“@telmudic @ESYudkowsky A nontrivial part of the value of YC is that we give people a high-status brand under which to do low-status things. Being able to tell your parents "I got funded by YC" gives you cover to do things that don't scale.”
“Naval for kids. 2 years ago my nephew and I had conversation on important ideas from @naval
Turned his ideas suitable for a 11 year old conversation. Back then he forbade me sharing the project on any social media. He changed his mind last week, sharing this now.”
Twitter revealed its algorithm to the world. But what does it mean for you?I spent the evening analyzing it.Here’s what you need to know:— Aakash Gupta 🚀 Product Growth Guy (@aakashg0) April 1, 2023
Interesting claim from the book Mixed Signals: creative people don’t necessarily have better ideas on average; they have more ideas, some of which are highly creative pic.twitter.com/wXCGbimbI2— richard shotton (@rshotton) March 27, 2023
“I had dinner with Charlie Munger.
I spent over 3 hours with him.
I got to see his library. I could ask him any question I wanted.
At 99 he is still *ferociously* intelligent.
The most important lesson I learned from him that night was: GO FOR GREAT.
In typical Charlie…”
"Never argue with people in private (you will not convince them); argue in public to convince others." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb— Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Wisdom (@TalebWisdom) March 22, 2023
"Never read a book written by a journalist. Never read a book if you understand the table of contents" - Nassim Nicholas Taleb— Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Wisdom (@TalebWisdom) March 16, 2023
“In 1974, author Ray Bradbury was asked, “What is space travel going to do for man?” In response, he gave the most mystical, mind-blowing, and strangely moving answer I could have imagined.”
“1) Value: is what they get
2) Price: is what they pay
3) Cost: is what it costs you
Great business: 1 > 2 > 3
Most businesses: 2 > 1 > 3
Bad software startups: 3 > 2 > 1 😂”
When one person edits your writing, it usually gets better. When a bunch of people edit your writing, it usually gets worse.— David Perell (@david_perell) January 20, 2023
FOREWORD
I sometimes say in lectures that I suffer from "survivor's syndrome," but not because of the Battle of the Bulge or the firebombing of Dresden in World War II, man-made calamities during or after which I saw more corpses than you can shake a stick at. A young woman complained to me after my lecture about that war, evidently feeling incomplete, that she had never seen a dead person. I made a joke. I said to her, "Be patient."
I do feel lousy, however, about the many passionate and gifted artists I know or knew, writers, painters and composers, dancers and comedians, actors and actresses, singers and cartoonists, who died or are dying in obscurity, more often than not in poverty. To quote the humorist Kin Hubbard: "It's no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be." Audiences failed these friends and acquaintances of mine. Audiences were too barbarous and inattentive to realize how good they were and to reward them with sustained applause and a living wage.
I am reminded of a cartoon of long ago which depicted war as a rouged, warty old whore. She says to a youth about seventeen years old, "Hello, Sonny. I knew your Dad." She could represent the arts instead of war, and the cartoon would make just as much sense to a lot of people. The creation of works of art that a sizeable audience may appreciate and even pay for isn't all that different from an attack by either side in World War I, in which thousands of brave, good-hearted young people left their trenches at dawn, and practically everybody wound up draped over barbwire, or drowning face down in water at the bottom of a shellhole.
Again: I suffer from “survivor’s syndrome.”
Anyone who survives a human wave attack against such daunting odds, whether in war or the arts, does do because of dumb luck. Agility and courage and character, or whatever, have nothing to do with how it all turns out. Gifted artists have to be what they are, have to do what they do the way they do it. Whether they earn a living and fame thereby is a matter of happening by chance upon breaks in the barbwire, unswept by machinegun fire.
So to speak.
Mark Twain, a better writer and human being than I am, marveled, when an old man like me, at the durability of his works' popularity. He thought this might be due to his willingness to moralize. It was lucky for him that moralizing paid off so handsomely. In any case, Mark Twain was simply born to moralize.
I think I was, too. When I look back at my incredibly lucky career as a writer, it seems that there was never time to think. It was as though I were skiing down a steep and hazardous mountain slope. When I look back at the marks my skis made in the snow on the way down, I only now realize that I wrote again and again about people who behaved decently in an indecent society.
I received a letter from a sappy woman a while back. She knew I was sappy, too, which is to say a New Deal Democrat. She was pregnant. She wanted to know if it was a bad thing to bring an innocent little baby into a world as awful as this one is. I replied that what made living almost worthwhile for me were the saints I met. They could be anywhere. There were people who behaved decently in an indecent society.
Perhaps, you, dear reader, are or will become a saint for her child to meet.
I thank you for your attention.
KURT VONNEGUT (JR.)
NOVEMBER 11, 1998
People who provide less value than you and who are less brilliant than you will go further than you because they're more likeable than you.Being human isn't a meritocracy, it's a popularity contest.— Illimitable Man Bot • Red Pill (@IllimitableBot) January 3, 2023
People want to believe different things. You can only communicate with them within the framework that their held belief system allows for.— Illimitable Man Bot • Red Pill (@IllimitableBot) January 3, 2023
The more intelligent the book review sounds, the lower the probability that the reviewer has read the book.— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) December 19, 2022
Banning Trump after Jan 6 is entirely compatible with the foundations of democracy, even necessary. By the Gödel-Popper rule, a democracy should never give its tools to those who want to thwart it.— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) November 29, 2022 根据 Gödel-Popper 规则，民主不应将其工具提供给那些想要阻挠它的人。
“What if trying to grow a brand on Twitter, TikTok, etc. to support your work is just distracting you from doing that work better?
What if an audience is a consequence of, but not a contributor to, doing great work?
What if it actually makes the work worse?” 完全同意，社媒的听众是你努力工作的成果，而不是起因
An old tweet from @nntaleb that I’ve had pinned by my desk for a few years pic.twitter.com/3DvV1LR1PH— Mike Lawler (@mikeandallie) November 26, 2022 风险管理是关于生存而非理解
Lure your targets out of their insecurities by making them focus on something sublime and spiritual.— Robert Greene (@RobertGreene) November 23, 2022 通过崇高的愿景排除对象的不安
