I’m skeptical of “simple tricks to get a better life.” If you aren’t working on the core stuff (integrity, productivity, courage, kindness, etc), all the modifications and habits and gear in the world won’t work to improve your core sense of well-being. But when you are working on yourself, there are some real “life tweaks” that can help you down the very, very long path to “the good life”.
Tag: trust
Is Education Worth It? My Opening Statement
Is the education system really a waste of time and money, as my new book claims right on the cover? This is a strange topic to debate with Eric Hanushek. Why? Because if Hanushek had absolute power to fix the education system, education might actually be worth every penny. Hanushek is famous for focusing on what schools teach rather than what they spend – and documenting the vast disconnect between the two. If you haven’t already read his dissection of “input-based education policies,” you really ought to. Hanushek, more than any other economist, has taught us that measured literacy and numeracy are socially valuable – but just making kids spend long years in well-funded schools is not.
“Peace Through Strength” Is a Racket
“I’m going to make our military so big, so powerful, so strong, that nobody — absolutely nobody — is gonna to mess with us,” Trump says. On other occasions he’s said similar things: “We want to defer, avoid and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military strength” (same link) and, a year ago, “Nobody is going to mess with us. Nobody. It will be one of the greatest military build-ups in American history.”
Nonsense on Stilts
An English proverb holds that a lie can be halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on. It also appears to be the case that a government can be shot through with corruption before the ink is dried on its Constitution.
Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics II — Climate Change
Nobody asked but … I didn’t want to create the impression in my recent post that I disbelieve climate change. All I’m saying is that it is highly improbable that the data is being gathered in an honest way. And I don’t mean honest as opposed to deliberately fallacious. Just as period music should be…
Partitions VIII — The Mexican Border Wall
There will be a partially completed money pit on the US-Mexican Border for ever more. No POTUS nor COTUS nor SCOTUS will ever finish it, because 1) the political budgeting process never finishes anything, and 2) no one who could possibly take the blame for the failure and unintended consequences of a completed wall will allow the wall to be completed.
A Thought Experiment in Voluntaryism
The goal of the present thought experiment is to explore how much of existing social institutions, practices, and human relationships depend upon physical violence or the threat of it in order to function or exist.
Collective Ownership
If I am told that because I live in a certain place, being born there, I have a share in the collective ownership of the whole region, including other people’s private property, but that no one can opt out of the rules imposed on the land without moving away, this is not legitimate collective ownership.
History as Observation
History is not so much the faithful recording of observed facts as it is an interview by the individual with his own memory. Everything else is hearsay. We can only know one’s own history, and even then, it is much more how one felt about that history than it is about what objective things were true.
22 of the Most Important Things I’ve Learned in 22 Years
I’ve received and experienced a lot of good advice in 22 years of life. This isn’t everything, but it’s a good look at some of the lessons that have been important for me in getting to where I am today.