Nailchipper: archive

Aaron Swartz recently wrote:
Utilitarians believe that people should work to maximize total happiness across the population. They believe that the only reason to do something or not to do something is because it will make people happier or unhappier respectively. Thus, whether something is good or bad depends to some extent on people’s preferences — [...]

In the latest issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Nicholas Carr wrote piece titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that raises interesting issues regarding the effects of Google on the way we read. Carr looks at history for significant technological shifts and its reception. One of the oldest - and I think most interesting - is [...]

One of the best experiences of my life was working with a puma in South America. It required me to run in the jungle for close to 8 hours a day through the most hazardous “trails” imaginable. The point was to try and give these - often injured - cats a healthy and active [...]

Nationalism appears to be on the rise again. But this time around, it looks to be a gentler breed: proud, pragmatic and less antagonistic.
The world feels like it’s slowly congealing, not into a sort of gray homogeneous mush, but into a diverse federation of cultures that identify strongly with their heritage and decidedly work together [...]

But Google depends crucially and directly on the content created by users and more generally on the goodwill of the Internet community.
Equally, so do the many products Google creates and gives away, with no obvious path to future profit.
So, more than in the past, it makes sense for corporations to cultivate diffuse goodwill, rather than [...]