The woke mind virus This is not a post about how wrong the social justice movement is about everything. Unlike Jordan Peterson I think that postmodernism has merit. He who studies existence through contemplation must recognize that reality is in fact much more fluid than our culture would have us believe, that absolute truths and duality are difficult to come by and that the solid self does not hold up to scrutiny. And yet, those who have succumbed to the woke mind virus have thrown the baby of meaning out with the bath water of meta-narratives. Meaning can co-exist alongside ambiguity just like content can exist alongside emptiness. In order to exist in the world we need to engage with it as a solid self. And we need to agree to certain landscapes of meaning. Now, clinging to that solid self and being overly committed to one particular landscape is the source of many an ailment of our culture, but denying the existence of any such structure is just as harmful. Once again, we need to dance on the slackline of paradox in order to “make sense” of it. William Frederick Yeames’s “And When Did You Last See Your Father?” (1878)

How is anyone proactively choosing Microsoft 365 over Google Workspace?

How is anyone proactively choosing Microsoft 365 over Google Workspace?

Life is not a dress rehearsal Even if you’re not into motorcycles the film TT - Closer to the Edge ought to be on your watchlist. It follows what must be one of the most dangerous races in the world, the Isle of Man’s Tourist Trophy. The TT is not dangerous in the way other motorsport events are dangerous - it is critically and imminently lethally dangerous - since its launch in 1907 there have been 156 fatalities (6 of them in 2022 alone). If you’re interested in how the existence of such a race can possibly be ethical, I’ll direct you to a read that goes into this difficult question much better than I could. The reason I wanted to write about the TT race is due to a scene from the movie in which yet another casualty is reported and some of the spectators are interviewed about it. In one notable interview, a spectator addresses the question about whether this race should continue to exist with the answer: “Life is not a dress rehearsal.” Even for those of us who are not racing motorcycles, it is important to remember, from time to time, that we are going to die one day. And that this, right here, is it. This is opening night. Have a great Monday! Jean-Michel Basquiat’s "Riding With Death" (1988)

Festina lente Wisdom often consists of holding two opposing notions simultaneously. One example is the Latin proverb Festina lente - Make haste, slowly. During my stay at the Japanese Zen monastery Antaiji I was able to experience the idea of festina lente first hand. Everything here had a place and time. And there were clear instructions for almost every task around the premises. This made it easy to perform tasks or move between them swiftly but it also created an optimal and distraction-free environment to complete them mindfully. The result was people who worked hastily, yet intentionally. Who rushed and who yet were mindful. The result was flow, flow even during mundane tasks. M.C. Escher’s “Waterfall” (1961)

All we need to regulate AI is to put it on a Bitcoin standard @note1kmgsfpu97qgu8rag6sgv0rlta3q5xak9x9ku9zcsnf2c7qljwqas2fthqx

Say hi to my Dad, @yardbird, surely the first chess Grandmaster on nostr!? Hit him up for conversations about chess, riding a motorcycle through Italy/the Alps and tobacco. 😉 #introductions #chess

Honestly, this is valid feedback. Doesn't take away from the movement, but there need to be solutions to some of this.

Some of my relays are stale. Is there a list of relays you all recommend adding?

The only plausible way for so much incremental demand for #Bitcoin to not result in higher prices, is for a significant part of the supply to not be actual Bitcoin. This is a real problem.

Time starts now After my ode to Steve McQueen and Paul Newman a couple of days ago I am now rewatching some of their movies starting with Bullitt. One of the best scenes in the movie occurs when Jacqueline Bisset’s character asks Frank Bullitt “What will happen to us in time?” and he just responds “Time starts now”. It’s all happening now. The past and future are an illusion. Worrying is pointless. And don’t you forget it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=aKg20DXBr-Qc8lmo&t=161&v=cWiljyh4NR4&feature=youtu.be

Force of nature This is my first but will not be the last post dedicated to Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. You don’t find actors like these anymore today. They were carved out of a different wood. Having watched The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Cincinnati Kid and many of their other films countless times, I can say that no actors have inspired me in the way that these two have. They were a force of nature. They created characters, believably, that did not take no for an answer, that were stubborn and fearless. Characters who were flawed but who, in their flawedness, were full of integrity and strength. Oh how refreshing to be in the presence, albeit through a silver screen, of someone who takes no prisoners, who is unyielding and who does not compromise just to please. Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke (1967)

I’m so bored by conversations about regulating Artificial Intelligence

Must read:

Palladium Magazine

Quit Your Job

Just unstaked my last ETH. Takes 13 days... what a joke

No big deal We make a big deal out of many things. Every once in a while it’s good to remind oneself not to make too big a deal out of whatever it is we’re currently making a big deal of. We do not have to hold everything so tightly, we can loosen our grip just a little bit. And suddenly there is a feeling of greater spaciousness, greater possibility. Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Sky Above Clouds IV” (1965)

Unconventional wisdom 'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ' - Albert Einstein, maybe Over the last couple of years I have had the very visceral realization that in order to change how I act in the world, I have to change who I am. This may sound obvious. But at least to me it wasn’t. I was certain that I could just will myself to act differently in a given situation. Most people seem to be victim to this same insanity. It does not work. In most situations we do not rise to our hopes and aspirational ideas, we fall to the level of who we are at our core. And we can change. We can become a person that reacts differently to a certain stimulus. This is just not conventional wisdom.

Wisdom is the tolerance of cognitive dissonance: I first heard this said by Josh Waitzkin, former chess prodigy and Tai Chi Chuan world champion and it stuck with me. It is possible to verify this in one’s own experience. Wisdom is being able to hold two competing thoughts and recognizing that the true answer is never one-sided and never conceptual. It can both be true that climate change is real and that the right response to it is not to try to reverse it. It can be true that the acts of Hamas were horrific and that Israel’s response is not justified. It can be true that Donald Trump’s presidency was a low point in American history and that one should not vote for Joe Biden. In Zen, Koans are a way to resolve cognitive dissonance. Every once in a while we should look at the world as if it’s a Zen Koan.

Tim Ferriss is not a scientist. He’s a self-proclaimed human guinea pig. His study of the human body may not be rigorous, but he and others who self-experiment and introspect still offer valuable insights. Their experiences can help us understand health and wellbeing more completely, and they deserve a seat at the table. Last month Tim posted an insightful article (

The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

No Biological Free Lunches - The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

It’s alarming how many folks now treat “T” or “TRT” (testosterone replacement therapy) as something akin to taking a multivitamin, when t...

about his perspective on the project of physical performance optimization in humans. The basic premise: there are no biological free lunches. Most optimizations of one trait come with a non-negligible trade-off in some other trait. I would go further than Tim: I believe his premise expands beyond just performance optimization to almost every aspect of human health. Look at his first three heuristics: 1. Assume there is no biological free lunch. 2. Assume that the larger the amplitude of positive effect of *anything*, the larger the amplitude of side effects. 3. Don’t ask a barber if you need a haircut. If you agree with these, why shouldn’t they apply to almost every pharmaceutical, or in fact every exogenous compound? Which brings me to the title of this post: Ozempic. Ozempic is proving to have enormous positive effects on the dimension of human weight loss. The barber recommending the haircut, Novo Nordisk, is now Europe’s most valuable public company. I predict that we’ll find out that what looked like a biological free lunch was too good to be true and that Ozempic will follow in the footsteps of other biological free lunches before it.

Looking forward to playing around with bitkey CC @jack