TED talk notes: did you know humans have fewer genes than rice? (talks from John Lloyd, Andrew Hessel, Robert Full)

Every week, I share my notes from great TED talks. Here’s the complete list (pardon the load time, it’s a long page).

Here are 3 sets of brief notes: producer John Lloyd on what’s invisible, researcher Andrew Hessel on synthetic viruses, and biologist Robert Full on the secrets of animal movement.

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What’s invisible? More than you think – John Lloyd

  • we can’t see gravity. it’s the weakest and least understood of our 4 fundamental forces
    • the other three are strong and weak, nuclear
    • me: interestingly gravity is the only one you “feel”
  • we can’t see consciousness
  • Sufi masters say they’re all telepaths
  • initially we thought there were 100K genes in the human genome, continually revised downward, now think only 20K genes
    • rice by comparison has 38K genes (!)
  • every cell in your body is replaced at some point, after 7 years all have been replaced
  • we can’t see beam of light, only what it hits
  • we think there are 100B galaxies but can only observe 5
    • me: one of may reasons why I think there MUST be alien life
  • Thomas Edison: “we don’t know one percent of one millionth about anything”

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Synthetic virology | Andrew Hessel | TEDxDanubia

  • the Pink Army Movement is the exact opposite of a traditional pharma company:
    • not broad-use drugs, but narrow-based
    • not closed, but open-source
    • not for-profit, but non-profit
  • an oncolytic virus is a weak virus that can’t takeover a healthy cell, but can takeover a cancerous cell (which is by definition weaker); the cancer cell then makes copies of the oncolytic virus, the cell dies, and the virus goes on to infect other cancer cells
  • the cost of synthetically printing DNA has been dropping dramatically
  • pharma is the opposite of Moore’s Law
    • me: what a16z jokingly calls eroom’s law (‘Moore’ spelled backward, because the costs of development have risen dramatically while # of approved drugs has fallen dramatically)

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Robert Full: Secrets of movement, from geckos and roaches

  • animals have an array of secrets to move faster, better, up walls, etc
  • gecko feet literally act like tape, they peel onto and away from surfaces, this is intermolecular forces alone (unlike ants whose feet have some of the behavioral properties but use a type of biological glue)
  • other animals have tiny hooks on their feet, like cockroaches, to get more traction
  • still others use their legs to act like a second/supporting foot, for more traction

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Here’s the full list of TED notes!

If you take 5 minutes to pick a restaurant, then you should spend 2 years to plan your career!

tim-ferriss-showI enjoyed Tim Ferriss’s podcast with Will MacAskill who, at 28-years old, is possibly the youngest tenured philosophy professor on the planet, and at Oxford no less.

Will believes people spend FAR too little time planning their careers. To wit:

1. We take five minutes to choose a restaurant for a 2-hour dinner (some of us much more!)

2. That means we spend 5% of our time planning the meal, and 95% eating

3. A normal person will work 80,000 hours in their life (roughly 40 working years, at 40 hours per week; both assumptions are conservative)

4. The same 5%, therefore, would equal 4,000 hours or 2 whole years!

I assume Will would recommend those 4,000 hours be spent throughout your career, and not entirely in a two-year binge (which would drive even the most fanatic planner insane…)

Even with the caveat, we should all spend more time doing things like:

  • researching career paths
  • finding better jobs
  • deciding what skills to develop and why
  • building good systems and habits

By the way, this also means you have PLENTY of time to switch careers…more than once!

Plans are nothing, but planning is indispensable – Eisenhower

Thanks for reading! Here are my ten favorite podcasts.

Redeemer’s Tim Keller on the 4 pitfalls of wealth: “To the rich young ruler, money was his identity”

tim-keller-grace-of-generosityEarly this month, I had the opportunity to hear Tim Keller’s sermon at Redeemer [wikipedia], the Presbyterian church he founded in 1989 and one of NYC’s most popular among young professionals and Asian Americans.

Because of a friend’s recommendation, I’d already read The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness [Kindle] and watched his Google appearance. His talks are wide-ranging, curious, connect-the-dots. Like all good speakers, what he covers is only the surface of a vast iceberg of knowledge about religion, philosophy, and history. He’s very quotable, too. In particular I remember his bit about how Christianity’s God is the only God who loved his creation (humans) so much that he wrote himself into the play (as Jesus).

The Redeemer sermon was great. You can tell he’s invested multiples of the 10K hours it takes to become an expert. On stage, he makes it look easy. His message focused on the pitfalls of wealth, particularly poignant in NYC where money concerns dominate (from residents complaining about soaring apartment rents to Wall Streeters worrying about their bonuses to the meccas of fashion and luxury in SoHo and on Fifth Ave).

Keller begins with a reading from Mark 10:17-31. My religious beliefs are complex and always changing, but I read the Bible and I like going to church. Whatever your spiritual label – Christian, agnostic, Muslim, undecided, meditator, lazy ;) – I believe everyone can benefit from going to church, for the community, the serenity, the music, the permission to ponder big questions.

Thanks Katy for your notes! (parentheses that start with “me:” are my annotations)

Tim Keller: The Grace of Generosity (Redeemer, Dec 2015)

why are wealth and money dangerous?

“To the rich young ruler, money was his identity and he felt good by spending…”

1. money can corrupt

  • things that keep us from god are made worse by money (me: think the 7 sins, pride, envy, greed, lust…)
  • with more money comes more corruption since we have more to lose, more pressure

2. money can be an addiction you’re blind to the presence of

  • “the more money you have the less you believe you have” – which makes you less generous to the world

3. money can lull you into a false sense of security

  • when people think money makes them safe, they aren’t really (me: accidents, acts of violence, self-fulfilling); and they’re not prepared for the day of wrath (me: when things go to shit)
  • when we’re good at making money we believe we’re good at other things and therefore that we’re better than others

4. money can make you prideful

  • the pride that comes from wealth takes us further from God
  • pride prevents us from repenting, which is the most important skill

PS. I am starting a new project, tentatively called “A Good Life” (or maybe “A Better Life”?), a journey to educate myself and others on how to build a good life for yourself, by studying books, philosophers, current events, etc. For simplicity’s sake, good in this context = meaningful = fulfilled = happy. Expect the first video soon!

Denim time machine

He hops down the front porch steps in faded denim jeans
arms and legs a-kimbo, mind flush with fantasies
a kick of the earth, a soaring leap, a slap of an old oak tree
He winces and yelps – looks back – then giggles mischievously

Boy can he run (he’ll show you!) and crawl and jump and fight
show off wrestling moves on Dad with all his might
He gets grown ups, talks their talk, knows the responsibility
Get married, buy a house, find a job, and that’s just the beginning

But for now he lives in these jeans, he wears them all the time,
this hole is from his bike, that tear is from his climb
Mom says he’ll grow big soon, they’ll have to buy new ones
but she says that every day, and tomorrow hasn’t come

And if tomorrow does, he’ll hardly see himself
A boy now big and strong, he’ll look like someone else
and on that day he’ll think, of those faded folded jeans
lying in a bedroom drawer, a denim time machine

This poem was inspired by Rainer Rilke’s A Child in Red.

TED talk notes: Chris Ryan on why humans are promiscuous but gorillas are not

Every week, I share my notes from great TED talks. Here’s the complete list (pardon the load time, it’s a long page).

Here are two talks from Chris Ryan about sex. I took notes on both, but the notes were smushed together like a chicken pot pie so it’s not clear what set of notes are from which talk.

Chris Ryan on sex

  • humans are more related to chimps and bonobos than one elephant species to another
  • the standard narrative: men trade resources for sex, a woman’s fidelity, and childcare
    • this has been the narrative since Darwin’s time
    • but it sets up male vs female as competing, oppositional genders
  • the standard narrative is wrong; instead, it’s about sperm competition INSIDE the woman’s reproductive tract, within an ovulatory cycle
  • this is fierce egalitarianism — everything is shared, which is the smartest way to survive in a foraging society
  • monogamous primates (gorillas, gibbons) have small testicles and penii
  • …while promiscuous primates (humans, chimps) have larger testicles and penii
    • the human female is rare in being available for sex through her ENTIRE menstrual cycle
    • humans have testicles in a sac outside of the body to keep them cool so they’re available for sex at any time
    • A chimp’s swollen ass signals she’s available for sex with different males; this confused Darwin because he expected a pair-bonding relationship
  • our sex act to birth ratio is 1000 to 1, whereas for gorillas (monogamous) is 10 to 1
    • most mammals don’t have sex unless there’s a good chance of fertilizing
    • why do we have so much sex? we use sex to develop complex social networks — common in intelligent social species like dolphins and chimps
    • sex is like vegetarianism — it’s healthy, it’s social
  • examples
    • in a SW China village, women and men are sexually autonomous, both have many sexual partners; when woman has a child, it’s cared for by her, her sisters and her brothers; the biological father is a non-issue
    • in a S American (?) village, children are viewed as product of many men’s sperm, so if you want a strong, smart, and funny child, you have sex with those types of partners; the partners all recognize the role they played in fathering the child

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Here’s the full list of TED notes!