Author: Andrew
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How much should you take the other side for the sake of it?
“One of the hallmark trends of our generation is the fall of confidence in institutions. From the 1970s until now, people have lost faith in almost every major institution, from government to corporations. Post–World War II, America trusted places like General Motors or The Wall Street Journal as organizations acting in society’s interest, serving as…
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My main question right now
I once sent a reading list to my friend Michael, who is a PhD in philosophy and religion, to get his thoughts on using it to try and create a sort of self-directed masters in history, technology, and religion. He wrote back and said something like, “Cool, yeah lots of stuff you’d expect to see…
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Tariffs tariff-ing?
“Who’s paying for the tariffs? US importers mainly. September import price index data shows that US importers are continuing to pay most of the tariffs. The index shows prices before tariffs are applied. If foreign exporters were bearing a large portion of the tariff burden, we should expect to see a large decrease in the index. Instead, we’re…
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World War AI
https://www.epsilontheory.com/world-war-ai
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How to Understand Things
An essay from pandemic times. Which has some uncomfortable realities in it. Mainly, good thinking requires more focus, more curiosity, less concern about what others think, and so on. https://substack.com/home/post/p-111014900 People who have not experienced the thing are unlikely to be generating truth. More likely, they’re resurfacing cached thoughts and narratives. Reading popular science books…
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We’re Wrong
Read this little world-buster this morning from Philip Roth’s novel, American Pastoral. “You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try and come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot…
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Violent Saviors: The West’s Conquest of the Rest
Saw this recommending on Marginal Revolution and just bought it to read. I’ve recently been reading quite a bit about liberalism, and classical liberalism specifically. This provided quite a bit of awareness for me on the tensions between economic development and freedom. As I think about classical liberalism these days, it’s a sharp edge to…
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Confidently Wrong
Uh oh. This spells trouble for the staunchly, and always, anti-expert crowd. Most of them are on Twitter and host podcasts (of which I listen to). Most importantly on this issue: The authors suggest leaning on social norms and respected community figures instead.
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The Monks in the Casino
The Monks in the Casino by Derek Thompson A brief theory of young men, “the loneliness crisis,” and life in the 21st century Read on Substack
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Osteria in Ravello.
Peder Severin Krøyer, 1890