The sum of vices is constant

I delete Instagram from my phone.

Should have done it sooner. Having it on the computer is enough.

The same day I read Dagens Industri. Click into the American index, the S&P 500.

I have deliberately invested only in global funds, to avoid spending time on the market.

But the curve with its falling peaks says something. If you don't care about earnings or news, only about the curve.

I study more that evening. The lows, admittedly, are getting higher too.

I sell.

The day after. Crash.

But did I do the right thing?

The time I save on Instagram now goes to the market. Even though I'm no longer invested.

I'm also following the collapse of Aschenbrenner. A twenty-four-year-old Wall Street star who wrote a manifesto on AI and started a hedge fund, leveraged to the hilt. Now the crash, the leverage and the short positions are making him lose almost everything. Thirty-five billion dollars.

I think about Aschenbrenner's letter to the fund's investors.

Don't want to admit it's with schadenfreude. But surely an interest in someone's suffering is… exactly that.

Dinner at a restaurant. Best food I've had in a long time. I mostly cook at home otherwise. Except for all the sandwiches and cappuccinos.

I go to the bathroom to see what's happened. Six different tabs on my phone.

Back at the table. L puts an arm around my aching neck. I'm absent.

I go home early to lie in bed with the laptop, following news and indexes.

I read about AI companies investing in each other. Money going around between the companies in a circle. The revenue shows in the earnings while the debts are tucked away.

More crashes. Especially in South Korea.

In the middle of all this, Aschenbrenner is getting married.

I wonder how they're doing.

Is Aschenbrenner standing in the church in California with his phone? Talking to ruined investors on AirPods while the priest marries them?

Aschenbrenner on AirPods with an investor.

Meanwhile the priest: “Do you take…?”

Aschenbrenner: “No. Hold on a moment, I mean yes!”

I search for more facts about the wedding. Not sure why it interests me so much.

The wedding seems to have taken place. His wife works in AI too. Maybe that eases it. Or makes it even worse.

My shoulders and back hurt more and more.

S says I should see a chiropractor. But I've seen on Instagram how they crack necks like perch.

I check the charts. But not my screen time. That one is rising.

An artist once taught me the expression: The sum of vices is constant.

I drink more wine. No point cutting back. Then something else gets going.

I install Instagram again. Only then do I stop following the market.

All my vices are harmless.

Best to protect them.

I think about Aschenbrenner. Not because he lost everything. But because he'll do it again.