Why don’t we___?

Why do we produce luxury cars while people are dying in poor countries?

Why do we work on missions to Mars while our own planet has problems?

Why is Starbuck’s revenue is 26,5 billion dollars, while malaria would cost 8.5 billion dollars to eradicate?

Why do we worry about climate change if nuclear weapons are a more immediate threat?

These trick questions see humanity as one entity.

There are almost eight billion people on Earth, each with their own thoughts and skills, and interests. And we should pursue those interests and ideas, whether they’re ground coffee from Seattle or putting people on Mars.

Ground coffee leads to cafés and exchanging of ideas, and putting people on Mars may make our lives better on this planet too. Possibly every step required to put people and materials on Mars is directly useful for figuring out how else we might live on Earth too.

Latest

The Return of Magic

The Return of Magic

My first time in an airplane was in some Cessna 25 years ago. I had never imagined I’d ever sit in a plane, because that was something for rich people. But then after our visit to Legoland in Denmark, my dad decided we’d see the park from above. The whole was so inconceivable, not just […]
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Toilet Egg Pancake

Toilet Egg Pancake

Sometimes a place or thing becomes super memorable not despite its odd name, but because of it. In Kunshan (昆山) there’s a place that sells ‘Toilet Egg Pancake’ (厕所蛋饼), because their original store was next to a public toilet. It has already moved on, but the name remains. While their pancakes are so good (and […]
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These Same Roads Again

These Same Roads Again

My parents visited Shanghai for the first time in seven years, and even though the city has changed a lot, I dare say it has changed not as much as I have. Sure. On the surface of Shanghai, a lot of stores have come and gone since 2018, and large areas of the city were […]
November 5, 2025
To Taipei and Back in a Day

To Taipei and Back in a Day

I got the chance to travel from Shanghai to Taipei and back in one day. Rather impractical, very tiring, but still worth it. Because you could stay at home for ten weekends and watch fifty movies, and still not have as many impressions as this. I will refrain from acting as if now I know […]
November 3, 2025