Tag: leadership
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Fair and Free Digital Markets Act.
A BILL To promote fair and free digital markets by prohibiting unfair business practices involving monetization derived from surveillance, behavioral manipulation through algorithmic influence, and targeting advertising using behavioral profiles, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1.…
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the eight factories every city needs to build before it’s too late
When we talk about climate, collapse, or resilience, we usually end up in the same cul-de-sac: we need better leaders, better policies, better apps. But we don’t. What we urgently need is physical infrastructure that lasts. Infrastructure we can control, repair, and replicate. Not another app. Not another subsidy. Not another committee hearing on “resilience.”…
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another thought exercise
Previously, I talked about how much money a billionaire could spend and have it feel like a normal person buying a cup of coffee by setting up a thought exercise: on the day you were born, you’re handed a trust fund designed to run out the day you died, 100 years later. Every day of…
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every state should do these three things to survive the coming dystopia
The Federal government is paralyzed by ideology, bloated with corruption, and increasingly unable or unwilling to deliver basic functions. The collapse of federal coherence has forced states to become sovereign in everything but currency. That’s a longer conversation. But for states now forced to confront real-world crises dumped at their doorstep by federal abdication, it…
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Why does the Japanese national land-use zoning system work?
Japan’s cities work in ways that feel almost impossible to replicate in the United States, and much of that difference begins with zoning. The country uses a nationally standardized land-use system that local governments apply without the power to modify. This top-down simplicity enables dense, walkable communities where homes, businesses, shrines, schools, and even light…
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Psychic morphine and the scourge of artificial nostalgia
The morning of January 20, 1961 was cold but clear in Washington, D.C.. The temperature began in the teens and never rose much higher. There is something telling in the fact that the United States installs its head of state not in the bloom of spring or the harvest of fall, but in the dead…
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War Never Changes
“War Never Changes” the tag-line for the Fallout videogame franchise. Within that fictional world, it means that even when countries and governments blow each other off the map, a brute with a club is still more powerful than a mayor with a plan. The player is invited to bash skulls just as much (or more)…
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The systemic state
Fixing a broken system is often hard because systems involve lots of parts and you might not be able to control all the parts involved in the fix. Knowing what to fix is usually pretty easy once you orient yourself to the system. Politics is this way. We know we need to fix elections by…
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unintended consequences
Unintended consequences are the only consequences that really matter besides the consequences you feel because of the actions of someone else doing stuff outside of your control. When Putin invaded Ukraine it caused the EU to un-hook from Russian energy, which was, in retrospect, not nearly as difficult as they had been telling themselves because…
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psy-op
Asymmetric Warfare is a doctrine. It is an effective doctrine. It is effective because the cost of offensive action is low and the cost defensive or responsive action is high. Skirmishing using Asymmetric Warfare is small – it can be indistinguishable from a Lone Wolf or an angry mob. What these small-scale actions have that…