“I participate in this system, so I’m complicit in it.” All the cruelty, the racism, the poverty, the abuse of power in US capitalist patriarchy–this is my fault too? The guilt can crush us. TL;DR: no, it isn’t our fault. It is ours to do something about, while participating. Participate in the system to fill … Read moreParticipation without complicity
sometimes when i wake up, there’s a dark tightness in my chest, like the right side of my ribcage is twisted. Everything is terrible: the world is full of wrong. Our society is in decay, and actively destroying the environment we depend on. My state government is ignoring these problems and persecuting trans people instead. … Read morewhen the world feels wrong
Keynote at YOW! December 2021: Software design: Beyond Boxes and Lines – Jessica Kerr – YouTube Slides Latest: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l6zV8Lg=/ References Domain Driven Design, by Eric Evans (book) Learn Wardley Mapping, by Simon Wardley; documented by Ben Mosier (site) Team Topologies, by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais (book) Grokking Simplicity, by Eric Normand (book) Functional Programming … Read moreSoftware Design: Beyond Boxes and Lines
(this is my TL;DR from Karl Popper’s Three Worlds model) World 1: the physical world. This includes all material objects, light, magnetic fields, the universe. We all share one physical world, although each of us sees a tiny slice of it. World 2: human experience. Feelings, emotions, the way it is to be in your … Read morePopper’s Three Worlds
Useful terminology: my tools are either ready-to-hand, unready-to-hand, or present-at-hand. I can notice the switch and deal with it consciously.
In a single-player video game, I’m a kid again, because the story is all about me. I am the main character, and every other character exists for me. They’re all standing around waiting for me to react to them. Everything they do, they do it to make me feel something. The decisions I make change the world, … Read moreNot about me
Karl Popper defines rationality as: basing beliefs on logical arguments and evidence. Irrationality is everything else. He also defines comprehensive rationality as: only logical arguments and evidence are valid basis for belief. But this belief itself can only be accepted by choice or faith, so comprehensive rationality is self-contradictory. It also excludes a lot of … Read moreIn defense of rationality and dynamic programming
You can want something, or you can just be interested in things. On a dating site, you can decide what you want in a partner and filter people for that and message them. Or, you can find many things about people interesting, and look for any of these traits or hobbies, and ask about them. … Read moredirect aims, broad interests
In most (modern) board games, there’s a phase where you build an engine, and a phase where you use that engine to achieve victory. This is not explicit, it’s just that in the first part of the game you choose things that give you more power, while in the last few rounds you maximize victory … Read moreVictory at life
What makes one system more organized than another? More developed, more … civilized? How can we measure advancement? In Ecology, the Ascendent Perspective, Robert Ulanowicz has an answer. Along the way, he answers even bigger questions, like: how do we reconcile the inexorable increase in entropy with the constant growth, learning, and making going on around … Read moreAscendency