Circle Three 71 / Accidentally in Love
I’ve been increasingly fascinated with how technology will further infiltrate our lives. Four separate events — the Catholic Crypto Conference, a culture piece this week, reading Origin, and metaverse research — have me thinking about what sort of future is being developed, and what role we can play. Still thinking…
Contents:
brain bites: Culture
Ten Tips on Forging Your Path
Football Has Found Its New Bogeyman
brain bites: Psychology & Health
Razors
brain bites: Business & Investing
What Really Matters?
Collateralised fund obligations
Lyric: Accidentally in love by Counting Crows
brain bites: culture
Ten Tips on Forging Your Path. Thread here. The term “illegible ambition” stood out to me — defined as that intangible but present ambition that nobody can describe. Contrary to legible ambition that is easily described to others.
Football Has Found Its New Bogeyman. Here. I can do without the analytics fatigue I feel from sports. Hyper-analysis in sports, while effective, has been met with criticism from players, coaches, and commentators.
The article is a follow-up to a commentary that ends with this question:
In a world that will only become more influenced by mathematical intelligence, can we ruin culture through our attempts to perfect it?
brain bites: psychology & health
Razors. In philosophy, a razor is a principle or rule of thumb that allows one to eliminate ("shave off") unlikely explanations for a phenomenon, or avoid unnecessary actions.” Here are three of my favorite razors:
Hitchens’ Razor. Anything asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Lesson: If you want to be taken seriously, include evidence.Newton’s Flaming Laser Sword. If something cannot be settled by reasonable experiment or observation, it’s not worth debating.
Lesson: Avoid hypothetical argument traps (unless they are for fun, like my favorite “how many geese could you defeat in battle?”)Occam's razor. Simpler explanations are more likely to be correct; avoid unnecessary or improbable assumptions.
Lesson: Real life is about being concise and effective. Explain it like I’m five.
brain bites: business & investing
What Really Matters? Howard Marks’ memo to Oaktree investors. Here’s what doesn’t matter: Short-term events, Trading mentality, Short-term performance, Volatility, and Hyperactivity.
And what matters is, put simply, the long term. The gist:
I think most people would be more successful if they focused less on the short run or macro trends and instead worked hard to gain superior insight concerning the outlook for fundamentals over multi-year periods in the future.
Collateralised fund obligations: how private equity securitised itself. Here from Financial Times. Years of cheap money and excessive leverage are revealing themselves in ugly ways.
Lyric: Accidentally in Love by Counting Crows
First, a quote not from the song:
“Love is from another realm.
We cannot manufacture it on demand.
Nor can we subdue it when it appears.
Love is not our choice to make.”
This is from Dan Brown’s Origin. (reviewed last week.)
The song echoes the quote’s sentiment: love is almost accidental, slowly building over time. While we’re talking romance: the song is from Shrek 2 — arguably the best sequel ever, with an all-time soundtrack to boot. It’s Counting Crows’ second most-popular song and was nominated in 2004 for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
So, she said, "What's the problem, baby?
"What's the problem? I don't know
Well, maybe I'm in love (Love)
Think about it
Every time I think about it
Can't stop thinking 'bout it
Live performance here. I dare you not to dance
Stay Curious,
Dan