Recovery Starts with Basics, Not Labels, for High‑Functioning Minds
Sharing my mental and physical health journey and learnings on neurodivergence. My guess is this applies to many of you. 15 months ago I exited BlockTower and was beyond burnt out. I was anxious, depressed, and felt like I had the body and mind of a 70 year old. I spent the next year on the “basics.” Sleep, exercise, nutrition, minimizing screen time, connecting with close friends and family. That helped a lot, but I still struggled with a couple bad habits and felt far from being capable of tackling anything ambitious. The neurodivergence angle - a few years ago, I got assessed for autism and ADHD but definitively and clearly had neither (at least according to current tests, literature, and psychiatrists.) In the last month I connected with a couple new doctors including a brilliant neuroscientist that opened my eyes to various patterns. Almost all the literature and studies on these topics come from “average people.” High functioning people are largely absent from the literature because we don’t volunteer for medical studies and often “cope” so well that we go undiagnosed. I’m fairly certain now that I have some form of ADHD (and am somewhere lightly on the autism spectrum), very different from anything I’ve ever read about. My own pattern - hopping from rabbit hole to rabbit hole, a constantly working mind that’s only silenced by intense flow state like rock climbing, procrastination as my biggest (and almost sole) source of anxiety, and gravitating towards nicotine and THC with no desire for any other substances. Apparently this is an archetype for high functioning ADHD, and reflects a weak dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex that controls “executive function” in the brain. Buddhist style meditation and any type of arduous deep focus strengthens this part of the brain. Doom scrolling and staring at financial charts all day weakens it. I’m exploring a range of remediations - technological, nutritional, psychological, and already seeing benefits. Closer to the start of this journey than the end. Will share more soon with things that worked for me.
Diabaig, Scotland: A Hidden Climber’s Paradise
One of my favorite places on earth, stunning beauty, friendly and few people, great climbing. Diabaig, Scotland. https://t.co/DgF0pHDN8M
Shockingly Good Policies Boost Housing Affordability, Skip Bureaucracy
These are shockingly good policy recommendations. Although doesn’t require ASI to realize you improve housing affordability by letting people build homes, and we don’t need giant government bureaucracies regulating hairdressers.
When Chaos Overwhelms, Find Calm in Deterministic Science
A lot of fun and reward happens by embracing chaos. But when the volatility/unpredictability of markets or life gets tiring, I enjoy turning to basic physical sciences. A kind of intellectual “touching grass.” Math and computer science,...
Security Must Match Your Attractiveness as a Target
Scary stuff. The best security remains obscurity. Unfortunately just being “anonymous” isn’t enough anymore due to constant third party data breaches, like Coinbase leaking user balances and addresses. The potential security holes are endless. Basically every...
IP Leakage Crucial to Valuing Anthropic and Similar AI Firms
Have been discussing how to value companies like Anthropic with some investor friends. The practical likelihood of continuous IP leakage a major factor in valuing the equity imo.
Crypto Gaming Awaits Infrastructure, Like Early Online Gaming
I’ll take the other side. Crypto gaming and metaverses were mostly “too early”. Need much better infrastructure. But it’s a strong clear use case once the tech is there. It’s like trying to sell computer games...
Crypto
Scott’s observation has become rough consensus imo. It was tough when crypto leaders abandoned their values for money, but now we have leaders loudly virtue signaling their flip flop and pushing moral arguments from a high horse that they...
Market Makers Add Costs, Not Major BTC Price Moves
In short: no. I was a wall st market maker 15 years ago, explicitly exploiting inefficiencies in products like ETFs. Market makers absolutely do “game the system” in all sorts of ways, but for liquid products like BTC...
Crypto May Remain Forever High Yet Adoption Stalls
High level crypto market take: I’m 50%/50% between two scenarios. A&B. For each, I’ll provide a “steelman” argument. A. The high is in forever (for this set of crypto assets.) This was/is the “final” wave in...
Crypto Twitter's Golden Era Faded Amid Hype and Bots
There was a magical time where “crypto twitter” was the epitome of the public “town hall.” Maybe ~2014-2018 and decent through 2022. The industry’s best and brightest debated publicly with one another and everyone else. ...
Bitcoin Censorship Threat Comes From Within, Not State
On Knots and bitcoin censorship; Bitcoin’s fundamental challenge as “permissionless” money is/was conflict with state demands for KYC and control. Proof of Work (without privacy) allows the state to easily and directly exert control via regulating concentrated...