Friday Fodder #13
What's Trending? What's Transcendent?
It’s hard to get busier than a pre-presidential-election week but this one has been extra spicy. Trump and JD Vance do Rogan and YouTube has trouble finding them. Bitcoin is near all time highs. Kamala tells everyone to shout their own name. Biden says something about garbage. Ernst & Young quits SuperMicro. I voted. And I really can’t wait until next week when there’s no politics anymore.. that’s next week, right? RIGHT?!? No politics then???
Let’s hit it.
Timely
On Millenial Snot - Three times a week one of my kids (usually my son) says a word like “bet” or “sigma” and I remember that I’m old. An adolescent patois has taken over every conversation regardless of how high brow the speakers may be. This is a delightful explanation and decomposition of the millennial snot vernacular, why it sucks, and how we kill it. Don’t worry my guy, like, it’ll totally be better. Bet.
The Progressive Moment Is Over - A regarded public progressive intellectual explains precisely where progressives went off track and which policy prescriptions voters hate. There are only 4: loosening illegal immigration, tolerance of social disorder, identity politics in everything, and fossil fuels are evil. A pretty logical list to learn from.
The Hard Truth: Americans Don’t trust the news media - For the first time in a long time, WaPo didn’t endorse a Presidential candidate. This was apparently edgy and enraging to the Editorial Board, so much so that one employee said, "If you don't have the balls to own a newspaper, don't." Ok sure, because apparently a newspaper endorsing Harris for President takes balls?? Anyway, Bezos felt the need to explain, and his explanation is refreshing, insightful, and gives us some hope. If you haven’t already read it, here it is.
How Bitcoin Eats The Equity Market - BTC is about to break out. Expect $100k by the end of the year. And MSTR 0.00%↑ has gone even crazier - their market cap now represents a 2x premium over their Bitcoin holdings. This is the best explanation of MSTR’s dollar/bitcoin levered trade, why they’ll keep issuing stock, and what could happen if they’re included in the S&P 500, which they’re now eligible for. Yes, I own some $MSTR.
Between Hesitation and Hope - A report on how people feel about AI and LLMs. The results are more negative than I realized.
Timeless
Can Machines Slip on Banana Peels? - Venkatesh Rao is back with a rebranded newsletter and the first post is a banger. Rao defines a Contraption Factor, defined by System Complexity over Design Integrity. And then he builds on it beautifully:
”The misregistration, CF_actual-CF_apparent, is the banana peel slip potential, BPSP. You could define an honest contraption as having a WYSIWYG quality to it. It looks exactly as contraptiony as it is. In many ways, the great divide between engineers and product managers involves contraption honesty.” Just fantastic.The Nobel Family - Get this: almost all of the Nobel laureates ever (696 of the 727) are related based on mentor/mentee relationships. Doesn’t matter whether it’s physics, biology, or medicine. Even better, you can derive generations based on these relationships back in time to earlier academics. So who is the proverbial Adam of this group? The Philosopher-priest Erasmus in the 15th century!
”When I get a little money I buy books, and if any is left over I buy food and clothes.” Erasmus clearly had the right ideas.The Gossip Trap - How human groups have evolved over time, Dunbar numbers, gossip, and caveman high schools. Erik Hoel is here to remind us that social media is an existential threat and we’re not built for the input we get now every day. Alfred North Whitehead famously said “Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them." Maybe talking to people around us is something we should think more about.
Books
The New Atlantis by Francis Bacon - This is a great short book that you can read in an afternoon, although it’s dense. I’ll confess it didn’t impact right away. It marinated and developed slowly instead. The book tracks a lost ship that discovers a mythical island. The crew explores the island and learns about the highly advanced, utopian institutions of the islanders, which provide a vision of the future of science and society.
Tweets
Cheers!