Decentralization, like many other religions…
Substack
February 24, 2025
Decentralization, like many other religions, relies upon its followers’ faith in an entity whose existence cannot be proved. That entity is decentralization itself, or more particularly decentralization that truly walks among us in our world.
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
Defeated By A Garage Door Opener
Substack
February 17, 2025
In his analysis of aircraft disasters and near-disasters, a point Petter Hörnfeldt often makes is that the big problem is almost always the consequence of the convergence of multiple smaller problems: a defective instrument plus an inattentive pilot plus lack of good cockpit communications, etc.
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
Security Farce
Substack
February 15, 2025
In addition to his considerable fame for, among many other things, creating two finalist algorithms in the NSA symmetric cryptography competition, Bruce Schneier is also known as the coiner of “security theater,” an expression for security stuff that looks good until you, you know… stop to think.
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
What Happens After Democracy Collapses?
Substack
January 08, 2025
On May 22, 2008 I gave a presentation to the United Nations World Summit on Information Society about Osmio, which was (and is) the continuation of the International Telecommunication Union’s World e-Trust Initiative. World e-Trust was an ID-PKI certification authority positioned as source of governance for the online world. After years of development, the e-Trust Initiative was unceremoniously dumped by a 2004 vote of the ITU’s member state representatives.
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
The Unworthy Elite
Substack
November 08, 2024
“The masses” understand that an intelligent, mature, honest, visionary and worthy elite is needed for society’s leadership. The stewardship of Marcus Aurelius, FDR, JFK and plenty of other patricians throughout history have been well accepted – and appreciated – by ordinary citizens.
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
The Source Of Our Political Anger Is Not What You Think
Substack
October 01, 2024
What I’ve had to say about Anger is important – and I’m afraid I’ve not quite connected. I’ve been too pedantic.
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
How To Use The First Amendment To Destroy The First Amendment
Substack
September 23, 2024
Totalitarian regimes just hate the freedom of expression that’s enjoyed in free countries, and they especially hate America’s First Amendment to its Constitution. And so they set out to undermine both the culture of free expression wherever it’s found, and specifically the First Amendment in the USA.
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
Visit The New Kievan Rus’
Substack
August 21, 2024
Ever since Ilya Ponomarev led the replacement of the dissolved Commonwealth of Independent States, aka the Russian Empire, with the re-emergent Kievan Rus’, what used to be called “Russia” is now a free and thriving nation, resuming the ancient European country established
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
Anger Sells
Substack
July 19, 2024
Anyone who has ever succeeded in marketing knows that the surest way to get a reaction to a message is to touch an emotion in the audience member.
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
Sutton Smith Has Important Advice For you.
Substack
July 10, 2024
The actress Sutton Smith is today’s Hedy Lamarr.
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
Q: Why does Nurse Ratched use negative words like “Deficit” and “Disorder”? A: Jealousy.
Substack
July 04, 2024
OK, I’m being unfair to director Milos Forman and writers Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman and Ken Kesey. The term "ADHD," - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - was first used in the DSM-III diagnostic manual five years after their brilliant film One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest came out.
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
Marco Rubio, you are right. However...
Substack
June 20, 2024
Someday perhaps Marco Rubio will get a chance to meet David Spiegelhalter, as I did when he spoke at a salon hosted by my friends Manolis and Lucile Kellis in the latter’s home. His talk was a truly inspiring advocacy for a new academic discipline, which he calls “Problem Solving.”
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
Why are nonprofits so popular?
Substack
June 02, 2024
The money to pay those salaries and bills needs to come from somewhere, right? If the nonprofit is lucky, its benefactors are stable and as goodness-minded as the people who carry on its work.
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
Optimocracy Brings The Engineering Mindset To Governance
Substack
February 03, 2024
Every smart politician knows that there is a segment of the population whose members harbor a certain resentment that comes from their inability to understand the world’s complexities. Things are just a bit more complicated than they are equipped to handle. For good reason, they feel left out. In n my previous article, Thwarting The Power Addicts by Thwarting Goebbelsology we called them “the seventy-fives.”
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Tags: Metaverse, Privacy, Security
Watch Jordan Peterson and Niall Ferguson’s Insightful Conversation;
Escape Silibandia
December 24, 2023
In this insightful conversation , Jordan Peterson and Niall Ferguson address “The German Problem” – how did such an advanced society as Wiemar Germany give rise to its primitive and brutal opposite, Hitler’s Third Reich?
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Tags: Privacy, Security
What Has Religion Got To Do With God?
Escape Silibandia
December 22, 2023
Animism is the name commonly used for the unreligion of various indigenous tribes around the world. In animism the Creator of everything, including ourselves, is called by various names such as “The Great Spirit.” There’s no more complexity to it than that: somehow we got here, along with other animals and plants and stars, and all we know is that it’s all amazingly complex and intricate, and so we attribute all that to a Creator whom we will never begin to comprehend. There is profound respect for the Creator, the Great Spirit, or whatever name they give to that entity
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Tags: Privacy, Security
Most Venture Capitalists Are Not Capitalists
Escape Silibandia
October 23, 2023
If the word “capitalist” means “businessperson” then most of today’s venture capitalists are not capitalists. For that matter, many of the “businesses” funded by technology venture capitalists are not businesses.
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Tags: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital
Quiet Enjoyment, Second Edition
