Sunday Scaries (01/17/21)
How to start a startup, Abraham Lincoln's speech, Lottery advice
Hi everyone,
Writing to you from Los Angeles, CA.
Although we’re in the middle of a heatwave here in Southern California, it’s still ski season. I’ll be hitting the mountains the rest of the month to find sanctuary in the snow.
What’s new from me:
On cryptocurrency: I recently wrote down some of my thoughts on crypto. We're in one of those periods where everyone is talking about it, so I wanted to have a simple introduction email for people who are unfamiliar with the basics.
[⚙️ Business]
These classes are the best collection of resources on the internet for someone interested in starting a company today. Don’t be fooled by the lack of marketing fluff — the instructors include some of the most successful entrepreneurs from the last two decades. The lessons are filled with useful advice from people who have been in the trenches. If podcasts are your thing you can listen to the episodes here.
Lindy score: 2027[⏳ History]
Although Abraham Lincoln is perhaps best known for his speech at Gettysburg (“four score and seven years ago…”), he did not become a great speechwriter overnight. This address, officially titled The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions, was delivered by a 28-year old Lincoln shortly after a mob in St. Louis had killed a man for the color of his skin.
In it, he describes the danger facing the country: namely, the danger of forgetting the legacy that our founding fathers had left us to uphold. During this time, most of the generation who lived through the American Revolution were dead.
I do not mean to say, that the scenes of the revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten; but that like every thing else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time.
Even then, they cannot be so universally known, nor so vividly felt, as they were by the generation just gone to rest.
This speech was Lincoln’s address to a country that was soon to be divided. It foreshadows the greatest danger then - and now - to American democracy: forgetting the values that allow us to remain a free and independent country.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
Lindy score: 2200[💵 Finance]
This fantastic Reddit comment offers advice on what to do if you ever win the lottery. I love the lottery — the whole idea is an underappreciated modern marvel. I occasionally play, not to win, but to buy myself an afternoon of thinking about what I would do with my life if money wasn’t a problem.
File this away under “good problems to have”.
Lindy score: 2027Have a great week,
Phil
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