From Thomas Sowell

It may be expecting too much to expect most intellectuals to have common sense, when their whole life is based on their being uncommon — that is, saying things that are different from what everyone else is saying. There is only so much genuine originality in anyone. After that, being uncommon means indulging in pointless eccentricities or clever attempts to mock or shock.

From Garrett Hardin

Extremism appears to lead to clear-cut decisions, whereas moderation embarrasses us by emphasizing problems that are yet to be solved.

From Slate Star Codex

Traditional Borderer prayer: “Lord, grant that I may always be right, for thou knowest I am hard to turn.”

Machines taking jobs has been an interest of mine, since I read Tyler Cowen’s Average Is Over – and all the blog posts and what not since then.

Seemingly the best rule of thumb is that if you can do your job while a little drunk, then the machines are already on the way!  The judgement of algorithms is good enough at this point to make up for what machines cannot determine.

From Dot Net Rocks

Genius is an event, not an attribute

From somewhere on Pandora

Sick of being the Powerless Elite

A handy pejorative for your political opponents!

It occurred to me while listening to a podcast that my primary frustration with agnostics and atheists is the conflation of either a lack of thinking or a lack of imagination with “Reason”.  I am an adherent to the Hoffer/Haidt notion that religion is (in part) a sense, that people have to varying degrees.  I lack a sense for sushi, as well as jazz – such spectrum quirks should not be equated with logic, reason and thought.

From a podcast, something like

“Our modern age is defined by being asynchronous”

From a Lorne Green song on Pandora

Gold makes a fine servant but a cruel master