A great wedding, rethinking success and the hostility of outer space
Weekly Ink #15
A weekly newsletter with findings, practical wisdom, and interesting conversations from across the web, curated by yours truly.
Contemplations
Meditations, practical philosophy, and the occasional restless thought.
Yesterday, I got married, and it was a wonderful, beautiful, incredible, memorable day. We wed at city hall and had a reception at a delightful restaurant. There were no more than 35 attendants. Five of my closest friends gave genuine and kind speeches; it was exceptional to engage in some revelry with everyone.
Though deciding who to include and exclude was challenging, I am thrilled we agreed because it allowed us to create a better, more intimate experience for everyone. The food and drink were delightful, and the company was the best we could have hoped for. If you plan to get married, I recommend taking a similar approach— you will not be able to please everyone; it’s unavoidable, so you might as well try to make it the best experience possible for the few people you invite.
I will note that it feels strange to wear a ring. I’m not a jewelry person, and the tungsten feels unusually heavy— perhaps an appropriate metaphor.
I feel extraordinarily blessed today.
Insights
Curated stories and ideas.
A Three-Theater Defense Strategy: This piece is timely and (in my expert non-view) spot on from a strategic perspective. I have strong libertarian impulses that tell me the US should strive to be the ‘shining city on the hill’ and focus on rehabilitating its institutions. It is not America's responsibility to be the world police, and the age of global hegemony has come to an end. However, should the US wish to maintain its global preeminence, it must evolve by expanding its cooperation and integration with allies who share its values. It must develop an integrated web of democracies with ties by treaty and a shared military-industrial base to make us inseparable. It cannot compete with China’s industrial base alone, not due to a lack of resources but because its broken political systems and bureaucracies cannot move quickly enough to compete with the CCP.
Human missions to Mars in doubt after astronaut kidney shrinkage revealed. It turns out outer space is utterly hostile to life. Is there even life out there? It seems highly improbable there is life that can reach us. That makes life incredibly rare and precious because life is a way for our galaxy to learn about itself. But assuming we take that for truth, this article raises another question— will we ever be able to leave our pale blue dot? And if not, what does that mean for the future of life when we consider the state and treatment it is receiving from us today?
Rethinking Success | Ten percent happier: Relationships require time, and how modern society is structured doesn’t leave much time for them. This is a great conversation between Dan Harris and Mia Birdsong about restructuring and redefining what it means to succeed in an age that demands that you define success in one way: work and money.
Dialogue
Voices, perspectives, and conversations from our community and across the web.
Leopold Aschenbrenner is a former researcher from OpenAI who recently published a very long piece breaking down an argument that boils down to— We are approaching the AI singularity in the coming years. Sabine Hossenfelder (Like and subscribe if you don’t already) makes a great argument that— while AI/LLM technology will continue to advance, it will not explode the way Aschenbrener proposes. Great watch, not long. Recommend.
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