Musing on Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
The French national motto is: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity). That seems like a pretty good thing on which to found a society. When we talk…
Social and Self-Help
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Let’s Talk About Plato’s Republic
Plato’s Republic is the kind of thing that you’re supposed to have read, understood, and talked about. That is, if you want to sound smart. It ranks…
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The Leviathan Still Lives
Thomas Hobbes didn’t trust us. And the truth is, he may have had good reason. In Leviathan, Hobbes imagines what humans are like without rules, without authority,…
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Conditional Belonging: From The Diamond Age to the Beast System
Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age offers a strange and prophetic look at our world. In his novel, nations have faded and the globe is divided into phyles;…
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Building Belonging Before the Fracture
It doesn’t take much imagination to sense that our world is fragile. Whether the strain comes from economics, geopolitics, the environment, or something else, there’s a feeling…
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Tribalism: the good, the bad, and the ugly
I just read an article that painted tribalism as a wholly negative thing. And, sure, it can be, in many respects. When people divide themselves into us-versus-them…
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“Governing the Commons” – A Short Summary and Review
If you’ve ever wondered why humans seem perfectly capable of sharing a planet but keep acting like raccoons fighting over the last slice of pizza, Elinor Ostrom…
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Why Community is the Way Forward
We live in a time of remarkable connection. Goods, information, and services move around the globe faster than ever before. Yet this same interconnectedness also makes our…
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Maybe the Next Economy Won’t Have Bosses
Sometimes I look around at our modern world and think… how did we really end up here? Then I think about it some more and see the…
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Balanced Socio-Capitalism: A Blend of Security and Effort
I’ve been exploring various socioeconomic models and I’m starting to wonder if a hybrid-type model wouldn’t be quite reasonable. From time to time one must ask oneself:…