Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.
Ken Macleod’s The Fall Revolution. In particular, The Stone Canal.
Tad Williams’ Otherland series.

These books altered or expanded my perspective in a memorable way:

Candide
Seneca’s Epistles
Epictetus’ Handbook
(The Practicing Stoic is a great compilation/guide)
Maxims of La Rochefoucauld
Tao Te Ching (Red Pine translation)
The Portable Nietzsche (Walter Kaufmann translation)
Siddhartha, Demian by Herman Hesse
The Myth of Sisyphus, The Rebel by Albert Camus
How We Live and Why We Die: The Secret Lives of Cells
The Unique and Its Property/The Ego and Its Own
How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World
The Cowboy Havamal
Hayek’s Challenge
Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism
Economics in One Lesson
The Bitcoin Standard, The Fiat Standard

I worked with someone in a study group for advanced calculus/differential equations courses who could read a mathematical proof and then solve the appropriate problem set. I only ever understood the proof after working through some problems. It was inspiring and humbling.

Buy a cheap top loaded washer and cheap dryer. If there is a problem they are cheap to replace, but they seem to have fewer issues regardless. LG, Samsung, and Electrolux all have issues. Ran into the same problem with “certified” techs on the newest set of fancy washers and dryers. After four visits and no fix with warranty “repairs” I ended up fixing the issue myself through trial and error. The factory missed some screws and that caused problems with the electronics when the machine was operating.

*less recognition of the time passing in that moment

I read, not sure where, that our perception of time is relative to our total experience of its passage. The more days you’ve had the shorter each new day appears to you. I’m not sure why that would be the case but it matches with my experience. Perhaps we filter out more of the details as our model of what is happening becomes more robust, so as we get older the brain is less attentive to the particular moments: it categorizes moments more effectively over time as a member of some set, saving resources but leading to this recognition of the time passing in that moment.

Heterodox Academy put out an illustrated edition called “All Minus One” that covers the main points in two editions. They have links to pdfs of both here:

https://heterodoxacademy.org/resources/all-minus-one/

Providing the means for others to recognize a stupid game with stupid prizes in Bitcoin will disincentivize that behavior here. We can help everyone who wants to engage in that kind of behavior by directing them to their natural habitat, the shitcoin casino.

Can it generate the same output despite environmental changes? This is not the same as adaptability; this is adaptability constrained by consistency in output. The ultimate adaptability outcome for Bitcoin is fiat. That’s not useful, so you implicitly disregard it. The ultimate adaptability in the universe is entropy. That doesn’t mean we view life as good if it immediately conforms with this outcome. I don’t think ossification vs adaptability is a useful frame in general. Principles vs pragmatism is a better framing of what I think you are trying to get at.

Meh, the vogue of envious historians damning everyone more successful as deficient by their preferred standard is as much a product of our own time as it is a reflection on the period of “robber barons”.

When I have this feeling, and I’m glad someone named it, it usually comes with a sense similar to that of knowing there are so many excellent books that I will not read, songs I will not hear, and stories I’ll never know. This used to bother me as a kid, but now it’s more of a reminder that the good things in life are so numerous.

I enjoy knowledge for its own sake. I have always held that truth is worth pursuing. I’m excited if I can learn something new, whatever that may be. My day gets even better if I can apply that knowledge to achieving a goal, making a process better, or otherwise improving a situation.

I’ve come around to the view that where it’s appropriate and useful for me to judge others, which is rarely, the best criteria is virtue in the sense of excellence. Pragmatically it’s often better to figure out some criteria you share in common and work from that basis when addressing disagreements.

I’d like to see a world where individuals are free to pursue their passions and become the best versions of themselves they can be. What little I can do to help that process along is worthwhile, so I do what I can where I am with that in mind.