Medley 142: Goals, Gods, Success, Wrongspeak, Dairy, Predictions, Light, Centralization...
Happy Monday!
I'm getting LASIK done this week which I'm pretty darn excited about. I have to lie around with my eyes closed all day afterwards, so if you have any great podcast recommendations, send them my way.
New Article : "How to Set, Track, and Reach Your Goals Using Airtable” This is a shorter article going over how I’m using Airtable to set and track my goals for this year. I’ve been loving the system since I started it a few weeks ago, so here’s a detailed overview and template for anyone who wants to copy it.
New Notes : This week I updated my notes on “Food of the Gods” by Terence McKenna, which is all about our relationship with psychedelics and plant medicines. The Made You Think episode on this should be out sometime this week.
Success : Sam Altman, leader of Y Combinator, published a great essay this week on “How to Be Successful.” I think his first point is the most important one, opening yourself up to compounding interest and growth. Most jobs, especially in larger companies, may pay well but provide for very limited, linear growth, both in your learning and salary.
Censorship : Here’s an interesting problem with the online censorship debate: marginalized groups that want to reclaim slurs used against them end up getting punished for using those words. So Facebook and the likes either need to get much better at distinguishing between “hateful usage” and “acceptable usage,” or they need to be okay with punishing the people they’re trying to protect, or they just need to stop policing word usage altogether and let people sort it out themselves with blocking and reporting features.
Predictions : Slate Star Codex has a cool annual review style: he makes predictions with different confidence intervals, then checks how he performed against those confidence intervals at the end of the year to better calibrate his predicting abilities. It’s interesting that his most inaccurate group are the “95% confidence” predictions, since that closely mirrors the results of tests asking people to make guesses with 95% certainty, but they only end up about 45% accurate.
Centralization : Glen Allsopp did some analysis a couple years ago on top Google results, and shows how ~16 companies dominate a huge number of all search results, and use their power to manipulate new sites into ranking well. I like his analogy to the food industry, which is largely owned by a few powerful companies. We definitely see a similar problem, too, in that the consolidation of informational power in a few companies leads to a worse online educational experience for everyone. I’m not 100% sure what Google does about it, though, without directly punishing sites owned by these companies.
MetaComedy : Demetri Martin has a new standup special out on Netflix. It’s good, but what I think is particularly interesting about it is how he added visual and audio commentary over his recording that of course wasn’t available at the actual show. It effectively makes the recording of the standup its own thing, and funnier, and isn’t something I’ve seen done with any other live performances like his. It’d be cool to see other comics weave in commentary and bonus material the way he did.
Dairy : Here’s a fun study. After tracking 1782 Swedish men for 12 years, the researchers found that increased dairy fat intake was associated with less obesity. Now, the big caveat: Scandinavians tend to have higher dairy diets so this study might not apply to everyone. But, if you’re largely Scandinavian like I am, break out the cheese and butter.
Fyre : The Fyre Documentary on Netflix is phenomenal. I wanted more stuff to keep happening so the documentary could go on longer. It’s a really crazy story of what one person can do with a manic will and lots of money, and how otherwise good people can easily get pulled in for the ride.
Lights : Last, this is just a really cool lightshow style animation on top of a very good dancer.
Have a great week!
Nat
P.S. Happy birthday Dad!