Best Practice Analysis

I'm always skeptical when receiving life advice from successful people, because their advice is biased towards taking too much risk, because successful people are selected for having been lucky.

Phil Goetz, "Happiness Engineering"

Isn't That True of Every Discipline (Other Things Equal)?

Economics is most like a science when people do not care about the outcome of the argument.

Tyler Cowen, "Is Economics a Science? (Liquidity Trap Edition)"

Opportunity Costs

The rich also leave jobs more quickly than others, for the simple reason that they can afford to do so. Karen Weisgerber, a senior adviser at the center who also works with Kenny at North Bridge, describes an heir she counseled who had earned an M.B.A. from a top-tier school and was an obviously intelligent man. He nonetheless moved from one high-tech job to another. “At some point, something would happen at each job that those who have to work for an income would learn to tolerate,” Weisgerber says. “And he’d just say, ‘I don’t want to deal with this.’ Eventually he had to say, ‘I don’t have a career.’”

Graeme Wood, "Secret Fears of the Super-Rich"

Warm & Fuzzy Feelgood Quote of the Day

I never trust anyone who's more excited about success than about doing the thing they want to be successful at.

xkcd, "Time Management" (hover text)

One-Trick Pony

A friend of mine from Poland was surprised we had jokes in America. He thought the sole purpose of humor was to criticize the government. And our government was pretty good.

Seth Roberts, "Humor as Catalyst"

Why Do People Commit the Nirvana Fallacy?

I’m reminded of an exchange in first-year property class during law school concerning rent control. The issue on the floor was whether rent control would improve or diminish conditions given the fact that typically at the time rent control is instituted in a municipality, there isn’t enough adequate housing at reasonable prices for people to live with dignity and within their economic means. A student (not me) complained that it shouldn’t be the case that there wasn’t enough adequate housing at reasonable prices for people to live with dignity and within their economic means. This guy simply didn’t understand that there simply wasn’t enough adequate housing at reasonable prices for people to live with dignity and within their economic means and his solution to that dilemma was that there really, really ought to be enough adequate housing at reasonable prices for people to live with dignity and within their economic means.

Transplanted Lawyer, Comment on "The Terran Federation Needs YOU! (To Work As A Farmhand In A Chinese Rice Paddy)" by Patrick

Filter

Mich interessieren Worte nicht. Worte sind, wenn sie nach außen gelangen, durch so viele Instanzen gegangen, dass sie nur noch sind wie eine alte Tageszeitung.

Sibylle Berg, "Experiment"

Is Storytelling a Left-Wing Technique?

I would say that the story per se is usually left-wing, in both good and bad ways. It elevates the seen over the unseen, can easily portray a struggle for justice, focuses on the anecdote, and encourages us to judge social institutions by the intentions of the people who work in them, rather than looking at their deeper and longer-term outcomes. Precisely because the story is itself so left-wing, there won't be a definitive example of the left-wing novel.

Tyler Cowen, "What Is the Ultimate Left-Wing Novel?"