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Meeting internet friends from around the world is always a huge highlight of my life and fills me with a lot of gratitude. Despite the wanton amounts of rampant fuckery on here, there are good, fun, kind, interesting people worth hanging out with
Conversation with @KevinSimler yesterday: ethnic/national identity, internet culture, obscure YouTube, storytelling principles, taste, Michael Bay, political and cultural differences, startups, teenage weirdness, freedom via mini-deaths, writing buddies, lightbulb moments...
Conversation with @alfred_lua today: family businesses, how careers influence worldview, living alone, marital communication, software marketing, social media trends, company culture, the general problem of assholes and free-riders, mastermind groups, remote life, friendships
Bandung with @RyanAdnin earlier: the nature of outsourcing and consulting work, what domain specialists miss, bird’s eye views, southeast asian geopolitics, national identity and the coming changes, being honest with yourself, confronting legacy issues from childhood, death goals https://t.co/JVqqisCcYR
Lunch w @rhoarrr: the cover stories we use & partially buy into, mentally rehearsing outcomes, the early days of marriage, names, families, the limitations and subjectivity of memory, the utility of journaling, learning what you think by talking with others, planning, portfolios
Coffee with Izzy: environmentalism, gardening, psychic prisons, mind-expanding experiences, code-switching, the gift of hindsight, the psychology of pricing in art, widespread unhappiness, atypical minds, nuances of disorder, travel experiences, McKenna, nurturing relationships https://t.co/KNeq3tf1KW
Coffee with @lingkai: newlywed life, the music industry, artistic compromises, branding, storytelling, positioning, status games, how to ask for money, livejournal shopping sprees, blogshops, ecommerce, dropshipping, Taobao, Instagram influencers, Facebook ads, midlife crises https://t.co/nx6J9m6I93
Chicken rice with @lovexlight: life in PR and software marketing respectively, different types of managers, the complexities of internal politics in larger organisations, different attitudes towards the passage of time & aging, climbing the corporate ladder vs being a free agent https://t.co/yA68EZY6uR
Fish&chips with @samacalawawa and friends: literature scholarships, the nature of memes, bitcoin, what is money, the relationship b/n guilt & religion, institutions & capitalism, The Last Jedi, MCU, storytelling, fasting, diet, creative schedules, when to focus, power of routines https://t.co/xdqn41fQgz
Kaya toast with Jacq: being a teacher, paths not taken, teenagers & technology, gentrification, commutes, long distance relationships, family drama, travelling and settling down, pet-sitting, history as binge-watching past seasons of current affairs, thinking about making humans https://t.co/NCXBxuAaBZ
Tiong Bahru with @weeny: gentrification, travel, living on the Internet, networking, families, the Chinese web, “buying a fridge” re: having a home, differences between different social media platforms, Patreon and personal brands, seeing your hometown through other people’s eyes https://t.co/VYDoJp67Gt
Ribs with @cameronpriest: going feral, growing a business, remote teams, urgent vs important, “missing middle” details in success stories, cultural differences, how every person is different, how to manage others, families, being mindful about building meaningful relationships https://t.co/fk7XPROQnf
Dinner at Blu Jaz with @gurubavan - different yet similar diaspora identities, travel experiences, cities and nations, different cultures and perspectives, mosaics vs melting pots, immigrants, languages, wealth disparities, startups, tech, being anime nerds, street life https://t.co/nSggFxx3pW
Teh with @Saurya: attachment styles, personal narratives, generational trauma, bonding with family and peers, mental models of time, relationships, achievement, belonging, fasting, behaviour patterns, embodied cognition, ways of thinking and being, conflicting assumptions, tribes https://t.co/KyuNIykwhE
Drinks with @poojanansi: living life as an ethnic minority in your home country, dealing with boring questions from interviewers, the realities of safe spaces, fashion& identity, the bizarre position of having to defend someone who attacks you, what it means to be “militant”... https://t.co/3HhoaU0ADr
Kopi with @qamuri: being bilingual + straddling different cultures, thinking about tension as neither negative nor positive but something to be managed, different kinds of relationships & how to consider them, Tobi’s model of boxes, travel, lifestyle design, vision vs execution https://t.co/s0PHQRq4hE
Chilli crab & wine with @eugenewei, @kevinakwok, @chorpharn and friends: tech, governance, cities, ambition, video, memes, cults, financial innovation, cultural differences, funding landscapes, protectionism, civic engagement, climate change, long-term planning & opportunities https://t.co/z1RPd3XUJJ
Turkish with @EricJorgenson - cultural differences, Christmas songs, favorite formative books and authors that shaped us, Ben Franklin, ways of seeing, writing, travelling with family, working out, car ownership, walkable cities, Kansas & NYC, useful information other people have https://t.co/Zq1Ff8D2gF
Little India with @devonzuegel (here she’s receiving the ziptie treatment at Mustafa 😂) different subsets of Indian cultures, diaspora cultures, language, incentives, second-order effects, friction between socioeconomic strata despite best intentions, zombie apocalypses https://t.co/8tuknfvdVF
Beers with @galencrout and @ArunRLVerma: career trajectories, partnerships, ecommerce ecosystems, marketing, finding product-market fit, bad breakups, travelling, the utility and dollar value of a university education, different comms methods, org growth, entrepreneur mindset https://t.co/diQ6sG2NYR
Nasi padang with @DellAnnaLuca: human nature, travel, Taleb, split brain experiments, rationalization, cultural differences re: work & migration, hyphenated identities, sabbaticals, plans, cover stories, being writers, working on books, susceptibility, principles vs group loyalty https://t.co/xdfgwmSOsv
At Tanjong Pagar with @patio11: being geeky public-facing bloggers, navigating different cultures, the nature of human networks (building your own), orthogonal+circuitous career trajectories, pipelines and incentives, the complications of marrying someone from a different culture https://t.co/u7dLlw9YYo
Kopi w/ @homiliai: family politics, debt, wealthy car enthusiasts, the advent&role of ✝️ in Chinese SG, sociocultural capital, African techies, Indian English, London vs Berlin, mental health in Asian communities & families, tyranny of legibility, history vs 1st principles https://t.co/IVK89pDqYc
with @guanyinmiao about community service in 🇸🇬: schools, teachers, parents, NGOs, the role of the State, formative experiences, voluntourism, the horse parable, multiple conceptualizations & POVs, differing motivations, incentives, connection vs isolation, fuzzies vs utilons https://t.co/o70VA2Bc2u
Japanese with @alfred_lua: product development, Twitter over the years, consulting vs. employment, golden handcuffs, the psyche & traits of small biz owners, navigating marriage (division of labor, communicating needs, decision-making), large Asian families, meetups & traditions https://t.co/aV6zBlYQJj
Chicken rice w @djinnius - blockchain, biz cycles, drug laws, identity-variables, shame as social regulator, complexity of addictions, being an “alien anthropologist”, city flags, power laws, social graphs, cosmopolitan parochialism, Western sucidality & linear concepts of time, https://t.co/rKlrzVvzD2
Carrot cake with @quietonlooker: dating apps, social norms re: ghosting & bumping into exes, brown parents, caste, emotional blackmail, self-awareness, introversion, being a minority in HK, the trauma of school, helping others when you have issues yourself, relationship dynamics https://t.co/rCVbMXpKCE
Coffee with @uxartist - the pleasure of doing nothing, why good people keep getting fired, “learning experiences” (😂), pursuing your curiosity, small companies vs big ones, finding cool jobs via friends, being clear about what you will not tolerate, working for good bosses https://t.co/4fNOh64Nzb
Coffee with @ehn: CERN, Spotify, fragmentation, things that don’t scale, cultural context changes, trade, effective charity, education, Lambda school, protectionism, travelling with family, buying furniture, interactive theatre, climate change, being an employee vs consultant https://t.co/vXA9SzEzKT
Duck rice with Alice (who quit Twitter 😂)- storytelling, theming, divorce, family drama, possessiveness, sibling relationships, misfits, low-res art, fantasy tropes, ethnicity, visiting the sourceland, good bosses, good questions, career advice, the history of names, polyamory https://t.co/W5yV4tafHr
Kopi with @otisfunkmeyer - spirituality, dance, communities, politics, Bitcoin, YouTube/Instagram, digital nomads, Pmarca, Naval, Sivers, navigating change, Saigon, 1000-year-games, lucid dreams, jinxing it, first movers, things most people don’t see, meta-heuristics, how to live https://t.co/Tx3qz0Himd
Lunch with @jujuionthebeat and @sharanvkaur - being third culture kids, living with brown parents, social expectations and assumptions, campus life, different university cultures, religion and sex education, evangelism, Twitter friends, our relationships with our communities https://t.co/7ooJFZK5b3
Coffee with @jamesclear + John - speaking engagements, Twitter as a medium, storytelling, being curious nerds, making friends, the limitations and strengths of different mediums and formats, exploring footnotes and obscure PDFs, making decisions when there are infinite options https://t.co/tzMY8LK02C
Chat with @qamuri - develop your taste by consciously exposing yourself to the best of humanity - succinctly articulate whatever is most compelling to you - thread up all of those things for easy reference & sharing - apply this to your social graph - consolidate, reiterate https://t.co/jIR79wE95H
Beers with @tonyennis - being fringe kids who weren’t fans of school, lively streets, music scenes, Dublin, Manila, startups, the advice problem, figuring what you want to do next, a Good Life, being On To Something, Wittgenstein, moral philosophy, capitalism, language traps https://t.co/chxME6CowT
Delicious vegan sandwiches with @tasshinfogleman - being vulnerable in public, how to make friends and allies, allies-in-waiting, content strategy (nerdposting + kindposting + shitposting), managing a multiplicity of needs in a relationship, the paradox/tension of “human brands” https://t.co/yrHKJlNoOS
Coffee with @buster - managing disagreements, addressing biases, “accept and participate”, writing, the jazz pianist theory of effortless performance, managing communities, despair, anxiety as an engine, grieving what you cannot do, intolerance paradox, contempt and anti-contempt https://t.co/NyO1RjDPP5
Had tea with the very charming and infectiously positive @juliagalef - we talked about relationships, social norms, rationality in practice, optimising vs satisficing, managing conflicts, using Twitter well, vulnerability, asking good questions and having great conversations https://t.co/xDzJeEUYmK
Had dinner with @jenistyping! Talked about being outsiders, managing conflicts and being good bystanders + intervening effectively when appropriate, dealing with sociopaths and bad actors, different kinds of travel and how it changes you, the kindness of strangers (😂) https://t.co/Mx04YOPVMU
39. Breakfast with @serialninja - being musicians, making art, navigating cultural crosswinds & differences, thinking about creativity & community, compulsion and connection, relationship debt, ways of seeing, everything is a remix, studio photography, the uniqueness of mediums https://t.co/42B3byVVEX
40. Ramen with @ponnappa and @aakashd recently – managing communities and organizations, the Gervais principle, antifragility, being a parent, the challenges of learning to be independent, marrying young, operating in different environments, truths that people don't believe https://t.co/o9BuasR0xc
41. Anjappar's with @urbanclio and @sharanvkaur after doing a tour of Tiger Beer Brewery – universities, what it's like being a professor, cities and urban planning, home ownership, foster kids, families, cultural expectations around dating and marriage, assumptions people make https://t.co/IaPlikIXlb
42. Muchachos with @natydnew - difference between SG and US education systems, playfulness, the vibes of different cities: SF, NYC, Shanghai, Didi, the challenges of dating, gendered expectations anatomy of a quality conversation, media representation, getting people to care https://t.co/9W10VKiQzM
43. Killiney with @jurvistan & Niklaus: being a creative, self-directed person in Singapore, being simultaneously undersocialized and oversocialized, schooling vs education, developing taste, making friends, disagreement judo, oral histories, growing up online, slingshot theory https://t.co/OMpXZOU32J
44. Jewel with @hellosamrick - travel, neuroscience, phantom limbs, sociology, citizenship, gendered socialization, sleep paralysis, nature vs nurture, free will, Birthright, ethnic/religious identity, mass shootings, US vs SG attitudes towards independence & individualism https://t.co/kI57RuepvE
45. Wine with @dineshraju - raising a child, Incerto, making smart asymmetric bets that maximize optionality, making sure you’re not fooling yourself, over-platonization, James Austin’s 4 kinds of luck, the utility of naming yet-unnamed things, the next 1B people coming online https://t.co/1bIN3OqP02
46. Beers and dinner with @cigardubey - trauma, therapy, mental health, relationships, masculinity, status games, dominance hierarchies, cultural differences (Mumbai, Helsinki, SG, SF) abstractions, brain bugs, managing conflict, being vulnerable, having faith in other people https://t.co/SRoDI3jYNW
47. Dinner & drinks with @TheDailyHoney & @sharanvkaur: film school, filmmaking, awards, poverty porn, cultural differences, diaspora life, “What Will People Think”, families, Bollywood, Toronto, influencers, having taste and creative vision, representation, boxing, Being Online https://t.co/vA507SrXFH
48. Coffee with @gridironhardt - being “unconventional”, the challenges of managing communities, blocking people, 2nd-guessing yourself. Cults, churches, internal politics, the tyranny of cell group leaders. Finding people who “get it” over being frustrated with people who don’t https://t.co/wnw1VW2Mfy
49. Bak kut teh with @eugenewei - immigrants, diaspora, identity, narratives, home, travel, birth rates, beuracrats, the early internet, writing essays, blog rings, video arcades, perverse incentives, status, social networks, /r/changemyview, naive techno-optimism, book notes https://t.co/vt9s6tnM24
50. Muchachos with @kageman - on what is not obvious, storytelling and video games, twitter strategy for making friends and building an audience, travel, early internet, early startup days, career trajectories, Alan Watts, twitter “celebrities”, good reply game, valuable POVs https://t.co/qhPdLXe0Eb
51. Zam Zam with @GKhuyen - Act 2, initiation ceremonies and talismans, mentors and father figures, being Singaporean, being Vietnamese, travel, libraries, the Internet, healing, human development, social challenges in school, personal journeys, a table of one’s own, cylinders https://t.co/YH1iC9WFG8
@visakanv @GKhuyen ... cylinders? https://t.co/4nGHXE41DE
@sharanvkaur @GKhuyen https://t.co/D2oNNI7CNj
if I were forced to make an estimate, I think I’m about 20% of the way through towards my “creative final form” (which is itself a state of flux, blah blah). I’m firing on 2 out of 10 cylinders and am about to unlock the 3rd. the first is the hardest
52. Lunch with @sharanvkaur and the fascinating @risquerebecca - on pricing, psychology, social norms, managing expectations, the art of creating great experiences, funny stories, being financially responsible, good safety protocols both online and offline https://t.co/NezzqGglNo
53. Breakfast with @sebastmarsh - contempt, summoning demons, libraries, Gandhi, Augustus, navigating culture wars, web forums, older mentors, video games as an introduction to learning experimentation & sense-making, sermons, communities, ambition, “have I played my role well” https://t.co/bdAIxJMIZv
54. Chicken rice with @ricefield - Bay Area, startup life, information architecture, trees vs graphs, over-optimising for hierarchy, innovator’s dilemma for writers, cultural narratives, the anxious zeitgeist, minimum viable optimism, trying too hard to be smart, talismans https://t.co/b1JHfrDK2i
55. Mediterranean with @sharanvkaur, @made_in_cosmos & @artpi: remote work, travel, being semi-nomadic, the spirit & letter of rituals, incentives, schooling, infrastructure, customer support, online stores, forums, languages, different cultures, Patreon, blogging vs tweeting https://t.co/69diBr06Ud
56. Coconut Club with @UXlifter - life in SF vs SG, cultural differences, travelling alone vs with friends, fitness, injuries, aesthetics, different types of employment, making the most of opportunities, dating, family, pets, weather & seasons, people reaching out when you write https://t.co/40mUN1YtHK
57. coffee with @Ben_Reinhardt - tech and sci-fi, encouraging innovation, cultural differences, parents and grandparents, travel as means to breaking out of contexts + discovering the assumptions you didn’t know you had, retrospectively identifying good advice, secret side quests https://t.co/SAc5Iw850O
@visakanv Referenced: https://t.co/z2fhV3c2gF
58. 6 hours (!) with @toph_bbq - Hawaii, Bay Area, twitch, anime, Japan, Inner Game, “The Ages”, music, math, Impro, cliches, Finding The Others, community, dealing with haters, meaningful work, Sense8, Da Vinci/Ben Franklin, making the future exciting, compliments, Travellers... https://t.co/GlY9Ra1zRR
59. A day with @marionnjoya - exchanging traveller stories, families, how messy people are, letting go of anger and negativity, the siren song of ~stuff~, the blandness of malls, the courage to leave, communicating openly and honestly in relationships, feelings about work/life https://t.co/SP1YuahDlr
60. Komala Vilas with @fortelabs, @TheLaurenValdez and @cryptolin: video as a medium, web domains, twitter verification, good vs bad disagreements, Awareness, trauma, travel, sci-fi, families, married life, cultural differences, being fully human online, bottlenecks, ambition https://t.co/Cq02F8atQ5
61. met @sudhirtv and he already wrote about it so I don't have to 😂 we also talked about books, writing, media, etc https://t.co/64TTWURjyt
62. mee goreng with @s0ftfocus- cultivating taste and curiosity, different people having different responses to things, antifragility, kenny werner’s radical acceptance of what is happening, self-deprecation, musicality from discordance, humor and wit, prioritising vulnerability https://t.co/7HrasmsqsA
63. 🍣 with @shrinetothevine - food, restaurant marketing, fashion, covid, the disproportionate rewards beyond familiar thresholds, the qualities of leadership and taking responsibility for morale, mentoring others, the future of Singapore and Asia, influence of climate on mood https://t.co/8RLzdDSiY6
64. kopi with @SarvasvKulpati - journaling, doing 100 things, the propaganda dept of the self, self-concept vs reality, YouTube, tiktok, fame, success, branding, product-market fit, education, learning, cities, culture, scenes, communities, alts, making mistakes, long games https://t.co/OHTpy1UfhY
65. coffee with @ejames_c - maritime & continental Southeast Asia, slingshot theory, blogging, scenius, golden ages, Deutsch, creativity, cultural constraints, startups, funding, Sony, Baghdad House of Wisdom, the Designed Life, prestige vs ambition, long games, highest order bit https://t.co/OVOYrYySLZ
66. tea with @anthilemoon – 🥖 & 🍳, being a “public figure”, growing up online, curiosity, formulaic threads, stream-of-consciousness poasting, fashion, “trust fall” travel, the courage to be disliked, world dumplings, gifts, friends who wouldn’t get along, cultural differences https://t.co/AxtxOydvDr
@anthilemoon 67. 🍹 with @Rididelduol – Travel, comedy, humor, language, writers, Woo/manifestation, mind vs heart, musicians, mistakes, scenes, poetry, postmodernism, aesthetics, cultural differences, covid, trivia, writers, ways of seeing, community polarization, https://t.co/NkOYfE7trk
68. Yakun with @missrachelreads – the interintellect, Singapore, Southeast Asia, long games, emotional labour, activism, education, reform, writing books, editing, do 100 things, marketing, positioning, persuasion, making good art, narcissism, street artists, Jack Neo movies https://t.co/TDAwwoa97F
@mechanical_monk @missrachelreads no notes, I just write down whatever I can remember afterwards. I have a pretty good memory when it comes to to things I care about. it’s like a very fuzzy abstract memory palace
69. 🍣 with @kaisoapbox – Overton windows, national narratives, military life, careers, long games, life before and after social media, evolving media landscapes, leadership, the theatre of local politics, minority experience, activism and advocacy, paying it forward, timezones https://t.co/DLv2EDihka
70. ☕️ with @TaraLifBaum – classroom sizes, self-directed learning, preference cascades, leadership, orgs, info bubbles, media, selection bias, mental health, radical centricism, Jane Jacobs, informal communal mechanisms, CRMs, 🇸🇬’s URA, global networks, communities, travel https://t.co/MmWs9lJ2gR
72. Mee goreng with @floguo: optimism, delusions, unconceptualized reality, mental models, frames, manicposting, Twitter, everything is relationships, love/fear, families, prestige-hacking, reverse-engineering, golden age scenes, anger, misunderstandings, metacognition, dynamism, https://t.co/17XlM8IWDO
73. ☕️ with @lucia_asanache: travel, seasonal differences, global teams, covid, sibling dynamics, Latin America, marketing, embracing mistakes, asking for help, resolving issues, writing one’s memoirs, vlogging, healthcare systems, models of health & wellness, diets, architecture https://t.co/c9mzbqUEwF
74. 🥰 also: framing, optimism, societal change, culty dynamics, marriage heuristics, unhelpful statements, how covid changed our lives, the narrative bias that goes into biographies & CVs, teenagers, childhood learnings, the challenges of communicating in multiple contexts https://t.co/KA1UR7OCvj
75. heat death, civ collapse, deutsch, creativity suppressing creativity, king energy, psych xtreme sport, status regulation, torchbearers, genrefication, gratifying taste, deviance, nerdy predecessors, participating in a tradition, reinventing the wheel https://t.co/IiLBHh3l6a
76. ☕️ w/ @vgr – national narratives, asimov, narrative vacuums, southeast asian history, uncertainty, tightening vs loosening regulations, double consciousness, sinbad, garuda as memetic iconography, cultural paranoia, sleepwalking into longtermism, creative destruction, 🐋falls https://t.co/zhAU0zLlFK
77. 🍻 w/ @maybegray & @Fooljeff – feeling all the feelings, aesthetics, seasons, marriage, kids, intentions, creative work, communicating, helping ourselves vs each other, people’s relationships with money, sex, appearance, self-esteem, working with clients, trusting the process https://t.co/DkKRXtlepJ
78. nasi lemak with @CertainlyNotRik – tradeoffs in everything, narrowing futures, Star Trek, memory holes, cultural frames of reference, culture shocks, spice trade history, remote work adoption, value of journalling, smartphones, monarchies, euphemism treadmills, pendulums https://t.co/wpVq9mdLsZ
@mbateman see the first tweet in my list of favorite tweets: https://t.co/YLEqXbxEEa