Thirty days of shower thoughts

If I called it thirty days of writing, I wouldn’t do it

Since it feels a bit late to jump on the sourdough bandwagon, half-baked blog posts seem like the next best shelter in place hobby. I enjoy writing, think of myself as halfway decent at it, and avoid it. Vehemently avoid it.

In the past, I have scoffed at friends and acquaintances (the social media friends) who decided to take on thirty days of writing. How serious can one be about writing if they only do it for thirty days? In reality, how serious am I about writing if I don’t do it each day?

So, inspired by a friend, I decided to take the plunge and force myself to write publicly for thirty days (Publicly used only in its most literal sense because I highly doubt that anyone reads this).

Since this is going to be a slog for me, I am reframing it from writing as a formal exercise to something a bit more casual: shower thoughts. One can be bad at writing, but it is a lot harder to say you are bad at shower thoughts (I hope).

And, since I am setting quite a low bar, I can think of no better way to kick it off than with the laziest form of internet writing: a list.

Shower thoughts (a bit stylized) while sheltering in place:

1. Donald Rumsfeld forgot to talk about “unknown knowns.” That seems important given government inertia this year.
2. Are there Coronavirus speakeasies?
3. Why doesn’t Uber lobby to change federal labor law for a new classification of workers? It will build the social safety net under gig workers and probably saves Uber money. Regulatory reform after regulatory arbitrage.
4. Will COVID-19 mark an inflection point in manufacturing towards smaller, more modular production in one’s home? A resurgence of the cottage industry?
5. What if this time truly is different? Perceived novelty and exceptionalism mark every financial crisis but what if this one actually is different?
6. Why can’t we vote online? Why isn’t democracy digital? Are we really going to be using paper ballots in two decades? No. So why now?
7. Will the concept of the nation-state be irrelevant in 100 years?
8. Similarly, Is sovereignty now founded more on one’s data? How does this change (if it does) the notion of sovereignty as the “monopoly on the use of force”?
9. Does Rawls’ Original Position change when you end up relying upon private companies as the basis of service provision and societal needs and governments? Why not?
10. Would Elizabeth Warren be the Democratic nominee if COVID-19 had emerged a few months earlier?
11. If people used 1% of the time that was spent watching sports trying to solve a global problem, what would that look like? Would people do it?
12. How does “never waste a crisis” thinking apply here?
13. Will quarantine prove that Mandeville had it backward — Do public vices make private virtues?
14. Bad Netflix movie idea: Revenge of the Introverts, which is Revenge of the Nerds but for social distancing. Not mutually exclusive, obviously.
15. How modern is Modern Monetary Theory, really?
16. Someone should rewrite I, Pencil when that pencil can no longer be manufactured or delivered.
17. In the age of online education, where will the virtue-signaling come from?
18. Is there a way to create an individualized carbon cap and trade policy for consumers? How could one gamify this?
19. Whatever happened to Elon Musk’s going to Mars timeline? I thought we were supposed to be there by now.
20. Which historical world leader would be most offended by his/her portrayal in history books? Which one would be most flattered?
21. Could I get away with working from bed by telling my manager via Zoom that Montaigne worked from bed all the time?
22. The Auld Beagle would be a great name for a children’s story about an intrepid pet of an Irish-American detective in Boston.

With day one being a list, I feel like tomorrow will be much harder, but that’s a problem for another day. One down.