a blog where I think about the limitations of value systems
Every problem scope has different key features derived from within its own system. For buildings, tensile strength. For pipes, fluid flow. For circuits, voltage and current. For interplanetary travel, lightspeed travel and cryonics. Without the fields that house these features, they would be nameless—we do not care for features that do not belong to a system of interest. Systems of interest give…
In Paul Graham's essay, " Heresy ", he asks: " Why? Why has [heresy,] this antiquated-sounding religious concept come back in a secular form? And why now?" And his answer: You need two ingredients for a wave of intolerance: intolerant people, and an ideology to guide them... In the late 1980s a new ideology of this type appeared in US universities... His explanation is essentially, new ideologies…
Reflections on being young You felt the draw of chasing after, The call of proving yourself, Insecure voices hasten you to run, To find a practice, a position, a piece of the world, To call yourself educated, upper middle, Rational, respected, and responsible Not undeserving of your own position. You fell into chasing after, Like a part on the factory line. Society is an unwavering march, A tidal…
Economics is equal parts value creation, capture and distribution. If we define "good" as promoting social stability, "good" economic policy allows value capture to enable value creation while maximizing value distribution. Or in English, it allows continuous investment into society in ways that makes all people live better lives. We value stability because lack of stability means collapse. A…
It's almost June of 2021, a year and a half after covid first turned the world upside down, and yet globally we're far from returning to normal. While some countries like the US seem to be on track, other countries like India and Brazil are still battling the worst spread of the virus to date, and countries like Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia are re-engaging in lockdowns as covid cases spike. This…
Value , n. - principles or standards of behaviour; one's judgement of what is important in life. Values are extremely useful. They're shortcuts for how to live a good life. They range in size from small to great; from "brush your teeth twice a day", to "all men are created equal". Values are also extremely dangerous. They can fall short of solving the real problem but give a false sense of…
Of course, this is a reflection on the happenings in Basecamp. If you are all Basecamp'd out, please ignore. --- A policy of activism in the workplace is anti-fellowship. A fellowship is "a group of people that join together for a common purpose or interest". This dictionary definition fails to capture the benefits of fellowship - namely, through an aligned sense of purpose, the group can fully…