If someone hated you and wanted you to die, would you follow their health advice? Would you let them talk you into behaviors you knew were risky? Would you listen to them at all? Yet, people let government employees tell them what rights they have.
Tag: trust
Lyft and Uber Are Bringing Cultures Together
By now, if you haven’t ridden in a Lyft or Uber vehicle, you at least have heard one amazing story from a friend who has. Philosophical conversations, sports talks, business opportunities, and friendships have all been born of these rides taken with strangers. One of the things I love about these rides with strangers are the moments of randomness they insert into my life.
Question Yourself First
Perhaps it’s useful to ask yourself the following question before posing any questions to someone else: Am I asking for an answer or am I asking for an argument?
10 Ways To (Almost) Instantly Grow Your Self-Confidence
There are moments in all of our lives when we can go from a feeling of low confidence to feeling unstoppable. These moments usually happen only at rare occasions, and they seem more like near-miraculous exceptions rather than rules. But what if we operationalized these as regular parts of our lives?
Divided We Stand
Most of the people who spend their time talking about the plight of division are the “political losers.” That is, the ones who feel as if the division leaves them at the mercy of an unfriendly upper hand. When they complain about division, what they’re really upset about is being on the losing side of a division that already existed long before they were angry about it.
The Ground of Your Basic Goodness
Basically, life can feel groundless – no solid, stable ground under your feet. And the truth is, that’s almost all the time. Our lives are always groundless, even if we try to get routines and control and stability. Things constantly happen to pull the rug out from under our feet, and that kind of uncertainty can be stressful, disappointing, painful, uncomfortable. So what can we do?
Believing or Thinking
Believing is like accepting and eating a stranger’s casserole. Hopefully whoever made it had good intentions and was honest. You trust they didn’t use feces as an ingredient.
State Capacity is Sleight of Hand
While good social outcomes all tend to go together, the state capacity literature fails to show that government is the crucial factor that makes all the others possible. Indeed, as far as I can tell, existing empirics are quite consistent with Sutton’s Law that people rob banks because “that’s where the money is.”
Shooting Range Reflections on Guns and Firearm Skills
I grew up hunting and shooting guns often with my family, but (besides a spring skeet shoot) it’s been a while since I’ve done a lot of training with firearms. The weekend before last I visited a shooting range with friends and had the welcome privilege of getting some practice in after a hiatus.
My Inner 10 Year-Old and Personalities of Other Ages
It’s a fun thought experiment to break down your personality and likes/dislikes into “ages”. I often find myself acting with the priorities and characteristics I might normally associate to a young boy, or to a grandfather.