Javier Milei on the assassination attempt on Trump: “The desperation of the international left is not surprising, as today it sees its harmful ideology expire, and is willing to destabilize democracies and promote violence to screw itself into power. In fear of losing at the polls, they resort to terrorism to impose their retrograde and authoritarian agenda.”

My conversation with Riva Tez:

X (formerly Twitter)

Arjun Khemani (@arjunkhemani) on X

My conversation with @rivatez. Riva is a philosopher, writer, and venture capitalist. She’s the author of the blog Hard to Write. Topics we dis...

My conversation with Ashley St. Clair about the immigration crisis, free speech, DEI, and more:

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Arjun Khemani (@arjunkhemani) on X

I’m publishing my Airchat conversation with @stclairashley on X. Ashley is the Operations Manager @TheBabylonBee and author of the children’s ...

Life hack

Credentialism is a disease. It’s sad to see that some people think you have to be qualified by fiat to be able to say anything on a matter.

“Raising venture capital is the art of younger men seducing older men.” — Naval (quoting “a very experienced fundraiser”)

Astrology got one thing right. There is a relationship between stars and people. But stars don’t determine the fate of people. It’s the other way around.

Told him to replace the $ with #Bitcoin

People who hate capitalism: do you hate the part where you can't decide how others should live their lives or the part where you have to decide how to live your own life?

Bertrand Russell’s ‘Ten Commandments’: 1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything. 2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light. 3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed. 4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory. 5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found. 6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you. 7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. 8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter. 9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it. 10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

Unironically this.

"If you think of the set of physical transformations that can be brought about and can’t be brought about, of the ones that can be brought about, the overwhelming majority—and that’s an understatement—can only be brought about by people. By people who create knowledge because they want to bring that thing about. And if there weren’t people in the universe, this set of things which can be brought about would be tiny, and again, tiny is an understatement. It would be almost nothing." — David Deutsch

This is the Anthropocene era. We can people the stars. We can make death optional. We can put an end to suffering. We can do things nobody can conceive of today.

THE NOT SO GOOD OLD DAYS “[T]he sage gave him the history of man in a single line; it was this: he was born, he suffered, and he died. […] Life was insignificant and death without consequence.” — W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage Contrary to what climate alarmists might have you believe, we are better off in virtually every way today than we were a few centuries ago and all the centuries before that. Life before industrialization was not a utopia. Indeed, there was some equality; almost everyone was equally poor, lived equally short, miserable lives, and had equally limited opportunities. People didn’t have to worry about running out of resources because they scarcely had any resources to begin with. As Thomas Sowell has written, “Most of what are natural resources for us today were not natural resources for the cave man, who had not yet acquired the knowledge of how these things could be used for his own purposes.” Nor did our prehistoric ancestors have the luxury of enjoying an “untainted” natural world. They were too busy with survival in an often harsh and unforgiving environment. For most of human history, nothing ever improved significantly; people were born, they suffered, and they died. It was indeed a tragedy. Intellectuals have squandered far too much time trying to understand the causes of poverty. In fact, poverty is humanity’s default condition. It is wealth and prosperity that need explanation. The idea of a simple life where humans produce nothing and exist in perfect harmony with an untainted natural world is undeniably appealing to many. However, it is totally unrealistic. Far from alienating us from the natural world, technology enhances our ability to appreciate and interact with it. For instance, without technology, we wouldn’t be able to reach the peaks of the highest mountains, explore the ocean’s depths, or walk on the surface of the Moon. The “good old days” are a myth. In 1900, the average life expectancy of a newborn was 32 years. By 2021, this had more than doubled to 71 years. As recently as two centuries ago, half of the children ever born died before their 15th birthday. Now, only 4% of kids die before the age of 15. One cannot measure the pain of so many parents having to see their children die. Even though people think of capitalism as exploitative, we are working less than everbefore. As people get richer, they tend to work fewer hours. Today, there are significantly fewer deaths due to natural disasters because we started utilizing our unique ability to master the climate. As Barack Obama said, “If you had to choose any moment in history in which to be born, […] you’d choose right now.” Progress is neither automatic nor inevitable, however. We are not entitled to anything. Everything worthwhile has been achieved by creating the necessary knowledge to get there. The future is open. The fate of the universe is up to people like us and what we choose to do.

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” — Winston Churchill

“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” — Ayn Rand

“The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war.” — Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

"A successful entrepreneur is a hero." — Javier Milei, WEF Annual Meeting 2024, Davos View quoted note →

There is no such thing as "excessive profits". On the free market, the greater the profits a company earns, the more efficient it is at serving its customers.