Ed Dowding

Category: Systems thinking

I have nothing to fear from a DNA database

It’s tempting to think that DNA databases are OK, because it’s just a way of uniquely identifying someone, just like a long number which no one else has, which is intrinsically linked to you. If you believe that, I can see why you think you may have nothing to worry about. But the problem is ...

What are desirable net gains?

What are the things we want more of, net, on this planet? Happiness? Power? Wealth? Beauty? People? Suggestions have included Peace, Chocolate Hob Nobs, Technological Advances, Individual freedom (since from that all others follow). What would you have?

Housing on mars

Let’s say you’re in charge of designing the cities for the later colonies on Mars. Terraforming is all taken care of, and resources are, whilst limited, easily found and used, just.. you know.. it’s Mars.. we shouldn’t go squandering stuff. You have plenty of machines to do the work, but they do have a running ...

How to be Good

Almost 40% of young people today grow up without their biological father present in their home. For African-Americans in the US, two thirds grow up without their biological father. This often affects young people’s moral and emotional development very negatively. A 2005 study of 3,400 middle schoolers in the US, for exmple, indicated that not ...

Why are women injured in cycling accidents more than men?

Why are women injured in cycling accidents more than men? A suppressed TfL report gives us a clue: Women cyclists are far more likely to be killed by a lorry because, unlike men, they tend to obey red lights and wait at junctions in the driver’s blind spot, according to a study. via po-ru.com: Avoid ...

Investing In Lawsuits Beats the Street

There’s a company investing law suits and getting at 20% return. Whilst that’s quite a good idea in a way (it allows people to fight against those with bigger budgets) it’s also a sure sign that the system is broken. Here’s a proposed solution from a reader on Slashdot: Abolish legally binding precedent. The accepted ...

What now for Ed Dowding, not MEP?

Hello, Democracy Fans! Tomorrow (Thursday 4th) is voting day, so be sure to find your local polling station and get out there and vote! Because this year there are A LOT of muppets running. (If only.. that would actually quite fun…) UKIP and BNP are going to do very well in these elections as the ...

In Transition

Wind powered car

The founder of Ecotricity is building a wind powered (well, electricity powered) car. Read about it as his blog, Zerocarbonista.

GiveWell

This page logs mistakes we’ve made, strategies we should have planned and executed differently, and lessons we’ve learned. Because we are a startup organization working in areas we have little experience with, it is particularly important that we constantly recognize and learn from our shortcomings. We make this log public so as to be up ...

Spotify media pack / ad rates

Spotify Media Pack is quite interesting and gives some indication of where they’re going with it all.

Link roundup

Belgian city plans ‘veggie’ days Just Add Spice – Spice is a social enterprise that develops credit systems for engaging people in communities and public services. Spice’s community credit systems have been tried and tested and are uniquely successful in dramatically increasing participation of community members in public services and in achieving community transformation. Spice ...

Database of all children launched

I’m not against having a database of all children, but I am against databases of citizens, per se. It just doesn’t seem to be necessary, and is a can of worms waiting to be opened.

Link Round up

Rethinking the food system – aka Food Security, with Tim Lang About 95% of people do not want ID cards Bolivia’s Chacaltaya glacier is completely melted What can we learn from the 1918 flu pandemic? Prince Charles’ Rainforest Charity – RainforestSOS.org Delivering medicines and information via Coke crates in Africa

6 Reasons never to give up your biometric data or DNA

1. It permits lazy policing If you have someone’s record on file, you’re more likely to assume he’s a criminal. And if that DNA matches a sample which has been discovered during the investigation… well it’s jolly tempting to think that you might have your man. A connected spate of lazy policing happened recently. Having ...

DNA databases require so much regulation that abuse is inevitable.

Anyone who studied a little genetics in high school has heard of adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine – the A,T,G and C that make up the DNA code. But those are not the whole story. The rise of epigenetics in the past decade has drawn attention to a fifth nucleotide, […]. And now there’s a ...

At last, Europe has become interesting

We are at one of those moments in history when the challenges are international and the only means of dealing with them is at least on a regional level. […] [R]egions can and must supply the answers to all sorts of issues from the environment to the economy. If the world is to recover, then ...

Sacrifices on the alter of efficiency

“I discovered a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works. ” Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, 23 October 2008 I do love that quote. It’s to brilliantly demonstrative of the problem: “I thought the world worked like this. I was ...

Better models: cars

There are a lot of curious inefficiencies in modern life. We end up owning an awful lot of things which we don’t use very much, but we have them because when we want when we really want them. Lawnmowers, tools for small jobs around the house, washing machines, and cars are just a few things ...

How we measure progress and development

Economics has a great deal to answer for. A short while ago some people tried to work out what should be done with the economy. They wanted to formalise it and build in growth and progress as a goal. All very noble and worthwhile, and really very effective when you look at where we are ...