The New York Times wrote yesterday about Eben Moglen, whom I wrote about recently. “We have to aim our engineering more directly at politics now,” he said. “What has happened in Egypt is enormously inspiring, but the Egyptian state was late to the attempt to control the Net and not ready to be as remorseless as it could have been.” … If revolutions for freedom rest on the shoulders of[…] Keep reading →
Here is a simple way to reduce one type of stress. I used to get annoyed when people would show up late to meet me. I imagined them disrespecting me and such. One day I made a rule for myself: Everybody gets fifteen minutes. That’s it. If someone shows up anywhere less than fifteen minutes late, it’s fine. I don’t ask questions, I don’t ask where they were, I don’t[…] Keep reading →
The freedom for consenting adults to do what they like is as fundamental a freedom as I can think of and the protecting of it one of my most important interests. About once a week I say something like “I’m a big fan of consenting adults doing what they please.” I’m not a fan of people preventing consenting adults from doing what they like or a person involving someone who[…] Keep reading →
The following statement has become a personal guideline since I first came up with it. It’s served me well. Don’t look for blame but take responsibility for making things better to the extent you can. You can always find someone to blame if you want. Blame is fundamentally about the past, which you can’t change, and judgmental, which repels people. But the main issue is that when you blame someone[…] Keep reading →
(copying my post to another board where I learned about the movie, slightly out of context) I saw the movie Gasland about fracking last night at Cooper Union and heard Josh Fox, the guy who created it, speak. I don’t recommend many movies, but I recommend this one. If you can talk to Josh Fox, all the better. I’ve since watched and read other web pages and videos. I don’t[…] Keep reading →
Do you or people you know get stuck “winning” arguments only to find they’ve annoyed or alienated people around them? It’s hard to do anything about it because when people aren’t arguing they tend to feel they don’t do it — that only others do. And when they are arguing they’re often least open to exiting argument mode into self-reflection mode. A scene in The Big Lebowski that illustrates the[…] Keep reading →
Everyone has something to say about the environment, the economy, and ecology. People believe in human caused global warming or they don’t, but they have something to say about it. They believe improving the environment will ruin the economy or save it or something. Everyone has something to say. One major trend I see is based on the interests of the source. If the person speaking comes from the business[…] Keep reading →
An incredibly useful perspective in some half-baked notes to a friend. I’ll develop them more in future posts. Feedback and criticism appreciated. — You wrote about lying as an example of a “bad trait”. I’d like to suggest another perspective (generalizable from just lying to other aspects of apparent lack of empathy): that the reason people communicate is not to convey truths. Evaluating people according to truths and lies holds[…] Keep reading →
[In response to some alumni on the Entrepreneurs’ mailing list complaining the school wasn’t helping alumni enough, proposing a “nuclear option” of talking to the press about it.] If anyone thinks “we have little to lose” and that the “greatest risk is that nothing will happen anyway” of a process called a nuclear option, they should sit down and think more. If you prepare for war, you’ll get it. War[…] Keep reading →