Matt Paul

Visual Journalist

[hinterlander @yoltartar]

Building codes are a silent scourge on society. Many people think they're for safety, and some small portion of the code is, but the rest is for enforcing a rigid aesthetic, selling building materials, contractor convenience, and pure superstition. The safety track record isn't even good: lives have been destroyed by mold caused by unscientific building codes, while building scientists like Joe Lstiburek fought heroically for decades to get the code to even allow walls that wouldn't trap moisture in humid climates, let alone mandate them. Meanwhile smart builders defied the law by getting the inspection done and then slashing open the mandatory vapor barriers with a utility knife.

The fact is, the people who write the code aren't really checking whether it works or not, and it takes decades to find out. There's also nobody responsible for doing a holistic cost-benefit analysis, because the cost of code compliance is paid by citizens who have no insight or control over the process that produces the code. And it gets worse every three years because the International Code Council has to justify its own existence and they will write new rules for every revision whether we need them or not. Is it any wonder housing keeps getting more expensive, more lifeless, and more generic?

A standardized code also means we build the same everywhere, regardless of landscape and climate. Modern buildings emerge not from their human and natural surroundings but from a CAD interface in an air-conditioned office. They no longer reflect the imagination and ingenuity of individuals, but the collective fears of gutless bureaucrats who never swung a hammer in their life. And the tragedy is that many people don't know what they're missing, it's like a vital nutrient that they've never really tasted, or maybe only vicariously on pinterest.

Yes, there are ways to build around code, for example you can get an engineer to stamp your drawings, but this is expensive, and good luck improvising the design as you go, or using local natural materials whose strength is only validated by thousands of years of tradition and not by lab tests on the output from a factory. In practice, the really interesting buildings are being built by non-boring rich people, renegades, and those living in less regulated areas. The rest of society has suffered a tragic loss and it's covered up by the very dullness of the topic and the fact that most folks treat building like a black art.

People ask me how I learned to build my own house, and I tell them I've gotten a lot from youtube and perplexity, but I think the real answer is I grew up around back-to-land hippies, and building or renovating your own house was just what everyone did. It's what most humans have done for most of our history. Technology has made the process more complicated for sure but I don't think it's beyond ordinary people. Even building to code can be mastered with enough study but it's not fun, it saps all the experimentation and joy and whimsy out of the process and you can see it in the results. Amazing that our culture has become so rich we can afford power, running water, and climate control, and yet at the same time so poor that we're only allowed to enjoy them inside a featureless box on a street of featureless boxes.

[Matt Paul @mattpaulstudio]

@MagicPoopCannon How many times in history did we print $10 trillion dollars? Could the market also be absorbing the inflation?

[Matt Paul @mattpaulstudio]

@MasaruRyuz @naval Jobs have been lost to innovation for thousands of years. Innovation and automation isn't the issue as much as it is re-education and having a workforce willing to evolve. Money is abstract.

[Matt Paul @mattpaulstudio]

@ElonMuskAOC Please buy LiveNation and break them into smaller competitors

[Matt Paul @mattpaulstudio]

@James_M_Doyle_ @clownworld thank you for properly setting your expectations when it comes to tips. It is the expectation of the tip that gets people in a bind. If its meant to be mandatory then companies need to build it into their price so everything is communicated and agreed upon in advance of service

[Edward Snowden @Snowden]

Almost six million people watched this.

[Naval @naval]

Either create wealth or a passive income, or become a monk, or do what you love more than money.

What remains is taming the mind and the body, seeking truth, creating love and art.

The world has nothing to offer you.

And you are free.

[Matt Paul @mattpaulstudio]

@InstagramComms My account was just disabled for no reason. Probably better off if I quit social media.

[Naval @naval]

Social scientists conjure opinionated models, journalists anoint them experts, politicians carry out their orders.

The middle managers of society, exercising power without merit.

True expertise is a rare product of obsession and objectivity.

Nature has no lanes.

[Matt Paul @mattpaulstudio]

@naval exactly what I tell all my conspiracy theorist friends… human nature

[Matt Paul @mattpaulstudio]

@AnthonyQuintano It will only raise the price of goods and services. The answer is not a tax but more innovative thinking to improve or control how each purpose of vehicle transit flows through the city. So many ideas have not even been put on the table yet.

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

The 5 Types of Wealth

Money is NOT the only type of wealth.

There are 5 types:
• Financial (money)
• Social (relationships)
• Physical (health)
• Mental (knowledge, health)
• Time (freedom)

The pursuit of financial wealth can rob you of the others.

Don't let that happen.

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

Time Billionaire

Time is our most precious asset.

When you're young, you are a "time billionaire”—rich with time.

Too many people fail to realize the value of this asset until it is gone.

Treat time as your ultimate currency—it’s all you have and you can never get it back.

[Matt Paul @mattpaulstudio]

@AnthonyQuintano That’s my home break

[Naval @naval]

Don’t follow people. Either walk alongside, or not at all.

[Matt Paul @mattpaulstudio]

@NewJerseyOAG @CivilRightsNJ What is being done about the working class discrimination happening in NJ, specifically in Asbury Park last summer? Are we returning to the summer of 1970 when the city was burned down because those in power refused to accept the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

[Naval @naval]

Your success in life depends on your ability to make good decisions. Your happiness depends on your ability to not care about the outcomes.

[Jennifer Sey @JenniferSey]

More than 20 years ago I joined Levi’s. Yesterday I resigned my post as president so that I can use my voice. https://t.co/7UG6TCXqHU

[Matt Paul @mattpaulstudio]

@naval Exactly! So many business owners dismiss this perspective in favor of statistics. Hard to measure the long term benefits of that type of marketing in short term sales and click reports.