Hard Problems
In 1994, at what would become a landmark conference on consciousness, the philosopher David Chalmers introduced the Hard Problem of consciousness: why do we have personal, first-person experiences that feel “like something.” More than 25 years later (much longer depending on how the problem is framed), the solution remains elusive, the debate goes on.
Should we side with Gabriel Marcel “life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved” or with Socrates “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
I’m going with Socrates. Life is not problem to be solved, but contains hard problems. And those are worth examining.
Which brings us to the theme that will run through this newsletter:
the hard problem of understanding ourselves, and other people.
Contradictory Thoughts
Perpetual cognitive dissonance, illustrated by our relationship with Amazon.
- wanting a bustling main street with thriving local business
- wanting things as inexpensive and convenient as possible
Walt Whitman comes to mind.
One way of dealing with cognitive dissonance (my preferred way!) is to remind myself of the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
I came across an article describing the GameStop event that applies here as well. “People have always been much more pragmatic about their money than their political beliefs.” I don’t love absolutes, and I don’t want to be cynical, but I think that says something about how we ultimately end up resolving a lot of our cognitive dissonance. We press the Buy Now button.
There’s a lot more covered in this thoughtful and wide ranging profile of Amazon and it’s founder. If you’re looking for a great weekend read, this is it.
‘A managerial Mephistopheles’: inside the mind of Jeff Bezos
Mark O’Connell • The Guardian • Feb 2021 • 26min
The Amazon founder’s relentless quest for ‘customer ecstasy’ made him one of the world’s richest people – now he’s looking to the unlimited resources of space. Is he the genius our age of consumerism deserves? (More)
Nostalgia for the Before Times
Things I wasn’t expecting to miss
Coronavirus has robbed me of petty annoyances
Adrian Wooldridge • The Economist • Jan 2021 • 3min
These moments are thrilling because each one represents victory over an irritation. (More)
The Function of Small Talk
Gavin Brennan • Substack • Oct 2020 • 7min
Small talk is more about communication than information, and as such serves an important function and shouldn’t be ignored, sneered at or derided, for to do so is to sneer at humanity itself. It’s the first line of enquiry into strangers and their inner lives, and our first line of reassurance to the world that we too, are in fact, normal members of society as well, which may be more important to us. (More)
Get a Hobby
Ideas for better leisure
In Praise of Mediocrity
Tim Wu • NYT • Sep 2018 • 4min
The pursuit of excellence has infiltrated and corrupted the world of leisure.
But there’s a deeper reason, I’ve come to think, that so many people don’t have hobbies: We’re afraid of being bad at them. Or rather, we are intimidated by the expectation — itself a hallmark of our intensely public, performative age — that we must actually be skilled at what we do in our free time. Our “hobbies,” if that’s even the word for them anymore, have become too serious, too demanding, too much an occasion to become anxious about whether you are really the person you claim to be. (More)
Culture
Among the many thoughtful ideas shared in this article, the following stood out “I do not believe that art creates reality, but rather that it offers us a window into our collective subconscious, giving us a view of our preoccupations, anxieties, and desires.”
When done well, I feel the same way about cultural criticism.
Twilight of the American antihero
Emily VanDerWerff • Vox • Jan 2021 • 11min
The best antihero dramas (and the small handful of genuinely great politically incorrect comedies) understand the tension between “what I personally want” and “what the world would benefit from.” They understand that we all have selfish impulses, and they understand that those selfish impulses can make for terrific and even meaningful storytelling when the storyteller is keenly aware of their argument’s moral dimensions. A world of morally simplistic art that always lets you know the lesson you’re meant to be learning would be a poorer world indeed. (More)
Deep Dive: GameStop
Staying up-to-date on ’the GameStop event’ was like trying drink from a firehose, and I was thirsty. With so many explanations to choose from, I’ve narrowed it down to my favourite (so far).
r/WhiteHouseBets
Alex Danco • Jan 28 2021 • 10min
Reflexive relationships, as George Soros explains in his famous essay, show up wherever there are circular relationships between perception and reality. Wherever you see positive feedback cycles in the world, especially those that involve human participants (whose perceptions are an important part of the reality in play), that’s reflexivity at work. Anywhere you see something get “memed into existence”, like funding a startup or stoking a riot, that’s reflexivity.
The internet has changed the world in pretty weird ways, and a lot of it has to do with reflexivity. When you wrap the “real world” in a real-time communication layer where perception can propagate instantly, and that perception is an important component of reality, then the real world itself changes meaningfully. (More)
Why It’s Usually Crazier Than You Expect
Morgan Housel • Collaborative Fund • Jan 28 2021 • 5min
Supply and demand are intuitive; realizing how quickly supply and demand can go from linear to exponential is not.
Social momentum is hard to model on a spreadsheet, so it’s hard to predict or think about in terms that seem rational.
A little momentum early on can grow into something enormous, well beyond what may have been predicted in the beginning. The same thing happens inside companies: Marc Andreessen says 80% of employee culture is just “winning.” The best employees want to work at companies that are winning, and when a company attracts the best employees it tends to win. If you don’t appreciate how powerful that feedback loop is you can be shocked at how dominant and wildly successful a few companies or products can become. (More)
TiB 150: How did the world get so weird
Matt Clifford • Thoughts in Between • Feb 2 2021 • 4min
GameStop is the latest example of variance-amplifying institutions (VAIs) triumphing over variance-dampening institutions (VDIs). These institutions differ in what behaviours they promote and what characteristics they select for. VDIs select for norm adherence, predictability and consistency. They create negative feedback loops; bureaucracy is the canonical example. VAIs select for extremeness, surprise and virality. They create positive feedback loops; the internet is the canonical example.
On the internet anyone can do anything and, in theory, can reach any scale. Unlike the hierarchical institutions we have become used to, the internet does not select for the least disruptive or the most conforming, but for the most meme-able, share-able and bandwagon-able. (More)
WallStreetBets is America
Christina Hadly • Vox • Feb 4 2021 • 12min
WallStreetBets has its own language. It says a lot about American masculinity.
They insult the “paper hands” who crumple and sell their shares at the first taste of money or scary drops. Commenters call themselves “degenerates” or “apes.” Reddit posts hype up how many “tendies” a person will get from their investments, a phrase that comes from old 4chan greentext stories about manchildren living in their mom’s basement. In the joke, a manchild relies on his mom for everything, throws tantrums, and is rewarded for good behavior with “Good Boy Points” (GBP), which he redeems for his favorite food: chicken tenders, a.k.a. “tendies.” (More)
Everything’s a Joke Until It’s Not
John Herrman • NYT • Jan 29 2021 • 8min
Reddit communities grow powerful in plain sight. Why do they keep taking the world by surprise?
Users of both The_Donald and WallStreetBets acknowledge a debt to 4chan (WallStreetBets’ tagline: “Like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal”). This debt to the infamous message board that delights in chaos is stylistic but also functional: to always seem like you might be joking, well beyond the point at which you should be taken seriously, is to guard yourself against accurate interpretation and evaluation. (More)
The GameStop Rally Exposed the Perils of ‘Meme Populism’
Eric Levitz • NY Magazine • Feb 3 2021 • 10min
On one level, the GameStop story was an object lesson in the power of collective action and absurdity of market fundamentalism. By pooling their wits and capital, a large number of relatively low-wealth, low-clout individuals took money away from a hedge fund. What’s more, they did this in a manner that served to delegitimize financial markets as all-knowing arbiters of economic value: When the share price of a brick-and-mortar video-game retailer increases 20-fold in the course of a month, the notion that there is a tight correspondence between market prices and objective worth becomes difficult to sustain. And absent that premise, the case for entrusting our nation’s investment needs to unaccountable private actors becomes harder to make. (More)
The Final Boss is Capitalism
Sarah Jones • NY Magazine • Jan 29 2021 • 7min
Redditors may indeed be motivated by “a mix of greed and boredom,” as the New York Times recently suggested, but it’s hard to argue that their besuited foes are motivated by anything more meaningful.
They did not start an uprising. They are not about to overthrow capitalism. That latter goal doesn’t even seem to appeal to them. It’s certainly not why anyone opens an account with Robinhood – the app promises assimilation, not subversion. Use it and you can be rich, too. (More)
The GameStop Reckoning Was a Long Time Coming
Kevin Roose • NYT • Jan 28 2021 • 6min
In any reading, the most unusual thing about Wall Street’s being challenged by a rowdy band of Redditors is that it took so long to happen. This kind of populist revolt – internet-based insurgents gleefully pulling down the pants of the unsuspecting establishment – has been happening for years, to many powerful institutions. (More)