I often get asked something along the line of, “If you weren’t leading Automattic, what would you work on?” There’s not a single answer to this question; the answer changes day to day. But I think if you asked me today, I’d say I would like to start a bank.
Source: Starting a Bank | Matt Mullenweg
Source: Donald Trump and the Twilight of White America – The Atlantic
Racial resentment and economic anxiety are not separate forces. For many voters, and particularly Trump’s supporters, they are inextricably linked.
in the last half-century, several events have pushed conservative white American middle-class men to conflate their majoritarian, economic, and cultural decline
The grievances of middle-class white Americans are not make-believe, nor is their nostalgia misplaced. … For white American middle-class men, especially those without a college degree, it was the best of times.
Source: China’s Newest Challenge Is Adapting to Its Aging Population – The Atlantic
As immigrants replenish America, China’s population is aging and shrinking.
America assimilates outsiders on a scale matched by no other powerful country: Immigrants inhabit every rung of society and work in every sector. Immigration, perhaps more than any other single factor, sustains American prosperity.
Source: Moxie Marlinspike Makes Encryption for Everyone | Popular Science
The Signal developer on why the FBI and governments can’t be trusted
I have the somewhat unpopular opinion that it should be possible to break the law. … We can only desire based on what we know. It is our present experience of what we are and are not able to do that largely determines our sense for what is possible.
The FBI wants us to believe that strong encryption in consumer products will enable terrorists, but they already have access to encryption. It’s the rest of us that don’t.
Source: The Circles of American Financial Hell – The Atlantic
There’s no escaping the pressure that U.S. inequality exerts on parents to make sure their kids succeed.
Why can’t people live below their means, save up some money, and kick up their feet?
The place to start is by looking at what they are spending their money—and particularly their loans—on. The biggest expenditure? Housing, by far. (Transportation is next, but a good portion of that—gas—is in some ways a housing cost as well, since it’s a function of one’s commute.) And the biggest sources of debt? Housing and education. The average loan burdens for mortgages and student loans dwarf auto loans or credit-card debt, the other major types of debt that Americans tend to carry.
Housing and education appear to be two distinct categories of spending, but for many families they are one and the same: For the most part, where a family lives determines where their kids go to school, and, as a result, where schools are better, houses are more costly.