Jef's web files - Community

Community

Mon, 22 Dec 2003 21:32:37 -0500

Community allows us to be more than we could be on our own. Community is a non-zero sum game, and in a very real sense a step above individualism on the evolutionary ladder.

Users Tinker With Google Maps to Provide Other Useful Data

Thu, 09 Jun 2005 10:22:56 -0400

Although not approved by the search company, information on crime, sexual predators and cheap gas prices is graphically displayed.

Tracking sexual predators in Florida. Guiding travelers to the cheapest gas. Pinpointing $ 1,500 studio apartments for rent in Manhattan.

Geeks, tinkerers and innovators are crashing the Google party, having discovered how to tinker with the search engine’s mapping service to graphically illustrate vital information that might otherwise be ignored, overlooked or not perceived as clearly.

Yahoo and other sites also offer maps, but Google Inc.’ s 4-month-old mapping service is more easily accessible and manipulated by outsiders, the tinkerers say.

All For One? Why Humans Cooperate

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 13:31:34 -0500

Cooperation Makes Humans Unique, But Study Finds Most Are Reluctant Cooperators

Despite the fact that humans sometimes fight fiercely among themselves, one of our most distinctive human traits is our willingness to cooperate with others. Why we are like that is one of the really big questions confronting evolutionary psychologists.

"The fact that people cooperate is quite mysterious," says Robert Kurzban, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. "People are constantly talking about how organisms are competing, but one thing that humans do that's distinctive is they cooperate in groups."

Other animals, from ants to wolves, also cooperate to a degree, but not as extensively as humans. As evolutionary psychologists, Kurzban and Daniel Houser of George Mason University are trying to figure out why.

The Frivolity of Evil

Sat, 05 Feb 2005 09:12:19 -0500

When prisoners are released from prison, they often say that they have paid their debt to society. This is absurd, of course: crime is not a matter of double-entry bookkeeping. You cannot pay a debt by having caused even greater expense, nor can you pay in advance for a bank robbery by offering to serve a prison sentence before you commit it. Perhaps, metaphorically speaking, the slate is wiped clean once a prisoner is released from prison, but the debt is not paid off.

It would be just as absurd for me to say, on my imminent retirement after 14 years of my hospital and prison work, that I have paid my debt to society. I had the choice to do something more pleasing if I had wished, and I was paid, if not munificently, at least adequately. I chose the disagreeable neighborhood in which I practiced because, medically speaking, the poor are more interesting, at least to me, than the rich: their pathology is more florid, their need for attention greater. Their dilemmas, if cruder, seem to me more compelling, nearer to the fundamentals of human existence. No doubt I also felt my services would be more valuable there: in other words, that I had some kind of duty to perform. Perhaps for that reason, like the prisoner on his release, I feel I have paid my debt to society. Certainly, the work has taken a toll on me, and it is time to do something else. Someone else can do battle with the metastasizing social pathology of Great Britain, while I lead a life aesthetically more pleasing to me.

My work has caused me to become perhaps unhealthily preoccupied with the problem of evil. Why do people commit evil? What conditions allow it to flourish? How is it best prevented and, when necessary, suppressed? Each time I listen to a patient recounting the cruelty to which he or she has been subjected, or has committed (and I have listened to several such patients every day for 14 years), these questions revolve endlessly in my mind.

Broadband-deprived Cerritos turns to WiFi

Sun, 21 Dec 2003 11:49:02 -0500

Scores of wireless networking transmitters are popping up atop public buildings, traffic lights and other structures in a bid to bring high-speed Internet access to virtually every corner of this Southern California city.

Humanity will survive information deluge – Sir Arthur C Clarke

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 07:07:28 -0500

Sir Arthur C Clarke is acknowledged as the greatest living science fiction writer and an outstanding visionary of our times. His writing over the past six decades – more than 100 books, 1,000 articles and short stories – have not only helped humanity find its way in times of rapid change, but also discussed the social and cultural implications of key technologies.

"No one can be perfectly happy till all are happy."

Sun, 23 Nov 2003 09:39:56 -0500

"No one can be perfectly happy till all are happy."
—Herbert Spencer

Environmentally Challenged

Fri, 28 Nov 2003 12:50:42 -0500

Bill Gates believes that one of the problems with America's high schools is that they are too big to allow for meaningful connections.

Putting his Microsoft-generated money where his mouth is, he announced last week a $51.2 million effort to create 67 small high schools in New York City. These smaller schools, he said on National Public Radio, will improve both learning and graduation rates, because they will be more focused, more responsive and will provide more personal and emotional connections between students and faculty.

Charity Must Be in the Water

Fri, 12 Sep 2003 17:06:16 -0400

In Santa Barbara, giving is a way of life for both the moneyed and volunteers -- often one and the same. They hope to rope in Oprah too.

Two Years Later, a Thousand Years Ago

Mon, 03 May 2004 09:57:50 -0400

Among the ideas that seemed to collapse along with the twin towers two years ago was a view of globalization as a kind of manifest destiny. Unlike the 19th-century version of manifest destiny, this vision didn't involve expanding America's borders. Rather, America's values — notably economic and political liberty — would spread beyond those borders, covering the planet. And this time around America's mission didn't have the widely assumed blessing of God. But it had the next best thing: the force of history. Globalization was seen by some as a nearly inevitable climax of the human story — destiny of a secular sort.

Foundation for Global Community

Fri, 28 Nov 2003 13:22:10 -0500

"The Foundation for Global Community is a nonprofit educational organization, dedicated to reconnecting people, the planet, and prosperity. Recognizing that natural, social, and economic systems are all parts of a single interconnected whole, the Foundation has been promoting cultural change, facilitating personal development, and strengthening community connections for over 50 years."

The Bright Stuff

Fri, 26 Nov 2004 13:56:01 -0500

The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet. What is a bright? A bright is a person with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view. We brights don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny -- or God. We disagree about many things, and hold a variety of views about morality, politics and the meaning of life, but we share a disbelief in black magic -- and life after death.

Soka Gakkai International

Fri, 28 Nov 2003 13:51:02 -0500

No man is an island

Sat, 18 Jan 2003 14:32:00 -0500

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
- John Donne

Guardian Angels

Sat, 18 Jan 2003 23:14:48 -0500