Ed Dowding

Forging a sense of collective identity and finding common values is vital.

“Mass social movements based on coalitions of a broad range of groups will be needed to drive political support as individual issue groups are not strong enough on their own. Forging a sense of collective identity and finding common values is vital.” — Zero Carbon Britain

A Tragedy of the Commons

“The fears of embracing digital democracy and how to overcome them” — or  — “How I learned to stop worrying and love democracy” “There is a mass of sense lying in a dormant state which good government should quietly harness” — Thomas Paine, 1791 What would you do if you could redesign Government for a ...

Anybody can become angry – that is easy

To recall before updating your status, whether IRL or in conversation: Anybody can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy. ...

Authoritarians tell the truth about the future. Authoritarians lie about the past.

Authoritarians tell the truth about the future. They speak openly about what they are going to do. When they say things that seem absurd — we’ll build walls, ban those people, and so on — believe them. Authoritarians lie about the past. They lie about the consequences of what they have done. They lie about the magnitude and scale ...

Exponential organisations

Here are my notes from Exponential Organisations, a book recommended to me this weekend by a VC in Paris. Have a “massively transformative purpose (MTP)”  (ie a worthwhile mission) Don’t plan more than 1 year ahead. Measure your metrics. Acronym alert: the first letters of the next 5 characteristics make up the word SCALE. Staff on ...

This town ain’t big enough for the both of us – or .. oh. wait yes it is!

In my silver-lining head, this is how it goes: 1. Israel and Palestine fight for decades. Nothing seems to change. 2. Trump makes a bold and antagonising move. 3. Other side realises this is the end game. 4. Some negotiations about logistics. 5. Everyone who wants Jerusalem as a capital decides to share it. 6. ...

Dowding’s law of services

Dowding’s law of services: the value of advice is inversely proportional to its cost. The quality of execution of that advice is directly proportional to its cost. ie professionals will tell you the right answer for (almost) free because doing it well is the hard part.

Procedural language: The importance of going through the motions.

In the film Arrival, the aliens basically see time as another dimension – there are no surprises for them since they see it all laid out in front of them. (Kurt Vonnegut does the same thing with the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse Five.) This is why they can write semasiographically because the whole idea is fully formed ...

Capitalism analogy.

Capitalism, like nuclear power, has been one of our most successful ideas for creating order from chaos, but left unchecked it will swiftly create chaos from order. It demands our constant vigilance in order not to fail catastrophically. It can go wrong very quickly – and costs for a fortune to clean up when it does ...

That’ll do.

At action, humans are satisficers.At profit, humans are optimisers.

Man’s search for meaning

After some light experiences with coaching and therapy style conversations, I have 2.5 conclusions: 1. It doesn’t matter much if you’re happy or sad, the key thing is to be doing something worthwhile. If you prioritise happiness, you’re selfish. If you prioritise money, you’re a fool. If you prioritise beneficial impact for others*, you’ll at ...

Is the UK the best country in the world?

15th in maths and science 33rd in life expectancy, 20th for public debt 36th for education expenditure 34th in infant mortality, 27th for renewables 2nd biggest arms exporter, including to 22 of the 30 countries on the UK Government’s human rights watch list 146th in savings 10th in press freedom 10th in purchasing power 22nd ...

Migration policy suggestions from “The Strange Death of Europe”

Summary of the suggestions outlined by Douglas Murray in his book “The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam“: Actually try to make it nicer where they are Admit there’s nothing wrong with being proud of being European Offer temporary asylum only, where appropriate Pay for refugees to do work in Middle Eastern countries Decide ...

SpaceTech

SpaceTech – what humans get up to when they aren’t worrying about with which country they belong to, who technically gets to make the laws they’ll have no control over anyway, which non-existent god to bother, which bathroom to use, or what height to be at whilst a bit of music is playing. Mind you, ...

Use primary sources

It turns out there is little more likely to galvanise me to action than a bunch of people doing the intellectual equivalent of moaning about the long toilet queues without actually checking the cubicles. Life timestamp reminder: you’d just listened to Dangerous by Milo Y. 

What rules should govern AI?

Many people know Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics (basically humans come before robots), but as they develop more and more capabilities it’s time to look deeper at the guidance and governance which should apply to artificial intelligence (AI) to keep us safe and maximise benefits. The UN has already discussed (but not yet concluded) international ...

The narcissism of difference

The human condition: in which we are all dismayed by the same things at the same time, but because we’re dismayed for entirely different reasons we focus on that rather than actually addressing the problem.

Please stop misusing the word ‘survivor’

If we could please limit the use of the word ‘survivor’ to circumstances in which there was a reasonably high and realistic chance of your death, that would be great. Kthxbye.

71 words for love

There are apparently over 71 different types of gender. Yet we still have just one word for love. I suspect we’d be considerably less confused if there were 71 words for different types of love, and we remembered there’s just one species of human.

The unbearable lightness of politics

Politics feels like EastEnders:  hyperbolic soap-opera melodrama in which seems to be the entire world, but it just a small square in London. Football tribalism for broadsheet readers. Until you remember it’s real and creating increasingly existential threats to humanity via its actions and inactions. Arse.