“the economist”

I feel — numb. Distant. Detached. Separate. Futile. Tepid. Coward. Been on a media breakdown^ELZR for too many days now—Scrubs^WP, Nausicaa^WP, The Economist, The New York Times, porn, (Ben Shneiderman’s) interface design articles, Wired, (so many) books. Unprecedented amounts of physical exercise sprinkled throughout (bizarre, I know). Much been thought, outcomes uncertain (to put it hopefully).

Only 30 pages into Finite and Infinite Games^AM I think it’s the best book I’ve read. ”Seriousness,” it says, ”is a dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for possibility whatever the cost to oneself.” Been far too serious in my life lately. Too scared.

Stupid death won’t go away. Seems my (maternal) grandfather has lung cancer—most likely metastatic. Brutal prognosis. He’s been staying here at home and I’ve been escaping it all—so far away. So serious.

And yet I’m hopeful now. I can never force myself to post something until I’m hopeful. Until I’ve a plan. Until I’m back. (Too scary otherwise.)

Gonna play.

You could think of money as a bundle of alternatives, options—and you wouldn’t be wrong. (With these five bucks I could buy this week’s Economist, or get an Oreo Blizzard, or go watch El Laberinto del Fauno, or give something to eat to a street kid, or gift Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!^AM to Sergio, or save for my old age, or pay one more month of the gym, or pay someone to do my dry-cleaning and lie on the grass instead.)

You could think of life as a bundle of options—and you wouldn’t be wrong. (With these one more hour of life, I could read part III of David Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom^AM, or talk to Chemito in Monterrey, or to Sergio in Ciudad Juarez, or write that email for Adolfo, or go to the gym, or flirt with that girl, or masturbate, or work at Domburi, or write my next post, or think through why I believe the government is only legitimized force, or go lie on the grass instead.)

Thus, you could think of money as life—and you wouldn’t be wrong.

Options are our universally valued currency.

Now, of course money isn’t always life. There are some options that we think of as life that may be impossible to get in exchange for money. (I may spend all my money trying to revive my grandmother and, in all likelihood, never be able to do it.) And there are some options that we think of as economical that may be impossible to get in exchange for life. (I may spend my life trying to buy a space station and, in all likelihood, never be able to afford it.)

But there’s still undoubtedly a huge overlap between them that most people are uncomfortable to acknowledge—the most they’re usually willing to concede is the common wisdom that «you need some minimal amount of money to live», which translated yields the tautological «you need some minimal amount of options to have options». The difficulty, seems to me, is that by life we mean both «options» and «taking options». What is the point of always striving for money (options) if you’re not going to live with it (take them!)? Under this light, common wisdom translates to «to be able to take options you need to have a minimal amount of options.» Which is still fairly obvious, but far more wisdomous.

This may sound silly but I was happy to read such a well-crafted confirmation email. Notice the avoidance of empty superlatives, the non-patronizing, the effort, not to sound hip or flippant or “professional”, but to be useful. The complimentary premium articles were the extra touch that made me want to share this with the world. This is persuasive (marketing) writing at its best.

The McKinsey Quarterly is impressive by itself too, most interesting and with the best graphs I’ve seen since The Economist (and they present them inside sexy, useful Flash “exhibits” that allow you to zoom in/out and pan around).

The mouth-wide-open wonder at today’s technologic possibilities that begun with my grandfather’s mosaic^ELZR, has not subdued—what with my succesful cloning of The Economist^ELZR tables or my quick spidering^ELZR—but it has gradually become an expectation. I’ve thought long and hard about it and am finally ready to accept it.

Because, in the end, disbelief of what we can now accomplish is only laziness by another name. I have a (much cherished) cousin who shuns digital photography altogether because it’s too easy. I say that’s bollocks. If manipulating photos is now mom’s play, that only means the challenge moves to being creative with the tools at hand. And when machines become creative (as they will no doubt do), then our challenge will be to find good things for them to be creative at. And when they figure that out—well, we’d better be seafaring^EE by then.

But after all, civilization is some 15k years old, so what’s the wonder? We should be gods by now (and we are, in a way).

The Economist, The problem with solid engineering

I just thought it interesting.

As I said, today I’m happy and since my father isn’t coming to dinner (he has some appointment) and I’m home alone, I’m off to give myself a treat. I’ll go buy the previous-week Economist, which looks to be quite something (Inequality and The American Dream is the cover article, and the edition’s suvey is on logistics—need I say more?) and read it under a tree somewhere after eating Hindu rice at this very nice restaurant on Lopez Cotilla.

Next day update: Dinner was great, not so much for the rice (Biryani Hyderabad), which was a bit too spicy for my taste, but because I got to some interesting talking with the restauratrice, who gave me some very useful advice on my Honda: I could get almost free service checkups at Centro Magno’s agency, and they actually give free tours of the Honda plant here in Guadalajra (where they supposedly build a car in under two hours). I’m baffled at the incredible amount of local knowledge available if one will only listen.

They didn’t have the previous-week Economist at Galerias’ Sanborns so I had to settle with the previous-previous-week one, to which I gladly agreed once I realized it contained the 26-page technology quarterly. I gobbled up some it at the restaurant and then the rest up until late at night at Minerva’s Starbucks (it was too rainy outside for a tree and anyway, outdoors are heavily overrated). It was a wonderful edition—I was laughing so hard at times I got quite a few surprised looks. It felt like talking with a very witty, very sharp ole friend. And I found out two important things: I’d much rather read the day away than go watch a movie (and they cost about the same) and The Economist is far and away my favorite magazine.