Another recent essay by Paul Graham. “I’m going to call it orthodox privilege: The more conventional-minded someone is, the more it seems to them that it’s safe for everyone to express their opinions.” | learn more
A new essay from Paul Graham sorts people into four quadrants to discuss social conformity: “Starting in the upper left and going counter-clockwise: aggressively conventional-minded, passively conventional-minded, passively independent-minded, and aggressively independent-minded.” I really like this, except the implication that […]
A short article with a high concentration of new-to-me knowledge. “Nick Rowe points out that if a central bank wants to control the economy’s price level, it needn’t issue any actual money—it can just edit the dictionary every morning, announcing […]
Read on if this seems interesting: “innovation is the child of freedom and the parent of prosperity.” Available as a podcast and a transcript. | part 1 and part 2
Much has been written recently about “cancel culture” and its growing prevalence. The author, philosophy professor Justin Weinberg, takes aim at the underlying premise that, “the free exchange of information and ideas… is daily becoming more constricted.” The debate continues […]
Peter Diamandis highlights some of the technologies he’s tracking. “For the first time ever, scientists and entrepreneurs think there’s a way to slow aging in its tracks, and perhaps even reverse it.” | learn more
“A virologist helped crack an impossible problem: how to insure against the economic fallout from devastating viral outbreaks. The plan was ingenious. Yet we’re still in this mess.” | learn more
Putin probably didn’t write this, but he did put his name on it. It’s surely published for self-serving reasons, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful. In particular, he directly contradicts the history I learned in school about the Nazi-Soviet […]
Some timely writing about the Soviet Union that’s applicable to the US culture today. “It was during that campaign [against Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago] that the Soviet catchphrase “ne chital, no osuzhdayu”—“didn’t read, but disapprove”—was born: Pasternak’s accusers had coined it to […]
“Because resupply missions are challenging and sunlight doesn’t reach some parts of the Moon, NASA is betting that simple, lightweight nuclear reactors are the way to go.” I especially love this because when I was a kid, I thought it’d […]