Luca Bisi

Apathetic Democracy

Democracy is often regarded as one of the highest goods of our modern society, typically contrasted with dictatorship. Yet, in most western democracies, voter turnout has been falling in recent decades. For example, Italy had a voter abstention rate of less than 10% until the ‘80s; now, it approaches 40%

In Africa

I've just come back from two weeks in South Africa visiting a friend, and if you had asked me one month ago, I would have never guessed I'd be saying that! Before arriving, my idea of South Africa was pretty limited, based mostly on movies like

Mafia and Vines

This July, I spent a week working on a vineyard in the Sicilian countryside near Palermo. Considering my frequent career changes, you might suspect I'm pivoting to agriculture. I'm not (at least, not yet).  The trip was an experience organized by Libera, an association that manages

Interrail Considerations

Last month, I traveled more than 3,328 km across Europe by train to visit friends I made over the past few years who now live in various countries. It was a unique experience, and it reminded me most of a kindergarten activity, when we visited the places where some

Looking Ahead

How do you want the EU to be in the future? This was the main topic discussed at the European Youth Event 2025. I found the initial framing somewhat misleading, as it overlooked several key dynamics shaping decision-making. The issue lies in factors that are often not taken into consideration:

Emotional Cues

Imagine between 50 and 400 people dancing for weeks, day and night, with some dying from exhaustion. This is what happened in the dancing plague of 1518 in Strasbourg. I stumbled upon this story randomly, and what I found interesting about it is that the most popular theory behind the

Dust and Energy

The concept of kick-starting things in Italian is "Dare il Là," which refers to the initial note that an orchestra conductor gives the musicians to synchronize their instruments before starting a concert. I’m intrigued by its broader metaphorical sense because, once everyone is set on the same

Ordinary people

Antaeus was a giant whose unmatched strength came from maintaining constant contact with his mother, Gaea (Earth). As long as Antaeus remained firmly grounded, he was invincible. Hercules, however, uncovered this secret and lifted Antaeus off the Earth, breaking the giant’s connection to his vital source and ultimately defeating

AGI

The motto of this blog is Unearthing the essence. When I sit to write, I like to think that I embark on a quest to dig deep into the meaning of things. Metaphorically, I see myself as a paleontologist excavating to find the relevant bones to reconstruct a dinosaur while

Jump

I like to say that life is beautiful because it's unpredictable. Uncertainty is intrinsic in life, and there are always factors outside our control. Yet, we have some degree of maneuverability on a few variables. By playing with them, we can modify our exposure to the possible outcomes.

Christmas wishes

This time of year is ideal for celebrating family and friends, and I’m writing this post to do just about that. Looking back at 2024, most memorable moments were linked to experiences shared with enjoyable people. I previously underlined how I rediscovered the importance of companionship, and I continue

Productivity paradox

I remember watching an advertisement about a cloud provider listing all the productivity gains one would enjoy by using it: "so you free up time to do whatever matters to you." Technology indeed frees up time because it enables to achieve the same outcomes in less time. We

The other innovator

I previously wrote about innovation, which, in its essence, is trying something not done before in any field. Still, an interesting nuance is how the culture that defines a society innovates over time. Take the view of No taxation without representation that led to the American Revolution: it is a

Mission

I've previously stated that the general absolute risk is the extinction of the human species. Reflecting on the mutable properties of genetics, I now modify the human species term into human consciousness, defined as the awareness of internal and external existence. Still, the following question remains the same:

Coherence

In post n.1 of this blog, I stated that I built it to start making something entirely of my own. In fact, for a long time I have said that my dream job is being an entrepreneur because I see it as the figure in society who turns ideas

Experience

Wittgenstein's Ruler is a concept introduced by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. It states that: Unless you have confidence in the ruler's reliability, if you use a ruler to measure a table you may also be using the table to measure the ruler. The concept links to how

Less is more

While discussing with a colleague the length of a document, he came up with a quote by Blaise Pascal that made me reflect: I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time. The value of writing concisely is that our cognitive constraints become an advantage:

Humanity

I often use the word human in my blog because it encapsulates what we are at the essence level. It is our common denominator, hence I agree with the essay author Nassim Taleb that, the worst thing that can happen to a person, is not the individual death or the

United States of Europe

The following is an analysis of the roots of the EU and one possible evolution. Geography In elementary school, I was taught that Europe is considered a continent, even if it is part of the same landmass as Eurasia, for socio-political reasons. The name Europe originated in ancient Greece to

Bottled Insights

One of the first courses during my bachelor's degree was microeconomics. One model outlined showed how profits should be non-existent in perfect competition. We know the world is far from perfect in everything, so it is no big deal if profits exist. Still, the inverse correlation between competition

Time

The beauty of the time-lapse photographic technique is that it shows the passing of time at an accelerated rate, truthfully representing how the world is something where stasis is impossible. Three considerations came to my mind on this constant movement. 1.     The trajectories extrapolated from the trends that can be

Optionality 2

This is a follow-up to my previous post on optionality. Reflecting on 2024, I was thinking about how to structure my efforts in the best way to maximize serendipity - the probability of good surprises. The second law of thermodynamics states that heat always flows spontaneously from hotter to colder

People make the place

After four months, today I'm leaving Philadelphia. My time at Wharton was pretty eventful, and overcoming the different challenges gave me a lot of confidence that great things are within reach. One takeaway from this experience is that people are paramount. What gives value to places are the

Italy

My strong Italian accent while speaking English makes the topic of Italy one of the first to be discussed when meeting new people. The reaction is almost always very positive, with common jokes about why one should ever be living outside of the country of La Dolce Vita. I experimented

Nihil sub sole novum

When I sat down to write for this blog, I kept having ideas that were already explored in previous posts. Then, it came to mind the saying Nihil sub sole novum - “Nothing new under the sun,” and I knew what to talk about. The last year and a half