Satellite Haiku

Do money and power corrupt, or are corrupt people drawn to chase money and power? Both surely. We start with this question and return to it at various points. In-between we talk about the human propensity to latch onto gurus and saviors, the power of rizz, Elon Musk, Elizabeth Holmes, Tony Robbins, Tim Tebow / Life Surge, two questions to always ask a self-proclaimed guru or spiritual leader, scam...

We talk about how an AI might “evolve,” Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, recursive self-improvement, scaling up to super-intelligence from LLMs, the nuclear disarmament analogy, lifespan disparities, Waymo rollouts, anthropomorphizing chatbots, chatbots emulating human niceties, Siri getting spicy in Spanish, Google Maps of late, AI in Gmail, the new COVID strain (“cicada”), evolution of the human imm...

We talk about the 6-7 meme, generational divides, our old friend Peter, prank comedy, entrapment as a law enforcement tactic, the Lake Ontario name change and CEO boot-lickers, late-stage Trumpism, dishonest discourse (about Hasan Piker, zionism/antisemitism, socialism, etc), John Ratcliffe’s Trip to Moscow, the human costs of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and pet peeves. Mentioned in this episode Sach...

We remember where we were on 9/11, and MiLo shares a song he wrote in the immediate aftermath, an anthem for hope and lasting peace. Then we talk about how our individual political views have changed (or not over the years). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit satellitehaiku.substack.com

We talk about the paradox of ‘brown MAGA,’ the Natalie Harp saga, quitting Bill Maher and Sam Harris, the ‘socialism’ debate, correcting the online discourse, straw men and slippery slope arguments, marriage vs domestic partnership, Trump vs reality, concentration camps in America, rationalizing Trump, revisiting Kamala, and the meaningless courage of outsider candidates. Mentioned in this episode...

We talk about the urge to create art and confronting the voice that asks, “what’s the point?” Before and after that, we riff on mental health, therapy, trauma, male vs female friendships, the manosphere, Sean Ryan, peer groups and mental health, solitude, calibrating your inside voice, gratitude vs avoidance, quitting Sam Harris and Bill Maher, church camp, feeling called to the priesthood, quitti...

We talk about penalty kicks and tiebreakers, the offsides rule, high-tech swimsuits, augmented sports, ABS, swim race time precision, Jude Bellingham vs Harry Kane, England vs Norway, biohacking, body optimization, fitness trackers, the stigmatization of pleasure, Tim Ferris, the five-minute mile, the purpose of meditation, Iron Man competitions, Dean Karnazes, ad hoc competitions with strangers,...

We talk about forgetfulness, routine, middle age as a metaphor for Europe, San Francisco weather vs east coast weather, security vs convenience, the Jefferson-Adams death coincidence, birth/death synchronicities in general, Max Muncy x2 as proof of the simulation, dystopias, caterpillar epigenetics, past lives, the difference between personality and self, summer tomatoes, CA’s top predator, jet la...

We talk about solitude, the tech job hunt scene, MiLo’s conversion to “sports guy” for the World Cup, the offsides rule, bad landlords, MiLo’s work for the Pima County (AZ) Democratic Party, the ascendance of the DSA, asking whether Israel has a “right to exist,” the false binary of capitalism vs socialism, corporate monopolies, the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, anti-Zionism on the...

Shawn remembers the early days of the web, and we talk about our first office jobs, majoring in the humanities, MiLo’s brush with Theranos, buying Elizabeth Holmes and Elon Musk, yoga retreats, World Cup visitors experiencing Americana, the White House as reality tv fodder, Trump as a tragic figure, the enduring power of the MAGA mob, the reflecting pool episode. Mentioned in this episode Our Cart...

We talk about doing voices to entertain our kids, Waldorf schooling and its prohibitions, audio book performances, art books, conceptual art, SpaceX and other IPOs, Elon’s race-baiting and other shenanigans, satellite launches, the World Cup, fans singing at sporting events, white American culture, sports as a melting pot, the Knicks game 4 comeback, Brazil’s humiliating 7-1 loss to Germany in 201...

We talk about the podcasting ad ecosystem, the “long tail”, Ani DiFranco, the economics of music streaming, news hygiene, Trump and the depths of dumb, vestiges of the Internet’s golden age, public healthcare vs private insurance. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit satellitehaiku.substack.com

We talk about Shawn’s patented microwave shortcut, first world problems™️, dumb uses of AI, the AI commencement speech “boo” trend, AI hallucinations, the AI “bubble” feeling (whether or not it’s actually a bubble), comparing this AI wave to the 2000 dotcom wave, the Trump firehose of s**t, finding solace and hope in things (Biosphere 2, radically zooming out, the overview effect, surrendering to...

We talk about Shawn’s tenacious cold, the hantavirus outbreak, pandemic insanity, MiLo’s paintings, his upcoming show, and Bob Ross. Then we talk about for an hour about our current state of religious (non)belief and how we got here. Mentioned in this episode Emmanuel Swedenborg, and especially his writings in Divine Love and Wisdom , Divine Providence , and Apocalypse Revealed . Rupert Sheldrake...

We talk about generalists vs specialists, the communications degree, film school then and now, the process vs the product (redux), Disney layoffs, creativity as a temperament, retirement, doomscrolling (hantavirus, ebola, SARS, COVID, and related conspiracy thinking), the Artemis mission (and flat-earthers), Q-Anon, wrong number spam, scamming the scammers, tolerating uncertainty, first world prob...

We talk about our podcast as a family artifact, home tech challenges, class reunions, digitizing MiLo’s old film projects, our celebrity doppelgängers, Charlize Theron, synchronicity, George Gurdjieff’s attention exercises, Lebron James and other athletic savants, the magical thinking of children, learning languages, John Vervaeke’s “four ways of knowing,” IQ and the definition of intelligence, As...

We talk about mountains, trains, snow, the Donner Party, medical “diseases of opulence,” 80s teen movies, categories of 80s parents, finding jobs during a downturn, AI and the future of jobs, the market for craftsmanship and artisanal goods, hipsters, the process and the product, the Luddites, local vs. global capitalism, AI writing, AI sycophancy, AI psychosis, AI artists, brain hemisphere differ...

MiLo shares an update on his grandbabies and uses that to riff on the constant versus the variant (nature versus nurture). We linger on parenthood for a bit, and then we talk about approaches to human learning, analogous approaches to training AI, Waldorf education, screen use and attention span, ADHD, the purpose of school and different college majors, STEM versus the humanities, the idea of the...

We talk about audiophiles, stereos of our youth, early portable music devices, white gentrification, artistic idiosyncrasies, writing, the pap smear test, videoconferencing apps, libertarians, Andreessen, Musk, Zuckerberg and the end of the Metaverse, the stupidity of supposedly smart people, the daily barrage of crime and scandal, fears about the midterms and 2028 elections. Mentioned in this epi...

We talk about the challenge of focusing on normal life, Trump’s fundamental laziness and capriciousness, art after tragedies like 9/11, the diminishing returns of escapism, dystopia-induced anxiety vs depression, eschatological beliefs, children as an investment with delayed returns, society vs selfishness, the hierarchy of self-identification, what capitalism can and can’t solve, America as non-d...

We talk about daylight savings, the war with Iran, ancient civilizations in North America, Lucy (aka “the missing link”), Charles Darwin’s bone collection, the brontosaurus, Amerigo Vespucci, John Hancock, chagas disease, science, freedom vs. security, Orwell, the S.A.V.E. Act, the Dunning-Kruger effect, the need for certainty and cognitive closure, James Talarico, consequentialism, secular morali...

We talk about MiLo’s new grandson, parenting, germaphobia, catastrophizing, panic attacks, our love language, learning the hard way, idiosyncrasies of houses, intuitive design and its opposite, the AI future as Terminator versus R2D2, the emerging techno-status gap, Luddites, AI use cases, Shawn’s journey down an Epstein Files rabbit hole, syndicates of capital, the Iran war, taxing the rich, and...

Shawn gets a little salty about Trump’s SOTU address (which he avoided), while MiLo compares Trump to Liberace. After indulging that digression for a bit, we talk about the closeted 1980s. We come back to the state of US politics, then we talk about cults, theocracy, the ability to recognize truth, tolerating uncertainty, the Tucson rodeo, deconstruction (from the church), embracing mystery, the G...

Happy birthday to MiLo! Shawn is recovering from a cold, so we talk about that and about losing your voice, then about (the royal formerly known as) Prince Andrew, political accountability (former President of S. Korea Yoon Suk Yeol, former Philippine President Duterte and his successor), whether the Epstein “dominoes” are really starting to fall, Anarcho-Capitalism, breakfast sandwiches, the “col...

MiLo (“Abu”) welcomes a new grandson, and we talk about pregnancy and birth. Then we talk about discrimination and personal blind spots, “cooperative interruption,” daydreaming, optimizing yourself to perform better, lifehacks, material wealth and happiness, striving versus self-acceptance, envy, commute time as a predictor of school success, the power of intention, classical yoga versus kashmir s...