If you were wondering when I would apply my vast lack of knowledge to the Afghanistan situation, today is the day. Let's agree that we have a war that can't be won as long as Pakistan is supporting the Taliban, and that situation shows no sign of changing . Let's also agree that if the US military pulls out of Afghanistan, the Taliban will slay everyone who doesn't have a beard or a burka, and create a safe haven for terrorists. So pulling out is risky. What do you do with a problem that is unsolvable? You take a play from corporate America. When your coworker can't solve a problem, he...
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If a well-dressed stranger walks up to you at the mall and asks for a dollar, with no reason given, you're unlikely to hand it over. But if the same person asks for a dollar and gives a specific reason, such as "...because my wallet was stolen and I need gas to get home," you're far more likely to hand over your money. (See the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Cialdini.) After the US midterm election, the question of raising taxes on the rich, or allowing the so-called Bush tax breaks for the rich to expire naturally , will be hotly debated. You might think...
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I've been thinking about the practicality of a new American revolution, and wondering if there's any way to do it without shooting people. The American government has proven itself unable to govern, as evidenced by the fact that there's no plan for closing the budget deficit. If we had two rational and competing plans from the major parties, or even one imperfect plan, I would consider that some form of government. But no plan means we're effectively ungoverned. You might argue that the government is mostly working, and the budget deficit is just one wrinkle that will get ironed out in time....
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Is it just me, or have cellphones become useless for voice conversations? To be fair, cellphones do work in limited situations, such as: "I WILL BE THERE IN TEN MINUTES! TEN MINUTES! I SAID I WILL BE THERE IN TEN MINUTES! HELLO? CAN YOU HEAR ME? FUCK THIS STUPID PHONE, I'LL TEXT YOU! AND I'M DRIVING, SO I MIGHT BE DEAD IN TEN MINUTES!" Generally speaking, a cellphone conversation is a frustrating failure if any of these conditions is true. 1. You have a weak signal. 2. You are using an earpiece or headset. 3. The other person has a weak signal. 4. ...
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Imagine you’re sitting down to eat, but before you take a bite, you whip out your smartphone, fire up a special app, and take a picture of your food. The app identifies the food types by appearance, then calculates the size of your portions, and estimates your intake of calories, carbs, protein, vitamin, mineral, sugar, salt, and so on. Later you can review your data in a variety of ways. You can see your calorie intake for the day, or compare yourself to other people who are your same age, size, activity level, and so on. At the end of a meal, if you have some food left, you can snap...
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Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I will now present my case that leadership is a form of mental illness. To begin, let's divide the leaders of the world into two groups: friends and enemies. Please forgive me for taking a U.S.A.-centric approach in this argument, as it is just for simplicity. In Exhibit One, we note that the leaders of countries we consider enemies are undeniably bat-spit crazy. Kim Jong-il: crazy midget Ahmadinejad: crazy holocaust denier Khadafy: designs his own hats The list of crazy enemy leaders is long:...
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Here's your next billion-dollar Internet startup idea. If it sounds like the dumbest idea in the world, remember that you didn't think of Twitter. That will keep you humble enough to get through this post. Imagine a web site that allows any adult to post a ten-second video that is nothing but a statement of opinion, showing only the speaker's face. The opinion could be anything from "Diet Coke tastes better than Diet Pepsi" to a political preference. The web site would sort the opinions into as many categories as needed. Visitors to the site would be able to vote on the videos, based...
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