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Venkatesh Rao On How The World Works Thought

Jordan Schneider | Five Books | 29th September 2016

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Discussion of books which “provide somewhat counterintuitive appreciative models of significant chunks of experienced reality”, including Francis Fukuyama’s Origins of Political Order. “Life can be understood as a basic contrast between two kinds of games: games that we play to win, and games that we play to continue playing. This is a crucial distinction. Everything that’s generative, open-ended, curious, and creative about the human condition tends to be an infinite game” (4,200 words)

Euro Sceptic Money

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The euro is “a modern tragedy”, imposing intolerable pressures on European economies. Sooner or later the eurozone will come apart. “Divorce is likely, probably when a fringe party of some shade of ugliness wins an election. The easiest withdrawal would be if Germany returned to the Deutschmark, but given Germany’s history this will not happen. The euro will eventually unravel in the face of social pressures, in much the same way as Schengen has unravelled: through acrimonious disorder” (1,700 words)

Shimon Peres, Optimist

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“The Book of Proverbs teaches us that where there is no vision, the people perish. The people of Israel, now bereft of Shimon Peres, will not perish, because survival—or, at least, muddling through—is a Jewish specialty. But the death of Israel’s greatest visionary, a man who understood that it would never be morally or spiritually sufficient for the Jews to build for themselves the perfect ghetto and then wash their hands of the often-merciless world, means that Israel has lost its chief optimist” (1,400 words)

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Venkatesh Rao On How The World Works Thought

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Euro Sceptic Money

Shimon Peres, Optimist

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