Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Weapons that employ microchips have tended to shift the balance of power toward the defense, making decisive aggression less profitable and therefore less likely. Smart weapons, like Stinger missiles, for example, effectively neutralize much of the advantage that large, wealthy states formerly enjoyed in deploying expensive air power to attack poor
... See moreJames Dale Davidson, Lord William Rees-Mogg • The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
FROM THE JUNIOR Black Americans of Achievement series onward, I had been taught that racist ideas cause racist policies. That ignorance and hate cause racist ideas. That the root problem of racism is ignorance and hate. But that gets the chain of events exactly wrong. The root problem—from Prince Henry to President Trump—has always been the self-in
... See moreIbram X. Kendi • How to Be an Antiracist
A (Western) colonial mind-set says: “Westerners are rational and scientific while Asians are irrational and superstitious. Therefore, Europeans must rule Asia for its own good.” A liberal mind-set says: “All humans have the capacity to be rational and scientific, but individuals will vary widely. Therefore, all humans must have all opportunities an
... See moreHelen Pluckrose • Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody
Le Bon’s book gives a play by play of how people respond to crisis. Almost instantaneously, he writes, ‘man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization’.3 Panic and violence erupt, and we humans reveal our true nature.
Rutger Bregman • Humankind: A Hopeful History
The U.S. geopolitical leadership has shown two faces to the world. One was the U.S. interest in building law-based multilateral institutions, including the global institutions of the UN system and regional institutions such as the European Community (and later European Union), of which the United States was a champion from the start. The other was
... See moreJeffrey D. Sachs • The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions
Questions are the best weapons of the weak against the strong, but only because the strong unilaterally disarm.
Ian Leslie • Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It
It might seem like the complexity of predicting geopolitical and economic events would necessitate a group of narrow specialists, each bringing to the team extreme depth in one area. But it was actually the opposite. As with comic book creators and inventors patenting new technologies, in the face of uncertainty, individual breadth was critical. Th
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