There is a particular kind of intellectual surrender that disguises itself as wisdom. It sounds like this: “I am not an expert, so I will defer to those who are.” On the surface, this seems humble. Reasonable, even. But Friedrich Hayek would have recognized it for what it is. A quiet abdication of thought. A […]
Why “Trusting the Experts” Is a Soft Form of Nihilism Read More »
Bertrand Russell spent his life trying to make the world more rational. He wrote thousands of pages on logic, mathematics, and the careful use of language. He won a Nobel Prize for it. And yet, if Russell were alive today and scrolling through any comment section on the internet, he would discover something that might
The Philosophical Basis of Trolling: Why We Love to Spread Irrationality Read More »
There is a phrase that floats around corporate retreats and LinkedIn posts like a benevolent ghost. Work life balance. Say it slowly and it almost sounds like wisdom. It suggests a scale, two neat sides, one labeled “work” and the other labeled “life,” and all you need to do is keep them even. Simple. Elegant.
In 1930, one of the most brilliant economists who ever lived made a prediction. John Maynard Keynes, writing during the Great Depression of all times, looked ahead to the year 2030 and saw something remarkable. He saw us, his grandchildren’s generation, working about 15 hours a week. He believed that by now, the economic problem
Why We Keep Working 40 Hours Just to Prove We Are Not Lazy Read More »
What Friedrich Hayek Actually Meant, and Why It Still Stings There is a particular kind of madness that looks perfectly reasonable on paper. It has org charts. It has procedures. It has committees that form subcommittees to investigate whether a third committee is necessary. It calls itself order. Friedrich Hayek called it something else entirely:
Gary Becker won a Nobel Prize for treating marriage like a business decision. Most people found that offensive. He turned out to be more right than even he probably imagined. Becker’s core idea was simple. People marry when the expected gains from marriage exceed the expected gains from staying single. Marriage is not just about
There is a peculiar comfort in being the victim. You get sympathy. You get attention. You get, most importantly, an excuse. Nobody asks the victim what they could have done differently. Nobody expects the victim to build anything. The victim is simply owed. And in a culture that has turned victimhood into a currency more
Ludwig Wittgenstein never had a Twitter account. He died in 1951, decades before anyone could experience the unique pleasure of being called an idiot by a stranger with a flag emoji in their username. And yet, if you actually read what the man wrote, you will find that he diagnosed the core disease of online
Wittgenstein’s Guide to Winning Arguments on Social Media Read More »
There is a famous passage in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money where John Maynard Keynes suggests that the government could bury banknotes in old coal mines, fill the mines with rubbish, and let private enterprise dig them back up. He was not joking. Or rather, he was joking, but the joke contained
The Case for Digging Holes: Why Productivity Isn’t Always the Point Read More »
You have probably seen the posts. “Change your mindset, change your life.” “Believe it and achieve it.” “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” These slogans sell millions of books and fill arenas with eager audiences clutching notebooks. They are clean. They are memorable. They are, if Willard
The Anti-Guru Manifesto: Why Quine Would Laugh at Simple Self-Help Formulas Read More »