Oliver

Much reconciliation, learning, forgiveness; no regret.

People who shield their ideas from criticism leave their civilization vulnerable, people who open their ideas to criticism protect their civilization.

Imagine if the “file recovery” dialogue were in real life; if your brain said “Unsaved anger and resentment found. Would you like to recover these feelings?” I hope to be able to click “NO.” But don’t forget that being angry for more than a moment is to continually click “YES.”

If you can only think about issues in one dimension, you’ll likely be wrong about most things, while having the feeling of logical consistency.

A new Weinstein hierarchy (in  which the naive interpretation reflects the nuanced one): 1. Naive (childish): the computer is the monitor/screen; 2. Learned: the computer is the grey box; 3. Nuanced: the computer’s virtual space manifests in the brain, via the screen.

We are building a CNAS (computer network of arbitrary scale) civilization and haven’t quite caught up to the fact; we need to understand the civics of CNAS in order to act and represent ourselves ethically.

Software should be written to deal with every conceivable error, no matter how unlikely; sooner or later a packet will come in with that particular combination of errors and attributes, and unless the software is prepared, chaos can ensue.— Jon Postel, RFC 1122