Past data can be a useful item in the toolkit. But the theories that explain it can’t automatically be applied to the future. The data is the effect, and what changes in the future are causes. Will yesterday’s causes hold tomorrow?
Author: Isaac Morehouse
Isaac Morehouse is the founder and CEO of Praxis, an awesome startup apprenticeship program. He is dedicated to the relentless pursuit of freedom. He’s written some books, done some podcasting, and is always experimenting with self-directed living and learning. When he’s not with his wife and kids or building his company, he can be found smoking cigars, playing guitars, singing, reading, writing, getting angry watching sports teams from his home state of Michigan, or enjoying the beach.
What Explains Nostalgia?
I’ve been puzzling over the concept of nostalgia for some time. What is it? That bittersweet pain you have as a parent when you see your kid growing up and remember in a flash their babyhood. Or the feeling when a song from your youth comes on the radio. It’s a very distinct kind of pleasure mixed with sadness.
How I Try to Help Crypto Without Being a Techie
I’ve been in love with crypto and its world-shaking potential since I first heard about it around 2012. I bought some Bitcoin not long after, and was always excited for an excuse to use it or give it away. I was in it for the philosophy and potential to expand human freedom and prosperity, not really as an investment vehicle.
The Flakiest Places to Do Business
It’s undeniable that Austin and San Francisco are unique hubs of startups and innovation. I think that’s part of the problem. 90% of the innovating is done by a tiny fraction of the people there, and everyone else gets the benefit of the reputation. It’s a moral hazard.
Want to Be a Scholar? Be a Scholar; You Don’t Need Academia’s Approval
The thing that really struck me about this question was the complete and utter lack of imagination. Actually, scratch that. It doesn’t even take imagination because the alternative exists and some people are doing it. It’s more like a complete lack of awareness of the world that already exists. Like the academic who proclaimed that the private maintenance of maritime lighthouses was impossible, while the lighthouse out his own window was at that very time privately maintained.
On Noprofits and Risk
For the people who work there, nonprofits are a wonderful, dangerous vacation from the feedback of reality. They provide a sort of cushy anti-moral hazard, where people take less risk than they would if they faced direct market feedback from customers. An environment like that is good at slowly stagnating or even corroding the human spirit, as safety nets tend to do. Be careful.
The First World Problems Foundation
As I accumulate wealth, I think I’ll get working on establishing the First World Problems Foundation. Maybe you can join me. Together, we can remove small annoyances from the lives of the super prosperous, and thus make the world a better place.
Market Outcomes > Expert Opinions
Manned flight is impossible. Computers will never be smaller than a house. Space flight is “Utter bilge”. The food pyramid. One doesn’t have to look far to find embarrassing, peer-reviewed, max-credentialed, decades-held-as-orthodoxy proclamations by the most respected experts in the world.
On ‘Wage Slavery’ and Word Games
Metaphors and language matter. If you see yourself as a slave, your imagination shrinks, and your sense of what’s possible declines. Verbiage associated with victimhood, etc. have a powerful self-enforcing tendency.
Ignorance is Easier
Being in utter darkness about why I’m not getting what I want is more comfortable than the knowledge that it’s because of some attitude or behavior of mine that’s out of whack. It’s easier to handle being treated badly by someone for no apparent reason than to find it it’s because I’m an unpleasant conversationalist.