Friday’s Finds

On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds. Since 2009 many of these finds have come via Twitter. Given the current state of chaos on that platform — whither Twitter — more of my finds will be coming from Mastodon, as all are today. Tomorrow, 31 December, marks 15 years on Twitter for me, and it may be my last anniversary.

“One of my favorite Engelbart sayings might relate to the ‘Mastodon is too confusing to learn’ claim. Paraphrasing, he said that if ease of use was the ultimate aim for a tool, the bicycle would never have evolved beyond the tricycle.” —@HRheingold

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” —@DuneQuotes [a bot]

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Smart people don’t learn because they have too much invested in proving what they know and avoiding being seen as not knowing.” —Chris Argyris

Vox populi, vox Dei

An early reference to the expression is in a letter from Alcuin to Charlemagne in 798. The full quotation from Alcuin [of York] reads:

Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.

[Translation] And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“… complex systems don’t have to be organized top-down, either in the natural or social world. That we tend to assume otherwise probably tells us more about ourselves than the people or phenomena we’re studying.” —Graber & Wengrow (2021) The Dawn of Everything, p. 515

“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” —Thomas Paine

@ShaunCoffey — “Don’t use culture change initiatives. The only person you can change is yourself. Culture emerges from doing new and different things. Do new things … don’t try to impose a new culture.”

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

I don’t like Covid on a plane,
I do not want it in my brain,
I don’t like Covid, breathed in my face,
I wear a mask, from place to place,
I don’t like Covid numbers hid,
I do not want to infect kids,
I don’t like Covid, and I don’t care,
I do not like it anywhere #DrSeuss
—@keetmuise

Becoming a robot, by @VMaryAbraham

“Your employer has a secret fantasy: they wish you were a robot. Why? Because robots are reliable employees. They work without bio breaks and need virtually no downtime. Robots don’t seek opportunities to foster personal relationships with colleagues. Robots don’t call in sick unexpectedly. Robots don’t have childcare emergencies. Robots don’t create HR issues. Robots don’t have emotions or sensitivities or prior experiences or health conditions that need to be accommodated.

Robots are easy.”

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

Last night at the theater opening of ‘We Are As Gods’, I had occasion to declare:
“Science is the only news. The rest is gossip.”
Science is the only news. When you scan a news portal or magazine, all the human interest stuff is the same old he-said-she-said, the politics and economics the same cyclical dramas, the fashions a pathetic illusion of newness; even the technology is predictable if you know the science behind it. Human nature doesn’t change much; science does, and the change accrues, altering the world irreversibly. —@StewartBrand

“From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.” —Salman Rushdie (1988) The Satanic Verses

“People usually only figure out that things are turning bad when they turn bad for them, and by then it’s too late. The time to act is when you still have privilege and power, not when you’ve had it stripped from you.” —Attack Surface (2022)

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

@DRTomlinsonEP: “I know I go on about this AN AWFUL lot, but if you have no idea how a pathogen is transmitted, you have no idea how to PREVENT transmission.
[UK Chief Medical Officer, Professor] Chris Whitty knew SARS2 was airborne, 5 Mar 2020” —YouTube Video

@JimRosenthal4: “Boeing study shows that on an airplane with HEPA filtration, particles transferred between a cougher and breather are about the same as separation of 2 meters in a conference room. Wear a mask!” —Boeing Cabin Airflow Video

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Proposal to stop referring to the pandemic in the past tense and climate change in the future tense.” —@BethSawin

That you tried your damndest
only to fall ill now
is no reason to feel shame
after so many months
of masks and social distancing
of shots and canceled plans
it is not that you failed
but that your society failed you.

—@PlaguePoems

The shame should rest
Where the blame does rest
Yet those who should hang their heads,
abashed at the unexpected harvest their actions did sow
Do not see the ripples in the pond,

while, those who bobbling in the wake,
hear the peal of memory,
“I made a mistake.”

—@Bitsy15CS

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

B of E: The route back to 2% inflation − speech by Michael Saunders

“The share of the 16-64 population who are outside the workforce and do not want a job because of long-term sickness is a record high, with an especially sharp rise among women. I suspect much of this rise in inactivity due to long-term sickness reflects side effects of the pandemic, for example Long Covid and the rise in NHS waiting lists.”

“There’s a saying: ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’. There’s not one that says: ‘Adequate, properly scheduled time is the mother of invention’. I know. I looked.” —@SimonHeath1

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.” —The Origins of Totalitarianism

“Learned and leisurely hospitality is the only antidote to the stance of deadly cleverness that is acquired in the professional pursuit of objectively secured knowledge … I remain certain that the quest for truth cannot thrive outside the nourishment of mutual trust flowering into a commitment to friendship.” —Ivan Illich

Why do we call them [public health] “restrictions”, anyway? Do you look at a life-jacket and think “there’s my drowning restriction”? —@HalifaxEditor

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“A society which eulogizes the average citizen is one which breeds mediocrity. What the world should be seeking, and what in Canada we must continue to cherish, are not concepts of uniformity but human values: compassion, love, and understanding.” —Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1971)

“Peace is not the absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition of benevolence, confidence, justice.” —Baruch Spinoza

“I’ve met people who effortlessly said, ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ but were unwilling to learn to say people’s name right. Learning and / putting effort into saying someone’s name correctly is one of the most basic things and humane things we could do.” —@blessingmpofu

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