Dialectic with Jackson Dahl

40: Charles Broskoski - Everything is Personal

The beautiful horror of throughput ratings: they work perfectly as long as you believe a nonprofit's only job is to redistribute resources. Not to hire talented people or make complex operational decisions. C. Thi Nguyen on what metrics can and can't tell you about measuring impact.

"It highlights what is mechanical and similar, which is accounting, and it ignores what's actually important, but highly variable."

I love this and I think this mentality is what makes work good. The reward for good work is more work.

@elanmiller Reminded me of this! x.com/DialecticPod/s…

.@andrew__reed Reed on why @sequoia can never coast: "We are standing on the shoulders of Don Valentine, Mike Moritz, @dougleone, @jimgoetz, and these exceptional investors who gave so much of their lives to this place." "But if you don't take risks and break stuff, you run the risk of being a fading star. And that's the last thing any entrepreneur wants to hitch their wagon to."

All links & transcript: dialectic.fm/andrew-reed Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/5TNvMQ… Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/39-…

stop what you're doing and listen to @jacksondahl read @tobyshorin Body Futurism essay (or read it yourself, hardo) it’s an essay discussing that as our software utopias and institutions decompose, culture is reorganizing around the body. although this may be dangerous, full of grift, control, and hypochondria, it also opens the chance for a new way forward, built from sensing bodies and enlightened social forms. it's the best thing i've listened to (then read) this year jackson reading: open.spotify.com/episode/5dL7a1… essay: writing.tobyshorin.com/body-futurism/

Really sweet of Jackson to do an audio version of my essay - more of this please!

A new @DialecticPod experiment: Independent Study I talk to many great internet writers on the show. I thought it would be fun to explore featuring some of their writing directly on the feed, audiobook style. I hope it can encourage more people to check out some of the long form writing I love. First up is @tobyshorin, a writer and thinker I've long admired and that I spoke to on episode 7: The Shapes of Culture. He recently published a prescient, provocative, and uplifting case for a future rooted in the body. Not just bodies in theory, but quite literally: your, my, our bodies. Available (audio only) on podcast platforms. Feedback on the format is welcome. Please enjoy.

.@whatdotcd on the strange power of DJing: “Music provided a path for a low-status person to create something scarce that high-status people wanted.” Suddenly, producers, executives, and filmmakers were walking up to the booth with business cards.

@whatdotcd Links & Transcript: dialectic.fm/trevor-mcfedri… Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0ZSJCG… Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/37-… YouTube: youtu.be/FxeHtzsxNCY?si…

Ep. 18: Tom Morgan - Wisdom in the Woo Tom Morgan (@tomowenmorgan) is a "curiosity sherpa," writer, and podcaster who runs The Leading Edge, a community for leaders focused on personal transformation and authenticity. I first encountered Tom and his ideas during his [talk at Sohn on Iain McGilchrist, left vs. right brain, and curiosity (x.com/tomowenmorgan/…). Tom writes about complexity, curiosity, and consciousness, and wades into the deep end of various topics that most of us would place in "woo," mystic, and spiritual territories. He spent most of his career on Wall Street and brings a scientifically-inclined, rationalist approach to researching and amplifying some of the most surprising modern and ancient ideas about the nature of humanity and the universe. With this conversation, I aimed to create a primer on Tom's writing, approach, and the ideas he returns to most. We discuss following your energy, how curiosity is a guiding force, complexity and emergence, and why the world is overrated toward left-brain rationalism. We explore practical questions—How do you know your gifts? When should you pivot or persevere? What does real exploration look like when the world offers no safety nets? And then we wade into much stranger, or even heretical ideas—at least for a modern, intellectual, western audience—including the notion that consciousness is much vaster than what we've come to understand, and how we are just a small part of a much bigger whole. I hope you enjoy the conversation and consider some ideas that are much more fringe than you're used to. I definitely left it with more questions than answers. And more than that, I hope you are inspired to attune yourself to your curiosity. Perhaps, you may even have the faith to follow that thread pulling you toward what appears today only to be a wall. Timestamps - (2:03): Following Your Energy and Positive-Sum Games - (6:04): Curiosity and Complexity: Differentiation and Integration - (8:12): Entropy & Syntropy: Unpacking Curiosity, Love, and Desire - (12:34): Emergence and What All the Mystics Point to: Integration - (15:14): Left Brain & Right Brain: A Primer on McGilchrist's "The Matter with Things" - (28:58): Hampton - (30:34): Discovering Your Gifts - (37:35): Creativity and Sustaining Curiosity - (43:12): Life Pivots, Especially When You Aren't 22 - (50:24): A Challenge vs. A Grind: When to Keep Going or Try Something Else - (56:19): Synchronicities - (1:00:58): Openness and Wisdom - (1:04:19): Error Correction, or Something Else? - (1:06:02): Tom's Mission and The Meaning-Mortgage Question: Can you really do what you love? - (1:08:45): Fear, Faith, Love, and Seeing Reality - (1:12:59): "Minimum Viable Woo" and Exploring Out There Topics with a Pragmatic Lens - (1:16:10): Stories - (1:18:51): Love, Emergence, and Intelligence Beyond Us - (1:22:52): A Looming Meta-Crisis, Global Consciousness, and Earth School: Blowing Out the "Woo" Rating - (1:33:41): Lightning Round: Pseudoscience as the Streisand Effect, Mystics, What Would Rattle Tom’s Worldview Most, Joseph Campbell, Fred Again - (1:40:41): Tom's Encouragement for His 20 Year Old Self Transcript and all links and references available below.

.@ryolu_ on why making something great requires emergence through iteration "You never start with the ultimate answer. You always start with shit. You never get the first shot right. Even more true with AI."

"Consider the possibility that working with your friends on something you think is cool is the most luxurious thing you can do. The reward is the work." @broskoski on what real luxury looks like in creative work: