Viewing profile — mikegagnon

The problem with the world isn't too many physical credit cards. It's too many lines of credit.

Perhaps http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians-...

I find the scheme abominable because corporations are attempting to mold the unconscious minds of elementary school students to morally support specific political policies (viz. co…

Yes, that lesson plan is outrageous. But no, it's not outrageous that lessons plans exist and are shared in general.

"Brainwashing" isn't a precisely defined word. I believe the word is often used to describe persuasion via psychological vulnerabilities. In this sense, the article is correct in c…

Corollary: sales techniques are often a form of brainwashing. I mean this seriously.

> It seems like you're implying that these non-profit founders put a lot of weight in salary as a consideration to whether or not they pursue their vision. I was implicitly assumin…

You are right; I should have said "there is less __financial__ incentive"

I think you misunderstood my point. I agree with you that a "non-profit does not have to be equated with near-zero-salary for employees." My only point is that while there is a __f…

thanks

I agree it could add a lot of value. I am skeptical that the financial contribution will be significant.

I am very excited for this initiative. However, I think there is a mismatch between venture-funding models and non-profit funding models. Venture capital economics is premised on f…

Yes. According to Reuters: "The New York Times and ProPublica said they were asked not to publish their findings by intelligence officials who argued that their foreign targets mig…

Just because a theory is unfalsifiable does not mean that it's not true. It just means that science and logic are insufficient to refute or confirm the theory. Where science and lo…

> "Although we can think of reality as objective, there are some special cases that prove it's nothing of the kind." This paradox does not say anything about the objectiveness of r…

> I love this blog's UI. Did you make it yourself? Thank you! Yes, I made the UI. It's open source: sidenote.io > I like the idea of the doorman but what if you could somehow pass …

That post is a great, poetic allegory. But ultimately, I think the analogy presents a bad idea. The allegory makes the point that we could entirely avoid OOM errors by engineering …

I find it beautiful that people could come together --- even for a pointless cause. And I find it tragic that their overzealous response led to the failure of their objective. Even…

"Instead of paying taxes in money, every Incan was required to provide labor to the state. In exchange for this labor, they were given the necessities of life. Of course, not every…

> Are people honestly still proud to be American when things like this come to light? Humans have an amazing capacity to hold contradictory views. > Why would you want to continue …

I don't know for a fact that Alexander is a good person. I just assume he is because I assume people are good in general, and, pragmatically, that assumption leads to more fruitful…

Exactly. I believe Gen. Keith Alexander (and the others who espouse that idea) have been seduced into believing in benevolent dictatorship. That's not how democracy works though. F…

I just read a review for "The Free Press." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/18/opinion/18tue4.html To me it seems like they share some commonalities, but also have significant differ…

I think the author's most important point is that she sees the NSA Director as a "good man," even though she considers his activities to be criminal and a threat to democracy. I ag…