I know that with everything going on here in the US it is hard to find the time to even think about other parts of the world, but the EU is currently losing its mind when it comes to copyright. If you have been following my blog here for some time, or read my book World After Capital, you know I think that copyright ought to be rolled back. Well the EU, is about to go in the opposite direction, massively expanding the obligations for online services to pre-clear rights before publishing anyth...

I know that with everything going on here in the US it is hard to find the time to even think about other parts of the world, but the EU is currently losing its mind when it comes to copyright. If you have been following my blog here for some time, or read my book World After Capital, you know I think that copyright ought to be rolled back. Well the EU, is about to go in the opposite direction, massively expanding the obligations for online services to pre-clear rights before publishing anyth...

NOTE: I will resume posting excerpts from my book World After Capital next Monday. The field for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary has over a dozen declared candidates, including widely known names such as Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders. And on top that there are people like former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Vice President Joe Biden who could enter the race at any time and immediately be contenders. And yet all of these voices are...

NOTE: I will resume posting excerpts from my book World After Capital next Monday. The field for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary has over a dozen declared candidates, including widely known names such as Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders. And on top that there are people like former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Vice President Joe Biden who could enter the race at any time and immediately be contenders. And yet all of these voices are...

Earlier this week I went to see Free Solo, which documents Alex Honnold’s ascent of El Capitan, with our son Michael. After being on the edge of our seats for most of the movie, we came away with sweaty hands and agreeing that this was one of the better films we had seen in a while. Free Solo won the the Oscar for best documentary, but it actually has a great narrative arc. If you can still catch the movie on a big screen, I highly recommend it. If you don’t know anything about climbing, free...

Earlier this week I went to see Free Solo, which documents Alex Honnold’s ascent of El Capitan, with our son Michael. After being on the edge of our seats for most of the movie, we came away with sweaty hands and agreeing that this was one of the better films we had seen in a while. Free Solo won the the Oscar for best documentary, but it actually has a great narrative arc. If you can still catch the movie on a big screen, I highly recommend it. If you don’t know anything about climbing, free...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday considered how imperfect correlation is related to the narrative fallacy which in turn underlies observations such as the extravagant headquarters effect. Today I will examine why hiring is so ridiculously hard and even organizations which are very good at it will make their fair share of mistakes. The underlying reason for why hiring is hard is the base rate fallacy, which occurs when you update your beliefs too much on the basis of flimsy information. What do I me...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday considered how imperfect correlation is related to the narrative fallacy which in turn underlies observations such as the extravagant headquarters effect. Today I will examine why hiring is so ridiculously hard and even organizations which are very good at it will make their fair share of mistakes. The underlying reason for why hiring is hard is the base rate fallacy, which occurs when you update your beliefs too much on the basis of flimsy information. What do I me...

NOTE: This is part of a series of excerpts from my book World After Capital. Today’s post introduces the concept of psychological freedom, which is crucial for living in a world that is information super saturated.Psychological FreedomImagine you live in a society that has achieved economic freedom and informational freedom. Would you make good use of those freedoms? Or would your existing beliefs, fears, and emotional reactions hold you back from engaging in the Knowledge Loop? Or worse yet,...

NOTE: This is part of a series of excerpts from my book World After Capital. Today’s post introduces the concept of psychological freedom, which is crucial for living in a world that is information super saturated.Psychological FreedomImagine you live in a society that has achieved economic freedom and informational freedom. Would you make good use of those freedoms? Or would your existing beliefs, fears, and emotional reactions hold you back from engaging in the Knowledge Loop? Or worse yet,...

NOTE: Today’s excerpt from World After Capital is the first subsection in the chapter on psychological freedom. It deals with freeing ourselves from wanting as a crucial part of exiting the Job Loop.Freedom from WantingWith the extraordinary success of capitalism built on the Job Loop, we have become deeply confused about work and consumption, seeing them today as integral goals of our lives instead of as means to an end. Working harder and consuming more allows the economy to grow, so that w...

NOTE: Today’s excerpt from World After Capital is the first subsection in the chapter on psychological freedom. It deals with freeing ourselves from wanting as a crucial part of exiting the Job Loop.Freedom from WantingWith the extraordinary success of capitalism built on the Job Loop, we have become deeply confused about work and consumption, seeing them today as integral goals of our lives instead of as means to an end. Working harder and consuming more allows the economy to grow, so that w...

NOTE: This is part of a series of excerpts from my book World After Capital. Today’s post wraps up the prior discussion of why as part of increasing informational freedom we should embrace a post privacy world. —- So we can’t really protect privacy without handing control of technology into the hands of a few and conversely decentralized innovation requires reduced privacy. What should we do? The answer, I think, is to embrace a post-privacy world. We should work to protect people and their f...

NOTE: This is part of a series of excerpts from my book World After Capital. Today’s post wraps up the prior discussion of why as part of increasing informational freedom we should embrace a post privacy world. —- So we can’t really protect privacy without handing control of technology into the hands of a few and conversely decentralized innovation requires reduced privacy. What should we do? The answer, I think, is to embrace a post-privacy world. We should work to protect people and their f...

No matter whether you think Amazon HQ2 in New York was a good or a bad idea, it is worth considering how terrible the execution of the whole affair has been. It all started with the way Amazon conducted the search for the new location. Making a bunch of cities compete in a secret bidding contest may strike some people as brilliant but was always a terrible idea. Didn’t anyone at Amazon think: “Hey we are one of the world’s most valuable companies, run by the world’s richest person and so aski...

No matter whether you think Amazon HQ2 in New York was a good or a bad idea, it is worth considering how terrible the execution of the whole affair has been. It all started with the way Amazon conducted the search for the new location. Making a bunch of cities compete in a secret bidding contest may strike some people as brilliant but was always a terrible idea. Didn’t anyone at Amazon think: “Hey we are one of the world’s most valuable companies, run by the world’s richest person and so aski...

In sports some people believe that there is a Sports Illustrated cover jinx: teams or individual athletes featured on the cover for outstanding performance, subsequently have a bad season. One explanation for this phenomenon is regression to the mean. The prior year’s performance, which earned the cover spot, is based on a combination of skill and luck. The skill persists to the next period but the luck does not (and in fact is just as likely to turn into “bad luck”). So being featured on the...

In sports some people believe that there is a Sports Illustrated cover jinx: teams or individual athletes featured on the cover for outstanding performance, subsequently have a bad season. One explanation for this phenomenon is regression to the mean. The prior year’s performance, which earned the cover spot, is based on a combination of skill and luck. The skill persists to the next period but the luck does not (and in fact is just as likely to turn into “bad luck”). So being featured on the...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday I wrote about how regression to the mean at least partially explains the “curse” of building extravagant headquarters (which often signals an impending downturn in the performance of a company). Whenever we come up with a detailed causal explanation for something that is simply a statistical effect we are caught up in what is known as the narrative fallacy. As Kahneman documents so well in his book Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow, the brain has long evolved to want ...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday I wrote about how regression to the mean at least partially explains the “curse” of building extravagant headquarters (which often signals an impending downturn in the performance of a company). Whenever we come up with a detailed causal explanation for something that is simply a statistical effect we are caught up in what is known as the narrative fallacy. As Kahneman documents so well in his book Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow, the brain has long evolved to want ...