Archive - Radical Contributions

Escalation Theory: Compliance, Violence, and Overachievement In Society

How Elites Cause Crime By Acing Marshmallow Tests Some people think crime is caused by poverty. Some think crime is caused by criminals. Some even think…

Jan 7 •

Conrad Bastable

March 2023

Inside My First Bank Run: Zombie Banks and Magic Money

Why Banks Always Explode And What To Do About it. Half-retrospective & half-critical analysis of modern banking, this essay explores what it was like to…

Mar 24, 2023 •

Conrad Bastable

November 2022

Japan’s Housing Crisis: What The YIMBYs Don’t Understand

What Really Drives Housing Prices — And Why Japan’s Haven’t Increased Since 1995!

Nov 25, 2022 •

Conrad Bastable

July 2022

Book Review: Discourses on Livy, Part II

expansion, growth, & leadership

Jul 11, 2022 •

Conrad Bastable

A Podcast & A New Platform

a very rare non-essay update for July 4th

Jul 4, 2022 •

Conrad Bastable

June 2022

Book Review: Discourses on Livy, Part I

Rehabilitating Machiavelli Imagine you’re an intellectual who lives and works in close proximity to your society’s elite. Imagine that your studies of…

Jun 27, 2022 •

Conrad Bastable

February 2022

American Zaibatsu: Macroeconomics for Tech Employees

How great nations are built on the backs of great companies — and what you can do about it Note: don’t start reading this one on your lunch break unless…

Feb 10, 2022 •

Conrad Bastable

September 2021

Video Games & Professional Society: What Older Generations Don’t Understand About Gaming

Why You Should Play Games To Excess This week[0], Xi Jinping’s government announced it was banning videogames — the latest salvo in a slew of attacks…

Sep 10, 2021 •

Conrad Bastable

June 2021

Elite Underproduction: Why We Can’t Solve Hard Problems Anymore

The Worldview Schism Fueling The Tech-Media Wars & Stunting Our Growth There’s a quiet worldview schism among today’s American elite, one I often…

Jun 10, 2021 •

Conrad Bastable

November 2020

Ouroboros Theory: Describing The Nature of Right vs. Left

Note: While the “essay prompt” for this arose from today’s political climate, not a single word or image in here refers in any way to current affairs. I…

Nov 2, 2020 •

Conrad Bastable

July 2020

Unequal Growth: The Zero-Sum Games You Don’t See

How The Present Was Built “Unequal Growth” describes the emergence of China, the growing economic irrelevance of Europe & Japan, and American dominance…

Jul 2, 2020 •

Conrad Bastable

May 2020

China’s Trillion-Dollar Tech War: When To Defend A Monopoly

2010 was the year Silicon Valley lost the war in China. It took another 5-6 years for the rest of the playing field to realize the war was already lost…

May 19, 2020 •

Conrad Bastable

#nojs-banner { position: fixed; bottom: 0; left: 0; padding: 16px 16px 16px 32px; width: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; background: red; color: white; font-family: -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 13px; line-height: 13px; } #nojs-banner a { color: inherit; text-decoration: underline; } This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts