Tag: wait but why

Podcast notes: Tim Urban (Wait But Why) on Lex Fridman

Lex Fridman interviews Tim Urban (writer of Wait But Why)

I wonder how small intelligent life gets – or how big

Humans operate at multiple social levels – can be independent individuals, and can be colonies / collectives

Humans are roughly in the middle of the biggest and smallest measurable things (biggest = observable universe; smallest = subatomic particles)

How many alien civilizations?
“Teeming with life”
Estimates of 27M intelligent civilizations in Milky Way alone
But we don’t observe any

Lex: Our understanding of intelligence and consciousness is very human centric – probably very limited and science is very young

No human can make a pencil by themselves

Tim: If a witch casts a spell on humanity and all material things disappears, goal is to make one working iPhone 13 and she’ll reverse the spell. How could we do it? Requires materials, factories, teams, tools

Think of how much work and infrastructure and invention required to just get food delivered to you at click of a few buttons

Elon says need 1M people on Mars to be truly multi planetary
Could be war in space for territory, tribalism (Mars v Earth)

America was first modern democracy and now there are many more – founders tried to make the ideal country

Tim: $10K bet that a human will set foot on Mars by 2030 – should be a massive global event
2030s will be new 1960s, new space decade
Greatest adventure in history – hopefully a great uniting event
SpaceX makes me proud to be a human

What makes Elon so successful?
Lots of people have his talents, but he’s sane in the way that everyone else is crazy
We’re not adapted to our modern hyper populated hyper connected world
He’s willing to question conventional wisdom, trust his reasoning
“He just does things his own way”

Hate is on the rise
Inputs are human nature (which doesn’t change much) + environment = behavior
Something in environment is changing = changing behavior
The good is getting better and the bad is getting worse
Feels like we’re headed toward an important fork between an incredible and a terrible future

“Political Disneyworld” – delusion where everything is good or evil, black or white
If you assemble highlight reel of your worst moments, you’ll seem like a terrible person
Everyone is worthy of both criticism and compassion

Our environment is bringing out really bad stuff
Rapidly changing environment = rapidly changing behavior, and wisdom is slow to catch up

Nuclear power is clearly a good option – antipathy towards it don’t seem rational or practical

Lex: lots of fear mongering going on

Tim: Balance of Higher mind + Primitive mind
When a topic riles up primitive mind, collectives become dumber than individual for self defense
Climate change has become a sacred topic – can’t handle constructive criticism
Covid / vaccines are same – sucked into a political whirlpool, into hands of primitive minds

Future has more and more complex problems, need more higher mind and less primitive mind

Opposite of echo chamber is an idea lab – need more idea labs (scientific process, new ideas, collective participation)

Stopped at 1h26m

Latest version of Personal Bible + newly added content

I recently updated my personal bible and wanted to share the new content that was added.

Here’s the PDF download.

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The Tail End

It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.

In high school, I sat around playing hearts with the same four guys about five days a week. In four years, we probably racked up 700 group hangouts. Now, scattered around the country with totally different lives and schedules, the five of us are in the same room at the same time probably 10 days each decade. The group is in its final 7%.

Living in the same place as the people you love matters. I probably have 10X the time left with the people who live in my city as I do with the people who live somewhere else.

Quality time matters. If you’re in your last 10% of time with someone you love, keep that fact in the front of your mind when you’re with them and treat that time as what it actually is: precious.

The Tail End

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The Paradoxes of Modern Life

The Paradox of Writing: Great writing looks effortless. But because the ideas are so clear, casual readers don’t appreciate how much time it took to refine them.

The Paradox of Originality: Many of history’s greatest artists have found their voice by copying others. We discover who we are by imitating others and watching our uniqueness emerge over time.

The Paradox of Specificity: In the age of the Internet, when everybody has Google search and social media, differentiation is free marketing. The more specific your goal, the more opportunities you’ll create for yourself.

The Paradox of Strategy: The same things that help you achieve outlier success also increase your chances of outlandish failure. For example, investing with leverage increases your chances of risk and reward.

The Paradoxes of Modern Life

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10 lessons from The Beatles

The first rule of improvisation (and brainstorming) is “yes… and”. When someone suggests an idea, plays a note, says a line, you accept it completely, then build on it. That’s how improvisational comedy or music flows. The moment someone says ‘no’, the flow is broken. As they slog through Don’t Let Me Down, George breaks the spell. Instead of building and accepting he leaps to judgement, saying “I think it’s awful.” Immediately, John and Paul lay down the rules: “Well, have you got anything?” “you’ve gotta come up with something better”.

But at other times, Paul, John and producer Glyn Johns keep at it: pouring out idea after idea. Some of them awful — see ‘Don’t be afraid’ below — but 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. They don’t judge the idea, they judge execution.

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