We live in a society, or so they say. And as members of society–a community of interdependent people–we should probably strive to contribute positively. Society (and community) can provide tremendous value when it works.
It’s easy to contribute negatively, or rather, to detract. Simple examples of detracting from society might be:
When I look back on my life, I’ve made countless mistakes, some of which were more costly than others, but one general theme I’ve noticed about my own mistakes is that in my younger years (i.e., 20s and early 30s) I let my ego grow a little too large. This post–I suppose–could serve as a letter to my younger self, containing some thoughts I wish I had internalized then.
A fluid is anything that flows, which includes gasses and liquids. Some fluids even exhibit both properties of solids and liquids, such as in response to shocks (i.e., water with corn starch, a “non-Newtonian fluid”). Ketchup is an example of a substance that does the opposite: it exhibits solid properties until it’s disturbed, after which it flows, which is why shaking or pounding on the bottom of an upturned bottle of ketchup will make it pour out.
There’s a trope in New York City that you can identify tourists from their propensity to walk around staring up at the tall buildings. This isn’t necessarily meant to be interpreted literally, but rather it’s more about the fact that the tourists are taken aback by everything to look at, much of which is in the upward direction depending on where you are in the city.
When someone asks me, “s’whattaya do?”, I have a difficult time providing a straight answer. These days, I suppose any of these would be acceptable answers:
Okay, okay, I will stop there. I could go on, but I’ll spare you.
Most people go through life within a reality distortion field, shaped by the cultural norms and expectations about what is right or good in the world, and the point where those expectations intersect with reality.
While everyone likes to pretend they’re authentic, most people spend most of their lives lying to themselves, largely because society forces us to. Look no further than the website “LinkedIn”, which is where everyone turns their respective bullshit reality distortion fields up to 100 to signal their suitability to potential recruiters in the event an opportunity to level up comes along.
Humans have accomplished some remarkable things throughout our history. Today, however, despite all we’ve accomplished, it feels like we’re backsliding while the world burns. We face some enormous challenges, but there’s no evidence of progress aside from some political and corporate greenwashing and virtue-signaling campaigns to keep us all consuming (aka “business as usual”).
When it comes to humans, you can usually answer the “why?” question about behavioural observations by examining the incentives. This is especially true in economics, but also true of nearly everything in life, such as why politicians ignore their constituents or adopt unpopular policies. There’s a popular catchphrase to describe this kind of analysis: “follow the money”.
I’m learning to get better at being bored. In the past, I wouldn’t say I liked boredom. And I still tend to fill my free time more than I should with “activities” when bored. Most of the time, the activities I choose to fill my free time include: reading, writing, taking walks, watching TV or movies (as much as I hate to admit), and occasionally a video game (which is not a passive activity, unlike TV).
People love to argue about the so-called “10x engineer”, which in the techie world refers to a computer person who produces 10x as much value as the average computer person (when discussing people who write software and their corresponding output).
I want to correct something. The 10x engineer is a misnomer because it actually should be “The 100x Engineer”. Not only is the 100x engineer quite real, but most people wildly underestimate the value provided by the very best talent. One reason for this is that the human brain is very bad at understanding probabilities, distribution, compounding returns, and exponential growth.