Visionaries – 03.27.17

What do you believe that almost no one else believes?” This is Peter Thiel’s favorite question when he is interviewing. It helps him find people who think for themselves, something that seems to become more rare every day. For example, look at what Bjorn Lomborg‏, Matt Ridley, and Michael Crichton have to say about global warming, and then see who else dares say such things. Today we explore the unexplorable.

Evan Osnos – DOOMSDAY PREP FOR THE SUPER-RICH

Steve Huffman, the thirty-three-year-old co-founder and C.E.O. of Reddit, which is valued at six hundred million dollars, was nearsighted until November, 2015, when he arranged to have laser eye surgery. He underwent the procedure not for the sake of convenience or appearance but, rather, for a reason he doesn’t usually talk much about: he hopes that it will improve his …

Johnson: Elites Eying the Exits Signals America’s Crisis

Interviewed as part of an extraordinary New Yorker investigation into growing anxiety among America’s corporate elite over the potential for anarchic social collapse, Institute President Robert Johnson saw his peers’ talk of bolt-holes in New Zealand as reflecting a deeper crisis. Johnson told writer Evan Osnos of the mounting anxiety he had encountered among hedge-fund managers and other wealthy Americans …

Henry A. Giroux – White Supremacy and Sanctioned Violence in the Age of Donald Trump

Peter Thiel, the silicon billionaire and one of the six ultra-rich financial elite to speak at the Republican National Convention once wrote that he did not “believe that freedom and democracy were compatible.” This blatant anti-democratic mindset has emerged once again, without apology, as a major organizing principle of the Republican Party under Donald Trump. In addition to expressing a …

Alix O’Neill – The Wolves of Silicon Valley: how megalomaniacs in hoodies became tech’s answer to Wall Street

Free food, sleep pods and graffiti walls. Few places are so enshrined in urban myth as Facebook, Google and other companies of their ilk. Silicon Valley has long been considered the Neverland of corporate life – a place where office slides and oversized Lego figures are as ubiquitous as water coolers. But what’s it really like to work at one …

Joshua Krause – 77% of Two-Year-Olds Now Use Mobile Devices on a Daily Basis

There is no doubt that the pace of technological development we’ve seen in recent years has been both amazing, and frightening. It’s certainly made our lives easier, but no one can ignore the fact that these developments are happening faster than the human race can adapt to them. Predictably, this has spawned a widespread fear of technology in our culture. …

Emily Schwartz Greco – A Big Fat Radioactive Lie

Not long ago, no billionaire worth his cufflinks would be caught dead without hurling bales of money at our nation’s educational system. They bankrolled charter schools, high-stakes testing, and the splintering of big high schools into smaller academies. Their failure to make American kids learn more scuffed the luster on this enduring philanthropic fad. Billionaires have landed, therefore, on a …

4 Ways the One Percent Is Trying to Buy Their Immortality By Larry Schwartz

Humankind has long dreamed of immortality. Surely, somewhere, Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth awaits, allowing us to escape our inevitable fate of non-existence. Not surprisingly, some very wealthy tech executives are determined to buy their way out of that inevitability. These guys are living the high life and they don’t want it to stop. Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, …

New World Order Martial Law Scenario? U.S. Government Pathological Lies Concerning “Jade Helm 15 Military Operation” – Joachim Hagopian

Is it any wonder that fewer people these days are willing to trust the US federal government or their American leader President Obama? The citizen furor over the highly controversial Jade Helm 15 military operationscheduled for two months this summer (July 15-September 15) in all four US Border States with Mexico plus Utah and Nevada is well grounded. Despite mainstream media …