Jay Alt
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jalt.bsky.social
Jay Alt
@jalt.bsky.social
400 followers 1.1K following 520 posts
Systems :)
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jalt.bsky.social
July 29, 2025 at 2:09 PM
jalt.bsky.social
July 27, 2025 at 12:51 PM
jalt.bsky.social
June 16, 2025 at 7:00 AM
jalt.bsky.social
You find discussions of this consumer group in old futures studies stuff
Cover of "Visions of Desirable Socities" edited by Eleonora Masini Beginning of a list of seven values defining the "leitmotif" of an envisioned first-world frugality society: 1. Material simplicity 2. Ascetism combined with aesthetism List continues 3. Human scale 4. Solidarity at a local, national, regional and global level 5. Self-determination 6. Ecological awareness 7. Personal growth Another page describing the contemporary (late 70s) polling on questions of post-material lifestyle, showing large majorities in support but noting the empirical support is "rather weak"
May 29, 2025 at 10:05 AM
jalt.bsky.social
Teach the science
Cover of The Mythic Image by Joseph Campbell
May 23, 2025 at 5:22 AM
jalt.bsky.social
Woo => Anti-woo => Rationalism => Post-rationalism => Woo
May 13, 2025 at 2:01 PM
jalt.bsky.social
Fateful moments in Silicon Valley futurism (Systems Analysis, Planning and Decision Models by Brauers)
April 11, 2025 at 4:09 PM
jalt.bsky.social
The empire never ended
Description of the EMISARI teleconferencing system created in the Nixon White House to manage implementation of the 1970 wage and price freeze. "...what OEP thought of as a computerized version of a telephone conference call" Continued description of the EMISARI software which was eventually "made available at nominal cost in August 1973 from the National Technical Information Service". Mention of an earlier network called PARTY LINE which was used for Delphi method conferencing.
April 10, 2025 at 1:05 PM
jalt.bsky.social
The Matrix by John S. Quarterman
Short description of the SFMT (San Francisco / Moscow Teleport) network which (at unclear date) connected the PeaceNet machine in SF to a machine called uniipas in Moscow, with a dialup modem accessible to about a dozen people. "Some of these people are prominent critics of the Soviet government".
April 10, 2025 at 1:05 PM
jalt.bsky.social
It's one of these deals
Mental gymnastics meme template
April 5, 2025 at 8:33 AM
jalt.bsky.social
I dreamed of Jon Postel last night, alive as you and me
April 5, 2025 at 6:41 AM
jalt.bsky.social
He kind of phoned this chapter in, it's like 4.5 pages and almost all block quotations. It's all real though
First paragraphs of "End of the Macrocosm" in Hero With a Thousand Faces, describing the Mayan doomsday cycle Last paragraph of "End of the Macrocosm" quoting the Gospel of Matthew.
April 4, 2025 at 9:02 AM
jalt.bsky.social
Passage in Progress and Poverty (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55308.html.images) beginning "In theory we are intense democrats" and running through "seem to sweep us back again" Passage continues from "to the old conditions from which we dreamed" to "back again toward barbarism"
March 22, 2025 at 9:13 AM
jalt.bsky.social
Gilded age "abundance"
Passage of Progress and Poverty (searchable at https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/55308/pg55308-images.html) running from "The type of modern growth is the great city" to "the confidence of their fellow-" Passage continues from "citizens by the purity of their lives" to "would be an insuperablr disqualification"
March 22, 2025 at 9:08 AM
jalt.bsky.social
This really looks like something that has to change after the epic wonk policy fixes everything, not before
Partial correlation plot using world values survey data showing zero sum thinking is left wing worldwide Graph showing rise of zero sum thinking as a lagged effect of the decline in economic growth at time of cohort birth since 1940, using World Inequality Database Graph showing linear relation between gdp growth in childhood and zero sum thinking (less growth, more zero-sumness). World values survey and world bank data Title and abstract of Chinoy et al, "zero-sum thinking and the roots of US political divides"
March 21, 2025 at 10:49 AM
jalt.bsky.social
Meanwhile, empirically,
March 21, 2025 at 10:25 AM
jalt.bsky.social
Last book of Progress and Poverty really makes you appreciate how little thinkpieces on Progress, Innovation and Civilization have changed
March 19, 2025 at 3:31 PM
jalt.bsky.social
Trust the Wissenschaft™️
March 15, 2025 at 9:43 AM
jalt.bsky.social
Kulturwissenschaft a hard science
March 15, 2025 at 9:38 AM
jalt.bsky.social
March 15, 2025 at 9:15 AM
jalt.bsky.social
March 9, 2025 at 11:59 AM
jalt.bsky.social
March 3, 2025 at 11:02 AM
jalt.bsky.social
February 17, 2025 at 9:42 AM
jalt.bsky.social
Always nice to come back to sharing and taking turns. Major focuses of mine, back in my preschool days
November 30, 2024 at 6:53 PM
jalt.bsky.social
Hot take: a vr headset with a good selection of apps is as close as it gets
"A Better Outlook for Cybernetic Man" cartoon by Stafford Beer, depicting the home computer user in comfy chair addressing multiple wall mounted monitors with reasonable requests for factual information, without advertising or surveillance
November 28, 2024 at 10:06 AM