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ICOs and Governance
Albert Wenger – Aug 15, 2017
As has been widely reported, in the last few months ICOs have raised significantly more money for blockchain startups than has come from traditional venture investors. This can be seen as a sign of the long discussed unbundling of venture [...] Read more
Preparing for Superintelligence: Living the Values of Humanism Today
Albert Wenger – Aug 12, 2017
In my draft book World After Capital, I write that humans having knowledge is what makes us distinctly human and gives us great power (and hence great responsibility). I define knowledge in this context as science, philosophy, art, music, etc. [...] Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Risk Aversion (Jensen’s Inequality Cont’d)
Albert Wenger – Aug 9, 2017
Last Uncertainty Wednesday, I introduced Jensen’s Inequality. I mentioned briefly that it explains a lot of things and today we will look at the first one of these, which goes by the name of risk aversion. This is simply economists [...] Read more
The Fallacy of Biological Determinism
Albert Wenger – Aug 6, 2017
In my draft book World After Capital, I write about how digital technology has given us the possibility to leave the Industrial Age behind and enter the Knowledge Age. In an early chapter on Optimism, I argue against economic, historical [...] Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Jensen’s Inequality
Albert Wenger – Aug 2, 2017
Last week in Uncertainty Wednesday, I introduced functions of random variables as the third level in measuring uncertainty. Today I will introduce a beautiful result known as Jensen’s inequality. Let me start by stating the inequality: f[EV(X)] ≤ EV[f(X)] where [...] Read more
VPNs and Informational Freedom
Albert Wenger – Jul 31, 2017
In my draft book “World After Capital” I have a section on the need for increased “Informational Freedom.” There I write: As well as: Virtual Private Networks (or VPNs) are a way for citizens to circumvent these artificial restrictions imposed [...] Read more
Putting People First on Healthcare
Albert Wenger – Jul 28, 2017
There is lots wrong with the healthcare and health insurance system in the US. One can also have a rational debate of the pros and cons of the Affordable Care Act and how we might proceed from here. What should [...] Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Functions of Random Variables
Albert Wenger – Jul 26, 2017
Just as a reminder, we have been spending the last few weeks of Uncertainty Wednesday exploring different measures of uncertainty. We first looked at entropy which is a measure based only on the states of the probability distributions itself. We [...] Read more
Attention on Digital Monopolies
Albert Wenger – Jul 25, 2017
The dominant position of companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon is sure receiving a lot more attention these days. There is critical media coverage, including in traditionally pro business publications such as the Wall Street Journal “Can the Tech Giants [...] Read more