A Few Things: The Beauty Of Life, Reading People, Why The World Makes No Sense, Goodhart's Head Hand Heart, Gurley on AI & Nvidia, Compound AI Systems, Programming Biology, News & Charts You Missed...
February 23, 2024
I am sharing this weekly email with you because I count you in the group of people I learn from and enjoy being around.
Here is last week’s discussion: Information That Would Get Your Attention, Future of War, Why News Is Bad For You, Questions That Matter, News You Missed, The Latest in Quantum, Biology, AI and Cyber Security.....
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Quotes I Am Thinking About:
"People are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.”
- Moliere
"A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought — they must be earned."
- Naval Ravikant on what money can't buy
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
- Dale Carnegie
“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. ”
- William James
"At the moment of truth, there are either reasons or results.”
- Chuck Yeager
"Who knows you is more important than who you know. Build a brand."
- James Clear
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
- Beverly Sills
A. A Few Things Worth Checking Out:
1. Loved this beautiful piece and read it thrice: ‘I’m sorry to have to announce that my cancer situation has developed not necessarily to my advantage’
Key bits:
At 46, I have lived far longer than most of the humans in the 300,000-year history of our species. So have you, probably. And if the book of my life is shorter than many modern people’s, it doesn’t make it any less of a good read. Length and quality are not correlated in lives any more than they are in novels or films. So carpe that diem and keep it carped. And enjoy the tiny ways you can make other people a little happier. That’s actually the secret of being happy oneself.
My second comforting thought is this: Nobody knows whether there’s a God, or an afterlife, but it seems unlikely to me that our existence is merely a brief and random flash of consciousness between two eternities of nothing. A benevolent creator strikes me as no more far-fetched than the latest efforts of physics to make sense of our world: for example that volume is illusory and the universe is really a hologram, or that there are infinitely many universes all existing in parallel. Our almost-instinct may well be almost true: What will survive of us is love.
And finally, the thought I keep coming back to is how lucky it is to have lived at all. To exist is to have won the lottery. In fact, there are so many bits of extraordinarily-unlikely good luck that have occurred just for us to be born, that it’s like hitting the jackpot every day of the year.
We should be dazzled by our good fortune – dancing on the tables every day. And I mean to keep dancing in whatever time I have left here, and (who knows?) perhaps afterwards too.
2. Shane Parrish at the Knowledge Project spoke to Blake Eastman about Non-Verbal Behaviour and Reading People.
Blake Eastman has dedicated his entire life to psychology and nonverbal behavior. In 2009 he founded The Nonverbal Group, a behavioral research and education company in New York City which conducts large scale studies on human behavior and uses a wide range of technologies to systematically deconstruct and improve human communication.
Eastman has also served as an adjunct psychology professor at the City University of New York for six years where he taught General Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and Group Dynamics. He is also a former professional poker player and the founder of School of Cards, the first brick-and-mortar poker school in New York City.
They dive deep into a number of subjects revolving around how we communicate with one another, including the ability to read nonverbal cues, his thoughts on big talkers vs. silent types, how we can communicate with our partners without complaining, the value of watching ourselves communicate on video, understanding the power structures and social dynamics at work, and so much more.
Three Key Insights:
To become an exceptional communicator like Bill Clinton, hold presence and unwavering eye contact to make the other person feel like the most important person in the world, if even for just a few seconds. This ability likely stems from a combination of innate facial features, vocal range, and contextual behavioral awareness.
Leverage video feedback and awareness of cultural biases to confront the gaps between your intent and the impact of your verbal and nonverbal communication. Understanding is the first step to self-improvement. Supplement with coaching where needed.
Writing out your thoughts acts as a forcing function to structure ideas, surface inconsistencies, drive new thinking, and reality test via external feedback. Regular journaling is an underutilized tool for self-development and maintaining clarity on your personal measures of success.
3. Chris Williamson at Modern Wisdom spoke to Eric Weinstein in a super wide ranging conversation. Eric is a weird and interesting human. I don’t agree with all he says, but he leaves me with a lot to think about.
Their discussion was titled: Why Does The Modern World Make No Sense.
Eric is a mathematician, economist, former managing director of Thiel Capital and a podcaster.
Three Key Insights from the conversation:
Eric provides an insider perspective on problems at Harvard, arguing it prioritizes power and prestige over academic rigor. He sees "narrative-driven" scholarship that affirms preconceived conclusions. Eric believes Harvard shapes intellectual orthodoxies across many fields in ways both good and bad. He contends honest scholarly debate is often stifled in a "star chamber" culture at the university.
Eric makes a strong case that string theory research has been limited in scientific productivity for decades. He believes the field promotes mathematical orthodoxy rather than encouraging the open debate of ideas and theories.
The notion of "toxic compassion" suggests sometimes an excessive desire to alleviate short-term discomfort can undermine truth and positive long-term outcomes. Eric sees this manifest in the peddling of pleasant fictions rather than difficult realities.
4. Professor Andrew Scott is one of my favourite people and thinkers.
His new book “The Longevity Imperative” compellingly argues for a comprehensive societal transformation in response to increasing life expectancies. You may have read his prior books, including: The 100-Year Life and The New Long Life.
Professor Scott articulates a vision for a “longevity society,” where longer lives are not seen as a burden but as an opportunity for growth, innovation, and sustainability. He presents the "longevity imperative" as an urgent need for systemic change across healthcare, employment, education, and financial planning to ensure that an aging population can lead fulfilling, healthy, and secure lives.
Many of you are interested in Longevity and it’s myriad impacts and opportunities on individuals and society.
I will be hosting a very special zoom session with Prof. Scott on March 20th 12 pm EST (just a week after the book is released) to discuss the Longevity Imperative.
We will limit the group to make sure we can have an open and interactive discussion. I have 5 slots remaining, please reply to lock in yours.
B. News and Charts You Might Have Missed
1. Adobe's AI assistant will now help readers of the ~3 trillion PDFs in existence summarize documents and answer questions based on their contents. ChatGPT and other AI chatbots can read PDFs too, but that capability often requires use of a plug-in, and Adobe's offering promises full integration with PDF-based workflows.
2. Gen Z couples are more likely than older generations to keep finances separate, according to a new report. About 34% of Gen Z couples who live together combine their finances, 28% have a mix of “yours, mine, and ours,” and 24% keep finances separate. Meanwhile 44% of boomers fully combine their finances with their spouse or partner.
3. The average amount of time that American men spent socializing face to face has fallen 30% from 2003 to 2022, and among teenagers that’s fallen over 45%. That’s happened at the same time that people of all ages are citing increased levels of loneliness and other symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Indeed, many have simply replaced face time with people with face time with animals: Over that same time period, the average woman who owned a pet went from spending more time socializing with people in 2003 to more time spent engaged with their pet by 2022.
4. Tired of dating apps, many singles are returning to traditional methods, leading to a 42% growth in attendance at dating events in the US in 2023 vs the previous year, surpassing pre-pandemic levels. Game-based dating events witnessed a 163% increase in attendance, while athletic activities like pickleball and spin classes saw a 135% rise. Eventbrite reports a 41% YoY rise in Valentine's Day singles events listed.
5. Time Management Techniques
C. Head Hand Heart
In January I read David Goodhart's book "Head Hand Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century" and its had me thinking since.
He presents a compelling and thoughtful analysis of contemporary societal issues, particularly focusing on the imbalance in the valuation of different kinds of work and skills. The book's key thesis revolves around the categorization of human aptitudes into three distinct areas: Head (cognitive), Hand (manual and craft), and Heart (caring and emotional).
Goodhart argues that in modern society, there's a disproportionate value placed on cognitive abilities, particularly those that are academically verified through university education. This has led to a dominant, university-educated cognitive class, which, in turn, has created societal divisions and left many feeling underappreciated.
The emphasis on academic education over technical and vocational training has not only skewed the job market but also eroded the status of many manual and caring jobs that do not require a degree.
The book critiques the current model where a successful life is predominantly defined by academic achievement and professional success. Goodhart points out the diminishing returns of this model, noting that the expansion of professional and managerial jobs has almost ground to a halt in developed countries.
He observes that the pay for average graduate jobs has declined in most rich countries, leading to a situation where many graduates fill roles that do not necessarily require a degree, often at the expense of equally able non-graduates.
He suggests that a more balanced approach, which equally values manual, technical, and caring functions, is not only desirable but necessary for a well-functioning society. This is especially pertinent given the growing elderly population and the impact of artificial intelligence and technology on jobs.
The author also discusses the consequences of a society heavily biased towards cognitive skills, including the political alienation in recent years and the crisis of recruitment in public care economies and skilled trades.
Goodhart proposes that spreading status more evenly between Head, Hand, and Heart aptitudes is inevitable for a society to function effectively, especially in caring for the elderly and maintaining the machines that govern our lives.
Here he is discussing the book:
D. The Science and Technology Section
1. Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner spoke about: NVDA, Chips, AI Compute Build Out, AI Impact on Big Tech on their podcast.
Five Key Insights:
There is robust debate about the future buildout of AI compute, with estimates of needing to expand data centers from $1 trillion to $2 trillion in compute power over 4-5 years. NVIDIA stands to be a primary beneficiary as demand for AI chipsets ramps.
Establishing competitive semiconductor foundries is extremely tough and unlikely to materialize swiftly in new regions. Taiwan possesses structural advantages in factors like labor culture that have enabled its commanding position.
Major tech firms (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Meta) face varying risk/reward scenarios from AI's ascent, centered on whether core offerings are bolstered or disrupted.
Additional AI capabilities around memory and taking actions could spur 10x leaps over chatGPT. This might profoundly expand adoption across consumer and enterprise use cases.
Mismatches around supply and demand seem inevitable, likely prompting disillusionment among skeptics. But over the long-term, rapidly declining costs coupled with AI's broad applicability point to huge economic potential and humanitarian impact.
2. Serious AI piece titled: The Shift from Models to Compound AI Systems from Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research.
Three Key Insights:
Compound AI systems are beating the performance of even the largest models on many tasks because engineering solutions using existing models can offer higher returns vs scaling up training. Combining models with other techniques like search and retrieval also allows incorporating dynamic data.
Compound systems pose new challenges including exploring the vast design space, allocating resources across components, co-optimizing components to work well together when they are non-differentiable, and new MLOps needs for monitoring and debugging complex system behaviors.
Promising paradigms are emerging to tackle these challenges, such as composition frameworks for building applications out of model calls, automated optimization methods like DSPy that tune prompt instructions for each component, cost optimization with systems like FrugalGPT that route inputs across models, and tools to track intermediate outputs and data pipeline quality. Mastering compound systems may drive some of the biggest AI advances.
3. Cool piece on Synthetic Biology by The Century of Biology titled: New tools for programming biology.
Five Key Insights:
CRISPR gene editing has progressed extraordinarily quickly from an academic discovery in 2012 to an approved gene therapy medicine called Casgevy in 2023 - much faster than the typical 10-15 year drug development timeline. This is due to massive investment and research interest in CRISPR's potential for programmable gene editing.
CRISPR is not just a one-off tool for gene editing, but rather the base of an entire "technology tree" for engineering biology. New CRISPR systems and capabilities are being discovered all the time for editing DNA, RNA, controlling gene expression, etc.
Several new RNA editing/writing tools were recently published, including RESPLICE, PRECISE, and CRAFT for programmable trans-splicing to rewrite RNA transcripts. This could allow temporary editing of RNA as a therapeutic approach.
The discovery of "bridge RNAs" represents another potential expansion of the genome engineering toolkit that was found just by mining bacterial genome databases. Powerful new biology tools may simply be waiting to be uncovered.
The latest Intellia Therapeutics clinical results show how the future of medicine could look - using the same therapeutic modality (CRISPR) but just changing the guide RNA to treat completely different diseases. This highlights the potential for CRISPR to enable modular, programmable medicines.
Believe it or not, that “♡ Like” button is a big deal – it serves as a proxy to new visitors of this publication’s value. If you got value out of reading, please let others know!