thejdizzler
1d ago
- Work: Trying to implement some of Cal Newport's Deep Work ideas, and am realizing that my focus is shot, need to plan better. Wrote out a plan this morning of all the experiments that I need to do to graduate, and it seems very achievable. Starting to look for postdoc positions as well as industry jobs in Baltimore.
- Fitness: 7.5 hours (only running) last week. Foot is a little sore, so going to a). focus on cross training this week and b). make sure I stretch better.
- Intellectual Stuff: Limiting myself to one YouTube video and one blog post a day. Focusing on US history in English, and reading fiction in the Spanish and Italian. In the spirit of Cal Newport trying to only do one of these each day (Spanish, Italian, history reading) and give my full attention to it.
- Finances: This month is looking like it's going to be very light on expenses. We're halfway through and I've only spent $1200, and that includes rent. Still working on my parents' transfer.
- Dating: Have been really bad with masturbation this week, but no porn.
- Tarot: Didn't do this week.
- Socializing: Thesis defense party for my friend, workout Wednesday and probably swing dancing friday.
- Screen time: 1.5 hours again, which is pretty surprising, given I was on my phone for a lot of the conference.
Systems goals this month:
- Prioritize exercise, this is the year I go big.
- Reduce screen time via a combination of hard locks and behavioral change
- Simplify my life as much as possible!
thejdizzler
1d ago
Why is this strange? Italian is the closest living language to Italian.
thejdizzler
2d ago
I think it's 100% digital entertainment. Postman started to see this in 70s and 80s with TV, and the quantity and quality of mass entertainment options has only gotten more enticing and more splintered. While part of me thinks it's great that we have so many movies/shows/novels available now, I think it's pretty terrible for shared culture because people don't have a corpus of shared media in common. AI is only going to make this worse, as people can silo themselves into infinite realms of their favorite fan-fic slop that literally no one else in the world has read/watched.
thejdizzler
2d ago
Finishing Ethics marks the end of our metaphysical era in philosophy book club, started in the summer of 2025 when we read Hume. Can't say I'll be entirely sad to see it go, but I've learned a lot, and have been humbled (although Spinoza would say that's an evil emotion) by my weak grasp of logic.
This book did not start off very well for me; I remember texting my friend Amanda about how much I hated the first chapter. Ethics presented me with two challenges: the geometrical proof style of philosophy which often made Spinoza's reasoning a bit difficult to follow, as well as his appropriation of colloquial language to mean something different from what we understand it to be (the most confusing of these is probably the word God, which would maybe be better understood to mean nature or the universe, at least according to Schopenhauer). These two challenges, combined with some of Spinoza's assumptions, like the existence of cause and effect, made the beginning of this book frustrating and unconvincing. However, as we got into the nature of the mind, and then human psychology, and finally Spinoza's view of human freedom I began to like this tragic Jew of Amsterdam more and more.
Spinoza posits God as the one supreme substance that makes up the entirety of the universe and existence. Contained within the umbrella of God are the mental and physical planes, which are separate, but not independent like Decartes thought, but rather perfect reflections of each other. Everything that happens in the physical world has its equivalent in the mental plane and vis-versa. Human beings, not being God and having limited knowledge, have an incomplete understanding of this connection and of the world in general. The more complete our understanding of the world and ourselves is, the greater the power that we have to act in the world (rather than be acted on by external forces including our own emotions) and the more joyful we will be. Spinoza posits all the primary emotions in relation to the change in this power level: we feel sadness when it is diminished, and joy when it increases, and other emotions derive from these two in relation to other people, our desire (also a primary emotion) and the environment. Thus to be happy, according to Spinoza, is to maximize our own power in the world. While this might sound libertarian AF, just like Epicureanism sounds a little bit like luxury space communism, it actually isn't at all, as a truly rational being recognizes that his or her powers are at their strongest in a society of like-minded rational beings and strives to bring that reality about. Happiness, for Spinoza, as it will be for Nietzsche 250 years later, is about self-knowledge and actually taking action in the world. As I like to say, seek strength, and the rest will follow.
However, that doesn't mean I agree with everything Spinoza is saying. He seems to have a blind spot about non-human intelligence: despite admitting that everything has a mind, he states that non-human animals are fair game for complete exploitation because they do not have the same nature as humans, despite the fact that by his own logic they probably share quite a bit of that nature. This is a dangerous attitude that can serve as justification of rapacious exploitation of the natural world, something that Spinoza would probably find abhorrent. And as previously mentioned there is the problem of some of his axioms, which will not be fully solved until Kant successfully integrates Hume's critique of the rationalists almost a hundred years later.
thejdizzler
2d ago
Leading is indeed much harder because you have to decide what to do.
thejdizzler
3d ago
Lots of discussion in the last few weeks on the dating recession, and I wanted to add another (anecdotal) data point to the pile.
I've been swing dancing here in Baltimore on and off for about the last three years (started in 2024 after my girlfriend broke up with me). Initially classes and actual dancing were heavily female dominated, often at ratios of 5:4 or even 3:2. This year that has completely changed: my class tonight was short 11 follows in a class of ~30 total people, meaning the ratio of men to women is about 2:1. The instructors managed to get some more advanced people to drop in to help out as follows, but half of them were dudes who wanted to learn the follow part. This was roughly true in the last session of the class as well although not as pronounced.
What I hypothesize that has happened is the message that dating apps don't seem to work has trickled down to the male part of the population. Around the same amount of women are taking this class as in the before times (2024), but the number of men has almost doubled. Men are starting out to try and meet people in real life again! Which is awesome. But for whatever reason, this hasn't happened with women.
I'm not entirely sure why this is, because dating apps don't seem to particularly work for women either. Maybe the illusion of abundance is enough to keep them from thinking that they need to meet people in real life? Maybe they're all in a situationship with the same man (lol)? Maybe women just have stronger social connections in general and don't need to do something like dancing to meet people?
Thoughts TheMotte?
thejdizzler
3d ago
I'll have to check out both of those books. If I have one criticism of Toll is that this trilogy is a 100% focused on the USA. Australian and British efforts are a complete sideshow.
In terms of Civil War, we are planning on reading Bruce Catton's Army of The Potomac Trilogy.
Finishing Spinoza's Ethics. Actually came around to it after the very confusing first section. Also reading the second book of Ian Toll's Pacific War trilogy and the Golden Compass in Italian.
thejdizzler
5d ago
As a comparison for P/E of a company in a mature industry.
thejdizzler
6d ago
Google has a P/E of 27, AMZN 29, MSFT 25, NVDA: 36 Target: 15.
thejdizzler
6d ago
Well he's certainly right about this one. I'll see if I can find the specific piece, but there's no magic that justifies a higher P/E ratio for tech companies vs. say target or Union Pacific Rail other than promises of growth. At some point NVIDIA, GOOGL and AMZN have to trade at the same P/E range as the rest of the S&P. The only thing that justifies a higher ratio is a promise of above market growth, which will eventually stop at some point. I think we are currently at that point.
thejdizzler
6d ago
It's weird man because the war increases rates (good for shipping) but also increases risk for losses (bad for shipping). If the war continues long-term there will be less shipping volume total. The US backstop of oil shipping is another wildcard that I don't know how to interpret.
I think we're in an AI and tech in general bubble (Cory Doctrow has a good piece explaining why tech is overvalued: only the promise of growth keeps tech P/E above other industries, and eventually this has to settle down). As far as the broader market goes, I'm not sure. I'm up 12% this year on a strong group of rail/industrial/shipping and biotech stocks, but I don't know enough about the broader economy to really say if my picks are representative.
I think this may be the beginning of a long NVIDIA/AI route, but I have no idea if that will ripple to the rest of the economy. Iran and oil seem to be more dominant IMO.
thejdizzler
6d ago
Indeed, it was a submarine that ultimately finished off the Yorktown. How could I have forgotten.
thejdizzler
6d ago
Okay maybe obsolete isn't the right word. I think I mean counterable. Until cheap drones and long range missiles, the only thing that could effectively counter carriers were other carriers or land based air forces. The same is true with battleships. Before carriers, the only thing that could consistently counter a battleship was another battleship.
Motte conspiracy theory. I think @self_made_human and @faceh are the same person. Of course this is total bullshit. Faceh is a lawyer in Florida and Self made human is a doctor in Scotland. A mere examination of the distribution of their posting times shows that they probably are different people. Faceh is also much more gender war focused, while self_made_human has his fingers in almost every pie on the forum. The thing that makes me tongue-in-cheek suggest that they are the same person is a similar writing style: blocky paragraphs with an abundance of links and an abundance of quips.
My friend Dylan and I are embarking on a quest to read as many quality books as we can about US history this year. Although I've been having a very hard time with Indigenous continent (I think it's an awful book), I really enjoyed Ian Toll's The Pacific Crucible both from an entertainment standpoint and from a scholastic one.
Pacific Crucible starts dramatically at Pearl Harbor, backtracks a little bit to explain the US naval doctrine from the Spanish American War onwards and the reasons for Japanese militarism, and then proceeds chronologically until the Battle of Midway, alternating between the American and Japanese perspective. Although there were aspects of these first few months of the war that I feel like Toll covered too quickly (the battle for the East Indies), or even missed entirely (the submarine war on shipping for example), I learned a ton from this book.
-
Fascist elements in the Japanese military began to take over the country in the early 1930s as a result of the Great Depression and perceived slights by Western Powers against the Japanese Empire. These elements were allowed to eventually overthrow the Diet because Hirohito was extremely weak-willed. The invasion of Manchuria and the rest of China was a direct result of this military coup, and the Pacific war was a direct result of this because the US eventually refused to sell oil to Japan anymore.
-
Teddy Roosevelt and FDR were both big believers in naval power, although this naval bias played into a long US naval tradition of excellence at sea because of a need to protect global shipping. FDR actually started a massive carrier buildup in 1938, which made it such that new US carriers were ready as early as the end of 1942, which was incredibly important for faster victory in the Pacific.
-
Lots of racism from both sides which caused incredible lapses of judgement at Pearl Harbor and the Malaya campaign, and at Midway/Coral Sea.
-
At this stage in the war, Japanese pilots seemed to be far superior than the American ones. What prevented more Japanese victories at this stage in the war, as well as the collapse in capabilities from 1943 onward was poor command at a higher level (rivalry between the army and navy, lack of strategic vision or sober analysis of Japanese strength), and poor husbanding of human and material resources (veteran pilots got no break and were not used effectively to train new pilots, but were rather ground down completely by campaigns of attrition.
-
These naval battles seem incredibly confusing and unsettling. All your ships are miles away from each other, and you don't see the enemy basically at all, unless you are a bomber pilot. I suppose this has gotten even worse with the advent of drones or ballistic missiles, which have made carriers obsolete in the same way that carriers made battleships obsolete.
-
It's interesting how propaganda has completely changed our perception of WW2. In this book Toll notes that most Americans weren't super happy to be going to war, but were resigned to get the job done. Very different from how WW2 is portrayed now, as the "good war".
thejdizzler
7d ago
Eastern bloc science fiction is worth checking out. Stanislaw Lem is my favorite of these, but there's some cool soviet writers as well.
thejdizzler
8d ago
The quarterly profits comment was a bit tongue in cheek. I am talking about 2000+ years because that’s what this existential risk planning entails. There are arguably only 2 countries (Japan and China) that have been around culturally that long, 1 institution (the Catholic Church), and as far as I know no corporations.
thejdizzler
8d ago
Man I actually love this solution. At worst the billionaires would just massively bribe part of the population, which would certainly help alleviate the current problem.
thejdizzler
8d ago
Longtermism has never been a long term policy of a corporation, nation, or even family. Unless there’s something that boosts quarterly profits, it’s not happening.
thejdizzler
8d ago
Okay but why would anyone actually want to live on Mars? You basically have to live inside 24/7 in quarters that are probably quite similar to a submarine, with crazy rules and regulations to make sure nothing goes wrong. It's just not very appealing to the vast majority of people, and with the demographic crisis on earth, it really doesn't seem like something many people are going to volunteer for.
thejdizzler
8d ago
- Work: At a conference in Chicago this week, which feels like a bit of a vacation!
- Fitness: 11 hours last week, will be quite a bit lower this week as I'm mainly running at my parents' house and I can't do as high of volume of pure running. Expect to be around 8-9 hours this week. Feeling quite fit: HRV and RHR both spiked in the appropriate direction and my workout times have been getting better and better.
- Intellectual Stuff: Finished Marx and a Pacific War book this week. Haven't been amazing about doing my Italian and Spanish while I've been at my parents'. Planning out blog posts for this month too.
- Finances: As detailed in a Sunday post, my parents are giving me a large sum of money to help with buying a house. I probably won't use it for that right away, but it's nice to know I'll be able to make a large downpayment if I want to. I am slightly worried that this money is going to influence my spending behavior, so I'm determined to stick to my spending targets for at least the rest of this year. Dividends and interest can just help me save more. To that end I was well below my budget of $3200 last month (2750) and also made about a thousand dollars more than normal (checking account deal, cat sitting, PT cash back, substack subscribers, etc).
- Dating: Masturbated once to porn this week, but otherwise was completely clean all week. Went on a date last Wednesday, but didn't really like the girl despite her being perfect on paper. have paused all the dating apps and am not going to seek out a relationship deliberately right now.
- Tarot: Really good session with my ex-roommate who's still a bit frustrating to talk to (he is really bad at engaging with his desires or using his will).
- Socializing: None really this week as I've been back in Chicago. Visited my godparents and their kids and played Mahjong with my parents which I guess counts.
- Screen time: 1.5 hours, which I think I can get to one hour with a bit more work
thejdizzler
8d ago
Ahh yes you and the other commenters are correct. I mistakenly thought the 1:17 was during the Toba event (massive volcano eruption 30k years ago) but looks like that's wrong from a quick google search.
I totally agree. The two exes ago girl (last girl I was probably in love with) begged me to stay friends with her after she broke up with me, despite the fact the first time I had hung out with her we had fucked. The entire relationship was completely romantic (we had sex 80+% of the times we ever hung out), but she seemed to think that somehow the relationship had a strong platonic foundation that we could maintain. I initially agreed because I thought I could change her mind back. That obviously didn't work out, and I learned that this woman was a terrible person to be friends with because her extreme dogmatism combined with terrible mental health. I ended up terminating the friendship after a couple months because I realized she was never going to get back together with me, and that I didn't really want her to anyway.
On the flip side of the coin, I think having female friends who you have no intention of sleeping with ever is perfectly fine and perhaps even good. Women are just as diverse as men when it comes to platonic personality, and it seems crazy to remove 50% of the population from the friendship pool solely because someone might get feelings. I have few very close female friends from college/work that I have absolutely no feelings for and I'm very glad they're in my life. I would never be open to a relationship with any of these women, and unless you plan to get married, I think the friendship->lover boundary should never be crossed, because unfortunately you can't really go back.
More options
Context Copy link