DanielVZ

it is because it is

Which seems tautological and from a pessimistic point of view can be re-interpreted as the loss of purpose. But still apt nonetheless.

What irks me the most about rationalists is their inability to acknowledge their own biases. The nicotine article linked was a series of citations linked by some commentary in between where the author immediately dismissed any sources that opposed their beliefs while backing their points with studies that had the same or worse methodological issues. A bit too much nitpicking to my taste, and a bit too much reliance on hiding behind seemingly scientific language.

I think his target audience is mostly underage people. This works great for him because the amount of video kids consume is insane. I’ve seen my nephew watch shorts on a phone while watching another long form video on tv and playing Roblox on his tablet, for hours and hours a day.

My theory is it was horses but we don’t use horses anymore

Fair point. Pockets in suits are the most useful though. Easy to access and don’t drag my pants down when using them.

Yeah sorry the womens clothes rant was a bit of venting off while speaking about clothing.

Regarding neck ties this was my only comment:

> Note: ties feel a bit useless but at least they hide my belly when movement slightly opens the shirt.

I also love my hoodies, but zippers do get stuck every now and then if there’s anything on the way or if you accidentally zip them without locking the bottom thingy. So I’d prefer some sort of hoodie with 4-6 big buttons that I think I’ve seen on the street but not in stores.

I also find ironing a waste of time. That’s why I only buy non iron shirts.

After writing this I wondered myself how sick would it be to be able to walk around in robes or togas. There must be a reason that kind of clothing has had so much success.

Author here. Women clothing is another whole beast. Not sure if it’s due to fashion or historical reasons but convenience is the last priority in women’s fashion.

It’s not only about not doing evil. Humanities train your brain in ways hard sciences usually don’t.

But I do agree ethics is a big one.

Humanities are good for the brain too. As a Humanist (History) turned Software Engineer it’s been an edge my whole career. Humanities taught me reading and writing complexity in a way that’s surprisingly applicable in Software Engineering. While colleagues wasted their time complaining about how unintelligible some code was or preferred watching YouTube videos to learn some new tech, I was able to do that knowledge work way faster by just reading and understanding the code for what it was, and reading the whole documentation of the system/language/platform I use. This made me look like an expert on whatever tech we were using but in reality it was all from just reading docs and code.

The order of how money emerges is wrong and thus the premise that each step moves the trust higher in hierarchy is wrong.

It didn’t necessarily come from banter (see rai stones from yap island). Debt didn’t always come from currency (See Inca system of Reciprocity and Redistribution where there was no currency). Private Banks don’t always precede Central Banks (see Sumerian Temples).

I do agree with the argument that money is backed by trust. But I don’t think it’s inherently hierarchical. I think if anything, money and its diverse manifestations in currency are a complex graph where of course there are regions that exhibit hierarchical behavior (eg. Chilean bank backed by Chilean Central Bank that issues bonds and buys or sells US dollars). But for example I believe Crypto/Cigarrets in Prison/Silver/Gold/etc aren’t part of that hierarchical region.

It’s one of the main reasons I don’t use mainstream social media. It has always irked me how on the one hand people are unknowingly being used as laughingstock, but on the other hand users are unknowingly wasting their attention on making a platform billions, and making some questionable people millionaires.

To expand the sibling comment. In principle the money would reflect IOUs the general public owes them. But also following this logic the way I see it is they accumulated their money was by getting more IOUs through: people employment (being able to command a big pool of work and get a cut of IOUs from it), arbitrage (exchanging lower value IOUs with higher value IOUs), or simply stealing (eg. siphoning government resources).

> This was fuelled by what is known as moka, a system of competitive gift giving, where you give someone in your tribe goods like a pile of pigs and shells, and they are then obligated to give you back more later, and you them more again after that. Whoever gives the most, publicly, becomes the big man.

This reminds me of the Reciprocity and Re-Distribution system in the Inca Empire. There wasn't a system of currency or markets. But there was an Ayni (mutual aid) and Minka (collective work) system, paired with a Mita system: work done for the Sapa Inca which was in return "paid" by the Sapa Inca in feasts, food and goods/gifts. This was all glued together by the concept of Ayllu (family), where these obligations were established through family connections and of course the Sapa Inca had marriage connections with subordinate chiefs.

I myself can't stop thinking about the Inca Empire Economy and how it shows in reality that currency is not about the paper nor number nor symbols, and more about the "I owe you"s that move in the economy.

I changed the '..' at the top with a '<-' to make it more noticeable. I also gave the dots some functionality :) thanks for the suggestion

This was the intention. Originally it was more clear but I moved the other half of the story to the conclusion where it's even more evident that the stories were a way to build rapport and establish some kind of credibility.

I like these abrupt switches that tie-in later. Kind of like a b-roll but in text.

To be honest what happened was that I tried to write a short introduction with both stories from university, they got way too long, then wrote the writing advice, and then tried to mix them both into a coherent post, then noticed the analogy of the trunk was a good anchor and remixed the article even more around that, and this is what we got. Still I enjoyed writing it.

OHHH THAT'S SUCH A GOOD IDEA. I'm going to add some interactivity to the circles

Yep. The main reason I didn't further pursue History academia was that it was too much of a monoculture with a bit of nepotism sparkled all over it. Not to discard everyone there of course; there were some awesome courses and faculty. But there's no way I was going to dedicate my life to such environment with so little in return for it.

Found an ebook version for sale here: https://ebooks.ediciones.uc.cl/library/publication/de-newton...

Staycations are another name for this, but for these vacations I didn't stay home so idk if it applies here.

> I spent my vacation reading From Third World to First by Lee Kuan Yew.

Will add this to my reading backlog! Was looking for something exactly like this.

I'm sure nature is awesome anywhere, but there's something about spending time in nature with the Andes in the background that's magical.

Starting to learn to play the keyboard was an awesome experience for me. Unfortunately I was learning on my brother's and I don't have it anymore. I think I'll gift myself one on christmas.

Thankfully I'm happy where I am for now. Bigger bowls would require life choices that not only would affect me, but also my family. I'm really grateful for the position I'm in currently.

Not sure if always but probably there's a rise of anti-intellectualism in general since I'd say the 2000s. I remember being amazed by how intelligent adults were when I was little. Always doing cross-words, sudoku, reading books, discussing the classics, etc. But now those same adults don't read anything anymore, and just spend their time watching netflix on bed. The same adults that used to correct my vocabulary, grammar and ortography, somehow forgot the meaning of slightly obscure words and don't remember if a certain word was written with an "s" or "c" for example.

And also readers not using it. So far I’ve gotten no legit webmention on any post. But I keep it hoping that some day someone will make a reply post and it will be magical