The Art of Medical Progress

Also: why governments can't be trusted to protect the long-run future, a paradox at the heart of American bureaucracy, and more

The Art of Medical Progress

by Tina Marsh Dalton

These two paintings offer a hopeful contrast. Whereas we begin with pain and suffering, we move to hope and progress. The surgeon stands apart as a hero, a symbol of the triumphant conquering of nature by humanity.

Why Governments Can't be Trusted to Protect the Long-run Future

by Maxwell Tabarrok

No one in the long-run future gets to vote in the next election. No one in government today will gain anything if they make the world better 50 years from now or lose anything if they make it worse. They have no skin in the game when it comes to the long-run future.

A paradox at the heart of American bureaucracy

by Connor O'Brien

The quickest way to doom a project to be over-budget and long-delayed is to make it an urgent public priority.

What if we split the US into city-states?

by Elle Griffin

In The Republic, when his entourage asks the ideal size of a state, Socrates replies, ‘I would allow the state to increase so far as is consistent with unity; that, I think, is the proper limit.’

Address to a Unitarian Universalist congregation on my Heritage

by Matt Ritter

Our scientific heritage isn’t a static relic of the past; it's a dynamic, evolving force, driving us towards a future brimming with promise and discovery.

Commensal Institutions

by Sable

Institutions need their problems the way that superheroes need their supervillains.

What I've been reading, November 2023

by Jason Crawford

Science since Babylon, Kurzweil on accelerating returns, the unexamined life, and stretchy Victorian fish

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