Should You Go To More Parties?

tl;dr if you want to change your life, the answer’s yes

We’ve all been there: the wedding receptions, office Christmas bashes and flat warmings where something happens that generates the stories that you’ll tell for the rest of your life. But why is that? Surely it’s not all down to the powers of alcohol?

I’ve been reading a paper today (h/t Marginal Revolution) by Alice Goffman called ‘Go to More Parties? Social Occasions as Home to Unexpected Turning Points in Life Trajectories’ (link / paywall). It posits that ‘social occasions hold an outsized potentially to unexpectantly shift the course that real life takes‘.

The type of social occasion here broadly covers anything that doesn’t comprise mundane daily work (sitting in an office, washing your clothes etc). There is often an affinity of sorts amongst those at the gathering. What’s more:

“By bringing together people who matter to one another more than strangers on the street, social occasions amplify our general concern to present ourselves well”.

And this leads to activities that are neither consequential with certain outcomes (an email you must reply to) or inconsequential with uncertain outcomes (playing a game on your mobile phone) but fateful – in other words both indeterminate and consequential.

These might be meeting a future spouse, deciding that you’ll tell your work colleagues what you really think of them or committing publicly to a decision from which you can’t retreat.

Perhaps it’s unsurprising that these often happen amongst the heightened buzz of a social gathering. But it’s the five categories behind why this is the case that  I found particularly interesting.

1/ You enter a different world – you’re surrounded by people you may not know at all well (wedding guests or a work event with colleagues from across different parts of the business). For evidence that it isn’t normal life, think of the amount of time it takes to prepare for some people (makeup, tidying, decorations).

“The frequency with which particular people meet for a social occasion is inversely proportionate to its fatefulness. The more an occasion brings together people who do not usually meet, the more likely it is to house events that unexpectedly shift people’s bonds, habits, thoughts and plans.”

2/ Events bring unique emotional energy – the paper talks about ’emotional effervescence’, a unique feeling that is created by a mixture of having people face to face, focused on the same thing (stag, wedding, birthday party etc), having barriers to prevent outsiders joining (invitations) and a shared mood (celebration, mourning etc). The energy might be crackling – but such environments can bring vicious repercussions for those who are viewed as having failed to make the grade (flirtations, bullying).

3/ Social occasions force you to publicly rank others – choosing who sits where, chats with whom or even who gets invited in the first place, shows clear decisions made by others. They can strengthen, weaken or plain insult others in a heightened atmosphere. And on occasion, trigger that life-changing decision.

4/ Set the stage for complex public choreography – who speaks to whom, about what, and as the stakes rise between people who don’t know each other well, how significant is it when you fall short? Think: choosing inappropriate topics for specific people, getting a knock-back when asking someone to dance.

5/ Set the stage for starting those chain reactions in life – we’ve all heard the stories of couples who met because they just happened to be sitting next to each other at a gathering. It will of course depend on your circumstances and stage in life but the heightened sense of occasion often bears outsized potential for unexpectedly shifting the course that real life takes.

Plenty to think about there – and it’s worth reading through the paper if you are interested.

“A rich variety of phenomena – the development of weak and strong ties… embarrassment… fortuitous encounters… the emergence of religious identity and belief… meeting one’s future spouse… activation of job networks… building up or draining of emotional energy… peer pressure… acts of acute disrespect… critical consciousness… binge drinking… sexual assault… become more meaningful by considering social occasions because social occasions are where they happen. It is here inside the electric, intense connected energy of occasions that people make new friends, heal old wounds, hatch plans and cross the line.”

“…Social occasions represent a pocket of fatefulness in everyday life, a form of experience more hospitable to bringing about some unanticipated change than many other things people do throughout the day”.

“Thus, a single hour spent in high school biology class, which happens every day with the same group of people and typically produces quite low levels of collective effervescence, is unlikely to be fateful for the students attending. That same hour spent at a best friend’s wedding brings a far greater chance of shifting a person’s course.”

 

Lords of our Tiny Skull-Sized Kingdoms

Back in 2005, American writer David Foster Wallace gave a commencement speech to a graduating class. The talk has become known as ‘This is Water‘ and has influenced many over the years.

It’s a powerful piece of work that, by virtue of being very different to the standard run-of-the-mill commencement speeches regurgitated at the culmination of academic award season, stands alone. Its impact is somehow even more poignant given the sad fact that Wallace took his own life some three years later, after a relatively short career which involved writing one of Time Magazine’s Best 100 Novels of the twentieth century (‘Infinite Jest‘).

You can check out the full transcript of the speech here. And there have been many articles over the years highlighting just how impactful the speech was. Please do check them out if you’re seeking a more erudite assessment. But for my own purposes, I’d summarise the key points as follows:-

Education is about learning how to think – not about the knowledge itself.

That journey will depend on the context we each bring to the task – so it’s very different for every single human.

Learning how to think is learning how to be less dogmatic. Realising that you can be – and will be – wrong (particularly on the things that you are most certain about).

We are self-centred by default: “lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms”. But it is crucial to break out of this comfortable prison – because that illusion of comfort will slowly suffocate you if you do not.

You must always decide how to deal with the frustrating, monotonous, boring times in which you struggle in your life –  by understanding that others have their own stories. It’s similar to Stephen Covey’s ‘Man on the Subway‘, ‘everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about’, ‘do not judge my story by the chapter you walked in on’ etc.)

This has to be a choice: it cannot happen by itself. And whether you are aware of it or not, it is up to you alone to decide what has meaning in life and what doesn’t…

…and whatever has meaning, you will worship – in the sense that you will subconsciously crave and seek it out). So make it far more than simply money or possessions.

The most worrying part: the world will not stop you from seeking those material things – because most of the world isn’t learning, doesn’t think and so mistakenly stays focused on such insubstantial outcomes by default.

So never stop learning. Every. Single. Day. Because only by learning, can you be the fish that not only notices its environment – but is able to choose how to respond. And what to do – not just for yourself, but for others.

This……is water.

 

 

Earthrise, The Most Exciting Christmas Eve In History

Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve. But it’s also the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most exciting events in human history – when the three astronauts of the Apollo 8 mission travelled round the Moon.

These days, we tend to forget just how huge this event was. Like most of the US space programme in the 1960’s, it was carried out in a rush caused by the prevailing fear that the Russians were gaining ground in the space race and about to launch the first manned moon landing attempt.

If like me you weren’t around at the time, there were a couple of pivotal moments that it’s worth reliving.

The first was the loss of radio signal when they travelled to the far side of the moon for the very first time. For a vivid sense of the very real drama that took place during that 45 minutes of total uncertainty and silence – would the craft survive the moon’s gravitational pull? would the pocket-calculator capacity of the onboard computer fail under the conditions? would the astronauts suffer unknown effects from the journey that rendered them incapable? – you should take a listen to Public Service Broadcasting‘ phenomenal ‘The Other Side’ which contains the audio from the day:-

The second event left an even more indelible mark across the collective human psyche: the first ever Earthrise viewed from another world.

It’s one of the most famous photographs in the world. The impact of that photograph showing earthrise across the lunar surface was seismic: for the three astronauts who witnessed it firsthand, it was life-changing. But the impact felt by the rest of the species back on earth was greater. Because for the first time, it became all too clear just how small and fragile our colourful planet was, and how no barriers of race or belief could ever be visible from the orbit of another world. Out of that one photograph and a global television audience that watched the events of Christmas Eve in 1968 came the birth of the modern environmental movement.

But even more powerful is the thought (captured in this article) is that it is only in the act of leaving that you can only ever truly see the world in which you’re living. Perhaps for some, that’s The Matrix. For others, it’s hallucinogens. But TS Eliot really did say it best:

‘We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.’

Digital Patronage

I’ve previously written about the growing popularity of podcasting but one thing missing from that post was how these ventures are being funded.

The Kickstarter model has always interested me, particularly back in the earlier days when Amanda Palmer raised $1.2 million from fans to record her ‘Theatre Is Evil’ album.

Times have changed greatly from 2012 but the challenge still remains when it comes to funding artistic pursuits. In the Renaissance period, creative types relied on the patronage of wealthy patrons. Many of the most memorable pieces of art simply couldn’t have been carried out without that support. In theory, both sides would benefit from the transaction: whilst the artist was building the breathing space within which to create, the powerful patron enjoyed basking in the reflected glory. However, the process often caused tensions between the parties in practice: one was focused on the process of creation, the other on the end result.

But whilst patronage was the vital lifeblood of significant creative pursuits for many years, The Economist points out that we should be careful to account for the inevitable survivor bias when assessing how successful the model was. After all, not all money funded works of genius – there must have been plenty of cash wasted on artists and their works that sank without a trace.

So how is this relevant today? Because the nature of patronage has evolved.

“Writing in the 18th century, Edmund Burke described patronage as “the tribute that opulence owes to genius”. Today it is the spare change millennials pay podcasters.”

Today, a site like Patreon sees over 100,000 people being supported by nearly 3 million people. Instead of patronage being one-to-many, support now comes in the form of many-to-one. Carving out a source of funding that can support your creative pursuits is now very much a possibility for those with a following.

So for example, Amanda Palmer was unsurprisingly one of the earlier artists to move onto Patron. Many just starting out will not have that choice. But for those that do, it seems like a far more powerful alternative than simply throwing themselves on the vagaries of the algorithms on Google/YouTube.

Is it fair to say then that this is a brave new world opening up? One without middlemen, agents, distributors and the like taking the cut for the discovery and distribution of creative digital goods?

Not so fast.

But that’s a discussion for another day…

 

Dyson Sphere and Kurzgesagt

Love this recent video from the ‘Kurzgesagt – In A Nutshell’.

It’s such a powerful way to help people learn – in this case, about how to build a hypothetical megastructure called a Dyson Sphere that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output.

So it’s a thought experiment that makes you think. I think that’s the definition of success.

What’s more, it’s building awareness for Brilliant, a website is focused on developing mathematical and scientific thinking for students, professionals and hobbyists around the world. Definitely worth checking out.

Drones Close Gatwick

It’s been a day of future tech headlines today as random drones have closed Gatwick Airport in London the day before the busiest plane travel day in the year.

I can already see plenty of complaints from folk online who say this sort of thing must be easy to stop. But I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.

I’ve written about drones in the past (for example, ‘Drones and Regulation’ in 2015 and ‘Festive Drones: When Will Santa Upgrade?’ in 2014). But I’m a strong believer that this will ultimately turn into a technology that it’s impossible to defend against from a security perspective. There are simply too many variables at play here and I don’t think we should be surprised to see many more of these kind of incidents – regardless of how heavily the industry is regulated.

If that comes across as pessimistic, it shouldn’t be. Like every technology, it is itself neutral – and there are many incredibly powerful, good use cases. But this video (filmed, incidentally, in Edinburgh of all places), remains on my mind.

And in a year when we’ve now seen the first high-profile assassination attempt of a political leader in Venezuela, there’s no doubt that the tech is here to stay. As ever, the question is how we as a society choose to address the questions that it poses.

PS. Make sure you watch to the end of the video: particularly from 6mins43 onwards. There’s a serious message there. And a question:-

In a world in which this is not only possible but probably, do you still think it’s a good idea to share your personal data with everyone?

Kahneman And Happiness

Last year, I finally got around to reading Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’. It’s a fantastic work and one that everyone should read.

Today, I found out that Tyler Cowen’s just released a new ‘Conversations With Tyler’ podcast with Kahneman. Here’s a great excerpt:-

“Happiness feels good in the moment. But it’s in the moment. What you’re left with are your memories. And that’s a very striking thing — that memories stay with you, and the reality of life is gone in an instant. So memory has a disproportionate weight because it’s with us. It stays with us. It’s the only thing we get to keep.”

You can check out the podcast here and the transcription here.

10x Focus

Thought for the day and today’s important lesson from Seth Godin summed up in one quote:-

“The thing is: a 1x contributor can’t become a 10x merely by working ten times as hard.”

Because it’s all about focus.

“The reason that there are so few 10x contributors isn’t that we lack innate talent. It’s that our systems and our self-talk seduce us into believing that repeating 1x work to exhaustion is a safer path.”

Tim May, Cypherpunk & Visionary

There are two kinds of crypto. There’s ‘cool crypto’ (i.e. the whole cryptocurrency movement that’s been with for the last decade or so) and the ‘original crypto’ (arguably even cooler) – the fascinating small niche of society that has been utterly focused on the use of cryptography for an even longer period of time as they battle to create individual sovereignty and build the technological protections that will defend Society’s vulnerable against the overreach of the State.

At the weekend, Tim May, one of the founders of the legendary Cypherpunk Mailing list died.  Writing a long piece on the impact of the cypherpunk movement and why it’s so important is a task for another day – so if you want to hear something about Tim May’s involvement, it’s worth checking out Prof. Bill Buchanan’s post.

In a nutshell though, let’s take Wikipedia’s definition: “A cypherpunk is any activist advocating widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a route to social and political change.”

It’s amazing to see just how much far reality has morphed today into a world in which May’s visions have become almost commonplace. Incredibly, May wrote The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto back in 1988.

And it’s fascinating to see how May viewed the current Bitcoin scene earlier this year as well:

“I can’t speak for what Satoshi intended, but I sure don’t think it involved bitcoin exchanges that have draconian rules about KYC, AML, passports, freezes on accounts and laws about reporting ‘suspicious activity’ to the local secret police. There’s a real possibility that all the noise about ‘governance,’ ‘regulation’ and ‘blockchain’ will effectively create a surveillance state, a dossier society.

The battleground is still coming into focus – and yet so many still know little of the conflict that’s continuing to take shape. There are only a few whispers now and again. So it might have taken a while. But it’s really only getting started.

Huxley and Orwell

Thought for the day from Neil Postman (Amusing Ourselves to Death, 1985):

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared we would become a captive audience. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Orwell feared that we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.

In short, Orwell feared that what we hate would ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”