Podcast notes: David Sinclair’s Lifespan podcast on longevity benefits of exercise, heat, and cold

David Sinclair (DS)
Lifespan podcast

Notes from last episode:
-Too much iron can accelerate aging
-Typically long lived have low iron levels
-So limit meat intake – red meat high in iron
-Also multivitamins w/ iron

Recs from last episode:
-Plant-based diet
-Low iron levels
-Eat less often
-DS eats one meal / day

Found mutant worm living 2x longer – single gene mutation – was insulin receptor gene
Start of revolution in manipulating genes for health and longevity
It’s related to stress resistance

Modern society is too comfortable
Need to find more of the right stressors
Examples: fasting / IF, exercise
Sitting down is bad for you – muscles atrophy, testosterone decreases

Get moving!
Exercise can slow down and even prevent cancer
Reduces all cause mortality
Walking after meal controls glucose
Both low and high intensity exercise

High intensity = hypoxia = panting and can’t carry on a chat
Turns on helpful genes
Generates free radicals
Mitochondrial hormesis

Aging reduces glucose sensitivity – and exercise increases it

Can measure biological age now (Horvath Clock) – exercise slows down this clock
Insight Tracker blood test to do this test

Standard sex isn’t aerobic / intense enough, and only lasts on average 5 minutes

Recommends 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week = ~10 minutes / day

Less than 50 resting heart rate is good target

Benefits of weight training
-DS does it every other day or more
-Maintains hormones (eg, testosterone), posture, aesthetic
-Lose muscle mass as you get older – breaking hip is major risk to mortality
-Thighs, butt, back muscles – large muscle groups – most impact on testosterone

Senescent cells – zombie cells, can secrete damaging chemicals and don’t have any benefits
Exercise kills senescent cells

Overall takeaways
1. Low intensity exercise – “get off your butt” – 4K steps / day
2. High intensity exercise – 10 mins / day, lose your breath
3. Muscle building – weights, pushups + situps

Hyperbaric chambers = low oxygen environments, mimicking hypoxia
Study of daily sessions ~90 minutes
Showing cognitive improvements
Improve dementia / Parkinson’s
Seems to work similar to exercise
Impact on telomere length (anti-aging)

Benefits of COLD exposure
Production of brown fat (beige fat) – found in babies, helps them stay warm
Adults have brown fat, mostly on back
When cold, this revs up metabolism, burns white fat, and improves overall health
Reduces free radical load

Dwarf mice living 3x longer than normal mice
They were shivering (didn’t have companion)
With buddy, the life extension went away (!) – because they weren’t shivering (no longer cold)
Old mice don’t make brown fat as well as young mice – why you shouldn’t wait to do it

Ways to get cold therapy
-Cold showers
-Sleep with little or no clothes / covers
-Ice baths

Benefits of HEAT exposure
One of most ancient therapies
Now in Finland, Scandinavia

Men who sauna bathe a few times a week have dramatic reduction in heart attacks and cardio disease
Activates heat shock proteins
Not sure what dosing is right – but no evidence so far you can over do it

DS used to do heat sauna + ice bath cycles multiple times (reader beware)

Some evidence that infrared sauna can have additional benefits (over dry sauna)

Lecture notes: The Meaning Crisis by cogsci prof John Vervaeke

University of Toronto professor Dr. John Vervaeke
Lecture series

Symptoms:
-Sense of more bullshit everywhere
-People lost trust in authority
-Can see this evidence in public media, academia

We’re spending too much time in online environments, social media

Why are zombies and superheroes so big rn?
These myth forms are cultural expression of feeling “stuck”

Meaning crisis – interdependent with other crises like environmental crisis, political crisis

Wisdom = realizing meaning in life in a profound way
(“wizard” root = wise)

Questions
1. What is this meaning?
2. Why do we hunger for it?
3. How do we cultivate the wisdom to realize it?
4. Why do we seek to alter consciousness? Not just us, but animals do too!

Subset of mystical experiences are crucial – “awakening experiences” – “quantum change”

The same (mental) machinery that makes you intelligent also makes you foolish

We’re very belief centric – very focused on ideologies – but there’s many more kinds of knowing

Therapy is booming – because of meaning crisis, because loss of the many kinds of knowing

No simplistic answers, but will try best to offer rational, careful answers

Paleolithic revolution – 40K BCE
Radical changes
1. Start making cave paintings, music
2. Radical change in cognition – use of calendars, tracking time
3. Develop projectile weapons – throwing spears, slings

Why did it occur?
Near extinction event
To protect themselves, create broader trading networks
Widens scale for human cognition
Cognition is participatory

Rituals make this work
1. trade rituals – eg, handshakes
2. initiation rituals
3. shamanic rituals

Initiation rituals
As you interact more out-group, weakens in-group ties
So initiation / commitment rituals grow
Requires pain and fear = shows commitment
Must improve ability to regulate emotion

Exaptation = evolutionary mechanism
eg, using tongue for speech, but not evolved primarily for this purpose (primary = taste / poison detector)

Shamanic rituals
Take enhanced perspective on others – “mind sight”
Shamanism = altering consciousness to control mental and emotional states
Archetype – wise old man (Yoda, Merlin)
Shamans improve a group’s healthcare, coordination, wisdom
Shamanism thesis = explains rise in cognition
Not hardware but software change

You’re a natural born cyborg = evolved to integrate with machines = your clothes, shoes, pens, computers, desks, literally everything except your naked body

This can apply to not only physical but intangible / cognitive things too (psycho tech)
eg, literacy

Shamanism = sleep deprivation, long periods of singing + dancing, imitation / masks, social isolation
Psychedelics
Altering consciousness
Disrupting how you find patterns in world
How you find patterns is profound

Shamanism teaches you HOW to disrupt patterns and gain new insight
Participatory knowing
Enhancing your cognition by manipulating the meaning of things

Podcast notes: Performance psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais on Tim Ferriss

from Tim’s Fearless show
guest Dr. Michael Gervais

Felix Baumgartner jumped from highest point ever
became claustrophobic in space suit – was about to scrub the project
asked Dr. Gervais to assist

How to extinguish fear
1. Systematic desensitization
2. Flooding

Flooding – if fear response, put them in environment until they no longer experience the fear, overwhelm them

Fears become loops – tension and exit

Systematic desensitization – arousal control and thought management
List fear triggers, and systematically put them into those environments, manage heart rate and emotional response

Surfing was huge part of his life – but his anxiety during it prevented him from pursuing it professionally
Fine with free surfing, but not with judges / fans
Brain became overloaded

Met 3 professors who changed his life
Art of Seeing book
Did a one week survival course with just that book, pen & paper, and can’t meet anyone for a week

Figuring out who you are is largest work you can do as a person
How to articulate this in 1-20 words
Words that make your heart skip a beat

Jesus: Love
Buddha: Love and Kindness
MLK: Equality

Tim’s philosophy: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

First athlete client, hockey player – has “potential” – but this can be a crippling word

Pre-performance routines
Routines are useful – different from superstitions
1-3 things that are triggers for you to think the right way
When I tie my shoes, what do I say to myself; when I put on my helmet, what do I say to myself

Team routines differ from individual routines

Learnings from Pete Carroll
Begins with relationship – with himself, with team, with staff
3 rules
1. Always protect your team – especially when things are hard
2. No whining, no complaining, no excuses; Own your stuff
3. Be early

Message, “Championship game” / “Championship opportunity” from pre-season

Every game is big, every practice is huge, maximize the moment

Right after “the loss”, Pete Carroll devastated for 2 secs, and then realized: I gotta be there for my guys

Role of mindfulness
-to be centered, be here now
-“invisible process of becoming more aware”

Mindfulness recs
sit and pay attention to one breath at a time
“the practice is the work”
natural state of mind is drunk monkey
integrating senses, and just listen

when you’re around people that are truly mindful, you’ll naturally want it

practice openness, vulnerability, saying the hard things
being present with people is a loving act

how to come back from eg, a super bowl loss
value of front loading a philosophy – being prepared
feel the pain first
only reason people change is because of pain

“know who you are and let it rip”

advice for everyday 9-5
being present
have great conversations
get after it every day, put yourself into emotionally uncomfortable situations so you can adjust

role of Stoicism in his life – know what you can and can’t control

Billboard message to world
“Just fricking love”
“Make a decision. Build capacity. Test yourself.”

Request to audience
your unique journey is determined not by what you DO, but who you ARE. self discovery, share those insights with others
get into rugged hostile environments, what it feels like on razors edge, learn to love it

Podcast notes: Blockchains are cities – Haseeb Qureshi on Bankless

Blockchains are cities – Haseeb Qureshi and Bankless

Haseeb, Dragonfly Capital
“Multichain thesis”

Best metaphor for blockchains is cities eg
Eth is Manhattan
Solana is LA

Blockchains you can’t just add servers and scale
Why?
Core is blockchains = trustless
Rules are set in place, everyone follows them
You must individually be able to verify

If you have to trust a 3rd party or a centralized service, then it’s no longer trustless

Must keep independent verification costs low

Web2 adds servers – speeds up
Web3 adds servers – slows down (more consensus / coordination required)

Different blockchains have different thresholds – BSC and Solana node reqs are very high, BTC and ETH are lower

How to scale a blockchain “city”?
3 approaches
1. rollups = build up (skyscrapers)
2. interoperability networks
3. alt layer ones

ONE – Rollups – extends L1, same trust guarantees, still same core rules – like skyscrapers, pack more in same space
ETH has burning need for more space now – right now it’s like an old city, very flat, lacks the skyscrapers + subways to connect them

TWO – Cosmos / Polkadot – internet of blockchains; same SDK / underlying guts, spin up own blockchain
Not a big supercity but small towns that exist to do one thing – like all mining, or all shops
Osmosis (Cosmos SDK chain) – focused on “Balancer” functionality

In top 100, not many application specific blockchains
Not likely to be lions share of activity
Demand competing for will be valued less highly than general use chains

THREE – Alt layer ones
When cities full, people go build new cities
Cities are far from each other, cultures different
New cities have a lot of redundancy – basic infra, roads, marketplaces, schools
Seems wasteful initially
Advantage is not burdened by technical debt / bad decisions
Can be different from existing cities – from laws to values
Solana is like LA – very far from ETH (NYC) – everything cheap and fast and for builders

Other cities and blockchains

Avalanche – Chicago (3rd largest in US, finance, kinda like NYC, newer and fast growing, next gen Wall Street)

Near – San Francisco (relatively new, but culturally important, embraces ETH2 vision, true believers in decentralization, idealistic)

People don’t really switch between very different cities – they kinda stay in similar places eg Californians stay in Cali, NYers go to Jersey, etc

Blockchains will become increasingly distinct from each other, less commoditized

Will there be power law winners?
Yes, NYC > LA > Chicago etc

Big cities where almost all value is, concentrated in ETH

Skyscrapers are valuable, but skyscraper value is WAY less than a city (LA)

Cross-chain bridges will be extremely valuable

Bankless – sees them not as cities but nation-states (instead L2s are cities, and L1s are nations)
to go between nations, need more verification / security, there’s friction

EVM = constitution = allow cities to sync up
ETH = federal government

Everyone starts friendly, but as competition grows, could start being more aggressive / restrictive

L1 security costs = military = minting of new tokens or transaction fees
Nice thing about L2 is military comes for free – how can alt L1s compete?
Security spending is marginally less valuable after a certain point

What’s trajectory of the chain?
People wanna bet on winners

Both cities and nation states have power law winners at any time

How bullish on non-ETH chains?
“Quite bullish”
Rollups are much harder technically – if a skyscraper falls – much less flexible than alt L1s
From user perspective, best L2 is a vibrant L1, and so far market has reflected that

ETH is amazing except when it’s congested and then it sucks

Bear market is about sentiment – not there right now

Podcast notes: Doodles founder Poopie on Overpriced JPEGs (how to build a blue chip NFT brand)

Poopie (Jordan) – Doodles founder, “product person”

2012 – Bitcoin and Doge communities, built a futures / predictions market
Got hacked, then saw MT Gox hack too

2017 – Cryptokitties took him by surprise – open, can build on it
Made Kittycalc – optimize kitty traits – did it with Topshot cofounder, got interest from Roham
Joined Cryptokitties, worked on Topshot

2021 – talked to Evan, left Dapper to do an NFT project, met burnttoast
Realized they were building a brand

Hypebeast interview – why success?
3 pieces – Community + Artwork + Values (?)
Intentional early in talking to supporters, voice chats
Set right values – eg, don’t talk about floor price
Have rituals – like “pass the rainbow” game
Avoid speculation eg, 1 Doodle = 1 Doodle

at 1100 Discord members, locked it and disabled invites as an experiment – but doesn’t like that trend now of exclusivity and whitelists etc

CryptoKitties lessons —
figuring out collector motivations, and personas
eg, they like to breed things in real life
3 big chapters in CK story – China launch; Steph Curry;

China launch – collaborating with phone OEM to have CryptoKitties mobile app installed – insane expectation of growth; people collecting lucky Chinese numbers, lots of hype, but it fizzled out

3 tracks for Doodles product
1. NFT track
2. consumer goods
3. live events
Each track should cross pollinate
Advisors in each track

Space Doodles is next big release

in 5 years, wanna be Peanuts (Charles Schulz) and 10 years, Disney

want to test and try things, don’t care too much about eg Netflix deal
have community, fans, don’t need to do traditional route

Looking for strategic partners – new hires, advisors
Can easily do 8-figure drop, but not in a rush

8 people on team – technically all contractors

Rather go direct instead of through brokers / intermediaries – eg, to merch manufacturers (in JV style), or animation studios

Nate Alex joining as smart contract advisor (ChainFaces Arena)

How to reach 1M people?
“Cop out answer is merch”

Web3 – transparency, trustlessness – important to share those values

“Art is the hook”

Only 5800 holders

Goals:
1. Have fiat onramps (credit card purchasing)
2. Slick native experience (not Metamask)
3. Build at scale

Cross-licensing Doodles to create derivatives, lets hodlers bootstrap businesses and new collections – which would grow brand but not dilute core Doodles

Deadheads – stake into casting pool, can be cast into shows and new IP

Wrapped NFTs – started with CryptoKitties
Wrapped Doodles will change its look – Space Doodles – and can unwrap
Non dilutive to supply
Only one version can exist at a time – how will this affect supply on OpenSea
Wrap Doodle to play games, enter metaverse, change look

Very intentional to be centralized, but could give back control to community in future
Looking closely at Nouns, Meebits DAO

Northstar vision: Get brand in front of millions

Put to community to approve hires, spend Doodle Bank funds

Doodle Bank – 2K+ subscribed to Snapshot (for proposals voting)
Anyone can share a proposal, vet and develop good ones, and then put to a vote
Passed proposals – expanding team; funding artists for derivatives

Half of royalties go to Doodle Bank, half to founders – but none go to the Doodles LLC (a mistake they’re trying to fix)

Learned a lot from Bored Apes’ permissive license – easy to give more rights, but hard to take away

Open to extending license, cross-licensing – but want to see the proposals / potential partners

Meebits – commercialization up to $100K

Future is multichain – ETH for rich; another chain should rise for entertainment / NFTs

Interested in hand drawn NFT collections
Loved one project, found out its anon dev is his friend!

How to suss a project: Look at roadmap, how feasible it is, not overpromise
Be very careful what you say – words do matter

Team, art, community
Look at their experience
Ask “Where do you see this in 5, 10 years?”