Armadillos and Honey Badgers

My New Spirit Animals

Matthew McConaughey’s take on politics is one of my favorites.

Someone said to me the other day, “Y’know what’s in the middle of the road McConoughey? Yellow lines and dead armadillos.”

Let me tell you something, I’m walking down the yellow line right now, and the armadillos are running free, having a great time.

I was talking to a friend who recently got a job at one of the FAANG companies, working remotely from another state. He’s one of my best friends, and is hard working, humble, and down to Earth. He was complaining to me that there are a lot of new rules in the Brave New FAANG World.

Phrases that are now taboo:

“Hey guys,”

Master/Slave

Whitepaper

It seems like “culture” has has made words and speech a difficult landscape to traverse… Ironically, other than the War Rooms, Clubhouse seems like it suddenly turned into dystopian convention where intellectuals like Eric Weinstein are both fawned over and offend people.

I’ve avoided Comic Con for years. Once a pre-Pandemic year, San Diego gets overrun with celebrities, cosplayers, and drunk nerds. It’s a spectacle, and if there’s a panel that I’m interested, I always think to myself that I’d rather just watch the YouTube stream afterwards. But, that almost never happens, because I actually just don’t really care that much.

The other day, a room popped up called “Is Eric Weinstein the Jordan Peterson of Clubhouse?” I hopped in while there was black man sharing his experience where he got value from Eric and Jordan, and that it was about taking the ideas, and using them to learn and grow, not about taking their teachings as a personal attack. The energy of the room pushing back on him felt really negative, so I left. Apparently, the room deteriorated into angry chaos.

A few of the War Room folks ended up discussing the room, in terms of the meta-analysis of the breakdown for a bit. Then the conversation turned casual, like at “a bar in Shanghai,” which is funny, because the conversation was actually on a server in Shanghai.

My friend who joined FAANG, who describes himself as “folksy, but ornery,” tells me,

“Have you seen that video with the honey badger? That’s how I feel these days.”

Armadillos and Honey Badgers are my new spirit animals.