Mind Expanding

This week’s recommended cranial exercises (too many to fit into the Memia 2020.38 weekly newsletter):

• Best data science overviews:

Memia @memialabs

Best Data Science Overviews. Top 10 everyone-friendly articles about… | by Cassie Kozyrkov Best Data Science OverviewsWith so many articles published, it’s time for a Best Of album! Here are my 10 best articles by topic. Enjoy! Did you know that Florence Nightingale was an analyst who created live-saving…buff.ly

October 24th 2020

• Uncertain times - US Professors Jessica Flack and Melanie Mitchell argue that the pandemic is an unprecedented opportunity to open up better future policy making by viewing human society as a *complex system*:

“At this historical juncture, we should acknowledge and exploit the fact we live in a complex system – a system with many interacting agents, whose collective behaviour is usually hard to predict…the linear thinking of simple cause-effect reasoning, to which the human mind can default, is not a good policy tool. Instead, living in a complex system requires us to embrace and even harness uncertainty. Instead of attempting to narrowly forecast and control outcomes, we need to design systems that are robust and adaptable enough to weather a wide range of possible futures.”

• Imagining the End of Capitalism (1): Top of my reading list The Ministry For The Future by futurist author Kim Stanley Robinson. Excellent interview in Jacobin magazine:

“A speculative history of the next few decades, the novel revolves around an international ministry assembled to help implement the Paris climate agreement. The novel’s action spans the globe, featuring popular uprisings, ecoterrorism, asymmetrical warfare, student debt strikes, and geoengineering. Green New Deal–style programs in a number of the world’s biggest economies feature prominently — with a post-BJP India leading the way — and the commandeering of many of the world’s key central banks to finance the work toward a just transition off fossil fuels is explored…Looking backward from the mid-twenty-first century, The Ministry helps open our minds to a world in transition away from capitalism. Imagining is a necessary precondition for solving the ecological crisis of our times. It provides the pivot for leveraging the horizon of the possible.”

• Imagining the end of Capitalism (2): Reclaiming The Commons

Memia @memialabs

The challenge of reclaiming the commons from capitalism – Dirk Philipsen | Aeon Essays The challenge of reclaiming the commons from capitalism – Dirk Philipsen | Aeon EssaysAgainst the capitalist creeds of scarcity and self-interest, a plan for humanity’s shared flourishing is finally coming into viewbuff.ly

October 23rd 2020

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