“Punk rock has never really had much patience with musical virtuosity. Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that for most of its history, punk has been actively hostile to virtuosity.”
James Surowiecki“Life insurance became popular only when insurance companies stopped emphasizing it as a good investment and sold it instead as a symbolic commitment by fathers to the future well-being of their families.”
James Surowiecki“In the auto industry, there's one thing you can always count on: if a new environmental or safety rule is proposed, executives will prophesy disaster.”
James Surowiecki“As technology improves, on-screen avatars look more and more like real people. When they start looking too real, though, we pull away. These almost-humans aren't quite right; they look creepy, like zombies.”
James Surowiecki“Real politics is messy and morally ambiguous and doesn't make for a compelling thriller.”
James Surowiecki“Besides great climates and lovely beaches, California and Greece share a fondness for dysfunctional politics and feckless budgeting.”
James Surowiecki“Speculators get a bad rap. In the popular imagination they're greedy, heedless, and amoral, adept at price manipulations and dirty tricks. In reality, they often play a key role in making markets run smoothly.”
James Surowiecki“The challenge for capitalism is that the things that breed trust also breed the environment for fraud.”
James Surowiecki“Linux is a complex example of the wisdom of crowds. It's a good example in the sense that it shows you can set people to work in a decentralized way - that is, without anyone really directing their efforts in a particular direction - and still trust that they're going to come up with good answers.”
James Surowiecki“In order to work well, markets need a basic level of trust.”
James Surowiecki“Medical tourism can be considered a kind of import: instead of the product coming to the consumer, as it does with cars or sneakers, the consumer is going to the product.”
James Surowiecki