic system has long been touted as the path to greater prosperity and peaceful relations among nations and their peoples. There’s just one hitch: Complex systems have more points of failure and also hidden risks that only surface […]
Is the “world” actually getting better? Depends on your definition of “world”
Is the “world” actually getting better? Depends on your definition of “world” A frequent critique of the daily news flow is that it is filled with negative events. This is partly a product of the human nervous system. We react very quickly to perceived threats and more slowly to hope of gain or pleasure. Editors […]
Shale oil becomes shale fail (and a nice subsidy for consumers)
Shale oil becomes shale fail (and a nice subsidy for consumers) I’m tempted to say the following to the writers of two recent pieces (here and here) outlining the continuing negative free cash flow of companies fracking for oil in America: “Tell me something I don’t already know.” But apparently their message (which has been […]
The risks of synthetic biology in the information society
The risks of synthetic biology in the information society Knowledge is power. The instructions for making viruses from synthetic strands of DNA are on the internet. And, the strands themselves are available for purchase online. It’s called synthetic biology. Right now it’s not easy to get the strands to you need to make dangerous viruses […]
Climate catastrophe: The median is NOT the message
Climate catastrophe: The median is NOT the message Anyone who has followed the climate change issue in the last 30 years knows that official forecasts provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are quickly upended by developments and have often been obsolete before they were issued. The latest report from the IPCC is […]
U.S. government embraces climate catastrophe, but is it a ‘crisis’?
U.S. government embraces climate catastrophe, but is it a ‘crisis’? The United States government has now officially embraced climate change as a catastrophe in the making. Only it contends that the catastrophe is now inevitable no matter what humans do…and so, we should do nothing at all since whatever we do won’t matter much. That, […]
The problem with models…is getting stuck on just one
The problem with models…is getting stuck on just one Alfred Korzybski, the father of general semantics, first uttered what must now seem like a well-worn phrase: “The map is not the territory.” And yet, I don’t think this view has yet been well-incorporated into human culture. In a time when social media outlets are trying […]
‘The Expanse’ is a story about systemic ruin
‘The Expanse’ is a story about systemic ruin “The Expanse” is a popular science fiction television series (based on a book series of the same name) that at first seems to follow a predictable storyline: essentially the Cold War revisited, only in this case with warlike Mars (previously settled by people from Earth) pitted against […]
A kinder, gentler GMO; what could possibly go wrong
A kinder, gentler GMO; what could possibly go wrong? The so-called CRISPR technique for editing the genes of plants and animals is being hailed as a more acceptable face of genetic engineering. After all, it doesn’t rely on the insertion of genes from one species into another—which is what previous techniques allowed and what alarmed […]
Climate change, water and the infrastructure problem
Climate change, water and the infrastructure problem I was watching an episode of the science-fiction noir thriller “The Expanse” recently. Set hundreds of years in the future, the United Nations has now become the world government and its main rival is Mars, a former Earth colony. The UN is still in New York City and […]
