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 »
Here is a thought that might ruin your afternoon in the best possible way: what if a significant portion of your anxiety is not a chemical event, not a psychological deficiency, not a trauma response, but a confusion about language? That sounds absurd. Maybe even offensive. You feel the tightness in your chest, the spiraling
Is Your Anxiety a Linguistic Trap? Re-framing Mental Distress with Philosophy Read More »
There is a surgeon in an operating room. She nicks an artery. The patient bleeds out on the table. There will be lawsuits. There will be investigations. Her career might end. Her name will appear in newspapers. Strangers on the internet will call her a murderer. Now imagine a robotic surgical system does the same
Why We Forgive Robots for Mistakes We Would Kill a Human For Read More »
Few words in economics carry as much emotional weight as inflation. Say it at a dinner party and watch the mood shift. People clutch their wallets instinctively, as if the very syllable could drain their bank accounts. Politicians campaign against it. Central bankers lose sleep over it. Cable news treats every uptick in the Consumer
Inflation Is Not the Villain: A Keynesian Defense of Rising Prices Read More »
There is a peculiar kind of cruelty that disguises itself as compassion. It shows up in boardrooms and legislatures, in university policies and dinner table arguments. It says: everyone should end up in the same place, regardless of what they did to get there. It sounds generous. It sounds humane. And according to Ayn Rand,
There is a peculiar war that has been raging for centuries. It does not involve armies or territories. No shots are fired. No treaties are signed. Yet its consequences shape economies, cultures, and the very fabric of how societies organize themselves. This is the war between the intellectual class and the entrepreneur. And the man
The Intellectual Class vs. The Entrepreneur: The Eternal Cold War Read More »
You probably grew up believing science works like a town hall meeting. Someone proposes an idea, everyone debates it fairly, the best evidence wins, and humanity marches forward. It is a beautiful story. It is also, according to Thomas Kuhn, almost entirely wrong. In 1962, Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a book that
Why the Science Community Is More Like a Cult Than a Democracy Read More »
There is something strange happening. Billions of people wake up every morning and voluntarily do something that prisoners, dissidents, and heretics once had to be tortured into doing. They confess. They confess what they ate, how they slept, what they feel about their mothers, why their last relationship failed, what their therapist said on Tuesday.
The Confession Industrial Complex: Why We Feel Compelled to Over-Share Online Read More »
Here is something that should bother you. After every mass shooting in America, both sides of the gun debate rush to present facts. One side offers statistics on gun deaths per capita. The other side offers statistics on defensive gun uses. Both sides are armed with data, graphs, and peer reviewed studies. And absolutely nothing
On Gun Control: It’s Not About Facts, It’s About the Web Read More »
Thomas Kuhn ruined the word “paradigm” for everyone. That is not his fault, exactly. But it is ironic. The man who wrote the most important book about how language traps thinking had his own key term kidnapped, diluted, and turned into corporate wallpaper. Every startup pitch deck now has a “paradigm shift.” Every LinkedIn post
How the Language You Use Lock You Into the Old Way Read More »