Affix

Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

This episode Chris has a book review on "The decadent society", hard to explain, but very impactful. We have further reflections on meritocracy, UBI, and womens happiness.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The main book by Ross Douthat - The decadent society: How we became victims of our own success

Whatever Brian's weird reference was in the opening

The paradox of declining womens happiness -  By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women's happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men.

The WEIRD people - Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic

The FIexplorer - he's pretty rich and probably pretty swol'

The broken windows fallacy - Chris stopped paying attention half way through and is now out smashing windows in order to boost GDP and help

Freddie De Boer picks fights with blue checks on twitter. It's quite fun.

The hard thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz - should we get pay rises every couple of weeks?

  (¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯·.¸¸.·´¯·.¸¸.·´¯·.¸¸.·´¯)
  ( \                                                      / )
 ( \ )                                                   ( / )
( ) (     VOTE WITH US!!!        ) ( )
 ( / )                                                    ( \ )
  ( /                                                      \ )
   (_.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`)

Or contact us or support us on Patreon!

This week we discuss meritocracy and psychopaths, we muse if the son of a shearer is really worthy of rising to the top of society, we have more to say about FI/RE and capitalism, and of course, all the news from Diablo 2 and meta coffee bets!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chris with his podcast debut on The Aussie Firebug

The 4% rule and the trinity study

Slow Boring - " Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective. " by Matt Yglesias on Meritocracy

What is Life by Schrodinger (yes the guy with the cat)

The Imperial Exam - how China's public servants were promoted

Chris' vote compass again in case you missed it the first time

Project Diablo 2 again

 Don't forget to reccommend us to your friends!

Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

BIG NEWS!
Vote along with us on the list of coffee bets!

Big list of coffee bets

This week we discuss the topic that initial brought Brian and Chris together FI/RE. The idea that by living frugally and earning well you can retire much earlier than is typical, in your 30s or even 20s.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fifty years of Monetary Policy - what did we even do before inflation rate targetting?

Japan's slow crash and monetary policy - not what you think.

The shockingly simple maths behind early retirement - Literally the only article you need to read on FI/RE

Build the life you want, then save for it - advice from a guy who's pretty good at Diablo II

Grow the buck up - A very compelling podcast by a guy who *sounds* like he wants to sell you a time share, but actually just wants you to be happy.

Don't forget to reccommend us to your friends!

Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

In this episode Brian and Chris get dangerously close to having original ideas about the news and information distribution. Don't worry, we'll go back to just reading other people's opinions next week. We discuss interest rates and power, ponder Stoic philosophy and Brian has so much Diablo 2 news that he can't contain it to just this podcast!

Big list of coffee bets

---------------------------------------------------

Zvi Mowshowitz judges his own Covid 19 preditions from early 2020

Maybe you can sign up for Auger and bet against Brian?

Who drives the bus of interest rates? - Scott Sumner

The Tricameral Legislatures - Chambers of parliament that could exist but don't

The veil of ignorance (also known as the original position)

Stoic quotes on life

Hot news doctrine

Knolls law of media accuracy  “everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge”.

Brian's commentary of Bender's world record paladin HC normal speed run

In this episode we have a listener suggested topic of UBI, how affordable it might be in Australia and if it would help or harm over-all. We talk about moral foundations, and find an actual disagreement between Brian and Chris (please tell us who you agree with). And of course we bring you all the news from D2 speedruns and another coffee bet!

Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

Big list of coffee bets

---------------------------------------------------

Federalism in the UK - sorta federal but not really. They have provinces I guess?

Venezualan relative price fact of the day - " Around Caracas, the capital, a pack of three condoms costs $4.40 — three times Venezuela’s monthly minimum wage of $1.50."

Universal Basic Income - an idea who's time has come?

A data-driven guide to better, more relaxed parenting - Emily Oster

The play pump - possibly the worst way to donate money to the developing world

Understanding moral disagreements with Jonathan Haidt - Rationally speaking with Julia Galef is probably the best podcast. Maybe you should listen to her instead of us?

Moral Foundations Theory - includes the bad graph that irritated Chris

Anti-natalism and climate change.

The repugnant conclusion - a discussion for a later time?

Principal component analysis - explained much better here than what Chris tried to do

Big Five personality traits

Mekalb's Hell HC Barbarian Speedrun highlights (only 14 minutes long!)

In this episode Brian and Chris discuss pandemic preparedness and how Bill and Melinda Gates have(n't?) helped. We use our media empire to wage war on Facebook and the Australian media and have genuine Diablo II news rather than just more nonsense!

Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

Big list of coffee bets

---------------------------------------------------

BBC TV Licence

Why is pluto not a planet (dubious....)

Belt vs Girdle

Bill and Melinda gates annual letter

Inside Bill's Brain

The Kogan Kevin37 LCD Television

US-South Korea war games

Bill Gates is able-and willing-to lose big money funding vaccine factories (spoiler: no he's actually not)

The Korean axe murder incident and Operation Paul Bunyan -  "A convoy of 23 American and South Korean vehicles ... drove into the JSA without any warning to the North Koreans, who had one observation post manned at that hour. In the vehicles were two eight-man teams of military engineers equipped with chain saws to cut down the tree."

Facebook turns off the news. An annoucement from the Australian Government

Exponent Podcast -  Ben and James discuss Australia’s Media Bargaining Code and its fall-out.

Diablo 2 Resurrected or maybe you should just play Project Diablo II

Does anyone know how we can set up betting markets on our coffee bets?

This episode we discuss types of power from Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. We muse over inequality and what it takes to stop it through the lens of Walther Scheidel's "The Great Leveller". We discuss politics and why we hate talking about politics (we like to think all our opinions on economics are just common sense and are in no way political). We bet on whether TSMC can ever be taken down from their dominant spot manufacturing chips and, of course, bring you new ways to play and break world records in Diablo II.

Please contact us (we're so lonely) or support us on Patreon!

Piketty - Capital and the 21st century

Household wealth inequality in Australia

Hunter gatherer inequality

Brian did edit the shareholder value wikipedia page!

Amazon gives open source the middle finger
"In effect, it’s a hosted drop-in replacement for MongoDB that doesn’t use any MongoDB code "

Google LLC v Oracle America

Brian's vote compass
Chris' vote compass

Scott Alexander's Statement on New York Times Article

Leviathan Chapter X - Hobbes

The Great leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century - by Walter Scheidel


Big list of coffee bets

Macro Bio Boi - LoD completion in 7 minutes
Thread on the dashact5 mode

Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

In this episode Brian and Chris discuss shareholder value, important categorization problems such as whether a hotdog is a sandwich or ice is a rock. We talk about inequality in Australia and bet on whether movies will ever make a comeback (of course not, everyone just listens to podcasts now)

The Friedman Doctrine holds that a corporations only purpose is to return value to shareholders

Did Brian edit the Shareholder Value wikipedia page?

The Ontology of Psychiatric Conditions by Scott Alexander

Bill gates and Vaccine Production

Emergent Ventures and Fast Grants

Bryan Caplan really hates masks

What defines a sandwich anyway?

The categories were made for man, not man for categories - Another Scott Alexander post

Sorites Paradox. Maybe the Soroity problem if we believe Brian?

ACOSS report on inequality in Australia in 2018



Big list of coffee bets

In this episode we review the state of FLOSS software, the things going right and the things going wrong. We discuss if it's good to be a technocrat, and when that can go wrong, and sigh with disbelief at the google vs australian newspaper fight.


Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

Tidelift - a new way to pay for open source

How one programmer broke the internet by deleting a tiny piece of code

Economic vs Rhetorical Dominance - Bryan Caplan

Contra Weyl on Technocracy
Weyl's rebuttal

Double Dutch Irish Sandwich (the breakfast of champions)
Corporate Tax transparency


Blury photo of a record possibly being broken. I'm not sure any more, looks like it might be faked

Summoning Salt - The finest reviews of speed runs

Big list of coffee bets