Written by Paul Siluch
November 6^th, 2024

A Nickel Ain't Worth a Dime Anymore.
- Yogi Berra

The Timelessness of Economic Trends

Every generation thinks it invented sex. That’s what my grandmother said, and she was a wise old girl. If you doubt it, have a look at the frisky mosaics in Pompeii, or the Greek statues from Athens, circa 475 B.C.

Written by Paul Siluch
October 25^th, 2024

We all want to be remembered in life, and even moreso at death. Our legacy is important.

The average person is remembered for about two generations, or roughly 50 years. Beyond that, you are a genealogical footnote - a single forgotten line in the family tree. 

You only live as long as your name is spoken.

- Egyptian parable

Fifty years is roughly the span between a grandparent and a grandchild, two generational ends whose lives overlap. Relations beyond these boundaries are rare, especially with today’s children arriving later in life. And fewer of them per family.

Death is bad. But being forgotten is even worse.

Written by Paul Siluch
October 9^th, 2024

The movie “2002 A Space Odyssey” began with an ape using a bone to beat another ape. It was a metaphor for the earliest human discovering a tool.

A brutal tool, to be honest, but the victorious ape was presumably just a little smarter than the losing ape and survived to pass along his genes.

One of the most effective tools these smarter genes of ours envisioned was the waterwheel. These were invented as far back as 4000 BC by the Mesopotamians to grind flour and irrigate fields. Waterwheels only capture about 20% of the water’s power but are far better than pounding wheat with a rock by hand.

In 1878, the first hydroelectric generator fired up in Cragside in Northumberland at a small lake.

In that moment, the era of the modern power dam was born.