The Genealogy of the Gervais Principle

by Venkat on February 4, 2010

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One reason I have delayed posting the next part in the Gervais Principle series is that as expectations have grown, I have gotten more wary about shooting from the hip. Especially because the remaining ideas in the hopper (there’s enough for two more posts before I call the main series complete) will likely be even more controversial than the first two. So one of the things I have been doing is testing the foundations laid in the first two posts more rigorously. So here goes, a (very pictorial) survey of the ancestry of the MacLeod hierarchy and the Gervais Principle. This is not Part III. It is another side trip. Not many new ideas here, but genealogy should prove interesting for at least some of you. A sense of history is a necessary (though unfortunately not sufficient) requirement for  effective sociopathy. For those who came in late, this post will make no sense to you. Read The Gervais Principle and The Gervais Principle II before you tackle this one.

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The Misanthrope’s Guide to the End of the World

by Venkat on January 28, 2010

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To diagnose somebody’s worldview, the single most effective test is to ask about their end-of-the-world opinions. You find out whether they have tragic or idealistic worldviews. You learn about their morality. You find out whether they are self-centric, ethnocentric, anthropocentric, bio-centric, enviro-centric or cosmos-centric. You get at how they ride the tension between individualism and collectivism. Attitudes towards grit and survival shine through. You get a read on their views of politics, technology, globalization, religion and mysticism. You find out whether misanthropy or empathy rules their heads and hearts. Their ability to transcend the varied dichotomies involved gives you a read on their intelligence. Perhaps most important of all, you find out about their sense of humor. So here is an introduction to the End of the World. Popcorn not included.

worldWillEnd

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Impro by Keith Johnstone

by Venkat01.23.2010

Twitter It!Once every four or five years, I find a book that is a genuine life-changer. Impro by Keith Johnstone joins my extremely short list of such books. The book crossed my radar after two readers mentioned it, in reactions to the Gervais Principle series: Kevin Simler recommended the book in an email, and a [...]

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The Ribbonfarm Posterous

by Venkat01.20.2010

Twitter It!A few weeks ago, I started playing around with Posterous, the clever young easy-blogging service.
I hereby present: the Ribbonfarm Posterous.
While I am still a dedicated WordPress guy, Posterous is proof that innovating on one vector to a ridiculous extreme can get you to fertile new territory.  At first I thought Posterous occupied a “miniblogging” [...]

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“Up in the Air” and the Future of Work

by Venkat01.17.2010

Twitter It!“Up in the Air” (based on a Walter Kirn novel) is a curious, and possibly accidentally accurate, look at the emerging world of work. Reader Sean Lyng emailed me to point out that the movie touches every theme I’ve talked about in the Cloudworker series, and suggested that I blog about it. After watching [...]

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Conceptual Metaphors (Mashable), Gervais Principle (Fugitive Philosophy)

by Venkat01.13.2010

Twitter It!Heads up on two posts that should interest ribbonfarm readers. The first is a guest post by me on Mashable, and the other is a post by Tobias C. Van Veen on the Gervais Principle. I keep meaning to do a big roundup of all the blogosphere reactions (there’s several pretty good ones) to [...]

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Drive by Dan Pink

by Venkat01.09.2010

Twitter It!At the heart of Dan Pink’s new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us is an insight that makes you want to yell in frustration at perversely obtuse academic worlds that marginalize seminal clarifications of the blindingly obvious: trying to motivate creative work with carrots and sticks backfires. As the book notes, [...]

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On the Deathly Cold

by Venkat01.07.2010

Twitter It!We dramatize the weather to the point that it becomes news, so we are startled on the rare occasion when it does merit non-ritual attention. The usual adjectives, “bitter” and “brutal,” do not do the present cold justice.  This cold deserves the ultimate icy adjective: deathly. This is a cold that that does not [...]

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Predictions 2010 (on Silicon Angle)

by Venkat01.04.2010

Twitter It!Silicon Angle ran a guest post by me while I was on vacation (written with my work hat on, and with input from my team). My five predictions for Web technology are:

The rise of the long form
The Cambrian explosion of devices
The “Website” will dissolve into the real-time Web
The quality/quantity chasm will deepen
Social filtering will [...]

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2009 Roundup, 2010 Preview

by Venkat01.02.2010

Twitter It!Time for the third annual ribbonfarm review/preview post. For you old-timers who haven’t been keeping up, and the newbies who discovered this blog late in the year, this should be a useful post. I summarize 19 notable posts, review the numbers, point out the trends and highlights, and provide a preview of 2010. So [...]

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