Unpacking My Digital Library
Introducing Boxes: Curated Weekly Links w/ Zoharian Commentary
Every day, since 2003, Tyler Cowen has been sharing “assorted links” on his blog, Marginal Revolution. While I don’t read all the articles and videos he posts each day, I take inspiration from his joyful curation, in which obscure academic articles live side by side with zeitgeisty trinkets. Even without commentary, these links demonstrate an act of synthesis, in the simplest sense, a “bringing together” of the otherwise disconnected. In 1931, Walter Benjamin described the joys of being a book collector (Benjamin was obsessed with all types of “idlers”):
O bliss of the collector, bliss of the man of leisure! Of no one has less been expected, and no one has had a greater sense of well-being than the man who has been able to carry on his disreputable existence in the mask of Spitzweg,’s ‘Bookworm.’ For inside him there are spirits, or at least little genii, which have seen to it that for a collector – and I mean a real collector, a collector as he ought to be – ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them. So I have erected one of his dwellings, with books as the building stones, before you, and now he is going to disappear inside, as is only fitting. (“Unpacking my Library”)
It occurred to me that a digital library cannot be packed up or unpacked in the same, immersive way as boxes of books. Nonetheless, I hope to start sharing, on a more regular (weekly?) basis, the artifacts and souvenirs of my adventures in thought, and giving a sense for the variety of interests.
Box 1: Wallace Stevens, Rowan Williams, Emily Dickinson, Byrne Hobart, David Brooks, Stanley Druckenmiller
Wallace Stevens, “The Snowman.” “One must have a mind of winter” is a line that continues to resonate, mainly because the “of” has two meanings (a mind directed towards winter and a mind produced by winter). This duality between the subjective (mind produces world) and the objective (world produces mind) is a key theme in Steven’s work, and one that we can all contemplate during immersive moments, such as snowstorms.
Rowan Williams pans Jordan Peterson. Theologian (and academic) John Milbank glosses the article “a heavyweight reviews a light-weight” (true) but he misses the point. Peterson has enlarged the audience for Biblical appreciation, and he has done so using a frame of psychological and cultural commentary. Bible is trending again, even on the secular, Nietzschean, post-Christian right.
Emily Dickinson, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.” Dickinson makes the case for diplomatic communication. In an age where everyone wants to share their truth, Dickinson reminds us that speaking up is only half the battle. Being heard and understood is the other half. This is a strong argument for rhetoric, poetry, myth, religion, and Leo Strauss’s conception of philosophy as “esoteric writing.”
Peter Thiel claims scientists are more dogmatic today than they were in the 17th century. He also argues that skepticism and dogmatism form a dialectic, and you can never be entirely for one or the other. We often forget that Newton didn’t just discover gravity, he also engaged in numerological speculation about the encrypted meanings of the Bible. Being kooky (“contrarian and wrong”) may be a requisite price for being inventive (“contrarian and right.”)
OpenAI’s first artist in residence. We have never been original, and AI art is no different. AI enables new forms of soulful creativity, and evidences a world in which man and machine collaborate. AI is a form of leverage. Whether for good or bad depends upon the metaphoric balance sheet and risk profile of the one leveraging it.
Byrne Hobart with a great Chat GPT Prompt.
David Brooks critiques meritocracy. Overall, I’m a fan of meritocracy. I see the success and upward mobility of hard-working, talented people as positive sum and net accretive for human shareholders, especially those yet to be born. I do think meritocracy has a handful of flaws, though, some of which are endemic from first principles. The biggest problem is that meritocracies can be overly restrictive and arrogant in their appraisal of what matters. Brooks writes: “The German rationalists reorganized the forests, planting new trees in neat rows and clearing away all the underbrush. At first, everything seemed to go well. But as the Germans discovered too late, the trees needed the underbrush to thrive. Without the organic messiness that the rationalists had deemed superfluous, the trees’ nutrient cycle got out of whack. They began ailing. A new word entered the German language—Waldsterben, or “forest death.” Brooks’s argument resonates with the arguments of counter-reformationist Montaigne, although he cites anarchist James C. Scott as his influence.
Stanley Druckenmiller interview. You don’t need to be right all the time, you just need to bet big when you have conviction that you are right. This seems to be an important life skill, yet not frequently discussed: “position sizing.” Soros told Druckenmiller to double his bet against the Bank of England from 100% of fund allocation to 200%. Where does that level of conviction come from? What would you bet 200% on? A deep question we should all think about. A common saw amongst “smart money” investors is that one should avoid getting emotional while putting on trades. Yet it’s hard to understand where conviction comes from without some amount of fire in the belly. Is position sizing really just a matter of number crunching? Hard to believe. I square the circle this way: Be stoic when you are in a situation that calls for stoicism and be passionate in a situation that calls for passion. The hard part is knowing which situation you’re in. It’s not like in American Football, says Howard Marks, where a ref blows the whistle and says, “It’s now time for this team to go on defense.”