Creativity is just connecting things
Mark Twain:
When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men — but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his.
Salvador Dalí:
Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
Mark Twain on Plagiarism and Originality: “All Ideas Are Second-Hand”
The Persistence of Poverty
Not only does poverty make it difficult to focus the mind on multiple pressing issues and distort the process by which we prioritise them; but also the very nature and quantity of these issues reduce the motivation to even start trying.
One conclusion I think can be soundly drawn from these ideas: any traditional notion of “tough love” or “getting tough” on lazy poor people that blames them for their lots in life while downplaying their socioeconomic context is, to a first and second and third approximation, bullshit.
Poverty Thoughts
Poverty is bleak and cuts off your long-term brain.
I will never not be poor. It’s not like the sacrifice will result in improved circumstances; the thing holding me back isn’t that I blow five bucks at Wendy’s. It’s that now that I have proven that I am a Poor Person that is all that I am or ever will be. It is not worth it to me to live a bleak life devoid of small pleasures so that one day I can make a single large purchase. I will never have large pleasures to hold on to.
Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, poverty thoughts
America: The swing of the pendulum between Capital and Labour
1974 would mark a fundamental breakpoint in American economic history. Productivity has increased by 80%, but median compensation (wages plus benefits) has risen by just 11% during that time. The middle-income jobs of the nation’s postwar boom years have disproportionately vanished. Low-wage jobs have disproportionately burgeoned. Employment has become less secure. Benefits have been cut.
The Wolf of Wall Street
Meet Jordan Belfort: a white-collar crook who duped innocent investors to finance an insatiable greed. Belfort was convicted of scamming more than $100 million throughout the nineties to finance a hedonistic paradise.
After all, it wasn’t every firm that sported hookers in the basement, drug dealers in the parking lot, exotic animals in the boardroom, and midget-tossing competitions on Fridays.