Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...
Intent-based Collaboration Environments
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Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...
Intent-based Collaboration Environments
AI Native IDEs for Code, Engineering, Science
Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
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Share Dialog
Share Dialog
A good friend of mine likes to say “it’s more important to be effective than to be right.” I have been thinking about this a fair bit recently. John Adams on HBO is depicting him as someone who struggled with this a lot. When he felt something to be right he would come on strong even if that turned the very people he was trying to convince against him. The idea here is not that the “ends justify the means” but that you are trying to achieve an outcome rather than win a debate. Insisting on a point no matter how convinced one may be about its correctness is usually not an effective way of getting people to do something. In fact it’s a no-win proposition. If you turn out to have been right, the other person will feel bad about “having been told” (even if you can supress any display of “I told you so”). If you turn out to be wrong, you look like an idiot. It’s easy to fall into this trap, especially if one cares about something and let’s one’s emotions (the sense of being right) take over. I have certainly done it many times myself. Barack Obama has just done it in a big way.
A good friend of mine likes to say “it’s more important to be effective than to be right.” I have been thinking about this a fair bit recently. John Adams on HBO is depicting him as someone who struggled with this a lot. When he felt something to be right he would come on strong even if that turned the very people he was trying to convince against him. The idea here is not that the “ends justify the means” but that you are trying to achieve an outcome rather than win a debate. Insisting on a point no matter how convinced one may be about its correctness is usually not an effective way of getting people to do something. In fact it’s a no-win proposition. If you turn out to have been right, the other person will feel bad about “having been told” (even if you can supress any display of “I told you so”). If you turn out to be wrong, you look like an idiot. It’s easy to fall into this trap, especially if one cares about something and let’s one’s emotions (the sense of being right) take over. I have certainly done it many times myself. Barack Obama has just done it in a big way.
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