This is where I save interesting links.
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Behind the Curtain: A white collar bloodbath
“Most human wins” continues to come to mind when I read these types of predictions. And this seems less a prediction coming from Dario.
Trying to become something like a ‘professional runner’ might end up being a very good option.
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We are the Most Rejected Generation
This matches with my sentiment around the topic.
A few quotes that stuck out:
Finance and consulting firms now take advantage of this craving by making job offers to some students during their sophomore year. The kids are 19 or 20. Most of them probably haven’t had time to explore the secrets of their hearts’ desires. But here comes a prestigious job offer that takes away all the uncertainty. You’ll be forced to work on PowerPoint decks through your 20s, but at least you won’t have to risk more rejection.
And:
One young woman lamented to me that she wished she’d been young in the 1990s; it would have been easier. I told her I was relatively young in the ’90s, and it was.
And:
It’s just phenomenally hard to be young right now. There must be an easier way to grow up.
“There must be an easier way to grow up.”
I think about this in my own context, as well as the kids.
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Economic Lessons from the Screwtape Letters
Great post from Kyla Scanlon. Convenience alone cannot satisfy the human soul. A mention about the slow rise/return of indie bookstores which I found encouraging:
And not to get too abstract here in my economic newsletter – but rejection, convenience, and absence of surprise are all economic questions. When enough people choose friction over convenience, markets respond. We’re seeing early signs of this: the (slow) revival of independent bookstores, the rise of deinfluencing, the growing market for durability over disposability, especially as the economy turns.
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Big Jim’s Boozy Bike Trip to Braemar
The algorithm served me up this gem last night and I absolutely loved it.
There’s a term I can never remember, but it has something to do with being nostalgic for a time in life that you never experienced.
Whatever you call this – not necessarily a desire to drink whiskey and ride my bike 20 miles through Scotland – I feel like I missed out on it.
Although, I could experience it in my own way if I really wanted to experience it; to live it:
I could delete Instagram from my phone.
I could delete my Strava.
I could write letters.
I could go on runs in the woods without my phone.
I could write on a typewriter.
I could get the TV out of the house.
I could show up to a friends house in hopes they’re free to sit on the porch and talk.The cultural current is strong against these things.
But I could still do it if I wanted.
I could live a bit more like Big Jim.
Dare I?
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WWEconomics: Kayfabe and the Trade War
Another Kyle Scanlon piece that doesn’t miss. She seems to have endless ability to create new terms out of pop culture and political slop that is excellent.
It’s all designed to keep the crowd (the global public) engaged with a performance. Flood the zone, etc.
https://kyla.substack.com/p/wweconomics-kayfabe-and-the-trade
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The Other COVID Reckoning
In the end people average out the whole subject to “Wait, you support charities? But didn’t you hear about that one that turned out to be corrupt? Can’t believe you’d be into something like that.”
Short post from Scott Alexander on the most consequential thing about the virus itself being the least talked about thing: it killed a lot of people.
The quote above is memorable because it struck me as one of the real downsides to memetics where you boil down and poison complex things with quick assumptions.
Narrative poison.
It reminds me of growing up in a fundamentalist Christian tradition. I don’t mean that negatively. I’m only saying that often things largely got boiled down to, This is good. The world is against it. And for some reason that never felt true.
But countering it in any meaningful way is next to impossible.
There are a staggering amount of comments on this post too. Interesting.
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AI Will Change What It Is to Be Human. Are We Ready?
Humans are remarkably adaptable. We foraged and farmed, we built factories and spaceships, we wrote prayers, plays, poems, novels, and code. And now? Now we created this.
As always, Tyler Cowen:
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Is Classical Liberalism for Losers
https://www.thefp.com/p/tyler-cowen-is-classical-liberalism-for-losers
Excellent piece on classical liberalism and its long game and influence over moments in history that have long impacts, e.g. the US Constitution. I think I have many classical liberal tendencies, leaning left.
I counsel patience, and investment in good ideas and in talent, not a quest for power per se.
What is truly scarce in today’s world are classical liberal attitudes and beneficial classical liberal revolutions. You, too, can work toward those, as long as you are prepared for long periods of disappointment. In contrast, there will always be plenty of people who seek power. If you are skeptical of them, as classical liberal attitudes dictate, most of the time those expectations will be proven correct.
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Live Not by Lies
https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies
One to read over, and over again.
And as for him who lacks the courage to defend even his own soul: Let him not brag of his progressive views, boast of his status as an academician or a recognized artist, a distinguished citizen or general. Let him say to himself plainly: I am cattle, I am a coward, I seek only warmth and to eat my fill.
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‘Cry More Libs’ is not a Strategy
https://www.thefp.com/p/rod-dreher-trump-enemies
I’d read almost anything that’s self-critical of one’s own “party.” This should tell me what I need to know about my own ability (and responsibility) to do this.
This was a striking paragraph:
