SVRGN Weekly Digest #46 💫
(Reads only edition)
No meetings, it’s too early in the year for meetings. Warm up to other humans first by reading about them. Study them. Assimilate into 2025. Also, no companies this week. We need to tend the garden.
💡 Ideas & Science
A Meme Stock for Private Companies
Meme stocks and coins, Nice and Fun Markets, Avi Eisenberg trial, this is a fun piece from April last year by Matt Levine.
I’m rich and have no idea what to do with my life
Loom was acquired by Atlassian for nearly $1B. Founder Vinay realized that Big Corp work wasn’t really fulfilling. In this reflection piece he is very honest about something very human - the feeling of “is this it?” once we’ve reached a goal. Of course in his case, it’s building a company and making more money than he could ever spend. Why do we feel we need to achieve something “impactful”? Why does one not only want, but need for fulfillment, to work on the biggest, most significant problem?
A Novel Sensor Network Capable of Observing the Hypothetical Mach Field
We don’t have a clear explanation for where inertia is coming from. There’s a theory which seems hard to fully incorporate in general relativity, called Mach’s Principle. The scientific community isn’t convinced, but all the more reason to try and explore these fundamental problems by questioning existing theories. As per Popper, there’s a small community of researchers trying to falsify Mach’s principle. It’s a fascinating rabbit hole.
Irregular Warfare in 2024: Lessons Learned, Paths Forward
There are many gems in here, from how Russian and Ukrainian propaganda/PR/PsyOps have evolved, to tracking of cyber operations, to Gray Zone warfare in China, to measuring resilience; there’s enough reading to be done here for sure. The character of war and geopolitics in 2025 is one of “nuance, interconnectivity and relentless change”. Boundaries are shifting, action and the meaning of action changes, and power is taken and lost in new ways.
Roots of Progress: 2024 in review
I’m realizing this is becoming a listicle, but this is again such a treasure trove (gems inside). The Roots of Progress blog is run as a non-profit around the philosophy of progress and the techno-societal acceleration we need to work towards. It’s a mix of economics, philosophy, technology deep-dives and politics.
A list of Predictions made in 1925 about 2025
Mildly amusing.
Restarting Germany’s Reactors: Feasibility and Schedule
Bad, though not so surprising, news for Germany: electricity imports have skyrocketed in 2023/2024, going up to 25TWh net, while emissions from electricity production are 18 times higher than neighboring France, per capita. The good news: reversing nuclear shutdowns are a surprisingly popular opinion, it’s economical and feasible. Is it something politicians have understood or are willing to represent though?
Next week we’ll be back with regular programming!