Category Archive

Jesus. Sounds like Big Brother…

…Yes. Well. We’re here to help.

–Reporter John Bowe speaking with David DeBusk, VP of business development at BMI: via NYT

The only way to manage this is true transparency and no anonymity. In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it.

New data from HP Labs suggest notions of influence in social media aren’t expressed as many think.

Alex Pentland discusses the process of discovery and integration as one that instills gut feel and intuition. His example draws from colonies of bees, their search for honey, and how the hive internalizes the knowledge of returning bees. Pentland draws an analog to face to face meetings in organizations that he feels have been forgotten and ignored in favor of electronic communication. He suggests that electronic communication does not provide the gut feel and intuition that really matters, and perhaps, as an example, the financial services industry’s reliance on screens, spreadsheets and data impaired their ability to internalize and integrate the information they had been so assiduously collecting.

Without the general acceptance of reasonable procedures of inquiry and precepts of debate, freedom of speech cannot serve its purpose. Not everyone can speak at once, or use the same public facility at the same time for different ends. Instituting the basic liberties, just as fulfilling various desires, calls for scheduling and social organization. The requisite regulations are not to be mistaken for restrictions on the content of speech, for example, for prohibitions against arguing for certain religious, philosophical, or political doctrines, or against discussing questions of general and particular fact which are relevant in assessing the justice of the basic structure of society. The public use of our reason must be regulated, but the priority of liberty requires this to be done, so far as possible, to preserve intact the central range of application of each basic liberty.

—John Rawls, The Basic Liberties and their Priority – Tanner Lecture. He cites Kant’s use of the phrase the public use of our reason, from his 1784 essay, What is Enlightenment?

The University of Utah has done us all a great service by placing the Tanner Lectures on one site, free for all to peruse. The Lectures were begun through the funding and efforts of Obert Clark Tanner: “I hope these lectures will contribute to the intellectual and moral life of mankind. I see them simply as a search for a better understanding of human behavior and human values.” Tanner came to the university following the founding of the OC Tanner Company, a manufacturer of corporate baubles and awards, and an education at UU, Stanford and Harvard. The Lectures are intended as an elaboration of human values and are awarded to various institutions that may bring a scholar of uncommon achievement and ability. Each Lecture must be delivered unencumbered by copyright and therefore free for all to consume. Sadly, the PDFs appear to be of uneven quality and often lack words and pages.

Kenny Powers gets signed by K-Swiss – Funny or Die