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Inspired by A. J. Jacobs when he appeared on Russ Robert's great podcast EconTalk, Ron and Ed have each been keeping a "One Thing" journal for the last few years. The idea is simple. You have a place where each day you capture, just one thing that inspired you. For us, it is often a quote, but it can just be an idea. In this episode, Ron and Ed once again share entries from their "One Thing" journals. It is a bit random, but contains nugget after nugget of curated wisdom for the reading and listening habits of the hosts.
SHOW NOTES
Segment one
So what is a One Thing show? Ron and Ed both keep a journal. And they keep one thing, a quick note, in their journals. A few times a year, we do a show on our One Thing.
From Jonah Goldberg: Many firms try to be a vet and a taxidermist so they can say, either way, you get your cat back.
From Peter Savadnik: There is nothing more pathetic than an older person who cares about what a younger person thinks is cool.
From Winston Churchill: Socialism is the gospel of envy
From Anthony Davies, former TSOE guest: One obtains wealth in exchange for providing value to others. The correct phrase, 1% of the people own 40% of the wealth, reveals the fact that 40% of the value the 99% experience as joy is created through the efforts of 1% of the people
Attributed to Lenin: There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen.
From Elon Musk: The most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize a thing that should not exist
From Charles Spurgeon: Wisdom is, I suppose, the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise, to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.
From Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Let the lie come into the world. Let it even triumph. But not through me.
Also from Alexander Solzhenitsyn: To stand up for truth is nothing. For truth, you must sit in jail.
Segment two
From Kevin Williamson: History doesn’t have sides but historians do.
Ed introduced us to a new word today: meliorism — the belief that the world can be made better by human effort.
From Russell Banks, author: Go, my book. And help destroy the world as it is.
Author unknown: We have to get better at disagreeing with one another, rather than being forced to agree with one another.
The Royal Society's motto, "Nullius in verba," translates to "Take nobody's word for it”
From Eric Voegelin: Don’t immanentize the eschaton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanentize_the_eschaton
Epictetus: He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at
From Lewis Carroll: Do we decide questions at all? We deice the answer no doubt, but surely the questions decide us.
The rhino principle: A rhino is single-minded. It perceives an object and changes with everything it’s got. When done, it instantly resumes browsing.
Segment three
Probably from the KGB: Anybody can commit a murder but it takes an artist to stage a suicide.
From Anton Chekhov: The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.
From Leo Tolstoy: In our world everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.
From Peter Block: The habits or protocols of convening are based on the foundational idea that questions bring us together and answers keep us apart.
From Booker T. Washington: I have never had much patience with those always ready to explain why one cannot succeed. I have always had high regard for the man who could tell me how to succeed.
From Golda Meir after October 7th: We can forgive them for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with them when they love their children more than they hate us.
From Seymour Lipset: To know only one country is to know none.
From E.O. Wilson and his thoughts on Communism — Four words: Great idea. Wrong species.
From Karl Marx in 1847: Without slavery, you have no cotton. Without cotton, you have no modern industry. Cause slavery to disappear and you will have wiped America off the map of nations (to which Ron retorts: I wonder if Marx ever got tired of always being wrong?)
From Rene Girard: In a world purged of sources of authority, there is still one way to achieve status. Concern for victims. Victimism uses the ideology of concern for victims to gain political or economic or spiritual power.
From Stefan Kisielewski: The use of coercion comes from not believing the argument.
From Jonah Goldberg: The narcissism of small differences is one of the great drivers of human conflict.
Segment four
From EconTalk guest Adam Mastroianni: Science progresses on its strongest link not its weakest link. The weakest link is discarded or ignored. Dump peer review. It’s failed.
From Stephen Kotkin on Russia/Ukraine and China/Taiwan: If they take it they can’t have it.
From David Hawkins on his consolidation of company strategy: Increase sales, cut costs, and make the bastards work harder.
From Thomas Sowell: Facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.
From Gordon McKenzie: It is not the business of authority figures to validate genius because genius threatens authority. The ghost of past successes outvote original thinking.
Bonus Content is Available As Well
Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.
Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits.
