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This Week on the Lindy Newsletter
Focus on Opposites for information. This is a good concept to have in your back pocket because it opens up so much of the invisible world. You can’t understand France without understanding it has the biggest luxury brands in the world but also the strong labor unions and an intense protest culture. Same with America, it has a culture of freedom but you can get fired for posting the wrong thing online. Thinking in opposites can also improve many aspects of your life.
Weekend Reads
What were the first crops grown by the first farmers? It turns out founder crops are all species that remains staples today. This seems to support James C Scott’s idea in Against the Grain that wheat and other grains became dominant because they created surpluses that could be controlled and stored.
What did the first farmers actually farm? Eight 'founder crops'—emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, barley, lentil, pea, chickpea, bitter vetch, and flax—have long been thought to have been the bedrock of Neolithic economies. But... 🧵
— Joe Roe ([email protected]) (@joeroe90)
2:51 PM • Apr 12, 2023
Volkswagen is bringing back buttons -- and reducing the role of touch controls. "The ID.7 will reportedly re-adopt physical controls as VW reverses course on touch controls in its EVs."
A short geographic history of the Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea was dry 5M years ago
Then, a series of MEGAFLOODS filled it in a matter of months
How did the Med dry up?
Why did it fill so brutally?
How would it have felt to be there?This is what we know:
— Tomas Pueyo (@tomaspueyo)
5:51 PM • Apr 20, 2023
There are a lot of Americans who consider themselves middle class. In my life I have heard people who make $20k a year to $600k identify themselves as middle class to me. I’m not sure it’s even about me than it is about how someone thinks of themselves in America.
I live a solidly middle class lifestyle, but without a mortgage. Granted, my house is probably nicer than average, but anyways the following is my personal budget for retirement. Basically, you need to make $200K+ to live a middle class lifestyle in the US.
Cold. Hard. Truth.
— Son of a Bichon (Personal Finance Guru) (@BichonRedux)
5:45 PM • Apr 18, 2023
End of Life Dreams. I believe this article. Because even I've had dreams about things that happened prior to them happening too many times for me to discredit this. I had experiences too real for me to discredit or brush aside, and I meant it not just mentally but physically too.
A crash course in Human evolution
This is the proudest cat I’ve ever seen. It almost looks like it belongs on a statue outside the pyramids in Giza.
Incredible how proud and wise the model cat in the $600 automated luxury space litter box listing looks
— Mystery Grove Publishing Co. (@MysteryGrove)
2:52 AM • Apr 21, 2023
William Shatner describes his time in space last year.
Running away and coming up with a new identity was something that existed before but not really anymore. The show Mad Men was based on this premise. I do not think you can do something like this anymore easily in the United States.
It must have been so crazy to be a rascal before, like, social security numbers + meticulous data-keeping existed. You could just show up in some random city and be like “yeah I’m Weed Jones” and everyone in the tavern would be like “hello Weed”
— little special™ (@dollbunyan)
2:02 AM • Apr 20, 2023
The Oakland Athletics announced they would be moving to Las Vegas this week. This reminds me of the time the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. The owner, O’Malley, hired the futurist Architect Buckminster Fuller. The dome was to be situated where the Atlantic Terminal Mall and Barclays Center are today, on a four-square-block area around Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.
