36 Comments

Great post. I envy your ability to find the right quote for seemingly everything! Makes me wish I read more…

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Hey Kyla,

Really good podcast. The issue about lack of nuance in the current environment / culture is so true. It’s impossible to explain a different view to some other people nowadays. And the shrinking in vocabulary (therefore words) and the associated meaning were also very on point. Very interesting takes that you have made in this last podcast that are a bit afar from what you do (econ) but I love it.

I usually don’t listen too much to podcasts nor do I consult social medias nowadays but your voice is very interesting as we can see that you do your homework, that you are passionate about what you are doing and that you try to make a digest summary of what you learn. Clearly, among all the noise with social media, you really stand out (even if the quantitative metrics are not here, qualitatively, you outreach anyone imo).

Yeah sounds really like a Swifty fan comment but I like to recognize people that are doing great things so yeah, huge applause from me.

Take care

Cheers

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Thank you Rindra :)

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Love this newsletter. I discovered you on TikTok and enjoyed your ability to synthesize a lot of info in a short video. I’ve never read the poem by Devin Kelly before, it was moving the way you used it to pull the whole story together. Your ability to bring news, economics, culture and literature together is magical.

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thank you so much <3

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Always grateful my eyeballs find your writing!

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Thanks for the post! My favorite take was:

> you have to be able to define a set of values that define you - while embracing ambiguity - but also realizing that you cannot truly be “free” unless everyone else is free too.

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I'm glad you're on here, I enjoy your videos a lot! And I was just thinking this morning "I wonder if she's on substack because these points and topics are perfect for this format" and there you were 🙂 I look forward to your next post!

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I enjoyed so much this post, particularly the first part about what we believe about ourselves. Probably, life without effort is senseless to us, we search for Heroe's Journey permanently so that we think and confirm to ourselves that we are special. Camus used to say that he tried to imagine Sisyphus happy.

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💯💯💯

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kyla, your past few posts about the eyeball monetization economy struck a chord with me. as someone in tech, 90% of jobs are subsidized by feeding this perpetual consumption machine that we know we hate. no wonder so many of us are so disillusioned with our personal and professional lives!

although comfort has never been cheaper at any point in history, it seems like individuality now comes at a greater cost: social, financial, or otherwise. to detach from using social media platforms, from keeping up with The News, or to choose not to work on a soul-sucking widget factory requires a lot of discipline once you got sucked in once. we're all making hard tradeoffs in this weird world.

admittedly I may be reading into too much into your recent posts, but they've made me ruminate nonetheless. thanks for saying the quiet part so eloquently.

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thank you!

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thank you for referencing Becker

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So very good - was not expecting SdB insights on life 🙏

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Really enjoyed this piece today the story teller part made me think a lot

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hi Kyla, I learn about you from Even More News, and I am curious to know how your views on cryptocurrencies have evolved, given the broader perspective you seem to have gotten in the past year.

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i feel the same about it <3

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Really? You think unrestricted hypercapitalism is the answer to society's problems?

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That's a disingenuous take on *some aspects* of crypto, and I ask that you read more before being so presumptive. Thanks.

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I've read a lot on the matter, including technical stuff about the functioning of the blockchain, and non-technical stuff like David Gerard's Attack of the 50 foot Blockchain, which I recommend if you haven't read. I would also recommend, if you haven't watched it, Dan Olson's "Line Go Up" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g&t=3584s).

From all of this my take on cryptocurrencies is that they are intrinsically tied to hyper right wing libertarian views on deflationary currencies and nostalgia for the gold standard that is, at its best, just wrong, and at its worst, shifts into straight antisemitic tropes of "international banking" conspiracy theories.

(Not to defend banks or the global financial system, just to point out that historically some criticism of it has sadly verged into antisemitism, and the traditions that did that had an influence in the ideas out of which Bitcoin emerged)

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Love this post. Thanks for the insights.

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thanks for reading!

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Always a good macro take. I'm curious how the narrative of AI hype is drowning out the tech layoffs and how automation will mean some of these jobs won't come back.

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Sounds like a good post!

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Thought provoking to be sure. Archetypes are important and yet play into the story we tell ourselves and which we limit ourselves.

It is true that polarization is a product of limitation. When we fictionalize our reality we are in danger of archetypal stories like Good vs. Evil which become these polar realities.

This is a weakness of the digital social platform where we stop talking and our realities do become polarized fiction that we come to believe as our realities.

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