J.D. Moyer

sci-fi author, beatmaker

Month: April 2021

Moving Beyond Punishment in Parenting

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On April 24

In Parenting

Recently I’ve been watching the YouTube channel Fenrir Canine Training. I love this trainer’s approach, which is almost entirely based on positive reinforcement and building trust and engagement with the dog. The trainer’s argument against punishing your dog is that the only thing it does is teach the dog to be scared of you.

That makes a lot of sense to me, and I regret that we didn’t fully take this approach when training our own dog (a rescue with a nervous temperament). We deferred to professional dog trainers and assumed they knew better, but some of the techniques they used and recommended we use (like a shock collar) didn’t feel right, and we quickly abandoned them.

The more I think about punishment, the more I believe it doesn’t have any place in any relationship in which you are trying to build trust and engagement. Punishing someone makes sense in the context of a combat sports grudge match (or chess match, for the matter). Punishment is appropriate to dole out to your enemies and adversaries, but not your dog or your kids.

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Why I Opened a Crypto Account

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On April 17

In Money/Personal Finance

About a month ago I opened a Coinbase account. I’d been watching Bitcoin since it’s inception, but had always been reluctant to buy in. I didn’t want to store significant amounts of “money” on a hard drive that might be lost or damaged, or in a password-protected “wallet” that I might lose the password to. I liked the idea of cryptocurrency, but whenever I looked into the details of how to actually acquire and store Bitcoin, I lost steam.

My hesitancy seemed prescient when Mt. Gox (the largest Bitcoin exchange at the time) experienced security breaches, coin theft, bankruptcy, and collapse. I patted myself on the back once again for avoiding crypto when Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX ceased operations and declared bankruptcy, taking the coins of its investors with it. Gerald Cotten, who ran Quadriga from his laptop and kept all the passwords in his head, may or may not have died in India in 2018 (Reddit sleuths are convinced he is alive and well).

But as the price of Bitcoin rose, so did my FOMO. Trump’s four years of reckless spending and tax cuts made me wary for the future of the US dollar as well. What if China decided to peg the yuan to BTC (or to its own national crypto coin) instead of USD? There is no rule that the US dollar will be the global reserve currency forever.

I realized that cryptocurrency was here to stay, and I might as well have a stake in it.

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Index Funds are Getting More Dangerous — What’s the Alternative?

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On April 11

In Money/Personal Finance

The stock market is going crazy. The S&P 500 P/E ratio is at 42 and rising (the historical average is around 15). The Schiller P/E ratio (based on inflation-adjusted earnings over the last ten years) is at 37.

These numbers indicate that the stock market is overbought. Demand for ownership in profitable companies far exceeds supply, so prices of stocks go up. While inflation is contained for the price of milk, inflation is very much NOT contained for assets that interest the rich. Stocks, bonds, crypto, NFTs, etc.

For decades, parking the majority of your savings in a low-cost ETF that tracked the S&P 500 (like VOO or SPY) was the play to make. This strategy has consistently outperformed most mutual funds, hedge funds, and individual stock-picking investors.

But we may be reaching the end game for passive ETF investing. Hedge fundie Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale in The Big Short) has warned about the risks of ETF investing. Passive investing eliminates price discovery. In other words, the S&P 500 includes some extremely overvalued stinkers, with P/E ratios in the hundreds or even thousands. P/E isn’t the only important metric when evaluating the price of a stock, but it’s a risky one to entirely ignore.

Burry also raises concerns about liquidity. All is well when money is flowing into ETFs, but what happens when money flows out? As Burry said, “The theater keeps getting more crowded, but the exit door is the same as it always was.”

So what are we supposed to do with our life savings (if we’re fortunate enough to have any)? Keep it all in cash, and lose to inflation every year? Buy lumps of valuable metals and squirrel them away in a safe deposit box? All well and good until Elon Musk brings home a gold-nugget asteroid and the price plummets. Buy Bitcoin? Bitcoin is just as inflated as everything else, being an asset of limited supply that interests the rich.

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Two Supplements That May Clean Out Your Arteries

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On April 3

In Health/Body-hacking

Atherosclerosis, the buildup of cholesterol, fats, and calcium in arterial walls, is a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. Some people are more genetically susceptible, but lifestyle factors play a huge role in the development of this disease. High blood pressure, smoking, obesity, and high blood sugar levels all contribute to the development of atherosclerosis.

Most conventional treatments, such as quitting smoking, reducing sodium, or adding statins, aim to slow the progression of the disease. Some supplements, such as aged garlic and coenzyme Q10, may also slow progression. A plant based diet may also be protective.

But can atherosclerosis actually be reversed, either partially or completely? Can we clean out our arteries?

Short answer: we don’t know yet. But there are two supplements I take based on limited evidence that they may reverse atherosclerosis.

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