In his first term, Trump ran up the deficit with glee; and in the first 30 days of this term, his spending per day is $4 billion higher than Biden’s was a year ago. Go read Riedl for how Trump is set to bankrupt the US still further.
So here’s my question: what’s something you could do, right away – not in the tense spirit of Facing Your Fears, but merely by stepping gracefully out of the way, with all your usual overcomplicating nonsense, and letting action happen? “Life completely unhindered by anything manifests as pure activity,” the Zen teacher Kosho Uchiyama observed. What action could you simply decide *not to hinder* today? I bet there’s something. Go on. Act fast.
I really do think anyone could do anything if they work hard at it. You get better at things if you actually try them.
The 70% rule: If you’re roughly 70% happy with a piece of writing you’ve produced, you should publish it. If you’re 70% satisfied with a product you’ve created, launch it. If you’re 70% sure a decision is the right one, implement it. And if you’re 70% confident you’ve got what it takes to do something that might make a positive difference to the increasingly alarming era we seem to inhabit? Go ahead and do that thing. (Please!)
if we want to live in good societies—where most games are positive-sum and decency is the norm—there is no substitute for having a sufficient number of people who are actually good, or struggling to be so.
Marcus Aurelius would say that doing less “brings a double satisfaction.” You get to do less and you get to do those things better. As we enter 2025, consider what you might need to say “no” to in order to say “yes” to what matters most.
The sheer magnitude of potential and inevitable failure made me wanna hurl. But I was too chicken shit to even do that.
Once again, “government waste” is in the wind, & I’d like to take a moment to immunize you against this tired rhetorical loop. Not because it doesn’t matter at all; only because it matters so little, it shouldn’t take up any space in public discourse, or in your wild & precious mind.
If you write quickly, and don’t worry much about writing well, the quality of your writing will improve. That’s probably the best general writing advice I can give you: write as fast as possible. Go for at least 500 words per hour. Just hit the fucking keyboard.
Airbus workersʼ union Force Ouvriere had revealed that the company had informed employees hydrogen technology was 5-10 years behind where it needed to be for a 2035 entry into service. The ZEROe budget was being cut by 25% and �ight demonstration of a hydrogen-electric fuel cell propulsion system on an A380 testbed canceled.