Chris Brooks Newsletter 002
You made it to number 002! Thanks for hanging around.
Last month I mentioned poor image quality in my blog posts. I’ve confirmed that it is an issue with Apple Shortcuts and the automation to do image conversion. Hopefully, this gets fixed soon. I’ve learned that the bug doesn’t exist for portrait mode photos, or if I do minor markups on images.
Where We’ve Been Traveling
This is the time of year we like to stay settled, and May was mostly like that. I did a drive over to Erie PA to hang out with my golf coach for a half day and I think it was very productive. Golf is a game of small incremental improvements, which take focus and patience. I have at least one of those two traits and I’m working on the second.
Julie took a trip back out to CA for a wedding, and I remained here to play host to our friend Kilong. He was in town to give the baccalaureate address at nearby Keuka College. Our friendship deepened and our conversations got into some heavy stuff! So glad we were able to hook up.
Van troubles continue but we believe we are nearing the point of being able to put it on the market for sale. I learned what it costs to take an Uber up to Geneva NY to get a rental car! I will say it was nice having a big Chevy truck around for a while.
Our son Matthew moved to Jersey City, NJ and has been able to make two trips out here so far with his girlfriend. We love having them so close by.
What I’ve Been Reading
I finally finished Anna Karenina (today no less)! If you were to ask me “what’s that book about”, I’d say it is mostly about this character Levin who is struggling with class divisions and equity, being a husband and father, and his relationship with god. And there’s a side plot about Anna Karenina. I did not read any criticism or analysis ahead of time and look forward to doing so in the coming days. The hardest part about reading this book was keeping the names straight. I guess that’s a problem with many of the great Russian novels from this time period.
Next up in the fiction category for me is The War Nerd Iliad, a translation and retelling (aren’t all translations a retelling?) gifted to me by son Jacob. I recently read Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey and it was pure joy. This will be different in character and style but I’m so looking forward to it.
I finished Summer in a Glass earlier in the month and it has been a guidebook for broadening our local wine tasting. My relationship with alcohol continues to be mildly stressful but still improving. My theme of Daily Better for the year included “reducing my meat consumption and dramatically change my alcohol consumption”. On the meat front I think I’ve had meat on 2 or 3 days total so far this year, and had an 85 day streak without. On the alcohol front I’ve had two streaks of abstinence over 30 days, but lately I’ve been having some wine on the weekends. I don’t believe that a glass of red wine each night is healthier than no alcohol at all, but I do think this pattern of some wine on the weekend is significantly better than our old patterns (having a pint and filling a growler on Thursday, some Jameson late at night). The wine doesn’t appear to be effecting my sleep and I’ve had zero side effects in the morning. I think it helps that we are drinking quality local wine without any additives.
I read The Science of Stuck, written by my sister-in-law Britt Frank and launched with much fanfare earlier this year. I’m not the target audience for this book (or if I am, I’m not self aware enough to realize it!) but it was still a great read.
Like many golf fans, right now I’m reading Phil - the Rip-Roaring (And Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar. It is just OK, and the most fun I’m having reading it is going to fine YouTube videos of Phil in his early days.
What I’ve Been Watching
Media continues to be consumed in the evenings when it is just Julie and I around here. We continue to pace ourselves through Foyle’s War and are in season 5 or 6. We took a break to watch I love you, now die (I think this was with Matthew and Lauren), a pretty average telling of the influenced-suicide from a few years ago. We also did a nostalgia play and enjoyed The Devil Wears Prada with Matthew and Lauren.
The highlight of the month was Severance on Apple TV+, showcasing yet another technology dystopia. What I enjoyed the most was how funny some of the characters were (the self-help brother-in-law, the snarky co-worker). Laugh-out-loud funny at times, which took the creepy edge off the rough parts.
While Julie was away I had to sneak in some horror binging, and this time was Midnight Mass. Just OK, and ”certainly no Haunting of Hill House”! I also continue to work my way through Formula 1: Drive to Survive, currently on season 2.
What I’ve Been Playing
We’ve been enjoying the new cooperative party games So Clover! and The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. Julie and I don’t play as many light 2 player games as we should, but did play with our farm animals in Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small.
I’ve got a weekly VASSAL game of The Day Was Ours: First Bull Run (July 21, 1861), my first venture into the Blind Swords System (BSS). Allen and John have been good learning partners, and with a learning scenario under out belts we are ready to dive into the full campaign.
In the non-simulated world, I continue to play a lot of golf. My handicap index has flatlined in the 8–9 range. My goal is to bounce to at least 5 before the end of 2022.
What I’ve Been Listening To
I always love diving deep into an artist before going to their concert, so much of the music I listened to included The Lumineers and Caamp. I’m also enjoying the latest Wilco album Cruel Country.
The Sermon
I mentioned last month that was doing a deeper dive into Effective Altruism (EA). I did that! But I’m not done. I’ve learned that EA is at least as much about rational thinking as it is about altruism; I suspect this is why it is often linked to the philosophy of utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham described utility as:
that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness…[or] to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered..
Let’s say you are considering a career focused on philanthropy (or even a career in innovation designed to deliver good outcomes), or you have suitcases full of money to donate to a charity. Through the lens of EA, you would choose an organization or endeavor that maximizes the utility delivered per dollar spent (or hour worked, etc.).
I was surprised to see so much referencing of Bayesian theory, as well as the value of prediction markets, at the core of EA philosophy. The podcast with Spencer Greenberg was especially good, and has me revisiting (updating!) my views on more than just philanthropy. While the mathematical models for evaluating “priors” and updating odds are unlikely to enter into my everyday thinking, in the abstract they will be very useful. Especially useful in trying to improve my ability to objectively look at world problems, future risks, and how it possibly should effect my personal behavior.
Of course, I’m clearly on the tail end of my career and not starting it. And I’m not a billionaire planning to give away most of my wealth. So what does this mean to me? Beyond the critical thinking points already mentioned, I (and Julie) do have a desire to contribute more to worthy causes and get better at evaluating the highest leverage options. Two resources for further exploration GiveWell and Open Philanthropy. GiveWell will be of the most immediate use for us as we can use it as a clearing house for future contributions that align with our passions. Open Philanthropy is primarily a research organization focused on high risk, high reward opportunities for human investment. Of paramount importance to this organization is long-term thinking, e.g. “how can we ensure that mankind survives”. Rather than focus on the same issues that many philanthropic orgs and NGOs do, they instead look for issues that have these attributes:
- Importance: How many individuals does this issue affect, and how deeply?
- Neglectedness: All else equal, we prefer causes that receive less attention from other actors, particularly other major philanthropists.
- Tractability: We look for clear ways in which a funder could contribute to progress.
By reviewing the projects being funded by Open Philanthropy, I could see opportunities for future collaboration or support. Two of significant interest to me right now are farm animal welfare and criminal justice reform
That’s it for this month. See you next time!
-Chris