Kategori: Commentary
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A brief note today, about something to look into more. Could the energy consumption of a civilization be a measure of its complexity? If so, we could easily say that our civilization is becoming more and more complex – since we are consuming more energy all the time. There is something intriguing about this measure…
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I have heard it said, and have argued myself, that complexity is increasing in our societies, and that evolution leads to increasing complexity. I have also known that this is an imprecise statement that needs some examination – or a lot of examination – in order to understand exactly how it can be corroborated or…
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The idea of regulatory sandboxes is getting more traction as the legislator is trying to grapple with regulating new technology while still allowing it to develop in unexpected ways. These sandboxes present a number of problems (i.a. how do you graduate from them?), but are worth thinking about. This is a useful piece with criticism…
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Philosopher and writer Simone Weil laid out a few principles on automation in her fascinating and often difficult book Need for Roots. Her view as positive, and she noted that among workers in factories the happiest ones seemed to be the ones that worked with machines. She had strict views on the design of these…
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This February it is 10 years since I defended my doctoral thesis on what I then called the Noise Society. The main idea was that the idea of an orderly, domesticated and controllable information society – modeled on the post-industrial visions of Bell and others – probably was wrongheaded, and that we would see a…