I don’t think the war on obesity is winnable, unlike efforts to prevent smoking. As much as the inner libertarian in me may protest, one can make an argument that government efforts to reduce smoking, such as those cringy anti-smoking ads [funded by tobacco litigation] and easily-ignored surgeon general warnings, have worked: This is a… Continue reading Giving up the war on obesity

The arrests of Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein, the husband and wife duo who were allegedly involved in the Bitfinex hack and attempt at laundering the proceeds, is all over the news. [Technically, they are not being charged for hacking Bitfinex, only for money laundering and defrauding the U.S. government, which leads to the question… Continue reading Thoughts on the Bitfinex Hack Story

I saw this story going viral Why ‘C’ Students End Up Being More Successful After Graduation They don’t. It’s just that successful ones go out of their way to tell everyone how successful they were in spite of having mediocre or low grades, and the media laps up such stories because it affirms a popular… Continue reading The Myth of the Super-Successful ‘C’ Student

If you’re already rich enough that your grandchildren won’t have to work, what is $100,000,000 worth? Certainly not your soul. — Cernovich (@Cernovich) February 5, 2022 Don’t ever apologize to your enemies. That’s rule 1. — Cernovich (@Cernovich) February 5, 2022 Here is Mike Cernovich saying that Rogan was wrong to apologize for some old… Continue reading No one is ever consistent in their beliefs

I have been thinking about the 2024 election. What is the worst that can happen. Could we see a repeat of Jan 6th, or worse. Which side is more inclined to protest if they lose? If another Romney, Bush, McCain, or other mainstream candidate becomes the Republican nominee, likely nothing will happen under a loss.… Continue reading Saving Democracy by Losing

Yesterday I posted about how infrastructure beats growth. Sure enough, after the post was published, Google posted another quarter of massive earnings. The stock gained 9% in afterhours trading. Or to put it another way, a $1.8 trillion dollar company instantly gained $200 billion in value, which is insane. It grew earnings 40% despite the… Continue reading The Daily View 2/2/2022: Google, Crypto, Vaccine Propaganda

By early 2021, Ark Investment’s Cathie Wood could do no wrong. Her flagship fund, ARK Innovation, was up at one point 300% from the March/April 2020 lows of Covid, compared to 70% gains for the S&P 500. Online, she had become something of a celebrity, especially on Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube. This was at around… Continue reading Why Infrastructure Beats Growth and Innovation

Saw this article Do we stand at the precipice of radical change? And yet in the end, what happened? Armageddon didn’t happen. There was no global socialist revolution or fascist reaction; instead, most countries just liberalized and democratized in the 80s and 90s. Milquetoast neoliberalism became the dominant philosophy of how to organize a society.… Continue reading Do we stand at the precipice of radical change?

I made some updates to my article yesterday , adding more regarding the rise and fall of pop behavioral psychology: The period from around 2002-2012 or so saw considerable media, business, and public interest in behavioral economics and human psychology. Academics and journalists such as such as Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational (2008), The Upside of… Continue reading The Daily View: 1/28/2022

From 2013-2017 or so when the writings of Moldbug began to gain some mainstream traction, the private sector seemed comparably anemic relative to the Bush + Obama administrations, both of whom epitomized ‘big government’, so the concept of an ‘exit’ strategy, the modern equivalent of ‘going Galt’, seemed appealing. But now fast-forward to 2021-2022 and… Continue reading From Big Government to Big Tech