Josh Talks turns 6 today. Here is what I have learnt. A thread.

1/ Building a company is hard. Building a company based on a social mission is even harder. Don't let anyone sway you away from your true cause - sticking to it is more rewarding than you think.

2/ Knowing who your user is and understanding their pulse to the extremest detail as early as possible is an absolute must. Every decision then becomes easier, will this help X? Will he/she use it? How will this change their outcome?

3/ Take time out to figure out what your core strengths as an organisation are. It makes building additional product lines much easier and faster. Still learning how to do this without getting distracted by what seems like a big opportunity in the moment.

4/ Running a profitable business is underrated. We were bootstrapped till we proved our unit economics work. Knowing that our business works at its core fundamentals makes it easier to make bold decisions.

Just finished the bio of Deng Xiaoping by the recently departed Ezra Vogel. Really fascinating book for anyone interested in the foundation of Modern China. I'd argue Deng was the most important statesman in the world from 1950-2000. Many lessons for India. A few takeaways (1/n)

We expect transformative leaders to be grand architects w/ a modernization vision. They should know what changes are crucial. In actuality, most have no clear agenda. Reforms - esp econ. ones - are messy, contradictory, beset by unorthodox ideas mixed in w/ many good ideas (2/n)

Deng & his Communist Party had a nebulous philosophy of "trial by error" & "do what works." Deng's early years as ruling premier were noteworthy for debacles like an economic retrenchment & abrupt cancellation of foreign contracts to husband scarce forex reserves (3/n)

Deng believed in the "population bomb" myth and enacted the 1-Child Law which could hurt China's long-run growth prospects. Deng also quixotically spent much of his country's resources trying to become a petro-state to match Saudi Arabia during the '70s (4/n).

Even Deng's good ideas like special economic zones (SEZs) were rife with problems and accusations of poor implementation. SEZs led to shortages, graft, inflation. Communist leaders demanded an SEZ moratorium and Deng would periodically accede to such demands (5/n)

Something that would help our field, it seems to me, is to separate the Music Director position from the Principal Conductor position at orchestras. If nothing else, you'd get a wider range of musical tastes/interests at the top, which would serve the institutions well.

I've also seen too many situations where big/biggish-name conductors shoot down an idea that has the backing of their orchestras' creative staff, because it's just not of personal interest to them. Conductor ego is a substantial source of regressive energy in classical music.

We have a *major* resource problem in the field of new music. There's not enough $ to go around, and definitely not enough to make the field truly open and accessible. In that light, we need to be strategic about targeting the spaces where new resources could come to the table.

I've long been critical of orchestras, but I've never said we should tear them down. Far from it. Orchestras are central arts organizations with access to community resources of all kinds, including but not limited to $. That's why they have to become true leaders in the field.

Do you know how hard it is for a new music organization to develop the kind of resource base that an orchestra has? A few have come close, but it's practically impossible, especially now, with so much arts funding having dried up and no new apparent boom on the horizon from tech$

I ran across a quote a long time ago, and it's stuck with me:

“Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.”
— Charlie Munger


This talk is both in transcript form and there's a YouTube audio of it as well.

I like this quote from Munger:

"I think I’ve been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I’ve underestimated it. And never a year passes, but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther."

So now, like a mad monkey who has just discovered the hammer, I will now go around using this tool of incentives and perverse incentives on everything. Maybe I'll get lucky and hit a few actual nails.

At root, I think the riots at the capitol are the result of a synergy of perverse incentives in politics, mass media, and social media, and they all contribute to a perfect storm of dysfunction. Maybe this is obvious to everyone, and I'm just catching up. But whatever. Here goes.

PUB DAY! My book, Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy, is officially out with @UCpress. Can I tell you a little bit about it? Thread:

The book argues that 20th century Mexican economists, diplomats, and political figures had a surprising influence on the design and reform of a whole host of multilateral institutions and agreements meant to govern international trade and finance from the 1920s to the 1980s.

Mexican postrevolutionary state officials argued for representation in international organizations and redistribution through multilateral institutions. From the 1920s to the 1940s, they effectively conceptualized and advocated for the apparatus of international development.

The book shows how, working in collaboration & contention with other Latin American and Third World representatives, Mexican officials demanded reforms to the global economic system that would channel the surplus capital of the Global North to productive use in the Global South.

But then something funny happened on the way to the developmental state: once capital began to flow from multilateral institutions like the World Bank, and Mexico reentered the international financial system, it abandoned its role as a reform champion in the 1950s and 1960s.

1/ Merry Christmas everyone! I'm a very odd and eccentric person, so after some Yuletide joy and wine drinking, my thoughts turn to what archaeologists of the future might make of my remains if I were to die in a sudden disaster, like the Vesuvius eruption.
(Quick disclaimer...

2/ I'm not an archaeologist - just someone who takes a keen amateur interest in these things)
After, let's say, a thousand years, and without very particular conditions of preservation that are unlikely in this climate, it's likely that all skin, gristle and textiles would have

3/ rotted into nothingness.
So, what's left?
My bones.
Presuming they're in a decent state of preservation, archaeologists would be able to tell from my brow ridges and gracile bones that I was probably a natal woman.
The eruption of my wisdom teeth and the condition of my

4/ pelvis would indicate I was 30-50 years old at time of death and had had at least one child.
Analysis of bones would indicate I had a land based diet, lived in N. Europe and was well-nourished. Lack of joint wear and tear shows I had undertaken no strenuous physical labour.

5/ What else would be left of me... most likely the sparkly beads on my clothes - both on the collar of my dress and my cardigan. They're made of gum/plastic - made to imitate gems, but very cheap. In the far future, finds like this would be plentiful. Archaeologists would likely

You might see an 'essay' going around today about 'the value of knowledge'. I'm not linking it, but I've taken out a few paragraphs that need to be reckoned with. 1/?

From the very first sentence, this person attacks Nikole Hannah Jones and the #1619Project in a typically conservative fashion, no doubt to get the conservative heads to go 'hear, hear!!'. He then says she 'claims' her expertise & essentially says to her 'stay in your lane'. 2/x

Ridiculous assertion aside, Considering this author is someone that routinely criticizes his education program for doing things like setting tasks of making 'BLM bracelets', but then heralds it in his bio, one must wonder how he reckons w/his own lack of expertise. 3/x

He then criticizes Gloria Ladson Billings, another Black woman for pointing out something that is literally true (have you not seen curricula that tell teachers to enact the slave trade? Or that propagate the thanksgiving myth?) 4/x

but does nothing to reckon with the the history of this country, the (failure) to teach Black children, the changes that DO need to be made in curriculum to ensure both rigor and windows and mirrors. 5/x

Reasons not to do it

I’ve recently been reading through “The Butchering Art”, a terrific account of 19th century surgery & the introduction of germ theory & anesthesia to Victorian medicine. I highly recommend reading it yourself, but here are some interesting tidbits that caught my attention (1/10)

(2) First, as you can imagine, early surgery was absolutely awful & almost always a last resort. One thing I didn’t realize was that back then, the best surgeons were the *fastest* surgeons — for instance, Robert Liston could remove a leg in less than thirty seconds (!).

(3) Early surgery was limited to “peripheral” conditions, like lacerations & fractures. This is because entering the body in surgery was almost always fatal due to infection. This led to the distinction of physicians practicing “internal medicine”, a term that still persists.

(4) More dangerous than the surgeries were post-operative infections & diseases. Four were particularly common — gangrene, septicemia, pyemia, and erysipelas — & were known as “hospitalism”. With the rise of early anesthesia came a rise in attempted surgeries & hospitalism.

(5) What’s wild about this era, looking back, is that no one really knew what was going on... but their theories made some sense. “Contagionists” thought disease was communicable, being transferred from person to person by “invisible bullets” or chemicals. Not the craziest idea.

I want to start a thread of 90s rap records that aren't often discussed here.

I'll focus on singles that were dope/ringing off at the time because rap discussions on Twitter tend to focus on the same 15-20 "big ticket" classic albums, and this way, we can flesh things out a bit:

..and this isn't a "definitive" or authoritative anything. I'm just killing time until my mom finishes Christmas breakfast. Lol

OK. I'm about to read the #1776Report. I'll see you in Hell.

When a student's essay starts with a word jumble that says absolutely nothing, I know I'm about to have a bad time.

Our purpose is to provide easily regurgitated propaganda that prevents any need for critical thinking.

Hit 'em right off the bat with the positivist bullshit! Any competent historian will smell it on the first page.

Just read the words! You don't need to know the context. In fact, we'd strongly prefer if you never placed any historical facts into context.

HELEN by Georgette Heyer (Tweet Read #2)
Part I - The Child
Chapter I
II

MILDRED, Mrs Beazley, came on the evening of the following day. (1/14)

She had had no time to buy mourning clothes, as she would have liked to do, but she had found a very dark blue coat and skirt, which she wore in preference to her new green dress. It was more respectful to the dead, she thought. (2/14)

She had been weeping, and as she crossed the hall she tiptoed.
“Oh, James!” she said, and her hushed voice irritated him, “My poor James! Dear Kitty! my only sister! the shock!” Tears choked her; she clung to his hands. (3/14)

“Thank you for coming,” he said. “I would have sent for you before, only… there wasn’t time.”
She was shocked to hear him speak so levelly. She had always thought him cold and unfeeling. “I can’t believe it!” she said. “I can’t! I can’t! She was always so full of life!” (4/14)

“Please!” he said sharply.
“If only I had been here!” For a time she sobbed, muffled, into her handkerchief, while he stood with his back to her, staring out of the window. “To me—such a blow! You’re so brave—I can’t understand it. What you must have gone through!” (5/14)

1. Three years ago, I set out to write a book to understand what happened to the world, America, and myself as the undertow of history pulled us into the currents of nationalism and authoritarianism – and what we should do about it. I hope you’ll read it:

2. I travelled the world to learn the stories of individuals – dissidents, opposition figures, and young people making sense of it all. I found that the same things were happening everywhere in ways that let me understand better what’s happening in America.

3. I talked to Russians like Alexei Navalny, who told me his story and what motivates him to risk his life for a Russia that isn’t corrupt, that speaks to the grievances that Russians feel in their bones without enriching a cabal that has hijacked Russian identity.

4. I met with Hungarians who described how Viktor Orban transformed himself from an anti-Communist liberal to a far right autocrat, who pursued a playbook that is eerily similar to what the Republican Party has done in the US over the last decade. And what they’re doing about it.

5. I met with Hong Kong protesters and young people whose movement should be heard as a courageous and innovative warning about the future of technology-fueled totalitarianism encroaching on their city, identity, and the wider world. And learned how people are wrestling with that