# Monthly Roundup #40: March 2026

It is that time again.

After events surrounding Anthropic and the Department of War, I plan on taking full advantage of whatever lulls I can get. Things are only going to move faster over time.

That means a higher bar for coverage, and it means potentially skipping more days, or using those days for short posts that either spin off fun little things or that embody concepts I want to refer back to over time.

In the meantime, here’s everything that doesn’t go anywhere else, and that does not want to fully stand on its own.

#### Table of Contents

1.  [Sauce For The Goose.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/sauce-for-the-goose)
    
2.  [Age Verification Has Severe Issues.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/age-verification-has-severe-issues)
3.  [Bad News.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/bad-news)
4.  [A Pattern Language.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/a-pattern-language)
5.  [Good Advice.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/good-advice)
6.  [While I Cannot Condone This.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/while-i-cannot-condone-this)
7.  [Locking In.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/locking-in)
8.  [Subscription Price Dynamics Are Weird.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/subscription-price-dynamics-are-weird)
9.  [Good News, Everyone.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/good-news-everyone)
10.  [For Your Entertainment.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/for-your-entertainment)
11.  [Slay The Spire II.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/slay-the-spire-ii)
12.  [Gamers Gonna Game Game Game Game Game.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/gamers-gonna-game-game-game-game-game)
13.  [The Gathering Is Magical.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/the-gathering-is-magical)
14.  [Sports Go Sports.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/sports-go-sports)
15.  [Government Working.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/government-working)
16.  [Not Great, Britain.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/not-great-britain)
17.  [Variously Effective Altruism.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/variously-effective-altruism)
18.  [The Road To Hell.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/the-road-to-hell)
19.  [Jones Act Watch.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/jones-act-watch)
20.  [Patrick McKenzie Periodically.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/patrick-mckenzie-periodically)
21.  [The Lighter Side.](https://thezvi.substack.com/i/190941283/the-lighter-side)

#### Sauce For The Goose

There are some basic principles. Don’t shoot the messenger. Honor guestright and flags of truce. Don’t torture people. Families are off limits. No double taps.

No political violence or assassinations. None.

If we continue to pursue the [‘decapitation’ theory of warfare](https://x.com/themindscourge/status/2025700867442123010?s=48), or the ‘kingpin strategy,’ then I do not believe that goes in good places. So far this hasn’t been flipped around against the leadership of democracies so much, but how long will that last?

I do not want to live in a world where the governing principle is power comes from threatening leaders with death unless they do what you say. Where power goes to those who can threaten and blackmail and destroy. Nor should potential targets.

This is an especially bad time to be introducing this norm, when killer AI drones are very likely about to become much more of a deal. We’ve been lucky there so far.

#### Age Verification Has Severe Issues

The basic issue is that this makes everyone’s experience worse, is a huge unconstitutional invasion of privacy, drives everyone especially children towards VPNs and exactly the wrong websites, and teaches everyone to ignore the law.

The other issue is that no one knows how to reasonably implement them. Age verification systems don’t work against anyone who wants to get around them, and also constantly leak personal information. [Persona’s CEO is unusually good in admitting that bypassing it is easy.](https://x.com/senatorshoshana/status/2026663029354414512)

[Did you know that if you can query](https://x.com/matiasgoldberg/status/2028907590919569641) an iPhone or Android to know if the user is 18, then an app can query every day, and figure out your birthday when you turn 18.

Those laws are also sometimes written so badly [they end up banning calculators](https://x.com/pat_hedger/status/2027402732429029871).

> [George Grab-and-Flee](https://x.com/thegoldenspike/status/2027407898007998549): You think kids should be able to just see 80085?

#### Bad News

[China and in particular Shenzhen is crushing manufacturing](https://x.com/BetterCallMedhi/status/2027625247068065864) through rapid iteration and ecosystem density. I agree with the diagnosis here that ‘work harder’ is not the problem that requires solving for everyone else, at all.

[Kelsey Piper explains some additional reasons not to steal](https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/2031855465626476651).

[Pretty Little Liars, a book published in 2006, retroactively edited to include TikTok](https://x.com/coastalsoftgirl/status/2031779207882162439). When they edit books to remove now-verboten words or concepts I hate that but at least I understand why. To do it to update the cultural references is less dangerous but also is a whole higher level of abomination.

#### A Pattern Language

> [Nat Sauer](https://x.com/natssauer/status/2032480569553043488): Every time I throw a large house party i am surprised by where people end up congregating. It’s never where I plan for them to congregate.
> 
> [systemlayers](https://x.com/systemlayers/status/1375559832690860034): [A few years ago UCLA did a study on room usage](https://t.co/fGtbLCTDjB). I often think about how useless a porch/dining room is. Why hasn’t there been more innovation around how people ACTUALLY use their space in their homes?
> 
> [David Roberts](https://x.com/drvolts/status/1375565152007774208): I think the message about the uselessness of formal dining rooms has finally gotten through — I never see them any more.

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ekYM!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc9d5a0f5-81d8-49ec-a769-09707ccb6fec_604x405.png)

The way people use space follows from design and actual patterns of life experience. If you notice people using the space ‘wrong’ then that’s on you, and you can either accept that and lean into it or you can redesign to get the patterns you want. Often subtle changes can radically improve interactions or shift them were you want them.

#### Good Advice

At some point I hope to do some Good Advice posting in my own capacity.

[Dan Frank offers his top 50 pieces of advice](https://danfrank.ca/daniel-isms-50-ideas-for-life-i-repeatedly-share/). It’s always good to see people’s lists, even if you disagree with a lot of their choices, while remembering to [reverse any advice you hear](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/24/should-you-reverse-any-advice-you-hear/) including from me (but remember, when it’s from me it’s never investment, legal, medical or otherwise prohibited advice).

The key is the advice has to be interesting and non-trivial. It has to either teach a new thing, or argue for a perspective or approach. Dan Frank does well here.

I especially appreciate when, as holds here, the points form a particular perspective, and embody it well. In this case, it’s that staying positive, looking for the upside, finding a good fit, putting in the effort and actually doing the thing are the keys to success.

In this case, here is how I feel about all these points, many of which are +/- one level if you asked me again another day, especially when I agree with the principle but not the chosen example, or there are two claims and I buy one but not the other:

Strongly Agree: #4, #5, #6, #7, #12, #15, #17, #18, #25, #33, #38, #40, #42, #43, #45, #48, #50

Directionally or Conditionally Agree: #1, #2, #10, #14, #16, #21, #28, #29, #30, #32, #36, #39, #41, #44, #47, #49

Mu, It’s Complicated: #3, #8, #11, #24, #26, #34

Directionally or Conditionally Disagree: #19, #20, #22, #31, #35, #37

Strongly Disagree: #9, #13, #23, #27, #46

Overall Grade, adjusting for difficulty: A- or 9/10.

I could easily write a post several times longer than Dan’s, explaining why I gave these answers, or in many cases explaining only one answer.

[There’s then a sequel post with more things](https://notnottalmud.substack.com/p/daniel-isms-50-ideas-for-life). It felt conceptually repetitive in spots, but it’s a strong list with some excellent reminders.

Strongly Agree: #2, #5, #9, #12, #14, #16, #18, #20, #21, #26, #27, #29, #33, #34, #36, #37, #40, #46

Directionally or Conditionally Agree: #3, #4. #7, #11, #15, #17, #24, #25, #30, #35, #41, #44, #45, #47, #50b, #50c, #50e

Mu, It’s Complicated: #8, #10, #22, #49, #50d

Directionally or Conditionally Disagree: #1, #19, #31, #38, #39, #43

Strongly Disagree: #6, #13, #23, #28, #32, #42, #48, #50a

Overall Grade, adjusting for difficulty:

[Frank also suggests ‘tasting day,’ as in things like buying five babkas](https://notnottalmud.substack.com/p/the-tasting-day-why-buying-5-babkas) or brands of ice cream, as social events. It’s fun, it’s cheap, it’s informative, it’s got a hook. I agree, this seems great. Food crawls are also excellent ideas.

[Brian Armstrong suggests if you’re not sure what to do,](https://x.com/readswithravi/status/2030149694643654960) just do anything, even the wrong thing, and that gives you information. I give this one a ‘it’s complicated,’ since this can be anything from a great idea to a very bad idea to a justification for anything.

Nate Silver misses the key difference:

> [Nate Silver](https://x.com/NateSilver538/status/2031918474331656545): “You can just do things” is basically the same heuristic as “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face” except for people who haven’t been punched in the face yet.

The key difference is that you are not inviting Mike Tyson to punch you in the face. The reason ‘you can just do things’ is good advice is that for remarkably many things no one stops you or even objects, and only rarely do they even metaphorically punch you in the face, and when they do most of the time it’s mostly fine.

#### While I Cannot Condone This

[This makes sense](https://x.com/ohabryka/status/2023141002585006196): Weddings pay a lot extra for venues because it’s the most important day of your lives and you need everything perfect so you’re probably going to be extra demanding and likely to break things. Similarly, you’re often not going to compromise on many other things that cost a lot, so you pay a lot.

Televisions have gotten radically cheaper. Why aren’t many other physical goods getting similarly cheaper? [One argument is that this is because televisions no longer signal status and basically can’t get better](https://notnottalmud.substack.com/p/contra-brian-potter-why-tvs-actually), so all the focus is on getting cheaper at scale. I’d say becoming smart TVs did make them radically better, but that part is cheap and has basically zero marginal cost. It’s suggested that mass produced generic goods like IKEA bookshelves also get cheaper, but sofas change every two years and the bikes keep adding features, so they don’t get the same discounts.

The obvious question is, why change the sofas and bikes? The old sofas and bikes were fine. Yes, you might want New Hotness, but given the option to get TV-level-cheap copies of older goods, people would accept static quality. Some would want to signal status, but I think a lot of us would do that elsewhere using money saved.

Then there are products like mattresses where the companies don’t want you to know which ones are good or offering good value, or to compare notes with others, they’d rather try to get you to rely on a salesperson, so they intentionally rotate everything. No wonder things don’t get better.

I don’t know who the best philosopher ever is, but I know [it isn’t Colin McGinn because he claims that it is him](https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/0/marginalrevolution/~https://colinmcginn.net/best-philosopher-ever/). Well, actually we do know, it’s Amanda Askell.

Is it a good argument that immigration [aren’t ‘ruining’ a particular city if housing prices are going up](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/a-simple-test-of-how-immigration-really-is-going.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-simple-test-of-how-immigration-really-is-going)? One can see where that is coming from, but immigration brings in new demand for housing, and supply for housing in particular is often close to fixed due to NIMBY restrictions. So it seems very possible for the city to get otherwise worse, but for housing prices to go up which is also worse. Tyler Cowen says ‘NIMBY factors will not reverse the basic conclusions’ but I don’t see how you can assume that.

[Elon Musk brags he is ‘the largest individual taxpayer in history,](https://x.com/ThomasSowell/status/2024252587210686896)’ having paid over $10 billion in taxes in 2021 when he exercised all his Tesla options, and that he thought the IRS might send him a little trophy. As DTDavis replies, his current net worth is $844 billion, so he has been taxed a very small percentage of his net accumulated assets. Even if you add in his lower tax bills for other years, it must be nice paying such a low tax rate. I’d still be happy to send him the trophy. Maybe two trophies, one for taxes paid and one for taxes dodged.

Continuous wealth taxes are ruinous, but a one-time lifetime minimum tax rate seems reasonable if you can attach them as debt to illiquid assets and it never resets?

[How should we model various forms](https://x.com/patio11/status/2026058245362618718) of letting people access small amounts of cash in emergencies for people always short on cash? As Patrick McKenzie notes it can suddenly get very expensive to be short on cash. The problem is that a ‘cheap’ source of such cash won’t be held back for emergencies, and gets used up, and isn’t there when you need it. So you want your ability to ask for $20 or $50 to come with real friction attached, without being too expensive. High resolution spot labor markets, as in DoorDash driving, can actually serve this niche quite well.

[We say we want ‘healthy choices’ at places like McDonald’s](https://grimoiremanor.substack.com/p/the-mcdonalds-paradox?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true&_src_ref=t.co) but almost never use them when offered, because if we wanted to eat healthy we wouldn’t be at McDonald’s. You go to McD’s for the joy and comfort and to get a great deal on calories per dollar. I do think there is social value in including healthy options, but that’s primarily ‘I have to go here with others so I guess I can get this’ which by its nature will not sell well.

#### Locking In

[Working hard, hardly working or completely locked in?](https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/2024267222831812620)

> [helmet girl](https://x.com/sbodrojan/status/2023811077428175108): I don’t have an OF because I’m not on the grindset like that. All my friends with OFs have a work ethic I literally cannot fathom.
> 
> [Aella](https://x.com/Aella_Girl/status/2024267222831812620): the difference in a “someone’s forcing you to do x work ethic” and a “you’re your own boss” work ethic is a gaping chasm
> 
> [West Coast Kenny](https://x.com/kenthecowboy_/status/2024300247112126915): Yeah, it was a huge adjustment when i started ubering

Rather than two core levels, I think it’s better to think about three.

1.  Hardly Working: No returns to productivity. Your true task is to appear to work, to not get fired, to please your boss or coworkers, to play politics.
2.  Working Hard. Linear returns to productivity. An honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. You’re trying to actually accomplish the task or cut the enemy, but you don’t need to outright maximize.
3.  Completely Locked In. Increasing returns to productivity. OnlyFans is a central case here, so are most startup founders and many startup workers as well. Competitors and athletes and so on.

Uber only moves you from category one to category two. That’s a big adjustment, but it doesn’t do the ‘cannot fathom’ level of work ethic.

There is a huge chasm between #1 and #2, and also between #2 and #3.

#### Subscription Price Dynamics Are Weird

The actual surplus comes from the AIs producing outputs worth orders of magnitude above marginal cost. The rest is market dynamics.

Consider how much the median ChatGPT $20/month subscriber would pay in API costs for their queries. It’s basically nothing. The $200/month level is also printing money on most subscribers, except there is a long tail that are maximizing usage where I presume the companies take a loss.

> [roon](https://x.com/tszzl/status/2015239081912115503): it is absolutely insane that my combined substack subscriptions easily rival my pro tier chatbot subscriptions. the pricing norms that were set by chatgpt were one of the greatest handouts of consumer surplus in history
> 
> [Pliny the Liberator 󠅫󠄼󠄿󠅆󠄵󠄐󠅀󠄼󠄹󠄾󠅉󠅭](https://x.com/elder_plinius/status/2015407940421689686): lest we forget: the greatest handout in consumer surplus history was AI labs paying $0 for everyone’s data
> 
> the models are only as good as the human creativity they were scraped from

Getting the info for free was a giveaway but Pliny of all people should know that the models are not only as good as the human creativity they were scraped from.

Roon is pointing to a very real problem with ‘minor’ subscriptions, which is that they add up fast. If you’re paying $10/month for each individual newsletter, newspaper or podcast or Patreon or streaming service, including ones you only occasionally utilize, that can add up fast even if you never forget to cancel. You either pay a ton or you accept you’re often locked out.

It would be much better if you could do a global subscription and then they divided distribution according to your actual consumption. I’m generally a big bundling fan, especially as it removes feel-bads and cognitive load. Alternatively a ‘pay as you go’ microtransaction system would be great too and seriously we have Claude Code someone go build this properly.

The exception would be those creators that you want to support for the sake of supporting them. That’s different. When I’m not trying to actively support someone, and it’s only about access, I have a very high bar for subscriptions, and a much lower bar for one-time costs. A lot of this is that if you’re behind a paywall that can’t be evaded easily, you’re importantly not part of the discourse except insofar as you are quoted, and also there’s infinite other content.

#### Good News, Everyone

Be like Magnus Carlsen and Richard Feynman, [and always be funmaxxing.](https://x.com/nabeelqu/status/2024912531119014170) Follow your curiosity and the love of the game, and the rest will follow. Obviously it is not that simple, you still have to do all the other things too, but [slack](https://thezvi.substack.com/p/slack) and having fun are vital parts of any worthwhile creative enterprise.

[From last year](https://x.com/calebwatney/status/1999514482482008087) via Caleb Watney: NSF is [launching Tech Labs and will be investing $1 billion](https://t.co/xteQ3NgWVC) [into $10 million to $50 million per team](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/12/the-tech-labs-initiative.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-tech-labs-initiative) per year for five year commitments, allowing labs to engage in longer term riskier plays or invest in public goods like data sets, tooling or scientific platforms, and not spend all their time fundraising and finding small surefire ways to show enough success to keep the money flowing. This is excellent. [Stuart Buck also explains why it makes sense](https://goodscience.substack.com/p/innovations-in-scientific-institutions?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1010915&post_id=181464205&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=3o9&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email). I expect it to mostly be overtaken by events in AI, but it is very much worth doing.

[Tyler Cowen suggests this is an excellent podcast with fresh material](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJsBMitjj7A).

[I approve of the proposal](https://x.com/CoughsOnWombats/status/2025903821675716675) of ‘ma’am, this is a map store’ as a positive-valence, ‘this is an even more relevant place for you than you know yet, you are among friends’ signal, in contrast to classic ‘sir, this is a Wendy’s.’

Remember that life really is getting better in dramatic ways, including food costs.

> [Human Progress](https://x.com/HumanProgress/status/2028636514414915783): 75 years ago, 1 out of every 5 dollars a US family earned went to food. Today that’s closer to 1 in 10. A slow, steady, easy-to-miss kind of progress.
> 
> [Kelsey Piper](https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/2028923357782262197): we have been heavily emphasizing history at the kids’ school and I’ve noticed it change their whole outlook on life as they get a sense of how awful the world used to be and how incredibly lucky we now are
> 
> the other day my daughter was handwashing a pot so she could make herself oatmeal and she said aloud “dishwashers are an incredible invention!!”. she’s right and I’m so glad that she could notice that and have that lens on the limited manual work we still have to do
> 
> ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vkvv!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa5e97400-085c-45fc-a8db-56d1f7f49d73_1080x1080.jpeg)
> 
> ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!LMLq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F26698616-85ec-4b15-b11d-f9154e25212e_1000x600.jpeg)

On the specific example: We’re not only spending a lot less on food, including less time, we’re getting a lot more for our time and money. Food is dramatically better, variety is way better, and we’re often getting it prepared by professionals and then often driven right to our home. Those who think food is getting worse or more expensive are wrong about this, and focused on local isolated changes.

#### For Your Entertainment

[Paramount bids too high and wins the war for Warner Brothers](https://www.wsj.com/business/media/warner-discovery-says-paramounts-latest-bid-is-superior-to-netflix-deal-e0ceea4c?mod=trending_now_news_3). My Netflix stock thanks you, sir. It would have been cool for Netflix to get the Warner and HBO catalogues, but this works as well.

What do you do when you get your kids Spotify so they can listen to music, [and then Spotify betrays you and adds looping short form videos](https://x.com/oscredwin/status/2023764760383156653)? Andrew Rettek suggests only putting Spotify on a Google Home, which rules out videos. You could also use an alternative service such as Amazon Music or Pandora. Taoki points out it can be disabled.

[We used to have this great thing we called Star Trek](https://x.com/robinhanson/status/2031372628653453335). Now we don’t, because its shell is run by Alex Kurtzman who thinks he’s here to do deeply lazy social commentary and sci-fi action sequences and maybe some paint-by-numbers things that nominally look Trek-shaped. Which is why he says science fiction isn’t about the future.

#### Slay The Spire II

Slay the Spire II is available. Spires are indeed being slain, mostly while unspoiled.

If you want the fully unspoiled experience, skip this section and come back to it later.

You should play Slay the Spire II if and only if you played a lot of Slay the Spire I and you like the idea of slaying more spires.

Now, some minimally spoilerific thoughts.

The new characters seem harder than the old ones, especially in that if they don’t come together they fall apart and suddenly die, but that could be lack of experience, and especially not knowing how to pursue some of their strategies.

Regent seems like it requires you to have a good mix of stars and star uses, which gives you more ways to fail and for cards to not be useful. There’s a bunch of themes especially in Necrobinder, that seem like they’re supposed to be things you can make happen, but that don’t seem supported enough to make happen, and all my wins have heavily relied on multiples of one particular common.

Defect has a much harder time gaining focus, as Defragment is rare and Consume and Biased Cognition are gone, so it’s not entirely clear how he’s supposed to work when I stop hitting Defragment all the time anyway (how lucky), whereas the new Ironclad and Silent seem quite strong.

The new boss rewards move away from energy and towards other changes, including a lot of upgrades and card removes, in ways that will take a while to properly adjust for.

If there’s one criticism of the game, it’s that this is ‘more Slay the Spire’ and stays too close to the original, and feels more like a (very good) mod than an entirely new game.

Another criticism is that the enemies seem less distinct, and are doing less to punish strategies that are otherwise overpowered, whereas there are a lot of ‘these numbers escalate steadily over time’ fights. In particular, Time Eater and the Heart in the first game punish doing a lot of card spam, whereas in the sequel card spam goes almost entirely unpunished, and there’s no version of Awakened One either.

Yes, there are exceptions, and a few little things, but they mostly don’t matter. Do powerful things quickly, and you win, if not you lose. The game also needs a proper boss gauntlet and final test in general, without which (for now) most runs that make it to Act III have basically already won and have every reason to dodge elite fights. Boo.

There was one defect deck I had that was built around Top and that would have been in deep trouble against one of the three Act III bosses, but that’s one time out of a lot of runs, and I dodged that fight.

Similarly, one cool tension in Act I of the original is worrying about Gremlin Nob, so you didn’t want to go too heavily into skills or a slow build too early. Now that’s gone. You do still have multiple ‘I suggest you kill me quickly’ elites, but there’s less interesting tradeoffs there, and the new version of active skill punishing that seems to be one hallway fight where you’re limited to one skill per turn. It’s not the same.

One welcome change is that the ascension levels so far escalate much faster. The impacts are very much not messing around, whereas before a lot of them were minor although minor things add up, but that meant playing a lot of games if you didn’t want to ‘cheat’ and edit the file.

#### Gamers Gonna Game Game Game Game Game

[Top quick easy to teach games with flexible player counts, for lunchtime breaks](https://curiouslynx.games/p/top-games-for-lunchtime-breaks), from Paul Smith. Kariba, Faraway, The Resistance (aka Avalon), Eight Minute Empire: Legends, Panda Spin and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Trick Taking Game. [He also recommends games for beginners](https://curiouslynx.games/p/5-top-boardgames-for-beginners): Dorf Romantik, Flamecraft, Azul, Sushi Go, Harmonies and Ticket To Ride: Europe (or USA but he prefers Europe).

Ticket to Ride (USA or Europe) can be a lot of fun, and it’s easy to explain the rules, but it also has severe flaws, especially that you spend half the game drawing from the deck, and half the rest going through motions, you make few important decisions, winning is mostly about laying the longest tracks possible, and players who don’t know this slowly lose without understanding what happened.

[Ben Thompson interviews Matthew Ball about the state of video gaming](https://stratechery.com/2026/an-interview-with-matthew-ball-about-gaming-and-the-fight-for-attention/?access_token=eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6InN0cmF0ZWNoZXJ5LnBhc3Nwb3J0Lm9ubGluZSIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.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.IdRUNVrLFtsLvgzAUFJJCZsCytEw86d4fIramTsNw75nzKlvKE4wWF-jZQ8jHBwZ2W4b3dnwrs-WS_8sGybF6EkfaV2jK5pnPbryyjLxqJNYouIhQjFTK7eGk8yzyL0nzbWwCaGxanGKDe6zcB8cvgAldasA_wNfgra_nnA4iMi-NBaNi-oJDAdQwrHk3IbdyPWZiUJaVTnNPiN13z0njHFGVU20_Xqnr7Rd7MGAHs0_kOSNvZNBxhritx5YiFck6fzfAD4OSbfwsEuK2X6fFIt4u6A8xwMnYbQiwpuEmld7w9WGO9VslwtzxZZjS65_KqIrdJCwXYnodcgefA_kSQ). It has been rough out there. Platforms are taking huge cuts with their subscription services, Roblox the abomination is eating market share, there is more supply chasing similar demand, but the big problem is that games are losing the war for attention. AI isn’t even in this picture yet.

The central problem is that gaming now has to compete, especially among 18-to-45 year old men but also everywhere else, with crypto, sports betting and prediction markets, TikTok and other short form video, OnlyFans and so on, and it asks players to lock in and focus when no one knows how to focus on anything. They don’t mention streaming services like Netflix, but I would add them as well. I’d also add most ‘mobile gaming’ and the whole mobile F2P genre as ‘not even gaming’ but as competition for mindshare. I’m even consider Substack.

As Matthew put it, you used to largely be competing with nothing, with boredom, or with ‘watching television’ based on what was on. Now you face a murderer’s row that is optimized to hijack your brain.

Whereas gaming almost entirely stayed the same. Graphics and sound improved, some other features marginally improved, load times improved which is nice, but we are long past where that matters much for the core experience. The improvements are marginal. Great old games, simple things where players have the fun and you work with restrictions, are (I think) typically both more wholesome and more enjoyable.

You can argue the golden age of new game quality is now, and maybe you’re right if you use strong selection and you highly value not being frustrated, but it’s not fundamentally different.

The golden age of the available gaming experience is obviously right now, as you can buy a Switch and have access to an army of retro games across decades plus the option for newer stuff, all on the cheap. There’s infinite great games in the archive. But the competition is stiff.

#### The Gathering Is Magical

If you can access the cards, Premodern is the best Magic format. Check this out, after many years of playing with the same cards. You can do anything you want to do and face a huge variety of opponents.

> [Sam Black](https://x.com/SamuelHBlack/status/2023314236152136187): I don’t know that everything’s classified exactly the way I’d classify it, but that split of aggro/control/combo is unreal. Premodern’s so good

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C0zC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffb9af70d-ba24-475f-9123-ee20cad9a74c_945x2048.jpeg)

[Standard might be great right now](https://x.com/karsten_frank/status/2031513650817605833), [this is excellent deck variety](https://www.magic.gg/news/metagame-mentor-standard-events-with-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles).

> [Frank Karsten](https://x.com/karsten_frank/status/2031513650817605833): Over 1,900 Standard decklists were submitted across Magic Spotlight: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Regional Championships in Turin, Mexico City, and Taipei City.
> 
> After cleaning archetype names, here’s the combined metagame and winrate matrix!

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hPnL!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F31b1c7ee-8c5c-400c-b6cb-091c8d5f332a_680x566.jpeg)

But that won’t last:

> [Andy, Aftermath Analyst](https://x.com/AndyAWKWARD/status/2026341452146475456): The hardest sell for standard being one of the best formats its ever been is that new cards come out way too often. It is near impossible to keep up with. Getting cards is costly and difficult. They will never fix this though because more sets equals more $.
> 
> [Sam Black](https://x.com/SamuelHBlack/status/2026354737428238745): I’m comfortable spending money on cards. I own almost every card I’d want to play in old school, premodern, and cEDH. The rate of change is prohibitive to \*me\* entering standard. I wouldn’t play a ton of events, so I’d basically need to buy an entire new deck every event. Pass.
> 
> [MTG Old Frame](https://x.com/mtgoldframe/status/2026355372017979500): For me, the worst thing about non-static formats is that you have to keep spending a lot of time regularly just to stay updated. When playing a format like Premodern, you can likely use the same list a year later, and it’s about as competitive.
> 
> [Sam Black](https://x.com/SamuelHBlack/status/2026354737428238745): I’m comfortable spending money on cards. I own almost every card I’d want to play in old school, premodern, and cEDH. The rate of change is prohibitive to \*me\* entering standard. I wouldn’t play a ton of events, so I’d basically need to buy an entire new deck every event. Pass.
> 
> Oh, another huge issue is that basically no stores actually have all the cards, which means you have to order online, but needing to lock in a deck a week in advance to have time to get the cards really compounds the issue of how little time you get with it.
> 
> When I played Standard I was drafting in paper all the time and I just had everything, but at least near me, I don’t think it’s possible to find that many paper drafts anymore given the cost of packs and convenience of Arena.

Having to stress about card access was so bad for Standard that as a Pro I also literally maintained full playsets of everything to avoid the stress. But that doesn’t work if you’re not doing this full time or close to it.

It’s fair to say that many decks don’t change much for months, but effectively Standard has very high fixed costs to staying current, in both time and money. I can afford the money if it was worthwhile, but I can’t afford the time. I think you need to be playing on the order of an hour a day to even consider it.

Whereas all the prize money in real life tournaments is in cEDH anyway, the only money in traditional formats are in Pro Tours and on Arena.

> [Sam Black](https://x.com/SamuelHBlack/status/2027998029928636918): The small scene of cEDH sharks is interesting—talked to a couple kids who seemed very good at the game and asked if they played other tournaments. The answer? “There’s no money in other formats, right? I can pay $60 to win $2k in locals playing cEDH”
> 
> [Zac Hill](https://x.com/zdch/status/2028105839668498584): That is really fascinating – had no idea the EV was so high. But also, why do t tables just default to hanging the sharks?
> 
> [Sam Black](https://x.com/SamuelHBlack/status/2028131208022880637): The decks aren’t built to do it, the other decks are too lethal, and the games are too compact. Everyone’s always in panic/stay alive mode and the game is about navigating how to do that
> 
> Also interesting that there can only be this much money while wizards isn’t involved—demand at this level is predicated on being able to play proxies

I grew up with TMNT and I remember it fondly, [but it has no place in Magic: The Gathering](https://x.com/mtgbanding/status/2024494829317562607), and the artwork I see is an stylistic abomination when taken in context.

I am fine with Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings and Final Fantasy, and sure once every few years you can have a little makes-no-sense-here fun if it makes you piles of money, but no, stop, this is crazy.

[Remembering Kai Budde.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdGrIYjR9n4)

#### Sports Go Sports

[Trump is looking to pass new regulations](https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/2030033143634255956) on athlete compensation and free right of transfer in college sports. He does not like that the student athletes can now charge market price for their services, and take their talents to the highest bidder every year.

I largely agree with him on this. I have no problem with the athletes getting paid, including paid very well, but the transfer portal is completely out of control. Sports greatly benefits from roster stability, where players stay with their team for longer periods, and teams have unique long term identities. It also isn’t great for anyone’s education to have all these students transferring every year. I know you didn’t come here to play school, but let’s try and give them a chance.

Unfortunately, due to how the law works right now, we have swung from one extreme of getting paid peanuts and being unable to move, to full mercenary mode. Trying for a middle path would be illegal. This also will enshrine the richer schools, since they can each year buy the top players.

My preference would be that pass a law that allows us to adopt some of the rules of professional sports. Long term contracts should be possible. The transfer portal should take a page from free agency and come with compensation if the original school makes a strong financial offer. A luxury tax or salary cap is hard because you can be paid indirectly without the school’s consent, but with Congress onboard there would be ways as they literally control tax policy.

Remember that tax incidence is not who writes the literal check, and we could earmark any taxes collected back to our public universities.

It’s tricky, and obviously not our biggest problem. I still think college football is way better now in the playoff era than it was before, despite the related issues, except that my favorite team is Wisconsin and we handled it badly so we’ve sucked.

#### Government Working

[Scott Alexander explains the origins of California’s proposal](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/seiu-delenda-est?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=89120&post_id=185632270&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=67wny&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email) for the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, which is that SEIU, a union of healthcare workers, is using ballot propositions designed to be destructive as systematized extortion. This is their latest target, and they are hoping to extort Gavin Newsom. If it somehow passes, the money is earmarked for healthcare, so even if it devastates California they don’t care.

SEIU Delenda Est, sure, but that’s secondary here.

The obvious solution is actually California Ballot Propositions Delenda Est.

[Donald Trump declares his intention](https://x.com/SethAbramson/status/2024645622192538104), without Congressional authorization, to take $10 billion from the treasury and give it to an organization he created of which he is the prepretual head and where can use the funds for whatever he wants including funding his favorite charity. He calls this new organization the ‘Board of Peace’ to remind us to read 1984. I am confused in what way this could be legal, or how it could fail to be a high crime and misdemeanor.

[It sure seems like the head of the FCC is threatening that](https://x.com/brianschatz/status/2032876036946383201) if you don’t cover the Iran war sufficiently positively, they won’t renew your broadcast license, because you aren’t operating ‘in the public interest.’

> [Brendan Carr](https://x.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/2032855414233047172) (FCC Chairman, attempting to control broadcaster speech through threats): Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions – also known as the fake news – have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.
> 
> The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.
> 
> And frankly, changing course is in their own business interests since trust in legacy media has now fallen to an all time low of just 9% and are ratings disasters.
> 
> The American people have subsidized broadcasters to the tune of billions of dollars by providing free access to the nation’s airwaves.
> 
> It is very important to bring trust back into media, which has earned itself the label of fake news.
> 
> When a political candidate is able to win a landslide election victory after in the face of hoaxes and distortions, there is something very wrong. It means the public has lost faith and confidence in the media. And we can’t allow that to happen.
> 
> Time for change!
> 
> [Brian Schatz](https://x.com/brianschatz/status/2032876036946383201): This is a clear directive to provide positive war coverage or else licenses may not be renewed. This is worse than the comedian stuff, and by a lot. The stakes here are much higher. He’s not talking about late night shows, he’s talking about how a war is covered.
> 
> [QuirkyLlama](https://x.com/quirkyllama/status/2032879890408812647): I’d find all of this much more compelling if it were accompanied by a reassessment of 2 previous Democratic war-time leaders (Wilson, FDR) who were \*far more egregious\* in their violations of 1A in pursuit of war aims.

Yes, previous Presidents blatantly violated the First Amendment in time of war. No, that does not in any way make such actions okay. Very much the opposite. Also, you don’t get to say ‘in time of war’ if you don’t declare war.

[The ultimate conclusion of things like the UK’s Child Safety Act is inevitable,](https://x.com/senatorshoshana/status/2023204747638141424) and now UK PM Kier Starmer is exploring age-restricting (read: require a face scan for use) all VPNs.

> [Politics UK](https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/2023160109031989338): Keir Starmer has launched a consultation on age-restricting VPNs to stop kids bypassing the Online Safety Act
> 
> He’s also announced new powers to ban under-16s from social media and block infinite scrolling features at short notice, pending the consultation outcome.
> 
> Closing a loophole in the Online Safety Act so AI chatbots are covered by illegal content duties  
> – A consultation on how tech companies can prevent children from sending or receiving nude images  
> – A consultation on whether to increase the age of digital consent from 13  
> – New requirements to preserve children’s social media data following a child’s death

‘Closing a loophole’ is code for applying this same treatment to AI chatbots as well.

[Senator Schumer sold us out](https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/2024813848985841767), [trading efficient and revenue maximizing allocation](https://www.slowboring.com/p/charismatic-leaders-can-roll-their) of NYC airport slots via auction for JetBlue’s promise to use some of those slots for artificially cheaper flights to Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester.

You can make a Tyler Cowen style argument that subsidizing flights to smaller cities in the region creates high consumer surplus, since people have artificially low willingness to pay for flights and also the cheap flights keep people from leaving such places which causes cascading damage, so they have an oversized impact as a subsidy, but you can’t flat out pay (more than we already do) directly or it looks terrible. I get it, but oh boy is it a stretch, and if you buy that then it’s hard to be a libertarian overall.

I will mostly not be ‘monitoring the situation’ surrounding Operation Epic Fury, other than to note that if you’re about to call your operation that, maybe reconsider whether your plan is going to work out the way you think it is.

[I will note that I agree with Dean Ball that](https://x.com/deanwball/status/2028939794714112284), whatever else the Trump administration is doing here, if your ‘special military operation’ is going to endanger world trade, then being the reasonably priced insurer of last resort for that trade is an excellent move, as is offering to provide escort ships. Yes you should be willing to lose money on this.

Remember that $100k H1-B visa fee? I expected a decline in demand, but not like this.

> [Connor O’Brien](https://x.com/cojobrien/status/2032192078546182577): 85 people have paid the $100,000 H-1B fee so far, totaling $8.5 million in revenue. But fee revenue from H-1B apps abroad is down $28 million.
> 
> So the fee — justified by a paper claiming the revenue-maximizing fee was >$100,000! — appears to have lost the government $20 million.
> 
> Laffer Curve confirmed real.

This won’t prevent the H-1B cap from being hit (which would be worse), so the net effect is we lost a bunch of money. Yet the comments remained full of ‘let’s make the fee even higher.’

#### Not Great, Britain

[A kid is inadvertently sharing a meme named ‘terrorist content’](https://x.com/BasilTheGreat/status/2029436683557503426)? We will arrest you and potentially give you a criminal record and make sure you can’t go to college. That’s what the UK government is running ads to warn kids about now. Instead of, you know, not trying to ruin kid’s lives over a meme.

> [arctotherium](https://x.com/arctotherium42/status/2029703697526046737): Annualized, UK speech prosecutions are running at about 17x those of the Soviet Union under Brezhnev. Of course, the USSR had 4x the population, so more like 68x the prosecutions/person*year.
> 
> ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SAlL!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0af962de-daa8-4160-b42a-0e08b2ec0057_519x900.jpeg)

I see quite a lot of content about the UK cracking down in increasingly insane ways on speech and access to the internet, including attacking VPNs and jailing people for private messages or when someone is ‘offended,’ while it fails to crack down on physical crimes including theft and rape.

You know what offends me a lot? Rape, theft and letting such crimes go unpunished.

You know what else offends me quite a lot? Censorship.

Sometimes the stories turn out to be misrepresented or largely false, or chosen to be cases where there is a good reason behind state action, as you expect via [toxoplasma of rage](https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/The-Toxoplasma-Of-Rage), and what happens when the entire population is being actively censored and is scared of prison if they speak out, but also often the stories clearly check out.

It is long past the point where I could possibly consider living there. It’s just right out.

#### Variously Effective Altruism

I agree that such beliefs can be terrifying if taken seriously or literally, but also have you seen what most people believe? Also highly terrifying if taken seriously or literally.

> [roon](https://x.com/tszzl/status/2023913618996408770): admittedly the EAs who believe in an objective non human secular morality can be quite terrifying
> 
> [Oliver Habryka](https://x.com/ohabryka/status/2023918976234074223): +1, also quite terrifying to me.

The negative utilitarians worry me even more, especially if they count as both.

But yeah, it can get worse. Want an example of something way worse? Here you go.

What would be the least effective altruism? Perhaps [going around telling people who have pledged to give money to charity to betray that promise](https://x.com/teddyschleifer/status/2033334767081390310). So the prize goes to Peter Thiel, who makes such points as ‘some people who signed the pledge aren’t even billionaires.’

> [Teddy Schleifer](https://x.com/teddyschleifer/status/2033334767081390310): Peter Thiel tells me that he has had a dozen private conversations recently with signers of The Giving Pledge, encouraging them to “un-sign it.”

It is one thing to tell people not to sign a giving pledge. It is another to actively tell people to ‘un-sign’ it, while yourself having billions and giving away little.

Does Peter Thiel have a point that many charities end up captured by left wing ideologues and doing unproductive or anti-productive things? Yes, that is an excellent thing to worry about. That doesn’t mean you can’t spend money to help other people.

#### The Road To Hell

[What percentage of people believe that if hell does not exis](https://x.com/PrinceVogel/status/2023307639082602706)t [it would be necessary to create it,](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EDBQPT65XJsgszwmL/long-term-risks-from-ideological-fanaticism#Fanatical_retributivism_may_lead_to_astronomical_suffering) and how many people do they want to send there?

> [David_Althaus](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EDBQPT65XJsgszwmL/long-term-risks-from-ideological-fanaticism#Fanatical_retributivism_may_lead_to_astronomical_suffering): 11–14% in the US, UK, and Pakistan were consistent and concerning responders for create hell, rising to 19–25% in China, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Results for want system (8–11% and 19–24%) and would create system (7–11% and 16–23%) showed roughly similar patterns.
> 
> Looking beyond the conjunctive measure, when asked what proportion of humanity deserves unbearable pain forever, more than half of participants answered 1% or higher; a quarter answered 7% or higher.

The correct amount of punishment is not zero.

The correct amount of eternal unbearable pain, however, is definitely zero.

You should be very worried about anyone, or any culture, that thinks otherwise.

#### Jones Act Watch

[Are they going to hit the Solve Everything Now button](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-12/trump-administration-set-to-suspend-jones-act-to-tame-oil-prices)? As in suspend the Jones Act?

We shall see. Suspending the Jones Act would help, but it is a lot less effective than ending it entirely. You can’t make investments and long term adjustments when you know the rules are going to return after the Iran conflict is over.

The hope is that even this smaller improvement will be highly motivating.

In the longer term:

Willie Smith proclaim how great the Jones Act is, [and wow the comments are unkind](https://x.com/cpgrabow/status/2024572780428087343).

> [First Squawk](https://x.com/FirstSquawk/status/2023070069631373480): U.S. supplies of gasoline are being shipped out of the country to travel thousands of miles via the Bahamas before finally ending up in California, a state battling shrinking fuelmaking capacity and high pump prices.
> 
> [Scott Lincicome](https://x.com/scottlincicome/status/2023174641775472951): And you will never guess why. [Okay, fine, you’ll probably guess](https://t.co/QUxxifY9E9).

Yep, I did guess. Jones Act. Among other stupid rules that also make things worse.

What would happen if we got rid of the ‘American made’ ship requirement for oceangoing vessels, but kept the other three? We only make roughly 1-2 such ships a year, so giving the shipyards a compensating subsidy would be relatively cheap.

> [Colin Grabow](https://x.com/cpgrabow/status/2031372256513774003): There are currently 93 oceangoing ships in the Jones Act fleet. I asked ChatGPT and Claude how many US-flagged ships would spend at least 80% of their time in domestic commerce if the JA’s US-built requirement were removed. Answers:
> 
> ChatGPT: 160-230  
> Claude: 256-429

The existing 93 ships are mostly very old and lack capacity, so this is a bigger jump than it might appear. You can get a bigger jump if you also upgrade the ports.

#### Patrick McKenzie Periodically

[How to read a document around a lawsuit on the FDIC pause letters](https://x.com/patio11/status/1887567967392538641) [regarding crypto, where the court is](https://assets.ctfassets.net/sygt3q11s4a9/22j1EXHivrIHXgCM9EmyAZ/d9b5fb93c5f862052f7b16f3aecbe716/HA_v._FDIC_1.22.25_Hearing_Transcript.pdf), shall we say, pissed. I see why. It’s quite the document indeed.

[Patrick warns of potential future pissed off judges regarding Lutnik and Tether](https://x.com/patio11/status/1887527159406657597).

> Patrick McKenzie: Look I’m just some guy, and I’ve never been either CEO of a financial services giant or Cabinet official, but it is my general impression that, when you carry water for a client by alleging the existence of a due diligence process… that process has to exist.
> 
> Many people have sort of a casual relationship with the truth in many circumstances. I once caught a fish; it was thiiiiiiiiis big.
> 
> If one has that relationship to the truth with regards to things one’s financial institution is doing, there is a word for that. Not a happy word.
> 
> “Are you being fair to the CEO of a financial services firm in characterizing his remarks as specifically alleging a robust controls process?” You tell me. Bloomberg:
> 
> ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wLC0!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9c91ef4d-e61f-44cf-88a3-28ca84cf4662_690x344.png)
> 
> There’s another way to phrase that, which is (as I pointed out immediately on hearing it) much more common, which is to \*disclaim floridly\* that you \*are not vouching for anything but exactly the thing you are saying.\*

Indeed, my understanding is that if it turned out Tether does not have the money they say they have, you would not especially want to be Lutnik.

[If you want to speed up ACH transfers and spend less effort on verification](https://x.com/patio11/status/1877782526149743077) and assuring bank officers you know what you are doing, line things up so that both sides of each transaction are at the same bank as often as possible.

[Banks have to deal with you differently](https://x.com/patio11/status/1877494445546803497) if you are sufficiently wealthy or otherwise are in the habit of doing things that are not typically done by users of the bank, often in ways that require escalation to people qualified to handle such scenarios, and many banks are not set up well to handle High Weirdness even if it’s totally legit. If you are a customer of ‘weird’ financial services, be aware that you will often need to trigger escalations before your needs can be handled. If your needs are too often too weird, you likely therefore end up in one of a few institutions that op into being able to handle this reasonably well.

[You can not only shop around for but also directly negotiate on bank interest](https://x.com/patio11/status/1879818918342381761) on deposits and the price of other financial services, and saying ‘we don’t negotiate’ is a negotiating tactic. Which is annoying for anyone who actually won’t negotiate.

[Why having a tin can out for donations might not be worth the money you rais](https://x.com/patio11/status/1879854610367860987)e, and other ways and reasons to present one’s writing in most professional possible light. Hacking the status ladder via more professional descriptive labels has its advantages. Not that I intend to try and claim them.

[Patrick McKenzie recommends](https://x.com/patio11/status/1879534266524262813) evaluating your needs periodically and then buying term life insurance and private own-occupation disability insurance, including ‘overbuying’ in younger years to anticipate the future. He even says the threshold for ‘I don’t need this’ is approximately having 25x your present income in liquid assets. As in (he doesn’t say this, but it’s clearly the logic), if you have f*** you money, and could retire today if you wanted to.

I think this is a rare Patrick McKenzie error, and the wrong way to think about risk.

Buying insurance without a large information advantage is almost always horrible in expected dollar terms. There are times when you know you are unusually likely to need insurance, or the insurance is intentionally offered at a loss as a kind of promotion, and thus the insurance is mispriced and you should buy it.

But if that is not you, then it is instead other people who are turning a profit, plus the insurance company is turning a profit, plus there are substantial transaction costs on all sides. You are going to get a remarkably small percentage, on average, of your money back in net present value terms, even if you assume ‘economic normal’ all around and that if the events happen you’re actually paid despite the two laws of insurance (which are ‘You pay’ and ‘We don’t’).

Patrick is effectively saying you should still be buying the sucker’s side of the trade, because the marginal utility of money is highly variable. And yes, there is certainly some of this, but you then have to ask to what extent things would genuinely, really be Not Okay such that the marginal dollar shoots way up in value, versus what it is now. And also keep in mind that marginal dollars when young are actually rather valuable, for things like being in position to buy a house or marry or have a child, or take advantage of opportunities – the cost of lacking liquidity, or having to borrow, can be very high, including in reputation and time.

Whereas yes, you might die and leave everyone in a worse situation than now, but that doesn’t mean everyone involved will never have income and can’t adjust, and there won’t be other resources available to fall back upon. And you certainly don’t need 25 years of income to guard against such scenarios – are you trying to maintain your current lifestyle and spending level indefinitely if you were completely unable to work again? Do you actually need to do that? And if you do, how often when this happens is the insurance actually going to pay out?

The exception would be if you are essentially unable to save money, and would spend marginal dollars on consumption that you don’t especially value or find it ‘taxed’ away by your family or community in a way you don’t endorse. That changes everything.

[A thread about escalations](https://x.com/patio11/status/1880885380196732952) of the customer service process, including when that happens on social media, which is multiple times over sorted to only show itself when the case is extreme and absurd. The system seems to most of the time work via threat of escalation rather than actual escalation. Which means that it is likely (my take not his) that the job of Dangerous Professional is to signal in a way their systems will be able to notice that you are willing and able to do the escalation.

[Patrick McKenzie pays his Japanese taxes, goes exactly how you would expect](https://x.com/patio11/status/1884035778059366508).

[Thread about bank statement fraud and related scams](https://x.com/patio11/status/1882602282719883316), and he reports [many have privately confirmed its accuracy](https://x.com/patio11/status/2020183038953738390). Bank statements can easily be faked, they’re pieces of paper with known formatting, but are still treated strong evidence for essentially three reasons.

1.  If you’re caught, you will probably get prosecuted for real.
2.  If someone checks with the bank, they have very good records. You will be caught.
3.  If someone wants to check with the bank, they can unless you explicitly say no, and if you’re explicitly saying no you’re effectively caught.

The threat is thus stronger than its execution, and its execution is also strong.

[Thread where Patrick attempts to handle fourth grade social studies questions](https://x.com/patio11/status/1884789301054947422).

[You can’t recruit good recruiters because we don’t pay their opportunity cost](https://x.com/patio11/status/1882419044269347089).

[Do not be a bank CEO and ask Patrick McKenzie to retract a well-regarded piece](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2025/02/10/retraction-request-denied/) via Twitter without first consulting your lawyers and PR department.

[Patrick McKenzie, somehow for the first time](https://x.com/patio11/status/1904402743499936130), has a wire not arrive in its usual time frame internationally. It all works out in the end. That’s how reliable wires are.

[Discussion of how to best go about pursuing a denied FOIA request](https://x.com/patio11/status/1932304533646197226).

Signatures are not a way to prove someone approved something. [Signatures are for solemnization](https://x.com/patio11/status/1930340924212539902).

> Patrick McKenzie: As I’ve mentioned previously, solemnization is a sociolegal tripwire to say “There are many situations in society and in business where you’re Just Talking and up until this exact moment we have been Just Talking \*and after this point\* We Were Not Just Talking. Do you get it?”
> 
> People who are unsophisticated about this think that the signature is somehow preventing someone from retroactively changing the terms of the contract. People who are unsophisticated say thinks like “Oh use digital signatures to PROVE that that has not happened. Sounds great.”
> 
> That is simply not the risk that the process is concerned with.
> 
> In some cases solemnization declines to being vestigial. For example, signing credit card receipts: no one cares.
> 
> Your bank does not expect a waiter to do forensic handwriting analysis on your signature versus the one on the reverse of your card, rejecting thieves.
> 
> If someone steals your card and perfectly reproduces your signature, and you say “My card was stolen; I did not pay for that dinner”, your bank will say “Yeah sounds really likely and we have no exposure here, OK restaurant eats it. Can we get you off phone quickly please?”
> 
> If same thing happens in a real estate situation, “Yeah that was not really me in the room signing that”, their lawyer is going to have some Pointed Questions and eventually your lawyer is going to have some Carefully Worded Professional Advice.
> 
> But a thing that a real estate closing is really really really concerned with is that all parties, who may be operating across a range of sophistications, understand that there was a long negotiation that got us to this point And That Negotiation Hereby Concludes Successfully.
> 
> (The number of conversations which begin “Well I didn’t really sell it to you” is greater than zero but it is less than it would be in a counterfactual world where there wasn’t the pomp and circumstance of a real estate closing.)
> 
> You can, by the way, get much faster than one would naively expect if one is willing to simply put forged documents in front of one’s lawyers and judges in an increasingly unrealistic fashion for many years. The immune system might not catch you for a very long time.

It is also my understanding that one can go down a path of outright forging documents and the signatures on them for quite a while before being caught, as the system essentially assumes you will not do that. As with many such things, ‘cheaters never stop cheating’ is being relied upon and a reason this path is a bad idea, but also once you go down this path you usually do need to keep going, and things escalate.

#### The Lighter Side

Quickly, there’s no time:

> [West Coast Kenny](https://x.com/kenthecowboy_/status/2022821210023989582): My last 2 passengers got in the car with someplace to be. I always explicitly ask “do you want me to drive like a psycho?” And they said yes. God i love this job sometimes

She has witnesses.

> [Sarah](https://x.com/heyaimsarah/status/2023449089011323237): OH MY GOD. I cannot believe I forgot this:
> 
> We had a server with an identical twin. Apparently, they would switch places when one didn’t want to come into work.
> 
> They told NO ONE – but came in together to quit. The reveal was Incredible. Gasps everywhere.
> 
> Best day of my life

Also she tells us this:

> [madison (top 0.1% on sudoku)](https://x.com/madsmotionless/status/2022887644867268911): Somewhere in a small southern town a girl was proposed to tonight at the local Olive Garden
> 
> [Sarah](https://x.com/heyaimsarah/status/2023105663086559323): I worked at the Cheesecake Factory in Oklahoma City for five years. No one prepared me for the amount of proposals I’d witness

A great closer:

> [michelle](https://x.com/michelleakin/status/2023054809079615648): when i was doing improv comedy in nyc i had a buddy who was pursuing standup. we would workshop his jokes and i would go with him to open mics to record his sets for him.
> 
> one night he told me he had a real banger to end with. he said he was gonna do an impression of his dad but needed a volunteer from the audience. a guy got up there, however trepidatiously. my friend said alright, you’re me, and I’m my dad, okay? the guy said okay…
> 
> then, my friend just left. left the room, left the venue. and did not come back. a few minutes went by of uncomfortable silence and scattered laughs. eventually, the volunteer goes “well, i guess he’s not coming back,” and the whole audience erupted in laughter and applause. the host came out to ask for one more round of applause for my friend before moving to the next comic. i slipped out to go and find him, he was somewhere down the street ![🤣](https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/1f923.png)
> 
> this was in 2008 but remains my favorite stand up joke ever.

This is the perfect opportunity to open new better pizza places:

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tVbN!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F74628500-6d97-4a18-a93f-9afc47e807fa_1080x1026.jpeg)

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) tweets ‘Cartel hitmen wear masks. Leftists aren’t complaining’ [and somehow decided to quickly delete it afterwards.](https://x.com/sahilkapur/status/2025799075333873840)

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3VQB!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F53ec91c3-e517-4c25-9a39-159666ead42b_1290x1866.jpeg)

[…and it’s gone](https://x.com/krishnanrohit/status/2029250954923786550).