Sick Day 🤧

You're not dying, you just can't think of anything good to do.

October 9th, 2023

That subject line is unfortunately not a metaphor, Tabs will be off today because I’ve been sick all weekend. It’s just a cold, and I’m getting better. Normal Tabs will probably resume tomorrow.

Cameron lying in bed sick, from the beginning of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

But this gives me a chance to ask you something I’ve always wondered about. When Tabs is off unexpectedly, part of me always wants to send an email telling you that it’s off. But that feels weirdly self-negating, since sending you an email is the job. Like if I send this email, have I even taken the day off? It’s a real “who shaves the busman” type quandary.

So let’s put it to a poll. If the newsletter is going to be off, but I could still create some kind of email telling you that, would you rather I do it or not do it?

I appreciate your input, and I do not promise to use these results for anything but updating my Bayesian priors.

Speaking of which, William Shakespeare is having a moment among the smartest guys in Dumbtown, where following Sam Bankman-Fried’s smooth-brained gambler’s take on whether Shakespeare could possibly have been any good at writing:

Aaron Gwyn tweeted a screenshot from Michael Lewis’ SBF book, with the introduction: “Literary critic, Sam Bankman-Fried, on Shakespeare:” and a screenshot of the text: “I could go on and on about the failings of Shakespeare . . . but really I shouldn't need to: the Bayesian priors are pretty damning. About half the people born since 1600 have been born in the past 100 years, but it gets much worse than that. When Shakespeare wrote almost all Europeans were busy farming, and very few people attended university; few people were even literate-probably as low as ten million people. By contrast there are now upwards of a billion literate people in the Western sphere. What are the odds that the greatest writer would have been born in 1564? The Bayesian priors aren't very favorable.”

Substack founder Hamish McKenzie’s favorite race scientist Richard Hanania has declared that this mythical “greatest writer?” It’s actually him:

Two of the worst tweets of all time, by Richard Hanania who unfortunately writes: “Pretty sure if you gave me a year I could write Shakespeare quality work. Like if someone hadn't read all of Shakespeare and you randomly gave them me or him, on average they couldn't tell the difference. Of course without the blind test people would pretend it wasn't as good.“ And then follows that up with: “I don't have the time of course. But if someone wanted to offer enough money and we could do the experiment I would do it just to prove Shakespeare is fake. We'd just have to find people who don't know Shakespeare, and blindly give them Shakespeare's Hamlet or Hanania version.”
A gif from the Ferris Bueller clip above. Side-shot, Cameron buried in his quilt, staring up at the ceiling. In a monotone, he says: “I’m dying.”

Today in Tabs will be back tomorrow if I survive both this cold and these tweets. If you would like to contribute to my Theraflu fund, please:

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