It’s easy to lose perspective at how good things are now despite all the negativity in the news and the chronic dysfunction of the political class. Conditions for the professional class are better than ever compared to probably any time in US history for wealth creation, both in terms of high wages and the ability… Continue reading Pushing back against the ‘WTF happened in 1971’ thesis

Bitcoin Falls Below $45,000 as Global Market Rout Infects Crypto The great crypto scam continues to unravel. Bitcoin is down another 10%, on top of a 13% crash a couple weeks ago. The selling is being blamed on China. Whatever the reason is, it was expected. [On a related note, the whole China Evergrande Group… Continue reading Bitcoin: The Cookie Keeps Crumbling

This week saw two billionaire-led initiatives compressed into just a single week: the September 14th Apple Keynote event, lead by billionaire Apple CEO Tim Cook; and second, the Space-X Inspiration 4 launch, led by billionaire Elon Musk, which yesterday successfully landed. These were huge events garnering tens of millions of views online, and making headlines… Continue reading The era of billionaires has begun

It is commonly assumed that the social sciences such as finance or economics, in contrast to the ‘hard sciences’, are unpredictable, or that the social sciences are ‘chaotic’ and hence not amenable to the sort of rigid, top-down thinking and model building of the hard sciences. Physics has models of high predictive value, but behavioral… Continue reading How Systems Beat Crowds

Last week Texas shook the world with a surprise law that circumvented Roe v. Wade through the civil courts. The left, especially online, to the suprise of no one, was apoplectic. Less than a week later, Biden upped the ante by signing an executive order mandating Covid vaccines for employees of companies with over 100… Continue reading How the Vacuum of Leadership in Washington led to Rage Online

Came across these two interesting articles, which cover the same subject matter, so I have lumped them together in a single analysis. Why Resist Blank Slate Thinking? For One, Look to No Child Left Behind Genes Believe in You He’s correct regarding how biological determinism calls into question the prevailing orthodoxy of the blank slate.… Continue reading The Genes Debate: Assortative Mating and Embryo Selection

Saw this viral Scott Adams tweet Three things we learned in the past year: 1. If you don't look for a problem, logically, it does not exist. 2. "Do your own research" leads to eating horse pills, snarfing bleach, and dying. 3. It's a coincidence that every public health policy is also good for big… Continue reading Ignoring the ‘Expert Consensus’ Can Be Very Profitable

A conspiracy would seem to suggest that all Jews are operating under a similar directive. But being over-represented in all areas of society does not imply a conspiracy unless it can be shown that they are all acting under a common goal, yet the fact that Jews not uncommonly take diametrically opposing views on all… Continue reading The Jewish Question

I have been thinking about the social class structure/hierarchy in America. With the exception of the underclass, it’s not like one category is necessarily worse or ranks higher than another. For example, elites have the most power but the most responsibility and little autonomy. 1. Elites. As the title suggests, these people are at the… Continue reading The class structure of America

From New York Magazine Why the GOP Is Ideologically Lost Nevertheless, the ideological incoherence of the contemporary GOP is unusually severe. The Reaganites could not practice what they preached; post-Trump Republicans can’t settle on a catechism to hypocritically recite. The party has a set of unwavering transactional commitments (to reactionary billionaires, provincial capitalists, and the… Continue reading The contradictions of pragmatism