These are “the good old days”
If you’re healthy, you should probably be happy. You’d spend all of your money to get healthy again if something was seriously wrong. And no 20-year old would trade places with 90-year old Warren Buffett.
You are a verb, not a noun
Where do I begin and end in space? I have relations to the sun and air which are just as vital parts of my existence as my heart. The movement in which I am a pattern or convolution began incalculable ages before the (conventionally isolated) event called birth, and will continue long after the event called death. Only words and conventions can isolate us from the entirely undefinable something which is everything.
Alan Watts - The Great Stream.pdf
Power laws rule everything around us
- US companies are worth more than all companies of the next 10 countries combined [source].
- 5% of US taxpayers pay >65% of the federal income tax [source].
- 1% of the population is responsible for >50% of violent crime [source].
- There are thousands of big cities, but there are about five true World Cities.
- Your best memories will be made with a tiny fraction of all the people you know.
- One project will likely make your whole career.
- One mistake can end your life.
- More examples here.
We will never be “post-scarcity”
Human desires are infinite. As soon as one is fulfilled, two more spring up. Physical reality and network effects also constrain us. Everyone wants to live in a sea-side mansion right next to all of their friends and family, good schools, restaurants, and no crime.
Markets should be free
Free markets are the best mechanism we have for people to communicate and fulfill needs and desires. Distorting them should only be done as a last resort. Basic Economics (2000) by Thomas Sowell lays out the arguments well.
Wealth can be created and destroyed
Building things is good because it creates wealth, and does not take wealth away from other people.
Destroying things is bad because it destroys wealth, and “insurance” doesn’t magically make that not so.
Paul Graham’s essay How to Create Wealth (2004) is good.
United States is a rare win-win society
In America, most wealthy people become wealthy by satisfying other people’s needs at scale, and thus making their society better.
This is beautiful — and fragile. It’s not true in most countries. And in some countries, most wealthy people become wealthy by making their society worse through corruption and violence.
The scale of things matters
Volume increases as a cube, while surface area increases as a square. A small startup can outperform a large company. A niche subculture can only emerge in a large-enough city.
“With my family, I’m a communist. With my close friends, I’m a socialist. At state level, I’m a liberal. And at the federal level, I’m a conservative”, in a paraphrase of Nassim Taleb.
On Being the Right Size (1926) is a short essay that expounds on this theme.
Aesthetics are important
For the last few decades, a belief of our culture has been that there is no relationship between goodness and beauty. This is obviously false, and there’s plenty of “alpha” to pick up if you properly value beauty.
Nothing is monotonic
Everything has a sweet spot. The optimal number of work meetings is not zero. The optimal minimum wage is not $infinity/hr.
Immigration is good, with limits
I’m an immigrant and I think that the US should welcome as many hard-working immigrants as possible. I understand that this can have negative effects on other countries, but I am a selfish American now and hopefully other countries will thereby be motivated to improve.
Because nothing is monotonic, I don’t think that borders should be entirely open. And since it seems that more people want to come in than Americans want to let in, we should turn away those who do not want to work hard.
Nothing happens “to” you
You are always an active participant in reality. Of course, remembering that is a constant struggle. It’s worth having some practice to get better at it.
It may be fruitful to examine how things that you claim not to want in your life actually serve you. Sasha Chapin’s essay on Deep Okayness (2022) was an interesting introduction to this idea for me.
A work of art is good if and only if it is not possible to explain it
The purpose of art is to communicate directly with the right hemisphere. Your language self should be left wondering what it all means.
Why is art beneficial? The left hemisphere runs our daily experience, imposing labels and categories onto reality that is fundamentally unlabelable. It feels good to break free of the tyranny of language, even if for just a spell.
For more on the difference between the hemispheres, Dr Iain McGilchirst is a good resource.
You may well be host to multiple consciousnesses
I find the split-brain experiments and psychotherapy methods that treat you as a set of selves (e.g. Internal Family Systems) fascinating. I think we will learn much more in the next decades.
You may be a part of a larger consciousness
Similarly, I’m inclined to believe that an interconnected system of conscious parts (people) is probably itself conscious (the Internet, the Earth, the Universe… maybe a Slack workspace!).
Think about where your consciousness comes from. There is no single neuron or even a group of neurons that can be said to “be you.” You are the interconnected system of all your cells and parts.
There is something in our environment that is making us obese
I was reasonably convinced by A Chemical Hunger, a set of articles that argued that the worldwide obesity epidemic is not due to lack of exercise, increased calories, or a shift in macronutrient allocation — but rather novel contaminants in our environment.
I believe that a modestly funded research program could quickly make significant headway by following some of their hypotheses (e.g. measure lithium content in drinking water and food products in different parts of the country).
Artificial Super-Intelligence is coming
Getting it right is probably the most important thing to be working on, but it’s hard to see the shape of the forest when you’re a single blade of grass.
Inspired by https://nabeelqu.co/principles and https://nat.org.