💾 Archived View for nicksphere.ch › page › 7 captured on 2022-01-08 at 13:42:15. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Hello and welcome to my journal! Here I write about my own ideas and promote others' ideas. I mostly talk about computing, philosophy, spirituality, privacy, and society but this journal is not limited to those topics.
Bringing Civility to Public Discourse With the Steel Man Technique
Date: 01 December 2020
Read time: 7 minutes
Summary: Philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett described a method for arguing with a person that holds opposing views. If you’ve ever heard of the straw man fallacy, it’s just the opposite of that. With the straw man, you misrepresent your opponent’s argument to make it easier to take down. With the steel man, you face the most charitable interpretation of your oppenent’s argument.
Date: 28 November 2020
Read time: 9 minutes
Summary: There is a very subtle contradiction in the definition of Newcomb's Paradox having to do with free will. The "choice point" is assumed to be after the predictor makes its prediction. In this post I demonstrate why that can't be the case because it only makes sense to talk about a choice point before the predictor's prediction.
Date: 26 November 2020
Read time: 5 minutes
Summary: Superman is the most iconic comic book superhero in the world. He represents moral goodness and justice. He is loved by millions. But he isn't brave.
Date: 25 November 2020
Read time: 16 minutes
Summary: My thoughts on the importance of logic, its role in education, common misconceptions and the limits of logic.
Get an Anonymous Phone Number with DTMF.io
Date: 21 November 2020
Read time: 7 minutes
Summary: DTMF.io is the best service I've come across for an anonymous phone number. There is no third party Javascript. The web portal is available in several languages. It requires no personally identifiable information (PII) to sign up and supports 2-factor authentication. It has a reasonable price tag and a v3 onion address for Tor. It supplies landline, mobile, SIM mobile and toll-free phone numbers from all over the world. You can pay with Bitcoin, Lightning, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero and Perfect Money.
Date: 20 November 2020
Read time: 1 minute
Summary: Amazon is providing police departments with warrantless access to thousands of Ring doorbell cameras giving cops unpredecented, persistent surveillance capabilities of private homes and neighborhoods. This is yet another dangerous partnership between the empire of the megacorporations and the state.
Remote Fair Coin Flipping with Friends
Date: 19 November 2020
Read time: 9 minutes
Summary: This post is mostly just for amusement. It's my half-hearted attempt at designing a cryptosystem.
Avoiding Consumer Surveillance
Date: 16 November 2020
Read time: 8 minutes
Summary: Your purchases are being tracked. What you buy, where you buy it, when you buy it and what else you buy along with it. Consumer surveillance must end for privacy's sake. In this post I teach you how to avoid it from an individual perspective.
Date: 14 November 2020
Read time: 3 minutes
Summary: The central premise of this post is: Even if you believe that "privacy is dead", you still have every reason to make surveillance more difficult for Big Brother. Resistance is not futile. If you accept that it is, you're playing into the hands of the surveillance state. Surveillance on all of us is far too easy therefore we need to raise the bar on privacy.
Date: 13 November 2020
Read time: 1 minute
Summary: Find out what's new on my blog.
Date: 08 November 2020
Read time: 16 minutes
Summary: The war on "drugs" has been one of the greatest moral failures of our time, a colossal waste of money, time, resources and human life that could have been better spent on literally anything else. It's high time we put an end to it.
Date: 02 November 2020
Read time: 6 minutes
Summary: In the subjective sense there's only one time and place for everything to happen. Memories from the past and thoughts of the future occur in the present moment. The mind's eye is the only place where things are seen. The mind's ear the only place where things are heard. It's all here and now.
Date: 30 October 2020
Read time: 2 minutes
Summary: Find out what's new on my blog.
Date: 29 October 2020
Read time: 13 minutes
Summary: Most email users are using email the worst way possible. Let's talk about the right way to use email.
Date: 20 October 2020
Read time: 11 minutes
Summary: Free software is defined by the four essential freedoms. Learn why each freedom is essential and how they work together to protect users.
Unless otherwise noted, the writing in this journal is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Copyright 2019-2021 Nicholas Johnson