How Politicians Divide People For Their Own Ends
By Terence Chong |
The concept of the Other The concept of the “Other” has existed since the very dawn of human civilisation. Although the specific semantics can vary widely, the concept always involves a sense of exclusion of a group due to a perception of difference in identities, however that “identity” is defined. This divisive concept serves to…
Read More Why Be Sceptical of Big Government?
By Donovan Choy |
Sometime back, I spoke in a talk about the politics & economics of climate change. When I brought up the dishonesty of Climategate (surprisingly, only 1 out of an audience of 30-40 heard of it), the impression that some got was that I was attempting a broad-sweeping smear of the progressive environmentalist agenda by the…
Read More A Historical Impact of the Internet on Democracy
By Donovan Choy |
There is no rest for the Big Tech corporations of today. A growing animosity toward Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon has gained mainstream traction, seen by increasingly louder calls by activists and politicians from across the political spectrum to regulate tech markets. This phenomenon – commonly referred to as “techlash” – is a bipartisan policy…
Read More A Peculiar History of Coffee And Sex
By Donovan Choy |
New technologies and inventions are often met by the public with great distrust. It’s not hard to see why. Humans have a natural propensity to fear treading new and unknown terrain. We fear the perennial gale of Schumpeterian creative destruction; the disruption to existing market structures, displacement of existing jobs, or the potential hazards it…
Read More Income Inequality and Luck
By Bart Remes |
In January 2018 the very famous Oprah Winfrey received the very prestigious Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes. To a standing ovation of who-is-who she gave a rousing speech. The video of that rousing speech went around the world and created another standing – virtual – ovation. Let’s face it. It was a…
Read More Can Markets Bring Relief From Disasters?
By Bryan Cheang |
As hurricanes have hit the US, a debate has been raging over the role of markets and governments in disaster prevention and post-disaster relief. Only this week, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz pointed out what he described as an “obvious lesson”, which was that “markets alone won’t protect you” from natural disasters. This, he explains, is…
Read More