Weekend Reading #154
Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash
This is the hundred-and-fiftieth-fourth weekly edition of our newsletter, Weekend Reading, sent out on Saturday 5th February 2022.
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What we're thinking.
This week we’ve been thinking quite a bit about quality versus quantity of information. There is just so much out there to read and to be honest, very little of it is regularly ground-breaking. We have built up filters over years of accumulating resources and think we do a decent job of chopping out most of the noise but it's getting more difficult. Despite our rigorous filters we are exhausted from the sheer amount of stuff that gets chucked at us. So much so that when a new email arrives in our inbox or a new tweet thread gets posted, sometimes we just don’t even feel like reading more than a brief skim of the contents. We have a modest presence on social media and have not focused on growing it (we probably never will). As such we write for no reason other than because we enjoy it, and we enjoy interacting with everyone on the topics we write about. We always pen our own original thinking (which of course is moulded by what we consume too) – from the actual blogpost to the things we are reading, watching, thinking and listening to. So, reflecting that back to ourselves, we are sure you must feel that way too sometimes with our stuff. If you do think we can streamline or improve in any way, please tell us!
On that note, after multiple attempts to pen something this week, we came to the (likely appropriate) conclusion that it’d be better to publish nothing than to publish something completely for the sake of it.
It certainly doesn’t detract from the dissatisfaction of breaking a streak of newsletters – hopefully all of which everyone enjoyed greatly!
Away from musings about quality and quantity, in the market we have seen some breath-taking post-results moves in the stocks of the biggest companies in the world. From Google and Amazon bursting upwards to Netflix and Facebook imploding on results, none of this can be good in any way and is a sign of the skittish market we currently face. Everyone has an opinion down to the most nuanced takes and when the biggest stocks in the world move around this much it's so tempting to trade our opinion (yes, we have one). But sometimes it's best just to sit it out and preserve what we have. As we have repeated over the past few weeks, now is not a time to be a hero.
What we're reading.
This week I finished reading a book called “Wanting – The Power of Memetic Desire in Everyday Life” by Luke Burgis. It caught my eye because the subject of memetic desire finds its roots in the teachings and philosophies of Rene Girard who I had been reading before this Girard was a French philosopher (and many other things) who came to prominence through his thoughts about desire and its roots. His period at Stanford in the 80s and 90s saw him teach a young Peter Thiel, who often talks about Girard and his teachings as being the basis for his world view. As you may know Thiel was the first outside investor in Facebook. According to him, he had never seen a company which better elucidated the memetic desire than Facebook and credits this as the reason for his early investment. Girard’s teachings are widespread and his list of works is vast but this book from Burgis is excellent to get an introduction into Girard’s ideas and also to understand what it means for you as a reader. We all have desires and wants but do we really know why we have them? Do we know where they come from? After reading this and asking yourself some deep questions, you’d maybe be surprised where you end up.
One newsletter that definitely falls into the quality bucket and is unmissable for us is Ben Hunt’s Epsilon Theory publication and this piece about narrative framing and chickens (yes, chickens) was just simply sublime. It’s called Narrative and Metaverse, Pt. 2: Gain of Function. And if you want to understand how the world really works best you read this piece (part of a series on narratives) and of course everything else. DC
What we're watching.
There was only one sporting event to watch over the past week and and it was truly astonishing. Rafa Nadal’s monstrously epic comeback and record-breaking 21st Grand Slam victory over Daniil Medvedev in the Australian Open final last Sunday was, to put it simply, what sport is all about. I still struggle to fathom the awesomeness of Grand Slam tennis and, with every passing epic, I grow more convinced that, at the sharp end, when the pressure comes on, and two weeks of match play amongst the world’s best reaches a crescendo, the final of a current tennis Grand Slam is the best sporting event to watch and the most challenging to play in sporting history. Big statement, but these guys are giants. I enjoy a couple of sports more than tennis, but I can’t wrap my head around what the skill, the intensity, the fitness, these guys bring to the court for, sometimes, 5 hours (5 hours and 24 minutes in Nadal and Medvedev’s case!) at a time. Jaw-dropping and I for one will be incredibly sad when the giants of the current game, either move along or just can’t do it anymore. Watching Nadal batter the younger Medvedev into submission last Sunday morning was inspiring, magical and, perhaps, a little sad. Like the passing of time, these greats can’t go on forever. Like all of us, they age and, eventually, move onto a better place. I suppose the only lesson to remember is to make sure you enjoy it while it lasts. EJP
And talking about the passing of time and sport leads us neatly onto this weekend’s main event, the Six Nations Rugby Championship. Every year, without fail, the Six Nations hails the end of January and the slow but sure arrival of Spring. The appearance of rugby being played on green fields and, this year, in front of packed crowds, in Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Paris, Cardiff, and Rome can only mean that the end of winter isn't too far away. By the end of the 7 weekends worth of action, it will be nearing the end of March, and we'll be out of another winter and, hopefully, the last remnants of Omicron will be well and truly behind us. This year's tournament kicks off with two great matchups, with dominant Ireland hosting Wales in Dublin and injury-hit England heading to Edinburgh to play a very good Scotland team. Whilst men's Grand Slam tennis is, to my mind, the best sport on earth when it reaches finals time, the Six Nations, without fail, delivers every year, and as a result, is undoubtedly my favourite tournament in sport. So, turn up the heating, turn down the children, and enjoy sport at its very best. EJP
The first part of Season 4 of the gripping Ozark series has recently dropped giving some much-needed storyline development to the on goings of the Byrde Family clan and their band of misfit drug dealers in tail. For those that haven’t seen it, it is perhaps one of the best Netflix originals made to-date starring Jason Bateman as a serial money launderer who uproots his family from urban Chicago to the Ozark lakes in the Mid-West as part of his engagement with a dangerous Mexican cartel. Season 4 will be the final season of the show, and with part 1 only just released, it will likely still be sometime before we finally see the fate of Marty Byrde and co. HS
This week, the world witnessed an athlete calling time on certainly a decorated career. Tom Brady, can without a doubt, wear the tag “GOAT.” His story is so unique... How he evolved from underdog to the greatest of all time, is simply nothing short of genius. No one will argue with what he achieved in a career spanning 22 years in one of the toughest sports out there. He played in 10 Superbowl finals and won 7 of them and was named MVP in 5. I honestly cannot see anyone surpassing that record. In the build-up to next week's Superbowl final, NFL greats can't comprehend how he did it for so long, when the current NFL career at present is “roughly” 3.5 -5 years. On that note, we wait in eager anticipation for the next star to challenge his record. Until then, we look forward to seeing the Cincinnati Bengals take on the LA Rams in next week’s LVI Superbowl Final. DK
What we're listening to.
This week has been a long one as I've found myself plugging away at several initiatives in the business but have found solace in listening to a few classical pieces and building my new “work playlist”. Some classics to listen to have to be “Nessun Dorma”, “Nuvole Bianche”, “The Flower Duet”, and “Moonlight Sonata” to name a few... DK
I was on school duty for the past week or two and while ferrying the kids up and down, I spent more time listening to the radio than normal. As a result, I found myself listening to GAYLE’s new hit song, “abcdefu”. While the radio version is sanitized for bad language (and as far as the kids are concerned is all there is), I went onto Spotify (no I am not boycotting them) for the real deal. Swearing is a topic of much discussion in our house as given the fact I’m a trader, I am a liberal user of curse words and sometimes (well often to be honest) I get called out by my kids. But the full vocabulary version of GAYLE’s song is just so much more gratifying to listen to. It got me thinking about why the song is so popular. Obviously, it's got a great melody but I think there is also an element of everyone listening to it just wanting to swear loudly as a release from all the bottled-up stuff accumulated over the past few years. Whether it's covid, politics, the media or whatever, I think everyone has had enough and this really does hit the spot. DC
This podcast featuring Ava Labs founder Emin Gun Sirer is an interesting listen, providing a strongly argued opinion about several of the most pertinent issues in the crypto world today: whether rollups and L2s are viable (he thinks they’re parasitic); the factors determining success and failure of other “alt L1s”, the compromises between decentralisation, control, security and speed; and perhaps the responsibility of a chain developer to maintain the user experience, acting unapologetically in favour of the “little guys” on the chain rather than being worried about offending the “whales”. For what it’s worth, there is little debate about the academic and technical prowess of the technology behind Avalanche and some of the applications they are seeking to capitalise on. The question of whether it’s a long-term winner? That’s for everyone to decide, and this podcast might be helpful. EL