Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Future Studies and the Singularity

I. Ray Kurzweil is a large part of the futurist conversation. But to teach entirely from his work is unbalanced. He is one of many primary sources. /u/heredami mentioned the 3 schools of thought; accelerating change, the event horizon, and an intelligence explosion.

II. Study past trends to predict the future(s). I would cover the history of Silicon Valley, the beginning of Intel, Fairchild semiconductor, and even Shockley semiconductor. The story of the traitorous eight, Shockley's fall from power, and Noyce and Moore's creation of Intel is incredible. This is the Eniac, a room sized computer that took multiple people to operate. 20 years later, Moore and Noyce's Integrated Electronics produced the 4004 microchip that outperformed the Eniac in size, power, speed and many other returns. We witness a progression in only 50 years; vaccuum tube> transistor> microchip.

III. Study the methodology of forecasting. Instead of one set future, the scientific consensus is the theory of a multiverse. This infographic by NASA scientist Dan Berry does it best; there is no one set future, but a great plurality of future(s). In fact, there is no 'present' at all. The present moment is a figure of speech that humans use to communicate ideas across a small duration of time. There is a conversation about it, here. While one can never predict the future, prediction is relative, a matter of degree. The same as reknowned physicist Michio Kaku claims that the concept of impossibility is relative, so too are the future(s). Arthur C. Clarke said it best in his three laws. The Paradox of Futurology and technological forecasting is inescapable. But Future(s) Studies has structure and methodology. Different aspects of the future are predictable with varying degrees of reliability and precision. For there to be a degree of predictability, it is not necessary that it be possible to identify one specific scenario as what will definitely happen. If there is at least some scenario that can be ruled out, that is indeed a degree of predictability (Bostrom). Bertrand de Jouvenal was an early writer and his dichotomy of futura and facta still provide insight to this profoundly evolutionary practice humans do; chronesthesia. Here is a list of a number of theories for mental 'time traveling' from neuroscience.

IV. With these corner stones and primary sources of Future(s) Studies covered, I'd move on to the interesting and imagination-capturing stuff. /u/heredami provided some of the essential publications by the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. To complement, read through the AMA from the current CEO, Luke Muehlhauser here. Luke answers every insightful question with sources and links. I have collected and saved some of the very bestof and most in-depth comments, explanations, and thoughts that our /r/futurology have created throughout the life of our community. Each post I have collected deserves more analysis and scrutiny. They have all addressed these topics better than I ever could. Our collection below is the aggregate of some of the most profound and paradigm-shattering worldviews that define and redefine the art and science of Future(s) Studies.
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Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Happiness

A significant part of a person's unhappiness is caused by them constantly thinking only of themselves. The repetitive focus on self and their own unhappiness keeps that unhappiness vibrant. It's like a constant negative drumbeat inside them. But if they didn't think of themselves at all, how could they be unhappy?

Unhappiness is separate from problems, because everyone has problems and pains, but not everyone is unhappy.

One solution to unhappiness is to volunteer somewhere where people are suffering and need help -- like a hospital. Working for others in any kind of real way will interrupt the flow of repetitive negative self-talk and create room for love and compassion for others again, and happiness will then have room to flower.

Wake Up Sheeple!

Here is the simple formula:

Use lowered profits as an excuse to lay off a few people. Remind daily the remaining workers that they are lucky to still have a job. Remind them that 'things are rough out there.'

Continue to use lowered profits (a simple threat of just being in business...almost every business deals with lowered profits at some point) to take away health care benefits and cut back on retirement programs: "Things are tough. If we want to stay in business, we're going to have to cut back." ...the 'we' that is cutting back is, of course, you...the worker.

Remind the workers that with less employees, people are going to have to work twice as hard if they want to see the profits get back up where there pay freeze is lifted. Also, you cannot take vacation right now because there aren't enough employees to make up for the two jobs that you're working.

If you're brave, go for pay cuts across the board. Remind the workers than it's better than 'nothing at all. You're still very lucky to have a job in 'this economic environment.' Now is a good time to remind workers how many people are losing their homes and investments right now. They sure are lucky.

After you've cut back every conceivable program that helps the worker or helps to increase his/her wages/benefits, watch the corporate profits rise. And not just rise, but rise to record levels.

Maintain current crew that was cut back dramatically, keep the pay freeze, keep the cut wages make sure people are doing twice the work for less pay and less benefits.

Bottom line: record profits.

How do people not realize this is exactly what happened in most American businesses? They're still working and paying like the recession is still in full ring, yet they're pulling in more profits than ever before.

WHY? Because the workers took the hit. Like they always do. They got shat on and continued to show up at work every morning, talking about how goddamn lucky they were to not be on the layoff list. SO LUCKY! Lucky you. You get to do the jobs of your laid of co-workers, work much more than usual and get compensated much, much less. BUT THE PROFITS ARE UP. Your amazing job is SECURE. For now.

And that's how it's done. Yes, the part-time issue is a big one but it gets thrown into this cycle and approach by business. They know exactly what they're doing and they're laughing all the way to the bank while most working class can still barely keep their heads above water.

And I have a secret for you. PSST...listen up. Wages are like POWER. Those in charge very often take it *but they never, ever give it back.

That's one of the oldest tricks in the book.

Take the Patriot Act for example. During that time when (according to Bush) everyone wanted to kill us because they hated our 'freedoms,' they felt it was appropriate to pass a shit load new laws that restricted your freedom (I suppose) in order to give the terrorists what they wanted: A country with less freedom (again, according to Bush and Co.)

After Bin Laden was killed and things simmered down, the NHS and homeland security was fattened up, they never gave back the rights you used to have. And they never will. Because if you look at the history of government, they take rights away. They pass more laws..think of it as a linear path that moves forward with time. As time goes on, so do restrictions on liberty and freedom.

And that's what businesses do (at least larger corporations) as you give up things like health benefits and retirement benefits and accept lower wages and less security, those are things that are gone for good. Because I can only think of a handful of companies that have ever willingly given up anything to employees.

What is the answer? In a word: Unions.

Period. Organization and solidarity will change things if Americans have the brains and balls to embrace standing up together and saying 'no' for a change instead of constantly saying 'yes' and acting like they have battered woman syndrome. Or maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome where the captive starts to have feelings for the captor.

Either way, things have to change and they have to change soon.

Even if everything changed tomorrow and the minimum wage went up and that created a ripple effect that caused everyone's salaries and wages to go up, they started to invest in more health care benefits, offered you some more vacation time or sick days...these are entities that still went 30 years fattening their wallets and profits on your backs.

A lot of the larger employers (McDonald's, Walmart, AT&T) they have amassed enough profits in that time of wringing out workers that they'll never be hurt. Ever. The Walton family has more wealth than the entire lower 40% of Americans combined and yet they still won't offer basic human kindness to their employees. They're treated like a necessary evil and they're treated like burdens most of the time.

And yet, the truth is that if you work at Walmart or McDonald's and someone tries to convince you that your job isn't important, rest assured that you would NOT be in that store if your presence wasn't completely necessary. You are an important part of the company regardless of how belittled your job is or you have been on the job. They would cut your position in a second without any thought if they thought they could keep running without you. That's what they do: eliminate every single unnecessary position (without regard to customers, employers, etc) that they can possibly still operate with.

Time to stand up. Time for some strength, some wisdom, some courage and time for people to get informed. Time for solidarity and unions...they are the only way. If you're opposed to those things, I'm guessing it's because you've never studied unions are unaware that they created the middle class (which was why the United States was such an envy of other nations for 30 years).

If you're opposed to the idea of unionization, then get comfortable. Your post in life will never change, your life will always be a struggle to keep your head above water and you will most definitely never be able to retire. Not when you're 65, not when you're 75, not when you're 90. You will never save enough wealth to be able to not work.

And that's bullshit. You sell your most precious resource (your time and your health) for pennies on the dollar and you'll never be able to enjoy the fruits of all that constant work. Meanwhile, the higher ups at the companies will amass enough money and assets to last them for 20 lifetimes and then some.

America isn't a fair nation anymore and the corporations are running the government and your interests and your family's interests are the last thing they have in mind.

PROFITS OVER PEOPLE in the new America. You are, officially, worth more dead than you are alive, sadly. And what kind of fucking country gets behind that idea? Not to mention this idea that health care should be a luxury that only the rich should be able to obtain.

If you work full time in any capacity, by God, you fucking deserve to be able to go to the hospital without the threat of bankruptcy if you get sick. You should be able to end up in a car accident without losing your goddamn house in the process.

Wake up. This is your lives and your children's lives and well being we're talking about. Can you not see how much you've been fleeced and how much has been taken of you, constantly asked of you while the ultra wealthy and corporations always make sure that you and your family take the hit when things go bad? And when things go well, you never get to partake in any of the success unless you're a stockholder and that's a position that very few American workers are a part of.

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Thursday, August 15, 2013

Cheap eating: Cooking Inexpensive Meals

Equipment

Get a metal frying pan - Stainless steel is flexible and easy to use. Nonstick coatings are worthless. A lid is useful, but not required. $5-10 thrift store or $30 new.

Get a large pot you can boil water in, with a lid. Watch out for aluminum pans - They can interact with acidic foods, and you don't want that. $10-15 thrift store or $30 new.

Get a chef's knife and a cutting board. Get a whetstone - The sharper your knife is, the less force you'll be putting behind it when you cut yourself. And you will, eventually, cut yourself. Buy the knife and whetstone new - $30-50. Buy the board at a thrift store - $5.

Get a wooden spoon. Spend a couple extra dollars and buy one with a thick handle - They're surprisingly easy to snap. $3 new.

Don't skimp here - If you buy decent quality gear you won't ever have to buy it again. That said, don't go crazy - that $200 frying pan isn't going to cook your food for you. Buy items that look like you could throw them at a dump truck without hurting them. But don't actually do that.

Greens
Get yourself a big bundle of greens. Kale, chard, mustard, collard, cabbage, stinging nettles (Yup! They stop stinging when you cook 'em), spinach, bok choy, beet greens, radish greens, endive, turnip greens, etc. Don't use lettuces.

Loosely chop your greens, put a little oil in your pan, and turn it to medium heat. Put an inch or so of greens in your pan - A little more if you have a lid.

Feel free to experiment with various oils - Butter, olive oil, lard, vegetable oil, etc. Don't be too afraid of saturated fats here - It doesn't take much to coat a pan of greens.

Cook the greens, stirring casually, until they start to soften, then add a little salt. Taste 'em and turn the heat off when they're soft enough to be tasty.

Now add a little splash of acid - Lemon juice, lime juice, any type of vinegar. A small amount of honey or sugar is a good addition too.

Cheap meat

Well, you got yourself a $3/pound beef roast, or a $2/pound pork roast. Now what?

Get your big pot. Put it on the stove, and put your hunk of meat in it. If you're feeling fancy, put a little oil in the pan and saute each side. Otherwise, skip to the next step.

Wander around the kitchen until you find some sort of liquid. Wine's a great choice. A little vinegar, cut with a lot of water, can do the trick. Any sort of meat or vegetable stock works well. Some people use Dr. Pepper. Don't use cream or milk, they'll curdle, and don't use water, it'll remove all flavor from your meat. Add your liquid to the pot until it covers the bottom by an inch or two.

Put the lid on your pot, turn the heat up to high, and wait for your liquid to almost come to a boil. Once it does, adjust heat to low and find something entertaining to do in a nearby room. You'll want to be able to monitor your stove and pot so it doesn't burn the meat or your house, but it won't need your full attention. Add more liquid as required; don't let it boil dry.

Wait several hours.

Come back to the meat and poke at it with a wooden spoon. Hard. Does it come apart a little? If so, you're done. If not, keep cooking.

Once it's done, pull it out of the pan and chop at it with your knife - Try to carve perpendicular to the little strings in the meat.

Don't throw the liquid away! It pulled out a lot of the flavor from your meat. Turn the heat up and allow it to boil down until it's a thin sauce. Salt it to taste and pour it over your meat slices. Serve.

You'd probably better make a side dish too, or you're going to eat 12 pounds of meat and lie moaning on the floor, "Ooooh.... Why he does this to me? WHY?!"

Vegetables

Pick two or three of the following vegetables: broccoli, zucchini, cauliflower, carrots, brussels sprout, turnips, pumpkins, potatoes, peppers, eggplant, summer squash, onions, garlic (Go light on garlic!), celery, kohlrabi, leek, beets, parsnips.

Chop into smallish bits. Don't stress about keeping them the same shape, but try to keep them roughly the same size. Throw your veggie mix in your frying pan with a little oil. Medium heat, cook until brown, stirring consistently. Add a little salt and pepper, and one random herb - Ideally fresh, but anything that's been in your spice cupboard for less than a year or two will do

If you have a hollow veggie, stuff it with lean hamburger, salt, a few breadcrumbs, and one random herb. A little cheese in the mix works well too, depending on mood. Bake at 300F until the vegetable bit is soft and the meat bit is brown all the way through. You can do this with zuchinni, bell peppers, spicy peppers, etc.

Stock

Jeeze, it feels like there's more bones in a chicken then there is chicken, doesn't it? Don't let the man keep you down - Use that carcass! It was expensive, dammit!

Your leftover bones and clean vegetable scraps should go in a bag in the freezer. Once you've got enough, dump them into your big pot and cover everything with water. Bring it up to a boil, then reduce heat until it stops boiling and put a lid on it. Sweet veggies (Carrots, turnips, etc) and chicken will finish quickly, in only an hour or so. Pork or beef bones will take a couple hours to unlock all the flavor. Go do something in a nearby room while it cooks.

Once it's done, pour the liquid off into whatever you have that'll hold it. This is stock, and it will make you many amazing soups. It'll keep in the freezer for several months, or in the fridge for a couple days.
If you end up with a layer of fat on top of the stock, stick it in the fridge - The fat will rise to the top, and the cold with solidify the fat, allowing you to scrape it off with ease. If you're daring, use it to cook greens.
If your stock turns solid in the fridge, that's absolutely OK - Bones contains gelatin, which will get into your stock. Just warm it up a little to re-liquify it.

Lentils

Oh boy, now you did it. You just had to have that new Playstation 360, so you've got $50 to eat for four weeks. You're screwed.

But not quite. Go to the bulk section and get yourself some lentils. Don't bother with the fancy french lentils or the red lentils; They all taste the same. If they're cheap, split green or yellow peas cook almost identically, and provide a little variety.

Put on some boiling water and throw a handful of lentils in. If you use too many, it'll be thick. If you use too few, it'll be thin. Either way is delicious. Reduce the heat to low, put a lid on 'em, and let 'em sit on the back burner until they're soft. The longer they cook, the more they'll blend into your liquid.

Once they're done, add a little salt. Lentils take to flavorings really well, particularly spicy flavorings. Try a little cayenne pepper and a spoonfull of sour cream. Alternatively, a small amount of honey or molasses is delicious. You could also use meat or veggie stock in place of water for some extra flavor.

Lentils are extremely cheap and high in protein. With a little added fat they're a nutritious, filling meal for pennies.

Beans are very much like lentils, although they take much longer to cook. They're sort of lentils on hard mode.

Pasta

Add salt to boiling water - This will improve the flavor of the resulting pasta. If you're cooking filled pasta or small, curvy pasta, a couple drops of oil added to the water can help keep it from sticking while you drain it. For long, thin pasta, prompt application of sauce should be enough to keep it from sticking. Throw your pasta in the water.

Be careful not to overcook your pasta - Take out a little and try some while it's cooking. You want your pasta to still have a little structure to it, not be slimy and limp. Once it's done, drain your pasta. If you've got a colander or sieve, use that - Otherwise use the lid to strain out the liquid, being careful not to burn yourself.
Apply store-bought pasta sauce. Yeah, I said it - You CAN make your own, but you're not going to do it that much cheaper than pre-made sauce, and it's a tricky sauce to season.

A little hamburger, cooked in your frying pan, is a good way to add protein.

Pasta takes hardly any time or thought - Perfect for nights when you don't want to cook!

Shopping

See the middle of the store? Ignore it.

What you want is on the outside of the store. Start in the produce section, and linger. Vegetables are good for you, cheap, filling, and delicious. Grab a good amount, and some fruit too - Wards off scurvy. You don't want scurvy.

Once that's done, wander on over to the bulk section. Pick up your pastas, lentils, a few spices, and maybe a few nuts or dried fruit for a snack. You don't need candy, put it back.

Next is meat. Pork and chicken are cheapest, beef is the most expensive. Don't buy steaks, you aren't Rockefeller. Cheap cuts of meat take longer to cook, but are just as flavorful and nutritious as the expensive cuts. Sausages can provide some nice variety.

The dairy section is just around the corner. A little cheese can be a nice addition to a lot of meals. Eggs are versatile and protein-rich, but tricky to cook if you want anything but scrambled eggs.

Ignore the chip isle, the candy isle, and the soda isle. If you need a few baking goods (particularly oils), wander down that isle. Canned fruits and veggies are usually more expensive than fresh. Ignore the pre-made frozen foods like the plague - You can make better food, cheaper.

In my area, farmers markets are cheaper than the big stores for produce, but inside cities this tends to reverse. YMMV.

Finally, consider whole meats. Beef at the market usually starts at $3/lb. Beef, purchased by the half or quarter from a butcher or farmer usually stops at $3/lb. You can save money on whole lambs and pigs, too. You'll need a chest freezer to store it, though, and you'll need to pay for it all up front.

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Building a Website: Starter Guide

Validate Your Skill Level

Are you currently a web programmer? If no, please do not attempt to become one to code your own dynamic website as security is a huge issue and it will take you years to catch up. It is not a reasonable effort to put forth if you want to keep your sanity, not burn your spare time, etc. Not saying you can't learn it, just saying it takes a lot of work and time that most entrepreneurs don't have to use and in some cases waste.
You can learn how to do html and css within a few months but using a CMS system is much cleaner and easier and if you need something dynamic, you will probably need a developer.
You generally need to know at least php and mysql for dynamic websites unless you want to get into the confusing worlds of joomla and drupal. I hear decent things about Ruby on Rails though on par with php and mysql learning curve I think.

Want to Learn Web Programming Anyway?

Try CodeCademy for interactive programming learning.

No Coding Skills Start Here

Get / Use the following:
Need Something More Dynamic?

You have a few options. This list goes from least expensive to most expensive. Just know that most things you want to do already have a plugin or theme designed for them for WordPress. There are however a lot of exceptions to that guideline and that is why you look at the following options.
  • Least Expensive end
  • Hire someone to develop a WordPress plugin to do that dynamic stuff (cheaper than second option)
  • Hire someone to build you a custom WordPress theme that has the functionality you need.
  • Hire someone to develop the site from the ground up.
  • Most expensive end
The reason why WordPress is mentioned a lot is because it is a CMS aka Content Management System which allows you to manage a ton of the pages and posts and various other aspects of the website. If a developer really needs to, they can modify the core parts of WordPress. Rarely will you need someone to build you a brand new website and honestly you really do want a CMS or you are going to have a hard time.
Some developers can be found here: Elance (freelancers), Matchist (freelancers), and Glowtouch (dev company vetted by Bluehost)

Things to remember with website development
  • Try to use a responsive website themes and plugins so that it can fit any screen size including tablets and phones.
  • Get familiar with what they call "sticky footer" so that your footers don't end up halfway up the screen on low content pages. Example and info.
  • Get familiar with the concept of having a fixed header as it will promote a lot of use of your website. Example and info.
  • Design is important. You have ~2.6 seconds to capture their attention before they bounce. Read this book to learn about it: "Don't Make Me Think"
  • Best colors to use for design and other design tricks (the best you are going to find): Article and Video
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Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Sleep Deprivation: Long and Short Term

The answer to the question depends on the timescale. The human response to sleep restriction is different, depending whether it is acute or chronic.

In the early days of sleep research, most experiments involving sleep restriction were total sleep deprivations, meaning participants in the study were allowed no sleep at all for some period of time, usually 1-3 nights (although a few crazy studies did go over 200 hours).

In these types of experiments, it was discovered that recovery tends to occur quite rapidly. To explain this, I need to refer to a model of human sleep regulation called the two-process model. In the two process model, it is assumed that human sleep is primarily regulated by two physiological processes: a circadian process and a sleep homeostatic process. The circadian process is the approximately 24-hour biological rhythm in sleepiness/alertness. The sleep homeostatic process is the process that promotes sleep more the longer that you have been awake.

Sleep homeostatic pressure builds up during time spent awake and dissipates during time spent asleep. Although we don't yet know precisely what causes the sleep homeostatic process (it may be the build up of sleep-promoting substances in the brain, including adenosine), it turns out that there is a good physiological marker for the sleep homeostatic process.

Normally, during a night of sleep, people cycle semi-regularly between states of NREM sleep and REM sleep. If you record somebody's brain electrical activity using EEG, you find that during NREM sleep, there is a high level of delta waves. These show up as big waves cycling about once per second in the EEG recordings. Across the night, the amount of delta waves in NREM sleep decreases approximately exponentially. Moreover, if you deprive someone of sleep and then let them get recovery sleep, their delta waves still decline exponentially across the night, but the initial level of delta waves at the beginning of the night is significantly higher.

It turns out that the two-process model can do a very good job of explaining the changes in delta waves across the night and in response to total sleep deprivation if you assume that the homeostatic sleep pressure builds up exponentially with a time constant of ~20 hours during wakefulness, and decays exponentially with a time constant of ~3 hours during sleep.

This has two important implications. First, the homeostatic sleep pressure would be expected to saturate to a maximum level quite rapidly -- within only a few days, given the time constant of ~20 hours. Second, even after a huge sleep deprivation, the homeostatic sleep pressure would be expected to return to approximately normal levels within a night or two of sleep, because the time constant for dissipation is only ~3 hours. Indeed, both of these predictions are true for total sleep deprivation. Even when people are deprived of sleep for 100+ hours, they tend to sleep for no more than about 14 hours on the first night of recovery. In other words, they do not pay back every hour of sleep missed.

For a while, it seemed like we therefore had sleep regulation figured out, at least in essence. However, the two-process model fails miserably when it is applied to the more common type of sleep restriction in day-to-day life: chronic sleep restriction for many consecutive days, e.g., getting only 6 hours of sleep per night for 14 consecutive days. Under these conditions, the two-process model would again predict that sleep homeostatic pressure would level off within a few days and recovery would be achieved at the end within one or two nights, i.e., a weekend. That is absolutely not what we see.

When individuals are chronically restricted of sleep for periods of 2-3 weeks, we instead find that cognitive impairment accumulates day by day, almost linearly. There is no sign of saturation or leveling off. Things just continue to get worse and worse. Paradoxically, delta waves do level off, just as the two-process model would predict, and so do subjective ratings of sleepiness, meaning people become less and less aware of their level of objective impairment as they are increasingly sleep restricted. After two weeks of getting 6 hours of sleep per night, individuals have the same reaction time as somebody who has been awake for 24 hours, which is approximately equivalent to an individual with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10%. After two weeks of getting 4 hours of sleep per night, individuals have the same reaction time as somebody who has been awake for 48-72 hours.

The process of recovery also seems to be much slower after chronic sleep restriction, although it has not yet been well quantified. For chronic sleep restriction, there seems to be a much closer to one-to-one correspondence between hours of sleep lost and hours that must be paid back to return to baseline performance. Certainly, it is not possible to reverse the effects of chronic sleep restriction in a single weekend.

We don't yet know what is the physiological process underlying this much slower timescale response to chronic sleep restriction, but there are some hypotheses currently being tested, including up-regulation of adenosine receptors.

So, what about the effects of chronic sleep restriction on even longer timescales? What if you don't get enough sleep continually for a year, or a decade? How long would it then take you to recover? We don't know the answer to that. Laboratory studies of chronic sleep restriction cannot logistically or ethically go much longer than a month. We are therefore forced to rely on epidemiological data. We know that people who habitually get short sleep (less than about 6 hours) have higher rates of all-cause mortality, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. But we don't know how easily those long-terms outcomes can be reversed by improving sleep patterns. For that, we will need longitudinal data, where people are tracked for years to see what happens if they improve their sleep habits. Those data would be very difficult to obtain, since it is difficult to convince people to make major lifestyle changes, and difficult to control for other lifestyle changes that may go along with them. Chronic sleep restriction also leads to increased hunger and poor diet choice, for instance, which may be one important confounding factor in such a study.

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Thursday, August 8, 2013

The Sociopathy of Capitalism

Allow me to introduct the concept of ponerology.

This is the idea that a power structure, over time, becomes twisted by the work of relatively few sociopaths until the entire structure and everyone in it behaves and thinks like a sociopath as well.

The idea that profit is the only thing that matters, that employees must be paid as little as possible, is a purely pathological judgement.

Pathological in this context means a decision that is overtly made on 'rational' grounds only. Much like the Randian philosophy of objectivism. Having a perfection definition of 'pathological' isn't necessary to recognize what's wrong.

A pathological person will think any action is logical if they get an immediate benefit. The consequences for others are irrelevant and so are the long-term costs. They are someone else's problem.

The current culture of finance and business is exactly this. The system itself has become pathological as a result of years of sociopaths wielding great power. Now, even a decent, humane person, once they get sucked into the corporate world, will find themselves making utterly pathological decisions and being congratulated for it by other decent, humane people.

These people are not sociopaths, but our culture has reached the point where it's internalised the idea that you have to behave like a sociopath to achieve anything.

Recovering the system from this point is a long and difficult process, and right now there's nobody even willing to say there's a problem.

Which is pathological in itself.

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Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Questions to Ask at a Job Interview

Here are some good questions to ask when you are being interviewed for a job. They lean toward interviewing for a technical poistionin IT, but should give you some good ideas for questions to ask regardless of the position you are interviewing for.

Finishing Questions

Is there anything about my application that concerns you?

Is there any reason at all that you would hesitate to offer me the job? If so, I'd appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns head-on before we finish.

General Questions

What do you like most about your job and what do you feel sets the company apart from others in the industry?

How long do people tend to stay at the company?

How big are project/product teams?

Do people tend to work with the same people, or switch around? How long do they stay on a single project/product?

How long have the most senior and most junior members of my team been here?

Do employees support each other across product/project teams?

Do engineers tend to discuss technical things unrelated to specific product/project work? (e.g. brown bags, forums, mailing lists).

Do they tend to promote from within? How many of the managers have a technical background?

Do people socialize outside of work?

Are there official/unofficial events?

What is the typical daily schedule like for this position?

On the way out, could you show my where my work area would be?

Can I meet any members of the team?