Medley 132: Hunting, money, ART, free college?, arguing, collaboration...
Happy Monday! I'm going back to NYC for Thanksgiving and neglected to bring any of my winter clothes to Austin... so that should be fun ☃️
New Article : “Maybe You Should Go Hunting.” This article is an overview of the hunting trip I took a few weeks ago, what drew me to it, and why you too might consider trying hunting.
New Guest Post : I worked with Tiago Forte on this guide to how I've used his productivity & organizational system, PARA, to design how we work and collaborate at Growth Machine. It's a VERY detailed in-the-weeds productivity article, for those of you who like that.
New Notes : This week I added my notes on The Gervais Principle by Venkatesh Rao. It’s technically a series of blog posts, but he’s combined it into a kindle ebook which I found easier to read and take notes on than the original articles.
The worst year to be alive was 536, apparently. The description is actually kind of terrifying, imagine having the entire continent covered in mysterious fog for 18 months straight with barely any light, have snow fall in the summer, all your crops fail, and then get wrecked by bubonic plague. No thanks.
These data were pretty interesting on what we’re willing to forego money in favor of at work. Extra vacation days make sense, I was surprised that telecommuting was so low down on the list though. I’d need way more than a 4% pay bump to give that up.
I feel pretty confident there has to be some kind of serious recession coming in the next couple years, so it was interesting to read this article on how to make money in the next downturn. I’m not sure I’m willing to get aggressive with shorts and volatility indexes, but the points on keeping a higher cash balance and continuing to invest in yourself are good to consider.
Children born via assisted reproduction technology may be at a higher risk for hypertension and accelerated vascular aging. It’s a small study, but it’s concerning considering just how many kids there are born with ART today. According to the article, there are somewhere between 2 and 5 million of them, and it’s getting more and more popular as we encounter more issues with reproduction.
Geoffrey Miller made a good point on Twitter this week: if college is free, then the government has complete control over what gets taught in college. I’m not sure that’s a desirable future, and I definitely don’t trust the government to decide what does and doesn’t get taught. Are there ways for institutions to keep intellectual freedom while being fully subsidized by the government? Maybe for a while, but it would have to break down eventually if funding ever gets tight.
I love this idea of encouraging kids to (civilly) fight more. From the article: "The skill to get hot without getting mad — to have a good argument that doesn’t become personal — is critical in life. But it’s one that few parents teach to their children.” And "Disagreement is the antidote to groupthink. We’re at our most imaginative when we’re out of sync.”
Have a great week!
Nat