Caveman economics

Marshall Sahlins and others showed that early hunter gatherer societies generally didn’t work very hard. Two or three hours a day were spent gathering food, and the rest of the time was for social engagement and family. With all the technology and innovation that has followed, why do we work four times as hard? One

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Stop all

Every one of the pings, dings and clicks on this page gives me the hives. Run them in a quick sequence and I need to leave the room. They are our Pavlovian bells, designed to trigger us into action. At the bottom right is a button that says ‘stop all.’ That’s a useful idea. We

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All the cards

If someone hands you a deck, you can be sure there are 52 cards covering four suits. The universe is finite. The cards are the cards, and games work precisely for that reason. Every deck is the same, and all the players have the same options. Some of the systems we compete in have a

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