I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.Martin Luther King Jr. One of the disappointing aspects of race discussions in the media today, is that they predominantly focus on anecdotes and sensational examples. Stories are wonderful at illustrating truths, … Continue reading Quantifying Racial Segregation by State and City
Pop quiz: Which country inflicted the most Nazi casualties in WW2? Would it surprise you to learn that the answer is the Soviet Union… and that USA is not even a close second? That even British historians considered the Red Army to be "the main engine of Nazism's destruction"? To quote an Irish historian and … Continue reading How to Hack the Human Brain
In the 1700s, when the British started selling Opium to China, it proved to be extremely lucrative. British ships were able to procure opium at extremely cheap prices, and sell them to China at vastly inflated markups. The primary market for this opium was Chinese laborers, who used it to get high and forget the … Continue reading The Growth of Economies
Not many know about this, but Hitler had a soft spot in his heart for at least one Jewish person. Eduard Bloch was an Austrian doctor practicing in Linz (Austria) and until 1907 the physician of Adolf Hitler’s family... Bloch was held in high regard, particularly among the lower and indigent social classes. It was … Continue reading Thinking with Principles
Source I am a worrier. I worry constantly about things that other people seem to just take in stride. I worry about the things that could go very wrong in my life, and what I can do to pre-empt or mitigate them. At different times in my life, I have worried intensely about: Being unemployedDying … Continue reading Be Very Afraid of Being Too Afraid
Source I read today a very thought-provoking piece by Yuval Harari, a historian and philosopher. “You can vote but you can’t choose what is true.” A paraphrased summary of his thesis: Elections are awful ways of determining what is true. For that, we need to turn to experts and institutions, not popularity contests. However, elections … Continue reading We Don’t Need Elections to Figure Out What People Want
Source Disclaimer: The intended audience for this article is someone who is reasonably savvy on financial planning. If you’re a novice, stop reading now and just do whatever your financial planner tells you to do. The conventional advice for financial planning in retirement has generally been the 4% rule. Ie, on the day of your … Continue reading Rethinking Retirement Financial Planning
Source Stoic philosophy is often assumed to have originated entirely in Greece, through philosophers such as Zeno. However, such a characterization ignores vastly similar Eastern philosophies such as those found in Buddhism or the Bhagavad Gita - a text that was authored in a similar time period, transmitted orally for centuries prior, and is one … Continue reading The First Stoics – Philosophical Themes In The Bhagavad Gita
Source Nov 19 2119, New York - There was a time when most people in the world were impoverished food renters. Ownership of food was concentrated in the hands of a tiny sliver of farmers and big corporations. Everyone else was at the mercy of this tiny sliver who wielded all the power. Until one … Continue reading People Used To Throw Their Money Away At The Grocery Store
With the rise of Xenophobia all over the world, from Trump to Brexit to the Freedom Party, it’s worth pausing for a second and asking ourselves why. Why are people so threatened by immigrant workers? Why are people so threatened by the growth and progress happening in foreign countries? Why are people so threatened by … Continue reading The Lump of Labor Fallacy
