November 2010
18 posts
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“M…was accused of disliking everybody. ‘Not at all,’ he said....”
– Chamfort, Chamfort: Reflections on Life, Love & Society, Short Books, 2003.
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Who is wise? →
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in its article on wisdom, after summarizing the main views there are about wisdom, concludes with a rigorous definition of what it means for someone to be wise. Someone is wise if and only if he/she:
1. Has extensive factual and theoretical knowledge.
2. Knows how to live well.
3. Is successful at living well.
4. Has very few unjustified beliefs.
As...
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“Wisdom is an understanding of what is important, where this understanding...”
– Robert Nozick, The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations, p. 267-9, Simon & Schuster, 1990.
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“I heartily accept the motto,—”That government is best which governs...”
– Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, 1849.
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Parasitic States
Many states are parasitic organizations run by power hungry bureaucrats sucking the life out of their subjects. Life for most people in them is an intermittent show of unrest, inner deadness and quiet desperation interrupted by isolated sparks of creativity and genius in private enclaves where life breaks through and affirms its right to growth despite the state - not because of it.
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“Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities.”
– Voltaire
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“He who has little communication with people is seldom a misanthrope. True...”
– Giacomo Leopardi, Thoughts, 1837, section 89, Hesperus Press Limited, 2002.
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Beyond Startup Equity Squabbling
It matters less how the pie is divided and more that it is made.
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Past Glories
“Philosophy, moreover, which has helped to discover and establish all these institutions, which has educated us for public affairs and made us gentle towards each other, which has distinguished between the misfortunes that are due to ignorance and those which spring from necessity, and taught us to guard against the former and to bear the latter nobly—philosophy, I say, was given to the...
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“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been...”
– Isaac Newton from Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27). Available for free here.
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Open Relationships
Relationships with wings instead of strings.
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The Future of Banking (if done right) →
Venessa Miemis, co-producer of The Future of Money, after attending Sibos, shares her insightful reflections on what sort of innovations she would like to see in banking.
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“To be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a program for social change,...”
– from Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman, location 2437-49.
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Emotional Vampires
An emotional vampire is a type of energy vampire. Judith Orloff, MD, in an article she wrote on the topic offers a definition of the latter:
Some people bring unexpected lightness and comfort to your life. They crackle with energy, practically electrify you with their presence. And then there are those who leave you feeling stressed out. Or guilty. Or exhausted down to your very last molecule. I...
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You don't study the flat tire to build a spaceship
I will not waste time learning about a system that doesn’t work. I will spend it envisioning, understanding, designing, and building one that does. You don’t study the flat tire to build a spaceship.
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Life is not about you
Life is not about you. It is about what goes beyond you.
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I do not strive for happiness
I do not strive for happiness. Yet happiness follows my striving.
I do not want to “relax”, “have fun”, “hang out”, “wind down”, “get wasted”.
I do not want to work for petty ends, vanities and cheap thrills.
I do not want to react without understanding, but act because I do.
I want freedom to be without a cause. To loiter, play and contemplate.