Substrate

Some fruits take a long time to bear, but longsightedness is not something that is encouraged, taught or practiced in today’s age. ​ This is a hard lesson for me to learn, and I am still learning it. I am so used to punishing myself, to feel like something is only working if I suffered for it. When it feels easy it is probably not real. I subconsciously apply this mentality to everything in my life, including relationships. I sneer at the easy things and then blame myself when things fail because I keep picking the difficult ones. ​ I think to be able to stoke a fire until it is slowly, steadily burning instead of burning out too fast, is a life skill. To resist the urge to fan the fire faster. To know that it would be better for the fire to last in the long run. Joy is a subtle navigation tool, I think. It is a signal that what we are working for is clicking with us internally, with our internal value system.

But at the very least it’s honest and somewhat vulnerable to admit that screenshotting choice quotes is not as important as being critical of my own behavior. My own mistakes.

ruiard:

A huge part of the problem is that digital spaces generally have no equivalent of a disapproving glare. You’re stuck choosing between staying silent and entering the fray, with few options in between.

Immense, entirely itself,

Taking at least one photo a day is a common concept among new photographers, but it’s really worthwhile for everyone. There’s an aesthetic component to this: Searching for a good photo in the every-day of life teaches us to notice our surroundings more. ​ “A camera is a device for learning how to see without a camera.” —Dorothea Lange ​ but I think often it’s the opposite. Practicing photography compels you to ponder what is meaningful and beautiful in your surroundings.

I pulled out a bouquet of skyscrapers.

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Seventy years ago we dreamed up links that would allow us to create two-way, contextual conversations. Why don't we use them on the web?

Coffee takes what is dull and elevates it just a little, enough to turn basic adult functioning into an attainable indulgence.

When we evaluate operators to partner with, I'm always trying to understand if they have a yet mindset. Are they intimidated or invigorated by the challenge of doing things for the first time? Does not knowing how to do something lead them towards action or inaction? Are they quick to acknowledge when they need to ask for help and leverage others around them, or do they turn inwards and shut down? None of us are perfect at this, but there are certainly people who are more inclined to meet new challenges head on, not just because it is the best option, but because it is the only option.

In the third episode of The Torch of Progress, we sit down with Patrick Collison, the Co-founder and CEO of Stripe. We discuss progress studies, his perspective on the sciences, Effective Altruism, on being a self-described 'fallibilist,' and the entrepreneurial mindset. Key Topics: - The rate of scientific progress and whether it's slowing down. - Progress Studies at large and Patrick's views on Effective Altruism - On being a self-described 'fallibilist' and the entrepreneurial mindset. - Q&A from students and attendees, and much more. In this episode we discuss: (0:15) Intro to Progress Studies for Young Scholars (0:50) Past guest speakers - see the replay on Youtube (1:00) Upcoming guests - Max Roser, Deridre Nansen McCloskey, Joel Mokyr (2:00) Introductions: Jason Crawford with Roots of Progress and Patrick Collison, CEO & co-founder of Stripe (3:00) Patrick talks about Stripe, an online payment system (5:42) Fast Grants for Covid-19 research: What have you learned and what does the future of Fast Grants look like? (13:00) The great corporate research labs (Bell Labs, Xerox PARC) - are they a thing of the past? If so, was that natural? Is there something new we should move to? Should we try to bring it back? (15:55) If you were asked to write a report on the future of science and research, like the Endless Frontier Memo by Vannevar Bush in 1945, what would you say? (18:50) - If you had to give society a progress KPI (key performance indicator), what are the key metrics? (23:40) what are the metrics people use to argue if science is slowing down? Scott Alexander said, "Constant progress in science in response to exponential increases in inputs ought to be our null hypothesis." What is your take on this? (29:45) Compare/contrast effective altruism and progress studies (33:28) If we just run full throttle ahead with progress, what about the risk that we are not careful enough and we get some global catastrophe? (36:05) Your twitter bio describes you as a fallibilist optimist. What does this mean and why did you choose those terms? (39:50) What advice that is commonly given to teens is actually wrong? (43:10) Follow Patrick on twitter @patrickc and online patrickcollison.com Q&A (43:50) What do you think about the future of the internet as the rate of adoption is slowing? Do you see it becoming increasingly zero-sum / less spending on r&d? (46:00) Some people have suggested a Manhattan Project for Covid-19. Is that what Fast Grants is doing? If not, is something like that even feasible anymore? (47:19) You mentioned the existential risk that comes with more progress can be mitigated. What do we need to do to mitigate it? (48:10) You gave the advice to keep learning another 5-10 years, but that is not what you did (started a company at a young age). Why? (50:35) Big companies need an effective organizational structure to avoid getting more inefficient and less innovative. What have you done with Stripe to keep it innovative and nimble? (54:06) How did you found a company? How did you know where to start and what steps to take? (55:40) What do you think about studying liberal arts if in college for technology? Links: Progress Studies for Young Scholars: progressstudies.school The Academy of Thought and Industry: thoughtandindustry.com The Roots of Progress Blog: rootsofprogress.org/ Higher Ground Education: tohigherground.org Guidepost Montessori: guidepostmontessori.com

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Today I realized this day that caused me pain for all of my life is now a day of celebration. I feel relieved. I feel happy.

Maybe talking to ourselves in the mirror works after all – I don’t talk to myself in the mirror, but I talk to myself a lot in my journals. We talk about long-term responsibility to the natural eco-system and to society, but my suspicion is that till we learn to undertake long-term responsibility for ourselves, we will not be in the position to undertake that on a societal level. It didn’t matter what I achieved professionally, or how many people told me how good my work was. I felt empty, fragile and exhausted. I felt like I had to keep up that relentless pursuit just so I can be continually validated so I can continually exist. Can you imagine asking anyone these days how long their project would take, and how your response would be if they reply, “30 years”? We would be shocked if they said something like 3 years.

Roam has a learning curve, but after a few weeks of playing with it I already love it much more than Evernote and Notion. Here's why, and how I'm using it.

And it’s here where I made the crucial mistake – I prioritized winning over improving. do I do something that’s uncomfortable that will eventually push me to be better? Or do I prioritize winning right now, even if it doesn’t help me later? I chose the latter, to my detriment. It’s strange to say it, but for me, it’s far more comfortable being uncomfortable, than it is to be content on a seemingly endless plateau.

Companies are a sequencing of loops. While it’s possible to stumble into an initial core loop that works, the companies that are successful in the long term are the ones that can repeatedly find the next loop. However, this evolution is poorly understood relative to its existential impact on a company’s trajectory. Figma is a … Continue reading Why Figma Wins →

Supercompensation theory states that when an appropriate training load is applied to an athlete, followed by an appropriate recovery, the athlete’s body not only returns to the previous baseline, but supercompensates in order to be prepared for a greater future training load. The hardest person to coach is usually yourself.

Funnily enough, I was dancing to “Memories” earlier today while listening to the Spring ’20 mix.

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It is my 37th birthday today, and what I really crave, more than anything, is a continuity to my days. Not an accumulation, the sense that they’re adding up to anything, not necessarily, just a continuity. The sense that one day leads into another leads into another leads into another on and on and on.

Part 1 of a 2-part tutorial series. We walk through building the NPR macOS app together.

Sneak-peaks are more powerful than messages.

All that goes to say, if you just one day got rid of pre-publication peer review entirely – just got rid of it, full stop – there’s no reason to believe that the overall quality of published research would go down, at all. You’re still incentivized to publish your best work; arguably more so because you no longer have the cover of “being peer reviewed” as legitimacy. There will still be good research, and bad research. And post-publication peer review will still be able to pass judgement on anything it wants.

The academic journal business model is a funny one, because the journals themselves don’t actually do much work. The content is produced by PIs, for free, who apply for publication in hope of getting selected. Other PIs who review and curate submissions also work for free: it’s considered a part of academic duty, and prestigious to accept but disastrous to decline. In short, aside from the cost of ink and postage, academic journals deal in one thing only: positional scarcity. The real shame in academic publishing, if you ask me, isn’t Elsevier’s 35% profit margin on journal subscriptions. It’s the much larger amount of money, time and influence that is regressively taxed from the young scientists, to the old ones, in exchange for nothing but brand access.

Only rarely do online-first takes on economics, management theory, cultural theory, and analytic philosophy, among others, make the leap into academia, that other internet of texts. There are perhaps numerous reasons why this is the case. A significant one, though, is the lack of coherent citation and attribution practices on the web.