pg – @habits

22 random learnings from 2022

1
As you become an adult, you realize that things around you weren’t just always there; people made them happen. But only recently have I started to internalize how much tenacity *everything* requires. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects.
https://twitter.com/collision/status/1529452415346302976

2
…even up against powerful prescription medications like Adderall and Modafinil: sleep and all sport categories are in the top-10 for every metric, weightlifting and low-intensity exercise are ranked 1st and 2nd for “probability of having a positive effect”, and weightlifting is ranked 3rd for “probability of changing your life
https://troof.blog/posts/nootropics/

3
And so we began. At the time it felt like a fun project, but not any sort of life-changing decision. The big moments rarely do, I think, and the danger of retroactive mythologizing is that it makes people want to hold out for something dramatic, rather than throwing themselves into every opportunity.
from Sid Meier’s memoir

4
Today the CO2 exhalation of all machines greatly exceeds the exhalation of all animals and even approaches the volume generated by geological forces.
from Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants (I think)

5
When people look at Quentin Tarantino, they see a mad creative with a singular talent for making original movies. But Tarantino’s originality begins with imitation. He’s famous for replicating and building upon scenes from other movies, and he once said: “I steal from every single movie ever made.”
https://perell.com/essay/imitate-then-innovate/

6
This realignment would not be traditional right vs left, but rather land vs cloud, state vs network, centralized vs decentralized, new money vs old money, internationalist/capitalist vs nationalist/socialist, MMT vs BTC, and (perhaps most symbolically) Hamilton vs Satoshi
https://nakamoto.com/bitcoin-becomes-the-flag-of-technology/

7
Lessin’s five steps:
1. The Pre-Internet ‘People Magazine’ Era
2. Content from ‘your friends’ kills People Magazine
3. Kardashians/Professional ‘friends’ kill real friends
4. Algorithmic everyone kills Kardashians
5. Next is pure-AI content which beats ‘algorithmic everyone’
https://stratechery.com/2022/instagram-tiktok-and-the-three-trends/

8
The UN estimates that 5 African countries will be amongst the 10 most populated in the world by 2100:
-Nigeria
-the Democratic Republic of Congo
-Ethiopia
-Tanzania
-Egypt
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/10/for-world-population-day-a-look-at-the-countries-with-the-biggest-projected-gains-and-losses-by-2100/

9
Yes, prices would fall and keep falling as technology and a free market did away with a false construct of needing more growth to pay for prices that were only manipulated higher through money printing in the first place. With prices falling to their natural level, and on a path to free, the entire infrastructure required to support price inflation, which was only caused by ignoring the free market, will fall away.
View at Medium.com

10
AIs can be used to generate “deep fakes” while cryptographic techniques can be used to reliably authenticate things against such fakery. Flipping it around, crypto is a target-rich environment for scammers and hackers, and machine learning can be used to audit crypto code for vulnerabilities. I am convinced there is something deeper going on here. This reeks of real yin-yangery that extends to the roots of computing somehow
https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/the-dawn-of-mediocre-computing

11
Bitcoin is here to stay because it is cheap and easy to bring into existence. It is a networked phenomenon that emerges out of equal peers, not unlike electricity and the internet before it. The fear of Bitcoin ceasing to exist arises out of a deep misunderstanding of the nature of these phenomena. It is akin to asking: “What if electricity goes away?”
https://dergigi.com/2022/10/02/bitcoin-is-digital-scarcity/

12
most are just technical ways to reframe the problem: play it faster, play it slower, change the order, change the instruments, add repetition, remove repetition.…They never seem to discuss or argue over these changes, they just play it to see if it works.
https://medium.com/fluxx-studio-notes/10-lessons-in-productivity-and-brainstorming-from-the-beatles-ea14385e27a4

13
In 2020, EVs made up 5.6% of all new car sales in China. Last year, the proportion was over 13%. For 2022, the data shows that EVs will comprise roughly a quarter of all cars sold. This is a case study on how quickly a market can turn

14
In practice, the freakishly specific nature of the stuff ambitious kids have to do in high school is directly proportionate to the hackability of college admissions. The classes you don’t care about that are mostly memorization, the random “extracurricular activities” you have to participate in to show you’re “well-rounded,” the standardized tests as artificial as chess, the “essay” you have to write that’s presumably meant to hit some very specific target, but you’re not told what
http://www.paulgraham.com/lesson.html

15
…opportunity and optionality are often inversely correlated. The challenge is that the greatest rewards generally go to people who are tied down in certain ways. People can only become world-class at things they commit to. Ultimately, the more hesitant people are about making commitments, the higher the rewards are for people who do.
https://perell.com/essay/hugging-the-x-axis/

16
Tezuka himself was a strong admirer of Disney animation, as were many of Japan’s pioneer animators. Even today Japanese animators are strongly aware of American animation. But, virtually from the start, postwar Japanese animation has tended to go in a very different direction, not only in terms of its adult orientation and more complex story lines but also in its overall structure. It is important to emphasize the link between television and Japanese animation in terms of anime’s narrative structure and overall style…This serial quality was also reinforced by animation’s connection with the ubiquitous manga, which emphasized long-running episodic plots as well.

17
One of the best ways of accumulating emotion is to go as rapidly as possible from one take to the next. The actor begins the second take on the emotional level he reached at the end of the first take. Sometimes I don’t even cut the camera. I’ll say quietly, “Don’t cut the camera—everybody back to their opening positions and we’re going again. OK from the top: Action!”
http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=36326

18
I spent a morning on a Naha beach working out with Fumiyasu Yamakawa, a one-time banker. Every day at 4:30 a.m., he cycled to the beach, swam a half hour, ran a half hour, did yoga, and then met with a group of other Okinawan seniors who stood in a circle and laughed. “Why is that?” I asked. “It’s vitamin S,” he said. “You smile in the morning and it fortifies you all day long.”
From the book Blue Zones

19
The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it — perhaps as much more valuable as roots are more vital than grafts. It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection and opposition; this is the trial heat which innovation must survive before being allowed to enter the human race
From the book Lessons of History

20
Lorecraft is clearly a strikingly millennial school of management thinking. All the thinkers who belong in this tradition are, as far as I can tell, between about 28-35 or so. They are firmly middle-of-the-pack millennials. Founders of startups who seem to practice a sort of management by lorecraft, such as Conor White-Sullivan of Roam Research, are also in this cohort.
https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/lands-of-lorecraft

21
That carbon dioxide in every exhale has weight, and we exhale more weight than we inhale. And the way the body loses weight isn’t through profusely sweating or “burning it off.” We lose weight through exhaled breath. For every ten pounds of fat lost in our bodies, eight and a half pounds of it comes out through the lungs; most of it is carbon dioxide mixed with a bit of water vapor. The rest is sweated or urinated out. This is a fact that most doctors, nutritionists, and other medical professionals have historically gotten wrong. The lungs are the weight-regulating system of the body.
From the book Breath (more highlights here)

22
Van Gogh was a prolific painter. For a while, he painted a painting every single day. He still only produced 900.
Gauguin: 516. Cezanne: 1300. Picasso: 1885
https://twitter.com/swombat/status/1488306608908259331

PG on what startup founders need to unlearn from schooling (an oldie but goodie)

Why did founders tie themselves in knots doing the wrong things when the answer was right in front of them? Because that was what they’d been trained to do. Their education had taught them that the way to win was to hack the test. And without even telling them they were being trained to do this. […] That’s why the conversation would always start with how to raise money, because that read as the test. It came at the end of YC. It had numbers attached to it, and higher numbers seemed to be better. It must be the test

And

In practice, the freakishly specific nature of the stuff ambitious kids have to do in high school is directly proportionate to the hackability of college admissions. The classes you don’t care about that are mostly memorization, the random “extracurricular activities” you have to participate in to show you’re “well-rounded,” the standardized tests as artificial as chess, the “essay” you have to write that’s presumably meant to hit some very specific target, but you’re not told what

Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/lesson.html?viewfullsite=1

Quotes! The way to fame goes through the palaces, the way to happiness goes through the markets, the way to virtue goes through the deserts.

I’ve highlighted my favorites. December was the last quotes post, so my apologies – there are quite a few!

let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us – Hebrews 12

Alexander the Great met a naked wise man, a gymnosophist. Alexander asked, “What are you doing?” and the gymnosophist answered, “I’m experiencing nothingness.” Then the gymnosophist asked, “What are you doing?” and Alexander said, “I am conquering the world.” And they both laughed.

Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past – Lily Tomlin

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. – Litany against Fear, used by the Bene Gesserit

Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. – George Saunders

Gossip is black magic at its very worst because it is pure poison. We learned how to gossip by agreement. When we were children, we heard the adults around us gossiping all the time, openly giving their opinions about other people. They even had opinions about people they didn’t know. Emotional poison was transferred along with the opinions, and we learned this as the normal way to communicate. – Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

“Ask someone to give a description of the personality type which he finds most despicable, most unbearable and hateful, and most impossible to get along with,” writes Edward Whitmont, “and he will produce a description of his own repressed characteristics….These very qualities are so unacceptable to him precisely because they represent his own repressed side; only that which we cannot accept within ourselves do we find impossible to live with in others.”

Every time you wake up and ask yourself, “What good things am I going to do today?” remember that, when the sun goes down at sunset, it will take a part of your life with it. – an Indian proverb

You should be truthful; you should avoid wrath; you should give to those who ask, because they ask for small things. You will become holier by following these three paths. – Dhammapada, a book of Buddhist wisdom

Is there anything more absurd than a person having a right to kill me because we live on two opposite banks of the river, and our kings quarrel with each other? – Blaise Pascal

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself. – John Steinbeck

A lot of us think everyone else is living in Maslow’s Basement, while we’re in the Penthouse.

All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits – William James

Eternity is in love with the creations of time. – Blake

People are insanely self-conscious. People act like they’re always being watched. Even their house is a performance. – Elaine Miller

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. – Proverbs 4:7, King James Bible

Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most. – Abe Lincoln

Who are…the greatest benefactors of the living generation of mankind? I should say: ‘Confucius and Laotze, the Buddha, the Prophets of Israel and Judah, Zoroaster, Jesus, Mohammed and Socrates.’ – Toynbee

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou

A deep river is not troubled if you throw a stone into it. If a religious person is hurt by criticism, then he is not a river but a shallow pool. – Saadi

So the Muse whispered in Beethoven’s ear. Maybe she hummed a few bars into a million other ears. But no one else heard her. Only Beethoven got it. – Steven Pressfield

conventional attitudes about work are, without the owners even knowing it, nth-degree imitations of the attitudes of people who’ve done great things. – pg

If you want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, the way to do it is to bait the hook with prestige – pg

To maximize our own contentment, we seek the minimum amount of technology in our lives. Yet to maximize the contentment of others, we must maximize the amount of technology in the world. – Kevin Kelly

Goldie Hawn once observed that there are only three ages for an actress in Hollywood: “Babe, D.A., and Driving Miss Daisy.”

Whoever does not have the stomach for this fight, let him depart, give him his money to speed his departure, since we wish not to die in this man’s company. Whoever lives past today and comes home safely will rouse himself every year on this day and show his neighbor his scars, and tell him stories of their great feats in battle. These stories he will teach his son and from this day until the end of the world we shall be remembered. We few…we happy few…we band of brothers. For whoever has shed his blood with me shall be my brother. And those men afraid to go will think themselves lesser men as they hear of how we fought and died together. – Henry V, Shakespeare

The way to fame goes through the palaces, the way to happiness goes through the markets, the way to virtue goes through the deserts.