Marko Jukic Profile picture
Apr 11 10 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Daily reminder to teach your kids that they can easily find the e-mails and phone numbers of domain experts in any field online (e.g. a medical professor or a niche historian) and literally just politely ask them some questions, gaining priceless expert opinion for free.
Daily reminder to teach your kids that, if they are smart enough and willing to put in the time, they can most likely learn everything the accountant or lawyer knows online, or from a book, and fill out the scary government forms themselves, thus saving thousands of dollars.
Daily reminder to teach your kids that, if an organized group to do something basic doesn't exist, or does exist but is failing to coordinate (e.g. a homeowners' association) they can literally just start the group themselves or tell everyone else what to do and why.
Daily reminder to teach your kids that if their life isn't working out, they can literally just quit, leave, and go somewhere else to start over and try again. They can even move to Italy, or Albania, or India, or whatever. It's not illegal and is pretty cheap and fun.
Daily reminder to teach your kids that they can just ask for a raise at work. They can even demand it.
Daily reminder to teach your kids if they ever feel paranoid about a medical problem, they can just go to an emergency room and get expert attention and care immediately, for free. Even if it's not free, it can be made free with a few extra steps, depending on where you live.
Daily reminder to teach your kids that if they want to do anything, they can literally just buy some books on the subject and read them carefully to gain knowledge. Even astrophysics. It's literally that simple. You just have to pick up the books and read them.
Daily reminder to teach your kids that, if they think about it really hard, plan it out carefully, and write or speak with grace and empathy, they can probably persuade just about anyone of just about anything. You can just make other people do what you want this way.
I'm not sure how to classify these life lessons I've learned the hard way, though many are "autodidacticism," but these are the kinds of things that any educational reform or personal program of education for one's children should be targeting. Really increasing one's autonomy.
Education should probably be 25% memorizing important facts like what the capital of China is or when WWII started and 75% practicing seeking out knowledge (from books and experts) and persuading others (through rhetoric and logic).

That's it. That's what human life is.

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More from @mmjukic

Mar 20
This week, a single pioneering donor gave gifts worth $640 million to hundreds of advocates of equity, environmentalism, public health, and gender justice.

Does anyone know how much advocates of space exploration, nuclear power, or good city governance received this week? Image
When the directions of intellectual, ideological, artistic, and cultural philanthropy are lopsided by five orders of magnitude or so in one direction rather than another, it's hardly surprising that society follows in that direction.
A tremendous number of people seem to think that investing in businesses or working on technology balances out this kind of philanthropy somehow.

But better businesses and technology don't make a society's need for intellectuals, culture, art, or ideology go away.
Read 9 tweets
Mar 11
The fact that outright billionaires are choosing to spend their time being irate online commentators and podcast hosts rather than, like, literally anything else productive, seems like a sign of one of the most important and unspoken sociological facts about modern America.
Billionaires are poor.
Having more money doesn't make you wealthier or more powerful.
Read 12 tweets
Feb 15
Some academics got mad at my bespoke categorization of Africa's geo-economic regions, but it perfectly explains why colonial borders were drawn up so randomly.

They intentionally fragmented every natural economic region btw. multiple empires to maintain the balance of power! 🧵

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French Africa wasn't some rational unified whole, it was most of the Maghreb and half of "The Gulf" divided by the Sahara.

They gave France and Italy bits of the Red Sea so that Britain couldn't just dominate it outright.

Germany got a random slice of every region, just cuz.
If you wanted maximum economic growth and development, you'd have turned entire geo-economic regions into vast unified states or spheres that could transcend ethnic conflict and benefit from economies of scale.

Like a Super-Nigeria across all West Africa. A Nile Confederation.
Read 5 tweets
Dec 20, 2023
"The elite" is not shadowy or mysterious. America is ruled by technocratic lanky GenX Ivy League white guys who fly under the radar because they are powerful.

For example, pictured below are the American foreign minister, information minister, and AI minister.

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While flaccid debates about Ukraine, wokeness, or AI safety or whatever soak up attention on here, the American foreign minister is fighting a global proxy war with Russia/China, and the American information minister is scientifically determining the correct level of wokeness.
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The AI minister has not been formally sworn in yet but to be fair he would be the inaugural officeholder. Image
Read 12 tweets
Dec 18, 2023
Imagination: a closure of the Suez Canal will cause the total collapse of the world economy, globalization, and even the U.S. government

Reality: Egypt once unilaterally blocked the canal for *8 years* and literally nothing happened

Maritime shipping is just too easy: 🧵

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The fact that nobody even remembers when the Suez Canal was closed from 1967 to 1975 should be a testament to how irrelevant it actually is in an era of cheap, big, and fast cargo ships.

It's not like these ships are unable to sail around Africa rather than through the Canal. Image
The Suez Canal only shortens routes by an order of magnitude for short trips between countries directly on either side of it e.g. Saudi Arabia and Greece.

For the more important routes from Asia to Europe/America, even from Qatar to the Netherlands, it's just a 20-40% reduction
Image
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Read 9 tweets
Dec 5, 2023
When the USSR fell, Moscow's empire instantly lost -48.6% of its population -38.8% of GDP.

For comparison, this is how it would look if the U.S. broke apart with the same ratios today.

I think this more than anything explains why KGB officer Putin is so fixated on Ukraine: 🧵 Image
Putin has called the collapse of the Soviet Union a "genuine tragedy" and "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" since at least 2005.

Quantifying this, the catastrophe is that Moscow lost control over half the Soviet population and a third of its economy. Image
If Washington lost the same proportion of population and GDP, what remained of the U.S. would on paper still be the 2nd-largest economy after China, but with only 170 million people.

This is smaller than Pakistan, Brazil, or even Nigeria.

From superpower to second-rate power.
Read 11 tweets

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