This week, it is all about technology and culture. Culture, to me, is a catch-all term for how we think, feel, live, behave, interact and grow (or indeed retrograde). Technology is but science in action, and co-evolves with culture.
In which, Sebastian Normandin explores the allure of pseudoscience — man’s search, sometimes desperate, for meaning:
“Science, in short, is sobering and provides no succour. Pseudoscience, in contrast, is comforting in the extreme. It rashly speculates on connections and contexts that are poorly supported and largely impossible to prove but that suggest all sorts of possibilities which, while they may seem appealing, are simply not tenable. In their quest to create an easy or oversimplified meaning, pseudoscientists engage in all sorts of scientifically dubious practices — using vague or untested claims, focusing more on confirmation rather than refutation (in this respect the pseudoscientific forgets philosopher Karl Popper’s central notion of falsifiability — essentially that science advances through negation rather than confirmation), making their beliefs about a particular idea a point of personal pride, and, finally, a general lack of rigour in methods and means of expression (i.e. language).”
There is an important place for Luddism today, a long essay worth reading in full.
“Consequently, the Luddite impulse is to embrace a certain distinction between human and machine. Thomas Pynchon put his finger on it in 1984 when he wrote that the midcentury Luddite impulse, embodied particularly in science fiction, embraced “a definition of ‘human’ as particularly distinguished from ‘machine.’ ” “Humanity” was held up as an incommensurable yardstick: You either had it or you wanted it.”
We live in interesting times, which many of us may know is effectively a Chinese curse. But how much do we know about Chinese Philosophy? Does Chinese Philosophy not belong in the academe for its exploration of ways of thinking other than how dead Greek men did? That needs to change, argues this essay.
“Because the dominant academic culture in the U.S. traces back to Europe, the ancient Chinese philosophers were not taught to, and thus not read by, the succeeding generations. Ignorance thus apparently justifies ignorance: Because we don’t know their work, they have little impact on our philosophy. Because they have little impact on our philosophy, we believe we are justified in remaining ignorant about their work.
In our diverse, globally influenced country, such narrow-mindedness shouldn’t fly.”
Many in my generation — and definitely in my father’s generation — never heard the word “startup” till we were in our 20s. But now every little new business is a startup. With dreams of raising VC money, creating vast wealth through exits and then doing it all over again.. or becoming a VC. This week Peter Griffin provided humour, effective because it cuts close to the bone of the “startup culture”, in the form of nursery rhymes reinvented.
Twinkle, twinkle, start-up star,
O M G, you’ve come so far!
You got valuations sky-high,
But boss, where’s the R O I?