Traveling Circus During the Great Depression, a lot of interesting ideas popped up that didn’t really exist before. A lot of traveling circuses and carnivals became popular. These had been around for hundreds of years, but they kind of became an employer of last resort. If you lost your job, and nobody […]
Cannibal Trinity Apocalypse
Atmospheric Pressure One of the biggest scientific breakthroughs of the Industrial Revolution has nothing to do with factories. It has to do with something called the Haber process. Plants need nitrogen to grow. And every since life started, the only place plants could get nitrogen was from the Earth. Even though nitrogen […]
Orphaned Hungry Rats
House Party Hookup A couple of weeks ago I was in this location and I was leaving and I saw a friend of mine. The friend of mine was coming in just as I was leaving. That wasn’t, it wasn’t a situation where we didn’t really have much time to stop and chat. He […]
Ancient Frame Battle
Meaning Is Subjective Most farmers would agree that rain is a good thing. Most elementary school kids on a Saturday morning would agree that rain is a bad thing. Meaning is something that is very subjective, very flexible and very relative. One of the best skills you can develop is the ability to consciously […]
The Freeloader Problem
Two Sides Of A Deadly Coin Way back in the day, we humans lived in small tribes of a few hundred people. Life was harsh. Getting food was difficult and dangerous. Predators were everywhere, and the food tended to run away. Animals didn’t want to be killed and eaten. Hunter Gather Instincts We humans […]
Authority Paradox
The Guy In Charge Said So One of the go-to ways for most of us silly humans to figure out what’s what is to see what somebody in charge says. Study after study shows this. They put ten people in a room, and dump in an unexpected and complicated task. Time after time, people will […]
Collapse
Success Rate Of Zero Humans have gone through two types of societal organization. One has been stable, the other has not. In this post, we will endeavor to explain precisely why this second type of society always ends in collapse. It is far beyond the scope to come up with any large scale remedies to […]
Unintended Consequences
The Unpredictable Future The human brain is extremely limited in how we perceive things. Our sensory organs can only discern a very tiny window within the data that is hitting them. Even the idea of our conscious minds is not something we fully understand. Some studies indicate that up to 95% of our behaviors are […]
Supply and Demand
Secrets Of The Global Brain These two words, supply and demand, seem very simple. They are known and supposedly understood by virtually anybody. They are ubiquitous, and if you know the words, but are a bit sketchy on the concepts, then you will fully understand them by the end of this post. Despite their simplicity, […]
Tragedy Of The Commons
Why Are The Freeways So Crowded? This is a simple idea from economics that has far reaching ramifications. You’ll find it among roommates, farmers and even in the ocean. It’s called the “tragedy” of the commons because that’s how it always ends. Opposite of how everybody thinks it will end. Set Up Imagine you’ve […]