The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Satire is "the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues."

This paragraph is the result of a Google Search for the definition of the word "Satire."

Zac and Don discuss satire in our society.  They do this by discussing the role of phones and social media in our lives.  They also discuss the truth behind the Hansel and Gretel Fairy Tale.  

The following article and podcast are discussed:

New Yorker Daily Shout:

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/ah-another-beautiful-morning-time-to-ruin-it-by-immediately-opening-my-phone

Tim Harford Podcast: The Truth About Hansel and Gretel

https://timharford.com/2021/10/the-truth-about-the-truth-about-hansel-and-gretel/

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

For brand-building, it makes sense that TIME has steered away from bad guys; “Person of the Year” today sounds a lot like an endorsement, in part because TIME’s original idea has proven so catchy and reproducible. But it also leaves Americans the poorer for it: The point is to identify people who matter and let readers — and citizens — process that how they will. Given how messy our democracy has become, it’s long past time to reembrace the original conception of the cover and, occasionally, highlight the people doing it harm.

This paragraph comes from a Politico essay titled: "The Right Choice for TIME's Person of the Year is Ruining America."  The essay is written by Jeff Greenfield.  You can read the essay here:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/02/time-person-of-the-year-rupert-murdoch-523624 

Zac and Don talk about the TIME person of the year.  They wonder what the qualifications are.  They wonder who should be the person of the half century from 1950-2000, and first quarter century 2000-2025.  They also consider the author's selection of Rupert Murdoch.  Finally, they discuss the actual winner - Elon Musk.

You can read the official TIME Person of the Year article on Elon Musk Here:

https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk/

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Some states have eliminated language requirements for high school students: In Oklahoma and Texas they can opt instead for computer coding, while in California they can choose visual and performing arts classes or technical education. One in five Americans speaks a language other than English at home, yet we have abandoned building our foreign language skills and ceded the advantages of being a multilingual country.

The idea that this is not a problem because “everyone speaks English” is far from the truth. Only a quarter of the world’s population is minimally competent in English, and even those who claim to have conversational skills often don’t operate at a very high level of proficiency. Monolingual English-speakers can’t effectively communicate with three-quarters of the world. That means they can’t tap into knowledge created in those languages or take advantage of business opportunities.

This paragraph comes from an essay written in the Wall Street Journal.  The essay is titled: "The Downside of English's Dominance."  The essay is written by Rosemary Salomone.  You can read the article here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-downside-of-englishs-dominance-11637989261

Zac and Don discuss this article and three others while pondering the theme of: "What is the biggest concern for the world?"  The other three articles considered are:

The Decline of Roquefort Cheese

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-much-longer-roquefort-reign-king-cheese-180978999/

Whose Job Is It to Prevent Armageddon?

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/20/global-planetary-defense-earth-asteroids-523072

Elon Musk thinks Declining Population is the Biggest Problem for Human Civilization

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/07/elon-musk-civilization-will-crumble-if-we-dont-have-more-children.html

The Best Paragraphs I've Read:

Abstraction: There are scales of explanation. A human can be considered a person, mammal, collection of cells, collection of stardust. Sometimes the reason people can’t see eye to eye is that they’re unwittingly considering things at different levels of abstraction.

Scope Neglect: We evolved for the small scale of tribal life, so we can’t comprehend the big numbers that recently entered human life. We can appreciate the difference between 50 and 100, but not a million and a billion. It’s why we often treat geopolitics like family politics.

The Law of Very Large Numbers: Given a wide enough dataset, any pattern can be observed. A million to one odds happen 8 times a day in NYC (population 8 million). The world hasn’t become crazier, we’re just seeing more of everything.

Benford’s Law: Numbers in natural sets of data are not uniformly distributed (e.g. 30% of numbers have 1 as their first digit). Used by the IRS and other tax agencies to determine if you’ve lied about your finances.

Brandolini’s Law (aka the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle): It takes a lot more energy to refute bullshit than to produce it. Hence, the world is full of unrefuted bullshit.

The Toxoplasma of Rage: The ideas that spread most are not those everyone agrees with, but those that divide people most, because people see them as causes to attack or defend in order to signal their commitment to a tribe. h/t: @slatestarcodex

Network Effect: The more people using a network, the more useful it becomes. A phone gains utility as more people use phones because more people can be called with it. It’s why Twitter & Facebook are so dominant; we’re stuck on these platforms because everyone else is.

Paradox of Abundance: Easy availability of food led to obesity for the masses but good health for the few who used the increased choe to avoid the mass-produced junk. Equally, you can avoid intellectual diabetes by ignoring junk info like gossip & clickbait. h/t: @david_perell

Parkinson’s Law: Work expands to fill the time allotted for it. No matter the size of the task, it will often take precisely the amount of time you set aside to do it, because more time means more deliberation & procrastination.

Flow States: You’re in flow when you’re so engrossed in a task that the world vanishes and the work seems to do itself. Flow is automatic, and it makes work much easier than you imagined. All you have to do is overcome the initial hurdle of beginning a task; flow does the rest.

The Curse of Knowledge: The more familiar you become with an idea the worse you become at explaining it to others, because you forget what it’s like to not know it, and therefore what needs to be explained to understand it. Makes it hard to write threads like this!

Status Quo Bias: Those who were unfazed by Covid because it had a ~1% fatality rate were suddenly concerned about vaccines when they yielded a 1 in a ~million fatality rate. People see the risks of doing something but not the risks of doing nothing.

These concepts comes from the website www.nextbigwhat.com.  The article is titled: "40 Concepts that you will enrich your knowledge."  The article is written by Gurwinder Bhogal.  You can read the article here:

https://nextbigwhat.com/40-concepts-that-you-will-enrich-your-knowledge/

Zac and Don discuss each of the concepts, the meaning, and connect them to current events and their own lives.

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Some proponents of National Divorce say not to worry — it can all be worked out amicably without any unpleasantness, like, you know, the war that killed roughly 700,000 people the last time a region of the U.S. tried to secede. But if we are going to split up because we are irreparably divided and can’t even agree on bathroom policies or pronouns, how are we going to agree to divvy up our territory and resources — the kind of things real wars are fought over all the time?

This paragraph comes from Politico.com.  The article is titled: "A Surprising Share of Americans Wants to Break up the Country.  Here's Why They're Wrong."  The article is written by Rich Lowry.  You can read the article here:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/06/americans-national-divorse-theyre-wrong-515443

Zac and Don discuss the idea of national divorce for America.  They talk about the downside of the nation breaking apart.  They wonder why so many Americans have reached a point where they want to break away from each other.  In addition, Zac and Don talk about the concept of Texit. Finally, Zac and Don talk about the map which shows every state's least favorite state.  You can view the map here:

https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1412764555630026754?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1412764555630026754%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.audacy.com%2Fkluv%2Flatest%2Ffunny-map-shows-which-states-hate-each-other

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/six-flags-dining-pass

Dylan’s first bite into a turkey hotdog called the “Thanksgiving Dog” felt nothing short of life-changing. “It was amazing,” he says. “It’s a turkey dog topped with cranberry sauce, stuffing and a slathering of mayonnaise, which I know sounds awful, but it was so good. I ended up eating way too many of them, and now I can’t even smell turkey dogs without gagging.”

This paragraph comes from an article on www.melmagazine.com.  The article is titled: "Meet the guy who spends just $150 a year to eat all his meals at Six Flags."  The article is written by Quinn Myers.  You can read the article here:

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/six-flags-dining-pass

Zac and Don discuss the question: "What is the better financial move?" They talk about the guy who ate a year's worth of lunch and dinners at Six Flags amusement park for $150 dollars.  They also talk about the guy who bought $8,000 of crypto currency and saw it grow into 5.7 billion dollars.  Towards the end of their discussion they wonder if maybe they have stumbled upon their own billion dollar idea!

Zac and Don also reference the following articles during their discussion:

Shiba Inu Cryptocurrency Investor Turns $8,000 into $5.7 Billion.

https://www.complex.com/life/shiba-inu-cryptocurrency-investor-turns-8000-dollars-into-5-billion/

Tyler Cowen on Crypto Currency Trading

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/11/tyrone-on-crypto-assets.html

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

This week Zac and Don discuss their favorite exchanges from a recent Conversations with Tyler podcast.  During the podcast Professor Tyler Cowen interviewed General Stanley McChrystal.  You can listen to the podcast episode here:

https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/stanley-mcchrystal/  

Zac and Don use Professor Cowen's podcast to talk about different aspects of the military including: recruitment, training, discipline, understanding history, leadership, and the potential of future war.

The following book is mentioned in the podcast:

2034: A Novel of the Next World War

https://www.amazon.com/2034-Novel-Next-World-War/dp/0593298683/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1637200150&sr=8-1

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Work isn’t just our livelihood. It can be a source of structure, belonging and meaning in our lives. But that doesn’t mean our jobs should dictate how we spend most of our waking hours. For several generations, we’ve organized our lives around our work. Our jobs have determined where we make our homes, when we see our families and what we can squeeze in during our downtime. It might be time to start planning our work around our lives.

This paragraph comes from an essay in the Wall Street Journal.  The essay is titled: "The Real Meaning of Freedom at Work."  The essay is written by Adam Grant.  You can read the article here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-real-meaning-of-freedom-at-work-11633704877 

Organizational Strategist Beth Stiner joins Zac and Don to discuss workplace culture in America.  They talk about the changing demands that people have for their workplace.  They also talk about the challenges that managers face in meeting worker demands.  They also talk about an equation that can help people decide if they need to change jobs.  In addition, the discussion of bringing about change in a large organization is discussed.   

Ms. Stiner discusses an equation that can help decide if you need to leave your job.  You can read more about the equation here:

Change Formula: DxVxF>R. This afternoon, I was speaking with a… | by Ted Riter | Medium

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

A school board in northern Michigan plans to send a protest over sportsmanship following a soccer player's 16-goal record-setting game against a winless team.

The backlash over Kevin Hubbell's performance continued Monday night at a meeting of the Kingsley board. Members didn't take a formal vote, but there was clear support for sending a letter to the Benzie Central district, the superintendent said.

Hubbell, one of the best players in Michigan, scored 16 goals in a 17-0 victory by Benzie Central on Sept. 29, setting state and national records for most goals in a high school game.

"He was firing them off like a rocket," said Heather Bartelmay, a Kingsley school board member whose son was goalkeeper for part of the game. "We went over and hugged our boys. That's what was needed. Their hearts were bleeding."

This paragraph comes from an article written by the Associated Press on the UpNorthLive.com website.  The title of the article is: "School concerned about sportsmanship after new soccer record."  You can read the article here:

https://upnorthlive.com/news/local/school-concerned-about-sportsmanship-after-new-soccer-record

Zac and Don talk about youth sport blowouts.  Is it ever ok to run up the score?  Is there a certain point when a coach needs to try and slow their team down?  Are fans, players, and their communities allowed to be angry about losing games in a big way?  Does the age of the players matter in this discussion?

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

In my experience, if you see a CEO chasing press, that person’s company is probably headed for trouble. The energy spent burnish­ing your image could almost always be better spent managing your people, ferreting out problems, clearing obstacles, honing processes, talking to customers, selecting vendors, recruiting team members and working on new initiatives. With Manhattan Prep, the most important thing was to do a good job for each student. The most powerful growth driver would be a satisfied student telling his or her friend, “Hey, this company did a great job, you should give them a try.” That is the way most businesses operate: If you do a good job and make people happy, then the business grows.

In the context of presidential politics it was the opposite. The job was simply the seeking of attention. You would seek press vir­tually all of the time. Interviews and press — or an in-person event that hopefully would attract press — were the job. When I wasn’t on the road, I would wake up on a typical day and head to a television studio first thing in the morning, go to the office to film some digital ads, do several interviews and then head to a grassroots fundraising event that night.

This paragraph comes from a Politico.com essay written by Andrew Yang.  The essay is titled: "When I Ran for President, It Messed With My Head."  You can read the essay here:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/03/andrew-yang-book-excerpt-campaigning-514967 

Zac and Don discuss Mr. Yang's essay.  They wonder how authentic any presidential candidate is.  They talk about Mr. Yang's description of a candidate being a "product."  They also wonder if there are actual qualifications that a presidential candidate should have.  Finally, they discuss Mr. Yang's statements about how a campaign can really change a candidate's ability to have empathy.