Links to Consider, 10/29/2024

Michael Strong has a passion project; Alfonso Peccatiello looks at debt;Tove K on the leisure-children trade-off; Bryan Caplan hearts the United Arab Emirates

Michael Strong writes,

TSE transformed how people think about education.  It successfully transformed the perception of K12 education from a matter of curriculum transmission to the cultivation of virtues leading to lifelong happiness and well-being.  As a consequence, not only at TSE but across thousands of schools impacting millions of lives, young people in the late 21st century were radically more purpose-driven and flourishing than were those in the first half of the 21st century.

TSE = The Socratic Experience, a truly revolutionary school that already exists and that he wants to scale. Now it only impacts dozens of lives, not the millions that he envisions by 2050. He is looking for investors in TSE. I think of this as a passion project, as opposed to get-super-rich project. He is really great at what he does, and that makes it a good investment.

Alfonso Peccatiello writes,

Here are some staggering statistics about the US economy - since mid-2020:

1) US nominal GDP has grown by ~7 trillion
2) US total debt has grown by ~8.5 trillion

Now this is something of an apples and oranges comparison. Nominal GDP is an annual flow, like your income. Debt is a given amount, like your mortgage. If your income went up by $7000 per year and you took out a second mortgage for $8500, it is hard to say what happened to your financial position.

What is alarming to me is how much of the growth in U.S. debt is U.S. government debt.

Tove K writes,

the principle told in Will the Religious Inherit the Earth is that the more devout a population, the more fertile it is. Why is that? Because religion says that children are good and devout people obey religion? Probably, yes. But also because traditional religion says that various earthly pleasures are sinful. If deliberately amusing oneself is sinful anyway, the opportunity cost to having children decreases. 

…I suspect that most people who defy the norms of mainstream society through having more than three children are some kind of workaholics who enjoy free time less than average.

Bryan Caplan writes,

The UAE is far more committed than the West to the freedoms that matter most: to work for a willing employer, rent from a willing landlord, and shop with willing merchants. The standard Western migration formula — generous government support for the few immigrants we admit — is a crying shame. The UAE formula — invite the whole world to come work for a better life — is glorious. And the fact that no democracy would emulate the UAE’s migration policy is not a black mark against the UAE, but against democracy.

substacks referenced above:@

Reflections on United Arab Emirates

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Killjoys will inherit the future

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Macro Clouds On The Horizon

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Obituary for The Socratic Experience