Kevin recently wrote a post that really tickled my brain. It touches on the computational aspect of entrepreneurship. There are a couple points I’d like to follow up on. First I’d argue that the uncertain entrepreneur is not the analog of the blind watchmaker. This is a minor quibble, but I think it’s good to … Continue reading The Blind Invisible Hand
You know those little floaters on the surface of your eyes? They drift into view, catch your attention, then when you try to focus directly on one it disappears from view. They’re only really there if you don’t look straight at them. Goodhart’s Law tells us that “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases … Continue reading A paradox
Perhaps the coolest thing I’ve found on the Small Internet so far is the game Nomic. From where I found it: Nomic was invented in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber. It’s a game that starts with a given set of rules, but the players can change the rules over the course of the game, usually … Continue reading Nomic-nomics?
Of course there’s no such thing as a Golden Age–some forgotten time in the medium-past where things were unambiguously better. The past is full of backwards savages and hard living. And even so, you can’t go home. But I’ve got this suspicion that back in my day the Internet was better. It didn’t take itself … Continue reading My Back to the Land Movement
Addendum: I wrote this post this morning, hit post, and returned to my oven. The apple pie was pretty good, the pecan was better. The stuffing and gravy were great. While my oven pre-heats, let me give my top(ish) three things I’m thankful for: My dog Lola. This sweet little pooch entered my life this … Continue reading Generic Thanksgiving Post
Mariana Mazzucato has some interesting ideas, but her basic thesis (which I’m guessing based only on her recent Freakonomics interview) forgets a simple fact: had the government not made GPS, not only would we not have GPS, resources would have been allocated somewhere else. In other words, she’s right that without government involvement we’d miss all sorts … Continue reading The Incomplete Counterfactual Fallacy
The last few years I’ve loudly protested that home ownership is overrated; it’s a bad investment plus lots of responsibility. And yet, this summer my fiance and I bought a 100 year old house on the south shore of Long Island. Yes, I have lost my mind. I basically stand by my earlier position, but … Continue reading A Millennial’s New Perspective on Home Ownership
First off, Comcast sucks. Seriously, screw those guys. But let’s assume a can opener and see if that doesn’t help us find a deeper root problem. The can opener is competition in the ISP network. Let’s consider how the issue of Net Neutrality (NN) would play out in a world where your choice of ISP … Continue reading An argument against Net Neutrality
We could have elected Hitler and it wouldn’t have turned out significantly worse than if Clinton had won. The left and right aren’t speaking the same language, and whoever fails to take the first step (which is to not blame the other side) shares the larger share of the blame. I just listened to the post election … Continue reading Two points that bear repeating
Despite disagreeing with many (most?) of my friends on political issues I don’t think I’ve lost any Facebook friends this election. Let me share my secrets. Step 1: Empathize. Life is hard, and few of us are trained for political life. Step 2: Listen. We all have the same goal… getting other people to agree with … Continue reading Lifehacks: How to use Facebook better
While googling a phrase to see if I’m creative (I don’t know if “Hayekian leisure class” is uniquely mine, but the first page of Google’s 78,000 results indicates yes), I found this interesting tidbit: Thorstein Veblen’s house sold (way back in 2004) for $1 million. The developer is going to (already has? Already started to … Continue reading Rick comments on the latest news
This is my third entry on Polystate and will cover book 2 (entries one and two covered book 1). This section covers a thought experiment in polystates and begins immediately with the flattering implication that macroeconomists can make speculative predictions about complex systems. This is typically where an Austrian would say “the world is too complex to … Continue reading Polystate: Book 2
Adam recently posted that the British government is contemplating pretty outrageous penalties for Internet pirates. Naturally I wanted to chime in with an outrageously long comment about the nature of property and the (im)possibility of intellectual property (IP) rights. That’s just the libertarian thing to do! There’s a lot to say and it will take … Continue reading Rick Weighs on Intellectual Property: More Questions Than Answers
Notes On Liberty 