The useful ideas project

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150 people run the world, supposedly
Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya spoke with unusual frankness to the “leaders of the future” at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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Ciarán Ryan
Criticism of Rory Sutherland's comments about capitalism
If he's stepping out beyond advertising, there's a question to be answered. Update: 24 Feb 2025: Sutherland is now addressing inequality etc - scroll…
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Ciarán Ryan
1
Flooding the zone
When people are overwhelmed by nonsense and conflicting opinions, democracy cannot function properly which can be useful for some politicians, and rival…
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Ciarán Ryan
Neoliberal deceit
If every politician is lying to you, the guy that doesn't pretend to care about the truth looks (like a version of) honest.
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Ciarán Ryan
1
The Gervais Principle
A humorous, and deadly serious, insight into how some organisations operate.
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Ciarán Ryan
Political lobbying exploits bounded rationality
Why aren't more of us concerned about paid lobbying in politics? Perhaps because many of us won't consider the outsized efforts undertaken to sway…
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Ciarán Ryan
Thought-terminating cliché
A form of loaded language that can be used to stop arguments from proceeding and end debate.
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Ciarán Ryan
Ritual creates new realities
How to manage a society, according to an anthropologist.
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Ciarán Ryan
1
The double slit experiment and the limits of intuition
A reminder that pre-existing beliefs and prejudices are often inaccurate and insufficient.
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Ciarán Ryan
Reality tunnel
A useful metaphor that can remind us to check our biases.
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Ciarán Ryan
The inflexible will break
Surely the inspiration for the "Because what has hardened will never win" lines in Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker movie.
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Ciarán Ryan
The two types of successful people
According to wise Paul Lewis.
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Ciarán Ryan
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