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Militaristic Journalism

What would the world look like if the police were paid per arrest they made? In other words, if they weren’t paid to keep the peace but paid to make arrests.  This practice of “paying per arrest” is rare in history, but its closest cousin called “arrest quotas” (where...
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Tools To Love Your Work Each Day

Previously, I’ve covered the Vedantic philosophical viewpoint (the oldest philosophy we know of) on this blog as well as in my podcast. I even started a podcast last year (Yoga For Your Intellect) dedicated to a conversational approach to this system of thought. I have also written about the...
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New Year, New Music

New working_man tracks are live on all music platforms this week. Each instrumental track is designed to induce beta brain waves, which is the best mental state for focus, clarity, and productivity (hence the name “working_man”). Enjoy! “Volume 2” on Spotify is here (and the ability to follow me...
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When The Walls Close In

Three years of podcasting on optimizing founder and creator psychology, and this is the most important episode I have released to date. The last few months, especially the last few weeks, have been some of the most volatile for public markets in the last decade. I have just recorded...
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I Have Seen The Future, And It’s Decentralized

Ok, that title is a bit hyperbolic, but it’s rare that I get this excited about a new product (BitClout, a decentralized social network, launched about three weeks ago). And look at how many of my blog posts are dedicated to new products… it’s rare, and my job is...
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Eradicating Unhappiness

Is there a manual for living well? “Take a simple idea, and take it seriously.” —Charlie Munger Each morning, I sit in my chair in my bedroom listening to a lecture by a 83 year old philosopher, A. Parthasarathy, recorded in an ashram just outside of Mumbai, India. He...
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“Asynchronous” Working In 2021

“…the mere consciousness of an engagement will sometimes worry a whole day.” — Charles Dickens Update (2022): This working style has been life-changing and is now my default mode of working. Inspired by a friend, Sahil Lavingia, and his stance over the last year to work “asynchronously” (aka, instead...
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Below The Line Transcript: Episode #86 — Carl Jung — Heroes, Alchemy, and Connection

Below is the transcript of my interview with the historical giant and founder of analytical psychology, Dr. Carl Gustav Jung. The episode is available below or can be found any podcast player or at belowthelinepod.com. Click “subscribe” if you want to check out more episodes of Below The Line...
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Mental Wealth

TL;DR • When it comes to mental health, our society approaches it like we did with physical health 50 years ago. We only think about it when something goes wrong. • To the wider public, mental health is synonymous with mental illness. Our notion of physical health is, however,...
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The Multi-Path Career

TL;DR * From executives to individual contributors, we all make one career bet at a time. * This is poor “portfolio theory” (to use a phrase from investing), meaning that this is not a balanced “portfolio” of diverse bets. It’s a career “portfolio” of extremely concentrated bets. * You...
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Music: working_man (EP) — Volume 1 is out

Two months ago, I released the shoooooortest version of an album that a musician can release (7 actual songs, and then an intro and outro to make a 9-track album) that you’d call an “EP” (short for extended play). And in celebration of passing 50,000 streams on Spotify, it...
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Book Launch: “Beyond Coffee: A Sustainable Guide to Nootropics, Adaptogens, and Mushrooms”

What started as a (very long) blog post, then a five-part blog post, then hit a point where I said “OK, I am just going to do this right and invite two medical expert friends to help”… became this book that is now live on Amazon. It’s been a...
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Podcast Launch: Below The Line

On April 2nd, I launched a project I had been working on for the last several months. What started as an inner voice to research and write a book on a specific set of topics around the psychology of creators, founders, and leaders (and finding the optimal psychological approaches...
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The Information Pathology

November 2018 When I write, my aim is to learn more about a subject, to start conversations, and to serve as a point of departure for further exploration (rather than a point of reference or conclusion). So please feel free to contribute to the exploration of this topic either...
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“Mobs” vs “Crowds”

“If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.” –Benjamin Franklin What’s the difference between a “mob” and a “crowd”? It’s a subtle but important distinction — because each is known for almost completely antithetical outcomes. One is known for wisdom, in the sense of “the wisdom of...
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Creating (Music Edition)

Years ago, I used to write songs on the piano and transfer them into Apple’s Logic Pro DAW via a midi-controller (piano-like instrument that plugs into my macbook). This past three day weekend, I knocked the rust off and got back into the hobby with a few songs. Check...
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Free Wheeling…

I’ve got 25 minutes, and I’d like to try an experiment… Despite the backlog of ideas for posts, I’d like to just sit here, looking at a blank page and come up with something on the spot, primarily using the time I have for content (not editing), and then...
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A “Post-Verbal” World

“The real world is unspeakable.” -Alfred Korzybski I was walking with a friend recently, and we were discussing the limitations of language (among many things, like the best pancakes in San Francisco). But we kept going in circles on just how difficult it is to explain something using the...
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The United States of the World

Silicon Valley has a fun dinner party question that’s gone around over the years, and it goes something like this: “What is something you believe that no one around you believes?” It’s an interesting thought exercise to see if you only keep beliefs kept by those around you (or...
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First

Why start one of these things? I’ve borrowed a few lines from the about section of this blog to answer this question… Like you, I’m a “work-in-progress,” trying to figure out what I think about topics that interest me; typically at the intersection of technology, philosophy, and humanity. I...