Why does America keep getting this so wrong? — I just finished the book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? It’s the most balanced book by an American on the growth of China toward being the world’s largest economy and how America could deal with this that I’ve found yet. It appears to be strongly…

Plus a bonus boiling pot analogy — You know those incredibly thin and light silver space blankets? The ones that come in emergency kits and get handed out at the end of athletic events to amateur runners and the like? How can this absurdly thin piece of crinkly plastic possibly keep people warm, never mind increasing…

Peterson has three fan bases, and two are mostly silent and harmless — I have a reasonably long history of looking with perplexity and occasionally disdain at the Peterson phenomenon. He came to my attention due to his reality-warping take on pronouns at my alma mater, the University of Toronto, in the province I lived in for 34 years, in the country I’m…

More US immigrants, better climate and other global results, Liberal’s winning and more medical tourists — The Supreme Court of the USA has seen something that is both the culmination of decades of strategic action by the Republican Party, and an unprecedented act. The first is that the Supreme Court has clearly voted to overturn Roe v Wade in its entirety, with the drafting of the…

A core of intelligent and nuanced cognitive science is burdened by Libertarian blinders — In the thick book about social policy, Nudge, there’s a useful and thin book trying to escape a turgid weight of ideology and blinders. Also, there’s a guidance manual for grasping Libertarians and corporative operatives on how to exploit humans. One wonders if Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein have become…

Four major global and US trends tie their hands — The USA is not unique in having sprawling cities, but it is the largest country by far with the lack of urban density it displays. Australia has equally sparsely populated urban areas, but it’s tiny by comparison. Canada’s population is much more packed into its three biggest cities of Vancouver…

Because one side is devoted to removing rights from Americans — Recently, I came across a set of questions and assumptions related to whether the ‘right’ or ‘left’ was winning the culture wars in the USA. Naturally, the assumptions were diametrically opposed. As I’m currently listening to Robinson’s The Great Ideas of Philosophy as I walk around the glorious city I…

We neglected the stitch and the ounce, and now must both prevent and cure as our economy is destabilized — Every culture and language in the world has maxims to the effect, “A stitch in time saves nine” or “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Treating the effects is the nine and the pound. Dealing with the cause is the stitch and the ounce. We are…

Many are taking serious steps, some are putting up roadblocks — The Climate Crisis team on Quora asked me to assess which industries are ahead and behind in terms of dealing with climate solutions. I’d just finished reading Kahneman’s Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment (strongly recommended), so instead of attempting to provide a multifactorial scoring, I decided to go with…