Ed Dowding

Business & Childhood

LinkedIn won’t let me post a long comment in reply to a post from Jess Butcher, so posting it here instead. Good read. It’s inspiring to see more voices calling for companies to take a more responsible role in the world. It really got me thinking about what we could do if we were willing ...

Capitalism & musical chairs

Capitalism .. It’s like musical chairs. The trouble with that game is that most people spend their time not usefully participating* and the winners have to go faster and be more aggressive. * it’s up to you to choose if the no-longer-playing are sitting comfy on the chairs extracted from the game (unlikely because they ...

American exceptionalism, revisited

Pre GPT version: I think America has a fundamental need to Other. They’ve put such a strong emphasis on narrative when it comes to holding the diverse country together that they need both enemies without, and a degree of conformity within. I may be turning an apophany into an epiphany.. But: puritan founders, witch trials, ...

Rail strikes

Instead of public transport strikes, have “fun & free travel” days. Everyone turns up to work, but no one charges, all the gates are open, and musicians are invited to platforms. #railstrike #JustStopOil (Yes, it breaks ‘the law’, but laws are sometimes counterproductive.)

A “one-hit-wonder party” to solve First Past The Post

Create a new party.  It exists only to improve the rules of the game Draft laws in readiness, with public consultation Get elected Hold office for a maximum of 1 year to pass laws and over-seeing primary implementation.  Disband, existing dormant until required again. Or drop it entirely. To take care of day-to-day business, have ...

Where does the civic get its power from?

WHAT POWER FROM? ENFORCERS / HOW IT ORGANISES Monarchy (old) Brute force, or Divine Appointment Knights, barons etc Religion God Bishops, clergy Government Law Lords, Ministers, civil service Democracy Majority Judiciary Tyranny Force, money, fear Military / the corrupt Capitalism Markets / the blind hand Enterprise Communism Belief, fear Civil service, local officials Civic / ...

Everyone falls short.

Ever since eyes developed enough to see distance beyond the immediate we have had anticipatable time – and thus a future with more than one option – all animals have had a reason to be disappointed by themselves and reality.

Regulating free speech on Twitter

Inspired by a recent whatsapp group chat, a few idle thoughts on how I’d approach free speech on Twitter / what I would do if I were Musk. Very much a first draft with plenty of room for improvement and no doubt many instances of short-sighted idiocy. But a fun exercise for 20 minutes. We ...

Things I’ve been reading: 26th December 2021

Article 6 creates two kinds of carbon credits — what that means for business Using carbon credits toward corporate greenhouse gas emissions reductions has always been complex, and the passage of Article 6 during last month’s COP26 hasn’t made things any simpler.1401 wordshttps://www.greenbiz.com/article/article-6-creates-two-kinds-carbon-credits-what-means-business 24 Lessons From Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letters To Shareholders Each year, Jeff ...

Things I’ve been reading: 24th October 2021

Designing a Collaborative Computing System between Data Science and Engineering for Indigo Carbon IndigoAg has embarked on an ambitious project that seeks to quantify the amount of carbon stored in agricultural soils and then turn those credits into financial capital.2830 wordshttps://medium.com/indigoag-eng/designing-a-collaborative-computing-system-between-data-science-and-engineering-for-indigo-carbon-6a255ba1959b How to measure the climate performance potential of startups Suddenly, everyone in VC is ...

Things I’ve been reading: 19th September 2021

Why Civilizations Collapse Why do civilizations collapse? This question bears not only on safeguarding our society’s future but also makes sense of our present.4396 wordshttps://thesideview.co/journal/why-civilizations-collapse/ Concrete ways to decarbonize building materials As a Carbon180 intern and recent architecture graduate, I see a crucial window of opportunity for climate policy and the building materials industry.1222 wordshttps://carbon180.medium.com/concrete-ways-to-decarbonize-building-materials-b6cb5df0e7d5 ...

Things I’ve been reading: 4th August 2021

Silent Letters: S oh S an iSland hides a secret from us spellers;it surrounds itself with seathen parades a leafy paradise of lettersbut keeps one we cannot see in heaps of rubble and rubbish, odds and endsit is often hard to spotevery detail in the debriS, though your pen’ssure it got the lot and though ...

Things I’ve been reading: 1st August 2021

Juliane Koepcke Juliane Koepcke (born 10 October 1954), also known by her married name Juliane Diller, is a German Peruvian mammalogist. As a teenager in 1971, Koepcke was the sole survivor of the LANSA Flight 508 plane crash, then survived ten days alone in the Amazon rainforest.1297 wordshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliane_Koepcke A Hitman Came for Susan Kuhnhausen. He ...

Things I’ve been reading: 18th July 2021

How to Tell Whether You’ve Got Angst, Ennui, or Weltschmerz English has many words for the feelings that can arise when a good, hard look at the state of the world seems to reveal only negatives.716 wordshttps://www.mentalfloss.com/article/58230/how-tell-whether-youve-got-angst-ennui-or-weltschmerz Net zero emissions targets are everywhere – we need to sort the genuine from the greenwash The last ...

Things I’ve been reading: 4th July 2021

Study: A quarter of adults don’t want children — and they’re still happy Parenting is one of life’s greatest joys, right? Not for everyone. New research from Michigan State University psychologists examines characteristics and satisfaction of adults who don’t want children.508 wordshttps://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-06/msu-saq061521.php #162: Minimum Viable Self Two decades ago, before social media existed, Zygmunt Bauman ...

Things I’ve been reading: 30th May 2021

What if Britain had Lost the Battle Above its Skies in WWII? The most likely result of German victory and the success of Operation Sea Lion would have been a new government in the UK. During the Battle of Britain, the skies above the United Kingdom were the battlefield between the Royal Air Force (RAF) ...

Things I’ve been reading: 17th January 2021

Gulag The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union.16307 wordshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag How to Pick Your Life Partner – Part 1 Dissatisfied single people should actually consider themselves in a neutral, fairly hopeful position, compared to what their situation could be. A single person who would like to find a ...

Things I’ve been reading: 3rd January 2021

Gulag The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union.16307 wordshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag How to Pick Your Life Partner – Part 1 Dissatisfied single people should actually consider themselves in a neutral, fairly hopeful position, compared to what their situation could be. A single person who would like to find a ...

Things I’ve been reading: 30th December 2020

Gulag The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union.16248 wordshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag Tools of Titans I’ve followed Tim Ferriss’ musings on self-improvement, ‘lifestyle design’, and getting shit done for years.305 wordshttp://www.alastairhumphreys.com/tools-of-titans/ Kano model The Kano model is a theory for product development and customer satisfaction developed in the 1980s by Professor ...

Some of the books I’ve read in 2020

The most recommended are in bold, with some exposition on the most mentionable. Best book of the year: The Ministry for the Future History / now—ish The Pillars of the Earth The Forest Doomsday Book — I first read one of Connie Wills historical fictions which use time-travel as a device* to explore the past ...