WE'RE BAILING OUT THE BILLIONAIRES AGAIN It’s getting to be rather a bad habit around here. And it all started with the Magna Carta. Bear with me. Many more qualified people have explained the ins and outs of the recent bank failures in our crazy financial system, here and here. I also have talked about the energy implications of money before. I don't want to talk about FDIC insurance. I want to talk about story. MONEY IS A STORY It's a story we made up when we moved beyond a barter economy. It's a brilliant story! I make cloth, and you grow apples. I want apples, but you don't need cloth. So I give you a tiny piece of metal instead, trusting that eventually somebody is going to need cloth and will replenish my stores of metal. None of us need the metal for anything, but it stands in for everything we do need. Evolve that miracle system long enough, and apparently, you get pure imaginary money where we don't even need the little pieces of metal, and we just tell each … [Read more...] about Why Money is Just a Rollicking Good Story
Make Life Suck Less
How to World Build a New Future with Endless Energy
A scientist made a tiny sun on earth a few days ago, and it took less energy than it produced. It's been all over the news with good reason. It's huge. Endless energy for everyone! Well, maybe. Someday. It's important to note that sustaining a tiny sun on earth may never be possible; though we said that about the energy! At the very least, this solution is decades and decades away. If it ever happens, what does it mean? Let's do a little world-building, shall we? One of the most fun and important steps of writing speculative fiction is, well, speculating. Change a variable in your made-up world and play out all of the implications on money, religion, gender, power all of it. Variable: We now get energy from fusion, not from ancient dead plants. What does a world like that look like? POWER INDUSTRY I feel like this would be the least changed, ironically, since it doesn't fundamentally change electricity. We already have the grid. We even have real estate for … [Read more...] about How to World Build a New Future with Endless Energy
How to Go With Your Gut and Push Your Limits. Magically at the Same Time.
DO YOU PUSH OR DO YOU LISTEN? There are two conflicting pieces of advice that drive me crazy on a regular basis. Of course, the answer is both. As with all pieces of advice, context really matters. The problem? IF WE PICK WRONG, IT CAN GO SPECTACULARLY WRONG In both directions. Of course, those are the people who consistently take no risks or consistently take all of the risks, but the rest of us are just a messy combination of playing it way too safe and then practically killing ourselves. Sometimes you do exactly right and still get hurt. To quote Jean Luc Picard, or at least an anonymous Star Trek screenwriter: "It's possible to make no mistakes and still love." You listen to your gut and your gut is just plain wrong. You play it safe and miss the perfect opportunity. You take a huge risk and reap the consequence. So it’s not like the tips in the rest of this newsletter or foolproof and if you just do this you’re not gonna get hurt and you’re not gonna … [Read more...] about How to Go With Your Gut and Push Your Limits. Magically at the Same Time.
How to Stop Worrying and Love Our Social Media Future
Social Media. We love it. We hate it. We love to hate it. Photo: Sean MacEntee WHAT IS IT? No, but seriously? What is it?!? If the past few weeks of Twitter drama have proven anything, no one is exactly sure, even the people who own these companies. ANY BUSINESS IS JUST A STORY Complete with protagonist, antagonist, love interest, conflict, challenge, triumph, and disaster. That doesn't mean to imply they don't have an effect on the real world. Stories can be dangerous! Okay, most of the time, a business strategy document is a really boring story, where the villain is a slightly disappointing third-quarter report and employee turnover, but I don't think enough people realize it's a story they made up about a hopelessly complex reality nobody can completely comprehend. But sometimes even business stories become totally fascinating. SOCIAL MEDIA WAS AN INNOVATION. It upended the publishing industry. Yes, the publishing industry. Up until this point, … [Read more...] about How to Stop Worrying and Love Our Social Media Future
8 Sanity-Saving Hacks I Learned Writing 8 Novels
I just finished my eighth novel. Yes, I've only published one. No, you'll never see the earlier ones. It would be more charitable to call them novel-shaped objects. But they sure taught me a lot about getting things done. This is not about the writing, particularly. There are some universal truths about work I've learned through this process that I hope you'll find at least interesting if not helpful. (That should be the new tagline of this newsletter! Hopefully, this is interesting if not helpful…) 1. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PROCRASTINATION Don't get me wrong, I am a master procrastinator. Witness eight novels. It took active work to not publish after a while. But the more I work, the more I realize delaying work, writer's block, fear, and all of these tactics are rooted in good instincts in my brain. It usually means something is wrong with the work itself and if I resist writing something, it shouldn't get written. Sometimes it means I'm terrified of the marketing side … [Read more...] about 8 Sanity-Saving Hacks I Learned Writing 8 Novels
1 Reason Why Movies Should Not Have Vampires and Reporters
It's the pitch meeting for a Newspaper Movie, only it's an Urban Fantasy It's going to be Twilight meets All the Presidents Men! Exploring themes of freedom of the press, corruption, truth, and the undead. It's called All the President's Vampires where one intrepid reporter will get the tip of a lifetime from the ghost of Calvin Coolidge's pet raccoon Rebecca, which breaks the story that will take down a president. We open on a grizzled old reporter moving out of his DC brownstone because his wife is an angel, like literally, but it turns out even angels have a limit -- and being married to a fairy who can always detect the truth who went to journalism school is hers. That night, as he's guzzling beer at the local bar for journalists, (different than the pub for cops, the cafeteria for politicians, the steakhouse for lobbyists, the blood bank for vampires, and the morgue for zombies), he gets a tip through his anonymous email to meet a source in a parking … [Read more...] about 1 Reason Why Movies Should Not Have Vampires and Reporters
2 Ways to Make Goals in the Face of Randomness and Chaos
STORIES MAKE SENSE I write stories, which means I spend all day in a universe where everything happens for a reason. It's so great. In a traditional story (anything not absurd or surrealist), everything has a cause and effect. Scenes build on the ones before until you get a climactic end that obeys logic. It's so satisfying. It's arguably what our brains do every minute of the day: make meaning out of a very chaotic, complex reality. Everything needs to have a cause and effect when they're happening and credit and blame when they're over. Whether it's ourselves or the stars, the gods, fate, or blind luck. Whatever it is - there's a REASON. WHAT IF ALL OF THAT IS WRONG? There's a great deal more happenstance, nonsense, and chance in our lives than I think any of us are comfortable with. There's a story I learned whose origins have been lost to time, though it's been variously attributed to Buddhism and Taoism of an old farmer and chance. I used to absolutely … [Read more...] about 2 Ways to Make Goals in the Face of Randomness and Chaos
I’m Never Getting on the Metaverse. Or a Boat.
VIRTUAL REALITY IS A TOY It will not become a thing. It will not be universally adopted. I know I JUST wrote a post explaining how I do not make bold predictions after experiencing the worst prediction ever, and I definitely could be wrong about this. The only thing I can confidently predict is that I personally will never, ever put one on. (But I just don't think I'm the only one.) THIS IS NOT A MORAL OBJECTION Tech companies are not morally neutral. They are low-key wrecking democracy as we know it in their pursuit of profits, but that's not new. A new fancy headset is not going to make that worse than it already is. THIS IS A PHYSICAL OBJECTION The reason I will never put on a helmet is because I would puke my guts out. Cyber sickness isn’t new. It’s been estimated that at least 10% of your users experience dizziness and nausea in VR. But a new study has shown that is a drastic understatement, and the number is closer to 65%. Let that sink in. That … [Read more...] about I’m Never Getting on the Metaverse. Or a Boat.