Thoughts from John Karahalis
“What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
—Carl Sagan
I'm really enjoying Seth's Blog. Today, he published an excellent, short post about why proper data archival is so important.
Passwords are lost, providers are hacked, and people pass away. Moreover, as Seth mentions, most companies aren't incentivized to make data reliability a priority because data reliability isn't exciting. Besides, human beings aren't very good at making long-term decisions. Very few people are clamoring for safeguards that will help them in ten years.
The lesson? Back up your data! Make extra copies of important files and share them with people you trust. If you have the need and the means, work with a company that truly understands archival. Otherwise, you may find, at the least opportune moment, that no one is doing it for you.
Small habits, repeated consistently, add up fast.
“Somehow, we survived as a culture for centuries without exposing ourselves to thousands of profit-driven manipulations dumped on our living room carpet all day, every day.”
—Seth Godin in Shields up
#Belief #Business #Communication #Philosophy #Politics #SocialMedia #Technology
I don’t generally change my beliefs based on what’s popular, convenient, or expected of me. Being raised in a religion and a religious community I now repudiate inoculated me against that. This doesn’t always make life easier, but it’s who I am.
“Don't make the mistake of thinking you're Facebook's customer. You're not. You're the product. Its customers are the advertisers.”
—Bruce Schneier
“The advertising man is the enfant terrible of the time, unabashed before the eternities. He does not conceal his awareness of the fact that he is the cornerstone of the most respectable American institutions; the newspapers and magazines depend on him; Literature and Journalism are his hand maidens. Even war needs him.”
—S. N. Behrman in The New Republic, 1919
Do social media advertisers realize they have the same power today, by funding the new engines of literature, journalism, and war?
#Belief #Business #Communication #Politics #SocialMedia #Technology
Not all science is created equal.
“As anyone who has actually gone outside to touch grass will attest, what you see in social media is typically so exaggerated and distorted that it may as well be entirely fictional.”
—Viktor in Are you okay?
Don't let anyone make you a jerk, no matter how pure their intentions.
#Communication #Philosophy #Politics #SocialMedia #Technology