What I'm Reading...

Nassim Taleb:

I know very few people who, when they say they want to do something, end up doing it.

Cory Doctorow:

Anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop. We’re told that trillions of dollars’ worth of crypto has been wiped out over the past year, but these losses are nowhere to be seen in the real economy – because the “wealth” that was wiped out by the crypto bubble’s bursting never existed in the first place.

Like any Ponzi scheme, crypto was a way to separate normies from their savings through the pretense that they were “investing” in a vast enterprise – but the only real money (“fiat” in cryptospeak) in the system was the hardscrabble retirement savings of working people, which the bubble’s energetic inflaters swapped for illiquid, worthless shitcoins.

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook on changing your mind:

My thinking always evolves. Steve taught me well: never to get married to your convictions of yesterday. To always, if presented with something new that says you were wrong, admit it and go forward instead of continuing to hunker down and say why you’re right.

Three quotes from Tara Ploughman:

• “The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.”

• “The path from good to evil goes through bogus.”

• “Never offer what you’d hate someone for accepting.”

(HT to James Clear 3-2-1 Newsletter for the last quote that lead me to discover the others.)

PS: Yes, I know who Tara Ploughman is.

There is a balance between depth and width in friendship.

Today, the term is still widely used. But most of us don’t naturally fall into friend pairs. Seeking them out, then, can lead to hurt—if we choose one friend over another, if the best-friend designation isn’t reciprocated, or if we don’t have a closest friend but feel that we should. For those who do have one, prioritizing them could mean turning away from other, potentially fruitful friendships. And relying on one person for all of your emotional needs creates a lot of pressure: No one is available to be a great friend 100 percent of the time.

Source (HT Farnam Street’s Brain Food.)