All posts filed under “Notes

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Instinct

Instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtably, certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile.

– Nikola Tesla

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The Frenzy Phase

Frenzy is the later phase of the installation period. It is a time of new millionaires at one end and growing exclusion at the other. The paper economy decouples from the real economy… the regulatory framework [turns] impotent. It is also a time of speculation, corruption and unashamed love of wealth.

– Carlota Perez, Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital

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Friction

Friction makes everything harder, both the good we can do, but also the unimaginably terrible. In our zeal to reduce friction and our eagerness to celebrate the good, we ought not lose sight of the potential bad.

– Link

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The Pace Of Human Evolutionary Change

Evolutionary change to people is always taking place, but the pace of human evolutionary change is measured in thousands of years. Human cultures change somewhat more rapidly over periods measured in decades or centuries. Microcultures, such as the way by which teenagers differ from adults, can change in a generation. What this means is that although technology is continually introducing new means of doing things, people are resistant to changes in the way they do things.

– Don Norman

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Uncertainty As Raw Material

Time is volatility. Education, in the sense of the formation of character, personality, and acquisition of true knowledge, likes disorder; label-driven education and educators abhor disorder. Some things break because of error, others don’t. Some theories fall apart, not others. Innovation is precisely something that gains from uncertainty: and some people sit around waiting for uncertainty and using it as raw material, just like our ancestral hunters.

– Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile