Subscriber Links Roundup #2 (May 8, 2024)
Subscriber Links Roundup #2 (May 8, 2024)
Second batch
First batch of subscriber writing links here.
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Paul Tomkins, How the Inventor of the Computer Killed My Aunt
Uncovering the devastating truth of a 70-year family secret
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Rose Simpson, Rose’s Cantina
A writer’s biggest challenge: cancer
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Jay, Reject Modernity, Embrace Masculinity: The Meaning Behind The Meme
Analyses how the virality of the "Reject Modernity, Embrace Masculinity" meme is emblematic of a cultural backlash against modern gender narratives, and a desire to reconnect with traditional masculine values.
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Mark McNeilly, Was Learn to Code Bad Advice: What skills will thrive, survive, and dive in the AI future?
Given the uncertainty brought by AI, what skills will be needed in the future?
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Geo Chen, If I only had two hours a week to manage my investments…
This is a guide of do’s and don’t for the average investor who has a full time job and only has a few hours per week to manage investments.
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Chand Sooran, The License Raj Beckons
The US needs to heed the lessons of India's failed "license raj".
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John Raptis, The Activist’s Dilemma
How to evaluate the thing that can either improve your life or eat you alive
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Keith Lowery, Someone That I Used to Know
Redeeming reactions to the loss of a child.
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ben woestenburg, No Simple Remedy
Growing up is hard enough, but waiting to die can be harder
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Dalton Mabery, Success is found in the minutiae
Sherlock Holmes didn't know more about detective work than his competitors, he knew more about everything else in the world, and that's what made him successful.
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Karen Rabbitt, On the Eve of my Seventieth
Having been conceived by marital rape, I wrote this poem to give thanks to God for his healing of years of anxiety and depression.
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Rebekah Sunday, Why Does God Allow Us To Suffer? A Study of The Brothers Karamazov
A piece that rereads the “Grand Inquisitor” portion of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov with a focus on the implications of God allowing free will, and therefore, suffering.
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Lisa Ann Thomson, Are our children being sexualized? The Evidence.
As the mother of three teens, I have seen my children bombarded at every turn with sexual images, themes, and content.
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Emily Otto, Beware of AI-enhanced Cyberattacks
Artificial intelligence can increase the quality and speed of cyberattacks. But AI also can improve our defenses.
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Justin Ross, The Delusion of Perfect
We do absurd things to "prepare" our future selves to be happy; what we should do instead is trust them to figure it out themselves.
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Janna Writes, Behind the Curtains of Corporate Layoffs and Terminations
This is Part 1 out of 2 of a story with lessons and hidden secrets in grey areas during and after a common situation not discussed often - Corporate Layoffs and Terminations
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Marianne O, Financial Planning for Women Needs to be More Nuanced and Intentional
Women reported worse outcomes on all measures of financial health: spending, saving, borrowing, and planning due to their unique situations, and the article discusses some strategies to improve financial health.
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Amanda Barber, A Tribute to My First Boss
How a quiet, awkward homeschooled kid grew up at a little family owned bakery.
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Jack Purdy, The Great Wall of Creative Limitations
Creativity is an innate piece of the human condition and here's a framework for how to access it.
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Jack Raines, Infinite Games
On the importance of pursuing activities for the sake of the activity itself, not some arbitrary end goal
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Jarred Kotzin, When Cookie Cutter Just Doesn't Cut It Anymore
This essay explores the age old problem of how to live a good life, why most advice in that realm sucks, and what we can do about it.
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Dr Paul, The Three Phases of Human Courtship
A simple reliable “unification theory “ of human courtship
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Reed Lawe, It's a Feature, Not a Bug
A story reflecting on the virtue of simple ingenuity.
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Luke T. Harrington, I watched BuzzFeed's terrible new horror movie so you don't have to
Back when BuzzFeed was huge, they recruited me as a writer, and then completely ghosted me...so I'm very pleased to see that they've since been reduced to making terrible low-budget horror movies
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Wayne Boatwright, “REMEMBER MOAB!” The rallying call of our post-rational era
We face many paradoxes in our post-rational era.
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Jen Hitze, Expectations, Opinions, and New Friends
My newsletter format is 5 Big Ideas: in this article, I discuss the following: (1) Dropping expectations, (2) personal "truths," (3) making new friends, (4) resilience in marriage, and (5) starting big projects.
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Alex Stacy, Visa Tastes Better With a Coke
Utilzing an interdisciplinary approach to understanding company success through the perspective of human psychology leveraging a fantastic talk that Charlie Munger gave about Coke - adapted to my favorite company - Visa.
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Reed W. Lawe, It's a Feature, Not a Bug
A story reflecting the virtue of simple ingenuity.
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Trey Goff, How to build a new government from scratch: the political economy of Próspera
A peer-reviewed academic paper on the history, formation, and political economy of Próspera, the mostly autonomous charter city in Honduras.
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Prester John, On The Masculine Urge to Die in a Suicidal Cavalry Charge
On the evolving role of men in society, masculinity, the search for meaning and contrasting the merits of heroin and cocaine.
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halkony, How I Created a VOD Highlight Reel In Less Than 10 Minutes Using ChatGPT
I used ChatGPT to trim down a 5+ hour Twitch video for a Youtube highlight reel.
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Peco and Ruth Gaskovski, Sacred Synchronies: How to Restore Rhythms that Make us Human
Our readers' communal digital fast is an example of a growing synchrony of people who are striving through small, consistent changes to restore the rhythms that make us human.
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Jorge Chabo, Which Classical Remains?
A look at AI use in colleges and my own use in my writing.
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Amanda, A Twisted College Experience
A book review essay with reflections on college and winter in Scandinavia.
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Lyndon Carvalho, Brown Supremacy
Explaining race disparities in income with some snark
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Peco and Ruth Gaskovski, Horses in the Heart: Passions, Distortions, and Ultimate Hope
We all need a story about life that guides us away from passion-focused reasoning and cognitive distortion, and toward trustworthy realities outside of ourselves.
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Nelda John, Consider My Body
A personal reflection on physical beauty in the digital age.
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Stephen Flanders, Longevity Makes The Gerontocracy Worse
Making people "younger" for longer doesn't solve the issues of gerontocracy; it makes them worse.
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Kiran, Devin, The First AI Software Engineer
The future of software engineers in the age of AI.
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miles.mcstylez, Embrace your Inner Barbarian
How to be a Laptop Class-Traitor
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Loren Dean, Six Years of Santa Claus
Reflections on what Santa means, both to the people who play him and the people who see him.
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Jaswinder, Fulfill Roles, Not Desires: why emotions are irrelevant to situations
A rigorous analysis of a chapter from the Tao Te Ching and a discussion of its applications to daily life
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Plimsoll, AI & Crypto Picks and Shovels
Artificial intelligence and crypto mining are going to need increasing amounts of energy going forward.
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Ben Koan, If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next
Ending phone-based childhood is a worthy goal, but the teen mental health crisis signifies a deeper loss of adult authority.
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Marci Rosenthal, Her Name Was Sally
Prompted by her mother’s death from dementia, the author shares an intimate glimpse of her family’s connections to their small Midwestern town in the 1960s.
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Shane Trotter, Re-Norming: Please Discipline My Child
As the number of temptations expand, it is more important than ever that we restore the power of the village to help us raise our children.
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Corey Andrew Lapeyri, I am A Breathing Dragon
My take on people, happiness and modern political discourse.
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Michael Magoon, A Manifesto for the Progress-based Perspective It's time for a new perspective between the Left and the Right.
Why the concept of material progress is more useful than the ideologies offered by the Left or the Right.
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Zac, On Acceptance: After public disgrace
how to accept your troubled parts after being disgraced publicly
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K. Liam Smith, Book Review: "The Two-Parent Privilege"
An economist looks at the surge of single-parent families.
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Alex Fern Gilkeson, Michelle-Marie Gilkeson, Why the Attention Economy requires a new kind of parent
Now that we live in an age when attention is a commodity, parents must compete with corporations, social media, and a whole lot more to maintain parental influence.
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CRB, Why I Cannot Support Hamas
A quick summary of historical points typically ignored by Palestinian protesters, and why the points matter to me.
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David McIlroy, This Writer Made $100,000 Last Year in Her Spare Time
Eve Arnold made six figures last year through online writing - let's talk about how.
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Drew Henriksen, The Stillness, The Dancing
A poem reflecting on movement, transience, and hope
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David Perlmutter, "Candace Agonistes"
A portrait of an animated cartoon character I connect with on a personal level...
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Joe Saldivar, For Reasons (Un)known
The most beautiful and memorable moments in life are never scripted.
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Roz Haddon, Ad Lucem? Towards the Light?
Where is modern education leading our children?
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Diana Fedorak, About Those Strong Female Characters
The Pushback Against the Strong Female Character Trope
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Mark Thomas, What every day should look like.
A look into my life through the journey of 4 years of sobriety, and beyond.
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James Mills, How to Use a Dating App: Lesson 1
Dating app user advice for women (try to stand out from other app users, don't listen to you friends) from a man who's spent years using them.
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L. Scott Urban, The Underdog is King
A breakdown of the counterintuitive effects which society and cooperation have on natural selection.
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Henry Oliver, Paul Graham's plain rhetoric
Paul Graham is one of the most widely read internet writers. Admirers often talk about his distinctive style. But I’ve never seen a detailed analysis of Graham as a writer, as a stylist. This is my attempt.
A reminder that you can now order your copy of Troubled (now a National Bestseller!):
Audible (I narrated the audiobook myself)
On the "Reject Modernity. Embrace Masculinity" topic... to hell with 3rd wave feminism. I view it as a societal war and the postmoderist feminist as the enemy.
Reading best-selling books in the fiction fantasy genre written by female authors and all of the female-desireable male characters are top level masculine warriors.
The cohort of people pushing this anti-maculinity junk is small and outside of mainstream social and cultural reality. They corrupt actual social science. We need to isolate them, identify them by name, and humiliate them for their views.