The Digest #179
Guard your time, Tributes to Charlie Munger, Social media traps, The margin of illusion, AI assisted colonoscopies, Advice on tipping, Alcohol and cardiovascular risks, Nicomachean ethics, and more...
Guard Your Time
Time is our most important resource because it is severely limited. Money allows us to control more of our time and could even help us live a somewhat longer life, but there are some hard limits that do not scale with additional wealth.
“Certain tasks are not so much great as prolific in producing many other tasks: we must avoid those which give birth in turn to new and manifold activities, and not approach something from which we cannot easily withdraw.”
— Seneca, On The Tranquility of The Mind
Life might be long if we know how to use it, but the reality is that most of us over-commit without thinking about the implications and end up diluting our efforts:
“Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing.”
— Seneca, On The Shortness of Life
Does it make sense to jealously guard our possessions while freely squandering our time? Of course not, but this is par for the course in Seneca’s time and in ours:
“People are frugal in guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”
— Seneca, On The Shortness of Life
How is time wasted? One common cause of wasted time is associating with the wrong people. So we need to be careful in our personal and professional relationships:
“We must be especially careful in choosing people, and deciding whether they are worth devoting a part of our lives to them, whether the sacrifice of our time makes a difference to them. For some people actually charge us for our services to them.”
— Seneca, On The Tranquility of The Mind
At the same time, most human beings will not thrive if they are completely isolated, so it is worth taking some risks rather than totally withdrawing from society:
“But if we shun all society and, abandoning the human race, live for ourselves alone, this isolation, devoid of any interest, will be followed by a dearth of useful activity.”
— Seneca, On The Tranquility of The Mind
Engaging in society is positive and even necessary for most people, but we need to pick and choose who to associate with and how to spend our limited time. This is all easier said than done. Cutting our losses when it is apparent that we are interacting with people who drain our time and energy is difficult but essential.
Articles
Full Transcript from CNBC’s “Charlie Munger: A Life of Wit and Wisdom”, November 30, 2023. “Billionaire investor Charlie Munger sat down with CNBC’s Becky Quick on November 14, 2023 in Los Angeles, CA in a special interview to commemorate his soon-to-come 100th birthday. Munger passed away on November 28 at the age of 99. ‘Charlie Munger: A Life of Wit and Wisdom’ features this recent interview to celebrate Munger’s life and his storied career.” (CNBC)
Charlie Munger’s Life Was About Way More Than Money by Jason Zweig, November 29, 2023. “I had the extraordinary good luck to get to know Charlie Munger in the past two decades. If you think his life was only about piling up money, think again. Few people have ever been wealthier, in all the senses of the word, than Munger was.” (WSJ)
Charles T. Munger, 1924 - 2023 by David Houston, November 28, 2023. This obituary by the Editor-in-Chief of Daily Journal has details about Charlie Munger’s views of the legal profession that have not appeared in other obituaries. (Daily Journal)
When Product Markets Become Collective Traps: The Case of Social Media by Leonardo Bursztyn, Benjamin Handel, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, and Christopher Roth, October 12, 2023. “Large shares of consumers use Instagram and TikTok out of a fear of missing out rather than genuine interest and, as a result, are worse off than if the platforms did not exist in the first place.” (University of Chicago)
The Optimal Margin of Illusion by
, December 3, 2023. “People do inflate their opinions of themselves. But this only goes so far. People in the photo study chose images that were slightly more attractive than the true photo, but only slightly. Most people see themselves as just a bit better than they really are.” (Rob Henderson’s Newsletter)The A.I. Resident Enters the Colonoscopy Suite by Eric Topol, December 1, 2023. “Across 33 trials, which represent the largest proportion of randomized trials performed thus far in medical A.I, there was an impressive increased A.I. boost in detection of adenomatous polyps, the ones that are most likely to progress to cancer.” (Ground Truths)
Everything You Don’t Know About Tipping by Tim Urban, April 1, 2014. This article was written long before tip screens started appearing in strange contexts, such as earlier this year when I was prompted to tip a technician who came to my home to diagnose an appliance problem. When should we tip and how much? This article provides useful insights even if it might be somewhat outdated. (Wait But Why)
Reassessing the relationship between alcohol intake and cardiovascular disease risk by Peter Attia, December 2, 2023. Recent studies have found that any level of alcohol use elevates cardiovascular risks. However, the effects are not linear — the risk increases exponentially as consumption increases. Therefore, risk can be substantially mitigated, although not eliminated, by cutting back on consumption. (Peter Attia MD)
Podcasts
A Conversation with Charlie Munger & John Collison, December 5, 2023. 1 hour, 40 minutes. Transcript. This interview, recorded last year, was intended to coincide with today’s release of a new edition of Poor Charlie’s Almanack. “We were all stunned last week when we heard the news of Charlie's passing, but having consulted with those close to him, everyone agreed that he'd want us to release this interview.” (Invest Like the Best)
Charlie Munger, December 5, 2023. 1 hour, 54 minutes. David Senra discusses what he learned from reading the new edition of Poor Charlie’s Almanack. (Founders Podcast)
Remembering Charlie Munger: Life and Legacy, December 2, 2023. 45 minutes. “In this episode, co-hosts Phil Ordway, Elliot Turner, and John Mihaljevic reflect on the life and legacy of Charlie Munger.” (This Week in Intelligent Investing)
Yossi Klein Halevi on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, December 5, 2023. “In 2018, author Yossi Klein Halevi wanted Palestinians to understand his story of how Israel came into existence. At the same time, he wanted Palestinians to tell him their personal and national stories, too, about the same land. The result was Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, a candid, heartfelt book that engaged Jews and Arabs around the world in conversation.” (Econ Talk)
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, November 30, 2023. 52 minutes. “Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristotle's ideas on what happiness means and how to live a good life. Aristotle (384-322 BC) explored these almost two and a half thousand years ago in what became known as his Nicomachean Ethics.” (In Our Time)
Winter Scene on Broadway
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