THINGS I MISS
Not much. Starbucks and Tullys. Italian food. Rainier. Sitting on the Colby’s deck at sunset. Driving my porsche with the top down in the sun.
I dont miss “things”. And american life is permeated with stimulation from things instead of people.
I meet and enjoy new people every week in Kiev. Its awesome.
Source date (UTC): 2013-05-19 04:55:00 UTC
QUITE BY ACCIDENT
I’m with one of Ukraine’s most successful businessmen and a bunch of awesome people in a club talking biz while fending off innocent ukrainian girls who feel awkward.
There is a breeze coming in, over the bar, from the water.
Its hot. The breeze is a tensely anticipated gift. Appreciated when it comes. Its randomness makes it more intensely pleasurable.
The bass is vibrating the bar. The coffee ripples in the cup. There is a lot if ice and lonely bottles. I don’t even know what is in some of them.
Bartenders are slow. Attentive. Relaxed. Playful. Conversational. The music is the opposite.
People are happy because they have low expectations.
I tell the guy from Argentina that life is beautiful. He agrees. He smiles and grabs the guy from france for a toast. I pat the back of the guy from scotland. No one notices but us.
Its beautiful. We smile. Disperse. Repeat.
Perfect.
Source date (UTC): 2013-05-17 18:55:00 UTC
LIFE’S GREAT DECISIONS
Last summer, battling yet another illness, and realizing the northwest would never again be a place I would want to live, I looked at the world in an effort to try to find a place to start a new business and write.
One by one I eliminated most of the cities in the USA, other than perhaps a few in texas – I want an urban lifestyle. But there are almost no urban centers left that are culturally aristocratic. None. In fact, Urban culture is decidedly proletarian, with aristocracy, if it hasn’t moved out of the city altogether, restricted to walled enclaves.
I can sit here in a cafe in a country where I can’t even reliably speak traveller’s level of the language, and identify with people better here than I can anywhere in the coastal states. This culture is an extended family. It’s relatively homogenous, even if torn between catholic east and orthodox west. But despite that division, I look on everyone as my people – my family. Because they feel look like and act like family.
They are us before our decline.
Source date (UTC): 2013-05-01 09:11:00 UTC
IN A BAR. A GUY FROM COMPUWARE. HE TRIES TO START A FIGHT WITH ME. AND UNTIL TODAY I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND WHY.
Three years ago, or so, maybe four. I’m in a bar at a fashionable restaurant with some friends. And this drunk guy from two tables over comes up to me and says “do you remember me?” and sticks out his hand.
Now, I never forget a face. Ever. I recognized his face. But I couldn’t place him. And honestly, I was just stumped. So, as usual, I shook his hand, and stalled for time while I tried to remember where I knew him from.
He says “I know what you did”. Now, when a drunk guy says something like that to me, I gotta tell you that this particular farm boy’s first instinct is to hit as hard and as fast as I can – ’cause nothing good is likely to follow.
However, I’m also with four guys, the place is packed, I’m a regular, and there are really good bouncers. Besides, even if he gets going I’m not sure he’s too threatening in his current state, and I’m not sure it’s clear yet to others that he’s begging for a fight – and I don’t like unnecessary imperial entanglements.
I still can’t place the guy. Until he tells me he’s a salesman from Compuware, that we cancelled a deal with when the credit crash picked up steam. And so I get this confused look on my face – because I’m genuinely confused.
Now, you know, you can abuse me all you want. I know who I am. I know how and why I make decisions and I’m ok with the decisions that I make. And god knows that I’m not exactly a nice negotiator – I’m ruthless about money. And I have a mercenary view of ethics in negotiations. But if you come after one of my partners, both of whom are virtuous to such a fault that I want to wring their necks at times, all bets are off, and so are all barriers.
My partner Steven is about as level headed as god has made a human being. And he has told me, maybe a month or two earlier, that the Compuware software can’t do what we need. And that we’re going to have to back out of it. Not only can’t they do it but we’re starting to get really nervous about revenue and sales, and it’s expensive software. So we don’t want to be in a position where we have trouble paying for it either. So it’s just better right now if we make a few mods to our own code and suffer through the current crisis.
So the next thing I say is that “Steven is the most honest man I know, and if he says it won’t do it, then it won’t do it, and that’s all I know, all I want to know, and all I need to know.”
At which point he starts coming at me with F-bombs, and one of the guys he works with starts pulling him backwards away from me.
I know I have got him now, and it’s evident to everyone in the bar that he’s loaded and violent, so I have moral authority to find his jaw if necessary. But his friends prevail, and drag him out of the place.
Unfortunately, I never really understood why he was so pissed. I just discounted it out of hand as losing a commission and being drunk. But, this morning, sitting here, I realize that he thought we were playing them for information so that we could develop our internal software on our own. It never occurred to me before, and I feel stupid for not getting it.
At least that makes sense. Of course, it’s not true. But then, that’s one of the problems with ethics and asymmetry of knowledge. It also one of the problems of assuming that you understand the motivations and incentives of others.
Even if their software would have done the job (it wouldn’t) It would have been far cheaper to buy their software than to develop our software ourselves – that this is logically self evident is why it didn’t occur to me. But the cash flow impact of modifying our fragile and aged existing software ourselves albiet very slowly was less risky than trying to heavily modify an already expensive piece of software using external consultants, and the cash flow impact of a liability of that size on the balance sheet given that our bank had just failed, and our customers were spending less money.
Unfortunately, had he talked to me as a gentleman, I would have explained this. But he talked to me as an impassioned drunk. And I never had the opportunity.
I don’t so much mind if people dislike or are angry with me when I screw up. But it really bothers me when people dislike or are angry with me for things that I don’t do.
We go back to Montaigne: In life it seems that we are disliked by people who blame us for accidents, but are forgiven or ignored by those whom we have done intentional injustice.
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-26 02:54:00 UTC
HOW DO YOU FEEL WHEN THE PEOPLE WHO RUN A COMPANY THAT YOU BUILT, KILL THE COMPANY YOU BUILT?
Like you lost a child.
You know, most of my companies still either exist or were acquired by companies that still exist. I love best the ones that are still independent, even if they’re not very big.
One of the virtues of leaving that company, was that it became clearer that the problem was the board. If investors divide your board, two things need to be true a) they need to understand your business, b) they need to be able to liquidate your business.
If (a) or (b) is true, the company will degrade. If both are true it will die.
</Diary Moment On>
I love it when people are more knowledgeable than I am. I hate it when people assume that they are smarter than I am. The first is true almost all the time. the second false almost all of the time.
</Diary Moment Off>
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-17 13:26:00 UTC
(HUMBLING)
Right about now, I finally understand why it takes seven to ten years to write these great works. Because few people have that kind of staying power. And because it takes that long to create something of marginal difference, even if you’re very bright. And really, even when you write something profound, you’re just distilling the information collected by your generation, because of the work of the generations before.
Same thing for why it takes a PhD to write something interesting in most fields. Because it takes a long time (6+ years) to get a PhD in anything meaningful. And it takes at least that long to learn anything meaningful about anything. So, it isn’t the PhD that matters. Its the fact that you have to stick with a PhD program for a long time. And to write something meaningful you have to stick with it for a long time too. So numbers work their consequences.
The problem with most PhD work is that it’s micro work, not macro. And most people get lost in specializations that are dead ends – or exhausted of opportunity. And the time is lost. Your subject matters. You can’t get time back to do over again.
Einstein was right. He just ‘thought about the problem longer than anyone else.” This is a combination of his usual humility, humor, and fundamental truth.
Sitting in church at age 12 I made a promise to God (Fate/Man/Myself). That was over 40 years ago. It’s taken me this long, and I’m not done yet.
I rarely tell anyone this. I’m just terribly humbled at the moment. But I’ve spent most of my life trying to fulfill that promise (contract). Really. Even if it’s for no other reason than that I haven’t really found anything I’d rather do. 🙂
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-07 08:19:00 UTC
OK. I REMEMBER LAST NIGHT. REALLY.
Wanted to celebrate getting the first draft of the book done. And we hadn’t been out in two weeks.
Most of my repertoire is hard rock and grunge, which are much less popular to start with – so pickings are slimmer here. But a little Nirvana always gets applause.
We managed to get Kirill into a taxi, although he wanted to sing some song about a grandmother smoking a pipe like Louis Armstrong again. His Rap in Russian is recording quality. It moves him.
I left Alex in a bar surrounded by women – mostly ’cause he was willing to buy them drinks.
Walking home, I noticed it was dawn.
Slept most of the day.
Wrote some.
Perfect.
Source date (UTC): 2013-03-27 17:41:00 UTC
(stupid)
How did I end up in a karaoke bar with a table full of strippers on their off-days who can sing like Sinatra?
This is a F. M. L. moment.
Dude. My Nirvana attracts. 😉
I get to write analytical philosophy for recreation, software for money and experience this madness for fun.
God is being good to me.
Its ok to be envious. 🙂
Source date (UTC): 2013-03-06 17:06:00 UTC
NIGHT LIFE IN KIEV
So, we kind of overdid it since the first of the year. And I’ve been sick now for almost three weeks with one cold or another – probably my body rebelling. So, for the past week or so we’ve been trying to be good guys and keep our noses to the grindstone. (There is a Russian phrase that goes something like ‘keep working while the sun is up’. And we’ve been doing that and more. Usually till ten at night.)
This means, however, that my posts are not anywhere near as interesting. 🙂 And I don’t have any fun photos to share.
But luck is with us. It’s Friday. We’re invited to the anniversary party at our favorite local restaurant and pub, and they’ve reserved a table for us. (Thanks to Kirill and Alex for flirting with the girls who work there, I’m sure. It wasn’t me this time. I flirt with almost everyone. But not everyone there for some reason.)
So maybe we will be rescued from our sobriety today. 🙂 At least everyone else will be. I’m still too iffy to celebrate much.
I’ll just have to cheer everyone else on. 🙂
Source date (UTC): 2013-02-22 10:34:00 UTC
DUALITY : GUILT WHETHER WRITING OR ‘WORKING’.
When I was writing full time I felt guilty about not ‘working’. And now that I’m ‘working’ I feel guilty about not writing. I have to make time for it. :/
RESEARCH SOFTWARE ON THE MAC?
Well, honestly, I just save everything to a directory on my laptop. Dropbox copies it. And once in a while I organize it.
But it’s pretty easy really. In the case of libertarian political philosophy, the canonical works are pretty limited. And conservative philosophy even more so. One might argue that the entire conservative body of work is a demonstration of a failure of conservatives to undertand themselves. I understand that they’re relying on heroic, inspirational language that is effectively structured as a traditionalist or legendary religion. But they’re just indefensible against secular socialism because they don’t really understand their own belief system.
On top of that limited amount of canonical information, we’ve incorporated economic thought pretty thoroughly into our philosophical framework and pretty much figured out the problem of measurement. So, I don’t really have to address those issues. Our problems are institutional. It’s not that we haven’t accommodated economics.
Libertarians are still lagging because we haven’t solve the problem of ethics – rather, we haven’t articulated the full scope of ethics necessary to describe the moral framework of aristocratic egalitarianism used by Conservatives. And Rothbard’s little side-adventure into ghetto ethics has both provided the means to solve the problem of ethics, and at the same time, done it so badly that we haven’t been able to either gain the cooperation of the conservatives, or solve the problem of political systems in heterogeneous polities.
Hopefully I’ll fix that. 🙂
But all that said, the problem of writing libertarian philosophy isn’t so much one of academic research. The problem is reordering our thinking back toward aristocratic ethics, and away from the ghetto, while at the same time realizing that we have extended the scope of the market to include those who do not share such aristocratic ethics, and for whom those ethics pose a genetic hindrance that forever will keep them out of our quarter.
So my work isn’t so much one of citations, but of articulating what we have failed to articulate to date, about aristocratic egalitarianism on the one and, and the totality of human political requirements in a market society on the other.
TOOLS I USE ON THE MAC:
Scrivener
WordPress (I sketch a lot of my ideas online – my entire glossary is up there.)
Notepad/Wordpad
Skim
Papers
Dropbox and Evernote
I’m considering moving into DevonThink.
And Alfred for searching.
My biggest technology problem seems to be copying text in and out of Kindle, now that I’ve switch to buying on Kindle whenever possible. (Maybe someone has a bright idea on how to help me with this?)
Source date (UTC): 2013-02-18 07:05:00 UTC