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watching eric go through his arc of disillusionment in public, despite all his sincerity and hopefulness and intelligence was really sobering for me. A lot of

by savryn 4y ago

watching eric go through his arc of disillusionment in public, despite all his sincerity and hopefulness and intelligence was really sobering for me. A lot of us have this inner "oh if only I was a better speaker / smarter / worked on my persuasion skills ..." It's just not how power works. It's not how society works. I get that now, and it was amazing anthropology to see it unfold.

digdugdirk 4y ago
Mind explaining what you mean by his arc of disillusionment? I don't follow the guy, my only recollection of him is from listening to him on a podcast about some wild "physics theory of everything" a while back. I recall it being one of those "I'm not sure if I'm an idiot, or he's crazy, but this sure is a fun ride" kinds of experiences.
- savryn 4y ago
  “The idealism of every era is usually the cover story of its greatest thefts.” this is my favorite eric quote, which he also just applied to the ftx mess. Eric's way of seeing things isn't a linear thing I can summarize, there's a few youtube vids you can search for the concepts of Kayfabe or his anger at the Consumer Price Index methodology which he's been making noise about for a decade, way before all the cool kids today tweeting about inflation. It's about seeing narrative frames and language games that institutions play to intrinsically hide (to others and themselves) the mechanics of power/money. If you believe in beautiful liberal middle-class dreams it's really painful to square with reality of those machines. He calls his own podcast The Portal because to see these patterns you need that moment where you step out of the calcified frame of current understanding, like in those kids books where youre stuck in a drab deadened state and then find a magical portal to narnia, can return transformed. (You have to have those moments yourself, it usually feels like a loss of innocence imo)

by savryn 4y ago

digdugdirk 4y ago

Mind explaining what you mean by his arc of disillusionment? I don't follow the guy, my only recollection of him is from listening to him on a podcast about some wild "physics theory of everything" a while back. I recall it being one of those "I'm not sure if I'm an idiot, or he's crazy, but this sure is a fun ride" kinds of experiences.

savryn 4y ago
“The idealism of every era is usually the cover story of its greatest thefts.” this is my favorite eric quote, which he also just applied to the ftx mess. Eric's way of seeing things isn't a linear thing I can summarize, there's a few youtube vids you can search for the concepts of Kayfabe or his anger at the Consumer Price Index methodology which he's been making noise about for a decade, way before all the cool kids today tweeting about inflation. It's about seeing narrative frames and language games that institutions play to intrinsically hide (to others and themselves) the mechanics of power/money. If you believe in beautiful liberal middle-class dreams it's really painful to square with reality of those machines. He calls his own podcast The Portal because to see these patterns you need that moment where you step out of the calcified frame of current understanding, like in those kids books where youre stuck in a drab deadened state and then find a magical portal to narnia, can return transformed. (You have to have those moments yourself, it usually feels like a loss of innocence imo)