I graduated with high honors from an affluent, acclaimed high school and then again with high honors with a BA in philosophy & pre-law before EVER once hearing the idea that prices convey information and coordinate actors.
I'll never forget rolling up to a philosophy conference in Pasadena in 2008 and wandering into a session on "price gouging" and the pro-"price gougers" introduced this concept.
Possibly the single most transformative moment of my entire education.
@asymmetricinfo So why not yield to a future in which real-world speeches will mostly be written by AIs?
Because the process of learning how to write is the process of learning how to think.
Because crafting a speech to appeal to a given audience is an exercise in empathy.
@petersuderman I should also note that I have twin teenage sons and their esteem, as well as their peers, may have factored in my decision matrix. YMMV
Government-funded basic research and industrial translation research are complements, not substitutes. The left frequently gets this wrong, thinking that the government does all the real work and private firms (notably pharma) just steal the idea and make bank. Now the right is getting it wrong from the other direction.
for starters I don’t think you’re selfish for not having children
and kids actually are a joy to have
but if you need a different reason, I really liked what some other couple once said, about wanting to have “a maximum human experience”. I’ll elaborate how I interpreted that
One of the most important questions every society must answer: what story will you give your young men to help them order their lives? A story of hope leading to the belief they can make the world better, or another story. They will act, but the direction is set by the story
I read this article and it boils down to the writer believing the Hero archetype is corrosive, bad, and unnecessary -- an outdated concept of masculinity.
I personally think the continual appeal of the hero archetype, especially to younger men, is something a society shouldn't dismiss, and rather than try to make it profane, realize the universal need for it, and the good that can come from it.
A society where a young man wants to rush into a burning building to save someone is actually a good thing,
This @tabletmag piece is the most brutal beatdown of @davidaxelrod and, to a lesser extent, @BarackObama -- and their dystopic, authoritarian, and totalitarian approach to gaining and preserving power.