The Architect of Their Own Demise 1 The Architect of Their Own Demise – Part 1: The Organizer of Chaos 2 The Architect of Their Own Demise – Part 2: The Purist Who Purged Himself 3 The Architect of Their Own Demise – Part 3: The Banker Who Built on Sand 4 The Architect of Their Own Demise – Part 4: The Explorer Who Trusted His Maps ← Series Home May 1845 Departure of Franklin's expedition ...
Capitalism Unmasked 1 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 1: The Myth of the Free Market 2 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 2: The Shareholder Value Myth 3 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 3: The Trickle-Down Delusion 4 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 4: The Myth of the Lazy Poor 5 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 5: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Distrust 6 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 6: The Education Myth 7 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 7: The Myth of Natural Inequality 8 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 8: The Myth of Capital Flight 9 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 9: The Myth of the Rational Consumer 10 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 10: The Hidden Costs of 'Free' Markets 11 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 11: The Myth of the Self-Made Man 12 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 12: The Myth of Efficient Financial Markets 13 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 13: The Myth of Corporate Social Responsibility 14 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 14: The Myth of Growth 15 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 15: Development Institutions - Help or Hindrance? 16 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 16: The Myth of Immigration Harm 17 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 17: The Myth of Flexible Labor Markets 18 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 18: The Myth of Shareholder Primacy 19 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 19: The Myth of Technological Unemployment 20 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 20: The Privatization Illusion 21 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 21: The Myth of Patent Protection 22 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 22: The Myth of Government Debt Crisis 23 Capitalism Unmasked - Part 23: Finance - Economy's Brain or Parasite? ← Series Home What They Tell You Markets need to be free. When the government interferes to dictate what market participants can or cannot do, resources cannot flow to their most efficient use. If people cannot do the things that they find most profitable, they lose the incentive to invest and innovate. Thus, if the government puts a cap on house rents, landlords lose the incentive to maintain their properties or build new ones. Or, if the government restricts the kinds of financial products that can be sold, two contracting parties that may both have benefited from innovative transactions that fulfil their idiosyncratic needs cannot reap the potential gains of free contract. People must be left “free to choose,” as the title of free-market visionary Milton Friedman’s famous book goes. ...
The Invisible Army ← Series Home Key Takeaways Logistics as strategy: Alexander's campaigns succeeded because he planned supply before battle—timing sieges to coincide with harvests, selecting routes based on water sources, not just enemy positions. Light and fast beats heavy and slow: By minimizing baggage trains and maximizing soldier self-sufficiency, Alexander achieved speeds of advance that wouldn't be matched until motorized warfare. The tyranny of the horse: Cavalry horses consume 10x more fodder than a soldier eats grain—Alexander's army ate its way across Asia, and understanding this constraint explains his route choices. Logistics determines limits: Even Alexander couldn't sustain a campaign beyond the limits of supply. His army mutinied at the Hyphasis River not from cowardice but from exhaustion—they had reached the edge of what logistics could support. The Conquest That Shouldn’t Have Worked In 334 BCE, Alexander III of Macedon crossed the Hellespont into Asia with approximately 48,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and enough supplies for… about thirty days. ...
The Kinetic Chain 1 Part 1: Alexander's Invisible Army 2 Part 2: Napoleon's Fatal Calculation 3 Part 3: The Railroad Revolution 4 Part 4: The Crimean Catastrophe 5 Part 5: Barbarossa and the Battle of the Gauges 6 Part 6: The Battle of the Bulge and the Tyranny of Fuel 7 Part 7: Wholesale Distribution and the American Way of 8 Part 8: The Pacific Logistics Challenge 9 Part 9: Victory Through Logistics 10 Part 10: Vietnam and the Tyranny of Terrain 11 Part 11: Giap's Bicycle Brigades 12 Part 12: The Ho Chi Minh Trail 13 Part 13: American Largesse in Vietnam 14 Part 14: The M16 Debacle and Logistics Failure 15 Part 15: The Falklands Logistics Miracle 16 Part 16: Desert Storm and the Logistics Miracle 17 Part 17: The Future of Contested Logistics ← Series Home Key Takeaways Logistics as strategy: Alexander's campaigns succeeded because he planned supply before battle—timing sieges to coincide with harvests, selecting routes based on water sources, not just enemy positions. Light and fast beats heavy and slow: By minimizing baggage trains and maximizing soldier self-sufficiency, Alexander achieved speeds of advance that wouldn't be matched until motorized warfare. The tyranny of the horse: Cavalry horses consume 10x more fodder than a soldier eats grain—Alexander's army ate its way across Asia, and understanding this constraint explains his route choices. Logistics determines limits: Even Alexander couldn't sustain a campaign beyond the limits of supply. His army mutinied at the Hyphasis River not from cowardice but from exhaustion—they had reached the edge of what logistics could support. The Conquest That Shouldn’t Have Worked In 334 BCE, Alexander III of Macedon crossed the Hellespont into Asia with approximately 48,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and enough supplies for… about thirty days. ...
The New Thermal Divide 1 The New Thermal Divide - Part 1: Anatomy of an Invisible Killer 2 The New Thermal Divide - Part 2: From Savanna to City-Humanity's Failed Adaptation 3 The New Thermal Divide - Part 3: Global Collapse: How Heat Scrambles Ecosystems and Food Supplies 4 The New Thermal Divide - Part 4: Accountability and the Future of a Superheated Planet ← Series Home The New Thermal Divide - Part 1: Anatomy of an Invisible Killer Heat arrives silently and operates as an invisible force. It does not bend tree branches or shake the ground to announce its presence. Instead, it surrounds people and works on them in ways they cannot anticipate or control. This type of extreme heat is no longer an incremental bump on the thermometer. It acts as an active, destructive force. This invisible force is the first-order effect of a hotter planet, driving planetary chaos, drought, and wildfires. ...
System's Perfect Victim 1 Part 1: The By-the-Book Admiral 2 Part 2: The Railroad Manager Who Followed Policy 3 Part 3: The Architect Who Obeyed the Emperor 4 Part 4: The Minister Who Balanced the Books ← Series Home The Perfect Execution of a Fatal Order On June 22, 1893, the Mediterranean Fleet was conducting maneuvers off the coast of Tripoli. Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon, commanding from HMS Victoria, signaled his flagship to turn inward toward his second-in-command’s ship, HMS Camperdown. The two battleships, each over 10,000 tons, were to execute a simultaneous 180-degree turn, ending up side by side. Tryon’s staff officers watched in silent horror as they calculated the distance. The turning circle of the Victoria was 800 yards. The ships were only 1,200 yards apart. Rear-Admiral Albert Hastings Markham aboard the Camperdown hesitated. The signal was clear, but impossible. He delayed, hoping for a correcting signal. None came. After four minutes of excruciating silence—a lifetime in naval protocol—Markham obeyed. The Camperdown turned. The Victoria turned. Their bows converged. At 3:34 PM, the Camperdown’s ram pierced the Victoria’s hull below the waterline. Thirteen minutes later, the most powerful battleship in the Royal Navy capsized and sank, taking 358 crewmen with her, including Tryon. His last reported words as he stood impassively on the bridge were: “It’s all my fault.” ...
The Engineered Illusion 1 The Class Code 2 The Streamlined Shroud 3 The Cracked Facade ← Series Home The Birth of Style as Social Narcotic In the early 20th century, the automobile emerged not as a democratizing force, but as a reinforcer of class hierarchy. The first luxury cars, like the 1908 Packard Twin Six, were designed with a deliberate architectural division: a chauffeur’s compartment separated from the owner’s cabin by a glass partition. This was not mere functionality; it was social engineering. The chauffeur’s side featured worn leather and basic gauges, while the owner’s side boasted tufted velvet, wood inlays, and ornate detailing. The car became a rolling status symbol, its interior a microcosm of the Gilded Age’s rigid class structure. ...
Part of the Series: The Unbreakable Myth Part 1: The Aluminum Improvisation Part 2: The Global Workhorse Part 3: The Cult of the Defender The Farm Tool That Captured the World In the spring of 1947, on a Welsh beach, a curious prototype was put through its paces. It was a crude, boxy, aluminum-bodied vehicle with a canvas roof, built on a steel ladder frame. At the wheel was Maurice Wilks, chief designer at Rover, who was using a surplus Jeep on his farm. He wanted a similar vehicle for postwar British agriculture, but the Jeep was unavailable and, to British sensibilities, too crude and petrol-thirsty. His solution, sketched in the sand that day, was not to create a new car, but a new category: the light, versatile, all-purpose utility vehicle. This prototype, later named the Land Rover, was born not from a grand automotive vision, but from a specific, pragmatic need. Yet, within a decade, it would escape its agricultural brief to become an unlikely global status symbol and a canvas for the myth of exploration. ...
The Calculus of Conflict Part 1: The Gambler and the Gambled: A New Formula for War Part 2: The Geometry of Folly: 1914 and the Elite's Miscalculation Part 3: Spreadsheets and Shockwaves: The Iraq War's Perceived Calculus Part 4: When the Calculus Aligns: The Existential Arithmetic of World War II Part 5: Designing Accountability: Can We Re-wire the Decision Machine? 20 million Lives lost in World War I The Illusion of a Shared Ledger In the autumn of 1914, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey uttered his famous lament: “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” The sentiment captured a profound, shared tragedy. Yet, the ledger of that tragedy was not shared. Grey, and the political class he represented, retired to country estates. The generation they sent to war died in the mud of the Somme and Passchendaele. ...
The Nordic Exception 1 The 1909 DNA of Sovereignty 2 The Decisive 33rd Well and the Ten Commandments 3 Victoria Terrasse and the Great Tax Squeeze 4 Seabed Soldiers and the Condeep Giants 5 The Trillion-Dollar Shield and the Ethics of Abundance The Anguish of the Viking Twilight In the late 1800s, Norway was a cold, remote Danish-controlled territory living on the margins of human existence. The sun vanished for months, and 875,000 people survived on small catch from the sea or meager river yields. Famine was so pervasive that it triggered a mass exodus of more than 1 million Norwegians to the United States. Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” was not a psychedelic hallucination but a reflection of the anguish and sickness that ravaged tenement housing in Christiania. Munch lost his mother and two siblings to illnesses that haunted the population. ...