Leadership

I ran into my podcast guest who lives near me and has a Nobel Prize and he happened to have it with him. He didn't have it when he came over to record and for my famous no-packaging vegetable stew, so I hadn't seen it. So there we were on Sixth Avenue, people walking by not realizing we were holding a genuine Nobel Prize. On the podcast I asked him if he ever wore it. He pointed out, as you can see, it's different than an Olympic medal. You don't wear it. It's also not gold. At least it felt lighter than iron, which is, I think, less dense than gold. Maybe it's bronze or brass. Anyway this one was one for the work done…

I keep seeing the opinion that regulation stifles creativity and innovation. Searching on "regulation stifles innovation" returns plenty of hits. I'm not a historian or economist, so please show me if I'm missing anything, but I find the opposite. My big example is cars. Today we value safety, efficiency, and durability. Actually, I think most buyers always valued those things. In the 60s, the U.S. car industry largely ignored those values in favor of chrome, tail fins, cushy rides, and acceleration, even when it made cars less safe, efficient, and durable. Why did car companies change? Unsafe At Any Speed showed how focusing on one set of goals -- speed, chrome, etc -- detracted from the others -- safety, efficiency, etc. Competition from Toyota, Volkswagen,…

It's obvious but I haven't seen it clearly stated enough to make its consequence obvious. As far as I know, everyone who knows the details says the Russians are deliberately influencing U.S. elections and that Putin is leading the effort in some way. What does Putin want? People answer various ways. The clearest answer seems: Putin wants a weaker United States. Corollary: Putin wanting a weaker U.S. suggests that he will back candidates who will weaken the nation. In other words, evidence suggests that Putin considers Donald Trump weaker than Hillary Clinton, or worse for the nation. Donald Trump seems to idolize Putin, so someone Trump idolizes considers him weak. This conclusion seems obvious, but I haven't seen anyone state it so clearly. Am I…

People keep describing my unbroken sidcha practices and avoiding polluting as disciplined. Regarding avoiding packaged food and not flying, they describe it as extreme. Actually, some describe it all as extreme. Let me ask you this: which is easier, to take heroin sometimes and try to avoid getting addicted or never to take heroin at all? Sugar, heroin. . . why get addicted to either? It seems to me easier never to take it. Then the risk of getting addicted and throwing your life away seems minimal. So I don't take heroin. The solution seems obvious and simple. It takes no willpower or discipline. By contrast, using it sometimes seems it would require more. Nobody calls my zero heroin use as extreme. Nor does anyone…

I saw some Japanese people on an Amtrak train. I wondered what it must feel like to ride decrepit trains running slowly, stopping often, late by hours, and creaking when they're used to fast trains, where 1 minute late is significant. I got to thinking how to modernize Amtrak if we wanted. A technological change won't do it. You can't just bring their fast trains over and run them at top speed. They won't, given our tracks, signaling, power systems, and so on. You have to change everything. Changing any one technological part won't show results. Even changing lots of technological parts won't make the trains run faster, more on time, more smoothly, etc. Changing the technology is still necessary, but not enough, nor significant…