Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Kathleen Sykes's avatar

This was super interesting!

About the whole free speech thing—it’s interesting your girlfriend would say that. I was researching and just wrote about how in the French Revolution King Louis XVI enacted free speech laws that brought the number of news publications and periodicals up from about half a dozen to over 1,300 during the course of the revolution. People were both free to say what they wanted but also had an over abundance of information and didn’t necessarily practice the best or most ethical judgement when publishing their papers. Free speech is great, but on the flip side of that coin, chaos can ensue.

I also think it’s interesting that you picked up on the importance of family structures in poorer countries. The breakdown of the family in the US is probably the biggest tragedy of the last century, and the impact will be felt for a long time.

Expand full comment
Benjamin Holm's avatar

Very interesting! I have been thinking of visiting that area, this definitely makes me more interested in doing so.

I have also heard that Lee Kuan Yew has an excellent biography. I'll have to check it out, he sounds quite wise.

I really dislike the sentiment of 'I wish there were more people like me', meaning people who look like me. It's so shallow. I'm not supposed to say that obviously as a white guy, supposedly i'm blessed to be around people who look like me. Which was the case in my white hometown, although once you go to college and a bigger city it isn't the case nearly so much. And it doesn't make a difference, for the most part the worst people i've known in my life have been white. You might expect that since i've been around so many white people. But my feeling has always been that it just matters how you act and carry yourself. Here in the west it seems like we have an elite class intent on making it all about shallow things like skin color, and not allowing us to move past that. They'd say that isn't possible. A depressing mindset. Why would you want multiculturalism if you don't think people can't move past something like that. But I digress.

Expand full comment
19 more comments...

No posts