“Politics is that dimension of social life in which things really do become true if enough people believe them.”

David Graeber, 2008:

It is the peculiar feature of political life that within it, behavior that could only otherwise be considered insane is perfectly effective. If you managed to convince everyone on earth that you can breathe under water, it won’t make any difference: if you try it, you will still drown. On the other hand, if you could convince everyone in the entire world that you were King of France, then you would actually be the King of France. (In fact, it would probably work just to convince a substantial portion of the French civil service and military.)

This is the essence of politics. Politics is that dimension of social life in which things really do become true if enough people believe them. The problem is that in order to play the game effectively, one can never acknowledge its essence. No king would openly admit he is king just because people think he is. Political power has to be constantly recreated by persuading others to recognize one’s power; to do so, one pretty much invariably has to convince them that one’s power has some basis other than their recognition. That basis may be almost anything—divine grace, character, genealogy, national destiny. But “make me your leader because if you do, I will be your leader” is not in itself a particularly compelling argument.

In this sense politics is very similar to magic, which in most times and places—as I discovered in Madagascar—is simultaneously recognized as something that works because people believe that it works; but also, that only works because people do not believe it works only because people believe it works. For this why magic, whether in ancient Thessaly or the contemporary Trobriand Islands, always seems to dwell in an uncertain territory somewhere between poetic expression and outright fraud. And of course the same can usually be said of politics.

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“There is no excuse to persist in irresponsible spending.”

The Rational Walk, 2024:

Compound interest is merely one example of an exponential function. Human beings have great trouble thinking in exponential terms. It is far easier to think in linear terms and, because this is our natural instinct, most people vastly underestimate the power of investing over a long lifetime. Compounding takes a long period of time to work its magic and we live in a society that prizes instant gratification above all else.

Part of getting older is gaining insight into the reality that living a good life has far more to do with factors such as health and family that simply cannot be purchased with money. However, money is definitely a prerequisite for living a secure life. Since poverty almost always guarantees misery and since anyone in the middle class or higher can easily attain financial independence over a lifetime, there is no excuse to persist in irresponsible spending. Your future self will thank your present self for being prudent and sensible.

“Stacked up, the Stasi’s complete files reached 125 miles.”

Tina Rosenberg, writing in The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism (1995):

The Stasi complex on Normannenstrasse in the Lichtenberg district consisted of 41 brown concrete buildings. In addition, the Stasi possessed 1,181 safe houses, 305 vacation homes, 98 sports facilities, and 18,000 apartments for meetings with spies. The Stasi had a budget of 4 billion East German marks. It had 97,000 full-time employees—after the army, it was East Germany’s largest employer. There were 2,171 mail readers, 1,486 phone tappers, and another 8,426 people who monitored phone conversations and radio broadcasts. In addition, there were about 110,000 active unofficial collaborators and perhaps ten times that many occasional informants. The Stasi kept files on 6 million people. There were 39 separate departments—even a department to spy on other Stasi members. A master file with a single card for each Stasi employee, collaborator, and object of surveillance stretches for more than a mile—the cards for people named Müller alone reach a hundred yards. Stacked up, the Stasi’s complete files reached 125 miles. They weighed fifty tons per mile; in total, 62,500 tons.