The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 18 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Shane Parrish Snuck Two Undetected AI Paragraphs Into His Bestselling Book
“So I put two paragraphs in Clear Thinking that are completely AI generated. My editor couldn't tell, and to date, no reader has correctly guessed the paragraphs that are completely generated by AI.”
Parrish Admits to Regularly Violating Canadian COVID Lockdown Bubble Restrictions
“From somebody who, me, violated the law on a regular basis during this in Canada, because I had a bubble of people that was more than two households, and, you know, we had a teacher involved, and we had all these other things involved, and you know, I had neig…”
Parrish: Portions of this podcast episode are narrated by an AI voice clone
“Parts of this episode are entirely read by AI, an AI version of me, and I'm playing around with AI a lot, and I'm so curious.”
Shane Parrish raises prices when busy to deter new clients
“If I'm super busy, I'm going to price it more because I actually kind of want you to say no, but if you're going to say yes, then I'll make it work, but it's at a certain price. And so the pricing that we use is dynamic in some ways.”
Parrish: Always spend money to create time rather than time to create money
“I approach time as something like it's finite. I don't get more of it. And what I value is optionality. So I will always Try to spend money to create time versus spending time to create money in that sense.”
Parrish: Require unsolicited long documents to be physically mailed as friction
“So what I've started asking people to do to add friction,
Is, oh, well, why don't you print that and mail it to me?
And if it's worth your time to print and mail it to me, it's something I'll look at.
And if it's not worth your time to print and mail it to me,…”
Parrish: Refuses outside investors to maintain total capital allocation freedom
“I don't have a fund. I don't have outside investors. Why? Cause I don't like that structure. I don't want to answer to other people. I don't want to. And if I want to save up money for three years and do nothing, then I can do that. And if I want to chuck 80% …”
Shane Parrish Netted Just Fifty Cents Profit Per Self-Published Hardcover
“Like, people don't understand the economics of self-publishing from a hardcover perspective. Sort of like audio and Kindle are great because the margins are good, but from a hardcover perspective, we were paying eight dollars U.S., seven dollars U.S., Approxim…”
Shane Parrish started Farnam Street anonymously while employed by an intelligence agency
“My thinking behind this, I worked for an intelligence agency at the time. I was not allowed to have a website. I was not allowed to have a public profile. I wasn't even allowed to do what I was doing.”
Parrish framed a critical NYT comment to motivate himself to work harder
“There was this time, a comment on the New York Times profile that they wrote on me And it literally, you know, I framed it, and I put it in the office, and it was like this guy's enjoying his 15 minutes of fame. And it drove me to be better and to work harder …”
Parrish: My intelligence agency became the poster child for bureaucracy over 15 years
“I worked for a three letter agency. Started pre nine, 11. And by the time I left, you know, circa 20 16 ish we became. Like the poster child for bureaucracy. And that all happened over these sort of like 1415 years that I was there, and so it went from high pa…”
Parrish: Going to the gym daily is easier than four days weekly
“For me, I can't go to the gym four days a week. I have to go every day. I would find it harder to go four days a week.”
Parrish: Legally Prohibited From Naming His Former Intelligence Agency Employer
“Oh, I worked in an intelligence agency.
[1892] Susan Cain: Oh, wow.
[1893] Shane Parrish: Yeah.
[1894] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1894] Susan Cain: Do you mean the CIA or a different one?
[1897] Shane Parrish: A three-letter agency that I'm not actually allowed to nam…”
Parrish: Used work as an escape to avoid processing divorce
“And I did this when I first got divorced. I mean, I avoided dealing with what I needed to process and what I needed to look at and how I needed to go through this. And the way that I did that was diving into work.”
Parrish schedules three-hour podcast interviews to eliminate time pressure
“One of the reasons that we book three hours is because then there's no time pressure. There's no, you're not thinking about, oh, I only have an hour. I got to fit all this in. And so it's just, I am here in this moment for this length of time. And it all, it n…”
Parrish started a custom homeschooling program for his kids in February 2020
“At the end of February, sort of, I started a school to plan for this, right? And I call it the kids are in charge. And we hired a teacher and we have like regular programming from 8:30 to sort of one 30 and we used to do coding from one 30 to four 30.”
Parrish: I stopped using my phone around my kids
“That's why I don't use my phone when I'm around my kids anymore. Because I realized at some point, maybe three or four years ago, that, like, I was just trying to, like, sneak in an email here or there, you know, trying to manage things, and then I just realiz…”