Since I think that Brexit is a bad idea, why am I telling its advocates how to proceed? Because I know Brexiteers won’t listen – and even if they did, the EU wouldn’t budge. While I can understand the failures of politics, I have near-zero ability to solve them. Not coincidentally, this is precisely what my view predicts.
Tag: world
One Cheer for Trump on Iran
In violating the agreement and returning to a belligerent footing, he confirmed something the Iranians, like the Sioux, have long had good reason to believe: That the US government can’t be trusted to keep its word.
Libertarianism is The Balance
One objection I frequently see against libertarianism is that it’s “too extreme”. “There needs to be a balance between the extremes of libertarianism and fascism” (as illustrated by “border enforcement” and so forth).
Facebook’s Libra Isn’t a “Cryptocurrency”
Libra will not be a true cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Ether. Neither its creation nor its transactions will be decentralized and distributed, let alone easily made anonymous. A “blockchain” is just a particular kind of ledger for keeping track of transactions. It does not, in and of itself, a cryptocurrency make.
Edward Snowden: The Untold Story of How One Patriotic American Exposed NSA Surveillance
Edward Snowden might not yet be a historical figure, but he certainly is a hero. He is the whistleblower of all whistleblowers, the American who blew the lid off of Washington’s spying on private citizens. But Snowden’s leak revealed that it’s not just the U.S. government that is spying on virtually every American – big American telecommunications companies are also helping them to spy as well.
The Entrepreneur Who Became a Billionaire After Being Rejected by Facebook
Jan Koum had a rough upbringing. At 16, he immigrated from Europe to the United States with his mother and grandmother, who were fleeing political unrest and religious persecution. Jan’s mother got a job as a babysitter in California while Jan went to school and worked at a grocery store cleaning floors. His father planned…
The “Solution” to Flag-Burning is Simpler Than a Constitutional Amendment
If flag-burning is really a “problem,” it’s a problem with a simple solution: If you don’t want to burn a flag, don’t buy a flag, soak it in kerosene, and set it on fire. If you do want to burn a flag, don’t steal someone else’s flag, and don’t burn a flag on the private property of someone who objects, or in a way that creates a danger to others (in a dry forest, for example). Either way, don’t try to tell people what they may or may not do with pieces of cloth they rightfully own.
Why Be a Peasant When You Can Be a Knight Errant?
There wasn’t much attraction then to the idea of serving a lord, tying down to a fixed point of earth, and living on the good graces of the powerful. But when we’ve chosen our careers, we’ve generally chosen to commit our whole working lives to serving on the land of another while a whole realm of people with quests awaits.
If You Hate it, You’re Not the Audience
I love Shark Tank. I used to watch it with my kids. It exposed them to tons of new concepts. The idea of building a business with someone else’s money was novel. The realization that you’ve got to have a story that’s compelling enough to convince the holders of that money to join.
Trade, Tariffs, and some Basic Economics
Economics can be a complicated subject and many people don’t really understand why the economy works the way it does. That’s okay, but learning about economics and economic principles can also be very rewarding because it helps to explain so much about our world and about human behavior.