Brian Wiesner

I was not able to find any other Western country that has the combination of long summer breaks, no mandated paid vacation time, minimal subsidized options, and a dominant cultural belief that kids need constant supervision, especially in public places. Clearly articulating all of these factors really helps me understand how we find ourselves in... See more

Legalizing Dense Development is the Single Most Effective Solution to the Housing Crisis

We Now Have Clear Proof that Building Dramatically Really Does Lower Rents, and it Works Quickly

Our story is not unusual. In your 30s and 40s, plenty of new people enter your life, through work, children’s play dates and, of course, Facebook. But actual close friends — the kind you make in college, the kind you call in a crisis — those are in shorter supply.

The fundamental message of marketing must change from "we want your money" to "we share your interests".

Thanks to the power of this myth, many of us take the safe route in life. We become lawyers instead of actresses, bankers instead of poets, and doctors instead of painters. We hedge our bets and hide from our true calling, choosing less risky careers, because it seems easier. Nobody wants to struggle, after all, so we keep our passion a hobby and... See more

In contrast to Berlin's nachtgestalten (rough translation: c reatures of the night ), Sydney is home to a lively dawn chorus of early morning run clubs, beachgoers and surfers. Bondi at sunrise could be mistaken for a beach in Europe during sunset; crowded to the brim, hundreds of people basking in the warm glow of first light.

Fundamentally, marketing must refocus away from selling product and toward creating relationship. Relationship buffers the shock of change. To be sure, the specific product or service provided remains the fundamental basis for economic exchange, but it must not be treated as the main event. There is simply too much change in this domain for anyone

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In studies of peer groups, Laura L. Carstensen, a psychology professor who is the director of the Stanford Center on Longevity in California, observed that people tended to interact with fewer people as they moved toward midlife, but that they grew closer to the friends they already had.

A very common trope is to treat LLMs as if they were intelligent agents going out in the world and doing things. That’s just a category mistake. A much better way of thinking about them is as a technology that allows humans to access information from many other humans and use that information to make decisions. We have been doing this for as long... See more