Posted by: Dannie Jost on: February 3, 2009
Alternative link via the World Trade Institute: here
Disclaimer: I am involved with the WTI, and Philipp Aerni is a colleague.
Posted by: tensoriana on: January 18, 2009
Of antibiotics and globalisation | The Economist
Of antibiotics and globalisation
Physics – Shaking atoms to make them stop
Shaking atoms to make them stopPersonally, I am always for the Bose-Einstein statistics… consider this a political statement, if you may.
Posted by: tensoriana on: January 1, 2009
The Lift Conference this year is asking as to where the future has gone?
It is an interesting question to pose, and it is the most poetic of all questions to explore at society and technology conference. I have often been amazed as to how way off some experts can be on their predictions and how very on targets some other buffoons can be. Our inability as a species to make valid predictions is only surmounted by our inability to control, however we are often quite creative in coming up with alternative futures simply for one reason: we want to.
Posted by: tensoriana on: November 1, 2008
One billion dollars spent in political propaganda is one billion dollars spent. As an American living in Europe and with three nationalities to confuse the issue, I am stunned by the lack of substance in american political discourse. Ignorance is clearly in surplus among the voters and it is with that ignorance that many politicians play with. If they do not tackle ignorance, then they go for emotions. From Joe the Plumber to Palin, I would rather see him than her as McCain’s running mate. A few days ahead of the vote and while the polls clearly show Obama ahead, at this point I do not know what that might mean on the voting booths on “the day.”
The so-called plot to assassinate Obama may or may not have really happened, and America, south of the Canadian border and north of Mexico, may or may not be ready to accept a president of African ethnic origin. I am not in the heart of all Americans, I can not know that. I find it totally contemptuous that a character named Palin has been nominated as vice president candidate. It is tantamount to a slap in the face to any intellectual or hard working woman to have somebody so poorly educated and with such limited capabilities and no proven track record just a heart beat away from the presidency. You see, I am not so sure that Obama will either live to be sworn in, or that he will be elected in the first place. I do not know much about Obama, and if appearances and public words are of any advice, then he is clearly the holder of lot of hopes for America, if not the world. What kind of president would he be? That we do not know.
From an economic point of view I welcome the spending, but from an educational and democratic point of view, it is a catastrophe because not much of substance is being transmitted to the voters, just propaganda. From that point of view, a limitation on spending might be wise, but then, I am a liberal and limitations of spending do not fare well with us either. In this campaign the best thing that has happened to Obama is the financial crisis and Palin’s poor judgement on how to dress and who’s money to spend. By the way, I think she looks good in Manolo Blanik shoes, but so would Joe the Plumber’s wife.
Dannie Jost
Philosopher, Physicist and Swiss (at least today)
Posted by: tensoriana on: October 10, 2008
shift 08 is happening soon, very soon, that is next week in Lisbon. I registered, and I fully planned to go, and that went the way that plans sometimes go. I wish that I could spill the beans of some fantastic adventure taking me to the far east and some never heard of kingdom for some romantic or otherwise adventure. Alas! There are no beans to be spilled here, and it is perhaps just a matter of choice. But this time this year, no Lisbon for me. The bit about time is always a lame excuse in my book. What do I mean when I say that I have no time for this or that? It could be that I am just being the real egoist whom I happen to be, and rather do this now. Period. I rather be doing what I am doing now.
So, but what is happening with tensoriana?
Actually not much. The basic idea of its creation is very much alive, and perhaps if I was not so busy working on that very idea, then much more would be happening with the website and the blog. Perhaps then Wall Street would not be crashing, and perhaps then there wouldn’t be a pathetic woman running for VP in a country that by sheer size has more to to say on fundamental governance matters than either you or I care to think about or are comfortable with. Perhaps then… only if… but what do you expect from me?
Now, you know that I am not into gender issues. I know it is a man’s world. I do not argue about that one, however it does not prevent me from either thinking or writing. Is it a white man’s world? Good question! I am glad that you thought of it. But then I recently heard James Watson on the matter of genetic differences, and I could not agree with the man more. We are all created alike, and some of us are more alike than others. I know that some of his remarks have gotten some feathers ruffled, what in fact has happened is that a lot of good people do not understand much of what is the fundamental architecture of life, and this is sad, very sad. Our technological society can ill afford to have so much ignorance around. If society is failing somewhere, it is failing in its recognition that education is an imperative. Actually access to education is a basic human right as chartered in the Declaration of Human Rights. So where is the problem? Why do we get side tracked about a few milligrams of melanin one way or the other?
Why is it that we value some aspects of intelligence more than others? But what is intelligence? We all know that spies only exist in James Bond movies and that what really happens in real life is a tad more mundane than the fantastic fiction. Oh, really. There are real life events and narratives that make James Bond sound like a dull character. Reality has always been much more fantastic than fiction. Fiction is only plausible, while reality does not have to adhere to plausibility. Oh, there is another kind of intelligence? Individual intelligence? Oh!
Last month I attended a fantastic conference in Geneva with what to me is a rather misleading name: Access to Knowledge. The fundamental issue is actually access to information, or as one of the speakers pointed out, access to justice. Access to knowledge boils down to the fundamental right of access to education, and that is a rough one on a global scale. When the most powerful country in the world – of which I am a citizen – has some of its influential figures – note that I am not using the word leader – all confused about one very basic biological function that we call reproductive biology, then I in my not so modest opinion see that there is a problem in education. When that same big numbers country can not manage to educate its influential figures in what are the basics of reproductive biology, how is sub-Saharan Africa going to manage to curb AIDS? There is the consoling idea that perhaps the former is not a prerequisite for the latter, and let’s hope so.
But I am biased, very biased. I was educated within the tradition of the scientific method, and was born loving the arts.
Shift your thinking, go ahead, do it! Technology, like life, is transient.
Posted by: tensoriana on: July 27, 2008
From the website of the IHT: video
Posted by: tensoriana on: May 9, 2008
Posted by: tensoriana on: February 11, 2008
So what was LIFT08 like?
For me: fantastic!
The Creativity Utopia Workshop went beyond my expectations. Now the kind of third-loop-learning workshops that I do are usually a bit rough on the participants, you are asked to think, think critically, and to think from a place deep within yourself. I am however fair enough to also give the participants the chance to put me on the spot and make me think then and there. I was on the spot a few times. It is all about authenticity and self-expression, and that is exactly what the workshop was about. Remember that I never claimed to know what creativity is, and I still do not know. Shani Lee did take fantastic notes and I had very valuable feedback from Yann Mauchamp with whom I spent the wee hours after the closing party roaming the streets and clubs of Geneva. Rough is a bit of the nature of my being and there is a certain kindness to that roughness that Yann offered a term for: amour vache.
You see, it is rather simple really, but then that is how I preface anything that is far beyond being simple: lies, all lies. Lies, secrets and digital deception to put it into Genevieve Bell’s words. My own Utopia is one in which the world as is, is right. I am not out to correct the path of evolution on earth or on a mission to make it a better place, nor do I want to correct and make wrong the generations and great minds that got to roam and act on this earth before I lazily showed up last century: the Universe is the way it is, accept it, deal with it, love it. It occurs to me that there is another thought linked to that one, however that other thought is not just rough, it is rude and an assault on the sensitivity and perception of most. That contingent hidden thought is also the central theme of the novel – the fiction – that I am working on now.Shit happens, and god does not give a damn. It never did, it never will. I may or may not care, but this is my Universe, the one that I inherited from those that came here before me. So, tell me, from Big Bang to Big Bang where on earth is your reality? Who owns what, and what is it that you are responsible for?
Commodities of Interaction | LIFT conference
xposted
Tags: creativity, workshop, evolution, culture, digital, inquiry, human inquiry in action, lift08, liftconference, geneva, switzerland, dannie jost
Posted by: tensoriana on: January 6, 2008
What Happens when a Transhumanist meets Calvin?
January 6, 2008 – 00:11 — Dannie JostIt took a while, it did. I do not know much about Calvin – any of them, not even the Klein one – however given that what I have heard about Jean Cauvin is that he had a great commitment to the absolute sovereignty and holiness of God…
I propose the following discussion and have taken the liberty to invite the first three discussion starters to start the ball rolling. My idea is more that we all get involved, and I do hope that we have among the participants people who are knowledgeable in Calvin theology and Transhumanism.
For my part what I bring in is a burning passion for dialog and inquiry.In this discussion there is the possibility that we will learn something, and explore the confines of our understanding of technology.
What does Transhumanism and Calvinism have in common?
What is there to learn from looking at the evolution of human thought through technology?
What Happens when a Transhumanist meets Calvin? | LIFT conference
Blogged with Flock
Tags: lift08, liftconference, geneva, switzerland