There is no role for the USA in multi-lateral organizations - the USA has made this clear for decades now - it should withdraw from all of them and let the rest of the world get on with creating a world that is based on the dignity of all people.
Sub-Saharan Africa is deeply humanistic, in a way that is close to unfathomable to Westeners. Scaling or "going viral" requires painstaking building of human connection. Models that have worked elsewhere don't necessarily work. I believe that this has a lot to teach us about how to fight the dark scourge that inhabits Facebook and other social media, in which "scaling" is simple, cheap and so easily corrupted
The honesty and bravery of the speech is remarkable - that a leader can tell those he leads painful and difficult truths - rather than tell them merely what will appease them. Everyday we see evidence of how easy it is to appeal to base and superficial feelings, rather than what is noble and honest.
There is so much we can learn from both the causes of the tyranny and how the aftermath was handled, politically, personally and socially.
I don’t think that the “nerd porn” is as negative as the writer believes. If we compare FOSS to proprietary enterprise software we see how little regard proprietary vendors often pay to what engineers need at the expense of adding check-list features that attract “business” decision makers. The ability to enhance, operate, monitor, test are so much stronger in FOSS products because they are written for engineers by engineer. This can of course be taken too far, but it is, IMO, a reason why FOSS can succeed in displacing proprietary technology.
South Africa has a proportional representation system for similar reasons - to recognise plurality. It has some significant downsides. It weakens the ties between a representative and a specific district / constituency. In exchange it strengthens the hands of party decision makers who are the final brokers of how seats are apportioned.
Having grown up in South Africa and having spent a reasonable amount of time in the USA, I admire the local civic mindedness of American communities and the accountability of the political representatives. I am also appalled by the partisanship. I worry that proportional representation could make it worse.
Read (and converse) voraciously and follow the directions it may lead you... Into art, philosophy, psychology, business, politics, literature. This will help you to find things you love, it will also give you insight into adjacent topics that will allow you to shine in an area of CS that is right for you. You will never have such a perfect chance to do this as your university years.
It is staggering to hear arguments justifying occupied land that has absolutely no connection to the uk. It shows how poorly the west still understands the evil of colonialism.
Regardless of the ancestry of the people living in any territory, they deserve to have sovereignty over their lives.
What Africa needs are institutions and infrastructure that can buy and refine gold and thereby ensure that the benefits of our resources accrue to the countries (and their people) from where they originate. The pirate miners are not necessarily the source of the problem, neither are the traders in UAE and China. All are just filling a vacuum. Similarly the traditional institutions in Switzerland and other western countries that control precious metal markets are also somewhat part of the problem.
To the extent that political elites in Africa benefit from the exploitation of resources, establishing
local institutions and infrastructure is narrowly seen as not in their interests. African people and global institutions who truly care about a peaceful, prosperous and free world need to commit investment and political focus to see this happen.
Think about commercial goals, not just technical goals. What will make us successful as a business? What do our clients need?
Have answers rather than questions. Many posters pointed out that it is good to provide options as potential
solutions. But this may not be leadership. Engineers love options because we are creative and options are opportunities to experiment. The problem is that we need to be bold when a decision must be made. A decision is explicitly closing off our chance to explore all but one of the options. This is tough leadership.
(We need to know when it is time to make a decision and when it is a time to explore options)
Noble aspirations (including those of the founding fathers of the US) that rational dialogue is the answer and not censorship need to be reinterpreted in a Facebook-world where dialogue is largely impossible. It demands a new citizenship, which I believe requires us to eschew platforms like Facebook, not because we want to turn back the clock, but because by their nature they are incapable of supporting true social dialogue. It isn’t a question of censorship, it is a personal question of ethical standards.
Sustainability is questionable for these firms. Ride hailing and similar services are more likely to evolve into local offerings. It is not a difficult business to replicate, technically, while regulation, infrastructure, social concerns can all be better addressed by local networks. A backlash is growing against exploitation of drivers and privacy weaknesses, which are natural results of the current global aspirations of these networks. I will stay out of these IPOs
was not claiming China does not have faults. Imagine if China instigated a coup in a Middle Eastern country. The outrage would be massive. My real point is the hypocrisy of the west, that we cannot objectively see the problems with instigating coupe against governments that challenges our selfish economic interests.
I was not claiming China does not have faults. Imagine if China instigated a coup in a Middle Eastern country. The outrage would be massive. My real point is the hypocrisy of the west, that we cannot objectively see the problems with instigating coupe against governments that challenges our selfish economic interests.
Over the last 70 years, this has been the pattern of US foreign policy: Destabilising countries in Asia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America, for narrow economic or ideological benefits. It is all too easy to justify it as “our meddling” is for the greater good and “others meddling” is evil and undemocratic. There is no distinction. Eventually the US needs to come to terms with the massively destructive impact it has had on the world since WW2. China in many ways has exhibited a path to a more benign and progressive foreign policy (not without its own imperfections).
The article avoids mentioning the most important issue around central bank issued digital currencies:
Currently my electronic cash balance represents a deposit at a commercial bank. On the other hand, when I hold physical cash, it is a direct obligation between the central bank and I. As mentioned in the article, 90% of cash balances are electronic money held at Commercia banks.
With a central bank issued e-krona, there is no role for commercial bank deposits, the e-krona is a direct obligation between the central bank and individuals/companies. This means that commercial banks have very different balance sheets to use for lending. It fundamentally changes the financial system and creates very different payment and lending opportunities.
Initially the central bank may only issue <10% as e-krona to avoid this impact, but it makes little sense not to follow through to making e-krona the only form of cash.
In the history of Lisp, the paper by Richard Gabriel: https://www.dreamsongs.com/WIB.html, “Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big” is insightful and beautifully written.
I am surprised it is not mentioned in the article wrt the “winter period” in which Lisp popularity waned.
Heart breaking. Congratulations to the BBC for this amazing analysis. But real justice would require telling the story of how these women came to be murdered. This region in Cameroon is a flash point for a regional fight against a Muslim fundamentalist / warlord group called Boko Haram (translates as “western education is a sin”). How and why did these four civilians come to be murdered as a part of this tragic conflict in one of the poorest parts of the world?
The writer correctly identifies the issue as a failure of policy, not markets, so comments that markets are working seem to miss the point.
At a policy level, we are largely powerless to effect any change, simply because the numbers at stake are so huge ($8T US mortgage market, $40T global trade, $80T investment assets) and the control of these so concentrated.
But the flip side is that the Fintech opportunity is so huge, because it can exploit the same economics. Grab the opportunity to build services that offer simple value. Create transparency, empowerment, sharing... and you can do good.
Identity runs deep - this is an amazing story - and shows how much we still need to discover about identity. As a white person, born in Africa, issues of identity loom large, and (in a way) it is a privilege to be exposed to many identity struggles play out day-to-day. An example that I have experienced is how strongly people retain certain African cultural characteristics in other lands (America, Europe, Asia), even when they are from families that have been in those countries for hundreds of years, and even when they probably feel fully assimilated. I don't think we really fully understand how culture passes down through generations, whether this is through stories, language, biology. Whatever drives it, it is a beautiful feature of being human.
Isn’t the answer that we are moving towards decentralised / self sovereign platforms with more creative ways to transfer value that naturally evolve the right economics?
The irony is that bitcoin, the pioneer, confirms your hypothesis because it relies on a form of intentional waste (POW) to disincentivise bad behaviour. PoW is the new bureaucracy.
I do think we will find better ways, and decentralisation is the natural outcome.
The concept of powerful and simple code navigation can be mind blowing for productivity. While modern editors have become slicker, I think that many have lost the customisation from macros that made it so easy for emacs users to create their own productivity workflows. Never the less, I will try sourcegraph.
How sustainable is this before it starts to destroy trust and integrity in the friendships between these kids. As an adult, I would not like my friends to be promoting products to me rather than expressing their real preferences and insights. How much more toxic is this in teenage years when relationship skills are being formed?
In South Africa, the previous President, Jacob Zuma, famously used a label “clever blacks” for well educated black people who he felt didn’t support his populist / traditionalist policies. across cultures in SA, there is a definite “macho” bias and a bias towards “eloquence” (sometimes at the expense of thoughtfulness). I have spent substantial time in Asia and both of these differences are very obviously different. I would say that Europe is somewhere in between.
Is the ability to “forgive oneself” sustainable? Does the initial “help” from MDMA empower the person to learn to permanently see themselves and their experiences in a new way? As someone who believes that developing ourselves comes from the traditional hard work of life and spiritual development (or whatever you may call it) with no quick fixes, I find the prospect surprisingly compelling.
Ben’s book “Tge hard things about hard things” gives a more detailed account of this story through a series of lessons learnt. It is a phenomenal story and leadership guide.
The wisdom of it is so relevant. It is amazing that almost everything we believe that we need to live a good life has been so clearly articulated 2000 years ago (and earlier) consistently by people across a wide range of cultures. But we still struggle to do it :) and there are huge markets for people to package up the same ideas and sell them to us over and over again - or opportunities for lunatics to temporarily sell alternate ideas that lead us into tragic historical cul-de-sacs
This is a fantastic description. As smart, analytic thinkers it is so easy to generalise. My experience is that we should generalise when we are creating conceptual designs, but be very lean and specific in the implementation.
This article is many months old. More recent data is showing solid wage growth. Nevertheless, many of the comments on underlying economic challenges for workers are still valid.