Christian Baaki

Although the West’s combination of markets plus science/technology does generate learning (companies die, startups replace them etc), our political institutions show little-to-no sign of learning in how they deal with things like state competition and war. Patterns of failure recur reliably hence books like Thucydides and Sun Tzu remain cutting

9. We are continually faced by greater opportunities brilliantly disguised as insolvable problems.

So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship.

At all my jobs, I focused on coming up with ideas for projects and on working on as many projects as possible. I wanted to learn. I wanted to see how things worked. I made sure no one saw me as a threat–on the contrary, that they saw me as someone who was a team player, who worked hard for others (and the business) to succeed. All the while, I was

Since then [2017], the federal regulatory army has continued to expand, with an annual budget now exceeding $80 billion. Over the past eight years, federal agencies have imposed some 550 major new rules—each carrying an estimated economic cost of more than $100 million per year.

Moreover, without the crush of new federal regulations, businesses

“There are only two things you have to know about business: build something users love, and make more than you spend.

As for building something users love, here are some general tips. Start by making something clean and simple that you would want to use yourself. Get a version 1.0 out fast, then continue to improve the software, listening closely

Nineteenth-century educational reformers wanted schools as efficient and impersonal as America’s impressive manufacturing facilities, so they established a system that treats children like industrial workers. Under the watchful eye of an overseer, students toil silently until a bell signals their opportunity to eat and briefly socialize. Unlike