Learnings from March 2022
Neuroscience, first principles thinking, and much more
Hello hello,
Let’s start with a stupid tweet on startups and tech hiring.
Okay, back to business.
It's the first week of the month. It’s time for some multidisciplinary learning.
In February, we covered topics ranging from the fascinating world of micromobility to one of India’s most controversial freedom fighters: read it here in case you missed it.
March was again an intense month with lots of diverse learnings and it was hard for me to boil it down to just 5 pieces. But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. In the spirit of minimalism, let’s make a dash for those ideas already.
[And apologies for putting out this version so late, I was away for a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat. More on that later]
Right off the bat, I want to begin with a video that Ray Dalio dropped on principles for dealing with the changing world order. Think of it as a really quick summary of his towering new book (with the same name) that takes us through the rise and fall of mighty, globally dominant empires- the Dutch, the British, the American- and what key ‘health’ indicators one can track to see where, in their trajectory, those empires are at any given point in time. Dalio takes a cyclical view of history and traces the various stages that an empire goes through as it rises and rises…before entering a period of decline and ultimate decay. It happened with the Dutch, it happened with the Brits…and now he says that it’s happening with the US. So who stands to benefit from this changing world order? China, in his view. It’s a long video but well worth watching. I am certainly going to read his book very soon, and you should too.
Getting better at thinking with first principles can yield outsized results in all walks of life. The ability to begin with the most fundamental questions when faced with any problem- be it a business challenge or a moral question that needs to be addressed- is critical to developing a much better model of reality and guiding one’s actions. This article on first principles thinking and how some of the world’s top minds have been using it is quite informative. Elon Musk, for instance, literally went down to the very fundamental questions in the world of rocket science and broke the pattern of conventional thinking to reduce the cost of batteries and, consequently, the cost of building rockets that could be blasted into space. He did what a seasoned FP thinker does: starting with what’s true (and not intuition- that deadly trap), questioning the prevailing assumptions, and figuring out ways of thinking that conventional gurus never dared to approach. It’s a fascinating read.
For long-form podcasts that go slightly deeper into various subjects with experts, the Lex Fridman podcast is one of the best sources of learning. I really enjoyed this conversation with neuroscience expert Andrew Huberman on topics like sleeping, dreams, and fasting. Here are a few really cool facts that I came across:
a) Contrary to what you may conclude, fasting actually makes us more alert. This has an evolutionary reason- a human put into a prolonged state of hunger has to work harder to quickly find a source of food, and the body thereby ends up becoming more active. We can actually use this mechanism and utilize fasting to increase performance on certain crucial days.
b) If you’re taking a nap during the daytime, try to keep it <90 mins so that you don’t enter the REM sleep phase. That is because waking up from that deep phase of sleep can be quite disorienting and leave you drowsy for a while- which explains why people are often averse to sleeping during the daytime. They feel it’s hard to wake up. Actually, the trick is just to ensure you get up before the sleep becomes deep.
c) It was amusing to know that ‘hypnosis’ is an actual deep relaxation technique and the right hypnotic scripts/procedures can be effectively used to quickly fall asleep! It’s not just fake, mystical, woo-woo stuff: there’s proper science behind this and I believe there are apps as well if you want to try out hypnosis for inducing sleep.We’re already aware of how so many animal species have been pushed to the brink of extinction. Compared to that, the steady disappearance of insects may not ring alarm bells, more so because so many of us are conditioned to hate those ‘disgusting’ creatures. We might do well to change our thinking a bit on this issue, for the declining population of our little friends is more alarming than you think. We depend on insects to pollinate plants, clean up waste, and literally form the foundationaly layer of entire ecosystems that we depend upon for our food, medicines, etc. Moreover, they add so much diversity and color to life- a point one can’t overlook. Widespread destruction of this class of animals can have exceedingly disastrous effects, and the solution to this urgent issue is not some big technological intervention- it’s mostly to do nothing. Just leave some of our land patches alone and allow the insects to grow on those unattended patches in all their glory! Here’s a short but great read on this issue, and it also contains some fascinating examples of the mind-boggling tricks some insects can perform- like jumping out of the asses of their predators after getting swallowed. That’s a useful skill, if you ask me.
They aren’t all that ugly, you know Andreas Antonopoulos is one of the leading thinkers in the world of bitcoin and blockchain and I had been meaning to listen to him talk about the technology for a while. Somehow I came across one of his interviews and it was just fascinating. Even if you aren’t interested in this, just listen to the first 10 minutes- it’s just great advice from an exceedingly smart person on how harnessing his endless curiosity and reading tons of books helped him get where he is and how one can do the same in their own lives. If you stick around long enough, he has some beautiful insights on the financial ecosystem. Banks originally solved the problem of financial access (which was restricted only to the aristocracy) back in the 16th Century and were profound innovations. But today, they’re encountering problems of scale as the bureaucratic structure (which was so beneficial for decision making back in the 1700s) prevents them from benefiting the millions who need those services today. The problem is worsened by the distance it creates between the decision maker and the end-user, resulting in what we may deem ‘immoral’ outcomes all the time. Coming to terms with some of these issues and their roots helps clarify what exactly a lot of these crypto projects are trying to do.
That’s it for now, folks. I hope you enjoyed this and end up diving deeper into at least a few of the topics. As you may have noticed, these monthly roundups don’t have any pointers from the books I’ve been reading. I shall start writing some pieces on that front too. Stay tuned.
Great stuff! Keep it coming!