Nadia Eghbal: Out of the valley There are stories of all-powerful gods, and those of gods who are flawed. Lazy gods, reluctant gods, petulant gods, hedonistic gods who indulge themselves in the spoilings of the celestial rather than attending to earthly matters below: these stories call to us, because they remind us of ourselves. (more)

Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material gain; and with government endeavors, which are public initiatives for public good, e.g., focusing on provision of public services.[1] A person who practices philanthropy is a philanthropist. Philanthropy is different from charity, though there is some overlap. Charity aims to relieve the pain of a particular social problem, whereas philanthropy attempts to address the root cause of the problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philanthropy (more)

Fred Wilson and Union Square Ventures hosted a Hacking Philanthropy session to discuss ways to use the Internet to leverage Attractive Charities. (more)

James Piereson on the history of Conservative/Libertarian philanthropy. (more)

Rusty Guinn: Knowledge Takes the Sword Away. It is the most powerful justification we humans have for signing on to corruption – that it serves a greater truth. And whether you believe in it or not, the “greater truth” of a news media and social media industry hopelessly derisive toward political conservatives is absolutely one of the reasons the election of Trump was able to break us. (more)

see (2019-05-31) Strickler The Dark Forest Theory Of The Internet

Peer production (also known as mass collaboration[citation needed]) is a way of producing goods and services that relies on self-organizing communities of individuals. In such communities, the labor of many people is coordinated towards a shared outcome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_production (more)

Portfolio site created by Scott Belsky. 2010-09-24-BelskyActionMethod https://www.behance.net/ (more)

Alan Kay on the history and where it went awry. The three largest intertwined visions of the computer future we were committed to, all burst into view in 1962: Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad, Douglas Engelbart’s “Augmenting Human Intellect”, and JCR Licklider’s “Man-machine Symbiosis” and “Intergalactic Network” via ARPA funding. This was all the same community. (more)

Tyler Cowen: Emergent Ventures winners, eighteenth cohort. (more)

The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Tim Ferriss and Matt Mullenweg in Antarctica: Exploring Personal Fears, Bucket Lists, Facing Grief, Crafting Life Missions (Purpose), and Tim’s Best Penguin Impressions (#578). If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are living now? (more)

anon blogger

Clay Shirky on Nomic Game. Instead of looking for the places where game users are currently suing or fighting one another, forcing the owners of various virtual worlds to deal with these things one crisis at a time, I want to ask the question "What would happen if we wanted to build a world where we maximized the amount of user control? What would that look like?"... While real world political culture has the unfortunate effect of being either/or choices - uni-cameral or bi-cameral legislatures, president or prime minister, and so on - the online world offers us a degree of flexibility that allows us to model rather than theorize. Wonder what the difference is between forcing new citizens to have sponsors vs. dumping newbies into the world alone? Try it both ways and see how the results differ. This is really the argument for Nomic World, for making an environment as wholly owned and managed by and for the citizens as a real country - if we're going to preserve our political Freedom-s as we moved to virtual environments, we're going to need novel political and economic relations between the citizens and their environments. We need this, we can't get it from the real world. So we might as well start experimenting now, because it's going to take a long time to get good at it, and if we can enlist the players efforts, we'll learn more, much more, than if we leave the political questions in the hands of the owners and wizards.

aka Business Web? or unmanaged EcoSystem? (more)

Cory Doctorow book, started as "ThemePunks" serialization. 2005-10-11-DoctorowThemepunks ISBN:9780765312792 (more)

Tiago Forte system of highlighting+

Digital Garden hosting service based on the engine I built for myself, now available for you. http://flux.garden (more)

Omicron variant, Delta variant, and the Need for More Accurate Hospitalization Data. We now have six laboratory studies showing a decreased ability of Omicron to infect lung tissue, providing cellular level support that Omicron is less likely to cause the dreaded viral pneumonia prompting admission for supplemental oxygen or mechanical ventilation. So why then is the U.S. seeing a surge in hospitalizations that looks poised to surpass last winter’s high? Possible reasons include the following: (more)

A covid-19 surge in Western Europe has U.S. bracing for another wave. Infectious-disease experts are closely watching the subvariant of omicron known as BA.2, which appears to be more transmissible than the original strain, BA.1, and is fueling the outbreak overseas. (more)

Due to a combination of high levels of immunity and the reduced severity of the Omicron variant has rendered COVID-19 less lethal than influenza (the flu) for the vast majority of people in England (more)