What I would like to vote for is a candidate that is socially liberal, a fiscal conservative, broadly libertarian with a small l but sensible and pragmatic and with a chance of winning. Thats more or less the empty set.

My view of the internet is that it is way overrated in what it’s done to date but considerably underrated in what it will do.

Our time and attention is scarce. Art is not that important to us, no matter what we might like to believe... Our love of art is often quite temporary, dependent upon our moods, and our love of art is subservient to our demand for a positive self image. How we look at art should account for those imperfections and work around them. Keep in mind that books, like art museums, are not always geared to the desires of the reader. Maybe we think we are supposed to like tough books, but are we? Who says? Many writers (and art museums) produce for quite a small subsample of the... public.

I sometimes call Donald Trump the placebo president. He will talk a big game, but for domestic policy I think change remarkably little.

We need to accept the principle that sometimes poor people will die just because they are poor.

The lesson about food is that the most predictable and the most orderly outcomes are always not the best. They are just easier to describe. Fads are orderly. Food carts and fires aren't. Feeding the world could be a delicious mess, full of diverse flavors and sometimes good old-fashioned smoke.

The more information that's out there, the greater the returns to just being willing to sit down and apply yourself. Information isn't what's scarce; it's the willingness to do something with it.