Society & Politics

A Chinese scientist recently announced that he had genetically modified two embryos, implanted them and gave birth to two healthy babies. The scientist has apparently used CRISPR to make them immune to HIV. Whether or not this is true someday it will be true.

This government is quite authoritative and imposes great control over its people. They have virtually no rights, no privacy and no ownership of property or land. But this article is not about that.

One line of thought: level headed, cool people make better decisions leading to long term success over those who don't.

Second line of thought: irrational hot headedness leads to bonking your enemies on the head leading to long term success over those who don't.

Interesting. If the latter were true then a humankind with high running emotions, naturally irrational, tribal and hot headed behavior would be a genetically, possibly sexually, selected adaptation.

In my previous writing, the focus was on experience and was more existential. Here I continue the work this time I am more inspired by two things. Once is epistemology and the other is Andy Warhol.

I was asked recently if something they did was cultural appropriation. And I instantly replied, "I don't believe in cultural appropriation. It's bullshit." Having had a moment to collect my thoughts here's why.

All the events in the news last year has revived thinking on punishment, justice and forgiveness. Especially those who have produced major works for humankind.

There are a lot of factors and there is a lot of injustice. It can be easy to say that there is so much injustice we should just punish all these abusers and criminals with no possibility of forgiveness or reentry into society.

But is that appropriate? Is every bad person a monster that should be locked away, deprived of a way to make a living and opportunity for social connection?

A lot of progress has been made in AI lately. Any application that could benefit from automation or benefits from increasing the amount of data you can process has had some kind of AI attached to it. Because automation requires intelligence to work discussion about robots involves AI as well. Automotive, finance, internet searches, music channels, advertising and product suggestions, news sites, lots of business apps that require decision making, etc.

Introduction
I have been learning how to use Google Sheets analytical tools (including the Statistics and Merge Sheets plugin) and while practicing I thought it would be the perfect time to answer a question I have been wanting to know: does population dictate GDP per capita?

The steps were as follows:

I remember growing up and in my home my family would frequently encounter the difficulties or annoyances of life and remark, "if only someone would invent a thing to". Sometimes we wished for straight up science fiction but most of the time we wished for things that, with some effort, could be made to happen.

Most people would say that the 80s and 90s were marked with the rapid introduction of computer technology. But I'd argue that it was also marked with total stagnation in just about every single already mature industry, particularly for end users.

I am almost all the way through Ken Burn's "Vietnam". I've watched every episode twice and I am blown away at how visceral, gritty and real it feels from my couch. And it has changed me.

The American 2 party system is long due for a replacement. Something that allows voice, change and something other than the words "Democrat" and "Republican" which essentially have become fairly vague and meaningless.

But I love enjoy the drama and the process of electing US Presidents. I don't consider it a handicap that we have a long time to get to know the candidates.

But I have thought of a system that would fix our election system while keeping the best parts. As it turns out it is almost exactly like the European systems I've seen: