Monday, October 21, 2019

October 21st Links

  • The scariest thing about a hard and fast fall is your second bullet point. The modern world will likely never rise again. The technology and infrastructure we have was developed from a base of easily accessible resources. Easily mined and relatively pure mineral deposits, oil that just flows up from a shallow hole in the ground, etc... Those are gone. Acquiring those resources now requires equipment and infrastructure that was built using that initial windfall. A hundred guys with shovels could build a Texas oil field in 1910. Now you need a deep sea oil rig. That just can’t be built ground up from a coal fired smelter and hand sawn lumber. This is actually one of the likely causes Robin Hanson gives for his Great Filter. When the modern world falls, it is gone forever. [Z Man]
  • According to VW, the Bus will go to 65 mph, which makes zero to 60 more a test of patience than of speed. Hitting 50 mph feels positively daring. At that speed, substantial steering input is required to keep it traveling in a straight line; the gearbox has all the snap and precision of a chimpanzee sousaphone orchestra; the brake pedal is little more than a mushy footrest. [Car and Driver]
  • GDP growth is fraudulent when it is mostly government spending valued retrospectively at cost and thus shielded from the knowledgeable judgments of consumers oriented toward the future. Whether fueled by debt or seized by taxation, government spending in economic 'stimulus' packages necessarily substitutes state power for knowledge and thus destroys information and slows economic growth. [Knowledge and Power]
  • In this model, the gradual drying-out of Sumeria in the 4th millennium BC caused a shift away from wetland foraging and toward grain farming. The advent of grain farming made oppression possible, and a new class of oppression-entrepreneurs arose to turn this possibility into a reality. They incentivized farmers to intensify grain production further at the expense of other foods, and this turned into a vicious cycle of stronger states = more grain = stronger states. Within a few centuries, Uruk and a few other cities developed the full model: tax collectors, to take the grain; scribes, to measure the grain; and priests, to write stories like The Debate Between Sheep And Grain. And so the people were taught that growing grain was Correct and Right and The Will Of God and they shouldn't do anything stupid like try to escape back to the very close and easily-escapable-to areas where everyone was still living in Edenic plenty. [SSC]
  • The key to the nexus between grains and states lies, I believe, in the fact that only the cereal grains can serve as a basis for taxation: visible, divisible, assessable, storable, transportable, and "rationable." Other crops—legumes, tubers, and starch plants—have some of these desirable state-adapted qualities, but none has all of these advantages. To appreciate the unique advantages of the cereal grains, it helps to place yourself in the sandals of an ancient tax-collection official interested, above all, in the ease and efficiency of appropriation. [Against the Grain]
  • The best part of eliminating something is that it is a very clean way of completely removing something from your plate. Once you donate those books to the library that have been sitting on your shelf, guilting you to read them, your constant reminder is gone. You can always check them out later if they are that important to you. Once you fire that client that doesn't respect your time or value your work you are free of them and have the capacity to replace them with a more profitable client that is a joy to work with and that you can provide immense value to. I don't think I can emphasize enough how important continual elimination is on your journey of personal, professional, and financial growth. In order to allow space for growth, you need, well, space. Elimination is the cleanest way to create space for something better. [THW]
  • Contrary to recent erroneous reporting, we are not considering restructuring or hiring advisors for this purpose. We regularly meet with investment banks and advisors on ideas to help us achieve our long-term goal of strengthening our balance sheet and reducing the absolute levels of our debt. As discussed on our earnings calls, we are actively looking at asset sales, royalty monetizations and other transactions similar to those we have done in the past to help us delever. [EDGAR]
  • Considering all of the Hirt factors, the Luxor Plaintiffs' significant relative ownership stake tips the balance in their favor. Recognizing this, and in light of their efforts in the Ryan Action to date, Team Ryan argues in the alternative that the Court should force the competing factions to work together as a combined team. On this point, the Court is reminded of the words of the great Knute Rockne. To paraphrase: you play not your eleven best, but your best eleven. Coach Rockne meant to emphasize the importance of team dynamics to a team's success, which this Court has similarly recognized in the context of class leadership disputes. Cognizant that forcing cooperation risks impairing team dynamics, this Court has repeatedly declined to craft its own leadership structure in lieu of selecting a team that the parties have formed themselves. [Chancery]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your links are fn bada**!