There are great benefits to connectedness, but we haven't wrapped our minds around the costs.
The Air Is Full of Unsound Assets
Topic: Economics
9:46 am EST, Dec 1, 2008
Standing before a two-story-tall pile of chicken manure, Lee Richardson pondered how times had changed. Gigantic fans suction ammonia from the birds' waste, filling the air for miles around.
The question of free speech online isn’t just about what a company like Google lets us read or see; it’s also about what it does with what we write, search and view.
Google’s claim on our trust is a fragile thing. After all, it’s hard to be a company whose mission is to give people all the information they want and to insist at the same time on deciding what information they get.
“We’re at the dawn of a new technology. And when people try to come up with the best metaphors to describe it, all the metaphors run out. We’ve built this spaceship, but we really don’t know where it will take us.”
Many told themselves and each other that this time would change things, just as Americans had told themselves after 9/11. But they knew their own history, and America’s, and they seemed, even as they spoke the words, to disbelieve them already.
I don't think it matters who they put as Treasury secretary ... you know, the economy is in terrible shape, and everything the government is doing now, and everything the government is likely to do, when Obama takes over, is going to make the situation worse.
... We need a serious recession in this country, and the government needs to get out of the way, and let it happen.
I know I'm pretty well alone here, but all the glossy avatars and video and social networks conceal a trivialization of interaction, dragging it down to the level of single-sentence grunts, flirtation and ROTFL [rolling on the floor laughing], at a time when we need discussion and argument to be more effective than ever.
Take note:
Underwear should be the normal type that people wear, not anything that shows you're a fundamentalist.
The action bias, or the desire to do something rather than nothing when you have just been through a terrible experience, plays a powerful role in our lives. It influences individuals and companies, investors and leaders. You can see the action bias on display in current thinking on the housing and economic crises, in the bitter debates over the war in Iraq -- even in discussions about how to fix a football team that's a perennial loser.
When people suffer losses and confront the possibility of even greater reverses -- it doesn't matter if you are talking about a terrorist attack or a meltdown in retirement savings -- it is psychologically difficult to do nothing, to hold course. This is true even when the action you contemplate produces an outcome that leaves you demonstrably worse than you were in the first place.
See also, Michael Bloomberg:
“Nobody knows exactly what they should do, but anything is better than nothing.”
It's natural for organizations to learn from mistakes. The problem is, people who propose new checks almost never consider that the check itself has a cost.
From the archive:
If at first you don't succeed, at least learn from your mistakes.
Act Now, and Get Three Poison Packages For The Price of Two
Topic: Miscellaneous
3:31 pm EST, Nov 29, 2008
The strange thing is the extent to which one man's meat is another man's poison. A colleague of mine recoils as if shot when he hears "What's not to like", whereas I can't understand what's to dislike.
I felt so dirty. I felt like a piece of meat. I find being a piece of meat very exciting.
Bethlehem police allege Joseph Bullaro stole packages of steak on consecutive days from South Side grocer Ahart's Market and sold the meat on the street.
Deflation: what's not to like? Deflation is only a problem if you're the one trying to sell the cheap thing, or if the incredibly cheap thing is your salary, and your boss can't decide between paying you peanuts and finding someone else who will do your job for even less.
The strange thing is how the tons of homework and projects are justified as preparation for real life.
The fact that Penn is heterosexual in real life hikes his Oscar hopes significantly.
Is there anybody on this globe who doesn't love Prince Philip's sense of humour?
The strange thing is, even though the extra pillows are merely tossed aside, I have become deeply suspicious of hotels that are willing to part with only two per bed.
Really, who doesn’t love a little stuffed adrenal gland?
So, what's not to like? Alas, our deep state of infatuation with Barack Obama tempts us to look the other way when he does or say things that are, frankly, unlovely.
