Nick Maggiulli on why the upper middle class isn’t special anymore:
Picture it. You’re at one of the nicest resorts in one of the most prized vacation destinations in the world and there are literal millionaires scrambling to get pool chairs at 8AM. What the hell is going on?
I’ll tell you. The upper middle class is getting too big. There are too many people who are millionaires and multi-millionaires and there simply isn’t enough space to accommodate them. Why do you think the Amex lounge is a zoo? Why do you think house prices haven’t come down? Why do you think vacations evolved into cut throat competitions?
Because there are too many people with lots of money.
I think he is onto something, for here is Jennifer Bradley Franklin of the NYT writing about $9,000 jigsaw puzzles:
Christine Murphy thinks she has a problem.
The 42-year-old grant writer and novelist has more than 150 puzzles in her collection at home in Portland, Maine, approximately 50 of which are hand-cut hardwood. She has one in progress at all times, and works on it every day.
“If I don’t get to do it, I get a bit glum,” she said. “I would happily do nothing but massive, thousand-piece hand-cut puzzles.” But, she added, referring to their price: “My God, those are multiple mortgage payments. It’s like a couture puzzle.”
…
A Stave Puzzles 800-piece limited edition costs $8,495 (on sale from $8,995). Orders from the company, founded in 1974, go up from there. A recent order from a single customer was close to $40,000, said Paula Tardie, an owner of Stave. “We have done wedding favors, puzzles for opening night gifts for Broadway shows and some very large puzzles for family reunions.”
“We have a couple of customers who, in the last decade, have spent over $500,000 with us,” said Mr. Danner of Elms.
If $9K can’t even get you a decent resort holiday, blowing it all an puzzles is as good as anything.
Two unrelated articles about AI greeted me from the feed reader this morning:
- Context, Memory, and Voice by Michael Lopp
- Emerson, AI, and The Force by Neal Stephenson
Both are worth reading, and Stephenson’s in particular may lead you down some nice rabbit holes owing to his profuse linking.
Cal Newport’s latest article about common sense in parenting closes with this punchline:
If you’re uncomfortable with the potential impact these devices may have on your kids, you don’t have to wait for the scientific community to reach a conclusion about depression rates in South Korea before you take action.
But does anyone — Georgetown math professors notwithstanding — make decisions this way, neatly compartmentalizing “the science” from their moral intuition? Or is there a mutually reinforcing interaction between the two, with our intuition exposing us to the confirmatory facts?
If this interview is anything to go by, Kevin Kelly is a wonderful human being and a true role model.
Not to put them on the same level — there is a whole generation between them — but the article reminded me of a similar conversation with Merlin Mann, now more than a decade all. Good Sunday reads both.
A few links for the weekend, kind-of-sort-of in the spirit of Good Work:
- The Dying Art We All Depend On, which is to be social among strangers.
- Interdependence is My New Retirement Plan, which has actually been the case in most of the world for most of the time, but an American wrote this just last month so it is somewhat of a surprise.
- Spiritually Sensible Movies, many of which are freely available on YouTube. Bishal is a fellow oncologist writing a non-oncology focused blog, so a double recommendation there.
An excellent blog post that is not a rant: Single-function devices in the world of the everything machine, by Christopher Butler.
Limitations expand our experience by engaging our imagination. Unlimited options arrest our imagination by capturing us in the experience of choice. One, I firmly believe, is necessary for creativity, while the other is its opiate. Generally speaking, we don’t need more features. We need more focus.
Indeed.
Some of the best blog posts are rants, and Andrew Gelman just published one, about reckless disregard for the truth. Here is why he thinks the term “bullshit” does not apply:
In my post, I asked what do you call it when someone is lying but they’re doing it in such a socially-acceptable way that nobody ever calls them on it? Some commenters suggested the term “bullshit,” but that didn’t quite seem right to me, because these people seemed pretty deliberate in their factual misstatements.
I disagree. Whether the bullshitter is deliberate should not matter, and many do indeed BS with a specific goal in mind. In the examples he lists those are inflating the impact of a paper and getting paid for expert testimony in favor of big tobacco. Indeed, dig deep enough and you will find hunger for money and prestige to be at the root of much bullshit.
A few good links to start the week:
- Innovation and Repetition by René Girard
- Face it: you’re a crazy person by Adam Mastroianni
- How to build the perfect city by Chris Arnade (also in conversation with Tyler)
- Does the Pulitzer Prize Hate Substack? by Ted Gioia (note where or these articles live!)
Thomas Basbøll is back writing, with a wonderfully meta-post about why one would want to write at all:
The obvious alternative that I’m heading towards is to seek reasons to write within yourself, rather than in your environment. Write for the clarity it brings or the pleasure it affords. Write because it improves your mind, not the minds of your readers. In the future, as most of the prose we need to get by (the prose that stores and transmits useful information) is produced by machines, we will write for the same reason that we swim, rides bikes, jog, go to the gym.
That is the dream.
Some good links from the past week: