Category Archives: Philosophy

Will busy offices return eventually? Of course they will.

Posted on September 7, 2020 by Paul Frijters

[message: the “stay at home” firms will see their bored and lonely good young staff jump ship to the hip, drunk, snorting, and cavorting hard-work hard-play offices everyone loves to complain about.] The estimate from Transport for London is that … Continue reading →

Posted in Cultural Critique, Dance, Geeky Musings, Innovation, Libertarian Musings, Life, Philosophy, Society | 3 Comments

Could lock-downs lead to a baby boom in several Western countries? If so, why?

Posted on August 17, 2020 by Paul Frijters

For months now, demographers and other social scientists have been predicting a covid baby bust because marriages were postponed, pubs were closed, anxiety levels were up, measured fertility intentions were down, sexual activity went down (in some reports), and economic … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Dance, Geeky Musings, Health, Life, Parenting, Philosophy, Science, Social, Social Policy, Society | 2 Comments

How change has changed: changemaking then and now

Posted on August 17, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

Below is a piece I published on the NESTA website in early 2016 which they took down in a web revamp. It’s still available on archive.org, but I thought I’d also publish it here for the record. There’s a fascinating … Continue reading →

Posted in Cultural Critique, Democracy, Economics and public policy, History, Philosophy, Political theory, Politics - international, Politics - national | 5 Comments

The competition delusion: the presentation

Posted on August 4, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

Early this year I published an essay in the Griffith Review critiquing what I called the competition delusion. I was passing by more common critiques of competition, which for instance argue that competition isn’t necessarily a great idea in numerous … Continue reading →

Posted in Democracy, Economics and public policy, Education, Ethics, History, Philosophy, Political theory, Sortition and citizens’ juries | 7 Comments

The Road to Political Reform Based on Sortition: Guest Post by John Burnheim

Posted on August 4, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

Scrap attempts to reforming politics as a whole. From a practical point of view attempts to do so by legal constitutional change have no possibility of succeeding from a theoretical point of view, it is folly to assume that if … Continue reading →

Posted in Democracy, Philosophy, Political theory, Sortition and citizens’ juries | 1 Comment

Thinking: Keep It ADAPTIVE Stupid

Posted on July 9, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

Here’s the transcript of my talk to Nudgestock which was held a few weeks ago. I was hoping to do it in London where it’s normally held, but in the world of COVID it migrated online and acquired for itself … Continue reading →

Posted in Cultural Critique, Economics and public policy, History, Isegoria, Philosophy | 1 Comment

What works: getting to the land of ‘how’: Complete essay

Posted on July 6, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

Note, this essay was published in three parts in the Mandarin and is published in consolidated form (complete with its footnotes) here. It is impossible to remember, until one gets in the country … that they care about their experiment … Continue reading →

Posted in Cultural Critique, Economics and public policy, Philosophy, Political theory, Science | 5 Comments