Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Let’s Think This Through: Do we really want to destress teenagers?
The Ontario government may be open for business but it’s not helping prepare Ontario youth for the working world. One example is the move to eliminate final exams as a requirement to pass any courses. Apparently final exams take too much of a toll on the teenage psyche. The mothers at the table next to…
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Transparency demands are transparently opaque
What good is transparency if what it reveals is at best meaningless and at worst combustible?
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Fusing together the greener future
So apparently scientists at Lawrence Livermore Lab, in California, managed a fusion reaction that generated net energy–that is, more energy than went into generating the reaction. There was 3.15 megajoules energy output from the 2.05 megajoules that were input by the laser to fuse the atoms. Of course, the laser drew 300 megajoules to initiate…
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Red pills and blue pills
Something prompted me yesterday to dig into the “red pill” phenomenon that is at the root of just about all social upheaval in (at least) North America. In my imagination, I was going to deconstruct the ridiculousness and inconsistency of those who use this shorthand to justify their antisocial positions. I was going to spend…
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Contributing to the cyber security conversation
My firm, Institute X, responded and provided a paper to the Canadian Government’s Consultation on Cyber Security. It’s a considered white paper that assumes government should do what it’s supposed to do (public safety and security; and support Canadian industry). We suggest that an “unreasonably” high standard for cyber security and directed support toward the…
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Friends, colleagues, countrymen… do you suppose you could call back?
Somebody should do a PhD thesis on the (negative) impact, let alone debasement of friendship wrought by social media. It’s impossible not to be right, though it would be restricted to academic circles because everyone who is “social” on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc., would not merely deny it but viciously counter-attack. Still… Maybe I’m off-put by…
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Capitalism as religion: a thesis
Those who know me are aware of a hobby horse I’ve ridden for at least the past decade. My contention is that someplace along the way between Adam Smith and now, Capitalism evolved from an explanation and theory to a cult and a broader philosophy to a full blown religion with its own dogmas, catechisms, and…
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Intrapreneurshit
Like long forgotten songs on a K-Tel compilation, Intrapreneurship, the notion that employees of large organizations can hustle and scramble like entrepreneurs to create innovation and radical growth, is back! Of course, its day in the 1980s sun was a failure. But today’s promise is the success of Silicon Valley’s disrupting wunderkind. Should intrapreneurship actually…
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Innovation Nation? More like Pontificate State
Innovation will not get better in Canada. Sorry Minister Bains, we will not become “Innovation Nation” because we are not a start-up nation. Not that being a start-up nation is necessary. But without start-ups, innovation has to come from the enterprise level. In Canada, it will not, except from a few egoless businesses still run…
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Innovation advice… really?
It’s incomprehensible why a serious broadsheet exposes a 1000-word space to the maundering of a senior bank executive except to recall that the business broadsheet is a forum for recitations of faith. When a high priest needs a pulpit, a serious broadsheet provides one. How else to understand Victor Dodig’s contribution to the “innovation” echo-chamber…
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That grinding noise at Westminster Abbey? Charles Darwin rolling in his grave
A PowerPoint slide being “shared” and “liked” within LinkedIn says: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” This is a corrupted Darwinian notion I first saw first in a Globe and Mail op-ed piece entitled, Why leaders must take a different tack when managing change, contributed by Symantec Canadian General Manager,…
Got any book recommendations?