Omicron reinfections

A thread that will make you deeply uncomfortable. And is therefore, required reading!

The Way It Is, by William Stafford

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Because everyone needs a little bit of magic

The best 5 mins you will spend today. Guaranteed!

Smart idiots

Smart people being stupid about things outside their area of competence is a cliche! But only because I’ve now come to expect it!

Merit & Meritocracy

This interview with Michael Sandel is illuminating, and just a little disturbing!

It’s important to distinguish between merit understood as competence (which is a good thing), from meritocracy, which is a system of rule, a way of allocating income and wealth and power and honor according to what people are said to deserve…

As meritocracy has tightened its hold on our public life, however, what began as a principle that seemed to offer an alternative to inequality has become instead a justification for inequality. What’s more, meritocracy has become a kind of hereditary system, much as aristocracy was…

Even if perfectly realized, meritocracy is corrosive of the common good and of solidarity. Indeed, the more perfect the meritocracy, the more the winners can say to themselves, “Everyone had a fair chance to succeed and I won. I therefore deserve all the benefits that the market bestows on me.” This way of thinking leads the successful to inhale too deeply of their own success, to forget the luck and good fortune that helped him on their way. It also leads them to lose sight of their indebtedness to the people and circumstances who made their achievements possible. In other words, even a fully realized meritocracy would reinforce meritocratic hubris — or rather, hubris among the winners and humiliation and resentment among those who struggle.”

The problem of trust: and how crypto doesn’t solve it

Required reading for all you NFT/Blockchain enthusiasts!

“Here are the two questions I asked this committed, sincere person about this blockchain application:

1. How do I know that the information in the blockchain is accurate? That is, how do I know that if the blockchain says a potato was grown without pesticide, that the person who inscribed that entry upon the ledger wasn’t lying?
2. How do I know that the produce I find in the grocery store is the produce that the blockchain entry refers to? Maybe someone, somewhere, grew an ethical potato, but how can I tell that this potato, which I am holding in my hand, is that ethical potato?

And here was the answer: “You just have to trust it.” I mean, the answer was dressed up some: “We’ll have auditors who’ll certify that the blockchain entries are truthful, and that produce isn’t falsely associated with certificates of ethical production.”

That is to say, we’ll have umpires. Trusted third parties.

But the problem this sets out to solve is that we can’t trust the umpires. There is (apparently) produce on the shelves whose growing conditions aren’t what they’re claimed to be. Blockchain merely records those umpires’ judgement in a permanent and public place — it doesn’t make that judgement trustworthy, nor does it provide a way to detect liars.

In other words:

if: problem + blockchain = problem – blockchain
then: blockchain = 0

The blockchain hasn’t added anything to the situation, except considerable cost (which could just as easily be spent on direct transfers to poor farmers, assuming you could find someone you trust to hand out the money) and complexity (which creates lots of opportunities for cheating).”