allilu

Thursday, March 12, 2020 is a day that my life completely changed.  NYC was about to hit its 100th case of COVID-19, and there were rumors of a severe lockdown starting that weekend. Miles and I started the day by acquiring staples: 25lb of rice, 20lb of chicken, and other canned goods. I spent the day working (we were all already working from home at this point) from my cofounder's apartment. By mid afternoon, the situation had deteriorated into what felt like panic: the line for the grocery store wrapped around the block, and we felt that any COVID-related restrictions would be lengthy. We believed that life wouldn't be normal again until a vaccine was developed.  So, we made a decision. We booked a one-way flight to Portland, Oregon to plan our next steps.  The idea was to go to my parents' house and stay outside NYC in case the city was quarantined. We only stayed in Portland for two evenings, long enough to pack camping gear and toilet paper into my sister's old ca...

Ideas are immortal. They are as close to the Platonic ideal as we will ever be able to manifest in life. Plato himself may be long dead, but his ideas are still read and discussed to this day and will continue to influence human thought in the future. Being physically mortal, many people care deeply about leaving a legacy that will continue to live on after they die. For most of us, part or all of that legacy is children.  For me personally, I'm uncertain... If I have children, I feel like it'll be more than an opportunity to pass on my genes. I'll also have an opportunity to infect their minds with my ideas. And really, I can infect anyone's mind with my ideas, not just my children's. Individual bits of ideas can be recombined endlessly. As long as I add my awareness of Truth to the collective human consciousness, then pieces of me (my ideas) will live on forever.  If I am effective at teaching my children/disciples to pursue Truth, then their ideas will be added a...

Everything feels wrong. You know what I'm talking about: there's a pandemic, mass unemployment, legislative gridlock, biased media, and now rioting and curfews across America. There's also the more insidious matter of systemic injustice: that our President proudly champions policies of voter suppression; that the core national curriculum does not include lessons on civic engagement or the history of lynchings; that apparently the law does not apply to you if you hold enough power. Against this backdrop, I've been questioning my place in all of this. I'm hunkered down in rural Utah, running a tech startup that hasn't been all that disrupted by having to go remote. I have ample savings, and all my needs are taken care of. Even my investment portfolio and stocks are near all-time highs. It all felt so nihilistic to me: do I have a moral responsibility to take action? If I don't, then does anything really matter? One thing I knew: I have privilege and resou...