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Mark123100 PM
Biography
Joined Oct '15

Respect List:

Monty Oum

Shane Newville

Jackie Chan

Bruce Lee

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Dexter Manning

Olan Rogers

Martin O'Donnell

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Galileo Galilei

Charles Robert Darwin

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000

Death Battle Community

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tommylau74

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Switchback Channel

000

Emmanuel Salva Cruz

Matt Roszak and Phyrnna

Justin Goncalves, Mike Sleva and Addison Rodomista

Krin Juangbhanich and David Orr

000

Aaron Blaise

KC Green

Benjamin Bratton

Jamie De Jonge

J The Concept

Jabrils

Under The Mayo

000

John Egbert

Dave Strider

Karkat Vantas

Dirk Strider


"A game with one choice is no different than a game with two choices, or a game with ten thousand million choices, because these choices function as part of a larger system, and a system cannot help but make claims."


"It would be a discussion for the ages to be sure. My view is that they would be initially intrigues by each other's viewpoints before eventually finding that they despise each other. Kreia would consider Jolee laissez-faire approach to galactic affairs and his choice to run and hide from his personal struggles to be a massive waste. Jolee would find Kreia's dogged adherence to her philosophy and the pain and suffering behind it to be just as wasteful."

"You have suffered, seen the contrast, understood the limitations of the Jedi code whether you realized or not. Yet to gain such a perspective and turn away from it, seclude oneself on an isolated planet? There is no strength in such a thing, only erosion. If you cannot teach what you have learned, then it is as nothing."

"I don't have any interest in teaching anyone. I'd be terrible at it. I assure you, anything you might have learned from me is entirely accidental on my part. What I don't understand is why you can't simply let go. You've rejected the codes of the Jedi and the Sith, and that's commendable from where I stand, but all you seem to have done is replace them with a different code, just as rigid as theirs. Just because you created it yourself doesn't make you any less bound to it."

"And you? You would be content to take what you have learned, your struggles, your choices, and let them wither away, forgotten? To see your wife, and what you and she endured, lost to the whims of an uncaring history, to the benefit of no one?"

"If that's what it came to, yes. You should try it sometime. I believe the Jedi made a mistake, many mistakes in fact. But could I have done better in their place? I can't say. I don't think I have it in me to truly teach whatever it is I've learned. And the path you've chosen? It worries me."

"I do not need your concern, fallen Jedi, I only desire for you to one day realize the potential you carry before it is too late."

"And I wish the same for you. The path you follow won't serve the galaxy or yourself, and it will only consume and destroy you in the end. Maybe that's what you want, but I urge you to reconsider. You could be so much more if you could just stop trying to chase codes and philosophies and just...be decent."

"There is no future in such aimlessness, such lack of conviction."

"I don't know, maybe you simply can't see it."


"Irony won't save you from anything; humour doesn't do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn't matter how brave you are, or how reserved, or how much you've developed a sense of humour, you still end up with your heart broken. That's when you stop laughing."


The sassier a content creator is with their content and internet personas, the more likely they are to be genuinely toxic and petty and spiteful over the most trivial of disagreements. It's a pattern of demonstrated behavior over time.


We don't just fight the battles we can win. Sometimes, you have to fight because that's the only thing that keeps you sane.


"Saints are less interesting than jerks, Kenneth."


These days, questioning trans people and trans activists is considered to be more heretical and more taboo than questioning God.


"I have been LetsPlaying video games since 2006, I have NEVER never come across people getting so upset over a fucking video game, in the comments before. Like, personally offended, thinking less of me as a human being for my decisions in a video game and that blows my mind."


"My mistake was thinking that video games are art. I wanted to make a game about a guy who’s a piece of shit unlikable character, who by the end of the game has to transform. But too many gamers, when they look at this, when they play a game, they’re so used to having to identify with the character, that if they play a game where the main character is unlikable or has to do some bad stuff, they immediately get triggered by it. So, the thing is, games aren’t art. They’re toys for children and it’s considered in bad form to talk about anything meaningful, or impactful or thought provoking."


There are lots of ways to talk about humor, and most if not all of them are subjective. It's easy to complain about trying too hard or not trying enough, but it's also easy to forget that comedy itself isn't inherently dignified or sophisticated.

Often, it's not even about whether or not the jokes are funny. It's about whether or not you respect the person you're speaking to, and your reasons for feeling that way. It depends on whether or not you respect someone, their narrative, and the ground they're standing on.

I respect some of those people... but not all of them. Never all of them.


"The Dark Side does make you weak. It makes you hate yourself, and then draw power from that loathing. And even for those of us who never want to touch it again, it burrows under your skin. Every battle I have to fight it off. Every time I draw my lightsaber, it’s humming alongside me, offering unimaginable victories if I am willing to embrace it."


At the end of the day, things like wit and sass and irony and postmodernism are just tools.

Tools that irony lovers use to spitefully piss all over a reality that they've made very clear that they do not want to participate in.

It's a very childish thing to do, and it's a very childish thing to believe in.

You can tell, because they've been poisoning themselves and everyone around them with irony for so long that the ironic world that they cling to is the only reality that they are willing to care about.

They're unwilling to find the strength and courage to acknowledge the value of a more honest world because they're afraid of honesty, and that leads to a society where genuinely kind, honest, sincere people stand to lose everything because of fear and paranoia and an inability to simply appreciate something at face value instead of viewing it through an ironic, insincere lens.

Because if it really was all in the name of a harmless jape, then it wouldn't hurt anybody to come clean about the ironic punchline if it were that easy to understand and explain.

But for the irony lovers... it would hurt them too much to be honest.

Distance yourself from that defense of wit and humor and sarcasm... ask one honest question, any honest question at all about who they are and why they constantly do what they do...

And their inevitable reaction will tell you everything about who these people really are on the inside.

It's not very surprising when you figure out the pattern.

That's why I don't like these people, and I don't respect them because they haven't done anything to earn respect other than... dabbing on homophobes and transphobes and shitting on people for liking violent video games.

It's not a punchline.

It's an excuse for bad behavior.

And only an irony-lover would ever sincerely want to pretend otherwise.


"What do you think being human means? That's what we do. We make mistakes. Sometimes, out of those mistakes come the most amazing things... When I fixed you, it was for a reward. That was it. That was why. The money. And it was me making a mistake. Without it, you wouldn't be here. So even if you got no faith in us, I'm asking you to do what I do. I'm asking you to look at all the junk and see the treasure. You gotta have faith, Prime, in who we can be."


In times of great darkness, people wait for a hero's light to shine from far above.

But sometimes, you have to be your own hero because you can't wait forever.

Not without losing something precious along the way.


"I will be making a Big Speech at 10 a.m. on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House). Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the steal!"

"Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"


"When a child comes out to bigoted parents, it destroys lives. When Magneto came out as a mutant, he killed a whole town in his grief. Being a mutant... shares traits with other persecuted groups, but it is unlike it in one way. We are dangerous."


"What if you walk along and everything that you see is more than what you see–the person in the T-shirt and slacks is a warrior, the space that appears empty is a secret door to an alternate world? What if, on a crowded street, you look up and see something appear that should not, given what we know, be there? You either shake your head and dismiss it or you accept that there is much more to the world than we think. Perhaps it really is a doorway to another place. If you choose to go inside, you might find many expected things."


"I find myself envying the children. Perhaps some fundamental difference exists between those who become Nobodies as adults and otherwise. The longer you have lived, the more you are positioned to lose with such a gamble. But a child can look forward, unafraid even in the face of immeasurable odds. I doubt they even see life as a gamble the way we do."


"This is obviously very bad when you are an artist, as most video game developers are. So, the now famous Warren Robinett, the original creator of Adventure, decided to challenge the Warner Communications executives and hid his name in the game in a secret room that no one at Atari would be able to find, but that some kid player might.

"And of course, that’s what happened, a kid by the name of Adam Clayton found it on his own while playing the game and sent a letter to Atari describing the method to reach the easter egg."

"Thanks to his revolutionary idea, Warren Robinett’s name is now immortal, and that, I think, is really fascinating, and is part of what we tried to convey in our game. Because, in my opinion, that’s one of the things art can do for you. It can make you immortal. It can preserve your ideas for thousands of years, and inspire millions of consumers of your work, as the original Adventure has done."


"Gohan, let it go. It is not a sin to fight for the right cause. There are those who words alone will not reach. Cell is such a being. You are gentle. You do not like to hurt. I know because I too have learned these feelings. But it is because you cherish life that you must protect it. Please drop your restraints. Protect the life I loved. You have the strength, my scanners sensed it. Just... let it go."

"Gohan. Listen to me. There are some foes who cannot be reasoned with. You are allowed to fight on the side of justice. Seize upon your anger. Wield it like a weapon. I understand your reluctance, but holding it in is pointless. Gohan, I love the animals and everything about nature. Protect them. For me."

"Gohan. Grow up. You act like you are the only one suffering, but I believe that Trunks has some stories for you. And I can assume they all end with ‘And then he died too.’ And before you start whining about your father again — and I get it — take a moment to consider that my father made me a soulless killing machine to kill your father. And that doesn’t even come close to the complete tragedy of fatherhood that is Vegeta. Cell was right. You think you’re better than everyone else, but there you stand: the good man doing nothing. And while evil triumphs and your rigid pacifism crumbles into bloodstained dust, the only victory afforded to you is that you stuck true to your guns. You are a coward, to your last whimper. Of fear and love, I fear not that I will die, but that I have come to love: the birds, and the things that are not birds, will perish with me. So please, Gohan, stop holding back. And hey, if we do make it out of this, please pick up my head... AND BEAT YOUR FATHER TO DEATH WITH I—"


Forgiveness is a personal choice for peace of mind, not an ultimatum that you use to shit on people just for being honestly reluctant and sincere about what's in front of them.


"Global cabal theories ask us to believe that while it is very difficult to predict and control the actions of 1,000 or even 100 humans, it is surprisingly easy to puppet master nearly eight billion."

"Today, too, you are probably the target of many conspiracies. Your co-workers may be plotting to turn the boss against you. A big pharmaceutical corporation may be bribing your doctor to give you harmful opioids. Another big corporation may be pressuring politicians to block environmental regulations and allow it to pollute the air you breathe. Some tech giant may be busy hacking your private data. A political party may be gerrymandering election districts in your state. A foreign government may be trying to foment extremism in your country. These could all be real conspiracies, but they are not part of a single global plot."

"Realizing that no single cabal can secretly control the entire world is not just accurate — it is also empowering. It means that you can identify the competing factions in our world, and ally yourself with some groups against others. That’s what real politics is all about."


"Right. I won't keep you. Though - one last thing. Piece of advice? Do yourself a favor. No matter what you do, keep your eyes open. Even if you're running away. Even if what you see hurts or doesn't make sense - because you might just figure it out someday. Look for the things other people don't notice - the things they take for granted, or don't talk about, or don't think of. And whatever you do, don't let anyone tell you what to think." "Including you?" "Especially me. Unless your life depends on it. Which, to be honest, does happen on a fairly frequent basis. But don't let me hold you up. Off you go, then."


"So generally white people say, I’m not racist, and black people say, I can’t be racist. There’s a similar form of denial that is essential to the life of racism itself. You have black people who believe that they can’t be racist because they believe that black people don’t have power and that’s blatantly not true. Every single person on earth has the power to resist racist policies and power."

"Cynicism is the kryptonite of change."


"And I think I've hit upon a Doylist explanation for why Undertale is so morally bizarre: All the characters in Undertale have no canonical existence, they have all been preemptively rewritten as the characters that fandom would have turned them into. Undertale as it exists now, is like the fanon version of a game that never existed."

"In Undertale Prime, Papyrus is pretty much an exact duplicate of Skeletor: an evil mastermind whose plans never come to fruition. Constantly frustrated, taking out his anger on his minions in the most hilariously melodramatic ways."

"In Undertale Prime, Undyne is a deadly serious super-soldier. Even a bit of a sadist. She is acquainted with Alphys, but there’s no romance between them."

"In Undertale Prime, Mettaton has no Mettaton EX form. He remains a rectangular robot for the entire game, but his personality shows small signs of the sass and flamboyance of Mettaton EX."

"In Undertale Prime, Alphys is a tetchy mad scientist, more like Cumberbatch’s Sherlock than anything else. Prickly on the surface, lonely underneath. There’s no mention of anime or internet arguments or anything like that."

"In Undertale Prime, Asgore is stern and serious, and completely in charge, but tormented by the necessary evils he has committed to protect his kingdom. Like a more sympathetic version of a king from a Shakespearean tragedy."

"We’ve seen these character archetypes before, and we can guess how a typical fandom would reinterpret these archetypes: The Thwarted Mastermind becomes a Bumbling Narcissist. The Deadly Soldier becomes a Hot-Blooded Blockhead. The Mad Scientist becomes an Adorable Nerd. The Geometric Robot becomes a Svelte Bishonen.(look at Bill Cipher fanart) The Tormented King becomes Sad Dad. (and the most sympathetic/admirable women become lesbians) But most importantly, all these villains would become sympathetic. They’d become comedy relief, or even woobies."

"Undertale takes the most probable fanon reinterpretations of Undertale Prime, and makes them canon. Why are the villains actions treated so cavalierly? Because typical fandom wouldn’t care. Typical fandom forgives villains, typical fandom makes villains cute."

"But the discrepancy is this: in Undertale, the characters’ actions all remain the same as they would be in the dark and serious story of Undertale Prime. They play the same role in the plot, they are still Villains. The only things that change are their personalities, and the manner in which they are presented to the audience. The result is that Undertale Prime makes moral sense, but Undertale does not."

"It’s as if the Avengers canonically considered Bucky Barnes a family friend and acted as if the events of The Winter Soldier had never happened, as fandom wishes it were– But Bucky was still a terrorist."

"It’s as if the characters in Borderlands 2 saw Handsome Jack as charming comic relief, the way the audience does– but Handsome Jack was still a murderous psychopath."

"It’s as if, in Kingdom Hearts 2, Organization XIII were portrayed as the bickering sitcom family that the KH fandom made them into– but they were still trying to kill Sora and friends."

"Every playthrough of the Kingdom Hearts franchise involves killing every member of Organization XIII. But I guarantee you every Kingdom Hearts fan has their favorite Organization member."

"None of the characters in Undertale are “held responsible” for attacking Frisk, because a game audience typically does not hold boss characters responsible for attacking the player. Instead, the audience sees them, through a Doylist/Mechanics-oriented lens, as a welcome addition to the game: a challenging battle and an entertaining character."

"Undertale takes the player’s expected affectionate attitude towards bosses, and makes it the “objectively morally right” choice, according to the game’s in-world metaphysics."

"Undertale is not just a game that preaches pathological altruism, it is, in itself, a pathologically altruistic text– a text that privileges the interpretation it expects to be subjected to over its own internal structure and logic, and preemptively changes itself to make those expected interpretations into objective truth, even when those changes create plotholes and morally repugnant implications. A game, suffering to make itself everything the world expects it to be, about a child who suffers to make itself everything the world expects it to be."

"And finally, in Undertale Prime, all bosses are killed without remorse or punishment."

"I agree wholeheartedly. Fandom is a community where dubious fans collectively decide to vindicate and absolve and downplay and justify the dubious actions of dubious people. It’s been a thing since the Snape/Draco fan bandwagon, ages ago. But when an influencer as popular as Radiation decides to cater to the fandom mentality… it leads to terrible situations all around."


"transition would have fixed cloud tho. his whole fucking… situation is about rediscovering a true self which he’d concealed under a hypermasculine constructed identity which he used to protect himself from trauma he’d buried so deeply it was beyond conscious recall. like this twink is so fucking trans it’s unreal"

"transition wouldn’t have saved sephiroth but I do want to see what estrogen would add to that whole situation"

"...Sigh. Influencers. Am I right, lads?"


"I believe I have stumbled across a technical and (pardon my human terminology) Doylist explanation for why the narrative experience known as "Undertale" is morally bizarre to the most absurd of degrees. The primary characters in Undertale have no canonical existence. They were preemptively rewritten as the idealized caricatures that the fandom phenomenon would have transformed them into. Undertale, as it currently exists... is essentially the "fanon" version of a video game that never existed in the first place."


As Mr. Darcy walked off, Elizabeth felt her blood turn cold. She had never in her life been so insulted. The warrior code demanded she avenges her honor. Elizabeth reached down to her ankle, taking care not to draw attention. There, her hand met the dagger concealed beneath her dress. She meant to follow this proud Mr. Darcy outside and open his throat.


"Liberals have cried wolf too many times. If everything is racist and sexist, nothing is. When Trump, the real wolf, came along, no one listened."

("And why would they have? This was ages after sarcasm became the hottest trend since French Toast, mate.")


"Maybe I’m just so sick of being called a bigot that my anger at the authoritarian left has pushed me to support this seriously flawed man."


"When blacks blame today’s whites for slavery or ask for reparations, many white Americans feel as though they are being attacked for the sins of other generations."

("And the thing is... people who feel like they're being unfairly attacked... they usually don't retain much empathy or sympathy for these loud folks who are always on the offensive. Just saying, mate.)


"I’m a white guy. I’m a well-educated intellectual who enjoys small arthouse movies, coffeehouses and classic blues. If you didn’t know any better, you’d probably mistake me for a lefty urban hipster."

"And yet. I find some of the alt-right stuff exerts a pull even on me. Even though I’m smart and informed enough to see through it. It’s seductive because I am not a person with any power or privilege, and yet I am constantly bombarded with messages telling me that I’m a cancer, I’m a problem, everything is my fault."

"I am very lower middle class. I’ve never owned a new car, and do my own home repairs as much as I can to save money. I cut my own grass, wash my own dishes, buy my clothes from Walmart. I have no clue how I will ever be able to retire. But oh, brother, to hear the media tell it, I am just drowning in unearned power and privilege, and America will be a much brighter, more loving, more peaceful nation when I finally just keel over and die."

"Trust me: After all that, some of the alt-right stuff feels like a warm, soothing bath. A “safe space,” if you will. I recoil from the uglier stuff, but some of it— the “hey, white guys are actually okay, you know! Be proud of yourself, white man!” stuff is really VERY seductive, and it is only with some intellectual effort that I can resist the pull … If it’s a struggle for someone like me to resist the pull, I imagine it’s probably impossible for someone with less education or cultural exposure."


“A genius is the man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind.”


"History never repeats itself. Man always does."


"Some lessons must be experienced before they can be understood."


"My aunt worked several years in what Americans call “sweat shops.” It was hard work. Long hours, “small” wage, “poor” working conditions. Do you know what my aunt did before she worked in one of these factories? She was a prostitute. The idea of working in a “sweat shop” compared to that old lifestyle is an improvement, in my opinion. I know that my aunt would rather be “exploited” by an evil capitalist boss for a couple of dollars than have her body be exploited by several men for pennies. That is why I am upset by many Americans’ thinking. We do not have the same opportunities as the West. Our governmental infrastructure is different. The country is different. Yes, factory is hard labor. Could it be better? Yes, but only when you compare such to American jobs."


"We live paycheck-to-paycheck and saving seems out of reach. Our prospects for much higher wages seem out of reach. We can’t afford nice vacations, new cars, health insurance, or homes in safe neighborhoods. We can’t put our kids through college without crippling debt. Much of the stuff you people who read finance books either have now, or have a good chance of getting, we don’t. Buying a lottery ticket is the only time in our lives we can hold a tangible dream of getting the good stuff that you already have and take for granted. We are paying for a dream, and you may not understand that because you are already living a dream. That’s why we buy more tickets than you do."


"Yes, clearly. One has to remember that in 1923 we had the inflation … nobody had anything, everybody was unhappy. Then Adolf came to power with his new idea. For most that was indeed better. People who hadn’t had a job for years had a job. And then the people were all for the system. When someone helps you get out of an emergency situation and into a better life, then you’re going to give them your support. Do you think people would then say, “This is all such nonsense. I’m against that”? No. That doesn’t happen. How things were done later on is something else. But the people at that time were happy, even full of enthusiasm, and they all joined in."


"Reversion to the mean is one of the most common stories in history. It’s the main character in economies, markets, countries, companies, careers – everything. Part of the reason it happens is because the same personality traits that push people to the top also increase the odds of pushing them over the edge."


"What kind of 32-year-old thinks they can take on GM, Ford, and NASA at the same time? The kind of person who thinks normal constraints don’t apply to them – not in an egotistical way, but in a genuine, believe-it-in-your-bones way. Which is also the kind of person who doesn’t worry about, say, SEC rulings about your Twitter etiquette."

"The kind of person who says there’s a 99.9999% chance humanity is a computer simulation is not the kind of person worried about making untenable promises to shareholders."

"A mindset that can dump a personal fortune into colonizing Mars is not the kind of mindset that worries about the downsides of hyperbole."

"Musk is a visionary genius. He’s an extraordinary engineer. He’s a lot of amazing things. But the same traits that have fueled success have counteracting sides that make keeping that success a challenge, which partly explains Tesla’s current state."

"History is full of these things in varying degrees. At some level they apply to all of us because the successes we have – at any level – trigger behaviors that can make keeping those successes difficult. Overconfidence. Over-optimism. Cherry-picking."

"Jason Zweig summed this up so well: “Being right is the enemy of staying right because it leads you to forget the way the world works.”"


"There’s a long history of military leaders following a logic that goes like this: “The enemy is outnumbered. They are out-gunned. We are gaining ground each day. Their morale will soon break and, accepting reality, they will surrender.”"

"And then that outnumbered, out-gunned enemy keeps fighting, and fighting, and fighting. Sometimes to the last man."

"A rational person might look at this and say, “Why are they still fighting? It’s unsustainable, and they have to know it.”"

"But wars often aren’t governed by spreadsheets and clean reasoning. During the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh put it bluntly: “You will kill ten of us, and we will kill one of you, but it is you who will tire first.”"


"This goes up the food chain, from the broker to the CEO, the investors, the real estate appraiser, the realtor, the house flipper, the politician, the central banker – incentives lean heavily towards not rocking the boat. So everyone keeps paddling long after the market becomes unsustainable."

(And then, someone has to hold the bag full of then-overpriced and now worthless roses.)


"If enough people believe something is true, unsustainable ideas can gain durable life support. Stories are more powerful than statistics because they take less effort for your brain to contextualize complex issues."


"Progress happens too slowly for people to notice; setbacks happen too fast for people to ignore."

"Growth is driven by compounding, which always takes time. Destruction is driven by single points of failure, which can happen in seconds, and loss of confidence, which can happen in an instant."

"The irony is that growth – if you can stick around – is a more powerful force, because it compounds. But setbacks capture greater attention because they happen suddenly."


"It is too easy to examine history and say, “Look, if you just held on and took a long-term view, things recovered and life went on,” without realizing that mindsets are harder to repair than buildings and cash flows."

"We can see and measure just about everything in the world except people’s moods, fears, hopes, grudges, goals, triggers, and expectations. That’s partly why history is such a continuous chain of baffling events, and always will be."


After reminiscing on his friendship with Kent, Gates trails off. “We would have kept working together. I’m sure we would have gone to college together.” Kent could have been a founding partner of Microsoft with Gates and Allen. But it would never happen. Kent died in a mountaineering accident before he graduated high school.


"The same force, the same magnitude, working in opposite directions. Luck and risk are both the reality that every outcome in life is guided by forces other than individual effort. They are so similar that you can’t believe in one without equally respecting the other. They both happen because the world is too complex to allow 100% of your actions to dictate 100% of your outcomes. They are driven by the same thing: You are one person in a game with seven billion other people and infinite moving parts. The accidental impact of actions outside of your control can be more consequential than the ones you consciously take."


"After spending years around investors and business leaders I’ve come to realize that someone else’s failure is usually attributed to bad decisions, while your own failures are usually chalked up to the dark side of risk. When judging your failures I’m likely to prefer a clean and simple story of cause and effect, because I don’t know what’s going on inside your head. “You had a bad outcome so it must have been caused by a bad decision” is the story that makes the most sense to me. But when judging myself I can make up a wild narrative justifying my past decisions and attributing bad outcomes to risk."


"If we had a magic wand we would find out exactly what proportion of these outcomes were caused by actions that are repeatable, versus the role of random risk and luck that swayed those actions one way or the other. But we don’t have a magic wand. We have brains that prefer easy answers without much appetite for nuance. So identifying the traits we should emulate or avoid can be agonizingly hard."


"But when does the narrative shift from, “You didn’t let outdated laws get in the way of innovation,” to “You committed a crime?”"

"The line between bold and reckless can be thin. When we don’t give risk and luck their proper billing it’s often invisible."


"Tell someone that everything will be great and they’re likely to either shrug you off or offer a skeptical eye."

"Tell someone they’re in danger and you have their undivided attention."

"Hearing that the world is going to hell is more interesting than forecasting that things will gradually get better over time, even if the latter is accurate for most people most of the time. Pessimism can be hard to distinguish from critical thinking and is often taken more seriously than optimism, which can be hard to distinguish from salesmanship and aloofness."


Through his computer, Hawking told the interviewer how excited he was to sell books to lay people.

“Are you always this cheerful?” the Times asked.

“My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus,” he replied.


"People ask: Have I calculated how much long-term return I’m giving up by holding so much money in cash? I respond: Yes. But I’ve also calculated how much I’d lose if I were forced to sell stocks during a downturn for any reason, like covering bills in an emergency. That could be far costlier than the return I’m giving up on my cash. Earning a long-term return on my stocks means ensuring I can actually hold them for the long term. Which means I’m actually obsessed with the short run – not for its returns, but as a treacherous path to the long run that needs to be treated with respect."

"The only reason the long-term works is because the short term is so protected. There is a graveyard of investors and companies who were fully invested in the honorable name of long-term thinking but learned the hard way that their I’m-not-focused-on-the-short-run attitude has its costs."

"Long-term thinking is often viewed as what’s left over when you ignore the short term. But it’s not. It’s what’s left over when you’ve nursed the short term so well that the rewards compound into something great – after a long time."


"The two cats grew up seeing the same thing. But one experienced the real world while the other merely saw it. The result was that one was normal; the other was effectively blind."


"But he doesn’t walk around confused all day. He understands his world perfectly. It’s a world shaped by, and explained with, the few mental models he’s picked up in his three years. Ice cream is good. Blankets are warm. Toys are fun. Naps are not. I don’t need a bath. That’s his world. And everything he comes across fits into one of those simple three-year-old mental models that he’s built in his head."

"When his parents tell him it’s time to put his toys away, or that he can’t eat ice cream for breakfast, his frustration is caused by experiencing something that doesn’t fit into his mental models. Ice cream is good, so if mom says I can’t have it, that’s not good and I’m going to cry. He has no concept of a balanced diet, or the consequences of a poor diet, even if we explain it to him. But, in the moment, he’s not looking for an explanation. He’s trying to match the world he lives in to a mental model he has in his head. Even though he knows almost nothing, he doesn’t realize it, because he tells himself a coherent story about what’s going on based on the little he does know."

"And we all do this, regardless of age."

"I don’t know what I don’t know. No one does. But we can’t walk around confused all day. Nassim Taleb says “I want to live happily in a world I don’t understand.” Which is exactly what we do. We take the world we live in and try to make a coherent story out of it based on the mental models we’ve developed during our lifetimes."

"Those models are only useful when they’re simple. That’s when they become automatic. Complex, nuanced models – like the art of negotiating – are hard. But simple ones like “say thank you when someone helps you” – are easy to grasp."


"The hardest part of studying history is that you know how the story ends, often before you begin researching a topic. And I don’t think you can un-remember that fact when reading about an event."

"Particularly difficult is attempting to put yourself in someone’s shoes and imagining their emotions when you know how the story ends but they, at the time, did not."

"“The customer is always right” and “customers don’t know what they want” are both accepted business wisdom. Examples of both are only known with hindsight, and it’s impossible to think about these topics with an open mind when you know the eventual outcome of how certain products perform."

"Another hard part about learning vicariously is that there’s a difference between learning and learning so well that it compels you into action."


"A 13-year-old girl being killed by a drunk driver is something everyone reading this article will agree is atrocious. Yet virtually all of us will say it’s atrocious without taking further action. But Candace Lightner’s daughter was that 13-year-old girl, so she created Mothers Against Drunk Driving to do something about it. Personal experience is often what pushes you from “I get it” to “I get it so well that I’m going to do something about it.”"

"Same in investing. Spreadsheets can model the historic frequency of big declines. But they can’t model the feeling of coming home, looking at your kids, and wondering if you’ve made a mistake that will impact their lives. Studying history makes you feel like you understand something. But until you’ve lived through it and personally felt its consequences, you may not understand it enough to change your behavior."

"There is no, “Just do X and you can overcome this problem.”"

“Personal finance is more personal than it is finance.”


"When the study was over the blind cats were left in a fully lit room. Forty-eight hours later, all were effectively normal, regaining their “vision” and learning how to match the world around them to their movements."

"Eight weeks of seeing their world taught them virtually nothing. Two days of experiencing it, and they had it all figured out."


"Hey! That Slim guy had hypnotic yodeling powers! And who wouldn't want a yodeling Heartless?"


"Because either way, it's a win for them." Groaning, Xiruk lifted his palms. "Either they push us so hard that we crack, or our guilt piles up so high that we cave and fall back into line. I should've seen this coming from the start…"


The best (and worst) managers drive their employees as hard as they can.

“The customer is always right” and “customers don’t know what they want” are both accepted business wisdom.

The line between “inspiringly bold” and “foolishly reckless” can be a millimeter thick and only visible with hindsight.

Risk and luck are doppelgangers.


Some people are born into families that encourage education; others are against it. Some are born into flourishing economies encouraging of entrepreneurship; others are born into war and destitution. I want you to be successful, and I want you to earn it. But realize that not all success is due to hard work, and not all poverty is due to laziness. Keep this in mind when judging people, including yourself.


“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

Failure can be a lousy teacher, because it seduces smart people into thinking their decisions were terrible when sometimes they just reflect the unforgiving realities of risk. The trick when dealing with failure is arranging your financial life in a way that a bad investment here and a missed financial goal there won’t wipe you out so you can keep playing until the odds fall in your favor.


A Nigerian scam artist once told The New York Times that he felt guilty for hurting others, but “poverty will not make you feel the pain.”


There is no reason to risk what you have and need for what you don’t have and don’t need.


The hardest financial skill is getting the goalpost to stop moving.

“Enough” is not too little.

There are many things never worth risking, no matter the potential gain.

Reputation is invaluable.

Freedom and independence are invaluable.

Family and friends are invaluable.

Being loved by those who you want to love you is invaluable.

Happiness is invaluable.

And your best shot at keeping these things is knowing when it’s time to stop taking risks that might harm them. Knowing when you have enough.


$81.5 billion of Warren Buffett's $84.5 billion net worth came after his 65th birthday. Our minds are not built to handle such absurdities.


“It is not necessarily the amount of snow that causes ice sheets but the fact that snow, however little, lasts.”

If something compounds—if a little growth serves as the fuel for future growth—a small starting base can lead to results so extraordinary they seem to defy logic. It can be so logic-defying that you underestimate what’s possible, where growth comes from, and what it can lead to.

There are books on economic cycles, trading strategies, and sector bets. But the most powerful and important book should be called Shut Up And Wait. It’s just one page with a long-term chart of economic growth.


There are a million ways to get wealthy, and plenty of books on how to do so. But there’s only one way to stay wealthy: some combination of frugality and paranoia.


Money’s greatest intrinsic value—and this can’t be overstated—is its ability to give you control over your time. To obtain, bit by bit, a level of independence and autonomy that comes from unspent assets that give you greater control over what you can do and when you can do it. A small amount of wealth means the ability to take a few days off work when you’re sick without breaking the bank. Gaining that ability is huge if you don’t have it. A bit more means waiting for a good job to come around after you get laid off, rather than having to take the first one you find. That can be life changing.

Six months’ emergency expenses means not being terrified of your boss, because you know you won’t be ruined if you have to take some time off to find a new job. More still means the ability to take a job with lower pay but flexible hours. Maybe one with a shorter commute. Or being able to deal with a medical emergency without the added burden of worrying about how you’ll pay for it. Then there’s retiring when you want to, instead of when you need to. Using your money to buy time and options has a lifestyle benefit few luxury goods can compete with.


I had a day job in midtown Manhattan paying $20k per year—about minimum wage ... I never ate out, and never took a taxi. My cost of living was about $1000/month, and I was earning $1800/month. I did this for two years, and saved up $12,000. I was 22 years old.

Once I had $12,000 I could quit my job and become a full-time musician. I knew I could get a few gigs per month to pay my cost of living. So I was free. I quit my job a month later, and never had a job again.


Part of what’s happened here is that we’ve used our greater wealth to buy bigger and better stuff. But we’ve simultaneously given up more control over our time. At best, those things cancel each other out.


Destroying things is easy. But creating and building things that are meant to last? That's really, really hard.


If your job is to build cars, there is little you can do when you’re not on the assembly line. You detach from work and leave your tools in the factory. But if your job is to create a marketing campaign—a thought-based and decision job—your tool is your head, which never leaves you. You might be thinking about your project during your commute, as you’re making dinner, while you put your kids to sleep, and when you wake up stressed at three in the morning. You might be on the clock for fewer hours than you would in 1950. But it feels like you’re working 24/7.

Compared to generations prior, control over your time has diminished. And since controlling your time is such a key happiness influencer, we shouldn’t be surprised that people don’t feel much happier even though we are, on average, richer than ever.

No one—not a single person out of a thousand—said that to be happy you should try to work as hard as you can to make money to buy the things you want.

No one—not a single person—said it’s important to be at least as wealthy as the people around you, and if you have more than they do it’s real success.

No one—not a single person—said you should choose your work based on your desired future earning power.

What they did value were things like quality friendships, being part of something bigger than themselves, and spending quality, unstructured time with their children. “Your kids don’t want your money (or what your money buys) anywhere near as much as they want you. Specifically, they want you with them,”

Take it from those who have lived through everything: Controlling your time is the highest dividend money pays.

“Be nicer and less flashy. No one is impressed with your possessions as much as you are. You might think you want a fancy car or a nice watch. But what you probably want is respect and admiration. And you’re more likely to gain those things through kindness and humility than horsepower and chrome.”

There is a paradox here: people tend to want wealth to signal to others that they should be liked and admired. But in reality those other people often bypass admiring you, not because they don’t think wealth is admirable, but because they use your wealth as a benchmark for their own desire to be liked and admired.

“You might think you want an expensive car, a fancy watch, and a huge house. But I’m telling you, you don’t. What you want is respect and admiration from other people, and you think having expensive stuff will bring it. It almost never does—especially from the people you want to respect and admire you.”

It’s a subtle recognition that people generally aspire to be respected and admired by others, and using money to buy fancy things may bring less of it than you imagine. If respect and admiration are your goal, be careful how you seek it. Humility, kindness, and empathy will bring you more respect than horsepower ever will.

When most people say they want to be a millionaire, what they might actually mean is “I’d like to spend a million dollars.” And that is literally the opposite of being a millionaire.

It’s difficult to learn from what you can’t see. Which helps explain why it’s so hard for many to build wealth.


If you’re going into a piece of media determined to empathize with the villain above the heroes of the piece, you’re not getting the same story as everyone else. As a result, these fans take their own headcanons as fact and harshly punish or harass other fans that have a different point of view. Point out that Kylo Ren and Hux are purposeful fascist allegories with the rise of the First Order tying back to Nazis? Expect to have people repeat the manufactured sob story about Kylo’s childhood (which literally wasn’t even that bad) as an excuse to spend the rest of their lives on the internet harassing you. (I know this because it’s happened to me and many others.) Try talking about how Loki’s initial entry into the MCU has him try to do a genocide and later try to take over the world as Thanos’ messenger. When you do, expect people to bring up how he’s a transracial adoptee suffering from abandonment issues and child abuse. We are literally not allowed to talk negatively/critically about the bad things villains do — even when we say explicitly that we like the characters we’re talking about — because he’s their blorbo or little meow meow now and fandom has decided to make that position sacred.


Any swagger is just defense. When you're reminded so much of who you are by people - not a fame thing, but with my size, constantly, growing up - you just either curl up in a corner in the dark or you wear it proudly, like armor or something. You can turn it on its head and use it yourself before anybody else gets a chance.


Most people never ask “who created this image”, “what was their purpose”, “what is it really saying, and is that accurate”? Humans have been intentionally programmed to be hyper-reactive, to have short attention spans, and to hate reading and thinking. Even people who realize how dumbed down humans are now acquiescing to it and argue that this is simply “the way my generation is” instead of striving to raise their ability to stop being so susceptible to mental and emotional limitations.


Excellence for the sake of excellence... is hardly a fulfilling prospect.

That's what makes friendship valuable, if you can find a bond that is honest and true.


Oh, dear. Well, it likely depends on how you define the legal status of a docile Metroid...


“The sys-tem will deh-ter-mine who Ah sleep with, Care-oh-lina.”

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