Johanna

In the current economic system, unemployment spreads like a virus: people lose their jobs, stop spending money, businesses are forced to shut down, and so on.A Job Guarantee could act as a buffer that absorbs unemployed people before they fall to the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. And this could help to stabilize the economy during... See more

But consider this: Do you know anyone who doesn’t have any blind spots? I strongly doubt it. Then why would you be any different? As Dalio makes clear, you must be active in the process of open-mindedness: It won’t happen by accident.

Giving everyone a set amount every year won’t create the highway systems, subway systems, nuclear power plants, hoover dams, space programs, water filtration systems, and more that we need as a society overall. In fact, if the total UBI system cost as a percent of tax receipts becomes too large, UBI may preclude these things from ever being built.... See more

However, this creates less wealth overall as work is no longer given to where it’s done most efficiently. This breaks the primary component of capitalism. The second solution is some sort of socialism, where the government introduces new laws and systems to redirect money to attempt to balance the system manually. This will help, but creates less... See more

Ideally, you want to pay people just enough they don’t stress about cash flow. Equity is harder, but a good rule for the first 20 hires seems to be about double what your investors suggest.

I once found this idea seductive. Now I find it outrageous. It’s not just because it’s wrong; it’s an affront to the human spirit. People only discover stuff when they think it’s worth trying, and there have been entire eras of human history where people didn’t think it was worth trying. A meme like “ideas are getting harder to find” could drive... See more

A lot of the best ideas seem silly or bad initially—you want an idea at the intersection of “seems like bad idea” and “is good idea”. (It’s important to note you need to be contrarian and right, not simply contrarian.)

Despite the headline focus on happiness, Robinson’s most unexpected insights were about American discontent. We may constantly complain about our harried schedules, but the real joy-killer seemed to be the absence of any schedule at all. Considerably less happy than the just-rushed-enough, he said, were those with lots of excess time.