Overheard in Karate Class

“You can always find someone better than you, or with more experience, but you should never find someone who works harder than you.“

 

Class Warfare

I’ve heard it said that the middle class exists to protect the truly wealthy from the poor.

What say you, true, false, or unfairly worded statement?

 

Illusory Meaning

“There’s nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear.”
– Daniel Dennett, a gentleman who believes regarding something as “dear” is a result of chemical reactions.

 

Communication and Liberty

I’m not normally a big Confucius guy, but I found this resonant:

“When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom.”
– Confucius

 

GDP Fetish

Interesting quote in the WSJ today:

He has what I call the “GDP fetish”—the belief that increases in GDP are good whether or not they represent increased production of things that people actually value. If the government spends $100 billion digging holes and then filling them back up, then GDP can rise by $100 billion or more even if the $100 billion is totally wasted. Some stimulus projects, in fact, are little better than hole-digging. One example I noted on a recent visit to Detroit is the tearing up of sidewalk corners to make them wheelchair-friendly, even though the sidewalks themselves have so many craters that people in wheelchairs use the roads instead.

 

Kim Dotcom’s Epic Tweet of Irony