Newsletter
Life in the 21st Century is a reader-supported publication. Please become a paid subscriber. No fun, my babe, no fun to write about the American political class and the beltway heart of darkness. It's the equivalent of being tasked with cleaning the Augean stables but, knowing the
Newsletter
“Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.” ― John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money Subscribe now How is convention established? All convention is a social construct, politically defined. Historically, how convention arises and evolves is a somewhat
Newsletter
Dem leave sorrow, tears, and blood Dem regular trademark Life in the 21st Century is a reader-supported publication. Please become a paid subscriber. The FT reports Shell is pulling out of Nigeria, or at least the Delta - Shell agrees to exit Nigerian business for $1.3bn after more than
Newsletter
Before a person becomes a saint, is mythologized, canonized, and most egregiously commercialized as Dr. King, they are just a person. They interact with people as just another person. These interactions provide the greatest opportunity for learning, if the saint had anything to teach in the first place. Dr. Martin
Newsletter
What's missing from politics today is any understanding of organization. Not simply organizing in bringing people together to push for a defined goal or even the initial step of bringing people together to define a goal, but the understanding organization, how power is structured, is the very foundation
Newsletter
Life in the 21st Century is a reader-supported publication. Please become a paid subscriber. Geometry – concerned with the shape of individual objects, spatial relationships among various objects, and the properties of surrounding space. Power is like gravity, a curvature of space-time. The more concentrated, the more power warps
Newsletter
Subscribe now Phew, it’d be hard to figure if the SEC’s approval of bitcoin ETFs says more about the corrupt dysfunction of DC, Wall Street, or Tech. Good thing you don’t have to choose. It’s a shamefully pathetic indictment of all three. The FT writes, “While
Newsletter
After publishing Cybernetics in 1948, Norbert Wiener wrote The Human Use of Human Beings (1950). In the introduction he explains, “Upon the publication of this book (Cybernetics) which possesses a rather forbidding mathematical core, some of my friends urged upon me that I should write a related book for the
Newsletter
I'm using my feet for my human machine You won't find me living for the screen Are you lonely, all needs catered? You got your brains dehydrated LaTimes has a piece on our throw-away consumption society, which is even more horrendously sinful around Christmas, a
Newsletter
Life in the 21st Century is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Money always had a role in American elections, but its determinative value has grown exponentially over the last half-century. Campaigns didn't use
Newsletter
It's not a coincidence one of history's greatest, if not the greatest thinker on democracy is lost to the 21st century. If it wasn't for Alexis Tocqueville's reporting on and analyzing of the 1830s American republic, most today wouldn’t believe it
Newsletter
Here a tower shinning bright once stood gleaming in the night Where now there's just the rubble in the hole There the Paddies and the Frogs came to gamble on the dogs Came to gamble on the dogs not long ago It's difficult to read anything