New Orleans Mardi Gras is a massive IED, always a half-Kelvin away from detonation. The policemen know that everyone in the crowd is in constant danger from a potential riot, and strict control has to be maintained.
So will normal police procedures work in such a situation? And do we really want to find out?
The football mentality in the political arena is not win-win, win-lose, but lose-lose; and when that problem affects education, we all lose.
Design your criminal: should incarceration generate criminal rehabilitation, or dehabilitation? What does justice mean if it doesn’t make us safer?
Free speech does not permit us to yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre; but what if we are only yelling ‘Firetrap!’? Free Speech Limits I have noted before that anger sells. I have no data, but I would guess that anger also sells any merchandise which accompanies the anger; that, while the carny is pushing … [Read more…]
The battle over Obamacare is a nonsensical partisan fight about socialized medicine, and neither side is focused on providing healthcare that works well.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Progress is a new concept in human development. And that means we have to rethink our approaches to change, and the rate of change.
Hugh Thompson’s moral courage in protecting civilians from Task Force Barker in the My Lai Massacre changed the practice of warfare, and our view of war.
Yesterday I talked about risk prone and risk averse, and used car driving as an example. If we have enough time to drive to where we are going, we should be risk averse, conservative, and stick to the tried and true route. If, on the other hand, we are running late, we may decide to … [Read more…]
When things go well, stick to the traditional, don’t try new things. When you’re desperate, try new things. That’s the way biology and business look at it.
So what happens when you have enough, but your competitors are improving? It’s never happened before, and so we need a new way to look at it.
Where does the fault lie? Clearly, it’s the parents’ fault. But if that’s true, it’s really the grandparents’ fault. But that means it’s the great-grandparents fault…