Francis Fukuyama: “There are actually several different meanings of liberalism around the world. So in the US, being liberal means you’re left of center. In Europe, it usually means that you’re right of center. In my version of classical liberalism, the most important premise is one about the equality of human dignity: That all human beings have a certain base dignity that needs to be respected. The way you respect it is by giving people rights. A right to speech, to belief, to association, and ultimately to political participation. In a liberal society, you don’t say that there’s one subgroup of humans that has greater status — based on their race, ethnicity, gender and so forth. If you believe in that basic principle of the equality of dignity and the need for a system of law that restricts governments from violating that basic dignity, then you’re a liberal….That set of principles is being challenged on both the right and the left. The people on the right would like to return to a form of nationalism where they can say, you know, Hungarians or Hindus or some other subgroup of human beings, has a special status. And on the left I think it’s more the questioning the basic liberal virtues of tolerance and freedom of speech.”
Leigh Thompson: “Do you look forward to performance reviews? If you’re like many employees, probably not. Too often reviews are, at best, a waste of time—a one-way street in which a boss tells you what you’re doing wrong, with little opportunity to disagree. But take heart: They don’t have to be that way. The best reviews aren’t meant to be monologues but rather dialogues, conversations that both parties learn and grow from, for the good of both the individual and the organization. How can an employee turn a review into something positive? By planning ahead and being strategic in the moment. Here are five tips for doing just that: ask for a face-to-face conversation, schedule strategically, focus on the future, Recast the meeting as a “learning review”, reverse role-play.”
NYTimes: “Mr. Musk, who leads SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter, has become the most dominant player in space as he has steadily amassed power over the strategically significant field of satellite internet. Yet faced with little regulation and oversight, his erratic and personality-driven style has increasingly worried militaries and political leaders around the world, with the tech billionaire sometimes wielding his authority in unpredictable ways. Since 2019, Mr. Musk has sent SpaceX rockets into space nearly every week that deliver dozens of sofa-size satellites into orbit. The satellites communicate with terminals on Earth, so they can beam high-speed internet to nearly every corner of the planet. Today, more than 4,500 Starlink satellites are in the skies, accounting for more than 50 percent of all active satellites. They have already started changing the complexion of the night sky, even before accounting for Mr. Musk’s plans to have as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit in the coming years.”
Oliver Burkeman: “There will always be too much to do, no matter what you do. But the ironic upside of this seemingly dispiriting fact is that you needn’t beat yourself up for failing to do it all, nor keep pressuring yourself to find ways to get on top of it all by means of increasingly extreme multitasking. Instead, you can pour your finite time, energy and attention into a handful of things that truly count. You’ll enjoy things more, into the bargain. My gratifying new ability to “be here now” while running or driving or cooking dinner isn’t the result of having developed any great spiritual prowess. Rather, it’s a matter of realizing I could only ever be here now anyway — so I might as well give up the stressful struggle to pretend otherwise.”