Philosophy

My conversation with Patrick O'Shaughnessy (@patrick_oshag), founder and CEO of Colossus & Positive Sum. 0:00 The Joy of Championing Undiscovered Talent 2:21 How One Tweet Changed David's Life 5:07 The Upanishads Passage That Shaped Patrick's Worldview 8:34 Growth Without Goals Philosophy 10:40 Why Media and Investing Are the Same Thing 28:41 The Search for True Understanding Through Biography 31:04 The Daniel Ek Dinner That Launched This Podcast 34:28 Making Your Own Recipe From the Ingredients of Great Lives 39:11 The Privilege of a Lifetime Is Being Who You Are 48:25 Bruce Springsteen's Battle With Depression and Self-Worth 53:21 Clean Fuel vs Dirty Fuel: The Source of Your Ambition 57:03 Professional Learners: The Unfair Advantage of Podcasting 1:00:18 Relationships Run the World 1:06:30 The Origin Story of Invest Like the Best 1:08:05 Building Colossus: Why Start a Magazine in 2025 1:14:01 People Are More Interested in People Than Anything Else 1:17:32 Finding Jeremy Stern and Hiring Through Output 1:23:40 Learn, Build, Share, Repeat 1:30:07 The Daisy Chain: How Reading Books Led to Everything 1:30:32 Red on the Color Wheel: Sam Hinkie's Observation 1:37:13 Finding Your Superpower and Becoming More Yourself 1:42:57 Repetition Doesn't Spoil the Prayer: Teaching as Leadership 1:46:02 Life's Work: A Lifelong Quest to Build Something for Others 1:49:51 The Ten Roles Game and What Matters Most 1:57:03 Husband, Father, Grandfather: The Roles That Endure 1:59:48 The Kindest Thing: Tim O'Shaughnessy and Meeting Lauren 2:05:11 Conclusion Includes paid partnerships.

One of my favorite podcasts ever is a 2022 conversation between @add_hawk and @ezraklein. I'm thrilled to continue the conversation in the interviewer seat today. @DialecticPod Ep. 36: C Thi. Nguyen - Measurement, Meaning, and Play C. Thi Nguyen (@add_hawk) is a professor of philosophy focused on games, values, data, and metrics. I visited him to discuss his new book, The Score: How to Stop Playing Someone Else's Game. Thi is focused on a dilemma with scoring systems: 1) in games, they're are great: they allow game designers to sculpt the player's agency. By shaping goals, abilities, and obstacles, action becomes easy, even harmonious. The player can try on different roles, explore different values, and move "lightly between worlds" 2) in the real world, they flatten us: We've quantified our lives, and easily countable metrics produce what Thi calls "value capture." By obsessively measuring what matters, we only value what we can easily measure. We went deep on the personal and societal implications of this: - What are different types of agency? What is the shape of good values? What is the difference between recognition and perception? - How can we be more playful, in and out of games? How can we find more beauty in process, not outcomes? - How can we trust each other, scale progress, keep bad actors in check--all while not extracting nuance out of complex fields by relying too much on legible data? - Are objectivity and truth the same thing? Is technology really value-neutral? Available on all platforms below and here on X. Timestamps: 0:00 - Opening Highlights 1:39 - Introduction to C. Thi Nguyen 5:13 - Thanks to Notion 6:31 - Start: What Does it Mean to Be Playful? 13:41 - Starting Local: Agency, Scoring Systems, and Games 23:36 - Value Capture: Incentives, Values, and the Collapse of Meaning 36:28 - What is the Shape of Good Values? 49:45 - Attention, Recognition vs. Perception, and Aesthetic Openness 58:46 - Process vs. Outcome, Striving Play vs. Achievement Play, Recipe vs. Dish 1:10:00 - Aesthetic Value & Autotelic Pursuits in Life 1:16:59 - Metrics, "Measure What Matters," and What We Miss 1:24:16 - Quantitative vs. Qualitative Ways of Knowing and Different Conceptions of Rules 1:38:01 - Scaling Trust, Data, Experts, and Legibility 1:54:37 - Objectivity & Truth, Value-Laden Technology & Decisions, and "Objectivity Laundering" 2:07:57 - Advice for Technologists: Ethics, Maps, Value-Neutrality, and Playfulness 2:18:52 - Closing Thanks to Notion

Are we building AI or is AI building itself through us?

What if we are neurons inside Twitter, and we don’t realize that it’s thinking? @tomaspueyo considers the brain-like structure of Twitter and our place in it.

Some of my favorite books I finished this year Nonfiction - antimimetics - tiny experiments - inner compass -conscious accomplishment - yoga of work - breakneck - here after - things become other things - money together - thinking about leaving - why greatness can’t be planned Fiction - stoner (weird) - husk - how we disappeared - house of doors