Luca Bisi

When Julius Cesar seized power in Rome, defeating Pompey and his supporters, he faced a dilemma: persecute all the people that opposed him previously or forgive them. He chooses the latter, and this attitude of mercy is then transposed to the goodness Clementia, usually depicted holding an olive tree branch.

During my first year of university, I learned the term “dismal science” as a nickname for the discipline of economics. This has to do with trade-offs that seem intrinsic to the economic field and lead to zero-sum games with propositions like the Malthus population principle. That discovery didn’t make

As my time in Rotterdam is reaching its conclusion, I find myself already projecting into the next adventure. In doing so, I remind myself that I would have never predicted (post) that I would be going to an exchange in the United States at Wharton just one year after beginning

I believe it's better to think independently and rely on our judgment rather than seek advice too frequently. But, in the occasions in which it is sensible to search for it, I also believe that it matters a lot who is saying what: if something is said by

I distinctly remember the question that the IELTS examinator recently asked me for the speaking part: “do you believe that money can influence happiness?”. It was a question that was so interesting to me that I stopped thinking about talking in a perfect English manner and focused on the content

Imagine two alternatives of a postal letter you receive from your bank with updates on the terms of service: 1. one-pager with a list of the changes briefly in legal terms, which you don’t understand 2. four pages illustrating the same changes in detail in legal terms, which you

As the year 2023 opens its doors, this blog enters with a new mission. The manifesto below will elaborate on it and be published as a page, always accessible from the top menu. Enjoy. I am frequently surprised by how everyday things work reliably in quotidian chaos. Still, sometimes complexity

I recently listened to a podcast of a historian describing the events around the battle of Waterloo. He made the point that, if Napoleon hadn’t lost that battle, it would have been another one sooner or later because he already won too much. Following the reasoning, history wouldn’t

I like geography because of its completeness. I feel deeply satisfied when I finally understand how two different routes lead to the same location. Even if you can’t figure out how it is possible on the ground, you realize how it all makes sense looking at a map. There

Reflecting on the significant number of uncontrollable events affecting everyday life, from traffic congestions to macroeconomic downturns, I encountered a story, the Taoist farmer story, that dealt with that topic. There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his

I took inspiration from this quote from Galileo about the rotation of the Earth around the Sun, despite the semblance to be the contrary, to depict similar reasoning I made in the past days. I have been in Rotterdam for the past month, and my greatest surprise was the easiness

I recently watched the Netflix series “How to Become a Tyrant” and found its narrative particularly interesting. It is told like a guidebook for aspiring tyrants and explains how they view their actions, often with an ironic tone. For this reason, the “you” in the following article is addressed to

In my everyday life, I like to watch the objects around me and think about how I would improve them. Yesterday, while I was eating some wafers with chamomile tea, a spontaneous improvement idea came to mind, so welcome onboard on my first case study! Thesis I am a big

We remember the martyrs who died for a cause that we knew about, never those no less effective in their contribution but whose cause we were never aware of–precisely because they were successful. Nassim Taleb – “The Black Swan” Today I took a high-speed train going from Bologna to Rome:

I recently watched the episode “how to focus” of the Netflix series “The Mind, Explained”, and I would like to reflect upon some ideas. I want to start with the quote of the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. This view applies even better in the present