300 Matching Annotations
  1. Aug 2024
    1. The conflict was eventually resolved in 1858, writes Schindler, after Buchanan succumbed to Congressional pressure to wrap up what was seen as a stalemate headed toward an unwinnable conflict

      so they got the space because they erected defensive barriers.

      so this is like the "taiwan" approach.

      versus status quo more like the hong kong approach

    1. Morrison gave Pound the idea that the right-hand side of the xin (hsin) character represented a “hatchet,” shown hacking away at the wood supposedly represented on the left. It was Pound’s own inventiveness that associated the ancient Chinese hatchet with the Fascist axe and his own increasingly vindictive hatred of complications that provided the rubbish, which is not present in the Chinese original

      this is critical - not start from new, not destroy

    1. “It’s like a whole world of intellectuals and artists got a multibillion-dollar grant from the tech world,” Smith said. “But we mistook that, and were frankly actively gaslit into thinking that that was because they cared about art.”

      This kind of parallels how low interest rates led to over-supply in tech

    1. Hegel claims a religious point of view can help furnish individuals with ethical principles and help us lead a more ethical life

      Yeah but is this really saying that it's the way it ought to be, or is it just saying that religion provides a framework to make determinations.

      I mean, one thing you could argue is that by hastening the process of making determinations, we ought to be religious because it'll help us reach the next determination.

    2. Something is mine when mutually recognized as my possession by another. This is the first appearance of right where the activity of my free will in taking possession is free, and not mere arbitrariness. It is this agreement between two individuals forming a kind of contract which is so important for Hegel

      Okay, so the idea is to figure out the checkpoints where a concept goes from vague to determined. So when it "becomes" something. This feels like a a helpful approach to thinking in general.

    3. We progress from one stage to the next in a distinctive way where apparent contradictions arising in each stage are dissolved through attaining a higher stage, where this cycle is repeated and progress made since the beginning remains present where what was abstract and opaque at first becomes more concrete as we advance to the end of this work

      so basically thinking.

    4. For example, our first apperception of some thing or object of thought might be as a pure being. As it is pure, it may appear to lack determinations – and so be nothing. In this way, Hegel holds that our thought has moved from pure being to pure nothingness. But yet what we apperceive is a something and so this is seen as helping overcome the false opposition of pure being and nothingness to a new, higher category of becoming as what is before is taking further shape as we sharpen our grasp of it.

      false oppositions

    1. Mr. B has risen beyond his real abilities by virtue of health, good looks, and being a good mixer. He married for money and he has done lots of other things for money. His code is not his own; it is that of his class—no worse, no better, He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value—success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would

      "That is his sole measure of value - success."

  2. Jul 2024
    1. Secret organizations set up to combat secret organizations give the same flattery. The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through “front” groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy

      mimetic conflict, the whole choose your enemies wisely because you become them

  3. Jun 2024
    1. “etheric realm,” as well as in some fifteen thousand hours of recordings that have for many years been stored in a concrete bunker in Montana.

      common technique that I haven't used; tell the full story up front, or at least allude to it, before dropping in deeper down below.

      not an intro paragraph but like a different story to contain your story. this is literlaly just an intro. but whatever, like the introduction of a detail as a segue into a story anchored by another detail

  4. May 2024
    1. While his dad had favored bribing Balkan seamen to move his product to Europe aboard cargo ships, police said, the younger Nesic turned to smaller vessels to evade tightening screening procedures at Brazilian and European ports. Nesic allegedly bought cheap fishing boats that he retrofitted with extra fuel tanks, stuffed with cocaine, and staffed with Balkan or Brazilian crews to make the Atlantic crossing.

      this would be a cool opening scene, the motorboats trailing the cargo ship

    1. Information about ownership can, however, be found in the pages of Tatler or on the message boards of Ismaili Muslims unhappy about their tithes being used to pay for the extravagant lifestyle of a man who is both their religious imam and the descendant of an aristocrat ennobled by both the Iranian and British monarchies
    1. That which distinguishes an agent from a servant is not the absence or presence of a fixed wage or the payment only of commission on business done, but rather the freedom with which an agent may carry out his employment

      this focus on the parameters of the entrepreneur's power are really interesting.

      is there an opportunity here? where, as a super lazy person, i can advise people on how to design systems resistant to laziness?

    2. The point has been made in the previous paragraph that a firm will tend to expand until the costs of organising an extra transaction within the firm become equal to the costs of carrying out the same transaction by means of an exchange on the open market or the costs of organising in another firm.
    3. The main reason why it is profitable to establish a firm would seem to be that there is a cost of using the price mechanism. The most obvious cost of “organising” production through the price mechanism is that of discovering what the relevant prices are.

      turns out trust is very expensive, in crypto

    1. According to the head of Poland’s Armament Agency, General Artur Kuptel, describing the system in Polish media earlier this month, radars suspended from the tethered balloons will monitor the sky as far as Ukraine, Belarus, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad from Polish air space.Advertisement · Scroll to continue

      Hm, nice establishing shot?

    1. So I make it hard for myself, because, sure, every time, naturally, you’re less fertile. You come up with fewer stories as time goes on. You have fewer ideas. So I’m very afraid of when the moment comes when I don’t have any new ideas.”

      I need to keep track of my ideas. Fortunately I generate a lot of them, making up for late start.

    1. It is rare for academic ideas to reach the Amy Adams stage without drawing scholarly fire. Since 2023, three articles have appeared in scientific journals, with 45 authors in all, arguing that the claims made on behalf of the wood-wide web have far outstripped the evidence.

      definitely a trend of popular theories aligned with woke narratives being beat back

  5. Jan 2024
  6. Aug 2023
    1. Of the hundreds of pages of Esmaeilion’s writing I have read, one image has stuck with me. In his memoir, It Snows In This House, he describes taking the school bus as a six-year-old in Kermanshah. Every winter morning, he waited in the dark by a slim mulberry tree on a little patch of land used neither by pedestrians nor by cars, staring ahead, looking for a pair of headlights. The metaphor offered by this image encapsulates his position: Esmaeilion standing in the strange landscape of Iranian politics, at a corner traversed by no one else. He stands looking into the dark, not just with his two eyes, but through two bullet holes in his heart, waiting for the lights that will put an end to his wait.

      beautiful writing

  7. Jul 2023
    1. When counting dollars, a single customer may be retained or churned but they may also be retained as a customer by spending more or less in the second period relative to the first. As such, we separate out expansion and contraction into the growth accounting.

      So contraction = decrease in marginal revenue from paying user

    1. Kalshi’s cozy relationship with the United States’ top derivatives regulator raises concerns about how regulatory agencies view their responsibilities, after Dodd–Frank, to manage risk and regulate private markets. These concerns are all the more relevant in the wake of recent regional banking crises and widespread fraud in the crypto markets. But there is nothing extraordinary about the CFTC’s attitude. With bank closures and wire fraud dominating the headlines, who wouldn’t want to hedge? Every crisis has its response. “The world is increasingly volatile,” Kalshi’s website recently read. “Protect yourself and your business against all the unforeseen effects of real-world events.” It would be irresponsible not to.

      so what exactly is the issue? is it that there's no inherent value behind the instruments? is it that the people who could actually use these contracts to hedge are not likely to use them? is it psychological, i.e. this desire to gain control over an unpredictable environment?

    2. “MORALLY REPUGNANT and grotesque,” “wasteful and absurd”—Senators Ron Wyden and Byron L. Dorgan did not mince words. They urged their colleagues on the senate floor to reject the Pentagon’s proposed futures market on terror attacks. That was 2003. The Pentagon had suggested allowing traders to place bets on the likelihood of a bomb detonating outside a market in Kabul, for example, or a bioterror attack occurring in Tel Aviv.

      lol

  8. Jun 2023
    1. As a result, tōjisha-kenkyū is now in the early stages of being implemented by corporations, universities and hospitals as a means of identifying problems and fostering diversity within workplaces.

      interesting, a less political form of DEI

    1. “So heartbreaking. We need to take better care of our women, athletes, mothers. So many systems let her down,” wrote elite runner Molly Huddle on Instagram. “Not even Olympic champions can feel safe giving birth in this country. We gotta do better.”

      reads like a story of someone who committed suicide, not died during childbirth. very sad.

    1. Explore both land and sea on this chain of islands, rocks, and pinnacles on the Washington coast. Take an early ferry from Anacortes to Orcas for a full day. Start by hiking a 6.7-mile loop to the top of Mount Constitution (the island’s highest point). Refuel on artisan, wood-fired pizzas at Hogstone, then head to West Beach for a two-hour guided sea kayak tour with Outer Island Excursions.

      this sounds cool #trips

    1. The great majority of Saudis still didn’t know who Swedish House Mafia was, but there were relatively privileged teenagers on hand whose lives would probably never be the same again, and who—perhaps without consciously realizing it—had just felt the exhilaration of seeing their world begin and end in the same flash of light.

      "begin and end in the same flash of light"

    2. he idea is to fund a massive economic and social transition while oil is still in high demand, and then build an entirely new economy in time for the 40% of the population that’s now under 25-years-old to actually have something meaningful and productive to do with their lives.

      "to actually have something meaningful and productive to do with their lives"

    1. . Even with them, the world will never be fully under our control. Nor should we wish that it was, because that would be a world without serendipity or joy. Fortunately, we may not need more Promethean control; rather, we need more free time and an ethos fit for the purpose.

      time to explore complexity versus effort to impose simplicity

    2. For decades, most people have organized their lives around the forty-hour, five-day week. What if it were fifteen hours a week? What if it were zero? What comes next is open to negotiation and experimentation, but the process would necessarily require what Nietzsche called a revaluation of values. The idea of work for the sake of work would become an insult to human intelligence and dignity. Lives dedicated to the insatiable pursuit of money or other zero-sum goods would come to be recognized as pathological. The culture of commercialism presumably would be curtailed, or replaced with new norms and institutions emphasizing fulfilling experiences over luxuries and stuff. The very idea of “unemployment” would cease to exist. Greater investments (of both time and money) in liberal arts educations and institutions would come to be seen as not only desirable but necessary for equipping people to lead fruitful lives.

      we have this right now, it's just confused.

  9. May 2023
    1. I’m not quite sure how it will happen, or if I’ll live to participate in it, but I suspect we’re entering a world beyond language where we’ll begin to realize just how deeply blinding language has been for the human consciousness and psyche.

      I will put this on the perceptualveilution mood board

  10. Jan 2023
    1. They build, own, and manage their own facilities. They hire veterans. They had some ideas for how to encourage local ecotourism: A solar-powered visitors’ center. Sponsorship for more and bigger OHV races. A new RV park. Job training. Support for local community organizations

      I mean...this is conscious capitalism no?

    1. This captiousness is not my favorite aspect of myself. I know that I’m actually wrong about all this stuff, that gun people call guns guns and point them all over the place, but I can be pedantic, even about things I have no interest in. If it helps, I also bristle at anyone referring to a vinyl record as “a vinyl.”

      this guy is autistic lol

    1. I thought that if we just redistributed resources, then we could solve every problem. I now know that’s not true. There’s a funny moment when you realize that as an activist: The off-ramp out of extreme poverty is, ugh, commerce, it’s entrepreneurial capitalism. I spend a lot of time in countries all over Africa, and they’re like, ‘Eh, we wouldn’t mind a little more globalization actually’.

      I had an eerily similar experience

  11. Sep 2022
    1. Our plan is to bring the best of old-school blogging to a modern news feed experience and to have our editors and senior reporters constantly updating the site with the best of tech and science news from around the entire internet. If that means linking out to Wired or Bloomberg or some other news source, that’s great — we’re happy to send people to excellent work elsewhere, and we trust that our feed will be useful enough to have you come back later. If that means we just need to embed the viral TikTok or wacky CEO tweet and move on, so be it — we can do that

      Chainverse can play a role in personalization/recommendations for feed first platforms. Perhaps we can create our own feed.

  12. Aug 2022
    1. Forms of modern life may differ in quite a few respects – but what unites them all is precisely their fragility, temporariness, vulnerability and inclination to constant change. To “be modern” means to modernize – compulsively, obsessively; not so much just “to be,” let alone to keep its identity intact, but forever “becoming,” avoiding completion, staying underdefined.

      modernity is a process, it's constantly becoming

    1. But as Echo Chambers grow in size, it becomes a greater challenge to hold them together by shared ideas—so usually, the binding beliefs are honed down and simplified to the common denominator ideas that the whole community can get behind. So while Idea Labs get even smarter and more nuanced as they grow, growing Echo Chambers become even dumber and more sure of themselves.

      Key for growth

    2. First, it comes from a core distinction between how the two cultures view ideas. Idea Labs see people and their ideas as separate entities—people are meant to be respected, ideas are not

      Identify areas that are not echo chambers

    3. In a good trust network, the Skepticism character (i.e. the Belief Bouncer) is able to trust the Conviction character, which can spare everyone a bunch of work. When a proven high-rung thinker expresses info with a lot of conviction umph, the listener will lower the skepticism ohms without thinking too hard about it.

      Key

    4. In a good trust network, the Skepticism character (i.e. the Belief Bouncer) is able to trust the Conviction character, which can spare everyone a bunch of work. When a proven high-rung thinker expresses info with a lot of conviction umph, the listener will lower the skepticism ohms without thinking too hard about it.

      Key

    5. Cultures use incentive systems too. Instead of physical shocks or jail time as penalties, cultures enforce their values with social and psychological punishments like criticism, ridicule, shame, and ostracism. Instead of Snausages or money, they use rewards like praise, acceptance, approval, respect, and admiration.

      Key

    1. Broadly, OFAC has expanded its ability to sanction crypto actors and has rapidly increased the speed and bore with which it designates wallet addresses, but it has not hit that many wallet addresses overall. The office, while it wields theoretically broad powers, has limited resources. Consequently, each hit bears major significance for the Treasury’s subsequent policy direction. 

      this leaves out some of the most important guidance from treasury lol

  13. Jul 2022
    1. Many other investors are also working to broaden ownership of their companies. Insight Global, a staffing company owned by Harvest Partners and Leonard Green, gave each of its 4,500 employees a pathway to ownership: the quit rate fell from 45 per cent in 2017 to 14 per cent today. Similar results have been seen at SRS, a roofing products distributor owned by Berkshire Partners and Leonard Green. Ownership was broadened, employee engagement improved and the quit rate declined by three quarters.

      it seems like the benefits of employee ownership are the highest when... * engagement is low * you have a high cashflow / profitable business that someone would actually want to buy

    1. Inquisitor: You have sucked at the poisoned breast of Erasmus… But St John says “There are three that bear witness in heaven, the father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.” Anabaptist: I have heard that Erasmus in his Annotationes upon that phrase shows that this text is not in the Greek original

      LMAO

    2. Erasmus learned Greek at the beginning of the 16th century, and from his study in Queens’ College, Cambridge, he spread the word of how important it was to read the Gospels and other foundational texts of Christianity in the language in which they were first written. His battle cry was ad fontes (“back to the sources”)

      i love this

    1. Assuming a conservative annual growth of digital content creation of 1%, using (3), we estimate that it will take around ∼3150 years to produce the first cumulative 1 kg of digital information mass on the planet and it will take ∼8800 years to convert half of the planet’s mass into digital information mass

      this is insane exponential growth lol

    2. In fact, Wheeler proposed reformulating the whole physics in terms of the information theory. He summarized his ideas in a paper that he delivered at the Santa Fe Institute in 19891313. J. A. Wheeler, “Information, physics, quantum: The search for links,” in Proceedings of 3rd International Symposium Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (Physical Society of Japan, Tokyo, 1989), pp. 354–368. in which he postulated that the universe emanates from the information inherent within it and he coined the phrase “It from bit.”

      oohh santa fe institute

    3. this volume of digital information will take up more than the size of the planet, leading to what we define as the information catastrophe

      i mean, i guess we could create planet sized data storage centers?

      create things that deterministically reproduce knowledge (like DNA)

    4. assuming the current growth trends in digital content continue, the world will reach a singularity point in terms of the maximum digital information possibly created and the power needs to sustain it, called the information catastrophe

      what will happen once people realize this is an impending crisis?