• Justificationism Secures Ideas Against Change

    One way to answer “how do we know…?” is to justify one’s belief by reference to an authoritative source or cornerstone of knowledge. This is, in effect, saying “by what authority do we claim…?” which seeks endorsement in order to have certainty. Justificationism as a theory of knowledge therefore resists change (or at least delays in a form of path dependence).

    Accepting authority as a source of knowledge also means accepting any other theories that stem from said authority.

    Few things—if any—that are true in the absolute sense and the success of science proves that. Simply look at all the things we knew to be true that ended up being incorrect or misunderstood. Then observe all the progress since the 17th century compared to prior human history.

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  • The GUNMAN Project Was the Catalyst for a Digital Arms Race

    In 1984 it was discovered that the Soviet Union was spying on communications from US embassies. It was previously believed they only had audio bugs which could be swept for. However, the GUNMAN project revealed a remarkable new form of digital surveillance that used bugged typewriters to intercept plain text communications (typed on physical paper). They later found out this was in practice for the last 7 years.

    The impact of the discovery was far reaching. The NSA became an important agency, developing anti-tamper devices. New groups formed to create offensive capabilities. Some would alter argue that this was the catalyst cyber-warfare and a digital arms race.

    Read Learning from the Enemy by the NSA.

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  • Trends Are Not Explanations

    Extrapolating from past data points is not an explanation. Building your confidence that something that will happen—like Bayes Theorem—is useful for descrete, observable problems, but fails to reveal the truth. It’s the equivalent of saying “because it’s always been that way” which is a flawed way of reasoning about the world.

    For example, let’s say you are trying to predict the temperature of a beaker water. You start to turn up the heat on a burner and, based on previous data points, you expect the temperature to rise. It correlates well—heat goes up, water temperature goes up. Until it hits the boiling point and the water temperature remains constant. Trends are not sufficient to explain what’s going on here because it doesn’t explain the idea what is truly happening.

    Listen to The Beginning of Infinity part 1 on Naval Ravikant’s podcast.

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  • We Reduce Anxiety With Activity

    When things get challenging or stressful, we attempt to reduce our anxiety by doing things (sometimes anything). By doing things we feel like we are making progress. However, this doesn’t solve the problem at and can even make it worse.

    This is an important habit to interrupt because it’s ineffective—the real problem still exists no matter how busy you are. For leaders, it’s important to be able to sit with this discomfort and find a solution rather than try to mitigate with activity if only to make yourself feel better.

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  • Keeping React Hooks With UseState in Sync With Props

    An annoying footgun with React hooks is using useState with an initial value from props. It might appear like useState will be called each render, but it doesn’t (the bad kind of magic). Instead, it will run once when the component is initially rendered and you will run into stale read bugs when you rely on props to re-render the component with updated data.

    To workaround the issue, you need to use useEffect to update the stateful data.

    function MyComponent(props) {
  const [user, setUser] = React.useState(props.user);

  // This is needed or you will get a stale read when props.user
  changes React.useEffect(() => {
    setUser(props.user);
  }, [props.user]);

  return (
    <h1>Ugh that's easy to forget {user.name}</h1>
  )
}

    This is annoying because it breaks the mental model of React Hooks as “just functions”. Maybe that’s still true, but they’re more like “functions with a lifecycle and state that you can’t easily inspect”.

    An alternative (found in this StackOverflow thread) is to wrap this behavior in a custom hook.

    import {useEffect, useState} from 'react';

export function useStateWithDep(defaultValue: any) {
  const [value, setValue] = useState(defaultValue);

  useEffect(() => {
    setValue(defaultValue);
  }, [defaultValue]);

  return [value, setValue];
}

    Then you could rewrite the original example like so:

    function MyComponent(props) {
  const [user, setUser] = useStateWithDep(props.user);

  return (
    <h1>Yay no stale reads when props change {user.name}!</h1>
  )
}
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  • Robert Moses Seized Political Power Through the New York State Council of Parks

    Although Robert Moses began his career as an idealistic reformer, he wrote a bill that gave himself far-reaching powers through the New York State Council of Parks and the Long Island Park Commission. A close confidant of Governor Al Smith, Robert Moses pushed his idea of a park system of an unprecedented scale and wrote the bill, essentially appointing himself as the chairmen and president.

    By way of these two organizations, Robert Moses had the power to appropriate land (previously unheard of), the authority to decide on parkways (hence the “park” in the term “parkway”), and control over the budget for individual parks to consolidate control. What’s more, it would be incredibly difficult to remove him—the position was a 6 year term (the governorship is 2 years) and the process for removal was extensive.

    In one fell swoop, Robert Moses consolidated real power to do what he wanted, how he wanted, with whom he wanted.

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  • Continuous Organizations Don't Make Sense for High Growth Startups

    Continous organizations are touted as a way to run a company in a radically transparent way on a blockchain. It aims to balance the incentives of the company owners, investors, and employees. However, this is probably impossible to do for a high growth startup.

    In order to set up the smart contract that establishes the continuous organization, one needs to set the parameters of the bonding curve up front. This is not possible to do accurately and valuations will be out of whack with the business unless the curve is based on an easily measurable and irrefutable metric (a metric that becomes a goal ceases to be a good goal, and so on). It also leaves a lot of money on the table—set the curve too low and the total value of the company suffers.

    Perhaps if there was a way restating the bonding curve parameters without issuing a new token (the equivalent of say a 409a) would let the continuous organization update the curve fairly based on new information. That would provide some correction mechanism, but I haven’t seen this in any of the literature.

    See also:

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  • The Crypto Self-Tenured Class

    The growing population of cryptocurrency millionaires have created a new self-tenured class. They don’t need money and are free to work on pursuits that match their interests (likely more things related to Web3). This actually a good thing for innovation.

    Without the pressures of a stable paycheck, the self-tenured class can work on ambitious projects some which have no financial payoff. Has this ever happened in history?

    Read the tweet from Sam Lessin.

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  • Science Is a War Against Skepticism and Dogmatism

    Both skepticism and dogmatism are counter to science. With too much skepticism, nothing can be believed—not even our own senses. With too much dogmatism, the wisdom of crowds is unquestioned and quickly turns into the madness of crowds.

    Science requires a bit of both to be done effectively. Skepticism to drive the questions and low levels of dogmatism (faith) so that you can build on top of acquired knowledge.

    (I first heard this in a talk by Peter Thiel)

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  • How to Not Be Rude When Sending a Calendly Link

    Some people find it rude to receive a Calendly link when scheduling a meeting. It pushes the effort of finding a time onto them rather going through the ceremonial back and forth of recursively reducing the set of date times to a mutually agreeable one.

    To soften the blow to their ego, I find the following line works best:

    “How about a call next week? Let me know what works best for you (calendly link if that’s more convenient).”

    90% of the time, the person will schedule the meeting using the Calendly link and spare everyone the back and forth. I suspect the “if that’s more convenient” frames the desired outcome better. It shows you care about their time (convenience) and it’s offered as an alternative (not a command that comes off as presumptuous).

    Side note, some people have admins who manage their calendars. It’s best to work with them to book the meeting as it’s more likely the person you are trying to meet will rearrange their calendar. (You might still save them time by sharing your Calendly link for reference).

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  • Hypnagogia Improves Creativity

    Hypnagogia briefly occurs between wakefulness and sleep. A hypnagogic state can be achieved by purposefully waking yourself during this period and can result in a heightened state of creativity.

    Notable practitioners include Salvador Dali, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein.

    Composer Giuseppe Tartini wrote a violin sonata known as the Devil’s Trill after an experience where he listened to the devil play in a dreamlike state. It’s one of the most technically difficult pieces to play for violin.

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