Tom Morris: 2009-10-11

2009.10.11

Open but skeptical 2009-10-11T15:20:49Z

Alex Payne: San Francisco is also, perhaps infamously, an intellectual and cultural bubble in which ludicrous ideas can find support, particularly in the tech industry. Before long, you may find yourself nodding in sincere agreement as someone explains the inane first-world problem that their startup or pet open source project is trying to solve. It's hard work to maintain perspective and not get caught up in a way of thinking that privileges the desires of young white men with high technical proficiency and lots of disposable income. But then, this is a double-edge sword: some ideas that seem silly at the outset have world-changing, democratizing potential (I'd like to think Twitter is one such idea, of course). Be open, but skeptical.

This is one thing I've always found amusing about discussions regarding London and 'startup culture'. Whenever someone says that London doesn't have a strong 'startup culture', I feel like saying "do we need a startup culture to have technology and innovation?". I mean, it's nice that companies like last.fm and Moo exist, but see the flipside: not everything has to follow the San Francisco model to succeed.

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Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org

Currently in: Kent, England

Usually in: East Sussex, England

I am a vegetarian, an atheist, like to code in Ruby and Scala (and Java, but let’s not talk about that), and noodle about with microformats and the Semantic Web.

I have an MA in philosophy from Heythrop College, University of London. My philosophical interests are in analytic metaphysics, ontology, modality, the work of Armstrong, Lewis, Kripke, Russell and Plato. I have a strange, unfulfilled interest in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. I’ve been influenced by Gadamer, by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Rawls and Nozick.

Musically, I like jazz fusion, soul and P-Funk. My musical nirvana would be a mixture of Beethoven, Miles Davis and George Clinton topped with a side-serving of Erykah, Jill and Angie.

I also write for the Citizendium, an online encyclopedia project. If you know about stuff, you should join in. I occasionally produce audio recordings for The Pod Delusion.

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