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Musings of a technologist & undergraduate political scientist/sociologist

The organised crime of state-making from the 14th century to today

May 12th, 2008 · No Comments

DSquared has a post on JEM launching an attack on Khartoum today. He thinks the various militias will resemble little more than criminal gangs in the near future, with a footnote warning against our own smugness as “the Free Companies went in for this sort of thing in the fourteenth century and made lots of [...]

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Rice and free trade - let’s speak more plainly

April 29th, 2008 · No Comments

In my last post, I said that governments wont open up the free trade of food because domestic prices would increase, leading to discontent. But perhaps, I should make the point a bit stronger. Domestic consumers will starve.
Here’s Bryan Caplan, from his book The Myth of the Rational Voter:
“Maybe the rich are less protectionist because [...]

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Free trade and agriculture. We’re all populists now.

April 27th, 2008 · No Comments

Tyler Cowen writes in his latest column:
Lately, it’s become fashionable to assert that, in this time of financial market turmoil, the market-oriented teachings of Milton Friedman belong more to the past than to the future. The sadder truth is that when it comes to food production — arguably the most important of all human activities [...]

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Tags: Climate Change · Uncategorized

Bicycles are the new hybrids

September 23rd, 2007 · No Comments

My theory is that hybrids will be pretty much a fad thing. For the long term, look to bicycle technology for the state-of-the-art in carbon footprint reduction.
We all need relatively speedy transport these days. I believe we will see average bikes whose average speed for the average cyclist will be in excess of 40mph, and [...]

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A Farewell to Alms, pp.1-112 - The truth of Malthus

August 22nd, 2007 · No Comments

MarginalRevolution is hosting a book forum on Gregory Clark’s “A Farewell to Alms”. Clark attempts to explain how up until recent history, economies existed in a state of Malthusian equilibrium. High downward mobility made rich children poor. The values of the rich filtered into the poor, kick starting massive economic growth and an escape from [...]

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