Food for Thought

The real problem with mass social media is: Gossip

November 13, 2020November 13, 2020 No Comments

So suggests Arnold Kling, and it explains the problem better than all the talk about ‘fake news’ and deleting bad content, and all that: The Internet, smart phones, and social media (ISS) have set human communication back about 20,000 years. That is, we now rely more on gossip than we have since we lived in […]

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Covid-19 Pandemic Food for Thought Health

Complex Systems and Non-Linear Effects

October 28, 2020 No Comments

Zynep Tufecki has an excellent analysis in the Atlantic of why Covid has been such a shock to every health system in the world. In short, we humans tend to be poor at systemic analysis, especially of complex systems with non-linear outcomes. This leads us to tend to under-estimate the impact of certain events – […]

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Food for Thought Politics

The Constant Sales Pitch

September 22, 2020 No Comments

I was thinking about what Boris Johnson said to Keir Starmer the a while back – ‘why don’t you build up what we are doing?’ It occurs to me that this is really key to leaders like Boris, and Nigel Farage, Donald Trump et al. It’s similar to the if you’re not with me you’re […]

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Computing Food for Thought

Quote of the day

September 17, 2020 No Comments

“A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequila.” Mitch Ratcliffe

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Food for Thought Life Philosophy

September 2, 2020 No Comments

“atheism is defining yourself by an absence of something. Humanism is a positive choice to base your morals on your own human capacity.” Alice Roberts interview in the Guardian

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Food for Thought Health

Walking and Thinking

July 21, 2020 No Comments

I don’t know why walking is so conducive to letting your brain think. Maybe it’s to do with the blood flow, or like the way sticking your tongue out helps you concentrate, the steady, regular steps allow your mind to delegate body control to some unconscious subroutine, freeing your conscious mind up to really focus. […]

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Food for Thought

Food for thought

July 1, 2020 No Comments

“Those who choose the lesser evil forget quickly that they chose evil” Hannah Arendt Via memex

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Baking & Food Food for Thought

Modern Food

November 5, 2019 No Comments

Industrial production of food has substantially changed what we eat. Our food has become higher quality, but in doing so it has also lost some of it’s benefits. Delilah recently sent me on a newsletter from https://www.greenearthorganics.ie/ pointing out that dirty is better – carrots covered in dirt last longer and are probably better for […]

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Big Brother Big Business Food for Thought Society

“We are in an abusive relationship with our phones”

September 24, 2019 No Comments

This is an illuminating way of looking at what the relationship really is like between us and our smartphones, and more generally with the you-are-the-product companies that provide so many of the services we use on smartphones or other devices nowadays. What our smartphones and relationship abusers share is that they both exert power over […]

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Food for Thought Places & Travel Wonderful World

Dalmatia’s fjaka state of mind

January 19, 2018January 19, 2018 No Comments

What a beautiful description of a state of being, languishing in the Mediterranean sun: The Croatian poet Jakša Fiamengo said that fjaka is a specific state of mind and body. “It is like a faint unconsciousness,” he wrote, “a state beyond the self or – if you will – deeply inside the self, a special […]

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Who?

Murf

The real problem with mass social media is: Gossip

Complex Systems and Non-Linear Effects

The Constant Sales Pitch

Quote of the day

Food for Thought

Walking and Thinking

Food for thought

Modern Food

“We are in an abusive relationship with our phones”

Dalmatia’s fjaka state of mind

Category: Food for Thought