My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies, no matter what form the latter to take. – Anton Chekhov
I tell my students, “When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.” – Toni Morrison (1931-2019)
I’m gonna stay out here on the margin, and let the center look for me. – Toni Morrison (1931-2019)
If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. - Toni Morrison (1931-2019)
Anton Chekhov
“When a person is born, he can embark on only one of three roads of life: if you go right, the wolves will eat you; if you go left, you’ll eat the wolves; if you go straight, you’ll eat yourself.” – Fatherlessness or Platonov, Act I, sc. xiv (1878)
“It’s not a matter of old or new forms; a person writes without thinking about any forms, he writes because it flows freely from his soul.” – The Seagull (1896)
“Love is a great thing. It is not by chance that in all times and practically among all cultured peoples love in the general sense and the love of a man for his wife are both called love. If love is often cruel or destructive, the reason lies not in love itself, but in the inequality between people.” – Note-book of Anton Chekhov (1921)
Ian McKellen Reads a speech from The Book of Sir Thomas More, Act 2, Scene 4 in defense of immigrants
Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise
Hath chid down all the majesty of England;
Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silent by your brawl,
And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;
What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had taught
How insolence and strong hand should prevail,
How order should be quelled; and by this pattern
Not one of you should live an aged man,
For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,
Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
Would feed on one another ...
Say now the king
Should so much come too short of your great trespass
As but to banish you, whither would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbour? go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,
Nay, any where that not adheres to England,
Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased
To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
That, breaking out in hideous violence,
Would not afford you an abode on earth,
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants
Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
But chartered unto them, what would you think
To be thus used? this is the strangers case;
And this your mountainish inhumanity.
Kant first critique
Kant’s philosophy focuses on the power and limits of reason.
Against rationalist metaphysics, Kant claims that reasoning faces strict limits. Reason cannot give us knowledge of God or a world beyond the senses; reasoning falls into contradiction and confusion if it does not respect these boundaries.
Against the empiricist account of motivation and morality, Kant argues that reason has a vital power. Reason enables us to act on principles that we can share with other rational beings. In a world of limits, reason reveals human freedom.
the continental retionalism: Rene Descarte, Leibniz, and Christian Wolff: the principle of sufficient reason: anything that exists mush necessarily have some reason why it exists. (存在即合理)
Kant’s pure reason is supposed to be the faculty that is capable of a priori knowledge.
Kuehn, Manfred. Kant: A Biography. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. A commendable focus on the chronological development of Kant’s ideas, rather than on his uneventful life.
Sedgwick, Sally S., ed. The Reception of Kant’s Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. A solid collection of new interpretations by world-class scholars.
Dicker, Georges. Kant’s Theory of Knowledge: An Analytical Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. A useful aid for first-time readers of the transcendental aesthetic, logic, and analytic.
Adorno, Theodor. Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason.” Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001. An engaging work by a major twentieth century German philosopher that tells as much about Adorno as it does about Kant.
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made,” from Kant’s 1784 essay “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose”.
Humans are by nature morally corrupt egotists, who are adept at fooling themselves and others about their own selfish motives. They are inclined to misuse politial institutions to their own advantages. States and politicians are primarily interested in expanding their power and not in the welfare of their citizens or peaceful cooperation. The human tendency to break treaties and commit acts of violence stands in opposition to the rule of law and peace. Kant is therefore a political realist who has no illusions about humankind’s moral and social qualities.
investing
20260609: premarket: all futures are higher, Nasdaq +0.9%, S&P +0.6%, and Dow +0.45%. Gold around 4,300. Bitcoin $62,400. Oil drop to $89/92.
给每一位在市场里经历过这种两难的人
懂得了理论，却无法确定自己在真实情境中会做什么。只有一种办法知道答案 – 真的去交易，真的去感受。但有一件事你可以提前记住：期权给了你一个借口，让你以为自己在「管理风险」。事实上，很多时候，期权给了你一个延迟决策的理由，一个把真实判断掩盖在结构里的方法。最终的问题永远只有一个：你相不相信这只股票？如果相信，就拿着它，让它自由地去到它该去的地方。如果不相信，就卖掉它，不管你的成本是多少。期权，最终只是一面镜子。它照出的，是你在面对不确定性时，真实的恐惧与欲望。每一次买卖就是一次与未来的赌博。
cognitive bias:
「锚定效应」（Anchoring）：人在做判断时，会过分依赖最初接收到的信息（「锚」）。对交易者而言，入场价、权利金收入往往成为决策的无形牵绊。
「损失厌恶」（Loss Aversion）：在前景理论框架下，亏损的心理痛苦约为同等盈利的快感的两倍。这导致人们倾向于回避一切可能「实现亏损」的行动。
「遗憾厌恶」（Regret Aversion）：不仅恐惧实际的损失，更恐惧「做了一个事后看来是错误的决策」。这往往导致决策瘫痪。
「空头Gamma」（Short Gamma）：卖出期权的一方，在标的资产大幅波动时处于不利地位——无论向上还是向下，收益的增速都低于损失的增速。备兑期权在股价逼近执行价时，已不再是温和的收入策略。
manipulation
what is the power of the powerless?
what is the power of the helpless?
politics + violence = war sex + violence = rape
dynamics of things
money may become capital. money that generates a constant flow of money is capital. that is, the purpose of capital is used to generate more capital. this capital has nothing to do with daily life. the money for daily spending is a necessary need. human being itself is a kind of capital because it can regenerate a constant flow of energy and creativity. an isolated amount of money is not capital.
outsiders inn
outsiders united / outsider mutual-assistance network / outsider assistance network: outsider help / outsider information exchange: outsider news / outsider expert exchange: outsider expert
there is no absolute power only relative power. the hierachy and classes are the key for a few over many. cracks of a power system in the motion are always there. look carefully. there is no static power but dynamic power system. because power is in the change always.
Zen
There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. – Leonard Cohen, Anthem
three marks of existence: anitya: everything in life is impermanent; anatman: empty of essence dukkha: broken: incomplete and imperfect
lightning cable
ai bubble?
- asset bubbles have tended to burst after the start of Fed hiking cycles
| period | start of tightening | peak rate before burst | total increase | peak to trough market decline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great depression | early 1928 | 6.00% | +250 bps | Dow Jones industrial average -89% |
| Dot-com bubble | June 1999 | 6.50% | +175 bps | Nasdaq composite -78% |
| Housing bubble | June 2004 | 5.25% | +425 bps | S&P500 -57% |
- Current rate loosening cycle
| period | start of loosening | current rate | total decrease | market performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| current cycle (2024 - early 2026) | sept. 2024 | 3.75% | -175 bps | S&P500 +24% |
signs to look for
- Shrinking free cash flows amid aggressive spending on AI infrastructure
- Increased cross-holding of US stocks on corporate balance sheets
- Deteriorating leverage ratios amid a debt-fueled AI expansion
- Compression of price-earnings multiples for AI stocks due to electric power and computing bottlenecks that stifle growth
- Wider credit spreads
notes
Iain Banks interviews: I won’t miss waiting for the next financial disaster because we haven’t dealt with the underlying causes of the last one. Nor will I be disappointed not to experience the results of the proto-fascism that’s rearing its grisly head right now. It’s the utter idiocy, the sheer wrong-headedness of the response that beggars belief. I mean, your society’s broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No let’s blame the people with no power and no money and these immigrants who don’t even have the vote, yeah it must be their fucking fault.
You don’t need to excel or be the best. You don’t need to conquer or be elite. It’s fine to just exist in the world, it’s fine to just enjoy something, and not compete or monetize.
萨哈罗夫: 上帝并非世界的统治者，也不是其法则的制定者；他是存在之意义的守护者——一个深藏于存在之表象荒谬之下的一个定点。哪怕是在生命与心灵交融的短暂瞬间，人依然能够感知到那无限的存在。
book: Emily Wilson, The Odyssey, Homer
book: Captive Minds: A Study of Manipulation by Avishai Margalit & Assaf Sharon
book: The Manipulated Mind: Brainwashing, Conditioning and Indoctrination by Denise Winn
In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People by Dr. George K. Simon Ph.D.
book: Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787