Category Archives: social network

news

I’d like to form a news-reading group as a way to combat information anxiety. I’ll read the New York Times and the Economist, someone else can keep track of gizmodo and engadget, and a third person will pay attention to … Continue reading

Posted in information anxiety, information diet, information overload, news, social network | Comments Off

distributed responsibility

How can we create a social network that will fund and implement a public health campaign focused on changing individuals’ culture and behaviors?

Posted in behavior, behavioral economics, persuasive interaction, social network | Comments Off

The Third Culture and The Edge

“The strength of the third culture is precisely that it can tolerate disagreements about which ideas are to be taken seriously. ” http://www.edge.org/about_edge.html

Posted in information diet, philosophy of science, social network | Comments Off

decision science

It’s not that I’m anti-social, but I don’t participate in the green movement, nor in the race to save all who are suffering in Africa and elsewhere, nor usually even to keep my family and friends updated and in-the-loop about … Continue reading

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network anxiety

A couple of days ago two satellites collided, creating an unknown amount of debris in orbit. There’s some small chance that one of these pieces will collide with another satellite, creating lots more debris and setting of a chain reaction … Continue reading

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emergence

This semester’s most prominent theme has been about emergence: the formation of order from the interaction of many individual actors. It was sparked by the book of the same name I read over the summer. It has been carried on … Continue reading

Posted in abms, cultural evolution, emergence, social network | Comments Off

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/taleb08/taleb08_index.html Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes about the nature of the financial system with a framework similar to the viewpoint I developed while reading about Godel and the philosophy of science a couple years ago. Basically, he says that while logic, … Continue reading

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“We should fight with better governance and better intelligence. We have to empower communities to better defend themselves, not with weapons but with organization.” A quote from Jelani Popal, working on development for the government of Afghanistan, in reference to … Continue reading

Posted in communication, government, power theory, social network | Comments Off

Government Structure

Reading “Sciences of the Artificial” by Herbert Simon a few weeks ago, I was struck by his distinction between normative and descriptive computer models. Basically, normative models explain how things should be, as when we say, “Governments provide the greatest … Continue reading

Posted in design theory, geopolitical theory, government, social network | Comments Off