Learning A Different Language

This Reddit notification popped up on my phone. As soon as I noticed it, it made me laugh. And then it struck me just how many processes had just played out pretty much simultaneously…

Despite only showing the first nine words of the post, the combination with the picture told a story. But, I suspect, only to people who (1) have worked at learning music and (2) can read sheet music.

In other words, this is funny – but only ever to a very small subset of people. Perfect, in other words, for a platform like Reddit where each sub is perfectly focused on whatever niche you might be into.

It got me thinking about music as a language. There’s plenty of research that shows a strong correlation between musicians and linguists.

They say that the world improves as communication increases. So if music is just another language, it feels like something we should be encouraging – both in schools and beyond to promote harmony.

And not only because it can make you laugh.

Tweet of the Day: Phonecalls

It’s rare that my mobile gets used heavily for actually speaking to people on calls. Lengthy calls tend to be via VOIP on the laptop with the rest of my mobile time being spent on emails, social and surfing, just like everyone else.

Because of this, it’s rare that I’ll answer a call from a number that I don’t recognise. Like most people these days, time is so precious with the various daily commitments that it’s just not worth taking the risk of picking up and derailing the time that you planned to be focused on something else. If it’s supposed to be urgent, an email and an arranged time for a call works just fine. And if it’s truly urgent? Then they’ll keep on ringing.

It’s also part of the reason that I try to keep my notifications to a minimum on my mobile. Mind you, the fact that I continually find myself slipping backwards on this and have to reset is a whole other blog post in itself….

So I’m totally onboard with this tweet:

https://twitter.com/as_w/status/1091206956608512000?s=19

Our concept of time and planning has shifted massively with the advent of modern consumer tech. The more contactable we become, the harder we have to fight to stay on our feet as we wade upstream in the river of information that’s speeding up as it flows through more of our daily activities.

It used to be that letting others control your daily calendar was not only normal but also ‘good’ business. Now sometimes it feels like that it’s simply the quickest way to live the life you didn’t choose to lead, badly.

The Willingness To Be Wrong

Everyone tries to be right. But maybe being right isn’t really the goal.

A good scientist should be happy to be proven wrong – because it means that she’s learned something. Science is all about standing on the edge of uncertainty and being comfortable with the fact that you don’t know. That’s what research is, after all – trying to find out the answers to those things that we don’t know.

An extremist is someone with fixed opinions who assumes that he knows everything. But that in itself is one of the most dangerous opinions anyone can  hold. History tells us that those who believe in their own absolute knowledge and are unwilling to countenance any change in opinion end up causing the most destruction.

As people such as Richard Feynman have said, the key to science (and life) is being wrong. In his great essay ‘The Value of Science’ from 1955, he wrote:

It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.

Tip for the day: Go out. Get it wrong. Fail. And repeat. In this way, over time, great things can be achieved.

Are There More Brainy People All Of A Sudden?

Someone mentioned to me today that the physicist Brian Cox is doing a tour. Not newsworthy in itself perhaps. But then I took a look at the venues. It’s an arena tour! Just for a bit of context, he’s ‘playing’ Wembley Arena. That’s 10-12,000 people. And what’s more those tickets are flying out the door…

It’s more like a rock concert. But what’s fascinating is that this really isn’t unique. The past 18 months or so has seen a huge growth in events where ‘clever people’ (for some reason, I’ve always struggled with the term ‘Intellectual’, although that clearly applies in most of the cases) are sitting on stages and holding forth on science, philosophy, mathematics – and all manner of other subjects that, not to put too fine a point on it, would be hated by a huge proportion of average school-going children. Just take a look at the recent tours by people like Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson amongst others.

So what’s going on? I can only guess. I’m going to suggest it’s two things:-

Continued Growth of The Digital World

As more information becomes accessible, there is a vast amount of knowledge available for free online. As a result, people (or at least those who live in societies that afford individuals both the opportunity and infrastructure to access the internet at will) have woken up to the fact that often subjects that bored you senseless in school when you were compelled to focus solely on passing exams are actually fascinating once you replace the well-meaning teacher intent with the passion to follow your own curiosity.

Want to know what a wormhole is? No problem. Use your mobile and dive down that particular rabbit hole. You don’t need all those qualifications to at least skim the subject in order to see whether you’re truly interested in the details.

Now of course, the results aren’t uniquely good. It does mean that there’s a vast number of people who believe they’re experts simply because they read a few articles online. That’s no substitution for four years of intensive subject-specific study. But at least you’re able to bring your experiences and knowledge from other parts of your life and education to the party. Who knows? They might be exactly the qualities that those immersed in the details were waiting for.

Tribes Are Becoming Easier To Find And Identify With

I loved Seth Godin’s book ‘Tribes‘ a few years ago. It’s one of only a few that I have in paperback, ebook and audiobook (there’s also a TED talk). That concept resonated in so many ways. Fundamentally people are now able to quickly identify others that find the same things interesting that they do. And, thanks to the power of social media, online video and – yes – blogs, they’re more than happy to come together to share in that conversation.

There’s no longer two or maybe three choices in every area of your life. Instead,  there are countless little subgroups of interests and, in almost every single case, human nature shows that the pack will coalesce around the leadership of at least one individual. Whether they have blind faith in that individual is up for debate. Some do of course. But I believe that for the most part, people just want to be around people who’re like them, at some level. They want to be in groups where they know that the conversation will both interest and stretch them. And it’s not hard to see the attraction of surrounding yourself with others when you’re genuinely curious in the same subject – and you can see that the community is so broad that the likelihood of finding a few minds with truly groundbreaking insight is higher than ever before.

Some people worry about the growth of the Intellectual Dark Web. But then again, some people worry about everything. Me? I’d be far more worried if they start closing down these conversations. We all need culture, we all need stories – but we also need people coming together to discuss some of the more fascinating and difficult subjects that face us today.

All of which gives me another excuse to post one of my top three favourite videos on YouTube from Derek Sivers. I’ve watched this many times over the years and it pops into my head often. So if you haven’t seen it, it’s only 6 minutes – take a chance…

Phantom Buttons

I discovered today that most of the buttons on pedestrian crossings in New York were disabled a number of years ago. Due to the costs, it was decided that the ineffectual buttons would remain.

Interestingly though despite the fact that the buttons did nothing at all, the evidence showed that they still had a positive effect. People continued to use them (presumably unaware that their functionality was purely historic) and, as a result, less people felt compelled to jaywalk than might otherwise be the case.

Now, living in the UK as I do, I clearly don’t understand this sin of ‘jaywalking’ that appears to be deeply embedded within the US pysche (do cars just drive more slowly and safely in the UK? Do we just have far fewer people in the cities?). But it seems as if less jaywalking is A Golf Thing.

It’s interesting that we as humans respond in such ways to the design of things. It’s the same as the‘close doors’ button in lifts and the London Underground train buttons (which never work).

It seems that presenting the illusion – if not the fact – of being in control is good for the pysche. You might be running late and get to a crossing. What would you prefer to do? Stand still and wait for the green man to just appear on the crossing? Or press a button a few times – and feel like you’re doing something?

It’s likely we’ll see more and more placebo items appear as time progresses and automation subtly encroaches further on our everyday lives. But I suspect we’ll generally not realise their purpose. After all, it’s hard to accept that you’re actually being controlled by faceless timing mechanisms – or algorithms that remain resolutely opaque and grow increasingly powerful over so many aspects of our lives. It’s painful to give up that personal autonomy – no matter how much safer, quicker or fulfilled our lives will be as a result of pushing these phantom buttons.

Tweets of the Day (LinkedIn & Synaesthesia Edition)

Two tweets stood out as highlights for me on Twitter today. The first from @Naval is perhaps self-evident to everyone who uses and relies on Twitter as a source of information:-

Can’t argue with that.

LinkedIn is the most polished version of yourself that you’ve composed in order to impress others who have the power to positively impact your career. Whereas (used properly) Twitter is the way that individuals can distribute their life-changing ideas and positively impact people on a global scale.

LinkedIn broadcasts your claimed deeds and your promises about the future. Whereas Twitter shows how you actually behaved and the way you approach your life. Given the choice of both, I know which one I’d be more comfortable to use as a proxy…

And onto the second tweet of the day:-

This is just brilliant on so many levels. After all, who doesn’t want to know what their name tastes like?!

I was reading about synesthesia last week so, as often seems to happen – provided you’re not following a raft of inane reality TV stars – Twitter provided that all-essential follow-up to hook me back in. From world-famous artists (Van Gogh), physicists (Richard Feynman), writers (Nabokov) and musicians (Liszt, Pharrell, Kanye West, Tori Amos), many people have this unusual skill of being able to taste words, sounds, hear colours – or many other combinations of the senses.  Incredibly, there are apparently around 80 different types of synesthesia.

Interestingly, it might be the case that more of us have traces of this ‘superpower’ than we realise. For example, one experiment showed:-

“Significantly more people than chance, for instance, associated the smell of mushrooms with the colours blue or yellow. Lavender elicited the colour green and the texture of sticky liquid, while ginger was perceived as black and sharp.”

As I’ve written about before on this blog, it’s clear that the world of senses is far richer and more complicated, extending far beyond the simple five that most of us are led to believe we possess from an early age. Seems quite fitting, doesn’t it?

Five Big Questions

As I get older, the anthropology of the human species gets increasingly fascinating. I don’t think I’m alone in this. With every passing year, I believe that people tend – on average – to become more conscious of the bigger view. Or what I call the ‘Life, the Universe and Everything Questions’.

People often seek these answers for a whole variety of different reasons. Often the journey is moulded by the mistakes that they’ve made in the past and the experience of witnessing the reality of human behaviour ‘in the wild’ (or what passes for the wild in modernity) – in other words, seeing for themselves the contrast between what humans say and what they actually do.

But using this accumulated wisdom to ask more questions often leads to the realisation that, in the absence of any other factors, the past is often the best indicator of the behaviour of humans in the future. To a great extent, new trends and technologies matter little – because they are still controlled by humans who suffer from the same weaknesses and selfish behaviours, combined with tribal loyalties, that we always have.

Hence the growing interest in the anthropology, or the ways in which humans behaved in societies in the past. You only need to take a look at the success of books such as ‘Sapiens’ by Yuval Noah Harari and ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ by Jared Diamond to see the demand.

Anyway, this is a pretty cool diagram – showing the evolution of the English Alphabet of the Proto-Sinaitic (Middle Bronze Age) to the present day Modern Latin Script.

 

I’m not sure that it really conveys any of the epic story that went into those many thousands of years of human history that built up the customs and meanings that each of those markings has come to represent over the millennia. But I’d challenge anyone to look at it and not come away with at least five big questions about the past you came from.

Go on, give it a try.

Venezuela and Bitcoin

It’s getting pretty crazy in Venezuela right now. Mind you, the weird attempt by the government to launch the Petro, a state-backed ‘cryptocurrency’ last year, the inflation rate in the country hitting 80,000% in 2018and the accompanying huge growth in demand for Bitcoin provides a bit of context.

And it doesn’t stop there. Not only is new popular leader Guaido not only a vehemebnt critic of Maduro’s Petro but also spoke openly about Bitcoin back in 2014.

And now, to ramp up the pressure, we have the US declaring a new President in a foreign country and the Bank of England confiscating Venezuela’s gold…

So many parts of this remind me of those conversations over the past few years where popular Bitcoin critics and commentators spoke disparagingly about the chance of many of these things happening individually.

Foundations For A Great Career

Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator (incubator that spawned Reddit, Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, Coinbase amongst many others) put out a blog post yesterday that should be required reading for anyone entering the tech industry – or indeed any career.

‘How To Be Successful’ contains a huge number of key lessons that are worth their weight in gold for anyone who has an active interest in the direction of their career. Let’s take a look at some highlights…

Never underestimate the power of compounding

A general rule across everything in life: the tiny things you do each day constitute the habits that will define your success (or otherwise).

Build up your knowledge and skills a little each day – the sooner you develop any skills, the bigger the impact will be over a number of years. Welcome to the power of compounding.

“You don’t want to be in a career where people who have been doing it for two years can be as effective as people who have been doing it for twenty—your rate of learning should always be high. As your career progresses, each unit of work you do should generate more and more results. There are many ways to get this leverage, such as capital, technology, brand, network effects, and managing people.“

Be both confident and self-aware

Successful entrepreneurs are often borderline delusional. But they’re basing their beliefs on the absolute certainty that they hold inside themselves that they will never – ever – give up. Just as Lao Tzu wrote, even the persistenr dripping of water will wear away the rock.

“Most highly successful people have been really right about the future at least once at a time when people thought they were wrong. If not, they would have faced much more competition.“

Being great at communication is essential

You must be able to clearly communicate in order to convince others – to join you, buy from you and to support you. Written communication is the great testing ground for such skills (hello bloggers).

Don’t get comfortable

Risks and failure are essential. Most people are far too risk averse and unable to choose the approaches that have the greatest benefits, on balance, for their future lives.

“Most people overestimate risk and underestimate reward. Taking risks is important because it’s impossible to be right all the time—you have to try many things and adapt quickly as you learn more.“

Focus…but only on the right things

Don’t just work hard. Work only the right things. And once you’ve spent the time (that most people never get round to) identifying what those things are, burn through that work as fast as possible. As he says:

“I have yet to meet a slow-moving person who is very successful.“

In working hard, you have a new job – discover how to avoid burning yourself out. For some, it’s sport, friends, healthy eating, meditation. The details don’t matter. But drop the idea that working hard is a bad thing.

It’s up to everyone to gauge themselves what that means in terms of what you ‘miss out on’ as a result of that extra graft. So it’s crucial to find work you’re passionate about and people you enjoy working with.

Harder problems are more fun

You’ll find it easier to attract people who are keen to join you on that journey if you’re focused on fixing a massive, world-changing problem.

Be helpful to others

It used to be called networking. But to this day, that always conjured up images of behaviour that’s mercenary, a calculated career ploy. Focus on helping others wherever possible. Given a sufficiently long timescale, most people want to repay the favour – and often it’s the most random of connections from the past that has the chance to change your life (something I’ve experienced a few times now).

Don’t sell your time

If one of your career goals is to focus on making money (above the standard subsistence requirements for you and your family), you’ll never do it by simply selling your time – ie relying on a salary. You’ll do it by building up assets that continue to provide a revenue stream over time – owning assets that rapidly increase in value.

Be internally driven

For me, this is the single most important point of any so far. If you define success by the standards of others, your life will be harder and it’s likely to be less impactful. You’ll make decisions about your life according to the judgements that you think others will make about your choices.

“Eventually, you will define your success by performing excellent work in areas that are important to you. The sooner you can start off in that direction, the further you will be able to go. It is hard to be wildly successful at anything you aren’t obsessed with.”

Plenty to take on board there. But for my money, the last one is the key to it all.