Amazon, Economics, Quentin Skinner
The Ultimate Amazon Product
John Herrman | Awl | 3rd April 2015
When a start-up launches a ground-breaking product, it usually gets the benefit of the doubt. The product will succeed only by meeting a demand, and who knows where the value may eventually be captured. But when Amazon launches a product — Dash, Home Services — different rules apply. Every launch is a bid for a monopoly. Amazon products "feel, first and foremost, like solutions to Amazon’s problems, not yours" (1,300 words)
Academic Economics — Strengths and Weaknesses
Charlie Munger | Farnham Street | 10th March 2015
"The big general objection to economics is the one early described by Alfred North Whitehead when he spoke of the fatal unconnectedness of academic disciplines, wherein each professor didn’t even know the models of the other disciplines, much less try to synthesize those disciplines with his own. I think there’s a modern name for this approach that Whitehead didn’t like, and that name is bonkers" (11,700 words)
Quentin Skinner On Meaning And Method
Teresa Bejan | The Art Of Theory | 5th November 2011
First part of an interview (the second part is also excellent (http://www.artoftheory.com/quentin-skinner-in-context) ) in which Skinner discusses his work as a philosopher and historian. "I got interested in thinking about the state as a moral person and trying to make sense of the idea that the state is not just the name of the government, but a distinct, if fictional person. The setting aside of this idea of the moral personality of the state within liberalism was a great mistake" (6,000 words)
Video of the day: Buckley & Kerouac Discuss Hippies
What to expect: From a 1968 episode of Firing Line with William F. Buckley, Jack Kerouac and others (22'42")
Thought for the day
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong
J.M. Keynes