You have probably heard this advice at least a hundred times. Follow your heart. Trust your gut. If it feels right, it probably is. It sounds warm. It sounds human. It sounds like the kind of thing a wise grandmother would say while handing you a cookie. Immanuel Kant would not have taken that cookie. […]
Why You Should Never Do Something Just Because It “Feels Right” Read More »
About 2,400 years ago, a retired Athenian general sat down to write about a war. His name was Thucydides. The war was between Athens and Sparta. And the book he produced was not really about that war at all. It was about you. That sounds like an exaggeration. It is not. Thucydides wrote The History
You spent four years in lecture halls. You wrote essays at 2am fueled by caffeine and quiet desperation. You walked across a stage, shook a hand, and received a piece of paper. And here is the uncomfortable question that George Stigler, the Nobel laureate economist who spent his career studying how information moves through markets,
Why Your Degree Is an Information Product, Not an Education: The Signaling Game Read More »
You would think the most attractive, successful, and interesting people would have the easiest time finding a partner. They have the most to offer. They should be snapped up immediately, like beachfront property or concert tickets for a band that is about to break up. But look around. Some of the most impressive people you
The Ricardian Dating Market: Why the “Best” People Stay Single Read More »
Auguste Comte is often remembered as the father of sociology, the man who wanted to turn the study of human society into something as rigorous as physics. He coined the term “positivism” and dreamed of a world governed by science rather than theology or metaphysics. What gets less attention is the strange corner of his
The Unpaid Moral Worker: Comte’s Justification for Excluding Women from Public Life Read More »
There is a particular kind of optimism that sounds beautiful in speeches and falls apart on contact with reality. It goes something like this: if we just remove the barriers between peoples, if we dissolve the lines on maps and let cultures flow freely into one another, peace will follow naturally. Humanity will recognize its
Why Peace Requires Harder Borders, Not Softer Ones Read More »
There is a strange irony at the heart of modern economics. The two great rival camps, socialists and capitalists, have spent over a century screaming at each other about profit. One side says profit is theft. The other says profit is the rightful reward for owning capital. And according to one quietly brilliant economist named
Why Socialists and Capitalists Both Misunderstand the Nature of Profit Read More »
You did not choose your country. You did not read the fine print. You did not click “I agree.” And yet, here you are, a fully enrolled citizen with obligations, tax duties, and a passport that tells the world which government gets to claim you. If this sounds like a subscription service you never signed
Is Your Citizenship Just a “Subscription” You Never Asked For? Read More »
Samuel Huntington published The Clash of Civilizations in 1993. The Berlin Wall had just fallen. Liberal democracy was supposed to sweep the planet like a benign virus. Francis Fukuyama had already declared the end of history, and most of the Western intellectual establishment was ready to pop champagne. Huntington refused to drink. Instead, he argued
Why an Islamic GPT and a Chinese GPT Will Never Agree Read More »
There is a particular kind of anxiety that grips people when currencies wobble. You see it in the headlines. You hear it at dinner parties where someone who just discovered gold ETFs suddenly speaks with the authority of a central banker. The dollar is dying, they say. Protect yourself. Buy gold. Buy crypto. Buy Swiss
Don’t Hedge Against the Dollar. Hedge With Your Own Productivity Read More »