Each Sunday I compose a list containing the most thought-provoking and interesting content I’ve consumed during the past week. Primarily as a way to keep inventory of material that influenced me and my way of thinking.
Writings/Essays
Why Do Men Dominate Chess? by Carole Hooven.
If your instinct tells you that males will be disproportionately drawn toward this kind of intense practice style than females, you’re correct. Studies show that boys and men are more likely to exhibit a “rigid persistence in an activity,” by which “the passion controls the individual” (“obsessive passion” in the literature). In anecdotal terms, we are talking here about the man who drops everything to become, say, a 16-hour-per-day videogamer, or a day-trader, or chess addict. Yes, some women take on these kinds of fixations. But men do it more often, and with greater intensity. Not only do males generally score higher than females in these areas, but there is also a positive relationship between obsessive passion and both chess and Scrabble ratings. The sexes don’t seem to differ in the benefits they gain from practice. But men do tend to enjoy practice more, and so do more of it; habits that are strongly associated with winning. The bottom line: Plausibly, one of the main reasons why there are more elite male chess players is that boys are simply more motivated to do what it takes to become an elite player.
The Soul Moved the Pen, and Broke It by Henry Oliver.
Flaubert claimed not to write about himself, but this is disingenuous: Flaubert worked hard not to be a personal writer, but he cultivated the feelings of his characters within himself. It is little wonder that the man who wrote Madame Bovary, which is a tragedy of cynicism, used to choose the ugliest prostitute in the brothel, not even putting down his cigar during the act, because of his cynical attitude towards transient beauty. “I have violent sensual appetites,” he wrote, “yet I cannot give a kiss that is not ironic.” How else is one able to write such a book?
The Bourdain/Bateman Axis by Ven.
The Bourdain/Bateman axis, therefore, is one of reversability and redefinability. If you find yourself stuck in the Bourdain space of irony, existentialism, and warped authenticity, the only logical place is depression. The Bateman game of reservations, “nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”, and banter does allow for a “return” to “actually good.” While I joke about star-counting on an instagram bio and posting restaurant reservations like Broadway playbills, I do understand that tourism locations in a lot of the world are supposed to showcase the best of the country. That’s the part of the beaten path they want you to see, a function of a bit we’re all in on together.
Why Character Doesn’t Matter Anymore by Russell Moore.
Ironically, some of the very people who advance the myth of a “Christian America,” in which the American founders are retrofitted as conservative evangelicals, now embrace a view that both the orthodox Christians and the deist Unitarians of the founding era would, in full agreement, denounce. From TheFederalist Papers to the debates around the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, virtually every Founding Father—even with all their differences on the specifics of federalism—would argue that constitutional procedures and policies alone were not enough to conserve a republic: Moral norms and expectations of some level of personal character were necessary. . . . Moreover, what conservatives in general, and Christians in particular, once knew is that what is normalized in a culture becomes an expected part of that culture. Defending a president using his power to have sex with his intern by saying, “Everybody lies about sex” isn’t just a political argument; it changes the way people think about what, in the fullness of time, they should expect for themselves. This is what Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously called “defining deviancy down.”
Podcasts/Conversations
David Dredge on Inflation, Underpriced Risks and Sharpe Ratio Flaws, Macro Hive.
The Case Against Reality, From Nowhere to Nothing.
Have the Martians Landed with Jim Grant, Keeping It Simple with Simplify.
Long vol, short prediction models 