Thursday, May 21, 2020

Trust and Progress

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Tyler Cowen talks with Paul Romer about social norms that encourage scientific advancement, or don't. Romer refers to the actually ver...
Monday, April 6, 2020

The Beginnings of a Voluntary State Free From the Tyranny of Territory

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States are inefficient, with governments subject to severe free-riding (at the best of times) and exploitation by violent psychopaths (at th...
Monday, March 2, 2020

Addiction Has Three Types: To Pleasure, Flow, or Meaning

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Positive psychology research models happiness as reducing to three components : pleasure (chocolate, sunsets and orgasm), flow (losing your...
Sunday, March 1, 2020

The 200 to 250 Year Life Cycle Of Great Powers

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Any theory of cycles of 200 to 250 years in the life of empires or nations immediately brings to mind China. If such a phenomenon exists, i...
Saturday, February 8, 2020

Why Is Pursuit of Pleasure a "Third Rail" in Central Authoritarian Agricultural Societies?

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A friend related the following to me. While she was an undergraduate, her grandparents came to visit and took her out to lunch. At the tim...
Tuesday, February 4, 2020

New Names for Subtle Emotional States

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Linderungzorn: "relief anger" - the sensation of finally doing something you've been putting off and stressing about forever...
Monday, February 3, 2020

The Benefit of Joining the United States Comes from Becoming More Like New England

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In an SSRN paper, Maseland and Spruk look at an interesting counterfactual : how would territories have performed that did in reality join ...