Rethink.

Steven Pinker on Malcolm Gladwell (h/t aldaily.com) – he has lots of good things to say about Gladwell, who really is a fine essayist. The criticisms offered are solid even where I agree with Gladwell, for example – Another example of an inherent trade-off in decision-making is the one that pits the accuracy of predictive …

Afghan Enclave Seen as Model to Rebuild, and Rebuff Taliban (h/t Josh) – from the article: Not so here in Jurm, a valley in the windswept mountainous province of Badakhshan, in the northeast. People here have taken charge for themselves — using village councils and direct grants as part of an initiative called the National …

Just two links I thought worth sharing; Josh alerted me to this excellent article in the WSJ about the system Soviet Russia set up for mathematics. From the article: Following the war, the Soviets invested heavily in high-tech military research, building over 40 cities where scientists and mathematicians worked in secret. The urgency of the …

“What the Voters Told Us Last Night,” Jay Cost – lots of thoughtful reflection on what elections may mean. fta: As the great political scientist, E.E. Schattschneider, once famously said (and I’m paraphrasing here): the voters are a sovereign with a vocabulary of just two words, yes and no; moreover, they can only speak when spoken …