The week in Tory, a thread:

1 Accidentally made it illegal to drive to Wales

2 Made it easier to see other people's parents than your own

3 Issued new advice that was officially ignored by Scotland, Wales, NI, and the councils of Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle.

4 Admitted there WOULD be a border down the Irish Sea, after a year claiming there wouldn't

5 Said its ok for a child-minder to come into contact with your kids, as long as you "open a window"

6 Published advice that you can car-share, as long as the driver "doesn't look left"
7 Announced £2bn investment, so we could use public transport again

8 Told us it's our "civic duty" to avoid using public transport

9 Announced the PM would make a speech on Sunday, cos it had to be implemented Monday
10 Then, when challenged, said they meant Wednesday

11 Then said we must go to work

12 Then said we must not travel to work

13 Then said it was all explained in the published guidelines

14 Then had it pointed out to them in parliament that they hadn't published guidelines
15 Blamed the public for not understanding the new rules

16 Then went on TV to explain the rules, got them wrong, and had to be corrected by Piers Morgan

17 Then went to parliament to explain the rules, STILL got them wrong, and had to be corrected by the opposition
18 Said we should wear facemasks

19 Then said we shouldn't wear facemasks

20 Then said - again - we should wear facemasks

21 Clapped for NHS workers

22 Then introduced a 55% increase in the fee foreign staff pay to work for the NHS
23 Announced quarantine for new arrivals, a mere 73 days after being officially advised to quarantine new arrivals

24 Announced they had "only just started" recruiting people to do track and trace, a mere 110 days after being officially advised to urgently do track and trace
25 Issued a plan to open schools, which teachers said was unsafe

26 Then said doctors were brave, but teachers weren't

27 Then had to watch as doctors said the teachers were right, and it wasn't safe to open schools
28 Then announced tests for kids but not for teachers

29 Then had to have it explained on live TV that infected teachers can still infect kids

30 Scored 0% in a French poll of which govt was doing best for its people

31 Dropped 45 net approval points in UK opinion polling
And there are still 24 hours of this week to go

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MDZS is laden with buddhist references. As a South Asian person, and history buff, it is so interesting to see how Buddhism, which originated from India, migrated, flourished & changed in the context of China. Here's some research (🙏🏼 @starkjeon for CN insight + citations)

1. LWJ’s sword Bichen ‘is likely an abbreviation for the term 躲避红尘 (duǒ bì hóng chén), which can be translated as such: 躲避: shunning or hiding away from 红尘 (worldly affairs; which is a buddhist teaching.) (
https://t.co/zF65W3roJe) (abbrev. TWX)

2. Sandu (三 毒), Jiang Cheng’s sword, refers to the three poisons (triviṣa) in Buddhism; desire (kāma-taṇhā), delusion (bhava-taṇhā) and hatred (vibhava-taṇhā).

These 3 poisons represent the roots of craving (tanha) and are the cause of Dukkha (suffering, pain) and thus result in rebirth.

Interesting that MXTX used this name for one of the characters who suffers, arguably, the worst of these three emotions.

3. The Qian kun purse “乾坤袋 (qián kūn dài) – can be called “Heaven and Earth” Pouch. In Buddhism, Maitreya (मैत्रेय) owns this to store items. It was believed that there was a mythical space inside the bag that could absorb the world.” (TWX)
So the cryptocurrency industry has basically two products, one which is relatively benign and doesn't have product market fit, and one which is malignant and does. The industry has a weird superposition of understanding this fact and (strategically?) not understanding it.


The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.

This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.

The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."

This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
I’m torn on how to approach the idea of luck. I’m the first to admit that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. To be born into a prosperous American family in 1960 with smart parents is to start life on third base. The odds against my very existence are astronomical.


I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.

In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.

So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.

Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.