Specializing in tasks makes the members of the group more dependent on each other while being able to create better chances to survive and enhance living conditions as a group [...]
“Man can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their [...]
Darwinian Evolution is popularly seen as a relentless and continuous struggle between individuals and between species. Competing for scarce resources, at the expense of others, is regarded as the eternal [...]
Sexual reproduction creates new individuals that are all slightly different from each other allowing for the adaptation and resilience of the species to changing circumstances. Imperative to sexual reproduction is [...]
Via Flipboard I read an article “Why we speak” from Mark Pagel writing for the The Atlantic on the crucial role of language in our ability to trade. It offers [...]
A few years back I delivered a keynote speech "payments 3.0" at the largest annual event for payments in the Netherlands. My key message to the audience - dominated by [...]
I have been very quiet as of late on my pet subject “collaborability”, unfortunately. The subject asks for a serious amount of prolonged and heightened concentration to get back into [...]
Calendars are amongst mankind's most important standardizations. Taken totally for granted by most it allows us to place events on a commonly used and harmonized timeline. As a mechanism of collaboration [...]
Lately I have not been very productive at Red Planet Dust. Let’s say I was lacking direction. I have started a flotilla of posts over the last months often to [...]
Various themes are combined by Maciej Ceglowski into a thoughtful, though bleak, talk on the development of the commercial internet: "The Internet with a human face" delivered at the Beyond Tellerrand 2014 Conference
I have always wondered when the moment would come that I could pick up a phone and speak in my mother-tongue that would instantly translate into Mandarin Chinese while emulating my own voice and vice versa! Microsoft demoed a Skype call translating a conversation form German to English and back in real time.
I merely have been investigating the mechanisms at work that enable us to collaborate - and allowing us to cater for increased complexity and efficiency in our collaborations - and now suddenly I found myself taking a moral utilitarian position! What the hack!
Human nature and our abilities are intertwined with collaborability. My statements about them are scattered all over Red Planet Dust. I wondered if a consistent image would arise when I would collect my statements.
Very read worthy article by VOX's Ezra Klein about Yale Law professor Dan Kahan c.s. doing research to answer "Why isn’t good evidence more effective in resolving political debates?"
Search is basic to the Internet and to be considered a utility function. Without „search” no find. "Degraded links" are hurting society as a whole and should be banned.
„Is our political system capable of managing rapid technological change?” When pressed I would be tempted to answer the question with a resounding YES! for I see abundant evidence around me we have done so very successfully. Actually it is one of the core abilities we humans have to adapt to changing conditions.
The removal of the middle man function in an exchange based on the bitcoin protocol does not automatically lead to the disappearance of the companies (and their interests) performing these today. The middle man function will slowly but surely erode with the advent of the bitcoin protocol, the middle man of today (parties) will be the gate(way)keepers of tomorrow.
Wolfram language, as the engine/lanquage driving WolframAlpha, has become a very powerful coding environment indeed. It is not available yet but the introduction by Stephen Wolfram is mouth watering... I [...]
Many years ago in a contribution to a corporate strategy I postulated payments should be redefined to the “transfer of property rights”. At that time smart metering for utilities and [...]
Our societies and economies are impacted heavily by technological change, they always have been. While some technologies - like the bitcoin protocol - allow for smaller economic actors to be relatively more economically viable then before other developments go in different directions.
The acceptance of Bitcoin protocol currencies and Ripple like networks is dependent on trust even if trust is said not to be necessary for the value to be transferred between two actors. Neglecting this will hamper adoption of the Bitcoin protocol by the masses.
(1 minute reading time + 15+ minutes external article) As with Marc Andreessen's article "Why bitcoin matters" from three weeks ago I can recommend an other landmark article on crypto [...]
Often antitrust is connected to behaviour in the disadvantage of competitors – and hence the dis-economies this brings for consumers – we should have a wider perspective at the (potential) negative impact companies have on society. Slowly but surely we should start looking at the disadvantages to society’s ability to collaborate as well.
(5 minutes reading) In my previous RPD-posting I suggested my readers to read Evolution's Other Narrative by Bradford Harris published in the The American Scientist. While the article is aiming [...]
(2 min. read) With the start of the new year it is my intention, no my vow, to publish "Collaborability; a theory of human collaboration" as a free eBook this [...]
