Seriously Silly Design Fictions (study)

What would be the point of designing and developing “Magic Machines” in the form of a “Poo Detector” … Or an “Eyes and Ears” gizmo? … One reason would be to draw attention to the effects of so-called ‘Solutionism’ – prevalent in today’s world where technological ‘solutions’ (esp. gadgets) are constantly presented to solve problems […]

The ‘Usefulness of Uselessness’ and a vice versa update

It was somewhere around the 4th century BC that Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou raised the idea of ‘The Usefulness of Uselessness’. Master Zhuang pointed out that objects (or information) which appear at first sight to be quite useless, can, on further investigation (and/or at a later date, and/or at another place) sometimes turn out to […]

Extending the vNM EU

“Patrons of a local restaurant often do not wish to enter the kitchen.” Or, put another way – “There are many situations in which individuals have a choice of whether or not to observe the eventual outcome. In these instances, individuals often prefer to avoid observing the outcome.” These observations form the bedrock for investigations […]