Category: ideas

The Invisible Hook

“All pirates are thugs, and the world would be better off without them. But not all pirates are equal. Unlike their Somali successors, early 18th century pirates, men like Blackbeard, “Black Bart” Roberts, and “Calico” Jack Rackam, weren’t only thieves. They were also early experimenters with some of the modern world’s most cherished values, such as liberty, democracy, and equality.

At a time when the legitimate world’s favored system of government was unconstrained monarchy, early 18th-century pirates were practicing constitutional democracy. Before setting sail each would-be pirate crew drew up and agreed to a set of written rules that governed them. These rules regulated gambling, smoking, drinking, the adjudication of conflicts, and in some cases even prohibited harassing members of the fairer sex.

18th-century pirate constitutions established democratic governance for their roguish commonwealths. Crewmembers elected their captains by popular vote and democratically removed captains who dared to misuse their power. Because of this surprising system, far from tyrannical, the average 18th-century pirate captain was a dutiful, elected executor of his constituents’ will.”

Revealing the democratic and economic forces propelling history’s most colorful criminals, The Invisible Hook establishes pirates’ trailblazing relevance to the contemporary world.

– “MIT Sloan Management Review”


Peter Leeson is an economics professor
at George Mason University and author of
The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Hook

https://www.npr.org/2009/04/10/102961315/
in-defense-of-pirates-the-old-time-ones

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5999777-the-invisible-hook


Best of the Week – April 14, 2019 – Joe Rogan Experience

not that joe needs more time on. this is a test for YT auto uploads from idgrid playlist // plow that snow. before global warming that shit froze like december and, we been skating in march. but how do you know when to stop… no one asked you listen till the end etc … // Growing Up and the Trouble We Get Out of Living

 

Auto Design Prague Conference 2014

Auto Design Prague Conference 2014 Hosts Designers and Students

The fourth annual Auto Design Prague recently took place in the city’s National Technical Library. Held on September 18th, the event presented the latest trends in automotive design with leading personalities from the field, with this year’s main actors hailing from Volvo, Qoros, Jaguar, Ferrari, Škoda and Citroen/DS.

This year’s presenters included Thomas Ingenlath, senior vice president for design at Volvo, who spoke about Scandinavian design in relation to the Swedish automaker’s new design language. He cited the Volvo XC90, the first production car designed under his leadership, which will make its world premiere at the Paris auto show later this week.

Another speaker was Julian Thomson, advanced design director at Jaguar. Thomson gave a lecture entitled the ‘Ten Rules of Car Design’, which offered some helpful tips for design hopefuls seeking to enter the field. – See more at: http://formtrends.com/auto-design-prague-conference-2014-hosts-designers-and-students/#.VCrKvBbnLK4

Video: AutoDesign Prague 2014 from AutoDesign&Styling on Vimeo.

See more at: http://formtrends.com/auto-design-prague-conference-2014-hosts-designers-and-students/

 

The Art of Timing: Alan Watts on the Perils of Hurrying and the Pleasures of Presence

AlanWatts

“For the perfect accomplishment of any art, you must get this feeling of the eternal present into your bones — for it is the secret of proper timing. No rush. No dawdle. Just the sense of flowing with the course of events in the same way that you dance to music, neither trying to outpace it nor lagging behind. Hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present.”

Does It Matter? – Essays on Man’s Relation to Materiality by Alan Watts @ Amazon