The Mundanity of Excellence. Excellence is a product of different kinds of work rather than different levels of effort. Technique (how things are done), discipline (doing things correctly, consistently), and attitude (how things are approached) are the things to focus on. “What we call talent is no more than a projected reification of particular things done: hands placed correctly in the water, turns crisply executed, a head held high rather than low in the water.”
“Those of us who retain grand ambitions and high ideals are perhaps to liable to become Casaubonnish, to become like Lydgate, so preoccupied with the dreams of youth and so stung with the perpetual sense of failure as we became assimilated to our lives, that we forgot to do the good that we can do in the time we have to do it in.” — Henry Oliver on Middlemarch
Georgia is losing its southern drawl. One of my favorite things about attending the University of North Carolina was learning the subtle differences between North Carolina accents, to the point where I could place where you went to high school by how you spoke. They were beautiful and unique.
It should be easier to send gifts to a person having only their phone number.
“If you get mad you will be seen as losing almost-every argument, regardless of what the other person did that led to you getting mad, again excepting really extreme and explicit evidence.” — Uri. I should be forced to reread this once a month.
Things I learned
Just 13% of Gen Z believes that most people can be trusted — Ryan Burge. Surely at some point this has to rebound?
Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” is the best selling single of all time, which I learned at a BP gas station video ad of all places and confirmed via Wikipedia.
The second fastest growing sector in America between 2019 and 2024 was gambling — Matt Stoller
Someone notify Henry Oliver: we have a late bloomer. I hadn’t realized how inconsequential Sherman’s career had been before the start of the Civil War. He was well regarded within the Army but saw no real action during the Mexican American War. He left the Army and was in charge of two banks that failed. The bank failures were largely bad luck caused by turbulent economic times, but all the same in his mid-forties he was being kept a float by his father-in-law and very much felt like he was at a dead in.
And then the war came, he rejoins the army and the rest is history. At the battle of Shiloh, his coming out party, he’s 43 years old. By the end, he was arguably the war’s most successful general. He’s seen as a peer to Grant and many would have run him for president, except he did not want to hold the office.
Sherman’s Civil War mostly takes place in the Western Theater. Seen from the perspective of the West, the War seems much more one sided than it does from the Eastern theater. By the summer of 1863, they’ve cracked the Confederacy in half and are pressing their advantage — victory no longer seems in doubt.
Another thing that was surprising to me was how confusing the opening months of the war were. All throughout the country, particularly in the border lands, towns and communities were choosing sides. Generals on both sides were prone to imagine large, invincible forces just around the corner that just didn’t exist and even the troops under their command may not be reliable.
A final treat when reading this book: so many of the places are in my backyard. Sherman spends a lot of time relieving and reinforcing Chattanooga, where my family went for spring break. The place where Sherman’s army crosses the Chattahoochee is a park my family frequents. Having a sense of place makes both books and places so much richer to me.
In case this is the last Good Tokens of the year, have a great holiday season and end of 2025. See you in 2026!
A message from my sponsor
Christmas is just 7 days away. If you’re here, you already know about my dear friend Uri’s hit new game Person Do Thing, but out of love for the game and it’s creator, I have to say one final time, this is a perfect stocking stuffer and a great way to spend time with your friends and family without a screen. Highly recommended!
The Lost Generation. This one is controversial because it deals with race and DEI, but if you can distance yourself from that a little bit, it’s really informative. It made me believe more in the Elite Overproduction Hypothesis.
The story of the fight over Romansch. Particularly enjoyable for me because the Engadin is among my favorite places in the world.
Things I learned
The average boomer will get paid out significantly more in medicare and social security than they paid in taxes — Russ Greene. Soon we’ll need a Boomer Corner.
The EU makes more from fines on US tech companies than it does from taxes on all EU tech companies — David Fant
Lebron James has played against 35% of players in NBA history — CBS Sports. To be fair, he has played in 28% of the league’s seasons. I think this makes him the Queen Elizabeth of athletes.
Musings
I feel like the Grinch saying this, but we’ve got to cut down on the number of special clothing days (e.g., pajama day) that are happening in schools or daycares. All it does is create stress for me as a parent and I don’t get the sense that my kids actually enjoy these. Who is this for?
LLM corner
Some shameless self promotion: The latest episode of —dangerously-skip-permissions: How Penny Schiffer works. Penny is another technical product manager turned AI software developer who I think has really mastered creating with AI.
GenAI created ads outperform human created ads by 19%… unless they are disclosed as created by AI, in which case the performance goes down by 32% — Eric Seufert
In a previous post, I mused: “You’re not avoiding failure, you’re avoidng the feeling of failure.”
KL asks: "Can we unpack this into some actionable life hacks?"
When I was in 8th grade, I decided not to tryout for the middle school basketball team because I didn't think I'd make it and I didn’t want to get cut.
A couple of weeks later, I saw the group of guys that made the team. The best few were obviously better than me, but I would’ve been competitive, if not better, than the rest of the ones who made it.
By not trying out, I avoided the feeling of failure, but I got the same result: I didn't get to play on the team. I didn't avoid failure, I avoided the feeling of failure.
Noah Smith on housing: “The true homeownership rate for Millennials at age 30 is less than 35%; for Gen X it was around 45%, and for Boomers it was almost 50%.” Also Noah on drones and the future of war. Perhaps I need a Noah Smith Corner.
There’s less pushback on the building of new housing when it’s beautiful. I definitely see this in Roswell where there is intense, almost blind opposition to building apartments but strong support for mixed use development from the people that are opposing the building of apartments. This paper helps me understand those people better and more graciously.
How penicillin was discovered. It’s more complicated than the story that you’ve heard and yet still somehow increased my belief in the value of unguided experiments (play).
Extinction rates seem to be slowing across plant and animal groups — University of Arizona
New York, LA, Chicago, and Boston have all seen a more than 30% decline in the number of children under 5 living there in the past 20 years — Bobby Fijan
33% of Oregon public school students are chronically absent (missing more than 17 days in a school year) — Oregon Live. What are we doing here people?
Girls are now less likely than boys to say that they want to get married; the percentage of girls who say they want to get married has fallen from 83% to 61% since 1993 — American Storylines. Tons of other interesting information in here about the perceptions and realities of marriage. Also this anecdata:
To start off our conversation, I asked participants to raise their hands if their parents had ever talked with them about the importance of getting a good education and pursuing a rewarding career. Every single hand shot up. The response was identical in both the male and female groups. I then asked whether their families had stressed the importance of finding a partner or starting a family. No one raised their hand.