Cancel UK elections until further notice
The UK is about to have a new Prime Minister, or not, but if it is, the condition has already been set.
Denying Britain’s achievements in abolishing slavery
South Africa’s draft history curriculum ignores 5,000 years of African enslavement and focuses instead on the roughly 300 years of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. It
Sci-fi grokked AI when your grandpa was still young
Today’s artificial intelligence was anticipated many decades ago. Let’s dive into the literature. When OpenAI unleashed ChatGPT upon the world a little over three years
Stop treating “representivity” as an unassailable gospel
News24 deputy politics editor Bongekile Macupe last week undertook a racial bean-counting exercise in the finest tradition of South Africa’s old census bureaucracy by naming all the new leadership figures and
Taking the brakes off SA’s economy: the IRR’s Blueprint for Growth
By the end of this talk, you will be able to name exactly what is suppressing South Africa’s investment rate, and you will have a concrete reform agenda to argue for.
The fight for Johannesburg: Treasury vs the ANC, the Patronage Machine and the Union
The fight over the cuts needed to prevent Johannesburg from descending into bankruptcy has begun.
Don’t save Ramaphosa to avoid something worse
There is a particular kind of political cowardice that presents itself as strategic wisdom. It goes like this: yes, the current leader is problematic but removing him might produce something worse. ‘Better the devil you know.’
The primary purpose of any enterprise is paramount
Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, put forward a description of how task specialisation and the division of labour spectacularly increased production and productivity. Economists of all stripes have since accepted this as obvious.
Dilution of dialogue, diplomacy, détente and deference a global threat
“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war” Mark Anthony, 44 BC. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar 1599
ANC faces sink-or-swim moment
The local government elections have been announced for 4 November, heralding a campaign season that will be keenly watched, and whose results will be anticipated.