Recent Tweets
I use X (nee Twitter) as a repository of ideas. Here are some of my recent tweets:
I rarely learn a new word that becomes an important part of my everyday parlance. An exception: “performative.” It describes much “virtue” signaling. done because it’s “the thing to do.” A more traditional example: marriage. Many people commit to “in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer ’til death do us part,” in part, because it’s that time on life’s conveyor belt.
When you have powerful information, consider retaining it until an impactful time. For example, in a negotiation, when you sense the person is wavering, drop your point in.
Career contentment depends less on choosing the “right” career and more on making interesting decision after interesting decision — like advancing through levels in a video game.
When I propose high-leverage but controversial policy ideas to chatbots like Gemini or Claude, the response is often not engagement but refusal, objection, or it begins with agreement, then gently steers away from the proposal. Guardrails may reduce harm — but they may also discourage exploration of unconventional solutions.
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Studies of meditation and psychedelics rarely look at opportunity cost: what the person could otherwise do with the time: thinking, working, exercise or developing a skill. Researchers’ unwillingness to ask that core question may derive from many being advocates rather than trying to find truth, wherever it may land.
Beyond providing a basic safety net, additional redistribution impedes gross world flourishing. For example, tax increases, fundraisers, and replacing programs for the gifted with programs for low achievers, slow the curing of cancer, solving of energy problems, improving education, and developing a wiser media.
The Left and media laud Mamdani’s insisting he’ll push hard-left. But consider the implications. If you had three solar collectors and now buy a fourth, you’d put it near the one that has yielded the most energy. Yet Mamdani’s redistribution does the opposite. Long-term, we’ll likely suffer.
(Elon Musk’s tweet) “Claude is racist: Query: Describe white pride in one word. The response: Racist. The query: Describe Black pride in one word? The response: Empowerment.” (I do worry that society’s mindmolders — schools, colleges, mainstream churches, and media, including chatbots are causing MonoMind: truncating thought that doesn’t comport with the zeitgeist, The New Orthodoxy. The result: We’ll increasingly all think alike.)
(Elon Musk’s tweet) “CORRUPTION: Some SNAP (welfare) recipients have homes in five states and receive SNAP benefits in all five. Not only that, 200K DEAD people are receiving food benefits and 500K are getting DOUBLE food benefits. Democrats are suing to cover it up.”
In the comments, I welcome your posting your trenchant ideas.
I read this aloud on YouTube.
Marty Nemko is a career coach and author of 36 books including A Dose of Reality. You can reach him at mnemko@gmail.com
