A few days ago, the NY Times article In Praise of Mediocrity went hugely viral on Hacker News, getting over 400 votes and over 200 comments. In contrast, a typical post that makes it to the ‘front page’ may only get 40-100 votes and only a few dozen comments, so it’s evident this article struck… Continue reading Deconstructing a viral article: In Praise of Mediocrity

These were pretty much no-brainers, but I may as well take credit where it is due. A couple months ago, the punching bag of the left, Elon Musk, got into trouble for making a tweet promising an acquisition of Tesla at $420/share, which turned out to be false. This lead to an SEC investigation and… Continue reading Two correct predictions

Everyone is aware of the long-standing division between classical liberals versus welfare/SJW-left. And among the right, there is the division between ‘establishment conservatives’ versus the alt-right. But among the the alt-right there is yet another division that I have observed over the past few years, specially since Trump’s victory. The division concerns the JQ (Jewish… Continue reading Alt Right- Two Variants

Tyler Cowen has written about the so-called ‘great stagnation‘ to describe what he perceives as stagnation of the U.S. economy and innovation in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. But the evidence suggests he was wrong. In terms of GDP, stock market gains, Silicon Valley innovation, and plethora of other metrics, there is no stagnation,… Continue reading The great slow-down

Chanda Chisala’s latest Unz Review article A Troublesome Intelligence? A Note to Richard Lynn, Charles Murray, James Thompson et al. is going viral, and like all of his articles, has generated enormous discussion. Chisala claims to have ‘refuted’ Charles Murray, Lynn, and other proponents of the se-called HBD movement. Although some hereditarians had already noticed… Continue reading A Troublesome Intelligence? Response

Watch: Christine Blasey Ford’s raw, emotional opening statement In her statement, Ford says “I tried to get away… but his weight was heavy…he was inebriated” BS. Pushing a drunk teenage kid away, who probably weighs 140 pounds or so, is not hard to do, even for a 15-year-old girl in a high-adrenaline frightened state. The… Continue reading notes: The Kavanaugh media circus

Dr. Jordan Peterson recently tweeted: Inequality is built into life. This might be neither good nor fair, but one thing is certain: it cannot justly be blamed on capitalism, patriarchy or the west. Some thoughts on the Gini coefficient: https://t.co/5RdMQNLb4Z — Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) September 20, 2018 Which inspired this heated discussed on the… Continue reading Jordan Peterson on Inequality and Hierarchies

An overused phrase is “the only constant is change,” (a second variant is “change is the only constant”) attributed originally to Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher. Yet the evidence suggests things seldom, if ever, change. Yeah, over sufficiently long periods of time (like thousands of years), things change, but things can remain remarkably stable over periods… Continue reading The only constant is change? Not really

The financial media was predicting the end of capitalism, the demise of America, etc. I remember it as a great buying opportunity, and in retrospect, despite their unpopularity, the bailouts were a success. The S&P 500 peaked at 1560 in 2007. Now, just 11 years later, it’s at 2900, so even if you purchased right… Continue reading Lehman crisis-10 years later

A question that comes up on personal finance subs is, how is it possible for people in their late 20’s or early 30’s to have a lot of money, and especially given the media narrative that millennials are broke and struggling under the weight of student loans? Studies that purport negative net-worth for millennials are… Continue reading Student Loan Misconceptions, Student Loan Debt, and How Young People Make Money