- Why nerds are unpopular: An insightful piece by the entrepreneur Paul Graham putting forward an interesting theory on why nerds are unpopular in high school. A theory that leads to a deep criticism of the whole education system: “The problem with most schools is, they have no purpose. But hierarchy there must be. And so the kids make one out of nothing.“.
- The role of short-sellers: the recent GameStop saga has sparked a debate on whether short-selling (the practice of betting that a financial asset will go down in price) should be banned. The economist Noah Smith analysed the empirical evidence in support and against the ban in a very interesting and non-technical blog post. The surprising answer: it probably doesn’t matter.
- The future of our past: We often wonder “what will future generations remember of our present?”, but we never account for the possibility that our descendants may know more things about us, our time and recent past than we do. And yet the story of technology would suggest exactly that, as the engineer François Chollet explains in these enlightening tweets:
The Almanack of Amazing Things (#3)
Innumerabilibus 