The first time I saw the hashtag #stopasianhate it was at the bottom of an email with a brief mention of ‘shootings in Atlanta.’ I thought, what a shame, another shooting - and this time it’s a hate crime against Asian-americans. I quickly googled ‘atlanta shooting’ and read the first couple articles that popped up. My immediate observation was that the very first article said something to the effect of ‘the suspect says race was not a motivating factor in the shooting.’ If that’s the case then ... Read more
About Sam
Is Romantic Love A Distraction?
Listen to virtually any song or artist and you will inevitably find that for the most part they’re all about one thing. Love. And this isn’t over generalizing. If we group sex into love, the number grows even more. Practically all songs are about sex, being in love, losing love, or wanting love. There’s seems to be little to no data on the percentage of songs that are about love, aside from people on Yahoo answers and Quora asking why all songs are about love. This is probably good because ... Read more
Forget About Global Warming, We Should Be Environmentally Conscious Because We Can
Like any self-respecting member of that group of people born somewhere between 1985 and 2000, I feel that we should protect the planet. Not only do I feel we should protect and respect the planet, but I feel that it is our responsibility to do so, and this responsibility arises from the simple fact that we are intimately and existentially linked to the planet: we couldn’t survive without it. While there will most likely be a Mars colony eventually, I don’t think one can argue life on Mars would ... Read more
Why the Caveman is the Ideal of Personal Finance
A question that arises often both in personal finance circles and casual financial discussions is the age old, “What is the safest investment I can make?” The very sight of this question, generates feelings in some with passion as strong as asking them what they think about the president. If one person says real estate is the safest investment, another will retort with, “but what if the housing market crashes?” If another person says the stock market, someone else will ask, “but what if the ... Read more
Why Self-Help Is Better Than Philosophy
I think Self-help is to Philosophy as Engineering is to Physics. Both the engineer and the self-help “practitioner” take what has been developed through careful thought and research and apply that knowledge in a concretely practical way (barring the bad self help books of course). Knowledge is only useful if it is applied. I will admit I’ve never finished The Five Habits of Highly Effective People, that quintessential self-help book that is apparently the most sold book in California ... Read more
Sam
Trader Joe