systems

Continuing the previous discussion of object bias and conceptions of time… As a very rough rule of thumb I like to apply a kind of generalized version of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: “the more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known, and conversely…” [via SEP] Applied to social and economic models, [...]

Selection is a natural; so is categorizing; so is ranking; so is list-making. We owe a lot of great things to the human tendency to rank & classify. We wouldn’t have science (and therefore we wouldn’t have a whole bunch of other things)… Think of biology and chemistry. Unfortunately, it also means discriminating. A list isn’t so much about [...]

Nurturing News Sources

by Brian on 06-20-2009

in civics,london,media

Contrary to what a lot of professional journalists seem to resent citizen journalism for aspiring to — essentially just cheap and undisciplined journalism — my vision of open and participatory journalism is that non-journalists will play complementary and contributing roles. More people will have some of the basic skills and reflexes needed to contribute whenever they [...]