Patrick Oetting
@OettingPatrick
Adequating my mind to reality. 🇺🇸➡️🇨🇭. Mostly book quotes.
“Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe… (Mark 4:39-40) Christ Sleeping During the Storm on Lake Tiberias, Georg Pencz
We are good at improving the measure, really bad at addressing the underlying cause.
Be weary of the trend line, my friends.
I continue to hold that trend lines shouldn’t be used. Either they add zero value to a self-evident correlation or they mislead. In this case, if the trend line and shaded area were absent, no correlation would be apparent. Which is the correct interpretation of the chart.
Reminds me of Anscombe's quartet from @morganhousel ... who you gonna believe, my formula or your lying eyes?
A @lukeburgis tweet about rehumanizing the service sector by booking directly (call or email) rather than through a 3rd party stuck with me. Planning a trip to Sicily and did just this. Have had incredible interactions with venues—and some “hidden” deals found. I also learned…
Tom Wolfe wrote a fun and short book on this: amazon.com/Painted-Word-T…. But better even than reading, just go look at more art “in the wild.”
If you need to attend a lecture to realize that a painting is beautiful, it's not beautiful.
Reading lots of Bauer lately. What I love is what might be called his “Aristotelian Economics.” He is radically concerned with understanding reality and then acting accordingly. He is relentless about understanding local context. This allowed him to dissent from the mainstream,…
It’s also important to remember that Carbonara is an American dish.
Just remember: Not a single European, much less any Italian, had eaten a tomato until the 16th century.
Allegedly the world’s biggest cuckoo clock in Triberg im Schwarzwald.
Just found a church in the Black Forest venerating Luther and Zwingli. Somebody should tell them: “I wish from my heart Zwinglius could be saved, but I fear the contrary; for Christ has said that those who deny him shall be damned.” - Luther
Relativist: “The truth is relative.” C.S. Lewis (paraphrase): “Is that true.” Relativist: “Yes.” C.S. Lewis (still paraphrasing): “Is that the only truth.” Relativist: “Yes, the only truth.” Even the most reductive relativist is quite objective on two accounts.
Are there any true relativists? Or are relativists only relative about the truths they want to destroy and absolutists about the "truths" they want to impose? Read CS Lewis' "Abolition of Man."
Whenever the Big Reveal comes that most of history's defining moments were much more the result of individual characters and entirely chance events rather than systems, forces, and abstracted pet theories, a lot of people will be very unhappy indeed.