Business

&diams 1 &diams

Happiness with work, for most people, has more to do with respect, latitude, control, and clarity than what the actual work is.

&diams 2 &diams

Nothing is better from what anyone is capable of doing. Better to be poorly done than expertly never done! (A quick glance at most of the world reflects the effects of this limitation.)

&diams 3 &diams

The prolific creative or compulsive worker generally does so because the mental anguish of not working exceeds the fatigue of still working.

&diams 4 &diams

How long you're on the field or on the stage matters a lot less than what you do while you're there.

&diams 5 &diams

A team of individualists will make a product designed by community. A team of the community-minded will produce their leader's individualistic vision.

&diams 6 &diams

The greatest power that a person can have is to put a plan on paper then act on it. First a small plan, then a bigger plan, then any plan.

&diams 7 &diams

All the resources and information in the world are useless without self-discipline and sense of urgency to do something with them.

&diams 8 &diams

The squeaky wheel gets the oil, sure. But if the same wheel is the next to squeak again, it just gets replaced.

&diams 9 &diams

Identifying tasks not worth doing and cutting them from the todo list is even better than doing them. Pruning is the ultimate prioritizing.

&diams 10 &diams

"I'm not good enough for that" is just as much an excuse as "I'm too good for that".

&diams 11 &diams

A modern citizen without work may face, in addition to a financial crisis, an identity crisis. "What are you?" "I am... not sure right now."

&diams 12 &diams

A successful person sees rampant incompetence as an opportunity to contribute significant value. (Maybe you do know better.)

&diams 13 &diams

A smart farmer doesn't let one year's bad harvest get in the way of planting the next year's crop.

&diams 14 &diams

We empower users, automate physical/phone/data labor, multiply efficiency of workers - then wonder why there are fewer jobs? (We should not object to decreasing the total work needed for survival. Though we should object to a structure that punishes innovation with poverty.)

&diams 15 &diams

No matter what the resource - money, time, fuel, etc - without a plan for managing it wisely, no quantity is ever enough.

&diams 16 &diams

It is easier to carry more weight properly than less weight improperly. This is also true about workload.

&diams 17 &diams

Every deadline is an artificial deadline.

&diams 18 &diams

Screwing people over, in many cases, makes more money than helping people. But no amount of money can buy a new conscience.

Civilization

&diams 19 &diams

Children are the least discerning audience, the least able to make buying decisions, the most impressionable, the most important.

&diams 20 &diams

Ownership is only an idea. It spread quickly because anyone that did not accept it was disadvantaged, with conviction, by those that did.

&diams 21 &diams

Virtually all progress throughout history had more to do with momentary practicality than any solid foundation in reason or planning.

&diams 22 &diams

The advantage of Homo sapiens: we can domesticate animals. In no case is this more important than with little Homo sapiens.

&diams 23 &diams

Candles live long, helping others see. Dynamite acts dramatically to its own end, transforming where candles light. Civilization needs both.

&diams 24 &diams

Strength in groups isn't numbers, but in enabling members to love, defend, and advocate the self, appearing to do it unselfishly for others.

&diams 25 &diams

Sometimes I think that Adam Smith's invisible hand doesn't know what the other invisible hand is doing.

&diams 26 &diams

Tea: It's so good, people once built giant ships to go looking for it, setting sail on uncharted waters risking death.

&diams 27 &diams

The lifestyle of the wealthy would not be possible without the jobs of the poor.

&diams 28 &diams

The jobs of the poor would not be possible without the lifestyle of the wealthy.

&diams 29 &diams

Civilization was built from the wild, for the wild, by the wild. Thankfully, the less wild interfere from time to time.

&diams 30 &diams

Anyone with a head start or lucky advantage using it to go easier, instead of using it to go further, is cheating everyone.

&diams 31 &diams

"You're not like me," says the hammer to the screwdriver. "Good," replies the screwdriver, "you'd be as bad at my job as I'd be at yours."

&diams 32 &diams

A tumbling boulder need not be planned, directed, or wise for its momentum to be dangerous. The same is true for cultures.

Communication

&diams 33 &diams

Being indirect increases the other side's likelihood of amplifying and over analyzing views you don't have. We turn up quiet music to hear it.

&diams 34 &diams

The most severe censorship comes from self-censorship by padded estimates of what censors might censor, or what might offend an audience.

&diams 35 &diams

Editing is hard because it's like deciding which fingers to keep. It is important because without it, people get grossed out by 26 fingers.

&diams 36 &diams

Packaging in grocery stores and flowers in the wild are colorful for the same reason: hues lead animals to sugar, multiplying the eaten kinds.

&diams 37 &diams

Editing - the difference between speaking to speak and speaking to be understood.

&diams 38 &diams

If no one ever disagrees with anything that you say, you're probably not saying anything.

&diams 39 &diams

I know why the singing bird gets caged.

&diams 40 &diams

Until we have a method to explain a given problem, it cannot be solved if the solution requires more than one person.

&diams 41 &diams

Significant misunderstanding often leads to greater clarity and communication than the comfort of nearly understanding.

&diams 42 &diams

Haiku in English? / Iambic pentameter / sucks in Japanese.

&diams 43 &diams

Listening well involves speaking, seeing well involves drawing, reading well involves writing.

&diams 44 &diams

Packaging is wasteful, misleading, and essential for any product, advice, or idea to be accepted by anyone.

&diams 45 &diams

Virtually all news is either trivia or marketing.

&diams 46 &diams

Birds like songs... of mates. Fish like lines... of mates. The attraction of art seems to be based in the art of attraction.

&diams 47 &diams

Every information source has two price tags: one visible one about money, and one invisible one about time.

&diams 48 &diams

More text, written well, can be read much faster than less text, written poorly.

&diams 49 &diams

The right idea said in the right way to the right person at the wrong time is none of the above.

&diams 50 &diams

A strong communicator spends as much time erasing and rearraging as is spent writing.

&diams 51 &diams

There are more people than ever to convince, but the means of convincing have never been more widely available, far reaching, and effective.

Community

&diams 52 &diams

Graveyards house bodies that started the thoughts you're finishing. You are the ghost of many people, and you'll be a ghost in many others.

&diams 53 &diams

I think of myself as every living thing but the one I see and speak from; this one body's experience and means are a tool to help myselves.

&diams 54 &diams

Everyone that has ever read or listened to me is a little bit of everyone that I have ever read or listened to.

&diams 55 &diams

If not careful, whether we get along with someone may be a question of whether our parents and childhood friends are compatible with theirs.

&diams 56 &diams

Speaking effectively is speaking to others listeners will speak to. Listening is listening to others speakers have listened to effectively.

&diams 57 &diams

Anyone's problems are everyone's problems. What the poor, desperate, unprepared, and ignored must do to survive poses dangers to everyone.

&diams 58 &diams

The worse spot someone is in, the less well positioned they are to do anything to improve it.

&diams 59 &diams

The more people need help, the harder it is to help them, but the harder still it is for them to help themselves.

&diams 60 &diams

Anyone's talents are everyone's talents. The one in a million cannot very well exist without the other million.

&diams 61 &diams

You can live without arms or legs, with parts of your brain or heart missing. You cannot, however, live without environment and other organisms. These are your most vital organs.

&diams 62 &diams

No matter what the organization, it will be led by the type of people that lead, and joined by the type of people that join.

&diams 63 &diams

The people that depend on us depend on the people that we depend on.

Decisions

&diams 64 &diams

Moderation in life is good, but in speech it's usually a disguise for uncertainty, or in vague efforts to not offend.

&diams 65 &diams

People will give up a lot in exchange for clarity of purpose. Whether or not they realize they're doing it.

&diams 66 &diams

Don't be critical of things in action unless you are going to do something about it. Then don't be critical, instead, do something about it.

&diams 67 &diams

Change favors those that cause it. The word for unintentional change is "decay"; waiting for change is waiting for decay.

&diams 68 &diams

We say things we don't mean for the same reason we try on shoes that don't fit. We may have changed, and test it by taking a few steps in it.

&diams 69 &diams

An argument is not won based on who is cooperative enough to concede, but by what positions the two parties take in future arguments.

&diams 70 &diams

When the led disobey, the leader learns less. When the led obey, the led learn less. Led have more perspective, leader has more focus.

&diams 71 &diams

Sometimes asking the wrong questions leads to the right answers, when asking the right questions would go nowhere.

&diams 72 &diams

The best way to not get cornered: spend as little time as possible hanging out in corners.

&diams 73 &diams

Intelligence without conviction is unfair to humankind, in allowing itself to be eclipsed by conviction without intelligence.

&diams 74 &diams

The more time you are given to make a decision, the more likely you are to question whether the decision needs to be made.

&diams 75 &diams

The more that is lost when a decision is made, the more likely we are to stick to it, and assign it greater meaning.

&diams 76 &diams

Contrary to assumption, doing it a new way can be faster, due to freedom from baggage, and the chance to use your strengths.

&diams 77 &diams

While one person is thinking about 100 ideas, another person acting on 1 is getting ahead.

&diams 78 &diams

Better to be bored or disillusioned from having tried it, than stuck forever on wondering whether it would have worked.

&diams 79 &diams

Which path is the best and right choice is usually determined by the choices that you make after choosing.

Dreams

&diams 80 &diams

Dreams while asleep end when sense and contradictions become clear. Conversely, that is how dreams while awake begin to take shape.

&diams 81 &diams

A nightmare is often very particular to the dreamer. A fingerprint of unique insecurities, it may seem silly to anyone else.

&diams 82 &diams

To a child, a door could have anything behind it. Anything could come out of it at any moment! For any or no reason. A door.

&diams 83 &diams

Someday we will be able to take photographs while dreaming that are there when we wake up.

Drugs

&diams 84 &diams

People against drug use shouldn't enjoy drug-induced art (Beatles, Nirvana, Alice in Wonderland...). That is to use drugs indirectly.

&diams 85 &diams

Anything that I need alcohol to enjoy, I'm skeptical of. That goes for music, that goes for movies, and that especially goes for people.

&diams 86 &diams

If people did not seek intoxication/highs, or dance about to music, and we found a different species that did, surely we would find it odd.

Fairness and Justice

&diams 87 &diams

Guilt by who commits ethical violation is a shallow test; whoever knowingly benefits from the ethical violation is as guilty, and a coward.

&diams 88 &diams

Some things some people take pride in not having in life - whether alcohol, pets, Star Trek - comes partly from not knowing how to start.

&diams 89 &diams

Introducing social turbulence by prioritizing principles above people seems senseless to those that don't, necessary to those that do.

&diams 90 &diams

1st question: will this help me help others. 2nd question: will this help others. 3rd question: can I do it and still cover living costs?

&diams 91 &diams

If modern USA existed 300 years ago elsewhere in the world, how would it have judged the revolution, genocide of natives, and civil war here?

&diams 92 &diams

Character is measured by what someone does when no one is watching. To a religious person, someone is always watching - what of their character?

&diams 93 &diams

Integrity comes from fairness, honesty, and valuable service being higher priorities for someone than efficiency, money, and personal gain.

&diams 94 &diams

It's takes a considerable amount of work to just keep the world at least working for those that it already works for.

&diams 95 &diams

Moral relativism is moral indifference. "It depends who you ask" never freed a slave, stopped a criminal, or ended a war.

&diams 96 &diams

Mess with the bottom of a stack, and the top falls. Mess with the top, the bottom is unchanged. Instability trickles up.

&diams 97 &diams

Anyone whose ethics are determined by allegiances, rather than the other way around, is not ethical, just in a quasi-religious social ring.

&diams 98 &diams

In selling, it's easy to get carried away in the test of salesmanship, forgetting whether what we sell ought to be sold.

&diams 99 &diams

Small dogs are quicker to bite, since the world is more dangerous to them. And so it is for poor criminals, to whom the world is terrifying.

Improvement

&diams 100 &diams

No one can consider long-term strategy unless many more someones are on the field keeping the immediate at bay.

&diams 101 &diams

"Don't interfere" should only be a virtue among the incompetent. Civilization happened because we interfered with nature's sloppy work.

&diams 102 &diams

The more something or someone resists change, the longer changes made will last. Stone sculptures outlast wooden ones.

&diams 103 &diams

Dealing with civilization strictly as it is keeps it as it is. Dealing with civilization as it ought to be gives it room to grow.

&diams 104 &diams

That we can never go back to how things were yesterday gives hope that as early as tomorrow, things may never go back to how they are today.

&diams 105 &diams

Strictly rational people would never have amassed and organized so much concrete, steel, entertainment and physical labor.

&diams 106 &diams

I'm eager for the time when we'll consider the concept of nations as archaic as tribes.

&diams 107 &diams

In past revolutions, people were killed. In the next, only outdated ideas will be killed. Clear thinkers will cause chaos by clear speaking.

&diams 108 &diams

The right words (by skill), put in front of the right people (by search), with the right timing (by luck), will make tomorrow better.

&diams 109 &diams

Anyone unable to accept a temporary wrong to transform a lasting wrong to a lasting right stands on the sidelines of civilization.

&diams 110 &diams

All things must exist poorly before well.

&diams 111 &diams

Want to cause more progress in a field than you're capable of? Set up reward/recognition for whoever does it best each year.

&diams 112 &diams

Answering "should it be different" is useless without also answering "can it be..." - then "how...", and "will...".

&diams 113 &diams

It is always better to make minor progress in things that matter than major progress in things that do not.

&diams 114 &diams

Nothing real ever completely works or makes sense. The relevant question is what works better, and makes better sense, than the status quo.

&diams 115 &diams

No one will care how well you do the wrong thing.

Insanity

&diams 116 &diams

If a madman thinks you're sane, you may be mad; if a madman thinks you're mad, you may be sane.

&diams 117 &diams

I really, truly, candle nonsense. It will always have a green chair.

&diams 118 &diams

There is a sustainable market for watches that cost more than (several) new minivans.

&diams 119 &diams

Since the beginning of civilization, some small fraction of asylum inmates have been those people that really, truly, irreversibly "get it."

&diams 120 &diams

That some crazy people do some smart things for some crazy reasons does not change that consistently doing smart things is smart, not crazy.

&diams 121 &diams

Someone's ability to playfully generate nonsense is directly proportional to their ability to recognize and respond properly to it.

&diams 122 &diams

When you lose my marbles, go looking for them. They rarely turn out to be anywhere near where they were dropped.

&diams 123 &diams

Working in an arbitrary field does not make arbitrary domain interests less arbitrary. Although connecting it to income can make it seem so.

&diams 124 &diams

Sanity and value do not affect the proliferation of life - it's simply births exceeding pre-reproductive deaths. Fish, grass, bacteria win.

&diams 125 &diams

It's impossible to learn, or to do, without first wanting.

&diams 126 &diams

You'll hold up your end, and I'll hold up mine, until we forget why we're holding it, when we've run out of time.

Inspiration

&diams 127 &diams

The entire world is made more dangerous when reasonable voices give up and leave, or go quiet, leaving only the unreasonable to lead.

&diams 128 &diams

Most people spend their lives searching for something worth finding.

&diams 129 &diams

Genius isn't grasping the complexity of everything - it's being oblivious to complexity and thinking only about the few things that matter.

&diams 130 &diams

The difference between someone that paints and an artist mostly happens away from the canvas.

&diams 131 &diams

Even the most popular books, songs, and films have more people disinterested than excited. Don't trust any sample set smaller than everyone.

&diams 132 &diams

A boat without clear direction doesn't open its sails, and a boat with closed sails misses every wind of opportunity.

&diams 133 &diams

Good design frees the viewer from the urge to ask questions. Good art fills the viewer with the urge to ask questions.

&diams 134 &diams

Good design is process, not a product. Good intellect is process, not an idea. Good life is process, not a circumstance.

&diams 135 &diams

Commercial art says nothing, but it says it to everyone. Fine art says something, but it says it only to someone listening.

&diams 136 &diams

Life goals shouldn't be based on what can happen within one lifetime, but by what can be set in motion within one lifetime.

Law

&diams 137 &diams

"Remix artists" want copyrighted samples because others spent billions making those into hits. The net has free samples... that the remix artists don't want.

&diams 138 &diams

In addition to a tenant providing past landlord references, a landlord should be required to provide past tenant references.

Learning

&diams 139 &diams

Lessons lost: if someone knows something well enough to explain it to someone else, it seems too obvious to him/her to warrant explanation.

&diams 140 &diams

Learning to think, rather than learning to repeat, comes from being led to make and see mistakes in the right order.

&diams 141 &diams

Someone learning to forget listens to prepare in case later held accountable to recall it; someone learning listens to prepare to use.

&diams 142 &diams

The two hurdles to intelligent people learning: (1.) admitting it's worth knowing (especially with 2.) accepting they don't already know it.

&diams 143 &diams

When teachers assume parents cover it, and parents assume teachers cover it, it doesn't get covered. This obvious point can ruin lives.

&diams 144 &diams

Most people claiming that their memory isn't as good as it used to be are really referring to their study skills and motivation.

&diams 145 &diams

Knowing about something versus knowing something are as different as knowing the rules to a sport versus playing it.

&diams 146 &diams

Money spent on education is 20% learning, 80% status/identity. Granted, the job market is 80% concerned with status/identity.

&diams 147 &diams

Going high is dangerous. Going fast is dangerous. Together, it's flight. Some assumptions need to be challenged as a group.

&diams 148 &diams

Fast learning: memorize cases that disagree with generative assumptions / Lasting learning: fix your generative assumptions. Adapting process scales better than remembering.

&diams 149 &diams

Someone curious can learn from anything. Someone lacking curiosity is unable to learn from nearly anything. Teach curiosity.

&diams 150 &diams

Treating ignorance, confusion, or desperation the same as malice is like trying to treat cancer the same as a broken leg.

&diams 151 &diams

A strength, unrestrained from compensating for undeveloped skills, can become a weakness in ability to learn.

&diams 152 &diams

Someone doesn't know the things that you find obvious. Find that someone, teach them, then learn what they assumed you knew.

&diams 153 &diams

Everyone learns whatever the person unafraid to ask questions doesn't know.

&diams 154 &diams

There is no worse error than thinking that you need someone else's permission or request before you can do, make, or learn.

&diams 155 &diams

Most people are unable to consider a different way until their current way fails them disasterously.

&diams 156 &diams

Someone's ability to learn is directly proportional to their ability to recover from error.

&diams 157 &diams

Most learning is the crossing of bridges built by those who first swam across. Have we never learned how to teach swimming?

&diams 158 &diams

Academia likes curiosity but dislikes aggression, industry likes aggression but dislikes curiosity. Both reward passion.

&diams 159 &diams

Very few people will memorize what can be easily looked up. If it is hard to get to (and it has value) people will learn it.

&diams 160 &diams

A student comes away from a boring teacher with 1 of 2 ideas: (1.) be boring (or 2.) be unlike the teacher. Neither is good.

&diams 161 &diams

Learning depends upon frustration and errors. When our initial strategies, prior knowledge, and guesswork succeed, we see no need to change.

&diams 162 &diams

Seemingly unlearnable things are made up of two or more learnable things in a tangle. Master untangling and you can teach yourself anything.

&diams 163 &diams

Intelligence, without the credentials and connections needed to help people, is as arbitrary a curiosity as a two-headed goat.

&diams 164 &diams

The tendency to stratify socially by age protects the young from outdated ways of thinking, at a cost to efficiency from repeat learning.

Media

&diams 165 &diams

(A) readers want latest info, avoid old non-fiction (B) to be original, writers avoid repeating (A+B) readers wind up ignorant of longest known information.

&diams 166 &diams

The entertainer is paid to briefly distract the hopeless from hopelessness, and the capable from guilt over ignoring nearby hopelessness.

&diams 167 &diams

To a far greater degree than films, tv, or music, books positively impact the time spent not watching/listening/reading.

&diams 168 &diams

Many of the most memorable and influential events and people in our lives were the figments of other people's imaginations.

&diams 169 &diams

Some have things to say (readers), some have nothing to say (non-readers), some have nothing to say but talk plenty (tv-heavy media diet).

&diams 170 &diams

Most discern fruit juice from fruit-flavored snack drink. Fewer discern learning from learning-flavored entertainment. (It also contains 0% juice.)

&diams 171 &diams

Television favors digested conclusions. A consequence of this is many people juggling prepared conclusions, without practice in forming them.

&diams 172 &diams

If so many people weren't stealing jokes, characters, plots, and songs, we would have missed a lot of stuff so good people wanted to copy it.

&diams 173 &diams

Reading quotes from full works is like looking at photographs from someone's travels. It's no substitute, but can inform future exploration.

&diams 174 &diams

If ants and plants could read and spend money, would we all write to their reading level and interests? There are, after all, a lot of them.

&diams 175 &diams

So long as TV never requires prerequisite understanding beyond basic culture, no amount of watching it can surpass one day of kindergarten education.

&diams 176 &diams

Text written properly, with attention to style and purpose beyond transfer of information, makes state of mind storable and distributable.

&diams 177 &diams

Kids need to be critical of TV and websites, sure. But a critical eye is equally important toward books, school, government, and adults.

&diams 178 &diams

Nature is made more accessible by taking the nature out of it. Information is made more accessible by taking the information out of it.

&diams 179 &diams

There's a lot of information on the internet. And on TV. But there is more wisdom in some $1 used books than all websites and shows combined.

&diams 180 &diams

Reading a translation is reading an interpretation.

&diams 181 &diams

Newspapers/books/sites written to an 8th grade reading level to improve readership numbers decays the meaning of "8th grade reading level".

&diams 182 &diams

As the ratio of content creators to content consumers moves closer to balanced, the justifiable costs of production will fall.

&diams 183 &diams

Watching makes you into someone that has witnessed interesting things. Reading makes you into a more interesting someone.

&diams 184 &diams

Love songs capture our attention by connecting listening/remembering to hearing out a lover's concerns and sentiments.

&diams 185 &diams

An indicator of progress in fiction is a form of spoiler, whether as a book's pages or time til the half hour during shows.

&diams 186 &diams

Then the news said, "Something happened somewhere to someone! Quick! Let us talk about it!" And so the people watched.

&diams 187 &diams

Adults hate repetition. Children need it. Adults need continuity. Children hate it.

&diams 188 &diams

A producer wonders what could be different. A critic wonders what went wrong. A consumer wants something to talk about.

&diams 189 &diams

A typical TV series is 1 low-budget film/pilot followed by 3-10 seasons of uneventful meandering and appeals to familiarity.

&diams 190 &diams

Once you start making the things you wish existed as a means of entertaining yourself, you stop checking what's on TV.

&diams 191 &diams

Part of what we find compelling about action films is clarity of purpose. We fantasize about not having to make decisions.

&diams 192 &diams

How odd that rehearsed singing, mixed with practiced instrument sounds, so easily taps into feelings ranging from rebellion to reflection.

&diams 193 &diams

Adding original media to a market with established genres ensures those interested won't find it and those that find it won't be interested.

&diams 194 &diams

Uncanny valley in science fiction: if more scientific than Star Wars but less scientific than Star Trek, it annoys engineers and scientists.

&diams 195 &diams

Every novel ends with all of the characters moving overseas, never to contact the reader again.

Mind

&diams 196 &diams

Were the mind a stone, it would change its weight based on who tried to move it, and why.

&diams 197 &diams

Mild changes in conditions don't lead to changes in behavior, severe changes do; severe changes may lead to a better fit than minor changes.

&diams 198 &diams

Mental barriers are as real as physical ones. "I did not" means "I could not, for want of the alternative, due to my prior priorities."

&diams 199 &diams

Consciousness is not physical, nor is it non-physical. It is a passing, systematic event, with physical ingredients and causes - like rain.

&diams 200 &diams

Foolishness, paired up with or operating from within a decisive party, is functionally identical to courage.

&diams 201 &diams

A freedom you have, and wish to exercise, but do not exercise, is not a freedom. Mental barriers are harder to break than prison bars.

&diams 202 &diams

The more a person or company hordes what they know, the less they know and the less well they know it over time.

&diams 203 &diams

The parts of a car that look the most like a car are some of the least complicated and least important parts in how it works. As with people.

&diams 204 &diams

Most social animals make noises to their own kind, never needing justification of useful, structured information to pass along; and so we banter.

&diams 205 &diams

No real circle is really a circle, no real organization is really organized. Real things exist approximately or not at all.

&diams 206 &diams

What we last saw plays a strong part in what we can next see.

&diams 207 &diams

Upon lowering the pen from writing or drawing, we are different than when we started, as though we journeyed and returned.

&diams 208 &diams

Juggling your "to do" list in your head instead of writing it down is like juggling groceries instead of using a basket.

Motivation

&diams 209 &diams

If one person invented a magic machine that handled all food, water, shelter, and entertainment, no one else could earn their share of any of it.

&diams 210 &diams

Money motivates through desperation and commitment, deincentivizing those with the most resources from doing anything else.

&diams 211 &diams

Money relies heavily on locks, fences, and weapons to mean anything.

&diams 212 &diams

An overlooked quality of capitalism: everyone can benefit from the work of someone else regardless of personal or principled disagreement. For better or for worse, most people don't care how others spend the money given to them.

&diams 213 &diams

The world would be a better place if we could always reward best those that don't do things for the reward.

&diams 214 &diams

The biggest threat to the global economy is people in the first-world waking up, saying, "none of this arbitrary junk makes me any happier."

&diams 215 &diams

Once wanted, for most purchases people pay based not on worth, but up to an amount that on its own is below some small percentage of income.

&diams 216 &diams

Like barter or law, money and grades are human ideas invented to improve the survival experience. They did not, and may not, always exist.

&diams 217 &diams

Many lives are spent alternating between earning excess money from fear of not having enough and spending it foolishly from lack of purpose.

&diams 218 &diams

People act as if commercialization discredits legitimate value. In free market, if it can't be commercialized it often can't get done - for better or for worse.

&diams 219 &diams

Earning a lot of money without doing any good for the world is like finding ways to get good grades without learning.

&diams 220 &diams

Years from now, kids finishing school may be better at our jobs than us. Embrace it and help their generation, so we'll have nicer bosses.

&diams 221 &diams

People are limited by attentive energy, not time.

&diams 222 &diams

An insect should fly toward light, but will die if it touches it. Many desires are good for direction, but death if achieved.

&diams 223 &diams

For how trivially reprogrammed the sense and cause of happiness - what absurdity for modern people to go on thinking of happiness as a goal.

&diams 224 &diams

Many jobs depend on (A) making arbitrary stuff (B) convincing people to buy it and (C) delivering it. Besides safety and survival, markets aren't innate.

&diams 225 &diams

There are certain things - not many, but definitely a few - that no one will ever do, unless you do them. Prioritize those.

&diams 226 &diams

Legally earned money does with resources what religion was designed to do by pride and fear: it translates selfishness into community good.

&diams 227 &diams

Any time that you're not in quicksand, inaction is destructive action.

&diams 228 &diams

A horse that goes a long time chasing carrots while wearing blinders may forget all other reasons to move. Could a workforce work otherwise?

&diams 229 &diams

The less you have to do, the harder it is to do any of it efficiently. Poverty is not just lack of capital, but also lack of structure, from lack of a full schedule.

&diams 230 &diams

Having something to look forward to motivates getting other things done. Nothing to look forward to means nothing gets done.

&diams 231 &diams

No matter who you are, no matter how much you've done, your lack of bravery costs others even more than it costs yourself.

&diams 232 &diams

The difference between a sense of urgency and wasteful indifference is in whether we believe the problem gets worse or better until fixed.

&diams 233 &diams

Success comes from sticking to it until you have enough experience for luck to matter.

Music Abstinence

&diams 234 &diams

Eureka! The tempo at which I move/walk determines which music tries to start in my head. By changing my pace, fewer songs need to be stopped.

&diams 235 &diams

4 weeks and counting of stopping music in my head, and without CDs/mp3s/Pandora/iPod. The clarity in thought makes me happier than music did.

&diams 236 &diams

Popular music is a drug, making the insane world feel sane, without any lasting change. A person's stethoscope and iPod cannot both be worn.

Personal Development

&diams 237 &diams

Doing what everyone else does is a valid strategy to the extent that you want what everyone else wants. To the extent that you don't, don't.

&diams 238 &diams

Proper preparation can be preventative. Excessive preparation leads us to create a situation to justify having so prepared.

&diams 239 &diams

Not only are the most attractive also insecure, but they can be even more so. They haven't yet given up competing in a subjective contest.

&diams 240 &diams

Either tastes destructively rule our decisions, or we live in constant resistance to our wants, or we reprogram our tastes then follow them.

&diams 241 &diams

There are two types of people free from the need to prove themselves: the timid that don't feel they can, and the brave that feel they have.

&diams 242 &diams

Life is too short to spend it all as the same person. Change your mind. If you don't like how it fits, change it again. You're not going to run out of positions to try.

&diams 243 &diams

If everyone had what they think they need to be happy, the world would not be better, except by their discovery that they still aren't happy.

&diams 244 &diams

Our life path is decided more by the questions we are asked than how we answer them. Seek the best questions, and ensure your best future.

&diams 245 &diams

A hedge cannot be trimmed into a shape until it has grown - in all areas - larger and messier than its desired form.

&diams 246 &diams

If you made a todo list every day of things you thought worth doing, what things that you do daily wouldn't make the list? Stop doing those.

&diams 247 &diams

There is only one way to follow a model of what to do, but an infinite number of ways to follow a model of what not to do.

&diams 248 &diams

Keeping up with daily anything is a time killer. Today is less relevant than it seems, and before you know it, it's just another yesterday.

&diams 249 &diams

If you do not define yourself by where you're headed and what you're doing, you'll be defined by where you're from and what you've done.

&diams 250 &diams

Searching for something specific increases the risk of finding nothing else.

&diams 251 &diams

A fool, once successful at anything, wrongly feels capable of success at anything else. The wise keep hobbies or interests they struggle in.

&diams 252 &diams

Being good at something is not a valid reason to continually do it. We're all very good at the first step up stairs.

&diams 253 &diams

It took meeting a college football player with perfect test scores to realize that working on skills in one area does not decay other skills.

&diams 254 &diams

We should choose to do not what we want to be doing, but what we want to have done. Future comes from cumulative past, not passing present.

&diams 255 &diams

What would have to go wrong in your life before you would feel driven to make changes to your current situation for the better? Why wait?

&diams 256 &diams

Never compare yourself to others. To compare yourself to others means you'd be, at best, a little beyond the handful of people you know.

&diams 257 &diams

Good habits are as hard to break as bad ones. Effects of both are cumulative. Replacing bad habits with good ones is an urgent priority.

&diams 258 &diams

Being confident, detached, or goofy enough to do something poorly without giving up on it is the only way anyone becomes good at new things.

&diams 259 &diams

"There's a way to do it better. Find it." -Thomas Edison on engineering
"There's a way better it to do. Find it." -Modified with regard on life goals

&diams 260 &diams

Want to stay the way that you are? Spend time around people that like you the way you are, or relate. Want to change in a specific way?...

&diams 261 &diams

To be in the right place at the right time, it helps to prepare such that as many places and times as possible may be right.

&diams 262 &diams

Feelings of guilt and injustice are only possible when, by illusion or understanding, there seems to have been a realistic alternative.

&diams 263 &diams

How you choose to handle what happens next doesn't just affect what type of person people think you are - it is what type of person you are.

&diams 264 &diams

Paying more attention to today than your future is like driving a car while only looking inside of it.

&diams 265 &diams

Knowing how to stick with it is a valuable lesson. An equally important lesson, often overlooked, is knowing when to quit.

&diams 266 &diams

You can tell a lot about people by whether they would rather have reward without good work or have good work without reward.

&diams 267 &diams

Build a strong enough foundation, and no matter what happens to anything built on top, the foundation will still be there.

&diams 268 &diams

Knowing when and how to be disruptive can be an important life skill.

&diams 269 &diams

Changing where you live changes how you live, changing when you do changes what you do, changing why you are changes who you are.

&diams 270 &diams

Life is wasted by working on doing something better before working on ensuring that the right thing is being done.

&diams 271 &diams

Intrinsic motivation is secretly extrinsic motivation that takes longer to instill, but lasts longer by resisting competing motivations.

&diams 272 &diams

Can, if not handled with care, may turn into years of could have - also known as didn't, and no different than couldn't.

&diams 273 &diams

When abilities exceed opportunities we ought to increase those abilities that increase opportunities.

&diams 274 &diams

To learn is to admit past imperfection. A strong ego must move away from the source of learning before it can change, away from witness.

&diams 275 &diams

If you wait to do something until someone offers you pay to do it, you'll never get good enough at it to be paid to do it.

Perspective

&diams 276 &diams

Concealing gives room to get worse. The worse a misdeed, the more it will be rationalized to good. Thus, we eventually support what we hide.

&diams 277 &diams

It's hard to agree with someone we dislike, and hard to disagree with someone we like. The best scientists and philosophers specialize in both.

&diams 278 &diams

Thinking changes what will be thought, speaking changes what will be said, listening changes what will be heard.

&diams 279 &diams

The most important things in your life - the people, the ideas, the memories, the passions - mean next to nothing to most other people.

&diams 280 &diams

The genius in natural selection is strictly human, in grasping how adaptation occurs without needing any genius involved.

&diams 281 &diams

To the world traveler, each city in the world is like a huge volunteer organization operating a cultural theme park.

&diams 282 &diams

There is no greater enemy to reason than the person that demands agreement in exchange for survival or affection. This can force any "truth".

&diams 283 &diams

No opponents to a cause are more vehemently outspoken than its disillusioned former proponents. They're arguing to convince themselves, too.

&diams 284 &diams

Can anyone be liked or disliked for who they are? Is it not really their developmental circumstances and luck that we judge?

&diams 285 &diams

People say that variety is the spice, but the food - which we must consume daily to remain alive - is surely repetition.

&diams 286 &diams

One culture's weed is another culture's flower. Feel disliked, and dislike what those around you want you to be? Find a new garden.

&diams 287 &diams

More know better than act better; many are tied up in situations socially or professionally where they fear speaking up would cost them.

&diams 288 &diams

Someone in love with cause or person feels no danger, except danger to the loved. Weapons are useless when the only weakness is elsewhere.

&diams 289 &diams

Someone hurting others for personal gain feels guilty; someone doing it to benefit to their family, culture, or company feels like a hero.

&diams 290 &diams

Loneliness is an overflow of concern with no target.

&diams 291 &diams

If early stages of a building look like a finished building, it is unsafe, and made wrong. Also, if a child is forced to act as if an adult.

&diams 292 &diams

"I could do that," people say in modern art museums. Really? Get someone to buy 2 colored squares for millions, then charge admission? Try.

&diams 293 &diams

We can be certain about what we make up, but the connection between understandable (made up) ideas and reality doesn't even include colors.

&diams 294 &diams

What a mess everything is. But how much less so, every year, than the year before. Today, it all works the best it ever has: barely.

&diams 295 &diams

What you do while not doing something affects how you do it. You are always doing everything that you do.

&diams 296 &diams

Anything not for survival is a type of entertainment. This includes a nice house, nice car, tasty food, and minor medicines.

&diams 297 &diams

Those right look as wrong to those wrong as those wrong look wrong to those right.

&diams 298 &diams

At a cosmic scale, everything ever happening on Earth is like ripples on a raindrop.

&diams 299 &diams

Shaving cream is like pellets in Pac-Man or armor shards in Doom. It shows where you haven't been yet.

&diams 300 &diams

The objective world has no symbols, but the world as it appears to us is comprised entirely of symbols. Errors begin here.

&diams 301 &diams

Too much hubris can cost a person. Too much humility can cost everyone else.

&diams 302 &diams

A river does not begin in the mountain nor end in the ocean, it flows from one part of the sky to another part of the sky.

&diams 303 &diams

Wondering why? Ask the tree, the fish, or the bacteria why. Life did just fine for billions of years before why showed up.

&diams 304 &diams

The voice inside that wants to write has very different things to say than the voice inside that wants to speak. Write to listen to it.

&diams 305 &diams

Those with freedom want clarity of task. Those with clarity of task want freedom.

&diams 306 &diams

To an overly focused coal miner, a diamond just looks like bad coal.

&diams 307 &diams

Given multiple possibilities, the majority of people believe to be true the option most beneficial to self, then avoid contrary evidence.

&diams 308 &diams

If things never went poorly, things would never change. And never changing is far worse than however poorly things could go.

&diams 309 &diams

Getting out of bad situations can be expensive. Staying in bad situations can be even more expensive.

&diams 310 &diams

A speaker supported by force is protected from self-doubt, but not from falsehood.

&diams 311 &diams

Sometimes we wake up in the night, wondering what's happening. Nothing, of course. Because happening, like purpose, reason, and time, is a human idea.

&diams 312 &diams

It's not supposed to be easy! If it was, it wouldn't mean what it does to people.

Politics

&diams 313 &diams

Throughout history, democracy was feared. The majority were unqualified. Yet it began, so pressure is on to make more people more qualified.

&diams 314 &diams

Smart people design institutions to minimize the damage potential in being operated by less smart people, which frustrates and often keeps away future smart people.

&diams 315 &diams

The challenge facing reasonable politicians is that when reasonable compromises with unreasonable, the result is still unreasonable.

&diams 316 &diams

Questioning authority isn't blind rebellion. Good authority comes back with good answers, changing itself when it realizes an answer's weak.

&diams 317 &diams

When attempted cooperation is met with inflexibility, the once cooperative becomes the more inflexible. Freezing water breaks pipes.

&diams 318 &diams

A politician with no future sees those without strong opinions as weak, or disinterested. One with a future sees them as blank billboards.

&diams 319 &diams

News of any sort - technology, politics, sports, celebrities - is an ideal product for capitalism because it is immediately disposable.

&diams 320 &diams

Your rank means different things to people higher in rank, lower in rank, and outside the group. Namely, it means next to nil to the latter.

&diams 321 &diams

US politics started based on principle and reason. Now we run by arguments to help contributors, lobbyists, and home states.

&diams 322 &diams

US paying to import Chinese goods while China steals 2 major US exports (tech innovation and entertainment media) isn't trade.

&diams 323 &diams

Socialism is built on the idea that it is better for the population to be indebted than in debt.

&diams 324 &diams

A job comes from: someone, who wants something, paying someone else for their time and/or expertise. Not: the US president.

&diams 325 &diams

Private health care has shorter wait times because most people that actually need it aren't allowed in the line.

&diams 326 &diams

Irrational want is part of the currency in an economy. The more reasonable everyone becomes, the less money is worth.

&diams 327 &diams

People winning want the game's rules to stay the same, and people losing want the game's rules to change. This is politics.

&diams 328 &diams

Civilization would be more pleasant if leaders realized they're part of a team, acting in service to it, not above it.

&diams 329 &diams

When liberals disapprove of a president, we tell jokes and argue. When conservatives disapprove of a president, they grab guns, yell, and panic.

Rationality

&diams 330 &diams

What tragedy, that people with analytical intelligence are kept opposite in society from those advocating ways to live well.

&diams 331 &diams

The danger from people with wild beliefs isn't what they believe, but why they do.

&diams 332 &diams

I dream of a time when persuasion will be by reasoned consistency, not out of attractiveness, wealth, fame, or confidence of a messenger.

&diams 333 &diams

Those things in life that spiritual and religious types entrust to divine powers are handled by a mixture of chance, nature, and atheists.

&diams 334 &diams

Blaming someone for how or what they think is like blaming a flower for where it grows.

&diams 335 &diams

To say religions lie gives founders and followers much too much credit and blame. There's nothing dishonest about confusion.

&diams 336 &diams

Invention and discovery only ever happen when people are insane enough to set sail on infinite ocean with finite supplies.

&diams 337 &diams

The best we have came from people that got entirely too carried away - not reasonable people working for fair exchange and expectations.

&diams 338 &diams

To learn by illuminating inconsistencies of self-serving, crude guesses, we must first have those guesses; religion provides dark to be lit.

&diams 339 &diams

Though I disagree with the conclusions and beliefs of the Amish, I admire that they distinguish what can be done from what ought to be done.

&diams 340 &diams

Before persuading by logic, someone must be persuaded in their system that logic is the best means to accept. Logic cannot be used for this.

&diams 341 &diams

"You'll get rewards and answers. After you die." If religions came from planning instead of madness, they would be cruel instead of misguided.

&diams 342 &diams

The craziest thing about workers in pseudoscience, as with pro wrestling, is that they have a large enough audience to stay in business. (Pro wrestling is one better than the pseudosciences: at least wrestlers know that what they're doing is not real.)

&diams 343 &diams

Acting noble and virtuous in belief that rewards will follow or punishment will be avoided is neither noble nor virtuous. Karma and nirvana are as guilty of this as heaven and hell.

&diams 344 &diams

Localized brain damage affects what we know, how we think, how we act. Total brain damage - death - means we do not know, think, or act.

&diams 345 &diams

The notion of afterlife is as silly as the notion of beforelife. I will be after death as I was before birth. I will not be.

&diams 346 &diams

Religious people say atheists believe in nothing. But religious people believe in nothing - they just don't realize it.

&diams 347 &diams

What's most impressive about Dawkins is his patience. He has devoted his life to convincing children there are no monsters under their beds.

&diams 348 &diams

Anyone that puts philosophy texts and religious texts in the same shelving category has a poor understanding of both.

&diams 349 &diams

Unfounded beliefs lead to lives about more than survival. It's misplaced conviction that anyone's nonsense is factual that poses a problem.

&diams 350 &diams

I would rather someone disagree with me for sound reasons than agree with me for poor reasons; the latter sets up straw men for opponents.

&diams 351 &diams

If an idea is seen as a foundation to someone's love, family, or career, few are able to doubt it, unless they first doubt their love, family, or career.

&diams 352 &diams

Religions: cranes/scaffolds to temporarily facilitate the construction/decoration of lasting structure. Remove when done, leaving structure.

&diams 353 &diams

Humankind's most focused, irrationally overinvested, ornately decorated work has been done in the misunderstanding it had practical value. (To that point: that it would help protect them in battle, impress their deities, cure their diseases by scaring away evil spirits.)

&diams 354 &diams

A science-minded atheist knows, with varying certainty, what we do or don't know. An agnostic is unsure what we do or don't know.

&diams 355 &diams

People think that atheists lack humility. But it's not atheists that pretend to be friends with an all powerful judge and universe creator.

&diams 356 &diams

Mythology (n.) - yesterday's religion. / Religion (n.) - tomorrow's mythology.

&diams 357 &diams

Children's horror stories where wishes backfire do public good by ridding children of want for wishes, making the rational world preferable.

&diams 358 &diams

The mighty want rule by might. The intelligent want rule by intelligence. Leaders with neither might nor intelligence want rule by religion.

Science

&diams 359 &diams

Plant mass comes from the air - not water or dirt. Animal mass comes from plants and other animals. We are all fancy clouds.

&diams 360 &diams

Distance between science and philosophy leads to misunderstandings in both. Science is a central subset of philosophy, not a separate field.

&diams 361 &diams

By quantum physics or general relativity, a basketball's simple bounce is nearly unknowable. Accuracy is not our only criteria in modeling.

&diams 362 &diams

Inspiration tends to come from a spiral of misunderstanding. Most relevant connections between current understandings were easily found.

&diams 363 &diams

Q: Why do fictional stories about mad scientists outnumber true stories about mad religious leaders? A: religious people tell more stories.

&diams 364 &diams

A cited source is only as good as the source's sources, tracing to either scientific investigation of consistency, or anecdote and intuition.

&diams 365 &diams

In the context of science, nouns are just exceptionally slow verbs.

&diams 366 &diams

"Animals do not need proper science to live. False beliefs are harmless." Of course, their lives are hunger, fear, disease, and confusion...

&diams 367 &diams

Even with the mechanisms of physics and biology named, we have a poor sense of how something as common as your hand works.

&diams 368 &diams

Mirrors far away in space pointing toward where the earth was would let us see our past with powerful enough telescopes.

&diams 369 &diams

A thing does not have to be understood to be explained. If it did, we would never have explained anything. All we explain are tested models.

&diams 370 &diams

So long as someone only hears and handles conclusions from others, they will not be able to distinguish guessing from science or philosophy.

&diams 371 &diams

Given enough variables, we can model anything. This is different, though, than asserting that anything besides simulation is caused by math. Math mimics reality, simulations mimic math.

&diams 372 &diams

That a subject can be studied for many years doesn't mean it's real. Fiction can be complex, and is often more appealing. (Like homeopathy.)

&diams 373 &diams

Math is made up. Coordinates are indefinite. Chance, and no measure. Velocity has relative max but no absolute min. Infinity, and no zero.

&diams 374 &diams

Our experience of the universe is as misleading and inaccurate as it has always been. Better science just helps us better appreciate how so.

&diams 375 &diams

People avoid getting involved in conversations that have been ongoing, due to time needed to catch up. Science is an ongoing conversation.

Social

&diams 376 &diams

It is easier to admit to a friend, than to ourselves, when we were wrong. Since we must see an error to fix it, this accelerates learning.

&diams 377 &diams

They could only like me if I was like them. I like them, I'm not like them. I do like them, I don't do like them. I stay I, they stay them.

&diams 378 &diams

The time that I spend alone makes me want to see other humans. The time that I spend with other humans makes me want to spend time alone.

&diams 379 &diams

We focus attention on people that disagree with us, share our time with people that agree with us, and mostly ignore others.

&diams 380 &diams

Social life - games of the unconscious cultural variety - unlike structured games, declare anyone that chooses not to play as losing.

&diams 381 &diams

Putting smart people together makes them all smarter. Same for athletes. Nice people don't make each other nicer - so spread them around.

&diams 382 &diams

People want something to talk about - anything will do, from sports, weather, to irrelevant politics/news - because we like being talked to.

&diams 383 &diams

"He angers me," - why? - "I am in a better situation, partly by luck, and I should be helping him somehow." Has anyone answered so honestly?

&diams 384 &diams

Whether someone loves or hates a city, a school, a job, or life depends mostly on the few people they spend the most time with there.

&diams 385 &diams

Sometimes it's hard to realize just how much something doesn't mean to us, until we lose it and find that we're just fine.

&diams 386 &diams

I just bought 12 flowers for $5. 50, and gave them away to 12 strangers. 13 people are now happier. Time and money well spent.

&diams 387 &diams

You can tell a lot about a person by the friends that they keep. You can tell a lot more about a person by the friends that they don't keep.

&diams 388 &diams

We relate to another a little like us; we learn from another too much like us. It's hard to tolerate our flaws in others.

&diams 389 &diams

Overpriced clothing is a status symbol because it suggests a successful past or certain enough future to justify the cost.

&diams 390 &diams

Trusting people makes them a little more trustworthy; treating people like criminals makes them a little more criminal.

&diams 391 &diams

The best thing about strangers is that they know other strangers.

&diams 392 &diams

Through crime, affluence, news, art, fashion - various <1% parts of the population set the concerns of everyone else.

Technology

&diams 393 &diams

Since I've started carrying an iPhone, I've started to feel sometimes like my laptop is a needlessly large phone.

&diams 394 &diams

Scaffolding is a concept non-construction fields do well to emulate. "How'd they do that?" We tore away the part we built to build from.

&diams 395 &diams

Population isn't dumber than ever - more voices just reach more people. What's in YouTube comments isn't new - educated people seeing it is.

&diams 396 &diams

It's easy to forget, looking backward, that every major invention and idea came from a world that didn't have it.

&diams 397 &diams

How many cars are on the highway simply because the highway is there, going from nowhere to nowhere at 70 mph? How many people are on the internet simply because it is there, going from nothing to nothing at broadband speed?

&diams 398 &diams

In the cell phone age, no matter where we go or what else we're doing, we're waiting by the phone. When the call doesn't come, we can't pretend we missed it.

&diams 399 &diams

Doing more things that aren't worth doing, only doing them faster and at the same time, is not increased productivity.

&diams 400 &diams

Dear spell check: We don't capitalize "internet" for the same reason that we don't capitalize "outside" or "common area."

&diams 401 &diams

Simplicity today was complexity yesterday, complexity today was unimaginable yesterday, simplicity after tomorrow is unimaginable today.

&diams 402 &diams

Facebook tempts compression of identity, to others and to self, into "I am the media that I consume, plus my affiliations."

Thought

&diams 403 &diams

Understanding is the machine we build. Information is the raw material we build it from. Change is the machine's output.

&diams 404 &diams

Philosophy is rare because whenever a person loves, hates, wants, fears, depends on or fights with another, personal obscures universal.

&diams 405 &diams

The more we do, the less we think. The more we think, the less we do. But one without the other is dangerous, other without the one is wasteful.

&diams 406 &diams

There's a narrow balance between being too happy to think straight and too serious to bother speaking, where straight thoughts get spoken.

&diams 407 &diams

No one else has the final answers, but others have done substantial work toward figuring them out. Doubt their conclusions, mine their data.

&diams 408 &diams

Once you have written something on paper, it is easier to say it later if you want to, and easier to not say it later if you don't want to.

&diams 409 &diams

The goalie must think differently than the forward. A team where everyone thinks the same, and has the same immediate priorities, will fail.

&diams 410 &diams

Ego prevents questioning rules while winning. Shame prevents questioning rules while losing. We leave questioning to outsiders, not playing?

&diams 411 &diams

Stagnant water sits in a blocked pipe. Think like a sprinkler, throwing out ideas as they come. Only then can the next ones come through.

&diams 412 &diams

Old saying, in the view of Socrates: "When in Rome, second guess what Romans do."

&diams 413 &diams

The road to a weaker future is paved with unfinished thoughts.

&diams 414 &diams

Were we all birds, philosophers would regard flying as a poor use of time since everyone else would already have a handle on it.

&diams 415 &diams

People need not understand a technology or philosophy - how it works, nor how it was made - to use it. Understanding is only needed to use it fully, or change it.

&diams 416 &diams

Background material did not always exist. Once, anyone saying anything was equally qualified. Now you must read for years to second guess.

&diams 417 &diams

Humankind's smartest are smart enough to wonder, not smart enough to know. To not wonder, or to think what is not known is known, is not so smart.

&diams 418 &diams

Business frowns upon philosophy because there's no money in it. Philosophy frowns upon business because there's no sense in it.

&diams 419 &diams

The people I meet that are most critical of modern intelligence are smart enough to see a problem, but not smart enough to see a challenge.

&diams 420 &diams

Different places lead to different thoughts; where we are does part of our thinking.

&diams 421 &diams

One page of researched, organized text with a purpose isn't the same as 99+ pages of junk. One meal isn't like 99+ candies.

&diams 422 &diams

Everything visible is reflective, glowing, or between us and something reflective or glowing. We see ideas this way, too.

&diams 423 &diams

What is true is not always useful, what is useful is not always true - this distinction is true and useful.

&diams 424 &diams

The naive concepts that we use to make sense of the universe are no more the universe than photographs are people or places.

&diams 425 &diams

A wise man is persuaded by meaning of argument; a fool: by length of argument; a Fox News viewer: by presence of argument.

&diams 426 &diams

Someday we will be able to hook a person's imagination to a projector, for others to see, consider, and explore, unfiltered.

&diams 427 &diams

We only correct the thoughts that we are brave enough to articulate where those that think thoughts matter can correct us.

&diams 428 &diams

The importance of semantics is greatly increased by everyone's denial of the importance of semantics.

&diams 429 &diams

Academics and artists aim to impress top minds in their fields. Commercial industries aim to impress whatever sort of mind is most numerous.

&diams 430 &diams

Ideas are like fire. And in the modern world, it's often easier to start a new fire when it's needed than to keep an old one going.

Time

&diams 431 &diams

Personal past is better known than the present, the present more so than the future. Minds prefer clarity, tempting us to live in yesterday.

&diams 432 &diams

Unlike silence, sound decays. Unlike shadow, light dimenishes. Unlike space, matter disintegrates. Meaning is from transience.

&diams 433 &diams

There are places worth going that can only be reached by going slower.

&diams 434 &diams

A mountain is an ocean of rock, the sky is an ocean of air, life is an ocean of carbon. The speed and clustering tendencies of waves differ.

&diams 435 &diams

The Great Pyramids were as old to ancient Greek and Roman civilizations as ancient Greek and Roman civilizations are to us.

&diams 436 &diams

Ideas must be written when they happen, the same as we can't wait for after a trip to take photos: we'll be elsewhere later.

&diams 437 &diams

Health should not be trusted to what food happens to be around. Time should not be trusted to what shows happen to be on.

&diams 438 &diams

Something built to last must be built in a way that allows it to be changed.

Veganism

&diams 439 &diams

Then the meat eaters, disconnected from their daily choices, drove the wounded, wild, baby bird to the animal rescue center. They felt good.

&diams 440 &diams

Our way of life is only possible because people did, and continue to do, things that we openly disapprove of. This is hard to get away from.

&diams 441 &diams

What strange and imaginary morality, people taking insects outside rather than killing them, between chicken for lunch and cow for dinner.

&diams 442 &diams

There's no magic distinction between human and animal. If we wouldn't do it to an infant or mental patient, then we have no business doing it to other animals every bit as capable of suffering, pain, stress and terror.

&diams 443 &diams

Coconuts are the only vegan food that has meat, milk, and hair.

&diams 444 &diams

People assume from my veganism that I love farm and wild animals. I don't. I hate needless suffering, and waste of resources.

&diams 445 &diams

People outraged by Michael Vick's dog fighting should stop eating pigs for breakfast, birds for lunch, and cows for dinner.

&diams 446 &diams

Thinking that veganism is "about eating" is like thinking that slavery abolition was "about jobs."

Videogames

&diams 447 &diams

"Easy" is a heartbeat detector, "Normal" means someone is paying attention, "Hard" means winning by a strategy other than the first tried.

&diams 448 &diams

What happens in the minds of the audience is all that matters; whatever happens on page/screen/track/stage/cpu is only a means to that end.

&diams 449 &diams

A videogame that can be won by participation over time, without practice or strategic consideration, is little more than a really long e-card.

&diams 450 &diams

To videogame nerds, sports are script mods built in the same engine, using the same character models and art style.

&diams 451 &diams

The more a game or story is in your head, instead of on the screen, the more it continues happening after the system is off.

&diams 452 &diams

Violent videogames capture our attention by mentally connecting in-game victory to our survival imperative.

&diams 453 &diams

Media creators can help others learn through meaningful experiences. For some kids, videogames, books, and films are their only chance to travel.

&diams 454 &diams

Violent videogames are no more about shooting people than lastertag, paintball, or waterguns. Sports have more aggression.

&diams 455 &diams

Most videogames are action and violence for the same reason most music is love or frustration - the format does it easily.

&diams 456 &diams

I'd like a "videogames" store to have sections on law, politics, negotiation, engineering, astronomy, philosophy, cultural studies, humor...

Violence

&diams 457 &diams

The military is not a branch of civilization; civilization is a branch of the military. Victory through violence is all nature ever knew.

&diams 458 &diams

Death in nature is prolonged, messy, and inevitable. Arguably, it would be humane to make wild animals more efficient at killing each other.

&diams 459 &diams

Nature's status quo is for the most violent, aggressive, and selfish to win. Anything otherwise in human society is our clever contrivance.

&diams 460 &diams

Nature's 'sustaining' system wouldn't hesitate to obliterate all life by meteor.

&diams 461 &diams

To admire nature for its peace is to miss the brutality in how it ticks; even the worst civilizations have had less suffering than a forest.

&diams 462 &diams

Until civilians surpass military discipline, determination, urgency, innovation, rigor and sense of purpose, war is unfortunately useful.

&diams 463 &diams

War is natural. Jungles, forests, and oceans are rife with murder. The history of civilization has been the breakout, and spread, of peace.

&diams 464 &diams

History is not kind to nations unwilling to fight. It has rewarded, more so than those able to defend, successful aggressors.

&diams 465 &diams

Spread of culture: war traced better engineering and strategy, while politics and religious mission traced better rhetoric.

&diams 466 &diams

Every military casualty is also a civilian casualty. The true civilian casualty count is ("military"+"civilian") casualties.

&diams 467 &diams

Bravery isn't about violence or power. It's having the courage to start something without certainty for how it will end.

&diams 468 &diams

Most atrocities were done on someone else's behalf. Most of those atrocities would not have been approved by that someone.

&diams 469 &diams

Anyone that considers a real weapon, whether blade, firearm, incendiary, or explosive, as "cool" or "neat" is not an adult.

&diams 470 &diams

Bad events, non-accidental, come from the confused frustration of living things that felt the world gave no better option.

&diams 471 &diams

Sports and business give non-fatal outlets to the culturally evolved warfare impulses: organizing and training to overwhelm.

&diams 472 &diams

Were the requirements for survival trivial, sentience would not have had any evolutionary advantage.