Apology for a Trainwreck

The ethnographies of Oscar Lewis paint a bleak picture of lower-class life.  The thousands of pages of published interviews in books like Five Families, The Children of Sanchez, Four Men, and La Vida show a relentless trainwreck of impulsive sex, unplanned pregnancy, child neglect, child abuse, drug addiction, drunkenness, degenerate gambling, intra-family violence, near-random violence, parasitism, and gross financial mismanagement. …

US Schools Are Leaving Students Ill-Equipped to Compete with Artificial Intelligence

We have long known that the robots were coming, but now that they are here, the mismatch between our modern education system and the technology-fueled workplace is glaringly apparent. As robots expertly perform routine tasks and increasingly assume broader workforce responsibilities, we must ask ourselves an important question: What is our key human differentiator?

The Mount Rushmore of Voluntaryism

I recently read a fascinating article, listing the Mount Rushmore for each MLB franchise.  For examples, the Bosox had Williams, Yastrzemski, Martinez, and Ortiz; the Cincinnati Reds had Rose, Bench, Larkin, and Votto; the Giants had Mathewson, Mays, McCovey, and Bonds. The article inspired me to design my versions of two monuments elemental to Voluntaryism.

Economics 101: Opportunity Cost & Wizard’s Fifth Rule: Deeds Will Betray a Lie (22m) – Episode 285

Episode 285 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: a list of things teachers say to manipulate and control children in the classroom; he continues the Economics 101 mini-series with “opportunity cost”; he also continues the Wizard’s Rules mini-series with the fifth rule, “Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie”; and more.

In the Grain

Jeff Riggenbach points out that European civilization in the North American new world was founded by two distinct types of adventurer, the first sought freedom from the old order, while the second sought to impose a new order.  We Americans, as a people have been in fundamental conflict ever since.