24 JUN 2013 by ideonexus

 Sexual Selection is a Sheltered Feedback Loop

The worlds of academia, high fashion, religion, and modern art produce sublime wonders, and sometimes monstrous absurdities. They can afford such creative freedom because their systems of self-regulation and self-perpetuation are insulated from the mun- dane pragmatics of the outside world. Their autonomy endows them with liberty and creative power. They are free to evolve under their own momentum, along lines of their own choosing, without having to justify themselves at every step to outsid...
  1  notes

Genes selecting genes.

11 MAY 2013 by ideonexus

 Reading is a Shortcut to Wisdom

The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men. [...] Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face NOTHING new under the sun. For all the “4th Generation of War” intellectuals running around today saying tha...
Folksonomies: wisdom reading experience
Folksonomies: wisdom reading experience
  1  notes

Without reading, all we have is experience to give us wisdom, but that experience in war comes at too high a price. Through reading we can gain the wisdom without having to sacrifice the soldiers.