Action Figure Daniel

Category: Reading

  • “The Psychology of Money” by Morgan Housel

    • Knowing what to do is different from how we feel about it
    • You are already living the dream
    • Brothers are more likely to make the similar income than be similar heights
    • Be content with what you have
    • Don’t give up what you have because you want/need for something you don’t have and don’t need
    • Ice ages are caused by mild summers that don’t melt all the winter snow
    • Highest returns tend to be one time hits
    • Margin of safety is the most important thing
    • Having cash on hand is vital to weathering downtown
    • Having expensive things does not make us content
    • Fevers are good
    • Invest based on what is reasonable not what is rational
    • “Things that have never happened before, happen all the time.”
    • It is different about 20% of the time
    • We started develop a notion that all Americans should have basically the same lifestyle and using debt is okay to do this
    • “The more the internet exposes difference in lifestyle, the more people get pissed.”

  • “The Conversation” by Robert Livingston

    • Proximity is the fastest way to change values
    • Conversation, even thinking about having one, is a powerful change
    • There is a large gap between perception is equity gap
    • (I don’t see the connection between Rights and Treatment. I understand that we have equal Rights but that is not translating into equal treatment.)
    • When other people are around, people are less likely to help
    • “Bias Credentials” are when we support a person of color and we feel entitled to judge other people of color
      • (This is the, “I have a black friend, so it is okay” moment)
    • Racism is more of a sticker than a tattoo
    • People are more often complicit than racist
    • Getting benefits is different from having detractors… They are not opposites
    • A strong grounding in authority is associated with racism
    • When we feel diminished, we are comfortable to diminish others
    • There will always be an “other” group but it is a malleable group
    • Brown people have been settling white people since forever
    • Key identity trigger: Am I competent? Am I a good person? Am I worthy of love?
    • Witnessing discrimination tends to lower our opinion of the person being discriminated
    • Compassion is not empathy
    • Humans do better recognizing affiliation than race
    • Try to add extra categories (try for 4) in addition to race
    • Use concurrent validity to avoid timing or measuring bias
    • Make sure the thing you are measuring matches the thing you want to improve
    • It’s less about having the right answers and more about asking the right questions

  • “The Draw of the Sea” by Wyl Menmuir

    • The ocean is not so vast that we can do whatever we want with it
    • Holding your breathe is more about getting rid of carbon-dioxide
    • We should be working in partnership with the ocean ecosystems
    • We each take different paths to the ocean

  • “Faster” by James Gleick

    • “Type A” is not a real thing (at least, not a defined measurable attribute)
    • “Cigarettes and shots of whiskey: quick little packages.”
    • “Speed” used to be more akin to “success”
    • Everyone with email complains about having too much of it

  • “The Art of Spending Money” by Morgan Housel

    • Learning to spend money for happiness is a personal endeavor
    • Financial quantities is often a means to determine success
    • “Money is so tangible that it is easy to pursue”
    • “simplicity” is different from being “poor”
    • “All behavior makes sense with enough information”
    • “A lot of spending is gasping [for air]”
    • There is a correlation between delayed gratification and enjoying your job
    • “People are not rational, they are rationalizing”
    • Emotions are built by your brain as you need them
    • Write down your own obituary, then try to live up to it
    • We often mistake the desire for love and respect with the desire for nice things
    • People tend to think that doubling their income will unlock happiness
    • No one is jealous about how you got there
    • Contrast is what makes us happy
    • Manage your expectations down instead of increasing the luxury items
    • Focus on minimizing future regrets
      • The things we regret will change over time
    • Independence and purpose should be the goal
    • Every penny is spent: some on things while saved money is ‘spent’ on independence
    • ‘You don’t want to run out of gas but you are not on a tour of gas stations’
    • Avoiding labels helps to keep you flexible
    • “Beliefs are not dangerous until they become absolute”
    • Brands are about signaling consistency, not quality
    • Parents and kids should live the same lifestyle while they are living together
    • “The opposite of a good idea can be a good idea”
    • We get locked into a cycle of greed: you deserve to be right because you paid the price to learn the lesson
    • Avoid having an “accounting hobby”