Why Myanmar is Dying
A war most know nothing about
Politics
Institutions as Immune System
Institutions are hard to build and easy to break. Universities, ministries, companies. They usually accumulate a lot of insights and institutional knowledge and can respond pretty well to a wide variety of situations with usually good success. Of course, sometimes… Read More »Institutions as Immune System
The Leverage Arbitrage: Why Everything Feels Broken
Quick and interesting thoughts on labor vs. the world “A small team at TikTok can alter the attention patterns of a billion teenagers in months. Meanwhile, educational institutions need years just to update their curricula, and democratic governments require decades… Read More »The Leverage Arbitrage: Why Everything Feels Broken
Why Facts Don’t Change Minds in the Culture Wars—Structure Does
Facts are important, but they are not enough “The Church had mastered the art of narrative dominance, building a system of stories, symbols, and doctrines that made its authority seem natural and inevitable. The geocentric model was one of the… Read More »Why Facts Don’t Change Minds in the Culture Wars—Structure Does
Why we still have 12,000 Nukes
History and present of nuclear weapons
Why Do So Many People Think That Trump Is Good?
And what is good? “Then came the 17th-century wars of religion, and the rivers of blood they produced. Revulsion toward all that contributed to the Enlightenment, with its disenchantment with religion and the valorization of reason. Enlightenment thinkers said: We… Read More »Why Do So Many People Think That Trump Is Good?
What We Get Wrong About Violent Crime
“What’s remarkable, though, isn’t just the aesthetics. It’s that the neighborhoods where these lots have been turned into green spaces have seen a twenty-nine-per-cent drop in gun violence. Twenty-nine per cent! The people haven’t changed. The pathologies haven’t changed. The… Read More »What We Get Wrong About Violent Crime
Chechnya
To understand Russia and Ukraine, first understand Chechnya
What Is Populism?
Best explainer I have seen so far
What is Free Speech?
“Dabhoiwala points out that the saying ‘while sticks and stones may break my bones, words can never hurt me’ is first recorded only in 1862, but the contrary sentiment, ‘the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones,’ is found in… Read More »What is Free Speech?