Philosophy

nora_and_i

The R word

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1 month ago
by jjohnson in

I avoid using strong language. I also try to avoid words that cause offense or harm to specific groups in a professional or public forum. That being said, I generally find jokes that poke fun at racial, religious and other stereotypes funny when they are joking and in the right company or context.

As you may know, my beautiful, wonderful, four-year-old daughter Nora has a horrible neuro disorder called Rett Syndrome. Dealing with Rett Syndrome is a major part of the lives of my family, More >

Digital Economics 101

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1 month ago
by jjohnson in

As with all of my thoughts, these are hardly original. I have read a bunch of good stuff about economics and the evolution of digital content across the web that got me thinking about these things. But I like to think that I have a knack for reading and understanding the issues, swirling all of the ideas around, and spitting out a somewhat cohesive explanation of what it all means without using big fancy words. Incidentally, this has ties to my last post about how “free” services aren’t free More >

red-pill-blue-pill

The Real Matrix

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1 month ago
by jjohnson in

I read a quote recently (I would credit it if I could remember the source) that was something like: “If a service is free than YOU are the product.”

Have you seen the movie Wall-E? In many ways, it’s almost the same story as the Matrix.

In the Matrix, humans live in a virtual world where they have the illusion of life and free will. One day Morpheus reveals to Neo that it’s all a lie. The Earth is a wasteland and robots provide humans with a fake reality to maintain a status quo and keep the humans generating More >

occupy-camp

Why the Occupy Camp is Misguided

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3 months ago
by jjohnson in

Every time I see press about the Occupy folks (which is constantly) I groan inwardly. There are so many problems with the world, our government, our cultural et al right now that it is painful to watch such a large movement about something that makes so little sense. I also am frustrated at the popularity of socialism in a country that, not too long ago, fought hot and cold wars to stop it.

First let me say that I have one of “those friends” on Facebook that is always posting poorly conceived political platitudes that directly insult the opposing More >

pessimism

The Case for Pessimism

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3 months ago
by jjohnson in

I recently read an article at popsci about optimism. Like most of Popsci’s stuff, it’s over-hyped and exaggerated but the basic premise is that humans have a tendency to be more optimistic than realistic, somehow believing that the odds don’t apply to us. If that were true it would mean that somewhere there are some really unlucky outliers that bring the average way down.

I’m a self-proclaimed pessimist, something that can be rather irritating to my wife. And most people would say that pessimism is a negative thing. But I think there More >

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