Posts
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To the Aspiring Swindler
Strolling through first world cities, one wonders: what do all these people do? They are not producing goods. They are not building or maintaining infrastructure. Those who provide services have to push them so hard, that one wonders if everybody wouldn’t be happier without them. One would hope that the rest of us are busy developing innovative products to improve the human condition at some local and global levels.
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Eudaimonia
Following up on my half-assed theory of consciousness, I just realized that I had actually reinvented buddhism. You know the “life is suffering” thing.
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Theory: All Sensations are Pain and Pain is Consciousness
I’m quite fascinated by the hard problem of consciousness. Actually, I’m even more fascinated by the fact that a lot of scientifically-minded people seem to be unable to grasp it. It’s literally the first thing in front of your eyes! I see it as a very strong argument in favor of the existence of philosophical zombies. On the bright side, since some people do grasp it, it probably means I’m not the only conscious entity in the universe.
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Lessons From the Covit
It might be a little bit early to draw some lessons from the covit, but I’ll try anyways. This way I get a real chance to make a fool of myself when this gets read in the future.
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The Great Alliance of the Fools, the Cowards and the Incompetent
Big organizations are a microcosm of human society. I believe they last for the same reason: they are built on an alliance. I like to call it the great alliance the fools, the cowards and the incompetent.
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The Farthest Positive Future
Entropy is a bitch. If the second law of thermodynamics holds, one day or the other we, the human race, the planet, the galaxy… are screwed!
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Submission is Evil
I cant help but notice people complaining about:
- politicians;
- banks;
- environmental damage;
- corporate monopolies;
- media bias and censorship (from TV to social networks).
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Is Retirement a Trap?
The deal for the new working generation: work 50 years giving away 50-70% of your income in taxes and contributions, and get the right to retire at 70, earning a pension taken from the next generation.
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Why Can't Citizens Create Their Own Money?
When a bank gives you a loan, it isn’t fully backed by their deposits. Thanks to fractional-reserve banking most of the money is created when the loan is issued.
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Are You an Incompetent Client?
On one hand, you have companies complaining that they cannot hire a software developer at a reasonable price. One the other hand, you have a lot of developers complaining about their work conditions while rejecting job offers every day. What happened here?
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Sucker Economics
The ingredients of sucker economics are the following:
- insiders controlling some resources through an organization
- a reservoir of outsider suckers
- a meritocratic ideology
- the rule of law
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Eternal Life
A life is driven by hope and fear. Seeking pleasure, avoiding pain.
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Against Modern Environmentalism
My main criticism of modern environmentalism lays in the following points:
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Save the World, Lose Yourself
So you want to save the world?
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Fur Versus Technology
Why don’t humans have fur? We lost it so that we could adapt to any condition. Clothing technology has been there for a long time. We don’t even know when it started. It could be anything from 500,000 to 50,000 years ago. Whenever this happened, one thing is for sure: we wouldn’t have conquered the world without it.
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A Collective Startup Proposal
Following up on my non-bullshit job checklist, I came to the conclusion that one way to put it in practice would be to start an online software worker collective.
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How Sharp is the Edge of Chaos?
Too cold and you freeze.
Too hot and you disintegrate.
Between the two is the edge of chaos. Water, life. -
Awake
A child awakens in the dark,
Engulfed by dread as he realizes,
That the ones he thought close
Merely groan in rely to his cries. -
Empire Thinking
In its growth phase, it is easy for the empire to subjugate new territory. Resources extracted from conquered lands are used to fuel further expansion. The more resources the empire acquires, the easier it becomes to win battles against smaller adversaries. The army is the elite.
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Fun Facts in Recent Human History
- We hunted most big animals to extinction from 100 000 years ago to 1000 years ago, as we spread across the globe.
- France and England were united by land 10 000 years ago.
- Climate events might have both launched and crashed civilizations.
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Web of Hopes
Hope is a Christian virtue. The expectation of an everlasting life.
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Non-Bullshit Job Checklist
One of my first student jobs was on a construction site. The company that employed me was building apartment blocks and wanted to sell them as fast as possible, before they were fully built. A construction site is a messy affair (in French, construction site and mess are synonyms). My role consisted in swiping the floor to create a path for potential clients visiting the site. I removed from one to five millimeters of dust each day as it accumulated. The next day, I had to do it all again, and so on every day. My introduction to bullshit jobs was complete.
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Civilization: When Worse Becomes Better
Civilization can be viewed as linear progress. First we were apes that learnt to walk, use tools and ultimately conquered the world. We established rights and reduced violence. We advanced our understanding of the universe through science. We used technology to further improve our living condition. The best culture won: liberal democracy. The end of history.
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Solving the Problem-Solving Problem
Let’s see if my problem-solving methodology applies to itself. It consists in answering three questions:
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What is a Tree?
Ask a child to draw a tree. You will probably end up with a brown trunk and green leaves. Maybe some nascent roots. Children are so materialistic.
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Experimental Declaration of Independence of 2019
I have held a Google account since 2004 and a Facebook account since 2008. Both are now deleted.
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