If you spend any time in NYC, you’ll hear how it’s “the greatest city in the world.” Hear this enough times, and you start to wonder why they’re so desperate to recruit you into agreement. When I lived there, I came to realize that for all NYC has to offer, it’s not a great life (unless you’re super wealthy, of course). The “Greatest City” boosters need you to convince them that it’s worth overpaying for daily annoyance, aggression, and indignities.

So I always used to say, “if you have to keep telling me that it’s great, maybe it’s not really that great.” I was fun at a party; this article in human form.

Anyway, Empires Fall. It’s happened before, we just get to live through this one. It may not be exceptional, but at least it will be the greatest of all collapses: https://vimeo.com/mboezi/empires-fall-022521