Society

Dunbar’s number →

Published April 27, 2015  ·  All posts on Apr 27  ·  

Dunbar’s Number is a favorite blunt diagnosis for the pains that affect rapidly growing teams. The number, which is somewhere between 100 and 250 describes a point at which a group of people can no longer effectively maintain social connections in their respective heads. What was simple from a communication perspective becomes costly. What was a familiar family that you saw wandering the hallway becomes Stranger Town.

~ Rands from, The Old Guard

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Also, Dunbar’s Number on Wikipedia.

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Why is it so hard to be nice, polite even? →

Published April 14, 2015  ·  All posts on Apr 14  ·  

The bulk of the advice can be summed up with “don’t be a dick.” Don’t be late, don’t be rude, don’t place your immediate convenience over the feelings and efforts of the person you’re interacting with.

~ Peter Welch from, Etiquette Lost

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Why peak oil predictions haven’t come true →

Published April 13, 2015  ·  All posts on Apr 13  ·  

It seems to me, though, that a third outcome is not only possible, but is what is actually happening.

3. Diminishing returns from oil limits are already beginning to hit, but the impacts and the expected shape of the down slope are quite different from those forecast by most Peak Oilers.

~ Gail Tverberg from, WSJ Gets it Wrong on “Why Peak Oil Predictions Haven’t Come True”

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The forsaken art of pedagogy →

Published April 8, 2015  ·  All posts on Apr 8  ·  

In other words, you actually belong to a wider group: you are one of the increasingly commonplace factions of society that takes pride in not bothering to make yourself understood. You feel entitled to let others worry about what you really mean, and even revel in the tribalism of `being in the know’ rather than letting others into your secret world, as if playing the role of an ignorant tourist in a foreign country.

~ Mark Burgess from, The Forsaken Art of Pedagogy

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Acceptable losses →

Published March 22, 2015  ·  All posts on Mar 22  ·  

In a pathological act of self-destruction, I bought Skyrim the same week that several hard deadlines were set on the sooner portion of my otherwise sparse schedule. Maybe life didn’t seem hard enough. Or I just have no ability to fight impulse buying. Or impulses in general.

~ Peter Welch from, Acceptable Losses

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Measuring our successes →

Published March 15, 2015  ·  All posts on Mar 15  ·  

It happens in homes, in our relationships and our jobs, in learning, and even in innovation (as ‘technical debt’): the sense of being trapped by circumstances.

Many have felt themselves in a situation of hopelessness, of not having time to claw their way out of survival mode, and get their head above water. Often conflicting interests stack up to trap you in indecision, and it’s when you are at your most vulnerable that others tend to attack rather than help.

~ Mark Burgess from, Poverty Traps

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Communities versus networks →

Published March 8, 2015  ·  All posts on Mar 8  ·  ,

Unfortunately, true community in our modern world is hard to find for soldiers and civilians alike. Instead, we increasingly live out our lives as members of networks. This transition from community to network life is truly at the heart of the increasing feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and anomie that many people experience in the modern age. We’ve never been so “connected” — and yet so isolated at the same time.

~ Brett McKay from, Communities Vs. Networks

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Remembering the fallen →

Published February 12, 2015  ·  All posts on Feb 12  ·  

Yes, let’s honor those who died in the nation’s many wars.

But if we do not want to keep adding to the soldiers’ graves, let’s also ask why they died.

~ Howard Zinn from, On Memorial Day, Words from the Late Howard Zinn

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Fish don’t know they are in water →

Published February 7, 2015  ·  All posts on Feb 7  ·  

If you know a little history, you might see some of this, and think that today’s culture battles are part of a tradition that goes back to FDR …

If you know a bit more history, you might see that this culture war stems from North Eastern progressive tradition dating back to the US Civil War.

The truth is that our culture war does date to the Civil War. Just not the US Civil War in 1861. It’s the English Civil War in 1640s I’m talking about.

~ Clark from, «http://www.popehat.com/2014/10/10/strange-seeds-on-distant-shores/»

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Religious freedom turning into passive-aggression →

Published February 6, 2015  ·  All posts on Feb 6  ·  

To make this work, conservative Christians need to divert attention from the people they are mistreating by portraying themselves as the victims. And that requires cultivating a hyper-sensitivity to any form of involvement in activities they disapprove of. So rather than sympathize with the lesbian couple who gets the bakery door slammed in their faces, the public should instead sympathize with the poor wedding-cake baker whose moral purity is besmirched when the labor of his hands is used in a celebration of immorality and perversion.

~ Doug Muder from, “Religious Freedom” means Christian Passive-Aggressive Domination

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