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know which sources to trust

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An excellent recap of the wild ride that was 2024. I don’t even think AI could predict what’s coming for 2025, and I also don’t think we would want to know. Everything seems to be accelerating exponentially…

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This newsletter really hit home for me, good stuff. Best wishes to Moo for a speedy recovery!! ❤️‍🩹

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Thank you!

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I new to your newsletter and surely do appreciate this one. Lots of good points and fun.

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Thank you!

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Laugh now, but you won't be laughing when fartcoin becomes the global reserve currency.

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"Firearms have become the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S., surpassing car accidents and other causes." Only for Black children, as it has been for too many years. All other children not comparable; blaming firearms is intended to be a misdirection. Misdirection could be an alternative title for this piece, ignore actual persons who lied, hid the truth, acted as promoters for imaginary wizards behind the curtains. Thousands of "officials" who chose self interest over public good.

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"only for black children" wow

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Hey props for the quote by Paracelsus. I've heard a number of variations, such as "the difference between medicine and poison is the dose" but Paracelsus is the original. And we got a bonus dog pic, which I appreciate. I hope her liver is healthy.

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Thank you!

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I always LOVE your newsletters, but you might have written this one quickly, under stress with your dog's illness. Yes, markets have fundamentally changed, as in, they are no longer really capitalist any more, and money is fast losing its meaning, as we transition to stores of digital value.... I am not sure summarizing these brilliantly nuanced authors in one sentence is fair... Ursula Le Guin and Aldous Huxley and Orwell and Dostoyevsky said so much more than that :-) You can only really summarize how you interpreted them, but it is just one angle, among many for these particular (important) authors. But anyway, a great selection of authors! Thank you very much for an interesting read, and wishing you a wonderful holiday season

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This piece took me two weeks to write. I do believe the authors would understand summarizing their works in one sentence to underscore a broad point, with the reader ideally understanding that of course there is much more to their work than one sentence!

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Not sure I buy into that markets have fundamentally changed. In the fundamental end it's all about earnings, and when earnings change, you'll see what happens, for better or worse. I've been watching all this for over 40 years. The fundamentals haven't changed!

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P.S. I hope Moo is OK, and feeling better!

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It will take me more than two weeks to digest this, but I do appreciate your intelligent and insightful writing. Hope you and Moo happy and healthy holidays!

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Timothy Morton talks about how AI is the past eating the future -- because AI relies on established data -- it cannot conjure out of thin air, it can only interpolate-- unlike the human mind. This is an important distinction to manage as we all kneel down at its altar.

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My theory on why Memecoins do well is the same reason Memes do well...Humans Love a good Story, and Memes are just stories we love to share with others.

The struggling younglings just want to invest in things they relate with, and they don't relate to the S&P 500 no matter how well it's doing.

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Memes DON'T do well, they are the Ferris wheel in a three-ring circus. And when the circus leaves town, they'll be selling postcards of the hanging.

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tokens of course

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Thank you for your consistent good humor and wit. You and Moo are the best. Good luck with the liver exam.

The American "Dust Bowl" was also likely caused by too much mechanization of Midwest wheat production, too fast. Big impact to westward movement of population.

I think there is no alternative but to limit exposure to media and other distractions, assuming one wishes to remain rational. Good luck to us Humans! Y'all means all of us. The road to peace is walked in-person.

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Amazing post. Thank you for sharing.

"Every single person that has ever picked up a pen has written about the plight of the human experience - our tendency to get in our own way. The funny thing is that we know everything we have written about or made movies about. Everyone tells the same stories, differently. But we keep writing about it and making cinema about it because attention is prayer. What we attend to is what we become."

I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Andre Gise - “Everything that needs to be said, has already been said, but since nobody was listening, it needs to be said again.”

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Banger. I wish I disagreed with more of it.

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First: I hope your dog’s okay :( I can get so anxious when my pets get sick, hope you’re feeling alright.

Less important: really enjoyed the article, especially connected with the part about how attention is prayer, but maybe we can feel so helpless because our gods cannot hear. How did we expect to feel when the things we devote the vast majority of our attention to are almost all 1-way streets.

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I neglected to include context for my comment scribbled while reading an Essay on Lewis

Namier by Isaiah Berlin and Noting December 2024 political disclosures.

"Today, Namier is associated with the belief that the thoughts and actions of elites matter most, and with a view of politics in which those who enter public life do so only in pursuit of personal and material advantage. This exaggerated view has made him a hero to social and political conservatives, and a demonic figure to the Left. Preoccupied by nationalism, empire, and human motivation, Namier also remains famous in academic circles for supposedly declaring that any reference to ideas in political discourse was nothing more than ‘flapdoodle’. "

Quote from review of Conservative revolutionary: The lives of Lewis Namier

by David Hayton (Author)

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