Category: Philosophy

  • Capitalizing on the Value of the Elderly in Modern Society

    As modern societies develop, become richer, and life expectancies increase, the ratio between the elderly, non-working population and younger, industrious population shifts towards unsustainability. In the United States in 2010, for every 100 working-age adults there are 22 non-working elderly. By 2030 there will be 37 non-working for every 100 working age adults. (from census) […]

  • Lawrence Lessig’s TED Talk on Reclaiming the Republic

    Lessig talks about how the people have lost control of our government to those who have money. He tells stories of politicians and everyone connected to the political and legislative process evolving their thinking to appease their financiers. Deregulation is politically counter-productive because those involved get steady cash from lobbyists to manipulate those regulations. Total reform is […]

  • Arguments Against Owning a Home: Specialization of Labor

    I recently read this article on TechCrunch by James Altucher entitled “Why Entrepreneurs Should NOT Buy Homes“. In discussing the topic with some friends, I was turned on to this article in the Wall Street Journal by economist Robert Bridges showing statistically why home ownership is almost always a poor investment. The idea rings true to […]

  • Democracy 2.0 with Micro-voting

    The democratic process hasn’t changed much. The public elects a representative, representatives make decisions. The average citizen is essentially limited to three tools for affecting change. First, we elect the representatives who best convince us they’ll make the decisions we would want them make. Second, we can send correspondence to our representatives hoping to influence their decisions. Third we can hold protests and demonstrations to broadcast our opinions. But there can be a better way. Modern communication tools allow the public better access to their representatives and can revolutionize the democratic process by voting directly on the issues. Using internet, text message, and phone voting systems the public can be more involved in the decision making process. The role of the representative is reduced more to the role of an organizer than a decision maker because constituents can decide most of the issues themselves. This is democracy 2.0 not because of the invention of new tools, but because it changes the way people behave. I believe this is the direction we’re headed, but it’s not a perfect world.

  • Conficker C and a future with self-evolving computer viruses

    I’m absolutely enthralled by the Conficker C virus after reading this analysis from SRI International. The C variant is the third major generation of the Conficker virus and demonstrates the highest level of sophistication found in any computer virus or worm to date. What excites me most about it is the decentralized nature of its […]