Welcome to Z-Pack: a newsletter guaranteed to make sure you’re not the dumbest at dinner.

If this is your first Z-pack, welcome - I'm Zach.

I’m also chronically online, finding out how the world works, so enjoy the goods.

⬇️ Let’s get to it.

🐝 Did we actually save the bees?

Despite all the raving in the media, it looks like the US bee population stopped dying off, & it’s even plateaued since the 90s!

AND (separate graph), honey production has just been INCREASING, without an increase in the bee population.

Extra good news: This reminds me of how we’ve been able to grow MORE food on the same area of land for many decades now (this is known as “crop yields”).

Credit to @Atelfo on X/Twitter for putting this up.

✈️ Maybe we’re not all nomads.

Less than HALF of Americans took a trip last year, so ignore the Insta influencers trying to convince you you need to be an “unsettled spirit” or some shit. People are fine just chilling.

This reminds me of how, in 1990, only 5% of Americans had a passport.

Despite hysteria + all of the media coverage of Boeing allegedly cutting corners, flying commercially is WAY safer now than ever before, and the real cost* of flights have decreased for decades now.

*real costs means adjusted for inflation

⛏️ Cobalt mining, shmobalt mining

Many of us have heard and seen things going viral about electric vehicles (EVs) being (1) marginally better, if not worse, for the environment, and (2) tanking in the sales department.

Both are wildly untrue.

Sales of EVs are smashing records, especially as China’s EVs flood the world’s markets, which is really pissing off the European car companies because of the cheap competition they’re now up against from China.

Does all of this awesome new tech require mining of things like cobalt? Sure, but let’s not lose the forest for the trees here, either.

We’re just getting better and better at making green technology.

🤳 Which content creator should I trust?

Chris Williamson, a popular YouTuber, drives me nuts sometimes.

He’s a guy who focuses on sharing “modern-day wisdom”, but it’s to a primarily male audience.

Chris usually speaks out against the “woke ideology” - stuff like Diversity/Equity/Inclusion & gender terminology.

But, every now and then, he surprises me.

He asked a very valid question - how do we know who to trust these days online?

In his recent convo with Destiny, a popular live streamer, he laid out a few helpful questions to ask yourself when you’re trying to figure out if you should trust a content creator:

1. When was the last time this person surprised you with an opinion?

2. When was the last time they publicly admitted they were wrong?

3. Does this creator’s “in-group” come together based on mutual love of the group, or based on hate of an outside group?

4. Does this creator speak to people with differing points of view for reasons BESIDES mocking them?

📈 Never bet against Zuck.

For those of you who don’t know him, Nikita knows wtf he’s talking about usually.

He’s made several popular apps for millions of teens and sold them for millions of $$. After Facebook acquired one of his apps, he worked there for a few years until his noncompete expired. When he left Facebook, he created another app and sold it for more millions.

The dude knows how to play the game.

So often people think Facebook is dead and Zuck is past his prime.
But Nikita is here to tell you that Zuck isn’t going anywhere.

Zuck keeps pulling off pivots, running companies that BILLIONS of people everywhere use every day (even if you don’t).

Thanks for taking the Pack,

Zach

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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice or recommendation for any investment. The Content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.