10 Ideas from 2021

Hi folks,

It’s been a terrific year of learning. Over the course of 2021, I’ve attempted to go beyond just books and learn new concepts from a variety of sources. The aim of this article is to share some of the most impactful ones with you.

Here are 10 ideas from 2021 that changed the way I see the world, with the sources mentioned for detailed exploration:

1. Vipassana meditation can change your life: Vipassana meditation is a technique, originally taught by the Buddha, which helps one in the process of self-purification through self-observation. It’s been a year since I attended my first 10-day course and have been practicing it since then. The effect is transformational- the practice has wholly upended my worldview and created changes that I never expected. After attending a course and practicing daily, one can see big changes: in the way one manages the stress of daily life, in one’s outlook towards other beings, in the way one manages difficult situations, and most importantly, in the way one becomes equanimous and trains the mind. That said, words fail miserably in conveying how dramatically this can transform the way you feel, think and live. There are no books or articles to refer to here. Experience trumps intellectualization: the only way to see what it is like is to attend a 10-day course. 
   (This is purely a meditation technique and has nothing to do with religious rites, rituals, and practices)
   

2. The idea of nation-states may collapse: The concept of nations has worked well for a few hundred years, but considering the rise of institutional distrust and the increasing liberation of economic activity from geographical constraints, there are lowering returns to the monopoly of violence (which is the definition of the State). The racketeering by nation-states (taxes, inflation, seigniorage) may soon collapse as individuals move their economic activity and resources to virtual worlds that are beyond any particular government’s control, and when the logic of violence has lowered returns in our Information Age.
   Source: The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson, and this podcast by Balaji Srinivasan]
   

3. In a world without work, we’ll have to solve the problem of meaning: With so many people worrying about what we’ll do if machines take over our jobs, we also need to reflect deeply on the bigger question: where will we derive meaning from when we have no work left to do? Queer as it may be, we humans have spent increasingly high amounts of time at work and derive our self-esteem and meaning in life from our jobs. Work has become an integral part of our identity, so we need to spend time thinking about how we can prepare society as we make the transition (if we do it without any adverse AI scenarios playing out). Some philosophers believe we’re too deeply conditioned by working long hours to enjoy whatever leisure time we get. Some point to how it historically was never seen as a crucial thing and often even as an encumbrance of leisure. What is your relationship with work? And do you think you’d be able to gainfully spend your time if there’s no income-producing work to do at all?
   Source: A World Without Work by Daniel Susskind
   

4. The world needs a permissionless, censorship-resistant store of value: Time is our most scarce commodity and it is by turning that time into productive work that we create value. However, the value of that productivity is constantly debased because we store it in fiat currency- rupees, dollars, etc. When governments recklessly print money, the value (or buying power, in more real terms) of our hard-earned labor constantly reduces over time. Moreover, some rulers even prevent certain people from having bank accounts- creating a centralized authority that grants permission on who can store value and who cannot, turning this into a human rights issue. Therefore, we urgently need a store of value that is not only debasement-proof but also requires no permission and is censorship-resistant. Hence, the bullish case for Bitcoin. 
   Source: Robert Breeedlove’s 3-part series and Alex Gladstein’s discussion with Lex Fridman on Bitcoin and Human Rights
   
   

   
   

5. Consciousness as perceptual best-guessing: We think that our conscious experience is bottom-up. As in, when we see a tree, we think that the way it works is that the light from the tree hits our eyes, the signal reaches our brain and then our brain tells our visual system that it’s a tree. But that’s not quite correct. Our brain is actually generating a ‘best guess’ of what we’re looking at, and the sensory input (in this case the light waves hitting our eyes) actually acts as an error correction mechanism to help us see the form an accurate representation! Similarly, all our perceptions are best-guesses generated by the brain which get corrected as more and more sensory data enters our system. In a way, our reality is a controlled hallucination- a construction made by our brain and not simply a mental representation of things in the world. It’s totally non-intuitive, I get it. 
   Source: Being You by Anil Seth
   

6. The myth of barter: Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations has inspired economists to popularize the idea that money emerged as a way to solve the barter problem (and that credit instruments came much later). However, there’s no anthropological evidence at all to corroborate these facts. On the contrary, things seemed to have evolved exactly in reverse! Societies used to keep tabs (so credit came first) and only then did we see the rise of various forms of currencies. Barter only came up during exceptional situations like war or societal collapse- when coinage went out of supply and people had to resort to exchange. However, the barter story has been repeated ad nauseam and is widely accepted now, conveniently hiding away the disgusting and brutal truth behind the origins of capitalism 
   Source: Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber
   

7. Metacognition and the ability to not identify with your thoughts is a massive personal growth hack: Metacognition is the ability to observe your thoughts. I believe this capability is extremely beneficial to have an incredibly insightful peek inside- to see how you think, the way your thoughts get shaped and lead to decisions, and most importantly, the very phenomenon of how thoughts arise in the first place. And it is here that the second part kicks in: thoughts think themselves. We aren’t the ones coming up with them consciously- but we always act as if they’re our own creations and get dictated by them! Just try this. Close your eyes, observe what’s happening for a while and you’ll be able to see that thoughts arise…out of nowhere. It makes little sense, therefore, to blame ourselves or feel guilty if negative, lewd, hateful, or harmful thoughts arise. To not relate to these arising thoughts and to be able to look at them from a detached, third-person perspective can make you a much more balanced and equanimous person. Interestingly, this ability can grow as one practices meditation.  
   Source: Why Buddhism Is True by Robert Wright 
   

8. Palliative care is an excellent alternative approach to end-of-life scenarios: Most people whose parents are saddled with terminal illnesses prefer to use all sorts of medical interventions, no matter how painful, to simply try and extend their lives. While that may sound like a fair thing to do, it disregards the quality of life and how painful it is to undergo those interventions. It overlooks the fact that many prefer to spend their limited available time in peace and around family members rather than having their body parts excruciatingly tethered to machines that give them a few extra months of existence. Palliative care seems to be an excellent alternative to endless EOL medical interventions which helps the patient in managing their pain and spending their last days at home. This is an important discussion that children need to have with their parents to assess their EOL goals and take the right call when the time to take such an emotional (and tricky) decision comes.
   Source: Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
   

9. The case against eating animals is too strong to ignore: I stopped eating meat at the beginning of 2021 after reading this book. What we’re doing to animals is beyond horrific. Most people who love eating meat are unaware of the mechanics of the meat industry (just like I was). Once they are, it’d be hard to find any reason to continue. Factory farming is the most disgusting form of torture for animals. Meat production is one of the biggest drivers of climate change (so if you’re climate-conscious AND non-vegetarian, you might want to re-evaluate your choices). Factory meat is full of antibiotics which is not only a massive health hazard for consumers but also creates conditions ripe for antibiotic resistance and, you know, pandemics. But even if you forget all of this, there is an extremely strong ethical case to abstain from destroying any sentient life- even the ant that’s biting you or the mosquito that’s irritating you. For a detailed argument, read Practical Ethics by Peter Singer.
   Source: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
   

10. Market norms corrupt social norms; not everything should be up for sale: As incomes grow and we rise up the ladder, it is typical to start thinking of everything in money terms: to try and buy our way out of issues, to throw money at problems and try to reduce the value of things down to a cold, calculated number. However, in many realms of life, we need to prevent market norms from infiltrating and corrupting social norms. Take the instance of paying people to stand in line and wait for tickets to a free concert organized by the city corporation. (This actually happens in the West) We may think that’s fine if we’re paying and someone’s ready to stand for a fee but there are multiple problems with this. First, it is unfair to the not so well-off people because they’d not be able to put in the money for such queuing up and thus miss out. Secondly and more importantly, it corrupts the very purpose of the initiative. The free concert is like a gift by the city to all its people, regardless of their stature. By introducing money into the equation, the very idea of a ‘gift to all’ is undermined and the end for which it was designed (free and equal access to a concert for all) is thoroughly corrupted. In today’s hyper-capitalist era where money is the name of the game, we need to step back and question such ideas- and keep money from undermining the many social norms that society is built upon.
    Source: What Money Can’t Buy by Michael Sandel  

Thanks for making it to the end. I hope you found at least one new idea that piqued your curiosity. If you had any new learnings that changed the way you look at the world, please do share them with me. Hope you have a fantastic year and learn more than you did in 2021!