Month: February 2019

Saw this going viral: The Cognitive Aristocracy I agree with the part about a ‘cognitive aristocracy’, although the solution he proposes is unworkable. A growing cognitive aristocracy is important for one reason, and one reason alone—income. If being smarter, on average, didn’t help you to have a higher income, then this post would be moot.… Continue reading The Cognitive Aristocracy and the UBI

Found this interesting A philosopher of truth says we’re not living in a “post-truth” world after all In a world where Donald Trump declares an audio recording of his statements “fake news” and insists to supporters that “what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening,” it’s easy to despair for… Continue reading Are we in a post-truth era? Possibly not

Arnold is blackpilling Also, there is nothing to write about. Covington? Northam? If we have the luxury of turning these stories into headlines, then we are either doing very well as a country or else we are desparate for distractions from whatever real problems we have. It’s no so much that there is no news,… Continue reading Blackpilling, part 2

One of the more erroneous arguments by pop-science journalists and armchair psychologists is that talent is a myth and does not exist, and that differences in individual ability can be overcome through “thousands of hours of practice,” as popularized by the likes of Malcolm Gladwell (author of Outliers) and Daniel Coyle (author of The Talent… Continue reading The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth (Practice makes better, but not perfect)

The Krugster is at it again with another prediction of recession that is certain to be wrong: Krugman Sees Possible U.S. Recession With Little Fed Wiggle Room: Nobel laureate Paul Krugman said the U.S. economy may be heading into a recession at a time when the Federal Reserve doesn’t have the firepower to properly combat… Continue reading Paul Krugman Should Not Be Taken Seriously

Scott’s review of Peter Thiel’s book Zero To One In the past I would have been more inclined to dismiss/discount the role of luck, but luck plays a huge role in Peter Thiel’s success, possibly much more than we realize or wish to accept. There are plenty of tech entrepreneurs who are as smart–if not… Continue reading Peter Thiel’s Success: Luck or Skill?

Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell has a history of embellishing and omitting the truth in his writings, as I have discussed numerous times here. The same is also true for his podcast, ironically titled Revisionist History. In response to the excellent Noah Smith Bloomberg article America Lets Too Much Young Talent Go to Waste (which I… Continue reading Gadwell’s Revisionist History

In the late 90’s and up until around 2009, online political journalism and the propagation of news and information was a top-down down process. Internet political journalism was dominated by a handful of news sites such as CNN, Drudge, Fox, Huffington Post, etc., as well as bloggers and pundits such as Ann Coulter and Michelle… Continue reading Evolution of Online Political Journalism: Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up

Pinker reflects on his book Enlightenment Now, addressing criticism and controversy. He writes: Nor has Enlightenment thinking ever carried the day. It has enjoyed spells of influence which have increased in length since 1945, but always has been opposed by Romantic, nationalist, militarist, and other Counter-Enlightenment ideologies. The authoritarian populism of the 2010s falls smack… Continue reading The Enlightenment has Won

It’s open season on so-called ‘soy boys’, a neologism for effeminate, weak (‘limp-wristed’) liberal males. This archetype is the target of derision and ridicule by many on the ‘right’. An example of the quintessential soy boy is the Obamacare ‘pajama boy,’ whose perceived effeminacy generated more ridicule than Obamacare signups, and there is even a… Continue reading Why Soys and Virgins Rule