laodan's favorite ideas pages, page 1

Last login: 10 hours agoLaodan: laodan is a guy from Milford, Pennsylvania, USA.; Likes 1,599 pages, 24 videos, 8 photos • 228 fans • Received 65 reviews; Member since Aug 08, 2005

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Singularity Summit 2007 | The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence: Sep 21, 2007 6:48am 5 reviews ai, ideas, reality, archive, consciousness, change
http://www.singinst.org/media/singularitysummit2007; Singularity Summit 2007 audio via KurzweilAi.net, in The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
Audio for all talks and panel discussions at the recent Singularity Summit 2007 is now available free online and via iTunes podcast. Singularity Summit 2007 audio What they say about what's coming along our way... a great archive.

How to Save the World: May 30, 2006 6:48pm 1 review ideas, worldviews
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2006/05/30.html; The Challenge of Building a Community What was in the past belongs to the past. There is just no point of going back. When societies change it is the result of the interaction between all the factors at work within those changing societies. It is never the will of man that brings fundamental societal change. That does not mean that individuals and groups can do nothing. They can indeed have a dream and surf it on the waves of the complexities of reality... in How to save the world by Dave Pollaerd """ We're starting to discover that the only effective way to make the world better is from the bottom up -- by creating or evolving self-sufficient communities. As we saw in New Orleans, and as we see with failed states and failed cities everywhere, top-down political and economic solutions don't work; when they change anything at all, they seem to make matters worse. But creating community is not easy. In Creating a Life Together Diana Leafe Christian describes some of the challenges of intentional communities -- finding members, creating honest consensus, resolving disputes, finding the right place to live, keeping it sustainable. This is tough work, and most intentional communities that do work are, well, rather pathetically small. It almost seems as if, as soon as you put more than a certain number of people into one interdependent group, you need hierarchy to keep things in order. Why might this be? ... In gatherer-hunter communities, there was lots of space for community members to get away from each other temporarily, and lots of space between communities. Evidence suggests that such communities or clans consisted of about 150 individuals (depending on the ecosystem) which operated via a 'fission/fusion' social system, where the group continually split up into smaller, constantly changing (likely to vary and optimize individual learning) 'foraging parties' or bands of 30-50, and then re-formed as a cohesive group. The theory is that 150 is the maximum number of individuals you can get to know well enough for meaningful social interaction, and beyond that the group starts to splinter into a more self-manageable size. ... Today we find ourselves born into societies that have no band, clan, or tribal cohesion. Instead, at the micro-level, we have substituted the nuclear family, much smaller than a band and too small to comprise a self-sufficient functional unit. And at the macro-level, we have substituted the state and corporation, hierarchical and multi-tiered constructs much larger than a tribe, and too large to function as an integral unit.""" URL: The Challenge of Building a Community

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs: May 3, 2006 8:42am 1 review philosophy, politics, ideas
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HE04Ak01.html; A new weapon in the "war of ideas". in AsiaTimes by Ehsan Ahrari """ A global war of ideas is set to begin and Anglo-American dominance of international TV news about to end. With Al-Jazeera about to launch English international news coverage, and a global Islamic channel likely to follow, the US and Britain will have to compete hard to promote their version of reality and truth. """" URL: A new weapon in the "war of ideas".

"The Great Conservative Crackup" by Jacob Heilbrunn: May 3, 2006 8:02am 1 review philosophy, politics, ideas
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0605.heilbrunn.html; The great conservative crackup Extremes are followed by their demise. This is one of the general principles of the working of reality. The "crackup" of the neo-cons' ideology should thus not come as a surprise. But what is really intriguing is the absence of ideas and ideals on the other side... There is a Chinese proverb that says something like: "an extreme is always defeated by the rising of its opposite, that's how harmony is re-emerging as the middle-ground". Where is the opposite of the neo-cons? Absent it seems! Could it be that the neo-cons are not by any means the extreme of the right and that, as such, it still has to emerge? I hope I'm wrong on this one.... via arts&letters, in The Washington MOnthly by Jacob Heilbrunn """ This is all the more ironic since liberals have for several years been bemoaning their own lack of ideas and looking to the conservative movement's rise for inspiration. Who would have thought that, at the peak of the conservative movement's political success, its founding fathers would recoil from the Frankenstein's monster they created and end up as troubled heretics? """ URL: The great conservative crackup

It Doesnt Stay in Vegas - - The American Interest Magazine: Mar 15, 2006 7:05pm 1 review philosophy, ideas
http://www.the-american-interest.com/cms/bhl.cfm; Levy / Fukuyama on Vegas
Take some time for this good discussion you'll not regret it.
via Urban Hermit in Metafilter in THe American Interest :
""" Bernard-Henri Levy dukes it out with Francis Fukuyama over American virtues and vices, neoconservatives, religion, the future of American muscular internationalism, and the role of intellectuals in a free society. """

URL: near the end of history on the edge of the desert?

The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World: Jan 20, 2006 5:31pm 4 reviews politics, postmodern, ideas, worldviews
http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/havelspeech.html; In this postmodern world, cultural conflicts are becoming more dangerous than any time in history. A new model of coexistence is needed, based on man's transcending himself. By Vaclav Havel

Philosophy Collection: Nov 8, 2005 8:21pm 10 reviews philosophy, ideas
http://philosophy.eserver.org/; Collection of canonical philosophic texts and links to scholarly philosophic organizations.

Alchemical and hermetic emblems 1-20: Nov 8, 2005 8:11pm 9 reviews fine-arts, images, ideas
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/amclglr1.html; Over 100 megabytes online of information on alchemy in all its facets. Divided into over 1300 sections and providing tens of thousands of pages of text, over 2000 images, over 200 complete alchemical texts, extensive bibliographical material on the pri

Harry Frankfurts "On Bullshit": Nov 5, 2005 10:09pm 104 reviews philosophy, ideas
http://web.archive.org/web/20040212054855/http://www.jelks.nu/misc/articles/b...; One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.