@theanthonymadigan.bsky.social
Work should be a place where people voluntarily bring the best available version of themselves every day. Doing something about that as founder of writethetalk.com. Also tackling a wild garden project and playing servant-master to a chocolate lab.
If I told you that the Bank of England upgraded its growth forecasts yesterday, would you believe me?
It did....
i HAvE nOt gOne CRazY - honest
This is a hill I am prepared to die on - the BoE and others (all central banks, IMF, OECD etc etc) report their "forecasts" in a terrible way
🧵
I’m interested in your thoughts on this piece (and so is Riley). www.linkedin.com/posts/anthon...
Anyhow, this is what life looks like when you don’t have to contemplate all this and your entire attention can be captured by a twig
What would I do to undermine his narrative? Develop the idea that he’s a bored little rich boy playing games with the lives of ordinary people, about whom he knows nothing, for his own entertainment and ego. Ridicule underpinned by truth.
That may work for a while in his commercial enterprises (where HR policies go to die), but in public administration and society itself he literally has no idea what he’s doing. So he’s dangerous, but in a toddler-behind-the-wheel-of-an-18-wheeler-in-a-heavily-populated-area way.
The problem for me is his apparent total lack of empathy with other human beings. I don’t believe he’s particularly malicious - there just isn’t any wiring in his child-mind that recognises the people implications of his actions. There’s dopamine where the oxytocin should be.
Which is why I think he supports disruptive forces (with the added commercial bonus that division drives social media activity).
I imagine Musk sees himself as a genius disruptor and his life experience tells him his approach works, in arenas critical to humanity like rockets and cars. So why not shake up social media too by buying one and making it anti-social? And the ultimate disruptor challenge? Society itself.
Hello 2025, where the sun will always be shining somewhere.
He’s been helping hims-elf.
Absolutely love that beach, Jamie. Going to be right there in a couple of weeks. Fine place to get away from everything.
I almost drank myself to death. My redemption arc had a lot to do with shame and self sabotage. In reclaiming my life, I found my fight… and appreciate having the opportunity to speak up.
www.ted.com/talks/jamie_...
So beautifully expressed.
I'm currently trying to sort my books out since we moved house twice in two years. There are books I thought were lost and treasured family heirlooms. It's a slow and emotional process but I love looking back through them.
I was thinking about this the other day, looking at shelves of read books. Why keep them? Because they’re like photos you frame and keep in view: reminders of experiences and characters that are more tangible than just memories.
Christmas is when the right coffee at 4pm on a work day is Irish.
My new paper on Narrative Railroading is in this wonderful SI!
In it I explore how our narrative agency is constrained through a process I call ‘narrative railroading’. My interest is in the way our self-narratives can be tightly railroaded via
our interaction with other people and artefacts 🛤️
After Assad's regime fell, thousands of Syrians are returning home. This is the road to Damascus. Also, on the border with Turkey, thousands are in line to enter Syria.
"God, the weather is horrible. I wonder how the wind fleet is coping?"
Wind fleet: "YOUR SYSTEM BELONGS TO ME NOW."
It’s like renovating a massive hotel while keeping all the rooms open and charging full rack rate. Doing less for a while to get the renovation done could pay massive dividends for a brave government.
There are people in the Civil Service who would enthusiastically rewire it to be more effective, but the constant pressure to pursue the latest political priority (often in conflict with the research that the CS is actually good at) means there’s no capacity to do it.
I understand the human instinct. I’d want to do the same.
But that’s why no individual should be given the power to pardon members of their family.
It’s 33 years to the day since Spurs played Arsenal live on The Match.
And Elton Welsby treated us to this magnificently understated moment…
They are CUTE!
With Heidi Alexander replacing Louise Haigh as transport secretary, the cabinet is now 100% state school educated for the first time in history.
(Sir Keir Starmer's school was a selective state school when he joined, then became private two years into his time there.)
What a fine human being Abi is. Wildly impressive, generous and thoughtful.
Etymology of the day: before a tapering piece of hanging ice was called an ‘icicle’ it was an ‘ickle’. In the Middle Ages people decided to add ‘ice’ for extra oomph and (tautologically) called it an ‘ice ickle’, until the two words eventually blended together.
Right a lot of people are asking how to leave you know where safely.
I have done a little digging and come up with this guide on how to do so.
I am posting it here as a 🧵
Please note I am not endorsing any of the paid for or free tools suggested in this thread
Here goes: /1
Where am I today?
Here, is what I meant.