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June 20, 2018

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

“An exhaustively researched treatise on the four pillars of successful cooking.” (New York Times Book Review)

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat is a book about the elements of good cooking. The book teaches the fundamentals, which you can use later in all your cooking. So, throw out the recipes and become a chef yourself. That is the bold claim, and I think Samin follows through. Here are my notes on the book.

Salt

  • Tasting is one of the most important things you’re doing in the kitchen
  • Salt can help prevent dishes from becoming flat
  • Salt can be administered as …uhh… salt, cheese, olives, capers, etc
  • Salt is a mineral: sodium chloride (one of the essential ones we can’t live without)
  • All salt is from the sea (rock salt is just that from ancient lakes, which lay under the ground nowadays)
  • The primary role salt plays in cooking is t amplify the flavour
  • With home-cooked meals, don’t worry about adding too much (unless otherwise indicated by your doctor)
  • Salt has its own taste and enhances the flavour of other ingredients
  • Different types of salt:
    • Table salt: very dense, probably with iodine (which is good but gives metallic taste)
    • Kosher salt: very pure salt, that comes in different sizes
    • Sea salt: use the expensive kind (fleur de sel) only when the flavour will pop out

 

  • We can perceive 5 tastes: saltiness, sourness, bitterness, sweetness, and umami (savouriness)
  • Aroma is what our nose perceives (thousands of chemicals)
  • Flavour lies on the intersection of taste, aroma, and sensory elements like texture, sound, appearance, and temperature
  • Salt affects both taste and flavour
  • Anything that heightens flavour is a seasoning
    • Season (salt) food from within

 

  • Salt reduces our perception of bitterness (even better than sugar does)
  • Salt enhances sweetness

 

  • Salt moves through food via osmosis and diffusion
    • Osmosis: the movement of water in and out of a cell wall (towards the saltier side)
    • Diffusion: the movement of salt through a cell wall until it’s evenly distributed (this is a slower process)
  • Salt meats in advance, to give it plenty of time to diffuse
  • Salt seafood only 15 minutes before prepping
  • Salt doesn’t dissolve in fat, but luckily most fats contain some water
  • Add a pinch of salt to eggs you will scramble, etc
    • Lightly season water for poaching eggs
    • Season eggs cooked in the shell or fried in a pan just before serving
  • Salt assists in weakening pectin (an undigestible carbohydrate) in vegetables
    • (in general) Salt vegetables before cooking them
    • Toss vegetables with salt and olive oil before roasting
    • Salt blancing water generously before adding vegetables
    • Add salt into the pan for sautéing
    • Season vegetables with large, watery, cells (e.g. tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines) 15 minutes before grilling/roasting
    • Salt mushrooms only when they are already starting to become brown
  • Salt legumes and beans when you soak or cook them
  • Salt bread dough early (it’s low in water, so it dissolves slowly)

 

  • When cooking food in water, add enough salt
    • Because of the need for equilibrium, nutrients will stay in the greens
    • This will enhance flavour (duh) and make greens look greener
    • It also allows for quicker cooking (weakened pectins)
    • Salt water for cooking so that it tastes like sea water (i.e. a lot)
    • Taste the water to make sure it’s highly seasoned before you add any food
    • Cooking food in salted water is one of the simplest ways to season from within
  • Measuring salt is done by taste
    • And with experience
    • And probably more than you’re used to
    • Take about 1% of weight for vegetables and grains
    • And 2% salinity for water for cooking

 

  • Salt doesn’t necessarily mean you need to use pepper too
    • And if you do, grind it just before you use pepper
  • Salt can be used in conjunction with sugar
    • E.g. with a lovely dessert
  • If you add too much salt, then:
    • Dilute, add unseasoned ingredients
    • Halve, and put away the rest for later
    • Balance, with acid or fat
    • Select, other things to balance the saltiness
    • Transform, into something that work with more salt
    • Admin defeat…
  • Stir, taste, adjust
  • Ask yourself: When? How much? In what form?

 

Fat

  • Where oilive oil comes from has a huge effect on how it tastes
    • Oil from hot, dry, hilly areas is spicy
    • From coastal climates is milder in flavour
June 19, 2018

Three Body Problem

The Three-Body Problem – Liu Cixin

Summary: Great Sci-Fi novel that is intriguing and delivers on the big ideas.

I probably read this somewhere in the beginning of 2018, or end of 2017 for the first time. Now on 12 September 2019 I’ve re-read (or actually listened) it again.

The book does a great job of building such a large idea, whilst relying not too much on a whole new world (our world is in essence the same).

The characters are interesting and there is some suspence in it. But mostly it’s carried by the idea of Tri-solaris. I can highly recommend the series. Because after the first book, it gets even weirder.

May 22, 2018

Triggers

I heard about this book via Cortex, a podcast discussing work (and life) habits of CGP Grey and Myke Hurley (of podcasting and Youtube fame). In the episode, they discuss the book and lay out what they both had taken home. Although Triggers falls right into the business self-help category, it seemed that the message was somehow clearer and more pronounced than in other books. So I decided to check it out.

Before you’re even on the first page of this book, you’re impressed by the praise written by some incredible people. It includes many top CEO, world leaders, and great thinkers. These are only three that stood out to me the most:

The book, Triggers – Creating behaviour that lasts – Becoming the person you want to be, is structured in four parts:

  1. Why don’t we become the person we want to be?
    • Hint: it’s our environment
  2. Try
    • Hint: active daily questions
  3. More structure, please
  4. No regrets

In short, the book can the summarised as follows. It’s very hard to change your behaviour as an adult. We are influenced greatly by our environment and willpower is unlikely to help you in the long term. You’re a good planner, but your doer needs a coach to close the feedback loop. And with active daily questions, you can actively work to change your behaviour.

There are some immutable laws of behaviour change:

  • Meaningful behavioural change is very hard to do
    • We can’t admit that we need to change
      • (e.g. my body looks fine, smoking helps me socialise, I’m fine in my current job)
    • We don’t appreciate inertia’s power over us
      • It takes an extraordinary effort to stop doing something in our comfort zone, in order to do something that is good for us in the long run
    • We don’t know how to execute a change
      • You need motivation, understanding, and ability
  • No one can make us change unless we truly want to change
    • Change has to come from within
    • You really have to mean it
    • And you have to have buy-in from your partner or co-workers
  • Behaviour change is simple, but far from easy

We have many beliefs that stop behaviour change in its tracks:

  • If I understand, I will do
    • There is a difference between understanding and doing
    • We are confused about this difference
    • Personal note: I understand so many things about startups, life, fitness, etc. But doing them is whole other thing
  • I have willpower and won’t give in to temptation
    • We chronically underestimate the power of triggers in our environment
    • Few of us will foresee the challenges we will face
    • We have overconfidence in our abilities
    • Personal note: has anyone seen Temptation Island?
  • Today is a special day
    • Excusing our momentary lapses as an outlier event triggers a self-indulgent inconsistency which is fatal for change
    • Change doesn’t happen overnight
  • At least I’m better than…
    • We trigger a false sense of immunity
  • I shouldn’t need help and structure
    • We have contempt for simplicity and structure
    • See: The Checklist Manifesto – Atul Gawande
    • We think we are better than the rest, we lack humility
  • I won’t get tired and my enthusiasm won’t fade
    • Self-control is a limited resource, that will deplete
  • I have all the time in the world
    • We underestimate the time it takes to get anything done
    • We believe that time is open-ended and sufficiently spacious to get things done
    • This will lead to procrastination
  • I won’t get distracted and nothing unexpected will occur
    • There will be a high probability of many low-probability events
    • Example: there is a small change you will get a call from someone specific, but there is a high chance that you will get a call from anyone this week
    • This will lead to unrealistic expectations
  • An epiphany will suddenly change my life
    • Sure it happens, sometimes
    • But in most cases, it leads to magical thinking
  • My change will be permanent and I will never have to worry again
    • We have a false sense of permanence
    • If we don’t follow up, our positive change doesn’t last
    • When we get there, we cannot stay there without commitment and discipline
  • My elimination of old problems will not bring new problems
    • We don’t understand that we will have future challenges
    • Once we are in a new situation, other problems will prop up
  • My efforts will be fairly rewarded
    • Our dashed expectations trigger resentment
    • Getting better should be its own reward
  • No one is paying attention to me
    • We falsely believe that we’re in isolation
    • But people always notice
  • If I change I am “inauthentic”
    • You stubbornly stick to your old behaviour
    • You try and use that to justify why you can’t change
  • I have the wisdom to assess my own behaviour
    • We are notoriously inaccurate in assessing ourselves
    • We have an impaired sense of objectivity

Internally we have a lot of rationalisations. But we are also unaware of how our environment shapes our behaviour:

  • Our environment is at war with us
  • It’s a nonstop triggering mechanism whose impact on our behaviour is too significant to be ignored
  • Small tweaks in the environment can change everything
  • We choose to place ourselves in an environment that, based on past experience, will trigger bad/old behaviour
  • Example: bedtime procrastination, we prefer to remain in our current environment
  • The environment is situational, it’s a hyperactive shape-shifter
  • And a changing environment changes us
  • Our environment is a relentless triggering machine

We can identify our triggers with feedback loops:

  • Feedback teaches us to see our environment as a triggering mechanism
  • A feedback loop comprises four stages: evidence, relevance, consequence, and action
  • Behaviour follows a pattern
  • You could say that it’s a complex adaptive system (The Quark and the Jaguar)

What if we could control our environment so it triggered our most desired behaviour?

Trigger: Any stimulus that impacts our behaviour

  • It can be direct or indirect
    • Direct: you see a happy baby, you smile
    • Indirect: you see a family photo, thinking, you call your sister
  • It can be internal or external
    • External: from the world via our senses
    • Internal: from thoughts and feelings
  • It can be conscious or unconscious
    • Conscious: requires awareness
    • Unconscious: e.g. weather
  • It can be anticipated or unexpected
    • Anticipated: e.g. reaction to a song
    • Unexpected: sudden realisation (falling stair example)
  • It can be encouraging or discouraging
    • Encouraging: maintain or expand what we’re doing
    • Discouraging: stop or reduce what we’re doing
  • It can be productive or counterproductive
    • Productive: push us towards becoming the person we want to be
    • Counterproductive: pull us away
    • We want short-term gratification, we need the long-term benefit
    • We define what makes a trigger productive (and encouraging)
      • These last two make a quadrant of wants/needs
      • Using this quadrant you can identify your habits

There is a step (impulse, awareness, choice) between trigger and behaviour.

  • We are not only driven by the triggers/antecedents/cues
    • See: The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg)
    • His idea: keep the cue (trigger), change behaviour (routine), keep the consequence (reward)
  • With interpersonal behaviour, there is more to the routine
    • Impulse: your first reaction, not always the best
    • Attention: our awareness and thus ability to make;
    • Choice: to react automatically or do something different

We are superior planners and inferior doers

  • How is your planner going to deal with your doer?
  • Measure your need, choose your style
    • Directing: giving instruction, one way
    • Coaching: helping, working together
    • Supporting: offer support where needed
    • Delegating: give an assignment, step away
  • This is based on Ken Blanchard (One Minute Manager) situational leadership
  • And also applies to yourself (the planner and doer)
    • The planner intends to change our behaviour
    • The doer actually makes change happen

We must forecast our environment

  • Anticipation
    • We can think, beforehand, what to do in an environment
  • Avoidance
    • In many cases, it’s best to avoid a situation
    • E.g. don’t take the route via the supermarket when we’re hungry
    • We rarely triumph over an environment that is enjoyable
    • Inertia is partly to blame
    • Temptation can corrupt our values
    • Because of our delusional belief that we control our environment, we choose to flirt with temptation rather than walk away
    • In many cases, it’s best to selectively avoid instead of always engage
  • Adjustment
    • If forecasting is successful (after anticipation and avoidance) we can adjust our environment

Behavioural change can happen in 4 different ways (Wheel of Change)

  • Creating: when you add new (positive things). This can be stopped by inertia. You need an impulse to start adding or inventing.
  • Preserving: Keep what is already working. Not messing up a good thing.
  • Eliminating: Sacrifice something we like or are good at, to have something better in the future (this is difficult to do).
    • This reminds me of the 80/20 rule (The One Thing), stop doing some ‘good’ things, so you can have the time to do ‘great’ things.
  • Accepting: Accept reality. Don’t do wishful thinking.

How do we get to change? By trying.

One of the most important (and again, difficult) things about change is that you need to follow-up. One excellent way of doing that is by asking active questions.

Only when there were active follow-up questions, did training within an organisation work.

The format for active questions is: Did you do your best to…? or Did I do my best to…?

Here are some examples of the engaging questions:

  • Did I do my best to set clear goals today?
  • Did I do my best to make progress toward my goals today?
  • Did I do my best to find meaning today?
  • Did I do my best to be happy today?
    • Book: Stumbling on Happiness – Dan Gilbert (TO READ&LINK)
    • Finding happiness (and meaning) where we are
  • Did I do my best to build positive relationships today?
  • Did I do my best to be fully engaged today?

Active questions reveal where we are giving up. In doing so, they sharpen our sense of what we can actually change. We gain a sense of control, personal ownership, and responsibility instead of victimhood.

You can use the daily active questions to compare yourself against yesterday (or last week).

But beware, it’s tough to face the reality of our own behaviour – and our own level of effort – every day.

When making your own questions. Feel free to start with those above and add ones that reflect your objectives. Are you learning to meditate? Add it to the list. Want to lose weight? Add it to the list. Tired of being late all the time? Add it to the list.

The daily active questions help us in 4 ways:

  • They reinforce our commitment
  • They ignite our motivation where we need it, not where we don’t
    • They work on intrinsic motivation
  • They highlight the difference between self-discipline and self-control
    • Self-discipline refers to achieving desirable behaviour
    • Self-control refers to avoiding undesirable behaviour
  • They shrink our goals into manageable increments
    • They neutralize the archenemy of change, impatience

Daily active questions compel us to take things one day at a time.

Scores for the daily active questions need to be reported somewhere, preferably that is to someone else.

That person will be your coach. This can be a professional coach, a friend, a lover, or an accountability buddy.

The coach bridges the gap between your visionary Planner and the short-sighted Doer.

But first, you have to admit that you’re fallible, that you’re not perfect, and that you’re weak. You can’t do it on your own, and that is ok. Even Marshall Goldsmith pays someone to call him every evening and go through the daily active questions.

“When we dive all the way into adult behaviour change – with 100 percent focus and energy – we become an irresistible force rather than the proverbial immovable object.”

For the past months, I have been using the daily questions. First I had too many (for myself) and now have about 6 per day. I think that on 80% of the days I answer them and use them as a reflective moment (become the coach). I have an external coach for sports, and I (want to) share my goals with Lotte as so to better reflect on them and work towards them. 

Update May 2019: I still use the system and today will update the 6ish goals. I also use a checklist for my stretches and weightlifting exercises. It’s become quite ingrained in my routine. I could do it a bit better by completing it at the beginning of the evening/at the end of activities and not before I go to bed (when I sometimes forget to do it).

Update August 2020: Still using the system, and doing it every day. Have updated it several times and still very happy with the format.

Update December 2020: Still going strong, daily. Updated it today and now at 8 questions that provide a feedback loop for several aspects of my life.

Update January 2024: Still doing (nearly) daily check-ins with slowly (every 2-3 months) changing questions. It just works.

February 22, 2018

Brick by Brick

Dive into the world of Lego with Brick by Brick by David Robertson and Bill Green. This compelling book takes you on an adventure through the recent history of Lego. It’s written in 2013 and takes the closest look at the 15 years preceding that year. It’s here where the company loses focus, tries to innovate too much, and start haemorrhaging money. But the company does find its way back (into the living room of kids) and is now seen as a powerhouse of the toy industry.

The 7 Truths

  1. Build an innovative culture
  2. Become customer driven
  3. Explore the full spectrum of innovation
  4. Foster Open Innovation
  5. Attempt a disruptive innovation
  6. Sail for Blue Oceans
  7. Leverage diverse and creative people

These sound pretty good, right? Well, they were almost the end of the whole LEGO empire. And what I took home most from the book is that they tried to do too much at the same time. They tried to make something similar to Minecraft (and that didn’t work because of their demands, not perse because of Minecraft’s competition). And the company forgot what their core competence was (the LEGO play experience, with the brick at its core).

Another central theme of the book was the neglect of the customer. LEGO didn’t listen to what the customers wanted. They even actively disengaged with adults who bought LEGO (which accounted for 15% or more of the sales). Only with much reluctance did they involve the customer in the development process. And at a level, I can relate to LEGO. It’s sometimes difficult to receive honest feedback. Both emotionally (you don’t want to hear it), and more basically (the customer doesn’t always know what they want or how to articulate that need). But it’s definitely something to remember and do.

Brick by Brick is a great look inside this iconic company. It’s more an examination than a book full of lessons. And that is alright. Read it if you’re interested in LEGO and innovation.

February 21, 2018

Against Empathy

In Against Empathy by Paul Bloom, we get to take an exciting look into what it feels like to take an unpopular stance. The book makes the moral case for compassion. And more than that takes on empathy (feeling of others’ emotions) on as the enemy. It’s a very interesting book that has already sparked some interesting conversations.

Use your head, not your heart

This is what I think gets the most pushback. You may ask, ‘why not use my heart, that is what makes me a moral person!’. And I totally get that. That is also how I would react instinctively. Wouldn’t we all start killing each other when there is no more heart involved? Bloom argues for a no.

One of the main arguments he puts forward is that empathy has a spotlight effect. We focus on certain people, in the here and now. Empathy is not what will lead you to donate malaria nets or make you care about climate change (how would you even see or feel that). Things we should very much care about are not touched upon by empathy. Compassion and rationality, Bloom argues, is much better at this.

Here it is in Bloom’s words:

“Empathy is a spotlight focusing on certain people in the here and now. This makes us care more about them, but it leaves us insensitive to the long-term consequences of our acts and blind as well to the suffering of those we do not or cannot empathize with. Empathy is biased, pushing us in the direction of parochialism and racism. It is shortsighted, motivating actions that might make things better in the short term but lead to tragic results in the future. It is innumerate, favoring the one over the many. It can spark violence; our empathy for those close to us is a powerful force for war and atrocity toward others. It is corrosive in personal relationships; it exhausts the spirit and can diminish the force of kindness and love.”

 

So you are forewarned, read this book at your own peril (but do very much read it).

 

Some more notes

  • Bloom is not against morality, compassion, kindness, love, being a good neighbour, being a mensch, and doing the right thing
  • He defines empathy as: “The act of coming to experience the world as you think someone else does.”
  • Many moral actions require no empathy for you to act (e.g. saving a drowning child)
  • Empathy may block you from taking action, or start avoiding the situation (e.g. beggar on the street, woman who lived next to Nazi camp)
  • Empathy can make you do acts that are unfair (e.g. experiment where asked to feel like ill girl in line, people moved her up, ahead of more sick children)
  • “If you absorb the suffering of others, then you’re less able to help them in the long run because achieving long-term goals often requires inflicting short-term pain.”
  • Psychopaths may very well have empathy. Their folly is a lack of moral guidelines and self-control
  • We can ‘read’ another person’s (or dog/cat) mind without having to feel their feelings
  • The ‘identifiable victim effect’ shows how empathy can only extend to one person (and if you show more, or numbers, people tune out)
  • In general, we care most about people who are like us (and from a Selfish Gene standpoint we can see where that comes from)
  • And we care about things that catch our attention (e.g. saving a dog from a well and that costing $27.000, that is more than needed to save a life)
  • Good parenting involves moments where you let your kid(s) suffer a little (e.g. not giving them the second ice cream)
  • Foreign aid can backfire in many ways (e.g. ‘orphans’, dependency of economies)
  • Both liberals and conservatives make emphatic appeals
  • Compassion is feeling for the other, and not feeling with the other
  • Evil in the world is not done by moral monsters (they don’t exist), it’s done by people who think they are doing the right thing
  • Empathy (for your group) can motivate violence (against the other group)
  • We are often irrational beings (see Thinking, Fast and Slow)

 

 

February 13, 2018

Stealing Fire

Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal explores the concept of ecstasis. What is that? You may ask. It’s the moments you step outside yourself. It’s when you’re taking out of your rut and you feel alive. It’s what extreme sports enable. It’s why people take psychedelic drugs. And it’s what Kotler and Wheal have been searching for in the past few years. The book is very interesting to read, sometimes light on science, but high (pun intended) on aspiration and futurism.

STER

The book expands on ideas proposed by Csikszentmihalyi (Flow) and Kotler (The Rise of Superman). They take flow, a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation, and elevate it even further to ‘STER’.

  • Selflessness: (partial) loss of ego or executive function
  • Timelessness: attention is driven to the present (and you’re not wondering about yesterday/tomorrow, which in most cases is less enjoyable to do)
  • Effortlessness: it all seems easier because of a mix of chemicals in your brain (norepinephrine, dopamine, endorphins, anandamide, oxytocin, serotonin)
  • Richness: because there is more focus on the now you see more patterns, connections, ‘umwelt’, there is more processing of the now

Kotler and Wheal also discuss why we haven’t done more already in exploring these types of states. They argue that it’s because of the church (but you could argue that revelations that started religions were inspired by ecstasis states). Another reason is how we look at our bodies and that using external tools is cheating (but if you take this view, eating itself is cheating). And finally that the state prohibits experimentation and ecstasis experiences (banning drugs, dangerous sports, etc).

The 4 Forces to Ecstasis

Stealing Fire is full of examples of how we’re progressing and finding out new ways to achieve ecstasis. The authors state that there are four main drivers/areas of new discoveries:

  1. Neurobiology: we are getting better at understanding what is going on in our brain. What is the influence of certain drugs, states, activities? We can almost measure these things in real-time
  2. Psychology: take the learnings from 10 years meditation and condense them into a few weeks. Promises like that are starting to emerge from the field of psychology.
  3. Technology: neurofeedback, sharing experiences, virtual reality. With technology, the advance and sharing of ecstasis will be able to spread exponentially.
  4. Pharmacology: there are recipe books out there that help us better explore our own minds. And at the same time drugs are being used in a better way to treat mental diseases.

 

I listened to the book and I think that was the right choice. But for taking notes/making this summary it’s less useful. One thing I will be taking away (doing now) is the Hedonic Calendar. It’s their way of looking at ecstasis and how much you should be seeking it. It shouldn’t be that you’re always trying to lose yourself (your executive function isn’t there for nothing), but that you do it responsibly and in a way that enables learning and development.

Daily activities:
Meditation
Morning Stretches
Read

Weekly activities:
Crossfit x3
Few drinks
Bedtime x3

Monthly activities:
–

Bi-monthly activities:
Mind expansion

Annual activities:
Vacation x2+
Mega sports challenge

Gut check (no substances):
November
May

Additional checks:
No more than 1x p/month mind expansion & more than a few drinks
First entrepreneurship, then relationships, then fun

Make Haste Slowly!

 

February 9, 2018

Existential Risks

On Tuesday 23rd of January 2018, the EA Rotterdam group had their second reading & discussion group. This is a deeper dive into some of the EA topics.

The topic for this event was ‘Extinction Risks‘ from the 80,000 hours website.

The evening unfolded into a thrilling discussion in which great questions were asked.

We (the organisers of EA Rotterdam) thank Alex from V2 (our venue for the night) for hosting us.

If you want to visit an EA Rotterdam event, visit our Meetup page.

 

Humanity is Facing its Most Dangerous Time Ever

Wait, what? How can this be? Isn’t it the most peaceful time ever? (discussion here) There is no world war, no black plague, no biblical tidal wave. Yet, we live in a more dangerous time than ever before. We have harnessed the power of the atom (read: made a ton of nuclear weapons). We are cracking the genetic codes (read: bioterror from a basement). We are changing the climate without regard for what will happen. We are developing an intelligence that will far surpass us (AI).

We are living in dangerous times. Experts estimate our extinction risk to be between 1-20% in the next century. That is some orders of magnitude higher than the average person would ever guess. But, we are also living in a time where our resources can be used for good. We are living in a time where we can gather our resources to prevent (some of the) bad outcomes. Extinction risks is a neglected cause and an optimist would see here a great opportunity to do good.

Want to take action? Go here in the 80,000 hours article.

Nuclear War

We discussed how nuclear war could wreak havoc on the world. The combination with ideology (and patriotism/tribalism) is what makes this such a pressing problem. Where in the Cold War two nations were keeping each other in check with MAD, today more and more actors (read: countries/groups) have gotten their hands on nuclear weapons. And although the Cold War has come to an end, there is still tension between Russia and America (like a lot).

There are fewer foot soldiers around the world but cyber attacks and the like have taken their place. Conflicts between countries are being fought in different places. Both digitally as physically (think Ukraine). But nuclear war is not out of the question. North Korea could do untold damage to South Korea, Japan and America. And that hasn’t even numbered in the risk of AI in combination with nuclear weapons.

New technology always finds a way to spread itself. And we people can decide to do good or bad with it. Or even have good intentions (e.g. energy) and have bad outcomes (e.g. climate change). The proliferation of information and technology is virtually unstoppable. So we must recognise that we can’t control the tech.

Uncontrollable Tech

What if I told you that I could 3D print a gun? Disturbing right. I could make a gun without a registration number. So, what if I told you that anyone with an internet connection and access to a 3D printer could do this? That is the reality we live in today. More on this in this excellent Planet Money episode. And what if the person that made the blueprints is now selling a mill that can make an aluminium frame of an AR-15.

This is a prime example of bad consequences of technology that was made to do good (e.g. 3D print heart valves). We did ask the question: Where are these guns were going? Is it just a group of anarchists that have them stocked in their house? Or will these guns be the next ones used in a mass shooting? Or are we good people in our hearts? Or are the people who commit murders not the people who care much about their privacy and whether their guns have a serial number?

What became clear is that (new) technology increases our power. Our power to do both good and bad. And that tech has unforeseen and unforeseeable consequences. The latter we can’t do anything about, but the former we can become better at. The Future of Humanity Institute is a research institute that is investigating ways to do this.

Divided Together

One other factor in extinction risk is us, our divided world. Because of algorithms we live in our own filter bubbles. We can say that we’re both smart and stupid at the same time. We can learn as much as we want, but hearing an opinion that isn’t aligned with what we think is very unlikely. And yes, we lived in our own bubbles before, but it has become worse through technology.

And when we code machines to emulate us, it takes on our biases. An experiment with a twitter bot ended in racism, in 24 hours. If there is a faulty premise/logic behind a program, it may perform in a way we didn’t intend it should. And the faults can be invisible (like filter bubbles which only reached our conversations last year), and we can become dependent on them. And are the bubbles even bad? Don’t they make us feel comfortable? To that I would say, easy choices hard life, hard choices easy live.

Why Care?

Is there any reason we should even care that we’re divided and risk extinction? Carl Sagan says yes we should.

If we are required to calibrate extinction in numerical terms, I would be sure to include the number of people in future generations who would not be born…. (By one calculation), the stakes are one million times greater for extinction than for the more modest nuclear wars that kill “only” hundreds of millions of people. There are many other possible measures of the potential loss—including culture and science, the evolutionary history of the planet, and the significance of the lives of all of our ancestors who contributed to the future of their descendants. Extinction is the undoing of the human enterprise.”(source)

We agreed that a person not born does not equate a person being killed. But we also talked about the joy that this person could not experience (because of not being). This can be called he unfulfilled potential. The potential for happiness, technology, society, artistic expression, and more.

More on this in a great interview by Sam Harris with David Benatar.

Prepare Yourself

What if we stopped looking for answers and just tried to live out the extinction events? That is what preppers are preparing for. Some very rich technologists are buying land in New Zealand (read more). Whilst others are planning to freeze their bodies until a time comes to save/heal themselves if/when technology keeps progressing (more at Wait But Why). We ended up discussing that time might be better spend solving than preparing.

Why Neglected?

Extinction risks are far away. Climate (change) is something we don’t experience, we experience weather. So we have to address rationality (logos) and not emotion (pathos). Or at least try and use more rationality because sometimes emotions are working against us.

Climate change and conflict lead to migration and when nationalism is encouraged, people from one country are not likely to help people from another country. They ask themselves, ‘Why help these other people?’, we have our own struggles.

Steven Pinker is positive about our ability to change. In his book (buy it here) Better Angels of our Nature he argues that we’re becoming more compassionate. We’re making our circle of empathy (or compassion) larger.

William MacAskill (80k podcast link) argues the same. He states that our morals are improving and that those of future generations will likely be even better. He argues that people with ‘bad’ ideas aren’t stupid, they are just uninformed. You only need one wrong belief (and many right reasons) to go down a wrong path. So when we increase our logical thinking, we might end up somewhere more positive.

Speaking for the Future

The green party (Groenlinks) proposed an ombudsman for the future. The goal was that this person would represent our future generations. Because the actions we take now will influence their lives. And they don’t get to have a vote now.

How can we become more future-oriented? Can we improve our voting systems? We had some ideas and there is more in Buying Time (buy it here). And watch this video by David Letterman and Barack Obama about why people don’t vote.

Optimist vs Cynic

You have to believe in an optimistic world (at least so I think). But we’ve become more cynical over the last decades. Why? We’ve lost our belief in social progress. After the second world war you could move upward, now we don’t see these possibilities anymore.

In the enlightenment, there was a march or reason. The 19th century brought us romanticism. And in the 20th century, we saw how reason could be used for nefarious purposes. We see how reason, capitalism, efficiency can be used for bad things.

The world has become too complicated. Wages are frozen. And people feel they aren’t benefitting from the technological progress that’s being made. The cost of living is going up. And people are able to see how others around them are thriving (thanks, Instagram and Vogue) and they are not.

Yet, we live in a world where we have more access to healthcare than ever before. Our basic needs are becoming cheaper. We have a supercomputer in our pocket and the world’s knowledge at our fingertips. Through a different lens, the world looks much better.

 

Conclusion

We’ve had a great evening with an energising discussion about extinction risks. In the end, we took a closer look at our own psychology and looked at how we view the world. Everyone took something home and by discussing the topic things became clearer.

Want to join us for another evening? Feel free to come over and bring a friend! Please check out our Meetup Page.

 

 

Questions from me:

  • How do you feel about the future? Scared straight? Optimistic? Realistic?
  • And how are you preparing or preventing?
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