Utility Maximizer's guide to replicators, networks, game theory, and civilization
This is the first in a series I'm calling The Great Stagnation, a concept I took from Peter Thiel. Thiel argues that the rate of technological progress in the western world has stagnated. This post is reacting to a book by Scott Adams, Loserthink, which wasn't very good. One particularly dumb chapter is called, "The Golden … Continue reading Scott Adam’s Golden Age Fallacy
This post will follow up on a previous one about anti-trust. In that post, I allege that the best (if not only) way to become aggressively rich — to have “passive income” — is to abuse some “barrier to entry.” A barrier to entry is essentially some leverage that makes it very difficult for someone else to compete with … Continue reading More about barriers to entry: How people get rich
Anti-trust origins Anti-trust regulations are called that because they were once considered generically anti-corporate regulations, like what tough-on-corporation politicians expound today. Think the trusts are oppressing the workers? Hit them with some regulations! But eventually, anti-trust would come to by synonymous with curbing the power of monopoly. And with good reason. Market power is the … Continue reading A proposal for a better standard of anti-trust
According to this manifesto, there exactly four functions of government: To protect people's health and property To oversee natural utilities, and one-of-a-kind goods (these topics are related via Georgism) To neutrally promote the creation and availability of information To maintain a national currency This section will cover #4. After this post, the manifesto will have … Continue reading Proper Sovereignty Manifesto, Part 4: Currency
I am a brave explorer. I discover a new continent. To my surprise, the land mass is completely uninhabited, and I am the first human to set foot on this new earth. I mark my discovery on a map. A year later, replicas of the map have circled the world. I attempt to establish a … Continue reading Proper Sovereignty Manifesto, part 3: Information
Time has not treated Henry George well. He was the most famous economist in the world. In 1906, his books were more well known than Shakespeare’s plays, even among the members of the British Parliament. It goes without saying that he was the best-selling American writer of his era. About 200,000 people attended his funeral. … Continue reading Proper Sovereignty Manifesto, Part 2: Georgism
Technological innovation is as old as humanity. Technology can be a physical creation or a process, anything that increases the scope of possibility or improves efficiency. First and foremost, I am unabashedly pro-technology, and despite the side this paper takes, I wish for its progress to continue or accelerate. I will explain why the extreme … Continue reading Welfare and Automation
Epiphany a Week 