I just finished and highly recommend “The Biggest Bluff” by Maria Konnikova, which is our USV book club selection for January. It is nominally a book about Poker, but it is really about learning to live in a world where skill is confronted with luck again and again. An no, I don’t mean the world of poker, I mean the world at large. Each chapter does a wonderful job of tightly weaving together an episode of Maria’s journey to becoming a poker pro with a much deeper discussion of a topic, such ...

I just finished and highly recommend “The Biggest Bluff” by Maria Konnikova, which is our USV book club selection for January. It is nominally a book about Poker, but it is really about learning to live in a world where skill is confronted with luck again and again. An no, I don’t mean the world of poker, I mean the world at large. Each chapter does a wonderful job of tightly weaving together an episode of Maria’s journey to becoming a poker pro with a much deeper discussion of a topic, such ...

Whenever something really bad happens, we tend to rush to do something quick and fast which makes us feel better, but throws out important principles and thus has severe negative longterm consequences. The Patriot Act post 9/11 comes to mind. We just had a failed coup, the risk of which one could see coming from a mile away (actually going as far back as Trump’s election). But now that it has taken place, however weirdly farcical, everyone seems to finally wake up and so urgent action is requ...

Whenever something really bad happens, we tend to rush to do something quick and fast which makes us feel better, but throws out important principles and thus has severe negative longterm consequences. The Patriot Act post 9/11 comes to mind. We just had a failed coup, the risk of which one could see coming from a mile away (actually going as far back as Trump’s election). But now that it has taken place, however weirdly farcical, everyone seems to finally wake up and so urgent action is requ...

Anyone following Continuations knows that I have been writing for quite some time that Trump represents an attack on the institutions of democracy. Here is the opening paragraph of a post I wrote about why I was voting for Hillary Clinton (despite disliking her as a candidate):The 2016 Presidential race is not a typical election between two candidates based on the merits of their positions on key issues. Instead, it is a stark choice between Hillary Clinton, whose positions you may disagree w...

Anyone following Continuations knows that I have been writing for quite some time that Trump represents an attack on the institutions of democracy. Here is the opening paragraph of a post I wrote about why I was voting for Hillary Clinton (despite disliking her as a candidate):The 2016 Presidential race is not a typical election between two candidates based on the merits of their positions on key issues. Instead, it is a stark choice between Hillary Clinton, whose positions you may disagree w...

I have been blogging very little, as I have been swamped with a big and exciting work project. As the peak effort on that is now past, I look forward to writing more on Continuations again, as well as taking another turn revising my book The World After Capital. In the meantime, here are some observations on the most recent iteration of the debate around regulating large tech companies generally, the role of Section 230 specifically and how these relate to speech on the Internet. Topics that ...

I have been blogging very little, as I have been swamped with a big and exciting work project. As the peak effort on that is now past, I look forward to writing more on Continuations again, as well as taking another turn revising my book The World After Capital. In the meantime, here are some observations on the most recent iteration of the debate around regulating large tech companies generally, the role of Section 230 specifically and how these relate to speech on the Internet. Topics that ...

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” goes a famous Emerson quote. People often drop the word “foolish,” suggesting that all forms of consistency are only for little minds. From the larger context of the Self Reliance essay though it would seem that Emerson was rejecting consistency when it means never changing one’s mind, not even after having a new insight or obtaining new information. Or when consistency means going along uncritically with the prevailing public opinion. ...

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” goes a famous Emerson quote. People often drop the word “foolish,” suggesting that all forms of consistency are only for little minds. From the larger context of the Self Reliance essay though it would seem that Emerson was rejecting consistency when it means never changing one’s mind, not even after having a new insight or obtaining new information. Or when consistency means going along uncritically with the prevailing public opinion. ...

One of my favorite example of a mindless extrapolation was a headline I saw a few years back that said “By 2100 We Will All Live In Cities” (sadly I can’t find it anymore and failed to bookmark it). It may have been slightly exaggerated for dramatic purpose, but it is easy to find extrapolations that say by 2100 more than 80% of the global population will live in cities. Here is an example from the World Economic Forum:You will readily get there if you simply extrapolate charts like this one ...

One of my favorite example of a mindless extrapolation was a headline I saw a few years back that said “By 2100 We Will All Live In Cities” (sadly I can’t find it anymore and failed to bookmark it). It may have been slightly exaggerated for dramatic purpose, but it is easy to find extrapolations that say by 2100 more than 80% of the global population will live in cities. Here is an example from the World Economic Forum:You will readily get there if you simply extrapolate charts like this one ...

There is so much to be learned from the entirely botched handling of the COVID-19 crisis. There are lessons about markets compared to command-and-control, wartime versus peacetime institutions, decision making under uncertainty, scientific progress and much more. I am likely to write a post about each of these, starting with today’s installment: the cost of half measures. Let’s start with the observation that most people still don’t seem to understand exponential growth (another lesson right ...

There is so much to be learned from the entirely botched handling of the COVID-19 crisis. There are lessons about markets compared to command-and-control, wartime versus peacetime institutions, decision making under uncertainty, scientific progress and much more. I am likely to write a post about each of these, starting with today’s installment: the cost of half measures. Let’s start with the observation that most people still don’t seem to understand exponential growth (another lesson right ...

A peaceful transition of power between elected governments is one of the crucial aspects of representative democracies. Let’s hope that is what the coming weeks and months bring here in the US. As regular readers of Continuations know, I have been concerned about Trump’s various attempts to undermine this process for some time. Some claim that such concern was misguided as they see Trump as simply incompetent – but that strikes me as a problematic claim to make about someone who both had a su...

A peaceful transition of power between elected governments is one of the crucial aspects of representative democracies. Let’s hope that is what the coming weeks and months bring here in the US. As regular readers of Continuations know, I have been concerned about Trump’s various attempts to undermine this process for some time. Some claim that such concern was misguided as they see Trump as simply incompetent – but that strikes me as a problematic claim to make about someone who both had a su...

One of the core ideas in my book The World After Capital is that we have sufficient physical capital in the world to meet everyone’s needs. To help establish this I provide a fairly detailed analysis of what our needs are. Now today’s post is about clothing. Some people would say that clothing is a need, but that’s a conceptual mistake. Clothing is not a need, rather it is a solution for two actual needs: temperature regulation and bodily integrity. When it gets too cold we use clothing to wa...

One of the core ideas in my book The World After Capital is that we have sufficient physical capital in the world to meet everyone’s needs. To help establish this I provide a fairly detailed analysis of what our needs are. Now today’s post is about clothing. Some people would say that clothing is a need, but that’s a conceptual mistake. Clothing is not a need, rather it is a solution for two actual needs: temperature regulation and bodily integrity. When it gets too cold we use clothing to wa...

Predictions are hard, especially when they are about the future. A quote that is variously attributed to Nils Bohr and Yogi Berra but with an, unsurprisingly, more complicated history, feels perfect when thinking about 2021. The range of possible outcomes includes everything from getting the pandemic behind us rapidly, to a new strain emerging through mutation that the current crop of vaccines doesn’t protect us from (sorry to be a bummer on day 1). So instead of making predictions, I will si...

Predictions are hard, especially when they are about the future. A quote that is variously attributed to Nils Bohr and Yogi Berra but with an, unsurprisingly, more complicated history, feels perfect when thinking about 2021. The range of possible outcomes includes everything from getting the pandemic behind us rapidly, to a new strain emerging through mutation that the current crop of vaccines doesn’t protect us from (sorry to be a bummer on day 1). So instead of making predictions, I will si...