dis image has got cat looking at some past videos, 1990s new york, 2000s new york how people use to behave, and dress, what these restaurant and shops look like, etc, overall, definitely feels like just about everyone and even every thing, has more aura? from videos cat watched of 20 ish years ago, everyone seemed rather observant, as if their eq is pretty high, and people use to seem more unique, and seemed vastly more socializable each person, the way they talk also seem more unique, i guess it all make sense cus we're much more on our devices, but yah the city also use to be more dense, is another thing cat realized, saw some footage of those smaller 5 story malls in new york, the way everything was displayed, actually looks like a hongkong or tokyo mall that tells cat that the foot traffic use to be much more significant, and that traffic of people use to be more social, more unique, and more observant anyways, not really trying to say if one is better or worse necessarily, maybe itd be a introvert nightmare, or maybe none of us would be introverts to begin with if we were never fed devices from a young age cat just making some observations, that people use to have way more aura

Thiel on Trump: “There are a lot of things I got wrong... was crazier than I thought. It was more dangerous than I thought.” “You wish they’d appointed more competent people.” “administration is… staffed by not very smart but very loyal people”

On the topic of super smart people: when in a room you can just tell when someone is top 1%.. they pick up topics way faster than others, make cross links faster, stronger working memory etc For rest of us (even if you are “above average”) working hard still gets you far

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping at one point if he would to like to buy some American armaments, US Ambassador to China David Perdue says.

A family member did something similar in 1988. Was extremely wealthy vs peers at the time. Drove around in cahffeur driven Rolls Royce. Had large bond portfolio and clipped 7-8% coupons for 20-30 years. By mid 2010s could no longer afford the life they were accustomed to. Bond yields were down. Principal bever increased. Ritz Paris was no longer $500 a night like in the 90s but $2,500+ and all her “peers” had grown their businesses 10x. Never stop building!

Corporate jobs are going to go from a high status to a low status thing

白宫晚宴上的这一幕，《悲惨世界》经典旋律。不能不联想到背后有安排曲目的意味深长…… 《Do You Hear the People Sing?》中文常译“你听见人民在歌唱”或港版填词“问谁未发声”，在2014雨伞运动和2019反修例示威中被大量传唱，大陆主流流媒体一度下架英文原曲。 香港教育部门后来禁止学校演唱带政治信息的歌曲，更著名的《愿荣光归香港》后来被法院禁制。 所以这首曲在中方官员耳朵里，应该比普通百老汇名曲更刺耳。这次现场主唱的是同一部剧里的《One Day More》，只是掺进了前一首的旋律和歌词碎片，没有把整首“人民在歌唱”完整唱出来。 这首歌在剧情中的位置，恰恰是学生革命者准备起义前夕。 没文化很可怕，也许，在礼炮与红毯之下，也深埋着嘲讽与暗喻……

This is a heuristic I learned early in my career that has saved me a good deal of money. Generally speaking: If you are short an asset and it experiences a stream of negative news that fails to push the asset lower, get out. If you are long an asset and it experiences a stream of positive news that fails to push the asset higher, get out.

And we have the election risk coming soon for the broad market for the AI/Data center related sectors if Democrats sweep; depending on the poll results we may see some impact 2-3 weeks from now before the election too...

I'm reminded of the Frenchman who bet big on Trump on Polymarket in 2024 because he hired a pollster to ask "who do you think your neighbors are voting for" instead of "who are you voting for". Curious if this will hold up here.

I had not realised before that the Bronze Age Collapse was literally *caused* by iron. Bronze age powers like the Egyptians, Hittites and Babylonians used bronze weapons, made by combining copper and tin. Tin was so scarce that only the richest and most powerful groups could access it and the bronze weapons it allowed. (Tin was so rare that it was being transported from Cornwall to the Middle East more than 1000 years BC.) The scarcity of tin gave these empires a near-monopoly on violence. Iron weapons are not actually any better than bronze ones – they're not stronger or easier to work with, as I'd assumed. They're just much, much easier to mass produce once you have bloomeries, which are the first furnaces that were hot enough to melt iron in a way that made them useable for weapons. Bloomeries meant that iron ore, which was widespread, could be used to make weapons anywhere. That led to warlords, bandits and city-states rising in a massive decentralization of military power, which the Bronze Age empires were unable to resist. After the invention of the bloomery, skeletons show a measurable increase in weapon-inflicted injuries. 'Destruction layers' with bones and signs of burning have been found from this time at archaeological sites including Troy. Ancient writers – including Herodotus, Ovid, and the writers of the Old Testament – believed the invention of iron had unleashed a new age of violence. New at Works in Progress, WEAPONS OF MASS DECENTRALIZATION: how iron itself brought about the Bronze Age Collapse. And what technologies could do the same today? worksinprogress.co/issue/wea…

This Kalshi ad is among the most dystopian ones I’ve seen from any betting app

"This is the autopen... it's Biden." 🤣 President Trump shows off the legendary Presidential Walk of Fame to President Xi.

Christian nationalist pastor Brian Sauvé says women should not have access to social media unless "some competent man is curating and blocking and directing and taking a look at what's going on." peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch…

this has been famously remarked on by american diplomats. despite being nominally allies, us diplomats sometimes find it challenging to relate to their japanese counterparts and despite being nominally rivals, their chinese complements are much more simpatico.