Like many others, I’ve been in a number of debates about gun control in recent weeks. Here are my main thoughts on the topic: The goal of any gun rights or legislation that limits those rights should be that of reducing suffering and increasing happiness for Americans. That is the moral goal, and all other considerations should be…
Archives for December 2012
The Only Two New Years Resolutions You Need
I generally think New Years Resolutions are silly. If something is important enough to be done, it’s important enough to be started when you think about it. The notion of waiting until a certain point is admitting a grave problem: you don’t have the self-discipline to do the things you should be doing. Work on that instead of…
This Essay Might Improve Your Life
This is an essay about being productive to the world around you. Confused, you say, “How does any of that fucking matter when my (wife/husband/best friend/parent) is lying here bleeding! I need somebody who knows how to operate on bullet wounds! Can you do that or not?!?” Now the man becomes agitated — why are you being shallow…
Some Thoughts on the Events in Newtown
A few thoughts: Don’t incentivize what you don’t want more of Internationally, football is known for a zero-tolerance policy with regard to doping. You don’t get to go on to win 140 medals that get stripped later. You fail a test, you career is over. The result? There’s not much of a doping problem over there. It is…
Reading Hitchens Improves My Writing
But only temporarily. During the short period after reading Hitchens, say a couple of hours, or perhaps a few days, I am able to think (and write) much more clearly. It’s as if seeing it done properly leads your brain along a cleared path, but as time goes on the leaves once again cover it and you lose…
Programming and Data Interpretation Are the New Literacy
I hung out with @sgharms yesterday and the conversation was stimulating as usual. One of the topics was how essential programming will be to future generations. A few general thoughts I took from it: Programming is becoming the new literacy for IT workers and even journalists and marketers. Over the next five years, those who cannot do basic…
Business Owners Don’t Create Demand; Consumers With Money Do
I think conservatives are fundamentally incorrect about what creates demand for products and services. Their claim is that those with money and businesses are the “job creators”, and that taxing them will harm the economy because they’ll be able to hire fewer people, grow their offerings less, etc. It makes sense if you don’t think about it. I…
Are Libertarians Suffering From Technology’s XY Problem?
A bit ago I posted about the XY problem that’s common in online technical forums. It should sound (sadly) familiar to anyone in technology: You want to do X, and you think Y is the best way of doing so. Instead of asking about X, you ask about Y. A good example of this is asking about how…
The Fiscal Cliff Debate Is Exposing the GOP as Liars
Remember during the election when we were all talking about who was fighting for what? Remember how Obama was claiming the Republicans were trying to cut social security and medicare and such? And the Republicans were coming back and saying that it was Obama trying to do this, and that they wouldn’t think of it? Yeah, I remember…
Why I’m No Longer a Libertarian
Libertarianism is attractive. I find that it functions as a sanctuary for both those unhappy with conservatism (which they often see as loyalty to authority and tradition) and those tired of liberalism (which they often see as loyalty to blind compassion). Libertarianism replaces those key beliefs with a foundation that’s not tradition, authority, or compassion based, but one…
Font Size on Top Web Publications
Is that text above, or is it the result of a smallest printing head competition? I think publications that think too much of themselves use excessively small font sizes in order to be less approachable. It’s part of a series of techniques for being “too hard to get into” that pseudo intellectuals (and unfortunately many real ones as…
IQ2 Debates: Raise Your Issues Knowledge in a Single Hour
Many of us in the tech industry fancy ourselves experts on politics and various types of policy–especially taxation. We feel our positions are backed by fact when in fact we’re relying mostly on shadows of other people’s statements. Given the fact that this is often the best we can do with complex topics like taxation and global warming,…