It’s hard for car companies to build electric vehicles because they’re wrapped up in car thinking instead of electric vehicle thinking. Cars, as in four-wheel vehicles that carry two to six passengers using power generated from internal combustion engines, are nothing like electric vehicles… at least not if we want the EVs to be any [...]
Previously, I described eight possible events that would likely destroy civilization as we know it. These include diseases, climate change and nuclear war. Today, it’s time to take on “Imaginary Existential Threats” – those risks that are inflated by governments, special interest groups and the media, often for political reasons. 5. Mad Scientists I blame [...]
The rich generally understand that unregulated capitalism supports massive wealth transfers from the poor and middle class to the rich. This continues until there is no middle class left – just a rich aristocracy and a populations of serfs – as in 21st century Russia. These malevolent, avaricious fuckheads think this is a great idea [...]
We know that people have trouble evaluating risks. (To be more precise, people have trouble with conditional probability) One way this manifests itself is in society’s preoccupation with dramatic but minor threats (like terrorism) while less dramatic (or more abstract), but much more serious threats are ignored. Here are eight bona fide existential threats to [...]
Many adults do not understand human rights – what they are, why they’re important, how their presence or absence affects the well-being of society. As far a I can tell, the reason adults don’t understand human rights is that they didn’t learn about it in school. What’s worse, even if human rights issues are covered [...]
Many people have been led to believe that freedom is good and lack of freedom is bad; that the world can be divided into free societies and oppressed societies; that any limits to freedoms, be they through taxes, laws or regulations on corporations or individuals, are inherently evil. Let’s explore some of these, shall we? [...]
Software companies are throwing a collective tantrum about unauthorized downloading and use of their products. They accuse downloaders of violating copyrights and stealing their work. Due to the systematic bias in favor of corporations of North American law, the opposite case is rarely made. Namely, software companies are robbing their customers blind. Here are six [...]
“What do you wanna do tonight?” “I dunno.” What follows these two fateful lines is inevitably an enumeration of common pastimes, most of which aren’t really fun at all. We just keep doing them because we want to get out of the house, and we don’t know what else to do. We are creatures of [...]
It seems that the center and left-leaning media are going bonkers over the following estimates from Moody’s Economy.com: The major implication of this is that infrastructure and food stamps are significantly more effective means of stimulus than tax cuts. Therefore, the stimulus bill should include only infrastructure and food stamps spending, and no tax cuts. [...]
After a week or so of computer woes, I’m back, ready to take aim at the American education model once more. A couple of weeks ago, I observed a few fundamental flaws in the way we teach our kids. Here’s a few more crucial ways we make our kids, and our adults, stupid. 4. Not everyone [...]