In the history of physics, every time we've looked beyond the scales and energies we were familiar with, we've found things that we wouldn't have thought were there. You look inside the atom and eventually you discover quarks. Who would have thought that? It's hubris to think that the way we see things is everything there is.

It is truly a privilege to live by what I call the “no asshole” rule. I don’t do business with assholes. I don’t care how much money they are offering me, or what project. Life is too short. Quality of life is important. I’m fortunate to collaborate with a lot of people who I respect and like, and I’d like to keep it that way.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point…

It is fundamentally pointless and also a category error to rank books, works of art, or pieces of music. But it's fun all the same.

In the 60s, there was a group of French writers who would create works using constrained writing techniques, like replacing every noun in a text with the seventh noun after it in a dictionary. They did this to inspire ideas and creativity. Living and working aboard a sailboat was for us a constraint, it liberated our imagination by eliminating possibilities.

When I was a kid, I used to think that people in the government could break the law and pretty much do whatever they wanted.

Then I grew up and learned that wasn’t really true.

Then I grew up some more and realized I was actually right the first time.

Weak security that’s easy to use will help more people than strong security that’s hard to use.

In this case, the manager was participating instead of leading. A leader would rather drive the appropriate sense of urgency, clarify roles and responsibilities, ensure those are understood, and oversee a timely resolution. A leader would participate and discuss the issue only to the extent needed to get enough details for that facilitation; no more, no less.

I love the psychotherapist Bruce Tift's wry observation that he no longer experiences any problems in his marriage – but only because he no longer defines "the experience of emotional disturbance" as a problem.

The SNAFU Principle is a popular principle in Discordianism. It states that Communication is only possible between equals. In any hierarchy (business, government, military, etc.) people and employees inevitably distort the truth of reports when dealing with their superiors, in order to avoid any punishment for relaying bad news. As a result, the superiors often operate from a distorted view of the situation, sometimes leading to poor results.

So what happens now?

We take our next set of data and we keep waiting for the unstoppable force to collide with the immovable object.

on China's zero COVID policy

If you use them especially on phone you are against really smart people who have unlimited resources to mindfuck you and make you a rat in cage that does their bidding.

on avoiding social networks

The goal of organizing our knowledge is to move our goals forward, not get a Ph.D. in notetaking.

The West is a series of institutions and values. The West is not a geographical place. Russia is European, but not Western. Japan is Western, but not European. “Western” means rule of law, democracy, private property, open markets, respect for the individual, diversity, pluralism of opinion, and all the other freedoms that we enjoy, which we sometimes take for granted. We sometimes forget where they came from. But that’s what the West is. And that West, which we expanded in the nineties, in my view properly, through the expansion of the European Union and NATO, is revived now, and it has stood up to Vladimir Putin in a way that neither he nor Xi Jinping expected.

Taking a walk every day. As Ingmar Bergman said, “Demons hate fresh air."

Create a To-Stop list rather than a To-Do list.

The higher you go in an organization, the more your suggestions become interpreted as orders.

Smart people know what to do. They need to know what to stop.

Hunger is the first element of self-discipline. If you can control what you eat and drink, you can control everything else.

Never reply when you’re angry. Never make a promise when you’re happy. Never make a decision when you’re sad.