A few days ago the New York Times ran an article, “Before Shooting in Iraq, a Warning on Blackwater,” describing how mercenaries the U.S. hired were threatening to kill Americans after already killing Iraqis: weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor’s operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater’s top manager there issued[…] Keep reading →

Most people look at fitness from an individual perspective—what you eat, how much you eat, how much you exercise, who you spend time with, and so on. I find that perspective useful for many purposes, but not all. I consider it the most important perspective for the individual to plan what to do about their fitness. People don’t live in vacuums. They have contexts. I find a systems perspective helpful[…] Keep reading →

John Perkins and his peers described themselves as economic hit men. He wrote a memoir describing their work called “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,” which I found thrilling to read and chilling to think about its consequences. What do economic hit men do? According to him Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from[…] Keep reading →

With a PhD in physics, a few patents, and several start-ups to my name, I have some experience with developing and building technology to solve problems. I consider knowing the limits of what technology can solve as important as how to use technology. Social problems, I find, aren’t amenable to technological solutions. The big one I see is global warming. I see people suggest technologies to deflect sunlight, beam energy[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on Cold Showers. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] I just took my first warm shower after thirty days of cold showers. It was different than I expected, reflecting some growth and change the experience brought me. Before the warm shower The[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday’s Washington Post reported “NSA morale down after Edward Snowden revelations, former U.S. officials say“. I commented the following at Hacker News, which got voted as the top comment, and, as a testament to the ethos of tech-savvy people, at least in that community, one of my highest overall voted comments ever (see discussion here, and I recommend reading the comments on the Post’s page too). More like “USA morale[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] As an earlier post in this series mentioned, assertiveness ranks highly as a skill students at Columbia want to develop as part of their leadership training. Most[…] Keep reading →