The neural net engineering challenge was so awesome, I got really into it, spent way too much time and then was shocked when I actually managed to solve it. Since then I've gotten interested in... hardware. God help me

even George, perhaps the most boring and least reactive person you've ever read about or met, would just laugh at the goal of being "entirely unfazed by everything happening around you." Even he falls in love, experiences great joy and brutal heartbreak, finds his own small ways of making an impact, makes peace with difficult things. For a character who supposedly does nothing important, he does a hell of a lot.

Good luck, I guess!

The only way I can put these things together is that at the high FICO end, both wealthier and poorer consumers get hosed a lot but wealthier consumers not quite as much. On the other hand, lower FICO band doesn't get as bad of a deal overall but it is worse for wealther people (plausibly because they have high interchange fees and don't use their rewards).

It's complicated, but... this is not a wealth transfer right? It is a transfer mostly just from consumers to credit card companies that provide them a service.

It's clearly more complex than the story these authors are telling, in particular the highest income consumers get the worst returns on their interchange payments. So stores and services catering to wealthy consumers are actually subsidizing an opportunity for savvy customers, many of whom are not wealthy

One big outcome of this is being alive more, that doesn't really make you any happier. Also consider stuff like a growing global economy that helps with things like, well, not starting as many global-scale wars that decimate whole cities.

I also think there is a word for someone who is good at poorly defined problems. "Artist." If you define that very broadly and maybe throw in some religious type roles, community leaders, etc in there too, you have a whole group of people who are dedicating their whole life to this problem. But these are super ancient professions and it's not really surprising that we haven't got amazingly better at them recently. I mean, art from centuries ago is still incredible!

In all seriousness though it is pretty interesting to consider if it really happened, a sovereign wealth fund pivots to the crazy high risk strategy, writes a blank check and tries to actually win. If it works does that country just become the rulers of the world?

This is really beautiful. And no matter what happens, two things have to be true: some form of lively philosophic and religious richness will keep being a core part of our history and will touch every person in some way; and it will change enormously over time (maybe with math continuing to be a small part, maybe not).

There is a part of math that is like that. There's also another part (as Vladimir Arnold provocatively said):

> All mathematics is divided into three parts: cryptography (paid for by CIA, KGB and the like) hydrodynamics (supported by manufacturers of atomic submarines) celestial mechanics (financed by military and other institutions dealing with missiles, such as NASA).

> Cryptography has generated number theory, algebraic geometry over finite fields, algebra, combinatorics and computers.

> Hydrodynamics procreated complex analysis, partial differential equations, Lie groups and algebra theory, cohomology theory and scientific computing.

> Celestial mechanics is the origin of dynamical systems, linear algebra, topology, variational calculus and symplectic geometry.

Those parts can just be delegated to AI the same way they used to be delegated to mathematicians. But Arnold continued:

> The existence of mysterious relations between all these different domains is the most striking and delightful feature of mathematics (having no rational explanation).

In other scenarios the non "corp-speak" term feels kind of wrong and the "corp-speak" one is actually better though. I feel like this is all just a realization about what the goal of the business actually is and a realization of just how many different goals you could have. In this case it sounds like it's just to do some good writing, not to grow for the sake of making more money or whatever else. And that makes a huge difference in how you talk about it of course.

Also if someone used the word "lead" I'd conclude that they... work in sales? How can that mean anything about whether they'll be helpful to you or not?

Ok one more thought: sometimes the corp-speak feels way less stuck up than "oh actually, I'm a writer. I measure progress not from other people being willing to pay me some money, but in terms of my own highly refined taste. I have many leather-bound books, and..."

I think this kind of work is constantly misunderstood and undervalued. I don't really see it as a binary thing, more like a complex skill that most people are terrible at, some are good at, and a handful of giants use to be just ridiculously productive in their field.

It reminds me of hedgehogs and foxes - foxes tend to be bad at making one off progress on their own, but are critical for accretive work.

Also I was reading a textbook the other day and thinking wow, it is absurd how much more valuable these things can be than other resources, and it's exactly because they canonize. It would be a massive loss if they stop getting written.

Also, having expert knowledge and then making money off of other people thinking they might have it and being wrong... is a choice.

The answer is definitely still a big no, but for me the reasoning is because it will make it worse. And you apparently aren't the target audience anyway, so why should I care if you stick around.

(Whereas in the case of harry potter, the goal was to sell books, not just to produce something good).