Sublime

“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”

“There are a lot of things I wrote in the eighties that weren’t right,” he told me. “The big change was my having children. I know it’s a cliché, but once you have children you start to understand that everyone is somebody’s baby. It is an insiders-outsiders thing. You grow up and these people are characters on TV or video games or baseball cards—y

“It’s a mistake to be deeply ideological about almost anything,” he said. “It’s better to have doubt.”

“Less certainty, more inquiry”: his words couldn’t have been more direct.

For example, a former classmate at Yale told me “monogamy is kind of outdated” and not good for society. I asked her what her background is and if she planned to marry. She said she came from an affluent family, was raised by both of her parents, and that, yes, she personally intended to have a monogamous marriage—but quickly added that marriage sh

Inequality destroys the sense of shared citizenship, and with it self-government.

“the goal…is to help people make better choices ‘as judged by themselves.’”10

This curiosity is about models, frameworks, cultural understandings, disciplines, and methods of thought, the kinds of traits that made John Stuart Mill such a great thinker and writer. A more recent example is Patrick Collison, CEO and co-founder of Stripe (and also an active writer). His content can draw from economics, science, history, Irish cu