RyanHoliday.net:

"Facebook executives say the people who are complaining are a marginal minority. With time, Facebook says, users will accept Beacon, which Facebook views as an extension of the type of book and movie recommendations that members routinely volunteer on their profile pages."

Why do they think they can get away with that? Because they were able to before. In September 2006, they came out with another horrible idea that was widely criticized: The Facebook Feed. And instead of getting rid of it, or changing course, they semi-apologized and then kept up with it. In the same sentence Zuckerberg claimed to care about the users' feels and then defended the thing they hated:

...I want to thank all of you who have written in and created groups and protested. Even though I wish I hadn't made so many of you angry, I am glad we got to hear you. And I am also glad that News Feed highlighted all these groups so people could find them and share their opinions with each other as well.

That is, "I know your mad but we're staying the course." And Facebook pretty much got away with it. I know I've grown to tolerate the mindless streams of activity coming from my friends--it's even alerted me of some things I would have missed out on. But it was the worst possible thing that could have happened to Zuckerberg because it lead him to overreach. This is the essence of Boyd's Loop. Success now leads to failure to tomorrow because it provides borrowed time. It detaches you from reality.

Robert Greene:

"Whatever success you are now experiencing will actually work to your detriment because you will not be made aware of how slowly you are falling behind in the fast transient cycle. You think you are doing just fine. You are not compelled to adapt until it is too late. These are ruthless times."

Unfortunately, Facebook's success was based on something that cannot last: Compulsion. "Why would I quit over the Feed? It's not that annoying and if I left, I'd lose all my data." But that's not how it was received by the perpetrator, they heard that they can do whatever they want and after the controversy settles, all is well. And as we see now with the backlash growing, it shows how dangerous getting exactly what you want can be.

Edit: Valleywag, as usual, totally misses the point: "Traffic has more value, at the moment, than user satisfaction." Umair, does not.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

1. People will always root against you. Think of life as a race--do you stop and decipher the cheering? Or do you run through it, and let the noise blur into a solid wall of sound? If you can hear their discouragement, if you are resting long enough for someone to say "I don't think you can finish," then you are to blame, not them. Faster, faster, and focus. That is all you have.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Why doesn't iTunes publish download statistics for each song? Amazon should do it too. YouTube does it. You know exactly how many times each video has been seen and what the rest of the world thinks about it. At the slight risk of a false-consensus I know that I tend to be more attracted to videos that have more views. And psychologically, informational cascades significantly alter how attractively people perceive things. Surely some of that is at play here. I am willing to accept that people like Avril Lavigne, but I tend to doubt that that music video drew 62 million views based on her stellar reputation for authenticity. It happened because people tend to like what other people like and the overwhelming choices of others give people a heuristic reference point.

Why not be open with the numbers? Why not remove any suspicion that a spot on the "Top Songs" list could be up for sale? Let's cut out all the bullshit and just be honest: "This is what sells." This is, for better or for worse, our culture. And let the contrarians and the cascaders go in which ever direction that they want.

Moves like this totally change the game. A lot of stuff would be disrupted. The New York Times Bestseller list might have to change (here's why), Billboard would have to change, quarterly reports would have to change--because right now many records ship gold or platinum and then are returned--the whole business would be thrown temporarily for a loop. And those that clung to the old method look like they are hiding something.

It just seems simple: People like data. People make their decisions based on this data. Give it to them.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Followup to: Being Free from Perturbation Pt. 1 and Pt. 2

When Xerxes crossed the Hellespont on his way into Greece, the river surged up and destroyed the bridges he'd spent days building. And so he threw chains into the river, lashed it and branded it with irons. In preparation, he wrote a letter to a nearby mountain warning it that if it caused him the same trouble he'd "topple it into the sea." How comical is that? More than that, isn't it pathetic? I like Marcus' line that "Why should we be angry at the world--as if the world would notice?"

You can fight and fight and fight and struggle but you'll never change the fundamental nature of things--that you are a person and the world is an enormous, goalless entity that doesn't care about you or your well being. And neither do other people.

That's not to say you can't thrive in it, or that it doesn't want you there--(it doesn't care either way) but you'll never change that. Perturbation, remember, is interruption or disorder. How can you be interrupted if you aren't speaking when something else is trying to talk? And how can you have disorganization forced upon you if you've already embraced simplicity? Just breathe, and cede control. It's not just a business strategy, it's a lifestyle.

Of course, this isn't easy either. The idea that you should relinquish a little to something bigger than yourself is almost antithetical to you're "supposed to do." But I found that when things start to get tumultuous--when I feel like a blowup might be coming or I might be close to fucking up--it goes away when I just stop doing. It's not encouraging for the ego to understand that problems resolve themselves better without your help but if it works, it works. Try it. Just take 24 hours off from trying; don't email, don't call, don't express your opinion on anything and see if your position gets better or worse. That is ceding control. That is the world (your world) telling you that it doesn't need you as much as you think.

Seneca, a hypocrite too, wrote "What progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend." Beginning. It is a process. One of ceasing to be your enemy and starting to be your ally. That means abandoning the things that make you feel like you're "helping" in exchange for the true focus on the things that actually produce results.

"Disdain the things you cannot have." Learn to laugh at the things you hate rather than screaming at them--at lashing the water in a river. How well you teach the world a "lesson" in one instance doesn't transfer over to another, just like the mountain wasn't deterred by punishment of the Hellespont. All I have is me. Does it infuriate me that someone takes up two parking spots by themselves instead of pulling all the way to the edge of the curb? Of course, but all I can do is to not make that error myself. I hate it when people are late so I am almost always on time. I've shown them the respect that even if they don't return it, allows me to respect myself. And I certainly note the transgression. It doesn't make them anymore on time if I sit their and grind my teeth in rage as I wait. I'm the one who becomes miserable, I am the one that loses.

So I think freedom from perturbation comes most simply from getting rid of the things you can be perturbed about and from understanding how minuscule you are in the midst of all the things around you. And to understand that not only can no one else hear the things going on inside your head, but if they did, they wouldn't care because they've got their own voices too. All you have then is to be consistent to yourself--to have your actions align with your principles. Then you remove the dissonance that comes from internal and external contradiction; this has to be the first step towards peace and calmness.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 05:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

ProHipHop.com
This is a really good blog that looks at some of the strategy and politics behind hip hop. I don't listen to rap music at all but that hasn't been a problem as far as reading the site. The author is really clear and concise and he understands how new media is dramatically changing the music landscape beyond just downloading or pirating. And why do rappers matter? Because they've never been able to earn the same amount of money touring as other artists, they were forced to learn how to brand, proliferate and turn attention into cash through indirect means.

On Winning
It's new but awesome. The writers apply Boydian (John Boyd) strategy to business and the internet. Boyd hardly wrote anything so any material that is even tangentially putting his thoughts into words is a godsend. I don't know who the writers are or what their credentials are but they are smart and have a good grasp of Boyd. It's just getting started but I like it.

Global Guerrillas
4th Generation Warfare is essentially internet theory applied to warfare. It takes decentralization, the long tail, system disruption, crowd sourcing, informational cascades and guerrilla tactics to understand how small, fluid organizations can wreak havoc on trained military experts. More than anything, this blog is on the cutting edge of that sphere and is making sense of it as it happens.

BenCorman.com
Ben is writing again if you lost track of him. You should read him.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New book quotes from Dr. Drew and Robert Evans:

"Getting into action generates inspiration. Don't cop out waiting for inspiration to get you back into action. It won't! ...I leave you with one thought: It's not a compliment when someone tells you you're a survivor. It's bullshit. We're all survivors till we die. Get out there, go for it, don't be afraid. Be a winner--that's what it's all about.
Robert Evans
The Kid Stays in the Picture

"Our decisions should be made on the basis of what's most healthy, not what will satisfy me the quickest. Live with integrity and a clear sense of right and wrong. Consider consequences. Listen to the inner voice of your instinct as carefully as a doctor checks your heartbeat."
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Again

A bunch more from them that I really, really liked filed under Evans and Pinsky

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We can answer the question so many people ask when they look at ruthless dictators, greedy corporate CEOs, religious zealots who murder in the name of God, priests who molest children, or people who cheat their siblings out of a family inheritance: How in the world can they live with themselves? The answer is: exactly the way the rest of us do.

I am reading a decent book on Cognitive Dissonance called "Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)" Having a good internal meter against hypocrisy and rationalization isn't enough. You can't fight self-justification in your own head, that's the whole problem.

One of the advantages of having a site where you put stuff on the record is that it's pretty easy to go back and check. Even so, if you guys find my contradicting myself or trying to make excuses for why "this one time is an exception" by all means call me out on it. If it's a belief based on a bias--I'm not wedded to it.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Bubblegen is way too smart to be saying this with any kind of incredulity:

Most of the blogs that have gone pro have lost their mojo. They're boring now - not fun to read, losing their appetite for risk, they almost never take a position on anything anymore, in lieu of the same old middle-of-the-road presentation you can get, well, in any lame old newspaper.

Why? Because everyone else is just replicating mass media. It's the same old game, all over again - middle of the road position drives attention sells ads. But today's economics are very different - and so are today's consumers.

None of these people want change. They never did. And so we shouldn't be surprised that they're not pursuing it when it could so easily be theirs.

Tucker made this very clear to me when we were discussing Caesar and Khan. Caesar, he said, was no hero because he was just attempting to realize the sense of entitlement he'd carried with him from birth. And in that light Gaul and the crossing the Rubicon take on a certain pointless but understandable patheticness. Caesar longed to be validated and conquering happened to fill that hole. Khan, however, just wanted to be left alone, to live as he pleased. And when that couldn't happen, he remade the entire fucking world in his image.

What we see in bloggers like Techcrunch or Perez Hilton is more Caesar and less Khan. They always wanted part of the system but the system essentially rejected them. So they turned to the internet where at the time, it was easier to be heard through all the noise. To their credit, they brought something innovative to the table and were rewarded for it. But that doesn't change the fact that what they really wanted was still elusive: a seat at the old table. And that will always define how they act. That means an inevitable slide toward mediocrity (the same post for the 100th time), relying on other people to do your work for little payment (guest posters), risk adversity, conflict of interests (investments) and selling out for short-term money (crappy shows on Vh1)

Khan though, never got tied up in emulating the traditions of the people he replaced because he never intended on replacing them. They were just in his way. And as I have seen from some of the 50 Cent/Robert Greene stuff: that is the difference between someone like Puffy and 50. One just wanted to be popular and the other wanted to be himself. That makes the former inhibited and the latter strategically flexible. So we're going to see a whole generation of these bloggers self-destruct, ironically, in the very same way as the "man" they rallied against. (see: Gawker book) Ralafat at PaidContent created something of value--he might not be getting the attention for it right now but he'll come out the winner.

We had an advertiser offer Rudius a ton of money if only Tucker would agree to change the word "fuck" to "f*ck" in all his stories. No. No. No. That's the whole point--the reason that this niche even exists is because some executive five years ago insisted that people would be offended by that kind of material and look what they left on the table. And this week his book will hit #13 on the NYT Bestseller list, almost a full two years after it came out. The moral of that story is clear.

So I would offer this to the people who are my age and coming up. Trust your gut. Do the stuff that actually makes sense, let the short term money ride and build something based on reciprocity, authenticity and value. Be cool. Stop worrying about piddly shit. Buying in is only going to force you to sell out--sell out to a machine that almost everyone agrees is in its death throes. To the people who are already there, ignore everything your gut tells you. You've always been wrong, you just weren't accountable for it. And trying to tempt the next generation into defecting before they can do serious damage isn't a sustainable strategy--it just gets you further and further behind in the loop cycle.

But on the other hand, it can't come as a surprise that some people choose the other route. Can you really blame them? It used to be a great strategy. I would just argue that that option is decreasingly daily as far as a payout goes. It used to be that you could sell out or coast for decades on an outdated business model--returns diminished gradually. Today, we're seeing the rise and peak of companies just years, sometimes months after they've started. That means you're fighting to stay alive. Innovation isn't a luxury, it's lifeblood and true disruption is the only opportunity for a slight breather.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

I bought this book last month called Millennials Rising after Steve Olsen recommended it. It's supposed to prove why my generation is going to shatter its misconceptions. However, the book opens with a quote from S Club 7, so of course I won't be reading it.

If anyone wants it, drop me an email and I'll get it to you. All I need is a report back on whether I should give it a second chance.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 01:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Ron Paul* is the one candidate able to unite the diverse elements in the Long Tail. His supporters range from strippers to evangelicals, from gun-totters to peaceniks , and yet his message is as mainstream as the Constitution. His libertarianism and federalism will drive crazy the busy-bodies on the left and the right who want to impose their vision on the rest of the country, but these same laissez-faire ideals will unite those in the Long Tail who simply want the federal government out of their lives.

Wishful thinking, but completely incorrect. The idealism here is admirable and yet the epitome of what causes most movements to fail. It's too "inspired" to talk about strategy, or to look at facts, or to win with the help of reality--they'd rather die in spite of it. And it's just total misinterpretation of the Long Tail. Because of this, not matter how much money he wins, Ron Paul is doomed to fail.

American politics faces the same basic problem. That we have just two dominant political parties has nothing to do with information costs or media attention or lack of funding--it is the physical constraints of the market. We call this Duverger's Law. The principle states that in any plurality based voting system, elections eventually funnel towards two parties. Because of the district basis of the system, it is impossible for minor candidates to collect their small stakes in many communities into a significant voting block. Candidates win based on how many individual districts they can tally together, not how much overarching support they can garner. Third Parties exist as aggregates of minor factions spread throughout multiple constituencies but the electoral system doesn't care about percentage of the whole, only percentage of the local. It is innately compartmentalized, tied to the part to the point where the whole doesn't matter. Sound familiar? This is exactly what prevents a long tail economy from thriving in Borders or at a Tower Records.

On Amazon, the one person in every town that likes Finnish Death Metal can be aggregated into a sustainable consumer subset. Borders, however, can't afford to stock product for a single fan. This naturally guides them towards products that appeal to blocs of people much in the same way that Durverger guides us to just Democrats and Republicans and leaves no room for Libertarians.

What works on the internet does not work in US political elections. That is what Ron Paul supporters don't understand. They're so accustomed to the new dimension that they are trying to project the new rules back at the old. It's not that easy. The internet has empowered your voices but the system still disenfranchises your votes. The Cold War Kids might be selling fantastically on iTunes, but that's only because the internet has allowed them to connect and collect people all across the country. The laws of physical reality remain unchanged--touring efficiently is impossible. The internet allowed Ron Paul supporters to connect, but their votes still face the insurmountable limitations of a SMDP (single member district plurality) system. To quote Nicholas Carr "You can try to change the structure, but if you can't change the economics your efforts will likely go for naught."

I'll say it again for the 1,000th time. There is no honor in fighting a battle you cannot win. Your job as a revolutionary is to see the world where it is and then take it to where you want it to be. For Ron Paul supporters that means understanding the massive opportunities the internet offers along with its fundamental limitations. The goal is not always obvious victory. The Spartans at Thermopylae went in fairly certain that they would lose at the Hot Gates but win as their efforts unified Greece. The Polish Cavalry that charged German tanks, all they did was lose. See the difference? One was part of a campaign, the other was desperation.

Ron Paul supporters should be leveraging the media coverage and ability to efficiently raise money not to buy votes, but to force change from the candidates who can win. You are not encumbered with typical burdens of having to schmooze large donors or barnstorm the country. To attempt to compete head to head with Hillary Clinton or John McCain is the worst strategic error you can make--it is conceding to the dynamic instead of controlling it. That money can achieve a far greater ROI if you fight on your own terms, as a light-weight, unified and mobile unit. One that understands that goal is not to win districts but to seed discontent within the electoral system.

But from what I have seen, this isn't about change, it's about ego. "Finally we can get back at those people who have ignored us for so long." That kind of mindset is inherently problematic. It leads you into believing your own rhetoric, overextending, not knowing when to retreat, trading potential power for personality---it does not breed victory in any form.

So fight this war on the terrain at which the battle has already begun on. Take the only victory that is possible on that field and use those gains to decide where you will fight the next war. In the case of Ron Paul, that means guiding the dynamic and opinion towards Libertarian policy as much as possible within the system. And then, maybe, you have a shot at changing the system; that is maybe, you can get rid of the Electoral College. Until then, it doesn't matter. Your victory is literally impossible.

*I would like to note, however, that I don't have any problems with Libertarian policy. I actually agree with most of his policies. But let's be honest, he might be running in the Republican primary, but he's doing it as a Libertarian, as a third party. So this isn't a recycled argument or throwing your vote away, this is about analyzing the situation honestly and systematically. So even if he does win through some massive failure on someone else's part, he hasn't changed anything; a third party candidate would be no more viable four years later, all he's done is change the guard in old model. He's simply innovated instead of disrupted.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

I think it really comes down to a question of whether you want it or not. Look at Jamie Kennedy. The internet basically gave him the opportunity to reinvent himself like no other medium possibly could, and what happened? He posts like every 2 months.

That's the thing, no one's got a gun to your head forcing you towards the good life. No one cares if you do anything--let alone something well. Only you. So is hard work the exception or is it the rule in your life? And I don't mean do you work long hours, or if you spend all night studying. Quantity has never mattered to anyone but the person making rationalizations. Only results, effort, growth--quality--matter. So do you take advantage of opportunity? And when you do, do you clear cut/scorch the earth and take every single resource you can?

I'm not there yet. Sometimes I realize I spent all day just dicking around. Or, that I'm waiting for someone to hand me something instead of just fucking taking it. But then I catch myself and respond by identifying something tangible to get back in the groove. "Finish this book." "Write this." "Send these emails." The productive groove--do you have one?

I'll end with Rand: "It was like advancing through empty rooms. Nobody opposed her, yet nobody approved of her progress." It was like advancing through empty rooms.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

One day, it all clicks. Everything you've been working on, all the reading, everything you've been wrestling with mentally, falls into a coherent place and it starts makes sense. And these are the moments we strive for.

I had this teacher my junior year of high school who told us not to worry about the Vietnam War. He said to take down the facts and listen to the lectures but realize that we just weren't capable of grasping it. But that one day in the future, we'd be doing something and suddenly it'd all be clear. I still don't really understand the Vietnam War as much as I'd like to, but the phenomena he was talking about is real, nonetheless.

I feel like I've recently had one of these moments. For the first time I actually understand the difference between tactics and strategy. Of course I knew academically--I could have given you the same answer today as I could have 6 months ago--but now I feel it. One day it just happened. It is a more comprehensive knowing, the one that changes how you act instead of speak. Being able to think strategically--to plan, endure, adjust, to know and make the gamble. Being able to think in the future, being comfortable waiting, of being strong enough to truly ignore all the noise and stick to what you think will be best.

When you talk to people that are older than you, you can tell when they have it. They just ooze the effortless understanding that comes only from experience of whatever it is that they've mastered. It used to make me jealous. Now it makes me hungry.

Which is why not "getting" a book isn't a reason to quit. You might not be able to recall every name of every character, but that's not what it's about. All of it should be part of a larger vision--one that might not be totally clear just yet. It's ok to sit there and listen to someone, even if it all goes over your head. Because it's about pooling together as much material as you possible can and then slowly putting the pieces together every day--until eventually, you have something to show for it.

The key--if you'd like to ever really accomplish something--is to appreciate such moments as the gifts of solace that they are. Appreciate its rarity, but only for a minute. You can't expect much relief if you've truly dedicated yourself to a life of pursuit and curiosity and ambition. Then dive back into the confusion and bombard yourself with new material until it happens again. And again and again.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

From an email conversation with Tyler Cowen:

My reading was much different when I was younger. I would more likely intensively engage with some important book totally full of new ideas. Hayek. Parfit. Plato. And so on. There just aren't books like that left for me anymore. So I read many more, to learn bits, but haven't in years experienced a "view quake." That is sad, to me at least, but I don't know how to avoid how that has turned out. So enjoy your best reading years while you can!

Post your quake books in the comments.

Edit: Some of mine--
Meditations
Epictetus
Atlas Shrugged
Fight Club
War of Art
Great Gatsby
Rules for Radicals
The Power Broker

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (33)

I think I might have written about Mediations by Marcus Aurelius on this site a few times so I can probably skip most of the introduction. It is the greatest book ever written. As I've said before, if you're going to read it, you absolutely have to go with the Gregory Hays translation. A couple weeks back I dropped Greg an email about asking him a few questions. With my reading list and the Book Club discussion, I've moved quite a few copies, so for those of you that have read it--and if you've touched any of the other versions, you know how special it is--here are some words from the translator.

Your translation of Meditations is more accessible than other earlier translations. Did you set out to do that on purpose or is this how Aurelius intended it?

I think different translations reflect different aspects of the original, like looking at a sculpture from various angles (you can't see all sides at the same time). I was deliberately trying to move away from the rather stodgy feel of some earlier translations, which I think make Marcus sound too much like a sage. I wanted to reflect the fact that this is a text compiled for his own use, not with any expectation of other readers. He's writing memorandum for himself, not handing down wisdom-with-a-capital-W.

What source did you derive your translation from? I assume the Vatican didn't allow you to peek at their copy.

Actually the Vatican is quite generous about allowing scholarly access (they've been very helpful with my current project). But you're right that with the Meditations I wasn't working directly from original manuscripts. I used several modern editions of the Greek text, of which the most recent is by the German scholar Joachim Dalfen. There's an old but still very helpful commentary on the Greek text by A.S.L. Farquharson. I also consulted other translations for specific passages. There are a number of cases where the text has become confused in the process of copying and different scholars and translators have reconstructed the original in different (sometimes very different) ways.

We tend to see the same themes and metaphors popping up over and over again--time is like a river; this will only affect you if you let it, and so on. Do you think this is an attempt at emphasis through repetition or is there a subtleness that the depth of Greek (or Latin) allows and English does not?

I think the repetitions give us clues to the things that Marcus found especially difficult or troublesome. The way he keeps coming back to certain images or points suggests that he found them helpful, but also that he needed reinforcement on those points. Things like not giving in to anger, not being afraid of death--those are things that he seems to have really struggled with.

You're working on a translation of the works of Fulgentius? He's more of an obscure historical figure, what are you trying to accomplish in bringing his voice to a wider audience? Why him?

Well, he's a very different sort of writer--he's several centuries later than Marcus Aurelius, writing in a much more ornate style (and In Latin, not Greek), and much more literary, even comic and playful. And it's a very different sort of project, much more technical and meant mainly for academic readers; I doubt it will sell more than a few hundred copies, mostly to academic libraries. He's not someone whose work is likely to resonate with people in the same way that the Meditations seems to do, but I think he's fascinating from a historical point of view: he's really someone who's on the cusp between classical culture and the Christian middle ages and he reflects aspects of both.

Stoics like Seneca disregarded a lot of their teachings on restraint when they came to power. Marcus had more than any of them, why was he so different? And Commodus, his son, appears as such a strange contrast.

I think Marcus was a person of unusual integrity and he was also lucky in having good role models, people like Antoninus Pius, his predecessor as emperor. (This is something he alludes to himself, of course, in Book 1.) But I think what also comes through in the Meditations is that even for him it wasn't easy. Not being a tyrant was something he had to work at one day at a time, and writing down these injunctions for himself was part of that effort.

Lastly, what passage is your favorite?

I don't know if I have a single favorite. I like some of the briefer entries, like the image of human beings as lumps of incense burning on an altar (4.15): "one crumbles now, one later, but it makes no difference." I think he's also very good on transience, as in 5.23:

Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone--those that are now and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the 'what' is in constant flux, the 'why' has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what's right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us--a chasm whose depths we cannot see."

That feels very Buddhist to me.

Pick it up if you haven't already. I'm on my third copy. And here is Professor Hays' website

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I went to print something off Mahalo yesterday and it didn't have a "Print This" button--which causes a bunch of annoying ass problems with stuff getting cut off or printed out of order. And instead of getting frustrated and leaving, I remembered something: I could just email Jason and he'd probably fix it.

And that's what he did, he responded and cc'd me on his email to the development staff. THAT is the way to establish a business. Sure, he's the CEO, but is his time better spent in those Santa Monica lunch meetings (where I know for a fact that very little happens) or interacting with the people who actually use the product?

That guy--the accessible guy the audience turns to when they have a problem, he never existed before. He's not a middleman, he is the man. This is new and it's pretty fucking easy to be that guy. It's responding to emails, posting your contact information, contributing for free to communities and adding value, it's about embracing instead of infiltrating. Look at Jason, he thought that del.icio.us would be a big source of traffic for Mahalo so he has his own incredibly active account there and now he can leverage that in any number of ways. I'm one of those guys at Rudius. I'm 20 years old, I wasn't entitled to be but I went ahead and did it. And now, it helps me at the Agency because I have an idea about how these communities work and what they need. You can be that guy at whatever company you work at too. Find someone to protect you as you develop and build--or do it on your own behind the scenes (it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission). People who control assets don't get fired and if they do, they still walk away owning something.

Remember Robert's 5th Law: So much depends on your reputation--guard it with your life. Getting to be that guy is easy, staying there is hard. Having just that tiny bit of knowledge creates all sorts of pressure from people to exploit it. Like I said before, they'll want the benefits without paying the cost--to have cede and control at the same time. They don't care about you or the audience, they only care about now. Think about it, just 3 years of blogging made Steve Rubel more powerful and recognizable than the owner of the national corporation he worked for. It would be short-sighted to sell out now or think that your leveraged as peaked. As always, you only get to cash in your chips once, so do it right.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

In honor of this utterly stupid article from Slate that called evolutionary psychology a pseudo-science, I thought I'd post the two most dangerous fallacies: Naturalistic and Moralistic.

The Naturalistic Fallacy is the tendency to think that because something is, it ought to be. The fallacy is that something being natural or part of human nature doesn't make it right. The rage you'd get filled with thinking of your partner with someone else might be biologically influenced, but that doesn't justify acting on it. Human morality doesn't care if nature "allowed" something, only that it doesn't approve of that behavior now.

The Moralistic Fallacy is the opposite--it says that since something is wrong, it couldn't possibly be natural. Often it implies that these things are societal creations and "if we would all get along" they would go away. You might find it really sad that people go to war, but obfuscating the influence doesn't change anything. People lie, cheat and steal everyday and have benefited from the behavior since the beginning of human history. If morality is to be more than words, it has to understand where the resistance comes from.

The Naturalistic Fallacy is a rationalization and the Moralistic is a delusion--both are stupid. And they both need to be avoided.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

If you've ever passed a movie shoot, I'm sure you found it as impossible as I have to find out what movie they were actually filming. What is the reason for this? Why all the self-important secrecy? I think this might be another "but we've always done it this way."

To me, this where you create a meaningful relationship between the product and the consumer: "Oh hey, this is the preview for that movie we watched them shoot down the street." Capturing people's attention when they are actually interested is a lot easier than when they are trying to do something else. If I were in charge, every truck, every shirt and every camera would have the movie title plastered all over it. But that of course is how Hollywood works--they'd rather pay a half-million dollars for a radio ad than stencil the transportation outside the shoot.

Marketing is about teasing and then reaffirming--hearing people talk and then seeing a lengthy article about it a few months later or seeing a celebrity wearing a logo and then finally identifying it with a brand when you see it in a store. And it is the inability to see things long term--"we need privacy, we can't have fans bothering us"--that holds people back from doing the little things that add up to a bankable connection.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Over the weekend, I felt stressed and wanted to relax, so I ended up grabbing my skateboard and heading to a parking lot, which I haven't done since I was like 15. Everything just melted away. The snarl of wheels against concrete like a rottweiler. I really like that edge between messing around and physical activity; you gasp a little for air and your shirt gets hot but you don't quite sweat. I ended up typing most of this on my Blackberry as I did this--forgetting completely about whatever I had been working on.

What I picked up again quickly was that at a certain point, no matter how hard I would push or the faster I would try to go, I wouldn't see a different. But if I just toned it down a little, I could ride better. That it is, there was no real correlation between how hard I would push off or how many times I did it and my overall speed. In golf, try to purposely not hit it hard--a half swing often is twice as powerful.

And I think that's how a lot of things are--the harder you push and struggle and strain the worse you are. A rabbit in a snare grinding the wire down to the bone. We caught this rat as a kid and it chewed itself in half to escape the trap. Needless to say it still died, and not pleasantly. Finesse. Fluidity. Kicking and thrashing--forget what's more effective, which one feels better?

I have been flipping through the Inner Game of Tennis and he talks about the two selves--the "I am talking to myself" dichotomy. And how the tension between the two is the source of many athletic problems. I sort of realized that this was the same: when I quieted the voice the kept prompting me to push harder, I felt the rattling die off and the speed increase.

I know for me because I am young, the impulse is towards force or passion. But that's not how things are. All around us there is a natural energy and a flow to things and you can tap into that. You know, the groove, the pocket, the current--all those terms we throw around to describe other people's freedom of movement but never really bother thinking about for ourselves. Ferriss talks about this--about just letting go and realizing that a little momentum can carry you further than all your frantic scrambling. I am starting to feel that when you stop trying so hard and let your subconscious do what it needs to, you find better results than you do in the Pyrrhic battle for control.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

It's hard. It's really hard. It doesn't matter how strong you are or how many maxims you've told yourself--when it comes right down to it, many of us are fighting something inside us that we wish we weren't. That we wish we could move past.

Maybe it was childhood trauma, maybe your parents didn't love you all that much, maybe it's your sexuality, maybe you can't figure out why you're so lazy. Maybe you don't feel anything at all.

It's a strange balance trying to struggle towards strength without relinquishing your humanness. We all fail. We all have buttons that people can push--that thumbscrew that we hope no one notices. You give yourself away to pickpockets when you check for your wallet; it means you have something worth stealing. We are the same way with vulnerabilities. We think we're hiding them but reveal them in the process.

And the blessing: It is a process. The second dirty secret is that Cicero wrote his finest works in a fit of depression, alone in his country home, following the death of his daughter and a divorce. He did it as an utter hypocrite. By now you've seen some of my frenetic, crazy posts. The ones where I'm clearing struggling with something or trying to navigate the chasm between what I want to be and where I actually am. No question, I try to be as honest as possible here but you wouldn't pick up on that socially. So what is your mask? What do you put up to compensate for where you feel lacking? Because unless you acknowledge it, you're just living in an illusion and that very often comes crashing down. Tucker quotes Pericles a lot--something to the effect of "there is nothing wrong with poverty, only not doing something about it."

I know for me, all I want to do is get to point where perturbation doesn't control me; where the littlest thing doesn't throw me off; where when I understand that a person shouldn't affect me I actually don't let them; where lulls are moments of relaxation instead of worry; where I am as calm as I am after a run, every second of everyday. And I am so far from this that it's not even funny.

But when you fail--and you surely will: today, tomorrow and the week after--understand that it is a process. And to embark on that process is a journey required for enlightenment and happiness. "Who am I?" "What makes me act the way that I do?" It doesn't matter what it is, or what you're trying to "fix," someone else has done it already and they'd love to talk to you about it. More than anything, don't compare yourself to where you suspect other people are. Seneca the Stoic is widely considered to just be complete artifice--he mentored Nero for Christ's sake. Chances are, they're just pretending.

So back to the question: Can you be happy on the rack; tortured and bloody? Someone can, but I can't, at least not today. But I'd like to be. I'd like to get to that point. Because really, if your happiness depends on how other people treat you and on the circumstances of life, you'll find yourself in some dark, dark places. Like the point in your life where you cross streets and just pray for a car.

You don't want that. No one does.

Whatever you're after--if it's influence like I am or solitude like Thoreau--none of it is going to matter if you can't find tranquility. A thousand additions or a hundred subtractions, the core remains the same. And that has to be the focus of your efforts if you ever want to enjoy the fruits of your labor. You can realize that now or you can wait until time is almost up; that is your call

But lastly, it's just not fair to treat that journey as anything but a process. You can't wake up tomorrow unbothered by things or free from a certain sadness, but you can, everyday, get a little closer to where you want to be. Each second you shave off from that is one you can spend enjoying yourself, un-enslaved to the tyranny of fate or circumstance, and actually be happy.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Like all things, homosexuality is both biological and sociologically influenced. And if homosexuality is indeed hereditary, the "gay gene" can still only be passed down by heterosexual copulation. While exclusive homosexuality is rare (most homosexual men actually lose their virginity to a woman earlier than straight men) it seems like society is slowly becoming more accepting.

So, as gay marriage brings the pressures of monogamy and youthful experimentation with homosexuality is considered a little more normal and less of something to hide (or cover with bearded relationships), should we see a decrease in the proliferation of the gene? I would think that the gay gene find it harder and harder to be passed on to another generation. Obviously it would take a long time for such changes to be noticeable, if I wouldn't be surprised if ultimately the data showed a peak and then a gradual decline--that is of course if the conditions remain stable.

"If a woman meets a strange man, she has no basis on which to form an opinion of him. He can be a high-quality man, or he can be a low-quality man; she just doesn't know. However, if he has a wife, that means that at least one woman, who presumably closely inspected his quality before marrying him, found him good enough to marry. So he couldn't be that bad after all; at least one woman found him desirable. So being married is one cross-culturally transportable ornamentation or lekking device that signifies men's superior mate value."

So it seems like a rather small leap to apply informational cascades to sexual selection. It takes but a small patterned consistency to tip it either negatively or positively in the way of a cascade: yes, no, yes, yes yes yes ad infinitum. But the converse is that they can be thrown off equally easily. I'm not sure if the statistical data bears it out by I would imagine that each subsequent divorce makes a mate less attractive to a potential mate. That is, if you had subjects rate identical hypothetical suitors, each divorce on their record would lead to a substantial decrease in appeal. And this is probably why rejection breeds rejections or the whole "when it rains, it pours" aspect of dating.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 04:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Stuff is going well for me. I am starting to see the tracking signs of success and of hitting a larger audience--the audience I have always wanted. No question there is a long way to go but the wheels are in motion. A college professor in Virginia is teaching my paper format in one of her classes. Some of the smartest people on the internet--in America--read my site and apparently consider me of enough potential to give feedback. Traffic is up and every few weeks I wake up to find myself with an avalanche of new readers.

But here is the dirty little secret: None of it means anything. It doesn't mean a thing. And it wouldn't if it was multiplied by thousand. It won't fix who you are. No amount of people liking you or reading your thoughts or talking about you is going to change the person you look at in the mirror. Because as far as your daily existence goes, the effects are negligible. Facebook friends don't exist, they are just bits of computer data. And I know this sounds heretical and a ton of kids would kill for these opportunities--I thought the exact same things when I didn't have them. They matter sure, and they are fantastic but it they don't alter the fundamentals of life.

You have to be happy with you. There is that Herodotus line about going out to enslave and coming back in the same chains you brought with you. I'm starting to feel that life is the same way--that the world, if you're not careful, can end up being your master instead of the other way around. Or as Durden said "the things you own, end up owning you." Layne Staley used to say that no matter who you are or what you've done, you still go home to yourself every night. And that is the fucking truth. So more than anything, getting that right is your first priority.

There is no excuse to ever stop working on that. It is the ultimate project, the one thing that determines all other things. But people are lazy and substances and delusions and dissonance are tempting alternatives. And I hate to tell you this, but they just don't work.

I might not even be close to achieving the balance I am after but I do know that without it, I will never be happy. The whole "using the fear of not winning to keep winning" is to always be a tool and never an addiction. From what little I have seen so far, the game always lasts longer than the victory--you spend more time getting there than you spend there. So it stands to reason that unless you can enjoy the journey, the nature of things has predisposed you to an unfavorable ratio.

Cicero's view was that you unless you can be happy on the rack, you can never be happy anywhere. Because if your contentment depends on anything that can be taken away from you then you'll always be plagued with the fear of losing it. So the solution is to give in a little, embrace the chaos--the art of acquiescence. That there is no good and bad, only perception. And the secret then is to understand the transient nature of things--to appreciate them while they are here and look upon them fondly when they are gone. But who does that really? Who honestly can say that their happiness depends on little externally and that a quick punch from fate couldn't knock down the things they've built?

I know I can't. But I'm working on it.

To be continued...

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

"Sex Differences in Obesity Rates in Poor Countries: Evidence from South Africa"--Anne Case and Alicia Menendez last week. The paper was rather unremarkable with the exception of this:

"For women, childhood deprivation is positively and significantly associated with obesity. Women who reported going to bed hungry and to school hungry and who ate at other's houses because there wasn't enough food, are 15 percentage points more likely to be obese than are women who report none of these. Moving a woman from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile of the distribution of income person is associated with an increase in obesity among women of 10 percentage points."

Only in women. Do people subconsciously compensate for what they've missed out on? Why wouldn't men do the same thing? I'd love to see an answer to this. I guess it could be a good thing though: Fat women more jolly

Love, Hate and Murder: Commitment Devices in Violent Relationships--Anna Aizer, Pedro Dal Bó Interesting application of Game Theory to abusive relationships. Basically, the authors advocate a no-drop rule which would dictate that once domestic violence was reported the prosecutor would continue with the case regardless of the woman recanting her confession (this term is helpful.) This gets inside the interaction and increasing the incentive to report and decreases the necessity of murdering your partner. Of course, this provides the paradox we see with the 3 Strikes Laws--it might increase the severity of the abuse since once the action is undertaken, the criminal has little to lose.

Which is my main problem with reading academic papers. They are so sterile and seem to lack any motivation to guess at the implications. Data without context is pretty meaningless. As always, head to Overcoming Bias and Marginal Revolution for that (the latter of which was the source for these particular papers)

Purple Cow--Seth Godin Better than The Dip but primarily about marketing. Assertion: That being normal and average is a gamble that rarely pays off.

On the Orator--Cicero Read this post and read the book.

Rereads: 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene and The Histories by Herodotus. I wanted to read up on the Battle of Marathon. I am currently enthralled with it. I talk about the rabbit hole sometimes and this is a pretty good example. I was flipping through 33SOW and I read Robert's retelling of the epic battle as part of the "divide and rule" strategy. It might actually be one of his best written pieces--the men "caked in dust and blood" and so on. Then I looked in the index of Histories and read his version of it but still wanted more. I talked to Robert today and found out his source on the subject and now "The Greco Persian Wars" is in the mail and arriving Thursday.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 01:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

"It seems to me that utilizing the "Spartan" technique would be motivated by _not_ mastering the subject, and _not_ having enthusiasm. Otherwise why use a model so restrictive?

I think you actually mentioned somewhere in your Spartan essay that using your formula would ensure safety from the teacher marking you down for not adhering to the prompt. Is that really worth sacrificing your creative liberty? I guess it would be for some one who doesn't know what they're talking about, and doesn't really care.

I got this comment about the paper format and it is something that I encounter pretty often. This attitude is more than just about the paper--it's just the wrong way to look at life. It is the scourge of people who look to make change and the refuge of people who like talking more than doing.

Of course my format has some limitations. Welcome to the real fucking world. Compromise, give and take--it's called strategy. You figure out what you want and then your figure out the best means of getting there. Are essays a relatively stupid way of judging comprehension? Sure. But they exist and you're 17, so deal with it (likewise to whatever you're doing). So they key is to find the best way to accomplish what you'd like to accomplish or to say what you want to do say in a manner that doesn't involve needless punishment or prima facie dismissal. That's not selling out--it's called being a man.

As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it as, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be--it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system. Alinsky, Saul D. Rules for Radicals

There is a difference between something being restrictive and being simple. The paper format is simple. True mastery becomes simplicity--it becomes intuitive. If you can't explain your point simply, basically and straight-forwardly then you haven't mastered it. I was observing a conversation a few weeks ago between someone who was a supposed expert and a lay person. The expert was using all these buzzwords and complicated language and the other person asked him to explain because he was confused. And in response, the expert got even more technical and complex. To me, this was proof that the guy had absolutely no clue what he was talking about, because if you can't be utterly simple then you don't have a true understanding. The goal is to find the most basic, most approachable way of delivering your message and then to ram it through until it stops working. Sure, a two intro paragraph-rambling-Bob Dylan quoting paper is more artistic and creative but it just doesn't do the job. And if it doesn't do the job then you're just pleasuring yourself. As Frank Luntz would say "it's not what you say, it's what people hear."

This in turn facilitates passion. If you cut the time you have to spend on aesthetics, then you increase the time you can spend on content--on the message. Which should always be your goal. The less effort you need to exert screaming to get people to listen is effort that can be spent doing what Cicero wanted: Mastering the subject. With a paper it's the same, the format allows you to dedicate yourself to thinking and then the thoughts write themselves. And that's how it should be when you try to change a system: What is your ROI? If it's not working, try something else.

Lastly, prompts are almost always stupid. And so are the rules within any system. They have to be. The last thing a teacher wants is 40 kids writing about whatever the fuck they want. The incumbents look to minimize effort on their part. So a prompt is designed to create similar, obvious answers. So are rules, traditions and customs. The format allows you to get the grade but ACTUALLY be creative. That's the beauty of it. When you redefine and the continually codify through the Spartan square, you get away with being creative. People hate outliers and in this case, you are disguising an outlier as rule-abider. This is always the key to my strategy: How do I get away with being innovative but still look ordinary?

A true radical has to work within the system. If it is a system worth destroying, it is a powerful one. And the way to destroy a powerful enemy is to use it's own strength against it. I talked last week about challenging the way things are and have been, but you must do it intelligently. If wearing whatever I wanted to work prevented me from being effective, I would stop. And so should you.

There are people out there whether it be in Hollywood or Wall Street or your 8th grade classroom that have already made their bones and their money. They don't want you to succeed. If you announce your intentions or your flagrantly flaunt a disregard for the "way of doing things" they'll spend their time sabotaging you instead of competing. People are shocked when revolutionaries or cult figures are killed--what did you expect? Power is power is power. People disappear every fucking day. There is nothing noble about taking some ludicrous stand on something you have no possibility of coming through on.

Plenty of people, especially young people, talk about radical change but don't have the balls to do. And real balls isn't living a utopia where words are enough and everyone listens to your objections--it's getting up everyday pushing the discussion where you want it to go, of trying a 100 things for every 10 successes, of protecting what's truly important over what is just ego, and realizing how pathetic and cowardly martyrs really are. So take stands on the hills you're willing to die on and save the rest for the immolators.

That is where the paper format finds it's roots.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

I got two emails last week from really young kids who felt they were lacking direction in their life. I told them both the same thing. That they should calm down and stop thinking about it that way. And that their email alone puts them pretty far above the competition. You shouldn't have direction when you're 15. How could you possibly know what you want to do? Statistically, a significant portion of your peers haven't even gone through puberty yet. The moodiness, depression and general angst aren't symptoms of a problem but completely natural stages of biological and mental growth.

But it applies to more than just teens. What a lot of people miss is that asking about direction is the first step. It has to start there. To have a goal can be a goal itself. I have absolutely no clue what I want to do with my life. The job probably hasn't been invented yet. I'll either have to make it, or be ready to catch it when it is immaculately conceived. What if you trained your whole life for a career that suddenly a computer can do? Which is why I decided to postpone school to train under leaders. (not advocating this path, it's just the right one for me, right now) With Robert Greene--I'm doing the research and the outlining and the absorption that made him the writer that he is. At The Agency it's seeing how the dying half of the industry works and learning how the innovators adapt and internally revolutionize it. With Tucker it's seeing how mobility and uniqueness and honesty carve new paths in what was previously jungle. None of those are paths that ought to pursued alone, but together they create an array of options for whatever might later exist.

It used to be that a person could prepare, study and apprentice in an industry and then still look forward a career there. That is just not the case anymore. Your average college professor today was trained by the generation that came before them and thus are teaching material only incrementally different than what we before I was born. So how can you rely solely on them? That's the fundamental problem--societal change is linear while technological is exponential. We can't adjust fast enough and a whole deluge of people are going to get caught in the gap. The system (almost every system) is breaking apart and people are training for a mirage. So if you're 15 and you want to do something cool, there is no way you could put you finger on it now.

What you can do, and what I did when I was that age (and now), was focus on the things that will be important regardless of the direction you end up heading. Developing cleverness--can you pick up on the thing that everyone else is missing? Can you hold you own against people older than you?--only way way to develop that skill: going head to head. Do you know about the world around you--sports, tv, movies, books, how people work, what's stupid, cliches, girls? You don't have to do all of the simultaneously but try them, take what you like and then move on. The rest is just loading up on the appropriate technical knowledge and preventing yourself from being loaded done with the things that make that impossible.

But look, strategic flexibility is about cultivating options that at the right strike price make the most sense. Deciding what you want to do at 15 is a bet that that is the only thing that will pay off. The safer and smarter bet is to first invest in wanting to do something. And if at 15 you're complaining about lacking direction, you've probably already started to invest in those skills. So I would assert that if you think you know the exactly where you're going and you're a young kid, the only place you're headed to is a dead-end.

Note: That doesn't justify paralysis.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Very interesting tidbit tucked away in this TechCrunch article a while back (that I forgot to post about) about Google Reader:

On the stats side, the video provided some interesting insights: two thirds of all feeds only have one subscriber...

Keep that in mind if you're starting your own blog. Just two RSS subscribers and you're already in the "elite" minority. So when we rush to predict the death of newspapers and radio shows, realize that most of the Technorati numbers are totally worthless. Marc Andreessen called it "Tech Crunch 50,000" and now you can see what a disproportionate influence those types can have in implying influence. We can be cliche and call this the "Wild West" or a land grab or whatever, but this point is that the people in positions of "power" online now, will not be the same ones in 6 months or a year and certainly not 5 years simply because they've made significant relative gains but few actual gains. So all that stuff about RSS subscribers, hits, pings, trackbacks, Technorati authority, blogebrity, it doesn't mean much. Here are the things that I think will matter:

[*]Do smart, normal people read your work?
[*]Do you get emails from a variety of people?
[*]Do you write about non-tech things?
[*]Do you have success/interest offline?
[*]Even so, are you flying under the radar of today's pundits?
[*]When you link or recommend things, do people actually listen?
[*]If you reread you archives, are you still relevant? Are you impressed to read what you've written or do you squirm?

If you're a relative nobody like me, these are all questions you should base your strategy around answering and benchmarks for who you should bet on. If you're on top right now, and they might be signs to cash out while the money is still there.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If I was an advertiser I would look for ways to surprise people in a good way. What if you ordered something from Amazon and when it arrived you were informed that the shipping had been refunded courtesy of Comcast. And while they were at it, they decided to let you know that you could sign up for HBO at 30% off?

Or, even better: You ordered Tucker's book on and he'd worked it out with Amazon to personally cover the shipping cost. "And in case you hadn't heard, the book is being made into a movie and it hits theaters in Fall 2008. Here is a list of show times for your zip code."

Seems to me like it's better to get to the right people in the right way than ten times as many people in the easy, obnoxious way. But what do I know, a 2 million dollar SuperBowl commercial or advertising on the little conveyor belt dividers at the grocery store are great deals.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)