Topic
philosophy
- Things Hidden
I found and watched this this morning. Phenomenal documentary on the life and ideas of Rene Girard. A lot of direct interviews with Girard himself, as well as many of his colleagues, collaborators, and those influence…
- Dana Gioia on Beauty
"Truth is beauty, and beauty, truth" —John Keats I've been on a kick lately trying to understand what informs the concept of "taste." When we say someone "has good taste," what do we mean? I'll have more to say on tas…
- Simplifying with Gall's Law
In the latest issue of Res Extensa, I dove into "Gall's Law", which says: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never…
- Brittle Authoritarianism
Jonah Goldberg on the brittleness of authoritarianism: Authoritarian regimes are often very, very strong. But like marble they’re brittle. They can withstand enormous pressures, from within and without, but there’s no…
- On Legibility — In Society, Tech, Organizations, and Cities
This is a repost from my newsletter, Res Extensa, which you can subscribe to over on Substack. This issue was originally published in November, 2020. In our last issue, we'd weathered TS Zeta in the hills of Georgia,…
- The Ideological Turing Test
I recently finished Arnold Kling’s excellent Three Languages of Politics, which attempts to build a model to describe why different political viewpoints are so often not disagreeing as much as they are talking about d…
- Weekend Reading: Iceland, the Use of Knowledge, and CLI Search
⚖️ The Use of Knowledge in Society I've been reading some of Hayek's famous articles this week. This one is all about what he probably considered one of the most important concepts, since these basic ideas form a cent…
- David Deppner on Leadership, Confidence, and Humility
I thought this was a fantastic interview on EconTalk. David Deppner is a listener of the podcast that sent Russ a thought-provoking email question on the subject of leadership and what traits make for "good" qualities…
- Ask Fewer Questions
Seneca had great advice 2000 years ago on how to calm ourselves down: "It is not to your benefit to see and hear everything. Many injuries ought to pass over us; if you ignore them, you get no more injury from them. Y…
- Weekend Reading: Universal Laws, Tandem, and Computers That Can See
📚 Universal Laws of the World A list of broad laws that apply to all fields. Thoughtful stuff as always from Morgan Housel: Parkinson’s Law: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. In 1955 histori…
- Jonathan Haidt on the Righteous Mind
Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind was one of my favorite recent nonfiction books I've read in the last few years. It's one of the most objective, deep analyses of a question that's interested me for years: why do pe…
- The Danger of Oversimplification
Many people are familiar with Occam's razor, the principle summarized as: Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. There's a tendency you notice all over for people to overco…
- Gates' Law: How Progress Compounds
“Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.” My post from yesterday got me thinking about this piece I read recently on Farnam Street that dovetails…
- Weekend Reading: Brains and Language, Hillshading in Blender, and Antifragility
🧠Your Brain Needs 1.5 MB of Storage to Master Your Native Language "It may seem surprising but, in terms of digital media storage, our knowledge of language almost fits compactly on a floppy disk," the authors wrote…
- The Distrust of Intellectual Authority
I love this brief piece from Shane Parrish about the decaying respect for experience and authority on intellectual topics: This overwhelming complexity of modern life “produced feelings of helplessness and anger among…
- Self Reliance and Introspection
The nearly 2000 year old Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is likely the first ever entry in the “self help” publishing genre. During his last days as Roman Emperor, reigning from 161-180 AD, he wrote the 12 “books” that…
- This is Water
This is a 2005 commencement address delivered by the late David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College. Worth going back and listening to from time to time.