David Ing @daviding@qoto.org

I learned from a WP article (see alt text) that Norbert #Wiener was involved in the political discussion of mitigating the effects of the technological revolution which industrial and administrative #automation brought about.

The 2019 edition of #Cybernetics is freely available form MIT press (URL in alt text).

It's related to my work regarding the boundaries of a system A that objectivizes a system B that it intents to control, the problem of #grounding, #semantics and #classes. #ai is old.

#JosiahRoyce was one of #NorbertWiener's teachers. To me it appears plausible that the Roycean take on #sociology and the #individual had an impact on Wiener's #cybernetics

https://iep.utm.edu/roycejos/ #philosophy

Paris is saying ‘non’ to a US-style hellscape of supersized cars – and so should the rest of Europe | Alexander Hurst

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/16/paris-us-size-cars-europe-emissions-suvs-france?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

> From emissions to road deaths, the trend for ever-bigger SUVs is a disaster. We need regulation to turn the car industry back to smaller vehicles

I wonder how many eye doctors are getting an uptick in "night vision problems," a thing that is actually because some asshole engineer decided headlights should be blue now.

Lesson #3: Proportional representation weakens democracy by making it harder to middle common ground within parties and creating opportunities for niche parties to become extremist in a bid to earn profile. Thank God #Canada does not have proportional representation

Lesson #2: the lifestory of the leader does not guarantee commitment to democratic principles. Yes, the VVD leader is a former refugee with a Turkish name, but she shunned immigrants and turned her back on principles of inclusion and pluralism that define 21st century democracy https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/23/dilan-yesilgoz-zegerius-former-refugee-wants-cut-immigration-first-female-dutch-pm

Lesson #1 from the Dutch election: When a centre-right party signals openness to the far-right party, voters choose the far-right party instead. The ruling VVD lost power after signalling their openness to coalition with the notorious racist Geert Wilders. The Dutch have shown that racist voters want racist leaders, not big-tent centrists.

Heard just now on the BBC Newscast podcast:

“I'll challenge you at the BBC, why don't you guys make a news app like Twitter where all your reporters just post? I would sign up for that in a minute, and I would pay $5 a month for it.”

Yes BBC, why don't you get your reporters on your existing social.bbc domain? It's right there and more badly needed than ever. Be the leaders you know you can be.

https://pca.st/episode/98933ce6-07a4-4a98-b639-32631aae3e19?t=748

cc @BBC_News_Labs @BBCRD @BBCRadio4 @evan

*Mosquitoes are thousands of times more dangerous to human life than wolves or sharks

*Also, they really like climate change

https://www.politico.eu/article/who-chief-scientist-warns-of-endemic-dengue-in-europe-us/

Ads now in a Amazon Prime Video? is this #enshitification ?

Started watching Meercat Manor (narated soap opera with meercats), and a couple of times in 20 minutes up come ads you can not fast forward through.

:(. 💩