Episodes
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Volition was originally launched in 2022 to run interviews with people whose careers I admired. To learn about how they switched between different kinds of work, learned new skills, and flexed their agency.
These episodes will continue to be available in the podcast history but with this episode the podcast is relaunching with a new focus. I recently started a new writing project, Skillful Notes, which investigates how people, organisations, and countries build competence. Going forward Volition will host recordings of Skillful Notes essays and case studies, alongside interviews with a mix of scholars who are investigating how we become capable of new things and builders who are becoming more competent in their respective fields.
For this first episode in the new chapter of Volition we'll a recording of the first Skillful Notes essay on Apprenticeship. I hope you like it.
If you have any feedback of any kind please don't hesitate to share.
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Show Notes:
(0:18) Michael’s languages background
(3:41) How Latin operates as a gateway drug for appreciating the general structure of language
(6:50) Why philology is the atomic element of historiography
(8:26) How Michael sent a letter to every federal minister in Canada
(14:48) The dangerous and precarious dynamics of a life in policy
(19:08) Anything the government says or does is technically policy and all policy has both an operational and a political aspect
(20:10) The artefacts of policy work
(25:30) Michael’s connection with Nassim Taleb and an argument for how we should think about multiculturalism in the context of history.
(35:44) How this connection led on to a connection with Tom Holland
(38:11) Expanding our knowledge of history as the route to better understanding of a broader multiculturalism
(39:36) Spengler and how a historian can remain truthful but still say interesting things
(45:28) The vision of the Sassanian empire as the continuation of the Near Eastern tradition of civilisation
(50:34) Michael’s new book In Defence of Civilisation
(58:38) The foundations of civilisation evidenced in old kingdom Egypt: Clarity, Beauty, and Order
(1:05:14) Homer as the preservation of a high culture that was no longer present
(1:15:30) How our subjectivity has triumphed over our sense of a universal humanity
(1:20:54) How relativity, and chaos theory have affected art
(1:23:41) China’s present day attempt to recapture civilisation through a return to Confucianism
References made in this episode:
- Michael’s personal site. He’s also active on Twitter
- Jason Kenney, a Canadian conservative leader and the former premier of Alberta
- Nassim Taleb, the cantankerous defender of statistical accuracy and the author of The Black Swan
- The infamous Mary Beard Tweet, Taleb’s response and Michael’s article on the topic
- Oswald Spengler and The Decline of the West. This lecture gives a great summary
- Michael’s most recent book The Last Empire of Iran and his next book In Defence of Civilisation (set for release in April 2023) here’s a teaser Michael released -
Missing episodes?
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Show Notes:
(3:40) That time that Justin printed off a copy of pipe bomb plans
(7:30) What is what like living in an Oil & Gas town and what drove Justin to leave
(11:52) How and why Justin set up a tech newsletter for Vernon
(15:32) The joys of working in co-working space
(18:09) How to iterate into creating a coworking space
(20:05) Conservatives love talk radio
(23:08) The sheer joy of getting to broadcast on the internet
(28:05) All the intricacies of being creative before the internet
(30:38) Why and how good businesses have “margin”. How Justin builds breathing room into his day-to-day
(33:11) How this idea of margin influenced Transistor’s decision to avoid getting into the ads business
(39:25) Avoiding crypto cult dynamics
(41:55) Keeping your head straight when the internet is messaging you
(45:57) Everyone is susceptible to cults of personality we should be constantly skeptical of them
(48:59) How we should try and bring scientific thought more into our everyday conversations
(49:32) The internet is a great magnifier but it is not necessarily truth seeking
References made in this episode:
- https://transistor.fm/ the only place to distribute your podcast
- It Might Never Go Away, be careful when you put something on the internet. You never know what it’s full life might be
- You can’t find usenet groups today (or maybe you can but I’m not sure how) but to get the vibe of Alt 2600 check out this MIT site
- A dot matrix printer in action (link)
- Vernon, BC
- Stony Plain, AB
- Kalamalka Lake, truly stunning
- BioWare, the makers of some of the most glorious story-based games including Star Wars: The Old Republic and Mass Effect
- 630 Ched and CBC
- Ham Radio, the amateurs entry point to the world of broadcasting before
- Unfortunately I was unable to find a copy of Superhero High School. Hopefully, one day it will reemerge
- Good Businesses Have Margin
- The Transistor Handbook and Values something to aspire to as a set of principles for your company -
Show Notes:
(0:53) The most interesting Substack you’ve never heard of
(2:58) Why the serial format is experiencing a renaissance on Substack
(5:29) How conventional investing is like Groundhog Day
(7:08) How tech avoids the Groundhog Day problem and how Linda ended up jumping ship
(10:52) The journey from wood panelled Bay Street to remote Slack channels
(13:11) The age divide on tools and how people struggle between MS Office and GDocs
(18:43) Why good advice should always be controversial
(21:11) Substack’s experimental posture
(24:45) The role of a company evangelist and what thoughtful outreach looks like
(29:55) How to walk the line between a Mission Statement and evangelising the product
(33:19) Creating a better future for writer’s through financial independence
(38:06) The secret life of Linda on Twitter
References made in this episode:
- Substack, the only place to write online
- SMIRK, Christie Smythe’s serialised memoir of what happened with Martin Shkreli
- Hardcore Software, Steven Sinofsky’s stories from the PC revoloution
- TechTO, Toronto’s top tech events organiser
- Ben Horowitz’s Books on Management, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, and What You Do is How You Do
- Successories, Whenever you need the reminder to be “Working, Growing, Succeeding, Together” ;)
- Alex Danco, Patio11, Ana Lorena Fabrega, whenever I listen to what these folks say about their companies I'm always convinced there’s no better product or place to work. Masterclass in company evangelism.
- Lenny Rachitsky (Lenny's Newsletter), Lenny writes about some great stories of companies doing unscalable things in this essay. If you haven't read it before, and have any interest the world of startups, the original Paul Graham essay the newsletter references is also essential reading
- Linda's Twitter, if you’re looking for good follows and a window into a great Twitter network you could do a lot worse than perusing the list of accounts that Linda has interacted with -
Show Notes:
(2:35) Why Ben says he studied “Semiotics” at university(6:01) Avoiding broken telephone at work
(6:45) How this comes to life when communicating your brand to the public
(9:13) Hydrogen’s “brand” story and why it matters to Shopify and to developers
(12:40) The pros and cons of headless development
(13:54) Ben’s thoughts on product management frameworks - how to say a few things many different ways
(16:15) How improving your craft allows you to see more of the world
(19:13) Why Ben hates the term swag
(21:45) How particular words bring with them a world of meaning for good and ill
(22:31) Why it all comes back to semiotics in the end
References made in this episode:
- Ben Sehl’s Personal Website
- Kotn
- Hydrogen, Shopify’s stack for headless commerce
- Vannevar Bush, the head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during WWII which directed all military R&D. Stripe Press recently republished one of his works detailing that experience.
- Simon Sinek, Start With Why, identifying a key purpose for your work.
- Undifferentiated Heavy Lifting, Amazon’s terms for how AWS tries to get rid of all the schleps the average developer normally would have to do to get their app working. [Note: The link is to a newsletter called Fact of the Day it is awesome - strongly recommend checking it out]
- Conceptual Compression, idea expressed by DHH, that for developers (or really anyone building anything) they have to keep a bunch of different ideas in their head at once if these ideas can be compressed it allows for the building of much more complex things by bringing more ideas together.
- Shape Up, by Ryan Singer, one of the best books I’ve ever read on product management
- Everything is Deeply Intertwingled, for a wikipedia article you may never have expected to read check out intertingularity
- The Lean Startup, a canonical text of startups and fast growing tech companies
- The Secret to Our Success, the apex predator surfing a wave of meaning (not yet a personal read but looks excellent)
