Study Notes: June 26-July 9, 2016

What I've been watching and reading in this time: 

• Post, "Virtue Ethics for Consequentialists", by Will_Newsome
• Paper, "A Partial History of Afterlife Beliefs," by Daniel M. Ogilvie and Amojha Bajaj
• Newsgroup thread, [regarding techno-shamanism], hosted on alt.techno-shamanism
• Article, "11 things we learned from Benjamin Barber's talk on the future of the city," by John Elledge

Also check out: 

• DoubleBlinded, "a new service for self-discovery and crowdsourced clinical trials." 

Homework for the future:

• Read the posts linked to by "Responses to the Anti-Reactionary FAQ.". Eventually. 
• Still on the to-do list: studying the Austrian School of Economics.
• Also on the to-do list: All of those themes that I decide I want to play with, and cool bits that attract me, and things like that? Let's get systematic about that, put them into a single document (might be public, might not) and work with at least one of them every week. Systematic. Systematic. I do it best when I do it systematically. 
• Also, don't forget to flesh this section out a bit more with goals in general, and maybe include a section on which of those goals were accomplished since the last update.

Notes to: Tour of Our Terraformed Solar System

Material Covered: 

• Post, "Tour of Our Terraformed Solar System: Inner Planets", by Brandon Kier
• Post, "Tour of Our Terraformed Solar System: The Asteroids", by Brandon Kier
• Post, "Tour of Our Terraformed Solar System: Jupiter and Saturn", by Brandon Kier
• Post, "Tour of Our Terraformed Solar System: The Final Planets", by Brandon Kier

Notes to: The Technocracy Wiki

Material covered: The Technocracy Wiki

Technate

• "A region over which a technocratic society would operate using thermodynamic energy accounting instead of a price system (money) method. All resources and industry of this land region would be used to provide an abundance of goods and services, within a sustainable ecological context, to its citizens..."
• "A technate cannot simply be set up anywhere like a modern-day country; it has several requirements that must be met in order for it to operate: 
• "There must be sufficient natural resources.
• "There must be an existing industrial and scientific base from which to operate the Technate.
• "There must be a sufficient amount of trained personnel for its operation." 
• "According to Technocracy, Inc., present the North American continent is known to be able to fully meet the basic requirements needed to operate a Technate, although other land areas could attempt it, with varying results, depending on the required conditions of energy conversion." 
• "The plan includes using Canada's rich deposits of minerals and hydro-electric power as a compliment to the United States's industrial and agricultural capacity...The North American Technate would be composed of all of North America, Central America, the Caribbean, parts of South America, and Greenland, encompassing some 30 modern nations (as well as numerous Non-Self-Governing Territories). If the Technate were set up today, it would contain nearly 600 million citizens and its total land area would be over 26 million square km... Its territorial claims would stretch from the North Pole in the north, to the Equator in the south, and from the Caribbean in the east, to the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean to the west." 

Study Notes: Apr 12-18, 2015: "Hope for a Lumpy Filter" &c

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Post, "Economics of Star Trek" by Surplus Economics
• Article, "Technologies of Abundance and the Fairytale of Jobs" by Extropia DaSilva
• Post, "Hope for a Lumpy Filter" by Robin Hanson
• Article, "What Wide Origins You Have, Little Red Riding Hood!" by Rachel Hartigan Shea

Homework for the future:

• Go through at least five entries in in my "P Articles" bookmark folder. Let's go with: (1) "The Old Ones: The Time Before Sumeria"; (2) "Conceptions Of Soul In Old-Estonian Religion"; (3) "Runes"; (4) "Fenrir's Shrine"; (5) "Kitsune, Kumiho, Huli Jing, Fox"
• Read the posts linked to by "Responses to the Anti-Reactionary FAQ.". Eventually. 
• Still on the to-do list: studying the Austrian School of Economics.
• Also need to do some reading on polyamory. 
• Also on the to-do list: All of those themes that I decide I want to play with, and cool bits that attract me, and things like that? Let's get systematic about that, put them into a single document (might be public, might not) and work with at least one of them every week. Systematic. Systematic. I do it best when I do it systematically. 

Study Notes: Jan 4-10, 2015: "Janelle Monae: Contemporary Queen of Science Fiction," &c

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Article, "What the inside of a spaceship might really look like" by Richard Hollingham
• Essay, "On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts" by Thomas De Quincy
• Article, "10 Writing 'Rules' We Wish More Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Would Break" by Charlie Jane Anders
• Post, "Janelle Monae: Contemporary Queen of Science Fiction," by Sam Keeper
• Post, "Janelle Monae: Sci Fi Queen Yet Uncrowned," by Sam Keeper
• Speech, "The Ballot or the Bullet," by Malcolm X

Study Notes: December 21-27, 2014: "The Book No One Read"

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Article, "The Book No One Read: Why Stanislaw Lem's futurism deserves attention" by Lee Billings
• Essay, "Study of Leviticus 18-20 'Abomination'" by Dave Cornwell
• Post, "Surviving in an Alien Environment: Human + Christ as Medieval Natural-born Cyborg" by Ruth Evans
• Essay, "The Sword of Laban as a Symbol of Divine Authority and Kingship" by Brett L. Holbrook
• Article, "The Horizontal and Vertical Axes of Storytelling" by James George
• Article, "The Remarkable Queerness of Shinji Ikari" by Sam Keeper
• Article, "Tony Stark in the Integrated Circuit: The Iron Man films and Cyborg Feminism" by Sam Keeper
• Article, "Stark Modernism: Fine Art and Iron Man" by Sam Keeper
• Article, "The Thingiverse-- Model Reuse in the 3D Printing Community" by Jarkko Moilanen
• Article, "The Practical Guide to the Future of Medicine" by Dr. Bertalen Mesko
• Article, "Controlling Genes With Your Thoughts" by ETH Science Writer
• Article, "The Fermi Paradox, Self-Replicating Probes, and the Interstellar Transportation Bandwidth" by Keith B. Wiley
• Article, "The Stars Are Wrong: Why Cthulhu Needs To Go Away" by Sam Keeper
• Article, "AnimalTech-- Wearable Technology for Fido" by Clara Mancini

Study Notes: Dec 14-20, 2014: "The Evolution of Names and Personal Identifiers"

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Post, "The Evolution of Names and Personal Identifiers" by Eric Hellman
• Essay, "At One with Nature: An Ecocritical Study of the Nature Motif in Three Swedish Horror Writers" by Lars Martinsson
• Article, "Five Bold Predictions for the Future of Humanity" by Balam T. Salem
• Article, "Twenty Top Predictions for Life 100 Years From Now" by Ian Pearsson
• Article, "Is Vat-Grown Meat Kosher? We Asked a Rabbi" by Tim Barribeau
• Article, "The Next Big Disruption: Three Major Shifts That Will Influence the Future Global Economy" by Terry Young
• Article, "11 Predictions on the future of social media" by Mary Catherine Wellons
• Article, "The Transhumanist Bodhisattvas," by Butsugen Chigen
• Article, "Turn Your Inkjet Printer into a Chemistry Lab" by Mark Lorch
• Article, "PAN'S LABYRINTH-- Interview with Guillermo Del Toro," by Michael Guillen
• Post, "Will Rituals Return?" by Robin Hanson
• Article, "Today's Apps Are Turning Us Into Sociopaths" by Evan Selinger
• Article, "Anti-aging Oxymorons and Anti-oxy-morons" by Josh Mitteldorf
• Article, "Robotics Update" by Len Rosen
• Article, "Is It Better Never To Have Been Born? (anti-natalism)" by John G. Messerly
• Article, "Lithium for Life Extension?" by Josh Mitteldorf
• Article, "Designer Viruses Could be the New Antibiotics" by Luc Henry
• Article, "The Future of Lunar Archeology" [sic?] by Dr. Beth O'Leary
• Article, "Aging Brains Aren't Necessarily Declining Brains" by Angela Gutchess

LDS History in Context of the Strauss-Howe Generational Cycle

In 1991, William Strauss and Neil Howe proposed a system of generational cycles, each cycle having four distinct stages that lasted twenty years give-or-take. Each generational stage took its nature by reacting to the generations that preceded it, most especially by reacting to faults in the generation that directly raised it (these reactions, of course, produce other faults that cause a similar reaction in the generation to follow). All countries go through this cycle, but Strauss and Howe were specifically interested in America's.

Study notes: Nov 23-29, 2014: "Gene Study Finds Cannibal Pattern" and other things

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Article, "The Seven Types of Short Story Opening, and How to Decide Which is Right for Your Story," by Charlie Jane Anders
• Article, "Gene Study Finds Cannibal Pattern," by Nicholas Wade
• Paper, "Buddhist Hard Determinism: No Self, No Free Will, No Responsibility," by Riccardo Repetti
• Article, "Vladimir Putin is Right Out of a Russian Novel," by Linton Weeks
• Letter, "Letter of His Holiness John Paul II to Artists," by Who Do You Think?
• Article, "Neoreactionary Movement," on Rational Wiki
• Article, "Geeks for Monarchy: The Rise of the Neo-Reactionaries," by 
• Article, "Mormon Women, Traditionalists and Feminists: An Evolving Conversation," by Andrea Radke-Moss
• Article, "Mormon Studies in the Classroom: Mormon Women, Patriarchy and Equality," by Andrea Radke-Moss
• Article, "Pragmatism and Progress: An Overview of LDS Sister Missionary Service in the Twentieth Century," by Andrea Radke-Moss
• Article, "Ukraine, Not the Ukraine: The Significance of Three Little Letters," by Katy Steinmetz
• Article, "Ukraine or the Ukraine: Why do some country names have 'the'?," by Tom Geoghegan. 
• Article, "Life Tips You Need to Know," by Likes.com
• Article, "College Life: Tips for Survival," by Hassan Ishtiaq
• Article, "What's so bad about hating the Daleks, anyway?" by Charlie Jane Anders
• Article, "The Economics of Star Trek: The Proto-Post Scarcity Economy," by Rick Webb
• Article, "BYU prof fears Mormon scholars are giving in to secularism," by Peggy Fletcher Stack

Study notes: Nov 18-22, 2014: "Philosophy in Prison" and other things

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week:

TED Talk: "The leaders who ruined Africa and the generation who can fix it," by Fred Swaniker
TED Talk: "Is there a real you?" by Julian Baggini
TED Talk: "Philosophy in prison," by Damon Horowitz.
TED Talk: "All it takes is 10 mindful minutes," by Andy Puddicombe
TED Talk: "We can be Buddhas," by Robert Thurman
Blog post: "Contemplating the Red Pill," by Free Northerner
Article: "Fifty Ways to Leave Leviathan," by Max Borders & Jeffrey A. Tucker
Article: "How Long Ago Was Adam Created!?" by Maan Khalife
Blog post: "The Most Useful Mnemonic Technique," by Brienne
Article: "How Climate Change Will End Wine As We Know It," by Sandra Allen
Article: "Latter-day Saint, Latter-day Lovecraft: an interview with W.H. Pugmire," by Theric Jepsen

I have also written notes on David Pulsipher's talk, "Renouncing War: How Mormon Theology & History Lead Us to Nonviolence," and compiled some knowledge from Wikipedia and elsewhere.