Prior editions:
Random facts:
Bryan Johnson: “If you don’t have haters, you want to dial it up”
AI+blockchains point to a dystopia of impersonal and faceless interchangeable-parts humanity that’s more industrial than the industrial age.
There is an ongoing assault on slow thinking and your attention
Eugene Wei’s famed Status as a Service outlines three dimensions to evaluate social product strength — social capital, entertainment, and utility. The essay focuses mostly on status and how it’s valued and accrued by creators across the different kinds of social networks that have scaled.

#18 Applied art enters an accessible era
Technology tailwinds are making it easier for anyone to mix art and utility, which historically required niche technical skills. We’ve seen how fine art can advance (e.g. painting, sculpture), but I expect applied art (e.g. industrial, graphic, fashion, and interior design) to leap forward next and capture greater cultural capital
“[Larry’s] material was uncompromisingly to his own taste, filled with wild tirades about apparent trivialities,” James Caplan writes in the New Yorker profile.
Larry was called a “comic’s comic” for his approach. Entering his 40s and unwilling to change, he accepted the reality that he would likely only ever have a cult following
This is one of the most important things I can impart: in any troubled company the people at lower levels know what ought to be done in terms of day-to-day operations
Ed Norton + Rick Rubin
-After exhausting your wave of creative work, you have two choices: either repeat that work, or you can stop, refill yourself with life, and be willing to start an entirely new adventure
-Most films don’t work at all until the sound mix is done
—“I always think of the work as solving a puzzle.” – Rick Rubin
Good writers don’t walk around all day with 100,000 words of eloquent wisdom in their heads. No one can do that. They take some vague feeling they’ve been thinking about, dig into a bunch, write down what they’ve discovered, realize half of it doesn’t make sense, delete most of it, write some more, realize the new stuff contradicts itself, panic when they realize they don’t understand the topic as well as they thought they did, talk to other smart people about why that is, learn something new that reminds them of this other thing that might tie into the second paragraph, discover that this thing they believed before they started writing isn’t actually true, realize that if that thing isn’t true then this other thing is probably really important, and so on endlessly. Grinding through this process reveals bits of context that are hopefully new discoveries to the reader. More importantly, they were likely new discoveries to the writer before they set out writing.
my first paper as a PhD student laying out a set of explanations for why the IT age was not showing up in the productivity statistics. The first was that digital technologies often create a lot of benefits in ways that are not well captured in the data. In particular, digital products often have zero price. Gross domestic product measures all the things that are bought and sold, with a few exceptions, if something has zero price, it is not captured
Unfortunately, the AI companies have nearly universally broken fundamental issues of fairness: they are making money on your writing without asking for your consent, nor are they offering you compensation and credit. There’s a lot more one could ask for, but these “3 Cs” are the minimum.
“The most important thing a man has to tell you is what he’s not telling you,” he said. “The most important thing he has to say is what he’s trying not to say.” — LBJ
For these reasons, I opt first for whole food forms of these nutrients. Whole foods provide us with everything, including the things we don’t yet understand and the things that we only now think we understand, even if mistakenly. And this is why I regularly test my micronutrient status to verify that I’m not over- or under-doing the things we do currently know about
Why not put $500 into a memecoin that could 50x, knowing that you could likely lose most or all of it? It’s not like the $500 is enough to make any difference anyways. Neither is $1k or $5k. That mindset, which is becoming pervasive in America, is financial nihilism. This is the zeitgeist for young Americans, you’re naïve to think otherwise. And it’s a huge driver of shitcoining
First neural networks paper was published in 1943!
Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts – modeled a neural network with electrical circuits
many young people use YouTube a lot — about 60% of teens use it almost constantly or several times a day
Doesn’t matter if it’s an illusion. It works so long as it’s interesting. If people are bored it’s game over. – Miyazaki
In a hunter-gatherer group, despite men’s physical strength peaking in their twenties, their skill at hunting did not peak until in their mid-forties. “The implication is that for men, experience and wits are more important than raw strength.” https://a.co/d/32hHhkt
It turns out writing code is one of the things that these models are absolutely best at. Probably 60-70 percent of my usage of these tools is around writing code. I have a hunch that programmers, software engineers, are the group best served by this technology right now. We get the most benefit from it
I feel like as adults, we are actually more scared of things than when we were children. We are scared of real life, failure, being abandoned, being rejected from jobs to relationships, having no money, having no safety net, being alone…I can go on, but I would give anything to be afraid of the imaginary monster under my bed again rather than what I’m scared of now. Anything
Which brings me to the real scarce insight Jeff gave Jason and I early on: What entrepreneurs need most is confidence, not advice. He’d always preface any advice with “you know your business better than I do” and “just keep doing what you know is right”.
For those unfamiliar, the Green Bay Packers are the only team with a public ownership structure in the National Football League. The Packers are owned by 537,460 stockholders with no shareholder allowed to own more than 4% of the shares outstanding (how’s that for decentralized!). While called A “stock”, owners have no equity interest, no dividend rights, no protections or regulations under securities law, and cannot trade their “stock” with a 3rd party
Intensive meditation, even after only one day, can also affect gene regulation in your brain through similar mechanisms. Attending a monthlong meditation retreat reduces the expression of genes that affect inflammation, and experienced meditators can reduce inflammatory genes after just one day of intensive meditation.
@simonsarris
One of the biggest misconceptions for most of my life was that I had to understand something in order to do it.
Agathon tells us, This alone is denied to God: the power to undo the past
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But the artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don’t believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.
The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.
Lastly, what is really fascinating is this – all you need for a new religion or god is pretty much a new symbol, backed by the corresponding community and narratives
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The idea of your birthplace as the society to which you must bear allegiance, and even sacrifice your life for, is relentlessly hammered into you from a young age.
Just as C++ is an abstraction layer on top of binary, AI is an abstraction layer over lower level thinking. In other words, with AI you don’t have to be as specific as programming or as precise as an excel formula. Instead, you can give a somewhat generic prompt and still get a useful output. You can be a bad manager and still get the results you need from your robot employee
Getting things to run smoothly, working to achieve a lack of resistance, this is the antithesis of art’s essence, it is the antithesis of wisdom, which is based on restricting or being restricted.
Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target (for performance, incentives, etc), it ceases to be a good measure
In fact today China imports in value more chips than it does crude oil and iron ore (to make steel) combined!
Joy and happiness are born of concentration. When you are having a cup of tea, the value of that experience depends on your concentration. You have to drink the tea with 100 percent of your being. The true pleasure is experienced in the concentration. When you walk and you are 100 percent concentrated, the joy you get from the steps you are taking is much greater than the joy you would get without concentration. You have to invest 100 percent of your body and mind in teh act of walking. Then you will experience that being alive and taking steps on this planet are miraculous things.
The War of Art highlights
-Now consider the amateur: the aspiring painter, the wannabe playwright. How does he pursue his calling? One, he doesn’t show up every day. Two, he doesn’t show up no matter what. Three, he doesn’t stay on the job all day. He is not committed over the long haul; the stakes for him are illusory and fake. He does not get money. And he overidentifies with his art.
-She understands that all creative endeavor is holy, but she doesn’t dwell on it. She knows if she thinks about that too much, it will paralyze her. So she concentrates on technique. The professional masters how, and leaves what and why to the gods.
-The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come.
“People are more adept [at] working against [things] than oftentimes we give them credit for. We often think of people working for things, but they often work against things. They work against poverty. They work against their upbringing. They work against some of these things just as much as they’re working for them. Some people are very fear-driven. We talk about fear as being very negative, but it also can be very positive.” — Dr. Julie Gurner
The workshop leaders, however, had a different point of view. They argued that if you see yourself as part of something bigger—a team, an organization, a community, or a mission—it takes the toxicity out of striving. When your primary goal is to contribute to this “something bigger,” you still work just as hard, but the motivation driving you is different. Rather than just trying to prove that you are good enough or better than others, you view your efforts as serving a purpose greater than yourself.
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One of the first things they found is that when people are connected to bigger-than-self goals, they feel better: more hopeful, curious, caring, grateful, inspired, and excited. In contrast, when people are operating from self-focused goals, they are more likely to feel confused, anxious, angry, envious, and lonely.
The genius of Hinduism, then, was that it left room for everyone. It was a profoundly tolerant religion. It denied no other faiths. It set out no single path. It prescribed no one canon of worship and belief. It embraced everything and everyone.
Every person is a creature of the age in which they live, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time. — Voltaire (1694 – 1778)
Status limbo is a place with more freedoms than other states. It’s not freer in a tangible sense, but removing the usual status-preserving hangups lets you act more freely. It somewhat like being on the moon. There’s less societal and institutional gravity.
Chris takes the same journey but he calls these phases Read, Write, and Own. The initial phase of the web, when the web browser arrived, was mostly a reading experience. Then in the early 2000s, the web became two-way and we could Read and Write. What Blockchain Networks have unlocked is the ability to own things on the web – Fred Wilson
My sense is that this new idea: Bitcoin, and this new demographic: Millenials are in for an epic bull run.
The BTC ETF will be the gateway drug for this. It will get the Boomers and GenXs so that they CAN participate in the transition. Most won’t. But enough will. It’s an idea that will take over the next 20 years.
My body is like a prized racehorse, or a cherished high-end performance vehicle,” he explains. “I will only ever get this one, so just like any valued possession, I will invest heavily in its appearance, performance, fuel, care & maintenance.
“I only wish I knew & applied everything I know now, decades ago!”
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James Cameron
James Cameron:
Run towards difficult— there’s less competition pic.twitter.com/tJPStzDAaH
— David Senra (@FoundersPodcast) January 27, 2024
I like difficult. I’m attracted by difficult.
Difficult is a fucking magnet for me.
I go straight to difficult.
And I think it probably goes back to this idea that there are lots of smart, really gifted, really talented filmmakers out there that just can’t do the difficult stuff.
So that gives me a tactical edge to do something nobody else has ever seen, because the really gifted people don’t fucking want to do it.
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At the heart of this strategy lies the drone—not just as an airborne device but as a potent software platform. Imagine drones that never miss, drones that never operate in isolation, drones with unbreakable communication lines, and drones that, in swarms, always prevail. All possible with software, and all changeable—all the time.
Life advice from an old guy on Twitter:
-I leave my waitress a big tip. The extra money might bring a smile to her face. She is toiling much harder for a living than I am.
-I have learned not to correct people even when I know they are wrong. The onus of making everyone perfect is not on me. Peace is more precious than perfection.
-I give compliments freely & generously. Compliments are a mood enhancer not only for the recipient, but also for me. And a small tip for the recipient of a compliment, never, NEVER turn it down, just say “Thank You.”
And in that flow, you find yourself doing things not purely for status, but because there’s something in them that’s more meaningful to you. As I’ve written before: “To become truly great at something, you need to be at least a little obsessed with that thing — enough to get lost in the joy of doing it, not the allure of what it could get you.”
Elon Musk said the following on an investor call this week: Chinese car companies are the most competitive car companies in the world. If there are not trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish all other car companies in the world. They’re extremely good
Om: Hindu meditation practices have long understood the benefits of sound, especially through the chanting of “Om.” This sound, central to many Hindu traditions, is more than a symbol; it’s a powerful tool that engages the vagus nerve, known for its role in regulating stress and relaxation responses. The act of humming, inherently part of chanting Om, creates a gentle, soothing vibration. This process not only brings a physical dimension to meditation but also enhances the spiritual experience, as the sound of Om is said to represent the universe’s primal sound.
Fourth, ChatGPT and related systems have a kind of truthiness problem; some of what they say is true, and some is not; it is very difficult for the end user to anticipate what will or not be true. They have been known to make up biographical details, and even whole court cases; they have defamed people, and even occasionally botched basic math questions. Whatever they say sounds authoritative, but it is not always true; as they say in the military, “frequently wrong, never in doubt”.
Those who have ambition and entrepreneurial energy are going to Singapore. Those who have money and means are going to Japan. And those who have none of these things — the slackers, the free spirits, kids who want to chill — are hanging out in Thailand.
Civilization thus kicked off with development of the original Large Language Model: formal writing systems
And, by the way, the appetite for more things is insatiable. Each new invention placed in the economy creates the opportunity and desire for two more. While plain old telephone service is headed toward the free, I now have three phone lines just for my machines and will someday have a data “line” for every object in my house. More important, managing these lines, the data they transmit, the messages to me, the storage thereof, the need for mobility, all enlarge what I think of as a phone and what I will pay a premium for
the great Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius describes a happy, virtuous individual in similar terms:
[H]e loves and welcomes whatever happens to him and whatever his fate may bring.
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The three great Roman Stoics — Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius — did not have easy lives:
* Seneca (4 BCE – 65 CE) was adviser to the Roman Emperor Nero, and was eventually exiled and forced to take his own life.
* Epictetus (50 CE – 135 CE) was a slave who gained his freedom.
* Marcus Aurelius (121 CE – 180 CE) was Emperor of Rome during a time of constant crisis, be it war or plague, and most of his children died before he did.
The Rashomon effect is a storytelling and writing method in cinema in which an event is given contradictory interpretations or descriptions by the individuals involved, thereby providing different perspectives and points of view of the same
In the UK, filming in public is legal and does not require permission, nor does it require release agreements from any of the people that might end up on camera.
GPS was a novelty luxury only a few years ago. It was expensive. As its technical standards spread into mapping services and hand helds, it becomes essential, and the basic service (where am I?) will become a commodity and free. But as it drops toward the free, hundreds of additional advance GPS functions will be added to the fixed function so that more people will pay ever more for location services than anyone pays now. Where-am-I information will be free and ubiquitous, but new services will be expensive at first.
More War of Art:
-Sometimes Resistance takes the form of sex, or an obsessive preoccupation with sex. Why sex? Because sex provides immediate and powerful gratification.
It goes without saying that this principle applies to drugs, shopping, masturbation, TV, gossip, alcohol, and the consumption of all products containing fat, sugar, salt, or chocolate
-The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.
-The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance
-It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double-cross you as soon as your back is turned. If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.
He defines crypto as a meeting of “generative tech” (the creation of new things, users and markets) and “participatory capital formation” (individuals pooling money in new ways to create new types of businesses).
Copies flow so freely we could think of the internet as a superconductor, where once a copy is introduced it will continue to flow through the network forever, much like electricity in a superconductive wire.
You’ll probably trust your AI lawyer more than your lawyer in a few years just as you’ll trust self-driving cars over getting into a random Uber with a stranger driving.
Ethereum hit $10 billion in revenue faster than any other major software company besides Google

Black Holes are also the most computationally dense possible objects, because they represent the limit on how much information you can pack into a finite volume.
To get status, you have to give up status. You have to sacrifice some existing status to make it back and more. This is especially true in creative fields and high-upside opportunities. Writers, musicians, actors, directors, entrepreneurs must all do their time in status limbo. And you don’t know how long that time will be. How well you tolerate this state can be the ‘winning’ difference between you and someone just as talented and hard-working as you.
pmarca: Most people should move a lot faster, and also say yes a lot more.
Even material industries are finding that the costs of duplication near zero, so they too will behave like digital copies. Maps just crossed that threshold. Genetics is about to. Gadgets and small appliances (like cell phones) are sliding that way. Pharmaceuticals are already there, but they don’t want anyone to know. It costs nothing to make a pill
TIL of the 3 sacred gifts of Japan, they are: a sword, a mirror and a jade Jewel. They are believed to have been given over 5,000 years ago to the imperial family from the Shinto goddess, Amaterasu.
only the current emperor, Naruhito, and other high-Shinto priests can see it.
(apparently the sword is a replica, real one lost at sea centuries ago)