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How to Build a Scalable Legal System With a Moral Override By John-Michael Kuczynski It is one thing to say that procedural systems must...

By John-Michael Kuczynski Procedures are essential. Rules, systems, protocols—they scale. They let us govern large populations, enforce...

By John-Michael Kuczynski One of the more chilling consequences of Rawlsian proceduralism becomes visible when you follow it to its...

There is a persistent illusion in modern financial theory that markets price companies according to fundamentals—that valuation is a...

by John-Michael Kuczynski In classical finance theory, prices are thought to reflect fundamentals. Stocks represent ownership claims on...

The Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH)  is one of those ideas that sounds powerful and scientific—until you try to pin down what it's...

by John-Michael Kuczynski Myth, Archetype, and the Shadow in a Galaxy Far, Far Away Star Wars  (1977) is not just a space opera—it’s a...

by John-Michael Kuczynski Kirk, Spock, McCoy—and the Structure of the Psyche in Space Star Trek: The Original Series  wasn’t just a...

by John-Michael Kuczynski On Snobbery, Class Signaling, and Why the Truly Busy Don’t Lament “Our Times” There’s a whole genre of cultural...

by John-Michael Kuczynski There’s a kind of literary pose that never goes out of style: the smug, knowing intellectual skewering the...

by John-Michael Kuczynski What Freud Said Freud once remarked, in the early 20th century: “What the Americans are doing is very bold and...

Snobbery, Superficiality, and the Blindness of Babbitt’s Creator by John-Michael Kuczynski There’s a reason Babbitt  doesn’t fully land,...

by John-Michael Kuczynski There’s a kind of falseness that great writing can’t survive. It isn’t vanity. It isn’t ego. It’s snobbery....

Richard Wright’s Black Boy  is often taught as a seminal text about race in America. And it is. But it may also be something...

by John-Michael Kuczynski We often say that Bach’s music is the pinnacle of Baroque expression. But that’s not quite right. Bach’s music...

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is typically seen as a dysfunction—a looping, intrusive, exhausting affliction that burns time, mental...

Some mental disorders are chaotic. Others are precise. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is very much in the second camp. Its rituals...

by John-Michael Kuczynski For a time, I was intensely interested in serial killers—like many people, fascinated by the seemingly inhuman...

Have you ever wondered why economic predictions so often miss the mark? Or why central banks sometimes seem to be fighting yesterday's...

I’m not especially interested in the claim—made with varying degrees of confidence—that Machu Picchu was built not by the Incas but by a...