It is so beautiful today in Bozeman it almost doesn’t feel real. It’s warm but not hot. It’s sunny but we have fluffy clouds breaking up intensity. Cool breezes waft in and out without ever really turning to wind. I hope our entire summer has this weather.
Because of the holiday weekend the town has fully switched into “seasonal” mode from daily New York flights to way more availability at restaurants and service. One of Alex’s friends from college is headed into Yellowstone with his whole family from grandparents to kids.
Mountain towns make as much money in the summer as they do in the winter so you always wish for fluffy snow and cool clear summers.
The snowpack is smelting, the grass is green and the sky is oh so blue
While Yellowstone is worth the travel, I appreciate being able to work and hike all flavors of public trails from city to state in Bozeman.
On days like today I want to fully throw myself into a Bryan Johnson super adherence biohacker as I want to be able to enjoy as much of our summer as I can outside.
We had a rainy couple of days in Montana which is naturally all anyone can talk about. On our side of the continental divide it’s dry and sunny more than not. We are used to fluffy snow and full sun and screw the in-between. Mud season sucks.
Weather is of course the common ground of embodied society. People who live in their heads that don’t notice the weather must live someplace without seasons or manage to live somehow beyond its effects. Which isn’t how I want to live. I enjoy some of friction of seasons. More of winter than summer but it’s nice to have variance.
Pop songs have a lot to say about love being heaven on earth. I also happen to think heaven is definitely is a place on earth at the right time. For me it is full winter and full summer in the Rocky Mountains. A little mud is a fine tradeoff.
Nevertheless we have seasons such that outdoor furniture takes quite a beating so best to not put out fragile stuff till the season changes. It’s just not meant for the in-between.
Today was a fine sunny day and Alex brought out a new piece of furniture acquired from Costco. It is a giant umbrella that required sandbag filling and water and was a giant production requiring a second man in good shape to get it set up. But it was worth it.
Being outside and doing some reading and some internet (I’m online it’s a material condition) while underneath a very sturdy umbrella is a lovely afternoon. We had sun and a sudden thunderstorm that left us so quickly we had rain shine. Best to enjoy the high fidelity version of reality when you can.
Bozeman is host to The Montana Festival this week. Alex and I are small donors to the festival as we are neighbors of one of the organizers Padden Guy Murphy. It’s a celebration of Montana’s many industries and people as we work together to build a better future.
Montana Festival is an annual celebration bringing together the top entrepreneurs, architects, business leaders, startup operators, innovators, artists, investors, culture creators, designers, community builders, movers, shakers and policymakers from across Montana and around the world to forge new friendships and catalyze Made in Montana ideas, projects, companies, and policy solutions to positively shape our shared future.
It has alas been raining to beat the band since the event started. At the welcome party last night literally the sound of the rain beat the sound of the band. This didn’t stop the band or anyone else from having a lovely time. Just raise your voice and have a good time.
I am not a Catholic (though I am a Christian) so participating in the ambient excitement of welcoming the newly chosen Pontiff feels like it shouldn’t be allowed. Not my pope, not my Conclave right?
And yet I’m I am drawn in by the enthusiasm, the general spirit of joy and welcome, and, yes, the memes about ushering in the Pontiff.
As soon as the white smoke had been sent up, my group chats, media notifications and social streams went wild as we collectively learned more about the new Pontiff and his history. It was announced that Cardinal Robert Prevost would be named Pope Leo XIV.
Pope Leo XIV appears on the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica after being chosen the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, at the Vatican, Thursday, May 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
The details came quickly. And boy did the internet have questions (and a few answers). American Pope?! A Pope from Chicago?!
We soon learned he was a man who ministered to the poor in Peru for most of his life. He studied mathematics at Villanova. He went to seminary nearby my old university.
One of my girlfriends drove to see his childhood parish which is nearby her home. Chicago raised Catholics saving church finances so elderly clergy can retire in their home? I feel like I’ve seen this movie and loved it.
The symbolism of the Catholic Church and its representatives are clearly the stuff of which regular observers and semiotics scholars alike can read. Which made for an exciting day for everyone.
In the uncertain modernity we exist in the the Latin mass reassures many traditionalists but for everyone else a holy father who is relatable in interests, origin and culture brings even us Protestants a little closer to Rome.
We live in an endless scroll world of relational voids. The ways we consume content has now surpassed even the worst fears of media theory greats like Marshall MacLuhan and Neil Postman.
Amusing ourselves to death is no longer a fear but a practical reality. So we spot auto playing clips divorced from context of tech CEOs revealing ever more horrifying statistics about how degraded our conditions have become.
I have no idea if this interview pull quote is from the frat bro former addict Theo Von who so likable interviewed Trump or from Dwarkesh the 24 year old artificial intelligence wunderkind. Context collapse indeed.
I think this tidbit on its own is open to a number of interpretations as our Bowling Alone era has been with us before Facebook.
We forget how inelastic social capital can be. We’ve got a statistic (not even a nod to Dunbar’s number) about friend demand without addressing the issue of friend supply. Of course, it’s not an economics problem as humans are not fungible.
We have a cultural and psychological problem on our hands when it comes to our new relational world as it’s mediated through digital intermediaries. Maybe you can make a case that there is a demand for 15 more people to improve your social standing.
You’d think the man at the head of the corporation who owns Instagram would understand status signaling. For plenty of people having friends is about your social position.
Fortunately for most of us friendship is still about feeling understood and caring enough to understand another person. Which an artificial intelligence is probably capable of doing. But that’s a different story.
Startups are such rollercoasters. It’s always been cliche but starting something from nothing really is a wild ride. You can experience the lowest of lows and the highest of highs in the space of a day.
If you enjoy adrenaline being a part of a startup is fun as it is equal parts terror and exhilaration. There are presumably other careers where this is also true. I imagine mothers and marines can tell you a lot about dealing with intensity.
I have had to remind myself quite a bit lately that nothing is permanent. As we push against a higher and higher variance future I feel equal parts exhilaration and dread. I don’t feel as safe as I’d like. But I doubt I could be more prepared.
The stress of a startup can kill you if you let the stress of the wider world weigh too heavily on you. We can enjoy the fun of the ride. The safety is an illusion anyway. Well maybe not on the rollercoaster. Those have seatbelts.
Twitter has become an unmonitored Wild West of content. This is mostly good for those of us looking to understand the world “as it is” and not as we wish it to be, but requires a certain cognitive security not everyone is prepared to engage in. What was once kept to the dark corners of 4Chan splutters up.
We witness more violence than we did during its “trust and safety” years. Thanks to algorithmic chaos quite a bit of gore, pornography and death will regularly hit main feeds.
A friend of mine (whose line of work would put her in a position to know) has a theory that Zoomers will cross into physical world violence more easily than past generations. We have long debated as to why and how it will manifest but it’s already begun.
Being raised in digital always- online mobile environments means their reality is more malleable. And yes the internet is real life. We live, we love, we hate, we play and we work online. But what of violence? Are we prepared for that crossover?
Digital life has given them an immense sense of freedom to act without consequences because the virtual world is still sequestered from some consequences. And unlike millennials, whose sense of The Real and the Matrix, was anchored by a physical consensus reality, I’m not convinced this will be true for all Zoomers.
If you die in the Matrix you die in real life
We have already seen the maturation of bringing Internet identities to our regular life physical world. Violence has always been there lurking, but it is now bursting forth and I believe it will only become more prevalent.
Today I read news stories of two separate incidents of violence that I can only read as Zoomer Internet Identity Violence. Be warned they are both upsetting and confusing for non-internet natives.
If you die in the real world perhaps you live on in the Matrix of the infinite internet. But this is not an end that we should wish for our civilization or for our Zoomers. Be prepared to see more of this.
I spent most of last evening wandering the empty halls of the Frankfurt International Airport. If you’ve never had the chance to do your ten thousand steps in the privacy of the off hours of a travel hub I recommend it highly.
I am entranced by empty industrial spaces, particularly when it comes to transportation and logistics. Whole worlds of people and goods being ferried to destinations near and far from the mundane to the exotic.
Walking empty corridors at London’s Heathrow can feel like you’ve stepped into your own private world. They have an enormous amount of hallways that never seem to have a soul in them. And apparently so does Frankfurt after a certain hour.
An empty corridor in an airport at 6pm
I had arranged for a morning flight out of Frankfurt after flying in the night before from elsewhere. There was little to do as most of the airport beyond convenience stores was closed so I made my way from A to Z.
American chairs never recline but Germany lets its tourists nap comfortably in the liminal spaces
Frankfurt has a “pod” hotel in their Z terminal. I walked the empty halls from A with a brief ride on an equally empty train. I went through security (the only time I saw anyone) as I plodded through with suitcase and backpack. Liminal spaces just for me.
Finding my way through roundabouts
My destination had a flavor somewhere between Japanese pod hotel and a Norwegian prison. It is called MyCloud. That it runs upwards of $250 a night and is only for international transit should tell you a lot about how expenses in Europe and the quality of the Nordic justice system.
Industrial comfort for felons and first class passengers alike at MyCloud
It’s meant as an airport hotel only for those booked onto international flights and is located in the transit area of the airport in Terminal 1, Gate Z25. And yes it is behind the security checkpoint.
I was absolutely enthralled by it and recommend it if you feel comforted by small spaces. I deliberately chose a room without any windows on the interior for the quiet. It was a cool 16 C. The toilet and shower contraption unfolded elegantly when in use.
Opaqueness is good in pod grooming
I wore earplugs and an eye mask to sleep and felt like I was ensconced in a tiny module on my way to a mining mission for the Waylund Yutani corporation.
I partook in the time honored tradition of going to a mall before Christmas. My family was inconsistent in its treatment of the holiday when I was growing up and consumerism was not a value we celebrated.
And yet now I think it’s a wonder America has exported the triumph of the American consumer at its most intense and made Christmas shopping a mentality globally. Consumer debt is a marvelous when it’s priced in American dollars.
Our holidays are now times for displaying status and taste in so much of the world. I think it’s reasonable to say we’ve been post scarcity since the mass commercial fertilizer and it’s all been status signaling since then. We all live materially better lives. Arguments for the impoverishment of our souls are still quite valid.
Yet here I am buying stuff before Christmas. Nothing makes me feel more like a piece of the capital markets like buying consumer electronics at Christmas.
The prices are better only because we’ve been trained into a consistent purchasing pattern. We can predict consumer sentiment and meet those demands partially as a function of training the consumer when to shop. The propaganda of the markets.
So I get to enjoy the overstimulating existential horror that is the wall of televisions ready to be Christmas gifts. The high fidelity color and intense noise is an assault on the senses. No wonder reality is a disappointment. I’ve never seen so crisp a picture. It’s all just a bit too much.
But you have to be wary of the stories and advice that litter Reddit and Twitter. Not everyone doling out advice actually wants you to succeed. Some of them look like they are actively undermining their peers.
The manosphere seems determined to turn young men into fearful controlling oafs while the radfem/femcel/tradwife axis of influencers is a mess of undermining advice stoking the neuroses of young women.
In the battle of the sexes, a favored tactic is sabotage. Evolutionary psychologists would probably say what we are seeing on social media is intrasexual competition run amok
Giving bad advice undermines your sexual competition. And if you sell advice or attention, keeping people coming back for more bad takes while keeping them miserable (and single) is the whole game. The hot takers build attention and clout.
