Category Archives: Uncategorized

Compelling stories all share a similar structure (see image below), even stories as radically different as the simple plot line in the movie Trolls or the complex one in the series Breaking Bad. For more, check out this essay by Cristina … Continue reading →

Shout out to our student Nathalies Amitie! During this morning’s Summer B lecture, she posed a great question about JAY-Z and Beyoncé’s decision to trademark the names of their newborn twins (Rumi and Sir, for the record). After all, why get … Continue reading →

The burden of proof is a key feature of legal trials. In brief, in order to secure a conviction in a criminal case or an award of money damages in a civil case, the moving party must produce sufficient evidence or proof that … Continue reading →

As a follow up to a recent series of blog posts by our colleague and friend Eric Posner (see: “Twenty theses about Twitter” and “Twitter is a slot machine composed of humans“), we would argue that Twitter is mostly just … Continue reading →

Or to be more precise: can we measure absolute levels of interpersonal utility or just relative differences of utility between individuals? (More fundamentally, what the heck is “utility”?) Either way, these are fundamental questions in theoretical economics, and they have … Continue reading →

Should the Internet be free and open to all? If so, how likely is it that President Trump would order the U.S. Cyber Command to take down China’s Great Firewall? (According to this report titled Cybersecurity: the cold war online … Continue reading →

My favorite part of the Declaration of Independence is its concluding sentence: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and … Continue reading →

Is bitcoin a bubble or the future of electronic currency? For competing answers to this question, check out this recent report, via HowMuch.net, and this essay by Sue Chang, via Market Watch.