Why I don't have 10,000 subscribers
Or 1,000 true fans
"There is more to life than simply increasing its speed."
Mahatma Gandhi, I think.
Been sitting here in my father-in-law's front room in Toronto for the last hour. It's creeping up on 8am Easter Sunday morning. I'm just sitting with my own thoughts.
I find this experience delicious.
I've read lots of missives on the Morning Routine, and left even more unread. The vast majority of them say things like:
Get up at 5 am, and write 3000 words, or do your most important task of the day first. Then work out for 45 minutes, then do this, then do that. That's the path to your first 10,000 subscribers. It worked for me, it'll work for you.
Do, do, do ...
I think that's a mistake, on two levels. One, just because it worked for you, doesn't mean it'll work for me. And Two, it's all Do, do, do. Go, go, go. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Put differently, My most important task of the day is to Not Do Anything. It's to apply Blaise Pascal's advice and sit quietly in a room by myself. Just talking with myself and The Boss. No phone, no laptop, no internet, no social media.
The 21st Century does not want you to be connected to yourself.
It wants you to be connected to everybody else, talking and working faster and faster, to the point that you know what everybody else thinks, and have no idea what YOU think.
That's a recipe for Anxiety, Fear, and Control By Big Brother.
Hence why I do not have my first 1,000 True Fans, and I am in no rush for them. If they come, they come. And if they don't, well ... I'm sure they'll find someone bigger 'n better to follow😀
Apologies that this NerdLetter is out late. The problem with holiday weekends like Passover and Easter is, travel and family disrupts routine. I didn't plan well enough for it this weekend, hence why I'm breaking my normal rule of no technology on Sundays. Also why I haven't got the full complement of juict tidbits for you today. Normal service will be restored shortly.
Here's the TL;DR for this week:
Power comes from lies
Technology - good or bad?
What happened the night of an earthquake in Témiscamingue
Goliath had a bad day at the office, then this happened
Adding a new section called Spotlight on a Hero, just because there are unsung heroes out there who deserve to see their name in lights. We all have voices in our heads that accuse, point out our flaws, and tear us down, and it can be hard to silence those voices. Wouldn't it be something to have an outside voice tell you that you're awesome?
Plus, I'm tired of reading all those tributes that get written about people AFTER they die - Write 'em BEFORE they die, and show it to 'em, willya? It'll lift their day, and, hell, maybe even POSTPONE their demise? That's what Spotlight on a Hero is designed to do. (Of course, maybe you don't WANT to postpone their demise, in which case, you know what not to do😀)
Starting Spotlight on a Hero off this week with my old Dad. He's been gone almost 24 years now, so he can't read it, sadly. Although methinks he knows anyway.
HUMAN
Few weeks back, I penned this NerdLetter on lies: Then just last weekend, came across a
article here, and this one here, both around the same topic. I've not read the Sin City novel to which Adam Haman refers, but the quote he pulls out of it is chilling:“Power don't come from a badge or a gun. Power comes from lying. Lying big, and gettin' the whole damn world to play along with you. Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you've got 'em by the balls.” The senator then tells Hartigan that he could “pump you full of bullets right now” and not face any consequences. “Everyone would lie for me, everyone who counts,” Roark tells Hartigan at gunpoint.
This is the downside to Consistency Bias. Once you've decided to eat the metaphorical apple, once you've decided to swallow The Lie, it becomes very difficult to change sides. You lose face, you lose friends and support, and you lose self-confidence ... at least briefly. It therefore pays to be slow to believe anything you're told, and to look around at the people doing the telling. Not just at them, but the people around them.
just gave his second keynote speech, even though he was terrified. From the description and photos, it's hard to tell. Top marks to Charlie for facing the terror - he knew that the Fear was a Liar, and on the far side of it was something awesome. I'm blessed that public speaking hasn't been a fear of mine - if anything, my problem is that I'm too cocksure when I stand up to speak. I have to train myself to get at least slightly nervous. Reminds me of 19th-Century Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon. What's less known about him is that he also founded a pastor's college - called, unimaginatively enough, Spurgeon's College. (I once had a pastor who trained there.) The College had an annual reunion for graduates in Spurgeon's time. At one of them, a pastor came up to tell Spurgeon how terrified he used to be in advance of delivering a sermon, but that he delightedly no longer was. Spurgeon's response? "Resign immediately. And don't mount the steps of another pulpit until you get that terror back."TECHNOLOGY
I keep seeing doom and gloom reports about the US federal cybersec sector. Layoffs, firings. ... This one's about cybersec officials having their security clearances revoked. I'm nowhere near close enough to the action to know how serious it is. What worries me is Trump prioritizing loyalty over skill and experience. That's just another variant of Cancel culture. The same thing is happening in China, according to
.Daniel Miessler is contemplating building something he calls RebootAI. It's essentially an offline AI that could be used to get advice on any topic in the event of some catastrophe wherein you lose internet and mobile access, but have some (at least temporary) means of generating power , i.e. a backup generator. Interesting idea. If I have a reservation, it's that just as catastrophes are often unpredictable, so are their effects. What happens, for example, if the earthquake results in a ceiling beam falling across your laptop? So much for your Reboot. Nevertheless, I think this is a cool idea.
In a complete counterpunch to Reboot, though, the
guys have just put out a damning critique of technology in general, drawing on Jacques Ellul's work. These guys are really interesting: Two Canadian brothers, and that's all that can be learned about them - they guard their identities very jealously. Most of their posts are essentially book reviews of older classic works, e.g. Nietzche, Shopenhauer, Jung. (Ellul is rather more modern than their usual fodder.) They are very libertarian, almost anarchist, in their outlook, which I find very appealing. But this critique is different from most libertarian polemics - it argues against technology. An obvious counter-argument is: Gentlemen, what are you using to put your argument out? They would probably respond, We haven't much choice, which is fair😀)SPOTLIGHT ON A HERO
My old dad was born in 1937, in Témiscamingue, Quebec. He was my grandparents' second child, but the first and only one they got to keep - their first child was stillborn.
Dad was conceived in somewhat humourous circumstances. The town was struck with an earthquake that knocked out electrical power and frightened the townsfolk half to death. Témiscamingue iss a remote mining town, francophone, Catholic and (at the time) very superstitious - an earthquake was seen as a harbinger of doom. It took considerable time for the mayor to calm the townsfolk down, largely because he was upstaged by the local seniors care home. Staff there were similarly preoccupied with calming their residents down, but they missed one: This particular resident wasn't the least bit perturbed by the earthquake, mainly because he was minus most of his marbles.
With long flowing white locks, dressed in a long white nightrobe, he swiped a lit candle, slipped outside down the main street (which was still in blackout), and approached the townsfolk and mayor, who'd only just managed to calm them all down. When an apparition looking like a serene angel of death approached them, it undid all his hard work, and the townsfolk went hysterical again.🤣
What with this mayhem and the blackout, my grandparents reckoned it was as good a time as any to try for a second child.
Dad arrived 9 months later. He was a bright and athletic youngster ... athletic, that is, until polio struck at age 14. For my grandparents, after losing their first child, that must have been dreadful. Fortunately, he recovered, but was never very athletic again. Lost most of a year of school … which makes all the more remarkable that he would qualify for University of Toronto, and earn 3 degrees in 7 years. He had his PhD in chemistry by the time he was 24.
Dad was the strong, silent type. Preferred to avoid social contact whenever possible. This made his frame inconvenient - he was 6'4", and impossible to miss in a crowd. Going to church on Sunday mornings was intriguing: He wanted to slink in with one minute to spare, sit as close as possible to the back where he wouldn't be seen, and could avoid talking to anyone. Mum, who had been cooped up with small kids all week, wanted to talk with everybody. So we usually ended up somewhere in the middle.
A bit of a disciplinarian, Dad. Sometimes short-tempered, but also happy to throw the baseball with me, or lace the skates on. He took me to most of my hockey and baseball games, encouraged my academic interests, and was pleased as punch when I opted to study at the same U of Toronto. I think when I left home at 18, it was a wakeup call to him - suddenly his kids were flying the coop, and he'd been too focused on work. Classic male mistake. He'd have time to correct it. By the time he passed, we'd long buried the hatchet and become best mates. I can still hear the smile on his face every time I phoned.
Dad was too dutiful, typically for his generation, and possibly to a fault. He had deep interests in archaeology and paleontology that he would happily have pursued full-time, but never did. Instead, he did what everyone else expected of him - stay with the same employer to the end, and retire slightly early. Duty, duty, duty. He also had a terror of doctors. You can guess where that would end.
When my wife and I lost our first child at birth, I never saw a man more broken. Mum told me later that he was never the same after that. Reckon it was combination of losing his first grandchild, being unable to shield his own son from the pain, and the realization of the sister he never had.
When we upped sticks to the UK in pursuit of a dream, he could have poured cold water on our plans, but he didn't - he applauded wholeheartedly. Admitted to me privately he'd been too risk averse, and was delighted to see us take a big gamble. Even then, he didn't apply the lesson to himself, and chase his own dream. That, and the fear of doctors, led to his premature demise. Finally retiring at 63, he was dead 2 years later. Cancer.
It's a rare day I don't think of him. He inspires me to keep going.
FROM THE SOURCE
Continuing to barrel my way through 1 and 2 Samuel, the story of Saul, David, Jonathan, Goliath, etc.
Read any classic literature and every time you read it, you see something different.
What's struck me this time is how often mass hysteria happens in the Bible, how fast it strikes, how it is triggered by the most inoccuous of events, and that it happens at God's bidding.
In 1 Samuel 14, Saul's son Jonathan decides to attack the Philistines almost single-handedly - he has just his armour-bearer with him. They strike down 20 Philistines, just 20. And in verse 15 ... "Then panic struck the whole (Philistine) army ... It was a panic sent by God." The Philistines freak out and flee, all because one man struck down 20 of their number.
In 1 Samuel 17, it happens again, this time in the famous story of David and Goliath. In verse 51 ... "When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran." One man dies (yeah okay, he's a big man, but still only one), and their courage fails them. They'd put their trust in a human hero, who turned out to be just that: human.
Big mistake.
You still see this today.
You know the names of the heroes too: Putin, Trump, Zelensky, Carney, take your pick. We put our faith in a human hero, hoping that they will rescue us, and they will always let us down badly, and frequently turn on US and abuse US.
The mass hysteria phenomenon in 1 Samuel 14 and 17 happens in a number of earlier events too, where the Israelite army attacks an enemy, and the enemy is thrown into confusion and start attacking each other. It will happen several times later in Israeli history as well, as documented in the books of Kings and Chronicles. Every time, God destroys the enemy almost before the Israelites get to do anything. All the Israelites had to do was listen to God's voice, obey His instructions, and screw their courage to the sticking place.
Put your trust in the Only One who is fully trustworthy, peeps. Humans will let you down. HE won't.
VIEW FROM THE LAPTOP
I continue to be curious about the potential merits AND evils of technology.
Mentioned the post by the Academy of Ideas guys (see link above).
(and specifically ) just published a post on Father Seraphim Rose, the Eastern Orthodox priest in California. Rose eschewed (doncha love that word "eschew"? sounds tasty like Turkish Delight) technology entirely, writing about its evils, doing mostly manual labour, and sleeping on hard wooden planks.Rose had a point, but I am not convinced (yet).
For one thing, he himself did not eschew technology as much as he thought he did. He published books - that's technology. He slept on wooden planks, in a wooden hut most likely built with hand tools - that's technology. He probably used hand tools in his manual labour, and to prepare his food - technology.
He simply drew a line at some point in his thinking, deciding what for him was "technology" and what wasn't, rejecting what "was" and refusing thererafter to revisit the question.
He died relatively young, in great pain, of a condition that was treatable, had he been more open to revisiting the question.
Possibly his "arbitrary" decision about what constituted "technology" came down to which tools allowed him to feed his soul without harming anyone else, and which didn't. In which case, that's a worthy measuring rod. But such a measuring rod is not universal. Different people can apply it and reach different conclusions.
And there is also the matter of: How sure can you be that the tools you use are NOT causing harm to anyone else? Thus far, for example, I'm happy using AI tools in my daily work. What if those same tools are usable by other actors (e.g. governments) to oppress people? AI tools are also very energy-hungry, and while I'm no climate change activist, neither do I care to emit more carbon dioxide than necessary.
Keep asking such questions.
Dave, I enjoyed the wit and wisdom. Mike