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News & Analysis | NO. 344

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Creativity Comes from Idleness

Our creativity is like a daily pool of water within each of us.

When we use it, it depletes a bit. When we’re distracted it quickly drains. And when we’re alone with our thoughts it replenishes.

In an ideal world you’d wake up and have a full day of creativity ahead of you. You’d just sit down and create, and your reservoir would grow a thousand ideas.

But the modern world has tapped our daily reserves with continuous distraction. Most notably our phones. When we stare at a screen our ideas dry up like a cracked lakebed, and somehow it makes us want to eat more dust to quench our thirst.

Showers are an exception. In the shower we become an idea firehose. Why is that?

The reason you become creative in the shower is because it’s (mostly) impossible to be distracted. You’re just there—naked—with your own thoughts. And suddenly you become a genius.

This also works with solitary walks. No phone. No podcasts. No audiobooks. Just you and your surroundings. Like in the shower, the ideas will come spilling out of you.

So what’s the lesson here?

Being distracted dries out your creativity and results in mediocrity. If you value being inspired, spend time alone with nothing but your mind.

News & Analysis | NO. 343

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Why I’m OK With Amazon Buying One Medical

A number of security people have come out against Amazon buying One Medical.

It’s to be expected, as most security people are rightly worried about big corporations getting a hold of more personal data. And the timing couldn’t have been worse, with the story about Amazon sharing Ring footage with police only a few weeks old.

"Why is @Amazon acquiring @OneMedical bad news?"

Let's explore.

1. Horizontal integration at Amazon scale of a company that now has the right to access my medical records under HIPAA opens up a huge problem for abuse.

— Corey Quinn (@QuinnyPig) July 21, 2022

But I have a different take. The opposite, actually.

First, I agree that Amazon sharing footage without permission is sketch. And I expect them to fix that. Soon.

But when I hear something new is bad, I don’t just jump on with everyone else. First I ask how things are currently going. So how about it?

Do you like the current security level for medical records? For small businesses in the medical field? For hospitals? For the government?

I don’t. I think it’s all rubbish. I think medical records are not only broken in terms of interoperability, but so is the security of most of the companies that maintain them.

And here’s the thing—I think the only force that can possibly make that better is someone big enough to actually get security.

Benefit from my 20+ hours of security and tech reading a week…I read 20+ hours a week about Security, Technology, and what's coming next. Get the best finds every Monday morning…

If I had to pick a place to put my records I’d go with a company that, say, runs the infrastructure of most of the internet. Like the company that runs AWS. Like Amazon.

I simply don’t see a world in which they decide it’s a good idea to be cavalier with peoples’ medical data. It’s not in their interest. The thing that’s in their interest is being trusted with that data, and doing a good job protecting it.

I don’t like Google’s ad-focused model, but guess what? If they got everyone’s medical data it wouldn’t be that bad either. I’d be more worried than with Amazon, but I think both companies are smart enough to know what to sell and what not to sell.

And when it comes to knowing how to secure their data and products, I’ve not seen many companies better than Amazon.

So that’s my argument: Amazon will be better at securing medical data than One Medical or any other medical startup. And they’re not likely to abuse that power because of how bad it would be for their business.

That’s about to be important, because all the big companies are likely to play there soon. See Apple. And yeah, probably Google as well at some point.

Sign me up. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than whatever it is we have now.

News & Analysis | NO. 342

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News & Analysis | NO. 341

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Principals vs. Agents | Sam Harris and Marc Andreessen

Sam Harris just had Marc Andreessen on his show and I heard a concept in the episode that intrigued me.

They were talking about their current politics and Marc said he’s now seeing things according to James Burnham’s model of Managerial Capitalism, which is an instance of the Principal-Agent problem.

The Principal-Agent problem is where owners (Principals) put managers (Agents) in charge of their businesses or assets, and there are misaligned incentives between the agent and the principal.

Burnham argued in his books in the 1940’s that there’s a new type of Capitalism on the rise, powered by managers rather than owners, and that this was a bad thing. Andreesen uses that model to say that our current systems are all horribly broken due to this effect. Basically, government, media, education, etc.—they’re all impotent and stagnant because nobody wants to take any risks. Why? Because they’re all agents, or managers, instead of being owners.

This rhymes strongly with things like Atlas Shrugged, and other Any Rand books, where the creators and builders were seen as the heroes while the rest of the world was wasting away in mediocrity and beurocracy.

I’m not with you in abandoning current systems until you have a plan for replacing them.

The model resonates with me, which I hope means it has some truth to it. But lots of models have truth to them. And one of the biggest problems I think smart people have is taking a nice model and dialing it from a 6 to a 17—which turns it from a model to an ideology.

At that point it goes from being a tool to being a lens. Which would be fine if the lens were swapped out with other lenses, but those that tend to fall into this trap want to use that one model for everything, and they reject other models or data that would indicate their model is imperfect.

Sam pushed back on this. He mentioned the danger of worshiping all-powerful “principals”, or creators, or owners—which gets us to a North Korea type situation. Marc pushed back by saying that’s an extreme, and you can have middle ground where someone decides to create a city, for example, like happened with LA.

Sam’s other example was Trump being banned by Twitter. He exposed Marc’s (or at least many Libertarians’) cognitive dissonance that they usually argue private companies should be allowed to do anything they want, because it’s their company. Marc responded to this very poorly, basically saying,

Benefit from my 20+ hours of security and tech reading a week…I read 20+ hours a week and send my best finds to ~50,000 people every Monday morning.

It’s funny when liberals suddenly find libertarianism when it’s convenient.

To be fair, he did say he couldn’t fully respond because of ongoing litigation, but it definitely felt like a defensive response to Sam uncovering inconsistency in his argument.

Libertarian nihilism

As for me, I found the Principals vs. Agents model, and the idea of Managerial vs. Bourgeois Capitalism, to be very interesting. I like the model, and I think it has explanatory power. But I feel like I was exposed to a serious dose of Libertarian Nihilism.

One of Marc’s main lines in the discussion was having virtually no trust in institutions, and thinking that any trust people do have is undeserved. His solution was new institutions.

That’s a super opinion to have when you’re a billionaire. I’m not anti-billionaire, or anti-wealth. And I agree with his main model for how things are failing. I’m just saying abandoning trust in our government and media and other core institutions isn’t a great idea unless there’s a plan for a replacement.

Rich people with startups in those spaces is not the same thing as a plan.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the conversation. And I especially enjoyed seeing this Thielian type of libertarianism (at least I think this is the same breed) come face to face with someone like Sam. Sam tried to tell him multiple times he wasn’t some raving Leftist—that he was just asking logical questions.

If you have any other thoughts on how the discussion went, feel free to reach out.

A Bourgeoisie Primer

In my reading the term (and concept) Bourgeoisie comes up so often that I cannot afford to have a light grasp of it. I have learned, mis-learned, forgotten, and relearned its definition so many times that I’m forced to create this page to remind myself.

Here’s my summary:

Other languages also have a town-like word that also starts with something like “burg”.

The term comes from “city”, or town, which is where the “bourg” bit. Think Hamburg. Berg means town. It’s French, from Old French, from Old Frankish. Burg. So the bourgeoisie were a class of people rising up in prominence from cities.City is important because of what came before that, which was feudal and land-based. So basically in the old world you were important if you owned land, and then when the industrial revolution happens you have the creation of machines and lots of wealth starts getting concentrated in cities.In the 18th century the bourgeois and bourgeoise (male and female versions) also represented the rich among the common people, meaning among the people who were not part of the aristocracy. So they were the “people” who ousted the King and the aristocracy in the French Revolution.Since the 19th century the term has come to mean the ruling class of a capitalist society, and its also associated with a social class based around economic materialism and hedonism. Think Great Gatsby.Early on this was made up of people who lived in cities and included people like craftsmen, artisans, and merchants. They are between the owners and the peasants. This slowly grew to include managers of such people. But still not the owners.There’s another connotation of the term which is materialistic to the point of being philistine, i.e., unsophisticated and unrefined. Think someone who’s shallow and would rather go to a high-end mall rather than to an art gallery to see and discuss actual art.In the late 20th century we saw terms like “bougie” or “boujee” being a negative term meaning someone of lower or middle class who is doing pretentious things like driving EVs or eating avocado toast try to appear upper class.The transition of bourgs to cities in Central and Western Europe happened in the 11th century. So, around the year 1000-1100. Guilds were a big part of this.

Kings had a problem with Feudal lords because they were a threat to power, and so they partnered with this new ruling class in cities (the bourgeoisoi) to topple the feudal lords and thus feudalism, resulting in the move towards capitalism.Feudalism –> Capitalism, helped by cooperation between monarchies and the bourgeoisie. According to Marxist thought, the bourgeoisie were supporters of the concepts of constitutions, natural rights, and opposition to the idea of divine right to rule.The English Civil War, American War of Independence, and French Revolution were motivated by the bourgeoisie wanting to abolish not just the feudal rule over them, but also the royal rule over them.This is the start of liberalism, which I wrote about here, which is fundamentally the idea of throwing off a controlling authority to gain one’s own freedom.According to Marx, the bourgeoisie were originally self-employeed business people, like merchants, bankers, or entrepreneurs (this is during the middle ages). But after the industrial revolution (1750-1850) they became the owners and the ruling economic class. Specifically, they owned the means of production and also the means of cohesion (police, military, prisons, etc.).This is where the transition took place of bourgeoisie vs. the worker. So it’s bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat or the working class.In English bourgeoisie means middle classes, but in French it means both middle and upper classes. The bourgeoisie in France and many French-speaking countries consists of five tiered social layers: petite bourgeoisie, moyenne bourgeoisie, grande bourgeoisie, haute bourgeoisie and ancienne bourgeoisie.What GPT-3 thinks

What GPT-3 thinks a modern bourgeois party looks like

Here’s what OpenAI’s GPT-3 thinks bourgeoisie means:

The term bourgeoisie refers to a social class who are considered to be the elite of society. They typically have a high level of education and hold positions of power and influence. They are often characterized by their wealth and luxurious lifestyle.

GPT-3

So this one is weighted towards elite.

The word “bourgeoisie” is used to describe the middle and upper class of a society. These people are typically educated and have high-paying jobs. They often enjoy a comfortable lifestyle with many material possessions.

GPT-3

This one says middle and upper.

The word “bourgeoisie” is used to describe the middle class in a society. It is typically used in countries where there is a significant difference between the wealthy and poor classes. The bourgeois class is typically seen as being wealthy, but not as wealthy as the aristocracy. They are also often considered to be more educated and cultured than the working class.

GPT-3

And this one says middle, but mentions that they’re more educated and cultured than the workers.

Analysis

These GPT-3 summaries are quite interesting, and they capture well the conflicting messaging in the basic points in the content above.

Basically, there seem to be two main definitions and uses, and it’s hard to know exactly which one is using without more context. 1) Middle class in a society where there are poor people and super-rich or aristocrats, and 2) the upper class.

I think if you’re talking about a historical context, the term means a city-based middle class that broke away from the poor to gain increasing power in society. And if you’re talking about a more modern interpretation, the bourgeoisie are merged with the rich to become the upper class.

What is the Bourgeoisie?

In most things that interest me, the term (and concept) Bourgeoisie comes up so often that I cannot afford to have light grasp of it. I have learned, mis-learned, forgotten, and relearned its definition so many times that I’m forced to create this page to remind myself.

Here goes:

Other languages also have a town-like word that also starts with something like “burg”.

The term comes from “city”, or town, which is where the “bourg” bit. Think Hamburg. Berg means town. It’s French, from Old French, from Old Frankish. Burg. So the bourgeoisie were a class of people rising up in prominence from cities.City is important because of what came before that, which was feudal and land-based. So basically in the old world you were important if you owned land, and then when the industrial revolution happens you have the creation of machines and lots of wealth starts getting concentrated in cities.In the 18th century the bourgeois and bourgeoise (male and female versions) also represented the rich among the common people, meaning among the people who were not part of the aristocracy. So they were the “people” who ousted the King and the aristocracy in the French Revolution.Since the 19th century the term has come to mean the ruling class of a capitalist society, and its also associated with a social class based around economic materialism and hedonism. Think Great Gatsby.Early on this was made up of people who lived in cities and included people like craftsmen, artisans, and merchants. They are between the owners and the peasants. This slowly grew to include managers of such people. But still not the owners.There’s another connotation of the term which is materialistic to the point of being philistine, i.e., unsophisticated and unrefined. Think someone who’s shallow and would rather go to a high-end mall rather than to an art gallery to see and discuss actual art.In the late 20th century we saw terms like “bougie” or “boujee” being a negative term meaning someone of lower or middle class who is doing pretentious things like driving EVs or eating avocado toast try to appear upper class.The transition of bourgs to cities in Central and Western Europe happened in the 11th century. So, around the year 1000-1100. Guilds were a big part of this.

Kings had a problem with Feudal lords because they were a threat to power, and so they partnered with this new ruling class in cities (the bourgeoisoi) to topple the feudal lords and thus feudalism, resulting in the move towards capitalism.Feudalism –> Capitalism, helped by cooperation between monarchies and the bourgeoisie. According to Marxist thought, the bourgeoisie were supporters of the concepts of constitutions, natural rights, and opposition to the idea of divine right to rule.The English Civil War, American War of Independence, and French Revolution were motivated by the bourgeoisie wanting to abolish not just the feudal rule over them, but also the royal rule over them.This is the start of liberalism, which I wrote about here, which is fundamentally the idea of throwing off a controlling authority to gain one’s own freedom.According to Marx, the bourgeoisie were originally self-employeed business people, like merchants, bankers, or entrepreneurs (this is during the middle ages). But after the industrial revolution (1750-1850) they became the owners and the ruling economic class. Specifically, they owned the means of production and also the means of cohesion (police, military, prisons, etc.).This is where the transition took place of bourgeoisie vs. the worker. So it’s bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat or the working class.In English bourgeoisie means middle classes, but in French it means both middle and upper classes. The bourgeoisie in France and many French-speaking countries consists of five tiered social layers: petite bourgeoisie, moyenne bourgeoisie, grande bourgeoisie, haute bourgeoisie and ancienne bourgeoisie.What GPT-3 thinks

What GPT-3 thinks a modern bourgeois party looks like

Here’s what OpenAI’s GPT-3 thinks bourgeoisie means:

The term bourgeoisie refers to a social class who are considered to be the elite of society. They typically have a high level of education and hold positions of power and influence. They are often characterized by their wealth and luxurious lifestyle.The word “bourgeoisie” is used to describe the middle and upper class of a society. These people are typically educated and have high-paying jobs. They often enjoy a comfortable lifestyle with many material possessions.The word “bourgeoisie” is used to describe the middle class in a society. It is typically used in countries where there is a significant difference between the wealthy and poor classes. The bourgeois class is typically seen as being wealthy, but not as wealthy as the aristocracy. They are also often considered to be more educated and cultured than the working class.Analysis

These GPT-3 summaries are quite interesting, and they capture well the conflicting messaging in the basic points in the content above.

Basically there are two main definitions and uses, and it’s hard to know exactly which one is using without more context.

Middle class in a society where there are poor people and super-rich or aristocrats.The upper class.

I think in general, if you’re talking about a historical context, you’re generally going to be talking about a city-based middle class that broke away from the poor to gain increasing power in society.

And if you’re talking about a more modern interpretation, the bourgeoisie are merged with the rich to become the upper class.

News & Analysis | NO. 340

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