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Economic Relativity
The double spiral shown is a computer generated Clothoide, or Cornu spiral. Artistically rendered double spirals symbolize the subject of this article, balance between mysteries: yin-yang, male-female, zero-infinity, and the like. The logo of the Compression Institute resembles an Archimedes spiral, occurring in nature from galaxies to snail shells. Spiral enthusiasts get into generating spirals in […]
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Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity, by Denis Noble
Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity, by Denis Noble Book Review by Doc Hall How we explain to ourselves the answers to two big questions underpins the myriad assumptions that guide how we behave: Why are we here? (Our purpose for existence) What is the environment in which we live? (From quantum-scale to […]
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Psychic Drivers
The video does not summarize “Psychic Drivers” (5 minute video) Psychic Drivers by Doc Hall Decades ago a popular German business quip was, “Are you acquiring 30 years of experience, or 1 year of experience 30 times?” It was mostly used for admonition: never accept dead-end jobs, and never create them. People want to learn […]
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Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, by Kathryn Schulz
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, by Kathryn Schulz Kathryn Schulz is a professional journalist and writer covering a broad range of topics. This book was her foray into heavier non-fiction topics, and she researched it well. It’s been out a while, and well acclaimed. Obviously leaning on a liberal arts education, she […]
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Compression Thinking Series of 12 Podcasts and Teleconferences
Compression Thinking Series (3 minute video) Compression Thinking Series 12 Podcasts and Teleconferences from the Compression Institute by Robert “Doc” Hall and Ethan Berry Why the Compression Thinking Series? Our intent is to engage people in thinking differently, or Compression Thinking. Environmental initiatives abound, but few seem to address the scope of these issues holistically. […]
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Is 5G Technology at Peak Hype?
Too Little Thought for Consequences? Google 5G technology, or Internet of Things and you open the hype spigot on how wonderful 5G going to be. Up pops “inside scoops” on where to invest in 5G lest you miss out on this next new, new thing. However, doubts are creeping in. Parents near elementary schools in […]
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The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes, by Donald Hoffman
The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes, by Donald Hoffman Book Review by Doc Hall The philosophical and scientific quest to define consciousness is one of the foremost issues of our time. Don Hoffman is at the leading edge of this field of inquiry. A professor in the Department of Cognitive […]
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The Compression Thinking Series
(2 minute video) Revitalizing Ourselves With: The Compression Thinking Series Although a month or more from roll out, we’re preparing a series of twelve podcasts followed by teleconferences to which you will be invited. Each teleconference will last two hours. We want to deeply engage you in what needs to be done – by you […]
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Saved by a Mushroom?
Should Humans Adopt a Mushroom Strategy? The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, by Anna L. Tsing In some ways, mushrooms are smarter than people. We should pay more attention. Although not quite said, that’s the conclusion of Anna Tsing, Professor of Anthropology at the University […]
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Call of The Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture, A New Earth by Charles Massy
Call of The Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture, A New Earth by Charles Massy Review by Don Stewart Massy is an Australian farmer who earned a mid-life PhD in Human Ecology. In the course of doing the research for his dissertation, he met and studied the methods used by many “regenerative’ farmers,” mostly in Australia, and […]
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Deep Change
Deep Change (video 4 minutes) Deep Diving into Deep Everything “Deep” describes change so complete that we lose our reference points to the past, and struggle to understand. We may have to dredge up unarticulated assumptions about how the world works, and we can’t question beliefs so deep that we were unaware of them. The […]
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Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again, by Eric Topol
Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again, by Eric Topol Eric Topol hit the news big time in 2004 as the chief whistleblower questioning the validity of research that led the FDA to approve the Merck drug, Vioxx. Amid scandal, Merck withdrew Vioxx and paid a big fine. The New York Timesinvestigated Topol’s […]
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Big Other
Big Other (video 5 minutes) Big Other by Robert W. “Doc” Hall During the first few hundred years of industrial expansion, mankind profited by learning to control nature. During the last 20 years or so, we have learned to profit big time by controlling – or manipulating – human nature. Let’s call this new phenomenon […]
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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power, by Shoshana Zuboff Shoshana Zuboff is Professor Emerita from Harvard Business School. Her research career began by studying the history of work, and she gradually focused on how the digital world was changing the work world. It’s a long […]
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Can We Learn to Think Like Nature?
Nature’s Business (6 minute video) Can We Learn to Think Like Nature? Industrial societies can’t keep living the way they do now because their systems make the environment unnatural. Climate change draws the most attention, but were the climate not changing, many other problems, some poorly understood, might be just as perilous. An example is […]
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The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra
The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra Fritjof Capra is well known for scientifically proposing that the universe, including humans, is a complex web of relationships, and for examining the concept of universal unity in religious beliefs, especially Buddhism. Originally written in 1975, The Tao of Physics is the classic book about the integration of everything. This […]
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Compression as Symbiosis
(24 minute video and article) From Compression to Symbiosis. By Doc Hall. Evolution is geological as well as biological. Predictions of geologic evolution are that life on Earth will continue in some form for perhaps 600 million more years. Whether human life will continue to evolve that long is doubtful, but working with nature instead […]
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Unsavory Truth, by Marion Nestle
Commercial Thinking vs. Scientific Thinking Unsavory Truth, by Marion Nestle Except for political propaganda, hardly any field is more laden with misleading BS than nutrition. It comes from purveyors of food all wanting to sell their products. Those most influential are big food corporations. They can and do influence nutrition research. Marion Nestlé (no relation to […]
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A Rough Ride to the Future, by James Lovelock
Background for Environmental Symbiosis A Rough Ride to the Future, by James Lovelock This book is a fun read by a scientific maverick, written at age 95. He’s now 99, still going strong. A prolific scientist and inventor, Lovelock is best known for two things: 1) inventing the electron capture detector, which detects particles in […]
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To Deal With Big Stuff, Sweat the Small Stuff
Biomes (6 minute video) The Complexity of the ‘Omes’ [or To Deal With Big Stuff, Sweat the Small Stuff] How do we deal with complexity? Surveying the omes reveals microbiological research communities struggling to pull together, much like those of us concerned with the complexity of the macro environment that we can see. The masses of […]
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Environmental Chemicals, the Human Microbiome, and Health Risk: A Research Strategy
Environmental Chemicals, the Human Microbiome, and Health Risk: A Research Strategy, by the National Academies of Sciences This report is a short book in length, but a slow read if like me, you do not have extensive background in microbiome research. Absorbing a minimum of terminology used in the field is necessary to follow it, […]
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Learning Groups – Join Our Teleconference Series on Mondays
Learning Groups Teleconference Series on Mondays 8 pm Eastern Standard Time; dial 203-408-3665; that’s it! We started a teleconference series on Mondays. Each call-in starts at 8 pm Eastern Standard Time, and lasts one hour. To join all you have to do is dial 203-408-3665. We’ll have one every Monday evening at 8 pm EST […]
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The Greatest Compression
The Greatest Compression (Video 5 minutes) The Greatest Compression Economists occasionally use the phrase, “The Great Compression” to describe the leveling of income inequality during the period 1914-1950. That covers the World Wars, the great depression of the 1930s, and the effects of Communist revolutions. A historian that summarizes this in remarkable detail is Walter […]
