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Showing posts from November, 2014

Why is it conservatives promote racism has ended?

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Hi! Happy Sunday! This is really long, but rest assured your hug awaits at the bottom! Ever wonder why it is conservatives promote an idea racism is over? Why not liberals? Let me also assure you this blog is still about scalable solutions of systems and not ideology. Here is the scalable systemic solution:  we need more research on cultural transmission and how social groups control individual behavior. Conservative culture is fundamentally focused on behavior of the individual, individual accountability. Conservatives have a huge gap in understanding behavior as having social contributions, social motivation and assigning any credibility to a person's behavior as a result of social systems. If person A is a racist that has no correlation with person B who may or may not be a racist is conservative thinking. Ideas are arrived at by individual on an individual, case-by-case basis. To conservatives we are all blank slates that cannot be influenced by society. Personal acc

Top 3%

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Hi! Happy Saturday! Today's blog is about economics and the top 3%. We hear a lot of talk today about the top 1%. So what's up with the top 3%? I am the top 3%. Not financially. Financially my net worth is like debt++. No, I am the top 3% academically. In any school I attended from K-12, community college and finally culminating to a Masters in Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley, I am in the top 3% with a top labor profession of software programmer. My future is secure independent of the amount of money I have in the bank on any given day. Risk for me is not the same as risk for people of less ability. I will always bounce back, no harm no foul. My labor worth goes up every day because the bar of intelligent ability for getting a job is rising. The higher the brain-power bar for job requirements of education and capacity then the more assured is my position. The intellectual requirements for labor are increasing every day as automation rolls out. My intellectual educat

Anecdotes, Spaceships and Economics

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Hi! Happy Friday! What do anecdotes, spaceships and economics all have in common? Read on, dear read, read on! Ferguson. Lots of anecdotes flying around of stories of black crime and stories of white crime not being treated the same as Ferguson. There are also statistics of black-on-black crime rationalizing police profiling of blacks, hey its okay because statistics say, don't ya' know? People use self-selected anecdotes and not solely anecdotes illustrating general statistical trends when they want to represent groups. Then people also use statistics for not treating individuals as individual when they want to justify profiling. For example, two black people have nothing in common based upon their skin color, nothing. Same was white folk having nothing in common based upon their skin color. Black-on-black crime is as meaningless a statistic as white-on-white crime. There is no meaning. Quit saying it. Black profiling by police though is very real because police over sim

The Smuggle Verse, Scene 2, Nanobots

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Gregg (Jayne), "You know, what are you going to do if anyone pops the question? We are running dangerously close to exposure, what us taking a security job and all." Mybrid (Malcolm), "I've covered my tracks very well. We are prepared for the close encounters." Gregg (Jayne), "What, your impenetrable disguise that all the money ever paid to you has to go to Central Intelligence to keep your past hidden, all dark and mysterious like smuggler persona? Even that coat rack that your lack-of-information disguise hangs on can only hold hats of so large. It makes a nice excuse though for smuggling.  You not having to be all altruistic and mushy like Wash." Mybrid (Malcolm), "Wash did do a bang up job back there. It is not just my cunning disguise." Gregg (Jayne), "Or mine. You think anyone will notice that the nanobot nest my mother knitted me is the real threat and not the seven-thousand pound monstrosity? I hope the burning flame colo

Smuggle Verse, Scene 1, Job Runnup

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Jayne, "Life is weird." Malcolm, "That's because you make it weird." Jayne, "No, I mean life is weird. Yesterday I was jonesing for a Sunny-colored gal named Buttercup in a movie and here today we are going to meet her. That's just weird. That's every man's fantasy" Malcolm, "Tomorrow Jayne, we meet tomorrow and your weirdness could be because this deal has been in the works and so we watched that movie as part of our intel on that ship. The primary target is The Princess Buttercup." Jayne, "But don't you think it is weird. I mean me jonesing for her, her being on that ship, and not just on that ship but on that ship with Darth Vader?" Malcolm, "Who? Oh, you mean Anakin. This Anakin is before the whole Darth Vader thing." Jayne, "Is he going to tell me I'm his father? Because if he does that will make it even more weird." Malcolm, "You have it backwards, he tells you he is

Empathy for All to Data Center On The Moon

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Hi! Happy Wednesday! Your daily hug is at the bottom of the page. This may be a lengthy post so take the time, get your hug, and come back to the top. Originally I thought about entitling this blog "Empathy for All" and not "Irreni". Empathy for all is how one thinks in scale of a planet of seven billion people. There is no us versus them: just us. On this planet. Us on this planet. Us on this planet we call Earth. And wait for it...! I will get to the Data Center on The Moon by the end of this post. When I was growing up I ran into a narrative that I could not empathize with. I was raised to be Christian. I was raised that in order to be moral and do good one needed to be a Christian.  The only problem with that narrative is that it did not fit with my reality. As a child I had already met many non-Christians, non-religious and none of the non-Christians were axe wielding murderers. In fact I could not distinguish between a Christian and a non-Christian just

A Fictional Grand Jury Testimony

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Hi! h A p P y  T u E s D a Y! The following is a work of fiction. Cognitive dissonance is the pain we feel when we hold two opposing view points as truths in our minds and can't reconcile them. So the pain. This blog post has only a secondary or tangential relation to innovating government: a teaching moment of cognitive dissonance. I say secondary because many of the problems being discussed in the media today of our broken government are promoted as exciting, blood curdling failures of some ideology we disagree with, aka political puppet theater....when we know the truth is that the problem is just boring systems of politics. We don't want to talk boring. Engineering is not exciting. On to cognitive dissonance! Murder requires motive. We've all watched a bezillion police shows. We've all heard it said a thousand times over: murder requires motive. Where was Michael Brown's motive to murder Darren Wilson? Darren Wilson states he felt his life was in danger. B

Soylent Green is Corporations! The Case for Virtual States!

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Hi! h A p P y  T u E s D a Y ! What are we to make of corporations today? Corporations are people is a common lament we hear today, especially in regards to Citizens United and the outright buying of our American government.  Why are corporations virtual people? As a computer programmer I love recursion. If corporations are people then Soylent Green is corporations! Ha! The irony of course is that Soylent is a corporation. Woo hoo! I love humor. So much so I changed my name to Mybrid and then decades later Wonderful! But this is not that story of my name change except to say that a book by William Gibson, Necromancer , was the inspiration. The humor I found in Neuromancer is that virtual people were created long before virtual reality. In the book computer programs gain rights by becoming corporations. Wow! What a concept!  What are you going to do about it if that happens? Ha! Just think a computer program becomes a corporation and takes over the government through buying pol

The Dilemma is Too Big To Revolt

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Hi! Happy Sunday! The Dilemma we face today is that of technology. Technology has created a world where we are all connected and the word "border" is now meaningless in so many ways. We in the US spend money in Africa to stop Ebola. We do this because this is the most humane way to prevent deaths here and in Africa. Imagine if we were denied access to those countries in Africa to stop Ebola? More US citizens would die. What do borders really mean then? The Dilemma we face today is that technology is required to sustain seven billion people and counting with a seventy-year lifespan. Food, water, air, medicine and even information are all required and are co-dependencies linking all of us together defying borders. Borders really do not mean much any more. We are literally spaceship Earth whether we admit it or not. Wind-up radio. I remember a story from 1990s where research was conducted in Africa about the spread of AIDS. The study found that access to simple AM radio

Think Scale

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Hi! Happy Saturday! The most important take-away from this blog are not the specific ideas, but rather the concepts of thinking in scale. Although I do think my ideas are ripe for innovation, financial backing and start ups. Think scale. Telecommute. After 9/11 the Congress passed a law for continuing the government in the event Congress is wiped out by a terrorist event. That was the exact wrong thing to do. What they should have done is taken measures to ensure that wiping out Congress with a terrorist attack was impossible. How? Easy, telecommute. We should pass a constitutional amendment that says our Federal representatives must work in their respective states. Telecommute. Congress should never gather in one place. Not. Ever. Wouldn't it be nice if your representatives had to meet you face-to-face daily in your state?  Think scale. The telecommute point above is the point of this blog. Use technology. Why are we still living in 1776 when it comes to governing? Why are ou

Innovation Replaces Personality

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Hi! Happy Thursday! Personality. Character. Imagine you are living back in the 1700s, somewhere around 1790s right after the US Constitution is ratified. The county has about a 50% literacy rate. Perhaps you can read. Further imagine you are getting ready to vote for the first time for your representative. Here's a question: do you vote for character, party or on the issues? The point I'm trying to make is one of scale. Back then information was at best newspapers. Transportation took perhaps weeks to get to Washington. Voting on someone's character was a proxy for voting on issues in that era. An era of transportation and communication that did not allow you to keep abreast of world events and day-to-day issues being addressed. Character stood instead as a hope your representative would think like you. Voting for character made sense back then. Voting for party made sense back then. Voting for the character of your party made sense on that scale. And today? Doe

The Right to Individual Currency Amendment

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Hi! Happy Thursday! Mmmm, I got something delicious for you today. Today's blog post provides a solution for all the evil corruption on Wall Street. That dance Wall Street does with Congress. You ready? Let's pass a constitutional amendment entitled "The Right To Individual Currency Amendment" as follows: 1. The right of an individual, local government or State government to originate currency shall not be abridged. 2. Taxes can only be levied on currency transactions by the issuer of the currency. 3. All currency owners have the right to tax their currency.  Woot! Drain the swamp! There is a mountain of musing to say on this topic and I will spare you all of it except the motivation. Perhaps in future blog posts we can explore the ramifications and justifications. I do not believe in direct democracy as a scalable system for a list of reasons that will wear your ears down to a nub if all told.  But I do believe in indirect democracy. Voting for a repr

Fun: Political Solutions Kick Off Part 3

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Hi! Happy Wednesday! "You have to be careful if you are not sure where you are going because you might not get there." -Yogi Berra In the previous two posts today I put forth two solutions for kicking off political innovation: simulation and promotions...gaming and movies. This third solution is an integral part of the first two: having fun socializing. This is so important I'm calling it out as a separate solution but is really part of the first two.  Kick-off part 3 is feature of the first two: fun socializing together. To summarize the first two solutions we need to let our politicians know what to deliver today as well as we need to let ourselves know what to deliver tomorrow as we innovate our systems. But, there is a mystery. Why the fun in this solution? Isn't this serious business? Glad you asked. Plato in 66 B.C.E. wrote a book called "The Republic". In that book Plato asserted that good people would always avoid politics. Why? One, politic

Movies: Political Solutions Kick Off Part 2

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Hi! Happy Wednesday! Movies, lets make them. Lots of them. Part one of the political solutions kick-off is simulation, or training. Part two is movies, or promotions. Our politicians can't possible deliver on the goods if they do not know what the goods are, damn it? What society do we want to live in? Religion? Technology? Earth Stewards? Or my favorite, Earth As Spaceship? What's the right model for politicians to deliver? We need to tell them. Loudly.  Give it your best shot! Make a movie with all the trimmings of what your idea of an ideal society looks like! Do it! In this case a popularity contest is in order! Movies depicting ideal societies that garner widespread popularity can help us talk to each other and our politicians. All guns a blazing! Or not! Today politicians get their notions about what we want from polling. Polling. Polling is that old adage about a bunch of blind people only touching their own part of an elephant trying to figure out what it is b

Simulations: Political Solutions Kick Off Part 1

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Hi! Happy Wednesday! Lots of frustrating stuff in the news to feel oh so "oh, my gosh, where are the solutions at?" I got your solutions. I got them right here. Role playing. How exciting is that, you get to play Dungeons and Dragons! Woot! What? Simulation is training. People need to step it up a notch in being socially engaged. We can start with simulation. What we lack in a civil participation is training. We need to train people in how to participate in our civil society, albeit activism or community service. Acting, n: 1. reel feelings in an artificial setting. I learned that definition about acting from a actual acting class I took at Studio One in Santa Clara back in 1989. That definition also applies to role playing. Role playing: 1. reel feelings in an artificial setting used for training purposes. Role playing is about character development. It was a practice when D&D first came out to hand a 3x5 index card to the DM, Dungeon Master, with personal

Partners? Ferguson and Zimmerman?

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Hi! Happy Tuesday! How are you? The Ferguson grand jury is presumably about to deliver a verdict so I thought I would pitch in on the system side as a blogger about systems.  Where was Wilson's partner? Where is the media in investigating Wilson's lack of partner? Where is the debate on police forces allowing police to patrol without partners? Boycott sensationalism. I remember watching the move "Do The Right Thing" in college. Sadly in this country the relationships between minority communities and law enforcement only seems to have gotten worse over the last two decades since that movie came out. Ferguson and Zimmerman are symptoms of a much larger problem that has existed a long time in this country. The Ferguson and Zimmerman case both fit into a single narrative. If one has strong feelings about a single national case then I would posit that right place to put that national energy is the root cause that has existed for decades. These killings will continu

Clusters

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Hi! Happy Monday! Two posts in one day just because I got stuck for a week. Ummm. The point I'm making in this blog post is that the US Constitution was not written with scale of population in mind. Specifically there are no phrases that state systems change as population grows. Consequently, changes that have been made as the population has grown have been complete failures. For example, fixing the number of representatives is a perfect case in point. No single person can represent ten million people. Yet today that's what we ask our representatives in the House to do. If you can't represent ten million then what do you do? Oh yeah, corruption, represent yourself because with ten million people you will have constituents for or against any proposal you make. Here is a challenge for you to ponder in your own mind. What do you propose so as to scale out representation as the population grows? I believe the original constitution called for 1 representative for 10,000

Seven Billion Cell Phones

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Hi! Happy Monday! Did you know that there have been more cell phones manufactured than there a people alive on this planet? How many Earthlings have cell phones though?  Food? Water? Safety? We Earthlings have the technology to feed and provide shelter, housing, for everyone on this planet. Why don't we? I've been struggling with this blog entry for a week. Then I realized this entire blog is about scale and I was trying to fit an entire blog in one post. Ha! I just need to make a single point for a day. When the founders of the United States were writing about having a revolution it is important to understand that a.) the US did not exist yet, of course, and b.) who would've believed they could defeat the British Empire? They were, in a phrase, idealists. They did not believe that life, liberty and pursuit of happiness was just for America. They believed, as do I, that freedom is inherit in human nature, that tyranny is the enemy of us all and therefore i