From 5c5e6aed523676dfef699407dddc2426c218f486 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Hirad Motamed <hirad@dr-bill.ca>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2020 18:12:44 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] Site updated at: 2020-09-12 01:12:44 UTC

---
 404.html                                      |  8 ++++----
 7-powers.html                                 |  8 ++++----
 about.html                                    |  8 ++++----
 .../03/09/dabbling-vs-boiling-the-water.html  |  8 ++++----
 essays/2014/03/10/attachment-to-failure.html  |  8 ++++----
 .../success-rule-evolution-always-wins.html   |  8 ++++----
 .../05/03/thoughts-on-startup-culture.html    |  8 ++++----
 essays/2014/05/12/smash-your-idols.html       |  8 ++++----
 ...mate-moments-with-the-rich-and-famous.html |  8 ++++----
 .../06/17/being-a-producer-vs-consumer.html   |  8 ++++----
 .../27/when-you-shouldnt-ask-questions.html   |  8 ++++----
 essays/2014/08/24/in-defense-of-mastery.html  |  8 ++++----
 essays/2014/10/18/unbundling-goals.html       |  8 ++++----
 essays/2014/11/02/remarkable-products.html    |  8 ++++----
 essays/2014/11/24/embracing-uncertainty.html  |  8 ++++----
 essays/2014/12/14/form-vs-flash.html          |  8 ++++----
 .../01/09/better-information-in-take.html     |  8 ++++----
 .../03/08/pleasures-not-worth-seeking.html    |  8 ++++----
 essays/2015/03/31/no-will-power-to-spare.html |  8 ++++----
 essays/2015/05/05/eyes-wide-shut.html         |  8 ++++----
 essays/2015/05/09/the-ideal-capitalist.html   |  8 ++++----
 essays/2015/05/17/microaggression.html        |  8 ++++----
 essays/2015/07/12/my-friend-hans.html         |  8 ++++----
 essays/2016/02/27/white-spaces.html           |  8 ++++----
 essays/2016/03/26/galileos-middle-finger.html |  8 ++++----
 essays/2016/08/20/man-and-cuckoo.html         |  8 ++++----
 essays/2016/10/02/thoughts-on-success.html    |  8 ++++----
 essays/2017/01/23/politics-ban.html           |  8 ++++----
 essays/2017/01/28/the-other-ban.html          |  8 ++++----
 essays/2017/06/10/the-may-of-my-life.html     |  8 ++++----
 essays/2017/08/15/on-the-google-fiasco.html   |  8 ++++----
 essays/2017/11/17/cheap-chopsticks.html       |  8 ++++----
 .../2018/01/06/meditation-retreat-recap.html  |  8 ++++----
 .../01/20/extreme-self-responsibility.html    |  8 ++++----
 .../02/02/the-masters-work-is-invisible.html  |  8 ++++----
 essays/2018/10/06/goodbye.html                |  8 ++++----
 essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html |  8 ++++----
 .../04/26/pandemic-predictions-part-1.html    |  8 ++++----
 .../05/02/pandemic-predictions-part-2.html    |  8 ++++----
 .../05/17/pandemic-predictions-part-3.html    |  8 ++++----
 essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html    |  8 ++++----
 essays/2020/08/23/learning-and-applying.html  |  8 ++++----
 .../2016/08/06/on-worries-and-anxieties.html  |  8 ++++----
 .../2016/08/14/hardship-and-loss.html         |  8 ++++----
 feed.xml                                      | 20 +++++++++----------
 index.html                                    |  8 ++++----
 ...tes-number-1-swift-is-not-objective-c.html |  8 ++++----
 redirects.json                                |  2 +-
 48 files changed, 195 insertions(+), 195 deletions(-)

diff --git a/404.html b/404.html
index 8572ea6..389ff29 100644
--- a/404.html
+++ b/404.html
@@ -7,13 +7,13 @@
 <meta name="generator" content="Jekyll v3.8.6" />
 <meta property="og:title" content="Making the map match the territory" />
 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
-<link rel="canonical" href="http://localhost:4000/404.html" />
-<meta property="og:url" content="http://localhost:4000/404.html" />
+<link rel="canonical" href="http://hirad.github.io/404.html" />
+<meta property="og:url" content="http://hirad.github.io/404.html" />
 <meta property="og:site_name" content="Making the map match the territory" />
 <script type="application/ld+json">
-{"url":"http://localhost:4000/404.html","@type":"WebPage","headline":"Making the map match the territory","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"url":"http://hirad.github.io/404.html","@type":"WebPage","headline":"Making the map match the territory","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
 <!-- End Jekyll SEO tag -->
-<link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/main.css"><link type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" href="http://localhost:4000/feed.xml" title="Making the map match the territory" /></head>
+<link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/main.css"><link type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" href="http://hirad.github.io/feed.xml" title="Making the map match the territory" /></head>
 <body><header class="site-header" role="banner">
 
   <div class="wrapper"><a class="site-title" rel="author" href="/">Making the map match the territory</a><nav class="site-nav">
diff --git a/7-powers.html b/7-powers.html
index 3f55062..c0cac1c 100644
--- a/7-powers.html
+++ b/7-powers.html
@@ -2,10 +2,10 @@
 <html lang="en-US">
   <meta charset="utf-8">
   <title>Redirecting&hellip;</title>
-  <link rel="canonical" href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html">
-  <script>location="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html"</script>
-  <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html">
+  <link rel="canonical" href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html">
+  <script>location="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html"</script>
+  <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html">
   <meta name="robots" content="noindex">
   <h1>Redirecting&hellip;</h1>
-  <a href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html">Click here if you are not redirected.</a>
+  <a href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html">Click here if you are not redirected.</a>
 </html>
diff --git a/about.html b/about.html
index 84777fb..d1f33d4 100644
--- a/about.html
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 <meta property="og:title" content="About" />
 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
-<link rel="canonical" href="http://localhost:4000/about.html" />
-<meta property="og:url" content="http://localhost:4000/about.html" />
+<link rel="canonical" href="http://hirad.github.io/about.html" />
+<meta property="og:url" content="http://hirad.github.io/about.html" />
 <meta property="og:site_name" content="Making the map match the territory" />
 <meta property="og:type" content="article" />
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+{"dateModified":"2014-02-24T23:52:00-08:00","datePublished":"2014-02-24T23:52:00-08:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/about.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/about.html"},"@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"About","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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-<link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/main.css"><link type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" href="http://localhost:4000/feed.xml" title="Making the map match the territory" /></head>
+<link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/main.css"><link type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" href="http://hirad.github.io/feed.xml" title="Making the map match the territory" /></head>
 <body><header class="site-header" role="banner">
 
   <div class="wrapper"><a class="site-title" rel="author" href="/">Making the map match the territory</a><nav class="site-nav">
diff --git a/essays/2014/03/09/dabbling-vs-boiling-the-water.html b/essays/2014/03/09/dabbling-vs-boiling-the-water.html
index 90450c4..ee961f9 100644
--- a/essays/2014/03/09/dabbling-vs-boiling-the-water.html
+++ b/essays/2014/03/09/dabbling-vs-boiling-the-water.html
@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="One of the (many) benefits of practicing one skill repeatedly and over a really long time is that in the process you get to observe a lot of people who fail and succeed. You start noticing patterns on what works and what doesn&rsquo;t. For me, the skill I&rsquo;ve been practicing for a long time is Aikido but the same principles apply whether you&rsquo;re talking about playing the piano or working on your social skills. In Aikido, as in almost all other martial arts, there are a handful of students who are serious practitioners and thousands of students who are dabblers - people who think practicing the martial art is a good way to fill idle time, move their body around, and maybe socialize a bit." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="One of the (many) benefits of practicing one skill repeatedly and over a really long time is that in the process you get to observe a lot of people who fail and succeed. You start noticing patterns on what works and what doesn&rsquo;t. For me, the skill I&rsquo;ve been practicing for a long time is Aikido but the same principles apply whether you&rsquo;re talking about playing the piano or working on your social skills. In Aikido, as in almost all other martial arts, there are a handful of students who are serious practitioners and thousands of students who are dabblers - people who think practicing the martial art is a good way to fill idle time, move their body around, and maybe socialize a bit." />
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+<link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/main.css"><link type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" href="http://hirad.github.io/feed.xml" title="Making the map match the territory" /></head>
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diff --git a/essays/2014/03/10/attachment-to-failure.html b/essays/2014/03/10/attachment-to-failure.html
index a5035a3..95b8a4a 100644
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 <meta property="og:description" content="One subject that you&rsquo;re going to read a lot about on this blog is effective methods of learning skills. The most successful people are those who can reinvent themselves many times and adapt to change effectively. That means being able to learn new things quickly and efficiently. At least as far back as when I was a teenager (and maybe earlier), I remember being warned by older people that my capacity for learning would dwindle as I got older. I&rsquo;m only 26 now, so I haven&rsquo;t fully verified this for myself, but I suspect the reason why learning new skills gets harder with age has little to do with age itself and more to do with other factors correlated with it." />
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   <div class="wrapper"><a class="site-title" rel="author" href="/">Making the map match the territory</a><nav class="site-nav">
diff --git a/essays/2014/04/25/success-rule-evolution-always-wins.html b/essays/2014/04/25/success-rule-evolution-always-wins.html
index 31be9da..0470beb 100644
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+<link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/main.css"><link type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" href="http://hirad.github.io/feed.xml" title="Making the map match the territory" /></head>
 <body><header class="site-header" role="banner">
 
   <div class="wrapper"><a class="site-title" rel="author" href="/">Making the map match the territory</a><nav class="site-nav">
diff --git a/essays/2014/05/03/thoughts-on-startup-culture.html b/essays/2014/05/03/thoughts-on-startup-culture.html
index 8881908..4973994 100644
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 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="Yesterday, I read this article on how a new anonymous, local messaging app had brought a Connecticut &ldquo;high school to a halt.&rdquo; And just now, I saw this tweet by Aral Balkan: We’re obsessed with fast tech (think fast food)… maybe what we need is slow tech. - Aral Balkan on Twitter Long-term thinking. No exit strategies. Independence. along with another tweet where he said maybe what we need, instead of more startup accelerators, is startup &lsquo;decelerators.&rsquo; I think that&rsquo;s a brilliant idea. I think startup culture is a runaway train, and it&rsquo;s consuming precious little resources of our society (from engineering talent to limited funds) in magnifying the worst aspects of humanity." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="Yesterday, I read this article on how a new anonymous, local messaging app had brought a Connecticut &ldquo;high school to a halt.&rdquo; And just now, I saw this tweet by Aral Balkan: We’re obsessed with fast tech (think fast food)… maybe what we need is slow tech. - Aral Balkan on Twitter Long-term thinking. No exit strategies. Independence. along with another tweet where he said maybe what we need, instead of more startup accelerators, is startup &lsquo;decelerators.&rsquo; I think that&rsquo;s a brilliant idea. I think startup culture is a runaway train, and it&rsquo;s consuming precious little resources of our society (from engineering talent to limited funds) in magnifying the worst aspects of humanity." />
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diff --git a/essays/2014/06/17/being-a-producer-vs-consumer.html b/essays/2014/06/17/being-a-producer-vs-consumer.html
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diff --git a/essays/2014/06/27/when-you-shouldnt-ask-questions.html b/essays/2014/06/27/when-you-shouldnt-ask-questions.html
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diff --git a/essays/2014/08/24/in-defense-of-mastery.html b/essays/2014/08/24/in-defense-of-mastery.html
index 45df8b3..4e5993e 100644
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 <meta name="description" content="Things have never been better, and everybody&rsquo;s miserable. -Louis CK The modern world has brought us more choices in almost every facet of our lives. From our choice of which cereal to eat in the morning to what sport to do in our spare time to which career to pick. We make more decisions in our lives than our ancestors ever did. While this is, for the most part, beneficial, there are downsides to it. One of those downsides is the fact fewer and fewer of us seem to take the time to learn anything well." />
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-<link rel="canonical" href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2014/08/24/in-defense-of-mastery.html" />
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 <meta name="description" content="A while ago I had a debate (for the millionth time) with a friend of mine about the merits of using Apple products. This iPhone-vs-Android debate is about as meaningful as any debate where people take sides and stick with them like their lives depend on it. But sometimes, with the right people, you can discuss even these subjects intelligently and with reason, and when that happens, it&rsquo;s a perfect time for some introspection and thought about why you think what you think. While talking to him, I was trying to get to the core of why I like Apple&rsquo;s products more than anyone else&rsquo;s instead of focusing on a particular aspect of a particular product. At some point, I said: &ldquo;The reason why a lot of people buy Apple often can have less to do with the products and more to do with the company&rsquo;s philosophy.&rdquo; But I couldn&rsquo;t really articulate what that philosophy was as well I liked to. I think I can do a better job of that now. Most companies with large resources put products out in a somewhat ad-hoc fashion. Samsung has released numerous smartphones that more or less do the same thing. Each one has a different gimmick: one has a concave screen, one is waterproof, another has a screen that curves around the sides. Samsung calls most of these &ldquo;experimental&rdquo; or &ldquo;concept&rdquo; products. In addition, like PC-makers before them, Android phone makers fill up their phones with bloatware from various parties they might have contracts with, such that the first thing any savvy user does when he/she gets the phone is to wipe it clean and reinstall just the basic OS. What is wrong with having experimental products (with or without bloatware)? My criteria for judging a tech product is what kind of experience my parents would have if they wanted to buy and use it. My parents are tech-savvy for their generation. But if they wanted to buy some Android phone, then first, they&rsquo;d have to sift through all the different brands and all the different models. Most likely, they&rsquo;d be at the mercy of salesmen who are getting extra commissions to sell more of the models that would sell less on their own merit. If I wanted to buy an Android phone, the situation would be different. I would not be at the mercy of any salesmen, but for that I&rsquo;d have to spend a lot of time researching different manufacturers and models. Once I&rsquo;ve done that, I have to spend time wiping all the bloatware off it. I don&rsquo;t have to do any of that with Apple. I can count on Apple to not release &ldquo;experimental&rdquo; phones. Although recently their product line up has been getting more populated than the past several years, a lot of thought has gone into each product (and every product line started with a single product before having any variations). Apple keeps its experiments in-house, and they vet those experiments based on their values of what makes a good product and what doesn&rsquo;t. Nobody knows exactly what Apple&rsquo;s criteria are for judging good and bad products, but as an observer, I can hazard a guess that Apple likes products that strike a balance between functionality and extreme simplicity - even for people who are not tech savvy. That is the Apple philosophy. Do they have spectacular failures in executing? Absolutely. MobileMe and first version of Apple Maps are perfect examples, and the rollout of their latest OS updates has been far short of a smooth process. Are they constrained by market forces? Totally. To quote a Japanese proverb: &ldquo;Even monkeys fall from trees.&rdquo; But they try really, really hard to make things better for their customers from the moment you enter their store. When a company puts out experimental products, they can&rsquo;t claim to have the same philosophy. In fact, looking at the actions of most of Apple&rsquo;s competitors (and recently the retailers who want to block Apple Pay in favour of their own digital payment solution), it&rsquo;s very clear that customers do not factor very much into their planning. Instead of going out of their way to build killer products or services, they put their own needs first and flood the market with as many products as they can, and they try to sell them by appealing to consumers&#39; short-sightedness. It&rsquo;s interesting that Apple is often accused of fooling the masses into buying their products. What most of their competitors do is to put out products that often are not so easy to use, and they advertise single features that they think can sell those products. Some unwitting consumer might but a phone because he/she thinks waterproof phones are cool, but what good is that when the product is not pleasant or even easy to use outside of water in the long term? Now if all these manufacturers put out products that I, the tech-savvy user, can buy for a lot cheaper and use in the same way as my iPhone with just a little bit of effort, why would I care about any of this? I care because I think when people put that kind of effort into what they do, the world becomes a little better place. Everyone enjoys dealing with craftsmen who are passionate and caring about what they do. It may be Apple, or it may be a devoted grocer who goes to great lengths to find the best produce and create beautiful displays of them for his customers. It could be Dyson - a company that can get you excited about home appliances or hand dryers. Think about it! If you go to a public washroom, wash your hands, use a typical hand dryer whose air you can barely feel, and walk out with somewhat moist hands, is it really the end of the world? It isn&rsquo;t, yet a bunch of people at Dyson toiled over this incremental improvement through numerous prototypes until they finally had an environmentally-friendly hand dryer that actually worked - the Dyson AirBlade. How outstanding is it that they&rsquo;ve made me learn the name of a hand dryer!? In a world where the &ldquo;poor, starving artist&rdquo; is a familiar stereotype and where most craftsmen, who care about the quality and every excruciating detail of their work, live and die in obscurity, it is satisfying to see a few people and companies that can strike a balance between craftsmanship and commercial success. It&rsquo;s so easy to get by with mediocrity. I can buy cheap groceries (cheap anything, really) at WalMart. I can eat for less at McDonald&rsquo;s. I can buy Hoover vacuums that lose suction with time and are hard to use. And there is no shortage of dirt-cheap computers that I can buy and use everyday. Yet, in all these cases, if I know of a seller or manufacturer, big or small, that I see goes an extra distance to make my (their customer&rsquo;s) life better, I will pick those every time, and if necessary, I will pay extra for their product or services. That&rsquo;s something that I value, and passionate craftsmen are people I look up to with admiration and the eye of a student who tries to learn from his teacher. Whether the teacher is the famous Steve Jobs or the unknown grocer in my local market is immaterial." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="A while ago I had a debate (for the millionth time) with a friend of mine about the merits of using Apple products. This iPhone-vs-Android debate is about as meaningful as any debate where people take sides and stick with them like their lives depend on it. But sometimes, with the right people, you can discuss even these subjects intelligently and with reason, and when that happens, it&rsquo;s a perfect time for some introspection and thought about why you think what you think. While talking to him, I was trying to get to the core of why I like Apple&rsquo;s products more than anyone else&rsquo;s instead of focusing on a particular aspect of a particular product. At some point, I said: &ldquo;The reason why a lot of people buy Apple often can have less to do with the products and more to do with the company&rsquo;s philosophy.&rdquo; But I couldn&rsquo;t really articulate what that philosophy was as well I liked to. I think I can do a better job of that now. Most companies with large resources put products out in a somewhat ad-hoc fashion. Samsung has released numerous smartphones that more or less do the same thing. Each one has a different gimmick: one has a concave screen, one is waterproof, another has a screen that curves around the sides. Samsung calls most of these &ldquo;experimental&rdquo; or &ldquo;concept&rdquo; products. In addition, like PC-makers before them, Android phone makers fill up their phones with bloatware from various parties they might have contracts with, such that the first thing any savvy user does when he/she gets the phone is to wipe it clean and reinstall just the basic OS. What is wrong with having experimental products (with or without bloatware)? My criteria for judging a tech product is what kind of experience my parents would have if they wanted to buy and use it. My parents are tech-savvy for their generation. But if they wanted to buy some Android phone, then first, they&rsquo;d have to sift through all the different brands and all the different models. Most likely, they&rsquo;d be at the mercy of salesmen who are getting extra commissions to sell more of the models that would sell less on their own merit. If I wanted to buy an Android phone, the situation would be different. I would not be at the mercy of any salesmen, but for that I&rsquo;d have to spend a lot of time researching different manufacturers and models. Once I&rsquo;ve done that, I have to spend time wiping all the bloatware off it. I don&rsquo;t have to do any of that with Apple. I can count on Apple to not release &ldquo;experimental&rdquo; phones. Although recently their product line up has been getting more populated than the past several years, a lot of thought has gone into each product (and every product line started with a single product before having any variations). Apple keeps its experiments in-house, and they vet those experiments based on their values of what makes a good product and what doesn&rsquo;t. Nobody knows exactly what Apple&rsquo;s criteria are for judging good and bad products, but as an observer, I can hazard a guess that Apple likes products that strike a balance between functionality and extreme simplicity - even for people who are not tech savvy. That is the Apple philosophy. Do they have spectacular failures in executing? Absolutely. MobileMe and first version of Apple Maps are perfect examples, and the rollout of their latest OS updates has been far short of a smooth process. Are they constrained by market forces? Totally. To quote a Japanese proverb: &ldquo;Even monkeys fall from trees.&rdquo; But they try really, really hard to make things better for their customers from the moment you enter their store. When a company puts out experimental products, they can&rsquo;t claim to have the same philosophy. In fact, looking at the actions of most of Apple&rsquo;s competitors (and recently the retailers who want to block Apple Pay in favour of their own digital payment solution), it&rsquo;s very clear that customers do not factor very much into their planning. Instead of going out of their way to build killer products or services, they put their own needs first and flood the market with as many products as they can, and they try to sell them by appealing to consumers&#39; short-sightedness. It&rsquo;s interesting that Apple is often accused of fooling the masses into buying their products. What most of their competitors do is to put out products that often are not so easy to use, and they advertise single features that they think can sell those products. Some unwitting consumer might but a phone because he/she thinks waterproof phones are cool, but what good is that when the product is not pleasant or even easy to use outside of water in the long term? Now if all these manufacturers put out products that I, the tech-savvy user, can buy for a lot cheaper and use in the same way as my iPhone with just a little bit of effort, why would I care about any of this? I care because I think when people put that kind of effort into what they do, the world becomes a little better place. Everyone enjoys dealing with craftsmen who are passionate and caring about what they do. It may be Apple, or it may be a devoted grocer who goes to great lengths to find the best produce and create beautiful displays of them for his customers. It could be Dyson - a company that can get you excited about home appliances or hand dryers. Think about it! If you go to a public washroom, wash your hands, use a typical hand dryer whose air you can barely feel, and walk out with somewhat moist hands, is it really the end of the world? It isn&rsquo;t, yet a bunch of people at Dyson toiled over this incremental improvement through numerous prototypes until they finally had an environmentally-friendly hand dryer that actually worked - the Dyson AirBlade. How outstanding is it that they&rsquo;ve made me learn the name of a hand dryer!? In a world where the &ldquo;poor, starving artist&rdquo; is a familiar stereotype and where most craftsmen, who care about the quality and every excruciating detail of their work, live and die in obscurity, it is satisfying to see a few people and companies that can strike a balance between craftsmanship and commercial success. It&rsquo;s so easy to get by with mediocrity. I can buy cheap groceries (cheap anything, really) at WalMart. I can eat for less at McDonald&rsquo;s. I can buy Hoover vacuums that lose suction with time and are hard to use. And there is no shortage of dirt-cheap computers that I can buy and use everyday. Yet, in all these cases, if I know of a seller or manufacturer, big or small, that I see goes an extra distance to make my (their customer&rsquo;s) life better, I will pick those every time, and if necessary, I will pay extra for their product or services. That&rsquo;s something that I value, and passionate craftsmen are people I look up to with admiration and the eye of a student who tries to learn from his teacher. Whether the teacher is the famous Steve Jobs or the unknown grocer in my local market is immaterial." />
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At some point, I said: &ldquo;The reason why a lot of people buy Apple often can have less to do with the products and more to do with the company&rsquo;s philosophy.&rdquo; But I couldn&rsquo;t really articulate what that philosophy was as well I liked to. I think I can do a better job of that now. Most companies with large resources put products out in a somewhat ad-hoc fashion. Samsung has released numerous smartphones that more or less do the same thing. Each one has a different gimmick: one has a concave screen, one is waterproof, another has a screen that curves around the sides. Samsung calls most of these &ldquo;experimental&rdquo; or &ldquo;concept&rdquo; products. In addition, like PC-makers before them, Android phone makers fill up their phones with bloatware from various parties they might have contracts with, such that the first thing any savvy user does when he/she gets the phone is to wipe it clean and reinstall just the basic OS. What is wrong with having experimental products (with or without bloatware)? My criteria for judging a tech product is what kind of experience my parents would have if they wanted to buy and use it. My parents are tech-savvy for their generation. But if they wanted to buy some Android phone, then first, they&rsquo;d have to sift through all the different brands and all the different models. Most likely, they&rsquo;d be at the mercy of salesmen who are getting extra commissions to sell more of the models that would sell less on their own merit. If I wanted to buy an Android phone, the situation would be different. I would not be at the mercy of any salesmen, but for that I&rsquo;d have to spend a lot of time researching different manufacturers and models. Once I&rsquo;ve done that, I have to spend time wiping all the bloatware off it. I don&rsquo;t have to do any of that with Apple. I can count on Apple to not release &ldquo;experimental&rdquo; phones. Although recently their product line up has been getting more populated than the past several years, a lot of thought has gone into each product (and every product line started with a single product before having any variations). Apple keeps its experiments in-house, and they vet those experiments based on their values of what makes a good product and what doesn&rsquo;t. Nobody knows exactly what Apple&rsquo;s criteria are for judging good and bad products, but as an observer, I can hazard a guess that Apple likes products that strike a balance between functionality and extreme simplicity - even for people who are not tech savvy. That is the Apple philosophy. Do they have spectacular failures in executing? Absolutely. MobileMe and first version of Apple Maps are perfect examples, and the rollout of their latest OS updates has been far short of a smooth process. Are they constrained by market forces? Totally. To quote a Japanese proverb: &ldquo;Even monkeys fall from trees.&rdquo; But they try really, really hard to make things better for their customers from the moment you enter their store. When a company puts out experimental products, they can&rsquo;t claim to have the same philosophy. In fact, looking at the actions of most of Apple&rsquo;s competitors (and recently the retailers who want to block Apple Pay in favour of their own digital payment solution), it&rsquo;s very clear that customers do not factor very much into their planning. Instead of going out of their way to build killer products or services, they put their own needs first and flood the market with as many products as they can, and they try to sell them by appealing to consumers&#39; short-sightedness. It&rsquo;s interesting that Apple is often accused of fooling the masses into buying their products. What most of their competitors do is to put out products that often are not so easy to use, and they advertise single features that they think can sell those products. Some unwitting consumer might but a phone because he/she thinks waterproof phones are cool, but what good is that when the product is not pleasant or even easy to use outside of water in the long term? Now if all these manufacturers put out products that I, the tech-savvy user, can buy for a lot cheaper and use in the same way as my iPhone with just a little bit of effort, why would I care about any of this? I care because I think when people put that kind of effort into what they do, the world becomes a little better place. Everyone enjoys dealing with craftsmen who are passionate and caring about what they do. It may be Apple, or it may be a devoted grocer who goes to great lengths to find the best produce and create beautiful displays of them for his customers. It could be Dyson - a company that can get you excited about home appliances or hand dryers. Think about it! If you go to a public washroom, wash your hands, use a typical hand dryer whose air you can barely feel, and walk out with somewhat moist hands, is it really the end of the world? It isn&rsquo;t, yet a bunch of people at Dyson toiled over this incremental improvement through numerous prototypes until they finally had an environmentally-friendly hand dryer that actually worked - the Dyson AirBlade. How outstanding is it that they&rsquo;ve made me learn the name of a hand dryer!? In a world where the &ldquo;poor, starving artist&rdquo; is a familiar stereotype and where most craftsmen, who care about the quality and every excruciating detail of their work, live and die in obscurity, it is satisfying to see a few people and companies that can strike a balance between craftsmanship and commercial success. It&rsquo;s so easy to get by with mediocrity. I can buy cheap groceries (cheap anything, really) at WalMart. I can eat for less at McDonald&rsquo;s. I can buy Hoover vacuums that lose suction with time and are hard to use. And there is no shortage of dirt-cheap computers that I can buy and use everyday. Yet, in all these cases, if I know of a seller or manufacturer, big or small, that I see goes an extra distance to make my (their customer&rsquo;s) life better, I will pick those every time, and if necessary, I will pay extra for their product or services. That&rsquo;s something that I value, and passionate craftsmen are people I look up to with admiration and the eye of a student who tries to learn from his teacher. Whether the teacher is the famous Steve Jobs or the unknown grocer in my local market is immaterial.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Remarkable Products","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2014-11-02T18:20:43-08:00","datePublished":"2014-11-02T18:20:43-08:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2014/11/02/remarkable-products.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2014/11/02/remarkable-products.html"},"description":"A while ago I had a debate (for the millionth time) with a friend of mine about the merits of using Apple products. This iPhone-vs-Android debate is about as meaningful as any debate where people take sides and stick with them like their lives depend on it. But sometimes, with the right people, you can discuss even these subjects intelligently and with reason, and when that happens, it&rsquo;s a perfect time for some introspection and thought about why you think what you think. While talking to him, I was trying to get to the core of why I like Apple&rsquo;s products more than anyone else&rsquo;s instead of focusing on a particular aspect of a particular product. At some point, I said: &ldquo;The reason why a lot of people buy Apple often can have less to do with the products and more to do with the company&rsquo;s philosophy.&rdquo; But I couldn&rsquo;t really articulate what that philosophy was as well I liked to. I think I can do a better job of that now. Most companies with large resources put products out in a somewhat ad-hoc fashion. Samsung has released numerous smartphones that more or less do the same thing. Each one has a different gimmick: one has a concave screen, one is waterproof, another has a screen that curves around the sides. Samsung calls most of these &ldquo;experimental&rdquo; or &ldquo;concept&rdquo; products. In addition, like PC-makers before them, Android phone makers fill up their phones with bloatware from various parties they might have contracts with, such that the first thing any savvy user does when he/she gets the phone is to wipe it clean and reinstall just the basic OS. What is wrong with having experimental products (with or without bloatware)? My criteria for judging a tech product is what kind of experience my parents would have if they wanted to buy and use it. My parents are tech-savvy for their generation. But if they wanted to buy some Android phone, then first, they&rsquo;d have to sift through all the different brands and all the different models. Most likely, they&rsquo;d be at the mercy of salesmen who are getting extra commissions to sell more of the models that would sell less on their own merit. If I wanted to buy an Android phone, the situation would be different. I would not be at the mercy of any salesmen, but for that I&rsquo;d have to spend a lot of time researching different manufacturers and models. Once I&rsquo;ve done that, I have to spend time wiping all the bloatware off it. I don&rsquo;t have to do any of that with Apple. I can count on Apple to not release &ldquo;experimental&rdquo; phones. Although recently their product line up has been getting more populated than the past several years, a lot of thought has gone into each product (and every product line started with a single product before having any variations). Apple keeps its experiments in-house, and they vet those experiments based on their values of what makes a good product and what doesn&rsquo;t. Nobody knows exactly what Apple&rsquo;s criteria are for judging good and bad products, but as an observer, I can hazard a guess that Apple likes products that strike a balance between functionality and extreme simplicity - even for people who are not tech savvy. That is the Apple philosophy. Do they have spectacular failures in executing? Absolutely. MobileMe and first version of Apple Maps are perfect examples, and the rollout of their latest OS updates has been far short of a smooth process. Are they constrained by market forces? Totally. To quote a Japanese proverb: &ldquo;Even monkeys fall from trees.&rdquo; But they try really, really hard to make things better for their customers from the moment you enter their store. When a company puts out experimental products, they can&rsquo;t claim to have the same philosophy. In fact, looking at the actions of most of Apple&rsquo;s competitors (and recently the retailers who want to block Apple Pay in favour of their own digital payment solution), it&rsquo;s very clear that customers do not factor very much into their planning. Instead of going out of their way to build killer products or services, they put their own needs first and flood the market with as many products as they can, and they try to sell them by appealing to consumers&#39; short-sightedness. It&rsquo;s interesting that Apple is often accused of fooling the masses into buying their products. What most of their competitors do is to put out products that often are not so easy to use, and they advertise single features that they think can sell those products. Some unwitting consumer might but a phone because he/she thinks waterproof phones are cool, but what good is that when the product is not pleasant or even easy to use outside of water in the long term? Now if all these manufacturers put out products that I, the tech-savvy user, can buy for a lot cheaper and use in the same way as my iPhone with just a little bit of effort, why would I care about any of this? I care because I think when people put that kind of effort into what they do, the world becomes a little better place. Everyone enjoys dealing with craftsmen who are passionate and caring about what they do. It may be Apple, or it may be a devoted grocer who goes to great lengths to find the best produce and create beautiful displays of them for his customers. It could be Dyson - a company that can get you excited about home appliances or hand dryers. Think about it! If you go to a public washroom, wash your hands, use a typical hand dryer whose air you can barely feel, and walk out with somewhat moist hands, is it really the end of the world? It isn&rsquo;t, yet a bunch of people at Dyson toiled over this incremental improvement through numerous prototypes until they finally had an environmentally-friendly hand dryer that actually worked - the Dyson AirBlade. How outstanding is it that they&rsquo;ve made me learn the name of a hand dryer!? In a world where the &ldquo;poor, starving artist&rdquo; is a familiar stereotype and where most craftsmen, who care about the quality and every excruciating detail of their work, live and die in obscurity, it is satisfying to see a few people and companies that can strike a balance between craftsmanship and commercial success. It&rsquo;s so easy to get by with mediocrity. I can buy cheap groceries (cheap anything, really) at WalMart. I can eat for less at McDonald&rsquo;s. I can buy Hoover vacuums that lose suction with time and are hard to use. And there is no shortage of dirt-cheap computers that I can buy and use everyday. Yet, in all these cases, if I know of a seller or manufacturer, big or small, that I see goes an extra distance to make my (their customer&rsquo;s) life better, I will pick those every time, and if necessary, I will pay extra for their product or services. That&rsquo;s something that I value, and passionate craftsmen are people I look up to with admiration and the eye of a student who tries to learn from his teacher. Whether the teacher is the famous Steve Jobs or the unknown grocer in my local market is immaterial.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Remarkable Products","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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 <meta name="description" content="If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. &ndash; Orson Welles Aside from a short-lived stint in a sales position, I have never held a real job since graduating from university. I was reflecting on this after a recent meetup with some programmers who work at large, well-established companies. Hearing them discuss their workplace was an interesting experience - most of the problems they face in their day-to-day activities are a world removed from the kinds of things I worry about. I&rsquo;m a programmer, but I&rsquo;m also a founder. I have no managers. I don&rsquo;t deal with office politics. I don&rsquo;t get the luxury of more experienced mentors holding my hands. Everyday at my &ldquo;work&rdquo; is a new track on a roller-coaster ride that I started since deciding that I wanted to build my own software business without third party help. A new sale or well-received conference? Euphoria ensues. An obstacle in the road? Deep uncertainty about the future. I&rsquo;ve long held the view that all our emotions are cyclical. We divide up our lives into neat little sections - something we learn from our military-inspired school system. Completing each section leads to a fleeting moment of happiness, followed by discomforts of uncertainty about the future. In between, we fill up our lives with things we believe make us happy, some of which end up burdening us instead. In this sense, starting your own business is a metaphor for life. The difference is that the highs and the lows happen in such quick succession that would drive most people mad. There has been a lot of talk by people in the startup world on how you have to be a little crazy to succeed. I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m that crazy (then maybe I won&rsquo;t succeed?), but I think I have another tool that makes it much easier to handle the manic-depressive phases: Stoicism. My introduction to this ancient Greek philosophy was through Seneca. The basic tenet is taking control of our negative impulses and to stop ourselves from fighting &ldquo;fortune&rdquo;. The reality is that most of our fear of uncertainty is basically a fear of falling into a worse condition than we&rsquo;re in. But if you curtail your natural desires for luxury - and I define &lsquo;luxury&rsquo; as anything beyond food, water, and shelter - you&rsquo;re free to take any risk. I&rsquo;ve realized that the emotional roller coaster that is entrepreneurship will never end. Our natural tendency is to set milestones for our projects the same way we do in our lives. We tell ourselves we&rsquo;ll breathe a sigh of relief once we&rsquo;ve &ldquo;proved product-market fit&rdquo;, or once we &ldquo;have a solid product&rdquo;, or once we &ldquo;get to the market first&rdquo;, &hellip; and so on. The reality is that after every sigh of relief will be another anxiety attack. Even owners of businesses that are by all measures &ldquo;successful&rdquo; should constantly worry about keeping their companies on the cutting edge. The only way to win the game is to learn to like it and don&rsquo;t give yourself to the emotions - positive or negative. In fact, we&rsquo;re all playing this game. It&rsquo;s widely understood that there is basically no such thing as job-security. The way I see it, you either succeed in running your own company and take on all the stress that it entails, or you work for someone who is worrying about it. The existential threat is always there. Being an employee does not make you free of the consequences of a bad turn in the business. I think I can make that trade-off because I&rsquo;d worry more about someone else making important decisions that affect my livehood vs. the fact that I&rsquo;ll have to learn to live with stress." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. &ndash; Orson Welles Aside from a short-lived stint in a sales position, I have never held a real job since graduating from university. I was reflecting on this after a recent meetup with some programmers who work at large, well-established companies. Hearing them discuss their workplace was an interesting experience - most of the problems they face in their day-to-day activities are a world removed from the kinds of things I worry about. I&rsquo;m a programmer, but I&rsquo;m also a founder. I have no managers. I don&rsquo;t deal with office politics. I don&rsquo;t get the luxury of more experienced mentors holding my hands. Everyday at my &ldquo;work&rdquo; is a new track on a roller-coaster ride that I started since deciding that I wanted to build my own software business without third party help. A new sale or well-received conference? Euphoria ensues. An obstacle in the road? Deep uncertainty about the future. I&rsquo;ve long held the view that all our emotions are cyclical. We divide up our lives into neat little sections - something we learn from our military-inspired school system. Completing each section leads to a fleeting moment of happiness, followed by discomforts of uncertainty about the future. In between, we fill up our lives with things we believe make us happy, some of which end up burdening us instead. In this sense, starting your own business is a metaphor for life. The difference is that the highs and the lows happen in such quick succession that would drive most people mad. There has been a lot of talk by people in the startup world on how you have to be a little crazy to succeed. I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m that crazy (then maybe I won&rsquo;t succeed?), but I think I have another tool that makes it much easier to handle the manic-depressive phases: Stoicism. My introduction to this ancient Greek philosophy was through Seneca. The basic tenet is taking control of our negative impulses and to stop ourselves from fighting &ldquo;fortune&rdquo;. The reality is that most of our fear of uncertainty is basically a fear of falling into a worse condition than we&rsquo;re in. But if you curtail your natural desires for luxury - and I define &lsquo;luxury&rsquo; as anything beyond food, water, and shelter - you&rsquo;re free to take any risk. I&rsquo;ve realized that the emotional roller coaster that is entrepreneurship will never end. Our natural tendency is to set milestones for our projects the same way we do in our lives. We tell ourselves we&rsquo;ll breathe a sigh of relief once we&rsquo;ve &ldquo;proved product-market fit&rdquo;, or once we &ldquo;have a solid product&rdquo;, or once we &ldquo;get to the market first&rdquo;, &hellip; and so on. The reality is that after every sigh of relief will be another anxiety attack. Even owners of businesses that are by all measures &ldquo;successful&rdquo; should constantly worry about keeping their companies on the cutting edge. The only way to win the game is to learn to like it and don&rsquo;t give yourself to the emotions - positive or negative. In fact, we&rsquo;re all playing this game. It&rsquo;s widely understood that there is basically no such thing as job-security. The way I see it, you either succeed in running your own company and take on all the stress that it entails, or you work for someone who is worrying about it. The existential threat is always there. Being an employee does not make you free of the consequences of a bad turn in the business. I think I can make that trade-off because I&rsquo;d worry more about someone else making important decisions that affect my livehood vs. the fact that I&rsquo;ll have to learn to live with stress." />
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@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="About a month ago, I started taking lessons in West Coast Swing after some encouragement from a few friends. When I showed up for my first lesson, I instantly knew I&rsquo;d love this dance. It&rsquo;s all about the two people maintaining a strong connection, with the leader manipulating the follower&rsquo;s momentum to move her around. In other words, it&rsquo;s just like Aikido, which is to be expected: human body mechanics are the same. But to me, the most interesting observation was that a dance class suffers more or less from the same problems I&rsquo;ve observed in the dojo for years: People are never satisified with the basics, even when basics are their only salvation. In the dojo, even the skinniest of people forego hard work on their foundations and instead make themselves believe that they&rsquo;re really strong (unfortunately, in a cooperative learning environment, such delusions are possible). They put on all sorts of pretenses (usually subconsciously) where they try to look like their technique is really strong. To me, this is exactly like a 5-year-old who things he can draw. He is totally convinced that the scribbles resemble something real, but his fundamental lack of motor skills dooms his effort. The same tendency applies to dance: I&rsquo;ve danced with women who try to do really fancy stylizations - moves that are visually appealing and that might look &ldquo;advanced&rdquo; to the untrained eye. However, while they do this, their arms are completely limp - they have no connection to their partner. In a dance that is predicated on connection, this is a problem. Stylizations are necessary, of course, if you&rsquo;re good enough to do them. Usually, when you think you&rsquo;re good enough, that is your ego trying to tell itself a magnificent story about how great you are. People love teaching others as a means of feeling better about themselves. At some point during my first dance class, one student - a middle-aged woman - started telling her confused partner about the footwork that he was supposed to do. Their conversation was quickly interrupted by the instructor: &ldquo;If you want to teach him how to do it, perhaps you&rsquo;d like to come to the center and tell everyone so we can all benefit?&rdquo; She proceeded to explain that in this class, she&rsquo;s the only one that does the teaching. The middle-aged woman was fuming, but she shut up. My respect for the instructor skyrocketed. Unfortunately, that episode has not stopped other sorts of extraneous noise emitted from some of my fellow students who should ideally be silent. Another woman, for instance, likes to agree with everything that the instructor says and add in her own bit of wisdom on top. The instructor might show a method of recovering from a mistake and this lady chimes in with: &ldquo;Yes, you really can do anything as long as you maintain the connection.&rdquo; Besides the fact that making comments like this is just rude, the problem is that I&rsquo;ve danced with this lady&hellip; aaaand she has absolutely no connection whatsoever. She doesn&rsquo;t know what connection is. Her expression of wisdom is not only rude but also very stupid. She has not yet come to terms with the instructor. This is the stage where she should follow orders quietly. Not surprisingly, both of these tendencies stem from a runaway ego. When you see them in someone else, they&rsquo;re merely incoveniences. But when you fall victim to them, you stand to lose a lot, including all the investment you have put into learning. The best antidote to these all-too-common tendencies is to actively try to be boring. When given the choice between form or flash, always err with form. Success is often conditional on learning to recognize the lies your ego tells you. Almost always, you are better off focusing on the boring foundations of any skill for much longer than you think is neccessary. And always be wary of the desire to teach others. More often, this desire a selfish one, not an altruistic one." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="About a month ago, I started taking lessons in West Coast Swing after some encouragement from a few friends. When I showed up for my first lesson, I instantly knew I&rsquo;d love this dance. It&rsquo;s all about the two people maintaining a strong connection, with the leader manipulating the follower&rsquo;s momentum to move her around. In other words, it&rsquo;s just like Aikido, which is to be expected: human body mechanics are the same. But to me, the most interesting observation was that a dance class suffers more or less from the same problems I&rsquo;ve observed in the dojo for years: People are never satisified with the basics, even when basics are their only salvation. In the dojo, even the skinniest of people forego hard work on their foundations and instead make themselves believe that they&rsquo;re really strong (unfortunately, in a cooperative learning environment, such delusions are possible). They put on all sorts of pretenses (usually subconsciously) where they try to look like their technique is really strong. To me, this is exactly like a 5-year-old who things he can draw. He is totally convinced that the scribbles resemble something real, but his fundamental lack of motor skills dooms his effort. The same tendency applies to dance: I&rsquo;ve danced with women who try to do really fancy stylizations - moves that are visually appealing and that might look &ldquo;advanced&rdquo; to the untrained eye. However, while they do this, their arms are completely limp - they have no connection to their partner. In a dance that is predicated on connection, this is a problem. Stylizations are necessary, of course, if you&rsquo;re good enough to do them. Usually, when you think you&rsquo;re good enough, that is your ego trying to tell itself a magnificent story about how great you are. People love teaching others as a means of feeling better about themselves. At some point during my first dance class, one student - a middle-aged woman - started telling her confused partner about the footwork that he was supposed to do. Their conversation was quickly interrupted by the instructor: &ldquo;If you want to teach him how to do it, perhaps you&rsquo;d like to come to the center and tell everyone so we can all benefit?&rdquo; She proceeded to explain that in this class, she&rsquo;s the only one that does the teaching. The middle-aged woman was fuming, but she shut up. My respect for the instructor skyrocketed. Unfortunately, that episode has not stopped other sorts of extraneous noise emitted from some of my fellow students who should ideally be silent. Another woman, for instance, likes to agree with everything that the instructor says and add in her own bit of wisdom on top. The instructor might show a method of recovering from a mistake and this lady chimes in with: &ldquo;Yes, you really can do anything as long as you maintain the connection.&rdquo; Besides the fact that making comments like this is just rude, the problem is that I&rsquo;ve danced with this lady&hellip; aaaand she has absolutely no connection whatsoever. She doesn&rsquo;t know what connection is. Her expression of wisdom is not only rude but also very stupid. She has not yet come to terms with the instructor. This is the stage where she should follow orders quietly. Not surprisingly, both of these tendencies stem from a runaway ego. When you see them in someone else, they&rsquo;re merely incoveniences. But when you fall victim to them, you stand to lose a lot, including all the investment you have put into learning. The best antidote to these all-too-common tendencies is to actively try to be boring. When given the choice between form or flash, always err with form. Success is often conditional on learning to recognize the lies your ego tells you. Almost always, you are better off focusing on the boring foundations of any skill for much longer than you think is neccessary. And always be wary of the desire to teach others. More often, this desire a selfish one, not an altruistic one." />
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-{"dateModified":"2014-12-14T18:14:32-08:00","datePublished":"2014-12-14T18:14:32-08:00","url":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2014/12/14/form-vs-flash.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2014/12/14/form-vs-flash.html"},"description":"About a month ago, I started taking lessons in West Coast Swing after some encouragement from a few friends. When I showed up for my first lesson, I instantly knew I&rsquo;d love this dance. It&rsquo;s all about the two people maintaining a strong connection, with the leader manipulating the follower&rsquo;s momentum to move her around. In other words, it&rsquo;s just like Aikido, which is to be expected: human body mechanics are the same. But to me, the most interesting observation was that a dance class suffers more or less from the same problems I&rsquo;ve observed in the dojo for years: People are never satisified with the basics, even when basics are their only salvation. In the dojo, even the skinniest of people forego hard work on their foundations and instead make themselves believe that they&rsquo;re really strong (unfortunately, in a cooperative learning environment, such delusions are possible). They put on all sorts of pretenses (usually subconsciously) where they try to look like their technique is really strong. To me, this is exactly like a 5-year-old who things he can draw. He is totally convinced that the scribbles resemble something real, but his fundamental lack of motor skills dooms his effort. The same tendency applies to dance: I&rsquo;ve danced with women who try to do really fancy stylizations - moves that are visually appealing and that might look &ldquo;advanced&rdquo; to the untrained eye. However, while they do this, their arms are completely limp - they have no connection to their partner. In a dance that is predicated on connection, this is a problem. Stylizations are necessary, of course, if you&rsquo;re good enough to do them. Usually, when you think you&rsquo;re good enough, that is your ego trying to tell itself a magnificent story about how great you are. People love teaching others as a means of feeling better about themselves. At some point during my first dance class, one student - a middle-aged woman - started telling her confused partner about the footwork that he was supposed to do. Their conversation was quickly interrupted by the instructor: &ldquo;If you want to teach him how to do it, perhaps you&rsquo;d like to come to the center and tell everyone so we can all benefit?&rdquo; She proceeded to explain that in this class, she&rsquo;s the only one that does the teaching. The middle-aged woman was fuming, but she shut up. My respect for the instructor skyrocketed. Unfortunately, that episode has not stopped other sorts of extraneous noise emitted from some of my fellow students who should ideally be silent. Another woman, for instance, likes to agree with everything that the instructor says and add in her own bit of wisdom on top. The instructor might show a method of recovering from a mistake and this lady chimes in with: &ldquo;Yes, you really can do anything as long as you maintain the connection.&rdquo; Besides the fact that making comments like this is just rude, the problem is that I&rsquo;ve danced with this lady&hellip; aaaand she has absolutely no connection whatsoever. She doesn&rsquo;t know what connection is. Her expression of wisdom is not only rude but also very stupid. She has not yet come to terms with the instructor. This is the stage where she should follow orders quietly. Not surprisingly, both of these tendencies stem from a runaway ego. When you see them in someone else, they&rsquo;re merely incoveniences. But when you fall victim to them, you stand to lose a lot, including all the investment you have put into learning. The best antidote to these all-too-common tendencies is to actively try to be boring. When given the choice between form or flash, always err with form. Success is often conditional on learning to recognize the lies your ego tells you. Almost always, you are better off focusing on the boring foundations of any skill for much longer than you think is neccessary. And always be wary of the desire to teach others. More often, this desire a selfish one, not an altruistic one.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Form vs Flash","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2014-12-14T18:14:32-08:00","datePublished":"2014-12-14T18:14:32-08:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2014/12/14/form-vs-flash.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2014/12/14/form-vs-flash.html"},"description":"About a month ago, I started taking lessons in West Coast Swing after some encouragement from a few friends. When I showed up for my first lesson, I instantly knew I&rsquo;d love this dance. It&rsquo;s all about the two people maintaining a strong connection, with the leader manipulating the follower&rsquo;s momentum to move her around. In other words, it&rsquo;s just like Aikido, which is to be expected: human body mechanics are the same. But to me, the most interesting observation was that a dance class suffers more or less from the same problems I&rsquo;ve observed in the dojo for years: People are never satisified with the basics, even when basics are their only salvation. In the dojo, even the skinniest of people forego hard work on their foundations and instead make themselves believe that they&rsquo;re really strong (unfortunately, in a cooperative learning environment, such delusions are possible). They put on all sorts of pretenses (usually subconsciously) where they try to look like their technique is really strong. To me, this is exactly like a 5-year-old who things he can draw. He is totally convinced that the scribbles resemble something real, but his fundamental lack of motor skills dooms his effort. The same tendency applies to dance: I&rsquo;ve danced with women who try to do really fancy stylizations - moves that are visually appealing and that might look &ldquo;advanced&rdquo; to the untrained eye. However, while they do this, their arms are completely limp - they have no connection to their partner. In a dance that is predicated on connection, this is a problem. Stylizations are necessary, of course, if you&rsquo;re good enough to do them. Usually, when you think you&rsquo;re good enough, that is your ego trying to tell itself a magnificent story about how great you are. People love teaching others as a means of feeling better about themselves. At some point during my first dance class, one student - a middle-aged woman - started telling her confused partner about the footwork that he was supposed to do. Their conversation was quickly interrupted by the instructor: &ldquo;If you want to teach him how to do it, perhaps you&rsquo;d like to come to the center and tell everyone so we can all benefit?&rdquo; She proceeded to explain that in this class, she&rsquo;s the only one that does the teaching. The middle-aged woman was fuming, but she shut up. My respect for the instructor skyrocketed. Unfortunately, that episode has not stopped other sorts of extraneous noise emitted from some of my fellow students who should ideally be silent. Another woman, for instance, likes to agree with everything that the instructor says and add in her own bit of wisdom on top. The instructor might show a method of recovering from a mistake and this lady chimes in with: &ldquo;Yes, you really can do anything as long as you maintain the connection.&rdquo; Besides the fact that making comments like this is just rude, the problem is that I&rsquo;ve danced with this lady&hellip; aaaand she has absolutely no connection whatsoever. She doesn&rsquo;t know what connection is. Her expression of wisdom is not only rude but also very stupid. She has not yet come to terms with the instructor. This is the stage where she should follow orders quietly. Not surprisingly, both of these tendencies stem from a runaway ego. When you see them in someone else, they&rsquo;re merely incoveniences. But when you fall victim to them, you stand to lose a lot, including all the investment you have put into learning. The best antidote to these all-too-common tendencies is to actively try to be boring. When given the choice between form or flash, always err with form. Success is often conditional on learning to recognize the lies your ego tells you. Almost always, you are better off focusing on the boring foundations of any skill for much longer than you think is neccessary. And always be wary of the desire to teach others. More often, this desire a selfish one, not an altruistic one.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Form vs Flash","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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 <meta name="description" content="Recently, I have uncharacteristically found myself thinking about going back to school and taking some courses. I&rsquo;m no more a fan of higher education than I ever was before and I&rsquo;m certainly not considering getting another degree. But there are certain advantages to taking formal courses instead of teaching yourself. The major advantage of taking a course formally, instead of reading up on a topic on your own, is&hellip; well&hellip; the formality. The structure of the course forces you to spend a minimum amount of time and effort. Other things getting in the way is no longer an excuse. In addition, you have peers and teachers whose mere presence creates a kind of social pressure toward keeping up with the commitment. The second advantage of taking a formal course is the length. For a few months, you are forced to continually learn about the same topic. This gives you the opportunity gain deeper insights, which you may not gain if you were learning through reading a single book on your own and then moving on to another topic. As a devout autodidact, however, I find the prospect of paying a lot of money for the above advantages repulsing. The problems that a formal learning environment addresses can easily be solved informally with a little bit of discipline. I&rsquo;ve ran into two major problems when I&rsquo;ve tried learning things on my own recently: Work gets in the way. When learning is a leisure activity, it&rsquo;s easy to treat it as such and put it aside when you have a lot of work to do or when you&rsquo;re tired from doing a lot of work. The discipline problem is one everyone faces whenever they attempt something worthwhile. It&rsquo;s difficult to solve, but because of its pervasiveness, possible solutions abound. I&rsquo;ve now reinvigorated my Coach.me account (formerly known as Lift) to help me build the habit of daily reading. This has been really effective in the past. It&rsquo;s easy to get distracted &ldquo;learning&rdquo; about things that are not important. In the internet age, we have access to numerous valuable sources for information. You can read Wikipedia articles on almost anything, and there are numerous well-written blogs by very smart people. Reading articles and blog posts can be informative and valuable, but these short mediums encourage jumping from topic to topic quickly. What I&rsquo;ve found is that my retention of the information I&rsquo;ve read online is very poor. Last year, I decided to reduce my short-form information in-take in favour of books that thoroughly cover a topic. But due to a lack of discipline that project wasn&rsquo;t too successful. Now, I plan on both fixing the discipline problem and also read several books on any given topic. I already have a few books on the go, so the finishing those will be the first order of business. While I&rsquo;m working on those, I&rsquo;ll compile a list of subjects that I want to give a thorough treatment. Then I&rsquo;ll select a list of books on each subject and work away." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="Recently, I have uncharacteristically found myself thinking about going back to school and taking some courses. I&rsquo;m no more a fan of higher education than I ever was before and I&rsquo;m certainly not considering getting another degree. But there are certain advantages to taking formal courses instead of teaching yourself. The major advantage of taking a course formally, instead of reading up on a topic on your own, is&hellip; well&hellip; the formality. The structure of the course forces you to spend a minimum amount of time and effort. Other things getting in the way is no longer an excuse. In addition, you have peers and teachers whose mere presence creates a kind of social pressure toward keeping up with the commitment. The second advantage of taking a formal course is the length. For a few months, you are forced to continually learn about the same topic. This gives you the opportunity gain deeper insights, which you may not gain if you were learning through reading a single book on your own and then moving on to another topic. As a devout autodidact, however, I find the prospect of paying a lot of money for the above advantages repulsing. The problems that a formal learning environment addresses can easily be solved informally with a little bit of discipline. I&rsquo;ve ran into two major problems when I&rsquo;ve tried learning things on my own recently: Work gets in the way. When learning is a leisure activity, it&rsquo;s easy to treat it as such and put it aside when you have a lot of work to do or when you&rsquo;re tired from doing a lot of work. The discipline problem is one everyone faces whenever they attempt something worthwhile. It&rsquo;s difficult to solve, but because of its pervasiveness, possible solutions abound. I&rsquo;ve now reinvigorated my Coach.me account (formerly known as Lift) to help me build the habit of daily reading. This has been really effective in the past. It&rsquo;s easy to get distracted &ldquo;learning&rdquo; about things that are not important. In the internet age, we have access to numerous valuable sources for information. You can read Wikipedia articles on almost anything, and there are numerous well-written blogs by very smart people. Reading articles and blog posts can be informative and valuable, but these short mediums encourage jumping from topic to topic quickly. What I&rsquo;ve found is that my retention of the information I&rsquo;ve read online is very poor. Last year, I decided to reduce my short-form information in-take in favour of books that thoroughly cover a topic. But due to a lack of discipline that project wasn&rsquo;t too successful. Now, I plan on both fixing the discipline problem and also read several books on any given topic. I already have a few books on the go, so the finishing those will be the first order of business. While I&rsquo;m working on those, I&rsquo;ll compile a list of subjects that I want to give a thorough treatment. Then I&rsquo;ll select a list of books on each subject and work away." />
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+{"dateModified":"2015-01-09T15:38:39-08:00","datePublished":"2015-01-09T15:38:39-08:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2015/01/09/better-information-in-take.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2015/01/09/better-information-in-take.html"},"description":"Recently, I have uncharacteristically found myself thinking about going back to school and taking some courses. I&rsquo;m no more a fan of higher education than I ever was before and I&rsquo;m certainly not considering getting another degree. But there are certain advantages to taking formal courses instead of teaching yourself. The major advantage of taking a course formally, instead of reading up on a topic on your own, is&hellip; well&hellip; the formality. The structure of the course forces you to spend a minimum amount of time and effort. Other things getting in the way is no longer an excuse. In addition, you have peers and teachers whose mere presence creates a kind of social pressure toward keeping up with the commitment. The second advantage of taking a formal course is the length. For a few months, you are forced to continually learn about the same topic. This gives you the opportunity gain deeper insights, which you may not gain if you were learning through reading a single book on your own and then moving on to another topic. As a devout autodidact, however, I find the prospect of paying a lot of money for the above advantages repulsing. The problems that a formal learning environment addresses can easily be solved informally with a little bit of discipline. I&rsquo;ve ran into two major problems when I&rsquo;ve tried learning things on my own recently: Work gets in the way. When learning is a leisure activity, it&rsquo;s easy to treat it as such and put it aside when you have a lot of work to do or when you&rsquo;re tired from doing a lot of work. The discipline problem is one everyone faces whenever they attempt something worthwhile. It&rsquo;s difficult to solve, but because of its pervasiveness, possible solutions abound. I&rsquo;ve now reinvigorated my Coach.me account (formerly known as Lift) to help me build the habit of daily reading. This has been really effective in the past. It&rsquo;s easy to get distracted &ldquo;learning&rdquo; about things that are not important. In the internet age, we have access to numerous valuable sources for information. You can read Wikipedia articles on almost anything, and there are numerous well-written blogs by very smart people. Reading articles and blog posts can be informative and valuable, but these short mediums encourage jumping from topic to topic quickly. What I&rsquo;ve found is that my retention of the information I&rsquo;ve read online is very poor. Last year, I decided to reduce my short-form information in-take in favour of books that thoroughly cover a topic. But due to a lack of discipline that project wasn&rsquo;t too successful. Now, I plan on both fixing the discipline problem and also read several books on any given topic. I already have a few books on the go, so the finishing those will be the first order of business. While I&rsquo;m working on those, I&rsquo;ll compile a list of subjects that I want to give a thorough treatment. Then I&rsquo;ll select a list of books on each subject and work away.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Better Information In-Take","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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diff --git a/essays/2015/03/08/pleasures-not-worth-seeking.html b/essays/2015/03/08/pleasures-not-worth-seeking.html
index df0407e..25226ca 100644
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@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="I&rsquo;ve always been obsessed with studying successful people and trying to find tidbits of habits or &ldquo;best practices&rdquo; that I could copy. My definition of &ldquo;success&rdquo; has changed dramatically over the years. I have read biographies or memoirs of real estate moguls, finance tycoons, and tech visionaries. What I learned early on in my hunger to &ldquo;become successful&rdquo; is that the traditional ideas of &ldquo;success&rdquo; that we grow up with are either wrong or deeply flawed. I started on this research because of uncertainty about my future, about what I&rsquo;m supposed to do with my life and how I&rsquo;m supposed to go about doing it. But on reading about these seemingly successful people, two lessons seemed to keep coming up. The first lesson was that no amount of &ldquo;success&rdquo; frees you from these worries. One of my favourite tweets is from David Heinemeier Hanson: There’s a rude awakening waiting for anyone who thinks success or money frees you from the basic constraints of the human condition. - DHH on Twitter In other words, if those are the worries you are trying to calm, you have to look elsewhere. The traditional path that society lays in front of you will not help the struggle with these big questions. Another lesson was that people who are massively successful (those who are world-renowned at least in their own fields) never started doing what they do for any reason other than their love of the work. Massive success requires massive action, and it is all too easy to give up. There are far too many easier routes for having a good life. But Warren Buffett is where he is because he loves the game of investing, not because he set out to become one of the world&rsquo;s richest men. Famously, he lives in the same house, which he purchased when he had a day job and a salary. Steve Jobs bought himself a big house once but for years didn&rsquo;t bother properly furnishing it. These guys had more important things to focus on. Contrast that mentality with that of most of us plebs. We are constantly being taught, through social conditioning, what we should want. We are told that happiness comes from well-perceived jobs, prestigious titles, or lots of money. You might think this is a fault of our consumerist culture, but centuries ago in Rome, Seneca wrote about the same issues plaguing the &ldquo;wretched&rdquo; men, as he called them. People who spend their lives on things that they&rsquo;re told to value, only to arrive at death realizing that they have not lived. In recent years, at least in some circles, the focus on material possessions has weakened. Thanks to people like Tim Ferriss defining the category of &ldquo;The New Rich&rdquo;, the focus has shifted to &ldquo;experiences&rdquo;. While there is a case to be made that a focus on valuable experiences is more likely to lead to an enriched life, this too can be a red herring. It&rsquo;s important to remember that both possessions and experiences are proxy measures of success. They are somebody else&rsquo;s prescription for what you should value. The New-Rich prescription is now producing a generation of thrill-seekers who wear their experiences as their badges-of-honour - the proof that they are successful. What is consistently missing from these prescriptions is a single-minded focus on work. And yet, if you study successful people, this is the common thread you find over and over. While we are busy following the prescriptions for more money or a better collection of adventure stories to tell, the successful people - those with the greatest impact - are busy improving their craft with laser-like focus. Work for them is almost a meditational practice. They strive to improve themselves at their craft, day in and day out. They are the ultimate Stoics - after recognizing what they find important, they are willing to give up everything else for it. From the outside, ordinary people look at these successful ones and see insanity. I can&rsquo;t count how many times I&rsquo;ve heard people call Warren Buffett crazy because he is a billionaire who lives in a small house. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t know how to live&rdquo;! &ldquo;I would know how to enjoy that money&rdquo;. To these people, my answer is always that that is the reason why he is successful and you are not. Some pleasures are sirens. They attract us to themselves. They seem appealing when we don&rsquo;t have them, but when we do, they steal our time - our life - from us. Seeking money, fame, or other arbitrary status-indicators are some examples. These are the pleasure that are not worth seeking. While you seek these, which for truly successful individuals are only symptoms of success and not motivations for it, you waste time you could use in finding out what truly fascinates or pleases you and then giving yourself to it completely." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="I&rsquo;ve always been obsessed with studying successful people and trying to find tidbits of habits or &ldquo;best practices&rdquo; that I could copy. My definition of &ldquo;success&rdquo; has changed dramatically over the years. I have read biographies or memoirs of real estate moguls, finance tycoons, and tech visionaries. What I learned early on in my hunger to &ldquo;become successful&rdquo; is that the traditional ideas of &ldquo;success&rdquo; that we grow up with are either wrong or deeply flawed. I started on this research because of uncertainty about my future, about what I&rsquo;m supposed to do with my life and how I&rsquo;m supposed to go about doing it. But on reading about these seemingly successful people, two lessons seemed to keep coming up. The first lesson was that no amount of &ldquo;success&rdquo; frees you from these worries. One of my favourite tweets is from David Heinemeier Hanson: There’s a rude awakening waiting for anyone who thinks success or money frees you from the basic constraints of the human condition. - DHH on Twitter In other words, if those are the worries you are trying to calm, you have to look elsewhere. The traditional path that society lays in front of you will not help the struggle with these big questions. Another lesson was that people who are massively successful (those who are world-renowned at least in their own fields) never started doing what they do for any reason other than their love of the work. Massive success requires massive action, and it is all too easy to give up. There are far too many easier routes for having a good life. But Warren Buffett is where he is because he loves the game of investing, not because he set out to become one of the world&rsquo;s richest men. Famously, he lives in the same house, which he purchased when he had a day job and a salary. Steve Jobs bought himself a big house once but for years didn&rsquo;t bother properly furnishing it. These guys had more important things to focus on. Contrast that mentality with that of most of us plebs. We are constantly being taught, through social conditioning, what we should want. We are told that happiness comes from well-perceived jobs, prestigious titles, or lots of money. You might think this is a fault of our consumerist culture, but centuries ago in Rome, Seneca wrote about the same issues plaguing the &ldquo;wretched&rdquo; men, as he called them. People who spend their lives on things that they&rsquo;re told to value, only to arrive at death realizing that they have not lived. In recent years, at least in some circles, the focus on material possessions has weakened. Thanks to people like Tim Ferriss defining the category of &ldquo;The New Rich&rdquo;, the focus has shifted to &ldquo;experiences&rdquo;. While there is a case to be made that a focus on valuable experiences is more likely to lead to an enriched life, this too can be a red herring. It&rsquo;s important to remember that both possessions and experiences are proxy measures of success. They are somebody else&rsquo;s prescription for what you should value. The New-Rich prescription is now producing a generation of thrill-seekers who wear their experiences as their badges-of-honour - the proof that they are successful. What is consistently missing from these prescriptions is a single-minded focus on work. And yet, if you study successful people, this is the common thread you find over and over. While we are busy following the prescriptions for more money or a better collection of adventure stories to tell, the successful people - those with the greatest impact - are busy improving their craft with laser-like focus. Work for them is almost a meditational practice. They strive to improve themselves at their craft, day in and day out. They are the ultimate Stoics - after recognizing what they find important, they are willing to give up everything else for it. From the outside, ordinary people look at these successful ones and see insanity. I can&rsquo;t count how many times I&rsquo;ve heard people call Warren Buffett crazy because he is a billionaire who lives in a small house. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t know how to live&rdquo;! &ldquo;I would know how to enjoy that money&rdquo;. To these people, my answer is always that that is the reason why he is successful and you are not. Some pleasures are sirens. They attract us to themselves. They seem appealing when we don&rsquo;t have them, but when we do, they steal our time - our life - from us. Seeking money, fame, or other arbitrary status-indicators are some examples. These are the pleasure that are not worth seeking. While you seek these, which for truly successful individuals are only symptoms of success and not motivations for it, you waste time you could use in finding out what truly fascinates or pleases you and then giving yourself to it completely." />
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But on reading about these seemingly successful people, two lessons seemed to keep coming up. The first lesson was that no amount of &ldquo;success&rdquo; frees you from these worries. One of my favourite tweets is from David Heinemeier Hanson: There’s a rude awakening waiting for anyone who thinks success or money frees you from the basic constraints of the human condition. - DHH on Twitter In other words, if those are the worries you are trying to calm, you have to look elsewhere. The traditional path that society lays in front of you will not help the struggle with these big questions. Another lesson was that people who are massively successful (those who are world-renowned at least in their own fields) never started doing what they do for any reason other than their love of the work. Massive success requires massive action, and it is all too easy to give up. There are far too many easier routes for having a good life. But Warren Buffett is where he is because he loves the game of investing, not because he set out to become one of the world&rsquo;s richest men. Famously, he lives in the same house, which he purchased when he had a day job and a salary. Steve Jobs bought himself a big house once but for years didn&rsquo;t bother properly furnishing it. These guys had more important things to focus on. Contrast that mentality with that of most of us plebs. We are constantly being taught, through social conditioning, what we should want. We are told that happiness comes from well-perceived jobs, prestigious titles, or lots of money. You might think this is a fault of our consumerist culture, but centuries ago in Rome, Seneca wrote about the same issues plaguing the &ldquo;wretched&rdquo; men, as he called them. People who spend their lives on things that they&rsquo;re told to value, only to arrive at death realizing that they have not lived. In recent years, at least in some circles, the focus on material possessions has weakened. Thanks to people like Tim Ferriss defining the category of &ldquo;The New Rich&rdquo;, the focus has shifted to &ldquo;experiences&rdquo;. While there is a case to be made that a focus on valuable experiences is more likely to lead to an enriched life, this too can be a red herring. It&rsquo;s important to remember that both possessions and experiences are proxy measures of success. They are somebody else&rsquo;s prescription for what you should value. The New-Rich prescription is now producing a generation of thrill-seekers who wear their experiences as their badges-of-honour - the proof that they are successful. What is consistently missing from these prescriptions is a single-minded focus on work. And yet, if you study successful people, this is the common thread you find over and over. While we are busy following the prescriptions for more money or a better collection of adventure stories to tell, the successful people - those with the greatest impact - are busy improving their craft with laser-like focus. Work for them is almost a meditational practice. They strive to improve themselves at their craft, day in and day out. They are the ultimate Stoics - after recognizing what they find important, they are willing to give up everything else for it. From the outside, ordinary people look at these successful ones and see insanity. I can&rsquo;t count how many times I&rsquo;ve heard people call Warren Buffett crazy because he is a billionaire who lives in a small house. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t know how to live&rdquo;! &ldquo;I would know how to enjoy that money&rdquo;. To these people, my answer is always that that is the reason why he is successful and you are not. Some pleasures are sirens. They attract us to themselves. They seem appealing when we don&rsquo;t have them, but when we do, they steal our time - our life - from us. Seeking money, fame, or other arbitrary status-indicators are some examples. These are the pleasure that are not worth seeking. While you seek these, which for truly successful individuals are only symptoms of success and not motivations for it, you waste time you could use in finding out what truly fascinates or pleases you and then giving yourself to it completely.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Pleasures Not Worth Seeking","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2015-03-08T12:42:16-07:00","datePublished":"2015-03-08T12:42:16-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2015/03/08/pleasures-not-worth-seeking.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2015/03/08/pleasures-not-worth-seeking.html"},"description":"I&rsquo;ve always been obsessed with studying successful people and trying to find tidbits of habits or &ldquo;best practices&rdquo; that I could copy. My definition of &ldquo;success&rdquo; has changed dramatically over the years. I have read biographies or memoirs of real estate moguls, finance tycoons, and tech visionaries. What I learned early on in my hunger to &ldquo;become successful&rdquo; is that the traditional ideas of &ldquo;success&rdquo; that we grow up with are either wrong or deeply flawed. I started on this research because of uncertainty about my future, about what I&rsquo;m supposed to do with my life and how I&rsquo;m supposed to go about doing it. But on reading about these seemingly successful people, two lessons seemed to keep coming up. The first lesson was that no amount of &ldquo;success&rdquo; frees you from these worries. One of my favourite tweets is from David Heinemeier Hanson: There’s a rude awakening waiting for anyone who thinks success or money frees you from the basic constraints of the human condition. - DHH on Twitter In other words, if those are the worries you are trying to calm, you have to look elsewhere. The traditional path that society lays in front of you will not help the struggle with these big questions. Another lesson was that people who are massively successful (those who are world-renowned at least in their own fields) never started doing what they do for any reason other than their love of the work. Massive success requires massive action, and it is all too easy to give up. There are far too many easier routes for having a good life. But Warren Buffett is where he is because he loves the game of investing, not because he set out to become one of the world&rsquo;s richest men. Famously, he lives in the same house, which he purchased when he had a day job and a salary. Steve Jobs bought himself a big house once but for years didn&rsquo;t bother properly furnishing it. These guys had more important things to focus on. Contrast that mentality with that of most of us plebs. We are constantly being taught, through social conditioning, what we should want. We are told that happiness comes from well-perceived jobs, prestigious titles, or lots of money. You might think this is a fault of our consumerist culture, but centuries ago in Rome, Seneca wrote about the same issues plaguing the &ldquo;wretched&rdquo; men, as he called them. People who spend their lives on things that they&rsquo;re told to value, only to arrive at death realizing that they have not lived. In recent years, at least in some circles, the focus on material possessions has weakened. Thanks to people like Tim Ferriss defining the category of &ldquo;The New Rich&rdquo;, the focus has shifted to &ldquo;experiences&rdquo;. While there is a case to be made that a focus on valuable experiences is more likely to lead to an enriched life, this too can be a red herring. It&rsquo;s important to remember that both possessions and experiences are proxy measures of success. They are somebody else&rsquo;s prescription for what you should value. The New-Rich prescription is now producing a generation of thrill-seekers who wear their experiences as their badges-of-honour - the proof that they are successful. What is consistently missing from these prescriptions is a single-minded focus on work. And yet, if you study successful people, this is the common thread you find over and over. While we are busy following the prescriptions for more money or a better collection of adventure stories to tell, the successful people - those with the greatest impact - are busy improving their craft with laser-like focus. Work for them is almost a meditational practice. They strive to improve themselves at their craft, day in and day out. They are the ultimate Stoics - after recognizing what they find important, they are willing to give up everything else for it. From the outside, ordinary people look at these successful ones and see insanity. I can&rsquo;t count how many times I&rsquo;ve heard people call Warren Buffett crazy because he is a billionaire who lives in a small house. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t know how to live&rdquo;! &ldquo;I would know how to enjoy that money&rdquo;. To these people, my answer is always that that is the reason why he is successful and you are not. Some pleasures are sirens. They attract us to themselves. They seem appealing when we don&rsquo;t have them, but when we do, they steal our time - our life - from us. Seeking money, fame, or other arbitrary status-indicators are some examples. These are the pleasure that are not worth seeking. While you seek these, which for truly successful individuals are only symptoms of success and not motivations for it, you waste time you could use in finding out what truly fascinates or pleases you and then giving yourself to it completely.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Pleasures Not Worth Seeking","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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 <meta name="description" content="I&rsquo;m certain that years from now, I will look back on January of 2014 as the beginning of when I really became productive - and responsible for my time. I have been knee-deep in various self-improvement communities since at least 2010. I knew that my time was precious, and I knew that I should live every day as if it was my last. But sometimes, hard ideas just take time to sink in. I spend my days on the computer. Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter are constants in my day. I was addicted, and January of 2014 was when I decided to get clean. I decided to start tracking how my time &ldquo;leaks&rdquo;. If I&rsquo;m to spend everyday as if it was my last, surely mindlessly clicking on dumb links can&rsquo;t be the best way to go? Enter RescueTime and various browser extensions to limit my time on social media. All social media apps on my phone got purged. For about two months, I ruthlessly tracked every single activity in a spreadsheet and tallied up the amount of time that was wasted on activities that were not productive or enriching in one way or another. I used to compulsively (and I mean compulsively) open the Facebook or Twitter apps on my phone. Blocking social media was the easiest fix to start with. Over the next few months, I also quit playing some video games that were taking a lot of my time. Then in June 2014, I moved into an apartment without a television. I don&rsquo;t know how I ever lived with one. Have you ever considered the fact that you and Elon Musk both have the exact same number of hours in a day? One reason why you and I aren&rsquo;t launching rockets to space could be that we are inundated with attention sinks. Our modern lifestyles are full of them, and the internet is not making things any better, as the rise of click bait &ldquo;news&rdquo; sites attest. We are bombarded with opportunities to spend our time the way somebody else wants us to. And because these attention sinks are so pervasive, blocking them off seems weird to most people. Success means different things to different people, but it seems to me that spending time deliberately - by first establishing the desired achievement and then deciding how you&rsquo;ll spend your time to get there - must be a core component of any successful life plan. In its most basic form, spending time deliberately means blocking off distractions like TV or social media. These attention sinks are like cans of Pringles - once you open it, you can&rsquo;t stop. But past this basic level, spending time deliberately could also mean not spending time on things that are not actionable even if they are productive on paper. How much of your day do you spend watching or reading news? How much does that information help you in your life? Could you get by with cutting the time you spend on news by half? Similarly, if you have many interests, you might have to decide that you won&rsquo;t indulge in one or more because spending time on too many activities means none get done well. Even in the short time since January of 2014, I have fallen off the no-time-wasting bandwagon and gotten back on it several times. It&rsquo;s not easy. And the key to doing it well, in my experience, is to manage your will power to resist. I can&rsquo;t get lured into watching TV because there is no TV. Similarly with things like Facebook, if I log out or install a blocker at a moment of strength, then at my moment of weakness when I want my next hit of social media, I just might not jump through the hoops of disabling the blocker and logging back in. Most recently, in a moment of weakness, I got Netflix. Now, when I come home in the evenings with a precious free hour or two, I end up having a debate with myself over whether I should read or watch an episode of Arrested Development. The latter wins too often for comfort. Managing Netflix is going to be the next challenge. All entertainment is not bad. Entertainment that is not deliberate or one that makes you lazy is. It is best to anticipate your own weaknesses in advance, and put yourself in an environment where the easiest thing for you to do is be productive. It is best to not buy the can of Pringles in the first place." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="I&rsquo;m certain that years from now, I will look back on January of 2014 as the beginning of when I really became productive - and responsible for my time. I have been knee-deep in various self-improvement communities since at least 2010. I knew that my time was precious, and I knew that I should live every day as if it was my last. But sometimes, hard ideas just take time to sink in. I spend my days on the computer. Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter are constants in my day. I was addicted, and January of 2014 was when I decided to get clean. I decided to start tracking how my time &ldquo;leaks&rdquo;. If I&rsquo;m to spend everyday as if it was my last, surely mindlessly clicking on dumb links can&rsquo;t be the best way to go? Enter RescueTime and various browser extensions to limit my time on social media. All social media apps on my phone got purged. For about two months, I ruthlessly tracked every single activity in a spreadsheet and tallied up the amount of time that was wasted on activities that were not productive or enriching in one way or another. I used to compulsively (and I mean compulsively) open the Facebook or Twitter apps on my phone. Blocking social media was the easiest fix to start with. Over the next few months, I also quit playing some video games that were taking a lot of my time. Then in June 2014, I moved into an apartment without a television. I don&rsquo;t know how I ever lived with one. Have you ever considered the fact that you and Elon Musk both have the exact same number of hours in a day? One reason why you and I aren&rsquo;t launching rockets to space could be that we are inundated with attention sinks. Our modern lifestyles are full of them, and the internet is not making things any better, as the rise of click bait &ldquo;news&rdquo; sites attest. We are bombarded with opportunities to spend our time the way somebody else wants us to. And because these attention sinks are so pervasive, blocking them off seems weird to most people. Success means different things to different people, but it seems to me that spending time deliberately - by first establishing the desired achievement and then deciding how you&rsquo;ll spend your time to get there - must be a core component of any successful life plan. In its most basic form, spending time deliberately means blocking off distractions like TV or social media. These attention sinks are like cans of Pringles - once you open it, you can&rsquo;t stop. But past this basic level, spending time deliberately could also mean not spending time on things that are not actionable even if they are productive on paper. How much of your day do you spend watching or reading news? How much does that information help you in your life? Could you get by with cutting the time you spend on news by half? Similarly, if you have many interests, you might have to decide that you won&rsquo;t indulge in one or more because spending time on too many activities means none get done well. Even in the short time since January of 2014, I have fallen off the no-time-wasting bandwagon and gotten back on it several times. It&rsquo;s not easy. And the key to doing it well, in my experience, is to manage your will power to resist. I can&rsquo;t get lured into watching TV because there is no TV. Similarly with things like Facebook, if I log out or install a blocker at a moment of strength, then at my moment of weakness when I want my next hit of social media, I just might not jump through the hoops of disabling the blocker and logging back in. Most recently, in a moment of weakness, I got Netflix. Now, when I come home in the evenings with a precious free hour or two, I end up having a debate with myself over whether I should read or watch an episode of Arrested Development. The latter wins too often for comfort. Managing Netflix is going to be the next challenge. All entertainment is not bad. Entertainment that is not deliberate or one that makes you lazy is. It is best to anticipate your own weaknesses in advance, and put yourself in an environment where the easiest thing for you to do is be productive. It is best to not buy the can of Pringles in the first place." />
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+<link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/main.css"><link type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" href="http://hirad.github.io/feed.xml" title="Making the map match the territory" /></head>
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 <meta name="description" content="Tim Ferriss recently interviewed Samy Kamkar - an infamous hacker. There are a lot of gems in that interview, and I highly recommend it. But one question and answer really stood out for me. (Every time I reference an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, I say something like &ldquo;this was his best episode yet&rdquo;. I&rsquo;m gonna stop saying that. The whole thing is excellent and you should be listening.) Tim asked (paraphrasing): &ldquo;What is the difference between white-hat and black-hat hackers? Do black-hat hackers actually feel what they do is justified?&rdquo; For those unfamiliar with hacker lingo, a &ldquo;white hat&rdquo; hacker is a benevolent one. They might, for example, find out how to steal your credit card info, but instead of making money off of their discovery, they might notify the banks to tighten their security. &ldquo;Black hat&rdquo; hackers, as Samy pointed out, do what they do for profit. They are cyber criminals. To answer the question of whether black hat hackers believe what they do is right or justified, Samy said (again, paraphrasing): &ldquo;Ignorance probably plays a huge role. If you never reflect on the morality of what you&rsquo;re doing, then you&rsquo;ll never stop because it&rsquo;s immoral. For example, when I&rsquo;m eating a steak, I have chosen to not think about where it comes from. If I did, I would probably make different decisions.&rdquo; This really hit home for me. It has been some time that I&rsquo;ve been thinking if I really want to do the moral thing, I should consider more carefully where my food comes from. And I&rsquo;ve consistently put that thought out of my mind. The lifestyle change that comes from not eating food that has been unethically obtained is too large (or it seems too large), and taking it on seems intimidating. I will eventually take on this challenge and invest some time into finding out how I can choose my food sources to minimize or eliminate my contribution to the animal cruelty that is a standard part of our food industry. But for now, I&rsquo;m blinding myself to it for nothing more than convenience. Samy&rsquo;s juxtaposition of cyber crime and eating a steak was powerful because it showed how easily we can put moral considerations out of mind - how easy it is for us to be ignorant of our immoral acts. This is yet another way our brains lie to us. It also makes me feel a bit more empathetic toward real criminals, who are often doing nothing more than responding, unthinkingly, to adverse conditions they&rsquo;ve found themselves in. Finally, it makes me wonder: what else am I doing that is completely morally unjustifiable and that I&rsquo;m not even aware of?" />
 <meta property="og:description" content="Tim Ferriss recently interviewed Samy Kamkar - an infamous hacker. There are a lot of gems in that interview, and I highly recommend it. But one question and answer really stood out for me. (Every time I reference an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, I say something like &ldquo;this was his best episode yet&rdquo;. I&rsquo;m gonna stop saying that. The whole thing is excellent and you should be listening.) Tim asked (paraphrasing): &ldquo;What is the difference between white-hat and black-hat hackers? Do black-hat hackers actually feel what they do is justified?&rdquo; For those unfamiliar with hacker lingo, a &ldquo;white hat&rdquo; hacker is a benevolent one. They might, for example, find out how to steal your credit card info, but instead of making money off of their discovery, they might notify the banks to tighten their security. &ldquo;Black hat&rdquo; hackers, as Samy pointed out, do what they do for profit. They are cyber criminals. To answer the question of whether black hat hackers believe what they do is right or justified, Samy said (again, paraphrasing): &ldquo;Ignorance probably plays a huge role. If you never reflect on the morality of what you&rsquo;re doing, then you&rsquo;ll never stop because it&rsquo;s immoral. For example, when I&rsquo;m eating a steak, I have chosen to not think about where it comes from. If I did, I would probably make different decisions.&rdquo; This really hit home for me. It has been some time that I&rsquo;ve been thinking if I really want to do the moral thing, I should consider more carefully where my food comes from. And I&rsquo;ve consistently put that thought out of my mind. The lifestyle change that comes from not eating food that has been unethically obtained is too large (or it seems too large), and taking it on seems intimidating. I will eventually take on this challenge and invest some time into finding out how I can choose my food sources to minimize or eliminate my contribution to the animal cruelty that is a standard part of our food industry. But for now, I&rsquo;m blinding myself to it for nothing more than convenience. Samy&rsquo;s juxtaposition of cyber crime and eating a steak was powerful because it showed how easily we can put moral considerations out of mind - how easy it is for us to be ignorant of our immoral acts. This is yet another way our brains lie to us. It also makes me feel a bit more empathetic toward real criminals, who are often doing nothing more than responding, unthinkingly, to adverse conditions they&rsquo;ve found themselves in. Finally, it makes me wonder: what else am I doing that is completely morally unjustifiable and that I&rsquo;m not even aware of?" />
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diff --git a/essays/2015/05/09/the-ideal-capitalist.html b/essays/2015/05/09/the-ideal-capitalist.html
index 76b80ce..a2daf03 100644
--- a/essays/2015/05/09/the-ideal-capitalist.html
+++ b/essays/2015/05/09/the-ideal-capitalist.html
@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="It&rsquo;s impossible to keep up with popular movements today without being bombarded with messages about the immorality of capitalism. It also doesn&rsquo;t help that the worst elements of capitalism brought about the worst financial crisis that today&rsquo;s 20- and 30-somethings can remember. At the same time, there are two elements of capitalism, at least in its ideal form, that are quite worthy of admiration: Compatibility with Nature Devotion to betterment of humanity Capitalism is compatible with nature because it operates on the same pricinples. It is a survival of the fittest. Of course, whether it is &ldquo;good&rdquo; or &ldquo;bad&rdquo; is a human judgement. By our human values, we can judge that something that is natural is &ldquo;bad&rdquo; or &ldquo;undesirable&rdquo; - murder and rape come to mind. However, if we&rsquo;re talking about creating resilient systems - perhaps one we&rsquo;re basing our society on - we&rsquo;d do well to make compatibility with nature a top priority. We are, after all, products of a &ldquo;survival of the fittest&rdquo; environment. We don&rsquo;t behave by human values of &ldquo;good&rdquo; or &ldquo;bad&rdquo; (or else we wouldn&rsquo;t have them); we behave by what is likely to help us survive and replicate. Furthermore, our moral code is constantly under flux. Think about our attitude toward murder: today most of us living in the most well-off parts of the world have a no-tolerance policy toward it. One or two centuries ago, killing non-white people (again in the most well-off parts of the world) would&rsquo;ve been distasteful but understandable in some situations. Go back another hundred years, and killing certain groups becomes even desirable. The further you go back in time, the more acceptable murder becomes. In a tribe of hunter-gatherers, there is no sanctity of human life, except for your tribe who are likely to be your family. Our morality morphs depending on the society we find ourselves in. What remains constant is our desire for bettering our own condition, and we&rsquo;re very good at finding out how to do that no matter what kind of society we are in. Capitalism is predicated only on one thing - that individuals are self-interested and therefore that they should be rewarded for generating &ldquo;value&rdquo;. What value is also depends on the society, but in one form or another, in human societies (and in those of any evolved species) it&rsquo;ll come down to survival or replication. As far as &ldquo;design assumptions&rdquo; go, this seems like building on really solid ground. It&rsquo;d be hard to imagine that one day people will suddenly wake up and not be self-interested. Secondly, because &ldquo;value&rdquo; is defined depending on the situation society finds itself in, motivating individuals to generate more of it (by rewarding them with wealth), means that by proxy the society itself is a system for generating more value, too. When most people hear this, they think of trickle-down economics. This is a confusion of &ldquo;value&rdquo; and &ldquo;wealth&rdquo;. If value is voltage, wealth is current. The Ideal Capitalist tries to create a value differential that makes wealth flow to him. This is put best by a quote from Peter Diamandis: &ldquo;If you want to become a billionaire, help a billion people.&rdquo; When Mark Zuckerberg helps you connect with your friends and you like his product (pardon the pun), he has generated value that you benefit from. In exchange for that, he is rewarded by society through wealth. Given this view of &ldquo;ideal&rdquo; capitalism, I see bad actors in the system like cancerous cells. Sometimes, you can live with cancerous cells. They might lack the ability to grow enough to be a problem. The other times, it&rsquo;s great to be able to expunge cancerous cells, but when your oncologist tries to put a bullet in your head as a way of killing off the cancer, you start looking for a different oncologist. This is why I don&rsquo;t understand people on the Left who claim they hate capitalism. I might have more sympathy for them if the 20th century hadn&rsquo;t happened, but as it is, we have already tried to &ldquo;design&rdquo; a societal system that removed greed and self-interest from the equation. It didn&rsquo;t work out. You want to discount capitalism as immoral? Compare living in 1800 to today. Our life-spans are now about as high as our bodies will bear. Technological progress expands our knowledge, but capitalism makes it accessible. Mr. Vanderbilt&rsquo;s railroad made important supplies accessible (not to mention improved knowledge transmission). Mr. Rockefeller&rsquo;s oil kept people warm. The evil food companies generated large amounts of food that feeds an ever growing population, and the evil pharmaceuticals are the same pharmaceuticals that brought penicillin and vaccines out of the labs and to the masses. If you want to stop evil capitalists, the best solution may not be legistlating. We suck at legislation. What could be worse than a group of non-experts with entirely misplaced incentives trying to fix problems they can&rsquo;t even understand? No, the most effective way to stop capitalists from becoming too powerful or corrupt is to encourage more capitalism and to ensure that our system is purely capitalist - not just a look-alike. Let&rsquo;s take the example of the railroads. In the late 1800s in the United States, nobody could stand up to Cornelius Vanderbilt. His owned the railroads (at least the important ones) and so controlled the US and its economy. His power was not curbed until J.D. Rockefeller decided to circumvent the railroads by shipping oil (the most valuable commodity being shipped by the railroads) through pipelines. Stories of entrepreneurs upending the established order like this is all too common in the history of large entreprises. If government had stepped in to protect the existing order, as they do so often now, they may have legislated something like &ldquo;All goods must be shipped on licensed railroads&rdquo; under some guise of protecting the US railroad industry. I&rsquo;m sure Mr. Vanderbilt would have been in favour. When we throw government regulation at a problem, the best-case-scenario is that we patch up some issue. We create an incremental improvement over what already existed, perhaps addressing some of the injustice of the existing situation. In practice, we usually create - along with many more problems - an environment that hinders better solutions from flourishing. The Ideal Capitalist doesn&rsquo;t concern himself with individual injustices or tragedies in the world. Those are not an easily addressable market. The Ideal Capitalist changes the scene so the old problems as a category become irrelevant. Instead, government regulation is most useful to ensure that capitalism can continue unhindered. We need this because not every capitalist is the Ideal Capitalist. Incumbents will try to stifle competition or stop threatening newcomers, just as the established taxi industry has tried to lobby governments to stop Uber. You might think that that is the default, that the Ideal Capitalist is some imaginary character. But in recent times, we&rsquo;ve had at least one embodiment of the Ideal Capitalist in Elon Musk, and the culture that permeates in Silicon Valley is increasingly encouraging similar attitudes. But the important thing is that we don&rsquo;t need too many Ideal Capitalists. A few are enough to radically push humanity forward. We just need to make sure we get out of their way. The problem with capitalism&rsquo;s kind of value generation is that it does not yield itself well to anecdotes. It&rsquo;s easy to hear about how Evil Corp.&rsquo;s CEO tried to spray the last dodo with oil for fun. It&rsquo;s more difficult to hear anecdotes about how the incentives of capitalism generate value for society in the long term. Even in the realm of universal healthcare, of which I am a huge supporter, it is easy to be upset about Michael Moore&rsquo;s anecdotes about people whose lives were ruined because of their healthcare bills. A more important question might be: how can we speed up fundamental, game-changing health innovations that completely obsolete our health-care problems? These types of innovations don&rsquo;t come often, and it&rsquo;s hard to imagine that they&rsquo;ll come faster with government regulation. So, while I agree with some leftists that there are evil capitalists, I see the leftist attitude toward capitalism much like the oncologist who kills cancer cells with his pistol. The real issue isn&rsquo;t that capitalism is inherently immoral, it is that we are not purists about our capitalism. If we were, we wouldn&rsquo;t have governments guarantee the survival of companies that have made bad decisions. We also wouldn&rsquo;t have governments enact legislations only to benefit particular corporations. In the ideal scenario, government should only act to ensure the Ideal Capitalist can act freely and without hinderance. Why they can&rsquo;t do that right now is a subject for an entirely different blog post (or volumes of blog posts). I am well aware that I&rsquo;m criticising one class of idealists - the leftists with utopian dreams - and proposing another idealistic scenario - one where all capitalists behave like Elon Musk. The difference in my mind is that one framework for running society is built on a solid foundation and another - the utopia where everyone behaves fairly and free of greed - seems more appropriate for a different species." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="It&rsquo;s impossible to keep up with popular movements today without being bombarded with messages about the immorality of capitalism. It also doesn&rsquo;t help that the worst elements of capitalism brought about the worst financial crisis that today&rsquo;s 20- and 30-somethings can remember. At the same time, there are two elements of capitalism, at least in its ideal form, that are quite worthy of admiration: Compatibility with Nature Devotion to betterment of humanity Capitalism is compatible with nature because it operates on the same pricinples. It is a survival of the fittest. Of course, whether it is &ldquo;good&rdquo; or &ldquo;bad&rdquo; is a human judgement. By our human values, we can judge that something that is natural is &ldquo;bad&rdquo; or &ldquo;undesirable&rdquo; - murder and rape come to mind. However, if we&rsquo;re talking about creating resilient systems - perhaps one we&rsquo;re basing our society on - we&rsquo;d do well to make compatibility with nature a top priority. We are, after all, products of a &ldquo;survival of the fittest&rdquo; environment. We don&rsquo;t behave by human values of &ldquo;good&rdquo; or &ldquo;bad&rdquo; (or else we wouldn&rsquo;t have them); we behave by what is likely to help us survive and replicate. Furthermore, our moral code is constantly under flux. Think about our attitude toward murder: today most of us living in the most well-off parts of the world have a no-tolerance policy toward it. One or two centuries ago, killing non-white people (again in the most well-off parts of the world) would&rsquo;ve been distasteful but understandable in some situations. Go back another hundred years, and killing certain groups becomes even desirable. The further you go back in time, the more acceptable murder becomes. In a tribe of hunter-gatherers, there is no sanctity of human life, except for your tribe who are likely to be your family. Our morality morphs depending on the society we find ourselves in. What remains constant is our desire for bettering our own condition, and we&rsquo;re very good at finding out how to do that no matter what kind of society we are in. Capitalism is predicated only on one thing - that individuals are self-interested and therefore that they should be rewarded for generating &ldquo;value&rdquo;. What value is also depends on the society, but in one form or another, in human societies (and in those of any evolved species) it&rsquo;ll come down to survival or replication. As far as &ldquo;design assumptions&rdquo; go, this seems like building on really solid ground. It&rsquo;d be hard to imagine that one day people will suddenly wake up and not be self-interested. Secondly, because &ldquo;value&rdquo; is defined depending on the situation society finds itself in, motivating individuals to generate more of it (by rewarding them with wealth), means that by proxy the society itself is a system for generating more value, too. When most people hear this, they think of trickle-down economics. This is a confusion of &ldquo;value&rdquo; and &ldquo;wealth&rdquo;. If value is voltage, wealth is current. The Ideal Capitalist tries to create a value differential that makes wealth flow to him. This is put best by a quote from Peter Diamandis: &ldquo;If you want to become a billionaire, help a billion people.&rdquo; When Mark Zuckerberg helps you connect with your friends and you like his product (pardon the pun), he has generated value that you benefit from. In exchange for that, he is rewarded by society through wealth. Given this view of &ldquo;ideal&rdquo; capitalism, I see bad actors in the system like cancerous cells. Sometimes, you can live with cancerous cells. They might lack the ability to grow enough to be a problem. The other times, it&rsquo;s great to be able to expunge cancerous cells, but when your oncologist tries to put a bullet in your head as a way of killing off the cancer, you start looking for a different oncologist. This is why I don&rsquo;t understand people on the Left who claim they hate capitalism. I might have more sympathy for them if the 20th century hadn&rsquo;t happened, but as it is, we have already tried to &ldquo;design&rdquo; a societal system that removed greed and self-interest from the equation. It didn&rsquo;t work out. You want to discount capitalism as immoral? Compare living in 1800 to today. Our life-spans are now about as high as our bodies will bear. Technological progress expands our knowledge, but capitalism makes it accessible. Mr. Vanderbilt&rsquo;s railroad made important supplies accessible (not to mention improved knowledge transmission). Mr. Rockefeller&rsquo;s oil kept people warm. The evil food companies generated large amounts of food that feeds an ever growing population, and the evil pharmaceuticals are the same pharmaceuticals that brought penicillin and vaccines out of the labs and to the masses. If you want to stop evil capitalists, the best solution may not be legistlating. We suck at legislation. What could be worse than a group of non-experts with entirely misplaced incentives trying to fix problems they can&rsquo;t even understand? No, the most effective way to stop capitalists from becoming too powerful or corrupt is to encourage more capitalism and to ensure that our system is purely capitalist - not just a look-alike. Let&rsquo;s take the example of the railroads. In the late 1800s in the United States, nobody could stand up to Cornelius Vanderbilt. His owned the railroads (at least the important ones) and so controlled the US and its economy. His power was not curbed until J.D. Rockefeller decided to circumvent the railroads by shipping oil (the most valuable commodity being shipped by the railroads) through pipelines. Stories of entrepreneurs upending the established order like this is all too common in the history of large entreprises. If government had stepped in to protect the existing order, as they do so often now, they may have legislated something like &ldquo;All goods must be shipped on licensed railroads&rdquo; under some guise of protecting the US railroad industry. I&rsquo;m sure Mr. Vanderbilt would have been in favour. When we throw government regulation at a problem, the best-case-scenario is that we patch up some issue. We create an incremental improvement over what already existed, perhaps addressing some of the injustice of the existing situation. In practice, we usually create - along with many more problems - an environment that hinders better solutions from flourishing. The Ideal Capitalist doesn&rsquo;t concern himself with individual injustices or tragedies in the world. Those are not an easily addressable market. The Ideal Capitalist changes the scene so the old problems as a category become irrelevant. Instead, government regulation is most useful to ensure that capitalism can continue unhindered. We need this because not every capitalist is the Ideal Capitalist. Incumbents will try to stifle competition or stop threatening newcomers, just as the established taxi industry has tried to lobby governments to stop Uber. You might think that that is the default, that the Ideal Capitalist is some imaginary character. But in recent times, we&rsquo;ve had at least one embodiment of the Ideal Capitalist in Elon Musk, and the culture that permeates in Silicon Valley is increasingly encouraging similar attitudes. But the important thing is that we don&rsquo;t need too many Ideal Capitalists. A few are enough to radically push humanity forward. We just need to make sure we get out of their way. The problem with capitalism&rsquo;s kind of value generation is that it does not yield itself well to anecdotes. It&rsquo;s easy to hear about how Evil Corp.&rsquo;s CEO tried to spray the last dodo with oil for fun. It&rsquo;s more difficult to hear anecdotes about how the incentives of capitalism generate value for society in the long term. Even in the realm of universal healthcare, of which I am a huge supporter, it is easy to be upset about Michael Moore&rsquo;s anecdotes about people whose lives were ruined because of their healthcare bills. A more important question might be: how can we speed up fundamental, game-changing health innovations that completely obsolete our health-care problems? These types of innovations don&rsquo;t come often, and it&rsquo;s hard to imagine that they&rsquo;ll come faster with government regulation. So, while I agree with some leftists that there are evil capitalists, I see the leftist attitude toward capitalism much like the oncologist who kills cancer cells with his pistol. The real issue isn&rsquo;t that capitalism is inherently immoral, it is that we are not purists about our capitalism. If we were, we wouldn&rsquo;t have governments guarantee the survival of companies that have made bad decisions. We also wouldn&rsquo;t have governments enact legislations only to benefit particular corporations. In the ideal scenario, government should only act to ensure the Ideal Capitalist can act freely and without hinderance. Why they can&rsquo;t do that right now is a subject for an entirely different blog post (or volumes of blog posts). I am well aware that I&rsquo;m criticising one class of idealists - the leftists with utopian dreams - and proposing another idealistic scenario - one where all capitalists behave like Elon Musk. The difference in my mind is that one framework for running society is built on a solid foundation and another - the utopia where everyone behaves fairly and free of greed - seems more appropriate for a different species." />
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By our human values, we can judge that something that is natural is &ldquo;bad&rdquo; or &ldquo;undesirable&rdquo; - murder and rape come to mind. However, if we&rsquo;re talking about creating resilient systems - perhaps one we&rsquo;re basing our society on - we&rsquo;d do well to make compatibility with nature a top priority. We are, after all, products of a &ldquo;survival of the fittest&rdquo; environment. We don&rsquo;t behave by human values of &ldquo;good&rdquo; or &ldquo;bad&rdquo; (or else we wouldn&rsquo;t have them); we behave by what is likely to help us survive and replicate. Furthermore, our moral code is constantly under flux. Think about our attitude toward murder: today most of us living in the most well-off parts of the world have a no-tolerance policy toward it. One or two centuries ago, killing non-white people (again in the most well-off parts of the world) would&rsquo;ve been distasteful but understandable in some situations. Go back another hundred years, and killing certain groups becomes even desirable. The further you go back in time, the more acceptable murder becomes. In a tribe of hunter-gatherers, there is no sanctity of human life, except for your tribe who are likely to be your family. Our morality morphs depending on the society we find ourselves in. What remains constant is our desire for bettering our own condition, and we&rsquo;re very good at finding out how to do that no matter what kind of society we are in. Capitalism is predicated only on one thing - that individuals are self-interested and therefore that they should be rewarded for generating &ldquo;value&rdquo;. What value is also depends on the society, but in one form or another, in human societies (and in those of any evolved species) it&rsquo;ll come down to survival or replication. As far as &ldquo;design assumptions&rdquo; go, this seems like building on really solid ground. It&rsquo;d be hard to imagine that one day people will suddenly wake up and not be self-interested. Secondly, because &ldquo;value&rdquo; is defined depending on the situation society finds itself in, motivating individuals to generate more of it (by rewarding them with wealth), means that by proxy the society itself is a system for generating more value, too. When most people hear this, they think of trickle-down economics. This is a confusion of &ldquo;value&rdquo; and &ldquo;wealth&rdquo;. If value is voltage, wealth is current. The Ideal Capitalist tries to create a value differential that makes wealth flow to him. This is put best by a quote from Peter Diamandis: &ldquo;If you want to become a billionaire, help a billion people.&rdquo; When Mark Zuckerberg helps you connect with your friends and you like his product (pardon the pun), he has generated value that you benefit from. In exchange for that, he is rewarded by society through wealth. Given this view of &ldquo;ideal&rdquo; capitalism, I see bad actors in the system like cancerous cells. Sometimes, you can live with cancerous cells. They might lack the ability to grow enough to be a problem. The other times, it&rsquo;s great to be able to expunge cancerous cells, but when your oncologist tries to put a bullet in your head as a way of killing off the cancer, you start looking for a different oncologist. This is why I don&rsquo;t understand people on the Left who claim they hate capitalism. I might have more sympathy for them if the 20th century hadn&rsquo;t happened, but as it is, we have already tried to &ldquo;design&rdquo; a societal system that removed greed and self-interest from the equation. It didn&rsquo;t work out. You want to discount capitalism as immoral? Compare living in 1800 to today. Our life-spans are now about as high as our bodies will bear. Technological progress expands our knowledge, but capitalism makes it accessible. Mr. Vanderbilt&rsquo;s railroad made important supplies accessible (not to mention improved knowledge transmission). Mr. Rockefeller&rsquo;s oil kept people warm. The evil food companies generated large amounts of food that feeds an ever growing population, and the evil pharmaceuticals are the same pharmaceuticals that brought penicillin and vaccines out of the labs and to the masses. If you want to stop evil capitalists, the best solution may not be legistlating. We suck at legislation. What could be worse than a group of non-experts with entirely misplaced incentives trying to fix problems they can&rsquo;t even understand? No, the most effective way to stop capitalists from becoming too powerful or corrupt is to encourage more capitalism and to ensure that our system is purely capitalist - not just a look-alike. Let&rsquo;s take the example of the railroads. In the late 1800s in the United States, nobody could stand up to Cornelius Vanderbilt. His owned the railroads (at least the important ones) and so controlled the US and its economy. His power was not curbed until J.D. Rockefeller decided to circumvent the railroads by shipping oil (the most valuable commodity being shipped by the railroads) through pipelines. Stories of entrepreneurs upending the established order like this is all too common in the history of large entreprises. If government had stepped in to protect the existing order, as they do so often now, they may have legislated something like &ldquo;All goods must be shipped on licensed railroads&rdquo; under some guise of protecting the US railroad industry. I&rsquo;m sure Mr. Vanderbilt would have been in favour. When we throw government regulation at a problem, the best-case-scenario is that we patch up some issue. We create an incremental improvement over what already existed, perhaps addressing some of the injustice of the existing situation. In practice, we usually create - along with many more problems - an environment that hinders better solutions from flourishing. The Ideal Capitalist doesn&rsquo;t concern himself with individual injustices or tragedies in the world. Those are not an easily addressable market. The Ideal Capitalist changes the scene so the old problems as a category become irrelevant. Instead, government regulation is most useful to ensure that capitalism can continue unhindered. We need this because not every capitalist is the Ideal Capitalist. Incumbents will try to stifle competition or stop threatening newcomers, just as the established taxi industry has tried to lobby governments to stop Uber. You might think that that is the default, that the Ideal Capitalist is some imaginary character. But in recent times, we&rsquo;ve had at least one embodiment of the Ideal Capitalist in Elon Musk, and the culture that permeates in Silicon Valley is increasingly encouraging similar attitudes. But the important thing is that we don&rsquo;t need too many Ideal Capitalists. A few are enough to radically push humanity forward. We just need to make sure we get out of their way. The problem with capitalism&rsquo;s kind of value generation is that it does not yield itself well to anecdotes. It&rsquo;s easy to hear about how Evil Corp.&rsquo;s CEO tried to spray the last dodo with oil for fun. It&rsquo;s more difficult to hear anecdotes about how the incentives of capitalism generate value for society in the long term. Even in the realm of universal healthcare, of which I am a huge supporter, it is easy to be upset about Michael Moore&rsquo;s anecdotes about people whose lives were ruined because of their healthcare bills. A more important question might be: how can we speed up fundamental, game-changing health innovations that completely obsolete our health-care problems? These types of innovations don&rsquo;t come often, and it&rsquo;s hard to imagine that they&rsquo;ll come faster with government regulation. So, while I agree with some leftists that there are evil capitalists, I see the leftist attitude toward capitalism much like the oncologist who kills cancer cells with his pistol. The real issue isn&rsquo;t that capitalism is inherently immoral, it is that we are not purists about our capitalism. If we were, we wouldn&rsquo;t have governments guarantee the survival of companies that have made bad decisions. We also wouldn&rsquo;t have governments enact legislations only to benefit particular corporations. In the ideal scenario, government should only act to ensure the Ideal Capitalist can act freely and without hinderance. Why they can&rsquo;t do that right now is a subject for an entirely different blog post (or volumes of blog posts). I am well aware that I&rsquo;m criticising one class of idealists - the leftists with utopian dreams - and proposing another idealistic scenario - one where all capitalists behave like Elon Musk. The difference in my mind is that one framework for running society is built on a solid foundation and another - the utopia where everyone behaves fairly and free of greed - seems more appropriate for a different species.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"The Ideal Capitalist","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2015-05-09T23:15:05-07:00","datePublished":"2015-05-09T23:15:05-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2015/05/09/the-ideal-capitalist.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2015/05/09/the-ideal-capitalist.html"},"description":"It&rsquo;s impossible to keep up with popular movements today without being bombarded with messages about the immorality of capitalism. It also doesn&rsquo;t help that the worst elements of capitalism brought about the worst financial crisis that today&rsquo;s 20- and 30-somethings can remember. At the same time, there are two elements of capitalism, at least in its ideal form, that are quite worthy of admiration: Compatibility with Nature Devotion to betterment of humanity Capitalism is compatible with nature because it operates on the same pricinples. It is a survival of the fittest. Of course, whether it is &ldquo;good&rdquo; or &ldquo;bad&rdquo; is a human judgement. By our human values, we can judge that something that is natural is &ldquo;bad&rdquo; or &ldquo;undesirable&rdquo; - murder and rape come to mind. However, if we&rsquo;re talking about creating resilient systems - perhaps one we&rsquo;re basing our society on - we&rsquo;d do well to make compatibility with nature a top priority. We are, after all, products of a &ldquo;survival of the fittest&rdquo; environment. We don&rsquo;t behave by human values of &ldquo;good&rdquo; or &ldquo;bad&rdquo; (or else we wouldn&rsquo;t have them); we behave by what is likely to help us survive and replicate. Furthermore, our moral code is constantly under flux. Think about our attitude toward murder: today most of us living in the most well-off parts of the world have a no-tolerance policy toward it. One or two centuries ago, killing non-white people (again in the most well-off parts of the world) would&rsquo;ve been distasteful but understandable in some situations. Go back another hundred years, and killing certain groups becomes even desirable. The further you go back in time, the more acceptable murder becomes. In a tribe of hunter-gatherers, there is no sanctity of human life, except for your tribe who are likely to be your family. Our morality morphs depending on the society we find ourselves in. What remains constant is our desire for bettering our own condition, and we&rsquo;re very good at finding out how to do that no matter what kind of society we are in. Capitalism is predicated only on one thing - that individuals are self-interested and therefore that they should be rewarded for generating &ldquo;value&rdquo;. What value is also depends on the society, but in one form or another, in human societies (and in those of any evolved species) it&rsquo;ll come down to survival or replication. As far as &ldquo;design assumptions&rdquo; go, this seems like building on really solid ground. It&rsquo;d be hard to imagine that one day people will suddenly wake up and not be self-interested. Secondly, because &ldquo;value&rdquo; is defined depending on the situation society finds itself in, motivating individuals to generate more of it (by rewarding them with wealth), means that by proxy the society itself is a system for generating more value, too. When most people hear this, they think of trickle-down economics. This is a confusion of &ldquo;value&rdquo; and &ldquo;wealth&rdquo;. If value is voltage, wealth is current. The Ideal Capitalist tries to create a value differential that makes wealth flow to him. This is put best by a quote from Peter Diamandis: &ldquo;If you want to become a billionaire, help a billion people.&rdquo; When Mark Zuckerberg helps you connect with your friends and you like his product (pardon the pun), he has generated value that you benefit from. In exchange for that, he is rewarded by society through wealth. Given this view of &ldquo;ideal&rdquo; capitalism, I see bad actors in the system like cancerous cells. Sometimes, you can live with cancerous cells. They might lack the ability to grow enough to be a problem. The other times, it&rsquo;s great to be able to expunge cancerous cells, but when your oncologist tries to put a bullet in your head as a way of killing off the cancer, you start looking for a different oncologist. This is why I don&rsquo;t understand people on the Left who claim they hate capitalism. I might have more sympathy for them if the 20th century hadn&rsquo;t happened, but as it is, we have already tried to &ldquo;design&rdquo; a societal system that removed greed and self-interest from the equation. It didn&rsquo;t work out. You want to discount capitalism as immoral? Compare living in 1800 to today. Our life-spans are now about as high as our bodies will bear. Technological progress expands our knowledge, but capitalism makes it accessible. Mr. Vanderbilt&rsquo;s railroad made important supplies accessible (not to mention improved knowledge transmission). Mr. Rockefeller&rsquo;s oil kept people warm. The evil food companies generated large amounts of food that feeds an ever growing population, and the evil pharmaceuticals are the same pharmaceuticals that brought penicillin and vaccines out of the labs and to the masses. If you want to stop evil capitalists, the best solution may not be legistlating. We suck at legislation. What could be worse than a group of non-experts with entirely misplaced incentives trying to fix problems they can&rsquo;t even understand? No, the most effective way to stop capitalists from becoming too powerful or corrupt is to encourage more capitalism and to ensure that our system is purely capitalist - not just a look-alike. Let&rsquo;s take the example of the railroads. In the late 1800s in the United States, nobody could stand up to Cornelius Vanderbilt. His owned the railroads (at least the important ones) and so controlled the US and its economy. His power was not curbed until J.D. Rockefeller decided to circumvent the railroads by shipping oil (the most valuable commodity being shipped by the railroads) through pipelines. Stories of entrepreneurs upending the established order like this is all too common in the history of large entreprises. If government had stepped in to protect the existing order, as they do so often now, they may have legislated something like &ldquo;All goods must be shipped on licensed railroads&rdquo; under some guise of protecting the US railroad industry. I&rsquo;m sure Mr. Vanderbilt would have been in favour. When we throw government regulation at a problem, the best-case-scenario is that we patch up some issue. We create an incremental improvement over what already existed, perhaps addressing some of the injustice of the existing situation. In practice, we usually create - along with many more problems - an environment that hinders better solutions from flourishing. The Ideal Capitalist doesn&rsquo;t concern himself with individual injustices or tragedies in the world. Those are not an easily addressable market. The Ideal Capitalist changes the scene so the old problems as a category become irrelevant. Instead, government regulation is most useful to ensure that capitalism can continue unhindered. We need this because not every capitalist is the Ideal Capitalist. Incumbents will try to stifle competition or stop threatening newcomers, just as the established taxi industry has tried to lobby governments to stop Uber. You might think that that is the default, that the Ideal Capitalist is some imaginary character. But in recent times, we&rsquo;ve had at least one embodiment of the Ideal Capitalist in Elon Musk, and the culture that permeates in Silicon Valley is increasingly encouraging similar attitudes. But the important thing is that we don&rsquo;t need too many Ideal Capitalists. A few are enough to radically push humanity forward. We just need to make sure we get out of their way. The problem with capitalism&rsquo;s kind of value generation is that it does not yield itself well to anecdotes. It&rsquo;s easy to hear about how Evil Corp.&rsquo;s CEO tried to spray the last dodo with oil for fun. It&rsquo;s more difficult to hear anecdotes about how the incentives of capitalism generate value for society in the long term. Even in the realm of universal healthcare, of which I am a huge supporter, it is easy to be upset about Michael Moore&rsquo;s anecdotes about people whose lives were ruined because of their healthcare bills. A more important question might be: how can we speed up fundamental, game-changing health innovations that completely obsolete our health-care problems? These types of innovations don&rsquo;t come often, and it&rsquo;s hard to imagine that they&rsquo;ll come faster with government regulation. So, while I agree with some leftists that there are evil capitalists, I see the leftist attitude toward capitalism much like the oncologist who kills cancer cells with his pistol. The real issue isn&rsquo;t that capitalism is inherently immoral, it is that we are not purists about our capitalism. If we were, we wouldn&rsquo;t have governments guarantee the survival of companies that have made bad decisions. We also wouldn&rsquo;t have governments enact legislations only to benefit particular corporations. In the ideal scenario, government should only act to ensure the Ideal Capitalist can act freely and without hinderance. Why they can&rsquo;t do that right now is a subject for an entirely different blog post (or volumes of blog posts). I am well aware that I&rsquo;m criticising one class of idealists - the leftists with utopian dreams - and proposing another idealistic scenario - one where all capitalists behave like Elon Musk. The difference in my mind is that one framework for running society is built on a solid foundation and another - the utopia where everyone behaves fairly and free of greed - seems more appropriate for a different species.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"The Ideal Capitalist","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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index 9376975..3f7f967 100644
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 <meta name="description" content="Read this article on a new report from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign about &ldquo;microagressions&rdquo;. Since before starting a blog, I&rsquo;ve toyed with the idea of writing about what I see as problems with Canada&rsquo;s immigration system, based on my personal experience, and this article highlights a lot of those problems. Over the last 15 years, I&rsquo;ve seen minorities from all nationalities and ethnicities very quickly learn to play the victim card once they arrive in Canada: &ldquo;That cop pulled me over for speeding! Racist pig!&rdquo;, &ldquo;That teacher didn&rsquo;t give me an A, the bastard hates \&rdquo;. Caucasians in Canada learn to be very afraid of any accusation of racism, but in my experience, on average, they&rsquo;re the least racist, most tolerant group in our &ldquo;mixing pot&rdquo; society. While I find their liberal attitudes toward minorities very noble, I see a bit of a problem with it: minority groups who come here from outside of the Western, liberal world, on average, couldn&rsquo;t care less about these noble values. And when they learn about this fear of being accused of racism, they often try to leverage it to their advantage. Furthermore, this hypersensitivity around race is a disservice to minorities themselves. The widespread concern over the most minute possibility of racism (or, to use the latest jargon, &ldquo;microaggression&rdquo; - instances of racism where the victim feels &ldquo;uncomfortable&rdquo; but the &ldquo;perpetrator&rdquo; isn&rsquo;t even aware of having done anything) teaches members of minority groups that they are victims. It teaches them to relinquish their self-responsibility over their own affairs and instead blame external factors when they get an undesirable result: why become better at your work when clearly the reason you don&rsquo;t get a job is racist hiring managers? Why learn to drive better when obviously the reason why you have a collection of traffic violations is because cops are racist? And so on. The reality is wherever you live you will come across a few assholes who don&rsquo;t like you for one reason or another and are willing to be very mean about it. I don&rsquo;t think we need to dissect the reason behind their nastiness. Nor do we need to look for aggression in obscure places or worry about how we&rsquo;re making others uncomfortable without knowing it. We make our own path in the world. Instead of teaching minorities (or anyone really) to cry foul every time something doesn&rsquo;t go their way, we should be emphasising the importance of taking individual responsibility for dealing with unpleasant situations." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="Read this article on a new report from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign about &ldquo;microagressions&rdquo;. Since before starting a blog, I&rsquo;ve toyed with the idea of writing about what I see as problems with Canada&rsquo;s immigration system, based on my personal experience, and this article highlights a lot of those problems. Over the last 15 years, I&rsquo;ve seen minorities from all nationalities and ethnicities very quickly learn to play the victim card once they arrive in Canada: &ldquo;That cop pulled me over for speeding! Racist pig!&rdquo;, &ldquo;That teacher didn&rsquo;t give me an A, the bastard hates \&rdquo;. Caucasians in Canada learn to be very afraid of any accusation of racism, but in my experience, on average, they&rsquo;re the least racist, most tolerant group in our &ldquo;mixing pot&rdquo; society. While I find their liberal attitudes toward minorities very noble, I see a bit of a problem with it: minority groups who come here from outside of the Western, liberal world, on average, couldn&rsquo;t care less about these noble values. And when they learn about this fear of being accused of racism, they often try to leverage it to their advantage. Furthermore, this hypersensitivity around race is a disservice to minorities themselves. The widespread concern over the most minute possibility of racism (or, to use the latest jargon, &ldquo;microaggression&rdquo; - instances of racism where the victim feels &ldquo;uncomfortable&rdquo; but the &ldquo;perpetrator&rdquo; isn&rsquo;t even aware of having done anything) teaches members of minority groups that they are victims. It teaches them to relinquish their self-responsibility over their own affairs and instead blame external factors when they get an undesirable result: why become better at your work when clearly the reason you don&rsquo;t get a job is racist hiring managers? Why learn to drive better when obviously the reason why you have a collection of traffic violations is because cops are racist? And so on. The reality is wherever you live you will come across a few assholes who don&rsquo;t like you for one reason or another and are willing to be very mean about it. I don&rsquo;t think we need to dissect the reason behind their nastiness. Nor do we need to look for aggression in obscure places or worry about how we&rsquo;re making others uncomfortable without knowing it. We make our own path in the world. Instead of teaching minorities (or anyone really) to cry foul every time something doesn&rsquo;t go their way, we should be emphasising the importance of taking individual responsibility for dealing with unpleasant situations." />
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+{"dateModified":"2015-05-17T15:44:13-07:00","datePublished":"2015-05-17T15:44:13-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2015/05/17/microaggression.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2015/05/17/microaggression.html"},"description":"Read this article on a new report from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign about &ldquo;microagressions&rdquo;. Since before starting a blog, I&rsquo;ve toyed with the idea of writing about what I see as problems with Canada&rsquo;s immigration system, based on my personal experience, and this article highlights a lot of those problems. Over the last 15 years, I&rsquo;ve seen minorities from all nationalities and ethnicities very quickly learn to play the victim card once they arrive in Canada: &ldquo;That cop pulled me over for speeding! Racist pig!&rdquo;, &ldquo;That teacher didn&rsquo;t give me an A, the bastard hates \\&rdquo;. Caucasians in Canada learn to be very afraid of any accusation of racism, but in my experience, on average, they&rsquo;re the least racist, most tolerant group in our &ldquo;mixing pot&rdquo; society. While I find their liberal attitudes toward minorities very noble, I see a bit of a problem with it: minority groups who come here from outside of the Western, liberal world, on average, couldn&rsquo;t care less about these noble values. And when they learn about this fear of being accused of racism, they often try to leverage it to their advantage. Furthermore, this hypersensitivity around race is a disservice to minorities themselves. The widespread concern over the most minute possibility of racism (or, to use the latest jargon, &ldquo;microaggression&rdquo; - instances of racism where the victim feels &ldquo;uncomfortable&rdquo; but the &ldquo;perpetrator&rdquo; isn&rsquo;t even aware of having done anything) teaches members of minority groups that they are victims. It teaches them to relinquish their self-responsibility over their own affairs and instead blame external factors when they get an undesirable result: why become better at your work when clearly the reason you don&rsquo;t get a job is racist hiring managers? Why learn to drive better when obviously the reason why you have a collection of traffic violations is because cops are racist? And so on. The reality is wherever you live you will come across a few assholes who don&rsquo;t like you for one reason or another and are willing to be very mean about it. I don&rsquo;t think we need to dissect the reason behind their nastiness. Nor do we need to look for aggression in obscure places or worry about how we&rsquo;re making others uncomfortable without knowing it. We make our own path in the world. Instead of teaching minorities (or anyone really) to cry foul every time something doesn&rsquo;t go their way, we should be emphasising the importance of taking individual responsibility for dealing with unpleasant situations.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Microaggression","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
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 <meta name="description" content="I have a friend, let&rsquo;s call him Hans. When one of us is stumped on making a tough decision or needs to think something through, we&rsquo;re kinda each other&rsquo;s second brains. We tend to think about problems the same way and have similar values and priorities. Hans is also a software developer, and his European employer is something between a software development shop and Y Combinator. They fund various startups and get their software developers to build their products. As an avid traveller, he loves his work because it lets him do something rewarding from abroad. About a week ago, I spoke with Hans, and he was visibly frustrated. After months of working on internal projects, he had just been assigned to a major new project, but that one was soon after terminated, and now he was back on internal projects. He was tired of it. After he told me about the internal project he was working on, I asked him how he ended up working on that. &ldquo;I came up with it&rdquo;, he said. &ldquo;So, let me get this straight. You go to work everyday in a space filled with entrepreneurs and investors, you get to choose what you work on, and you get paid a full salary for this. Remind me again what was the frustrating part?&rdquo; While he was primarily focused on the feeling of frustration, this was clearly an opportunity. After discussing it some more, we came to the conclusion that a highly productive use of his time would be to start making more open source contributions. In fact, that was something I had wanted to do as well. &ldquo;Ok&hellip; let me check&hellip; today is July 3rd &ndash;&rdquo;, I said. As soon as these words left my mouth, I heard Hans groan &ldquo;Oh no! Here it comes&hellip;&rdquo;. He knew what was happening. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s make this really easy. By the end of July, we each must have submitted a single pull request to a repository with at least 100 stars.&rdquo; (For those of you not in software development, this is a ridiculously easy goal. If it were a goal for exercising it&rsquo;d be akin to saying &ldquo;you should walk through the gym&rsquo;s entrance at least once this month&rdquo;.) Hans and I both know that a lot of things that make us better off in the long run can be really difficult to get started with due to our all-too-human reluctance to get pushed out of our comfort zones. We also know that focusing on small wins is often the best way to deal with the initial anxiety. I continued setting the terms of the challenge: &ldquo;Whoever hasn&rsquo;t done this by the deadline owes the other one, say&hellip;&rdquo;. &ldquo;Hundred dollars!&rdquo;, Hans chimed in. &ldquo;Hundred, it is&rdquo;, I said. Today, after months of hemming and hawing, I submitted a pull request to a repository with 8000+ stars and over 100 contributors. I&rsquo;m usually pretty good at getting in front of an audience. In this case it felt like getting on stage completely naked. Without the challenge, it would have taken me another few months to do it. What makes my friendship with Hans so valuable is that there is no room for mediocrity. There is no excuse for playing a game at the same level you were playing it yesterday. When we hear of an opportunity for personal or professional growth (whether it&rsquo;s about the value of learning something or doing something a better way), we never discard it or question its utility without a full, thorough consideration - probably also a trial. The most crucial thing is that certain facts are already established between us and do not need to be debated on a per-instance basis. Some examples of these facts include: We should always be improving ourselves in every aspect (personally or professionally). Improvement almost always goes hand-in-hand with internal resistance. Internal resistance almost always leads to rationalizing reasons why you&rsquo;re just good enough the way you are. Armed with this, we also have a few strategies for dealing with internal resistance. Setting challenges like the above is one of them. Having these facts established saves us a lot of time. It means we can get to work on things that make us better off, without endlessly arguing about how to get there or whether getting there is really that important after all. If we read a book on software development that provides some guidelines on how to write better software, we don&rsquo;t end up arguing with the book about whether its guidance is really needed in our &ldquo;real world environment&rdquo; or not. We just do it. Maybe not perfectly, but we make progress. Unfortunately, Hans is one of very few people I know whose company puts me on this path of accelerated improvement. With most other people, there are three main obstacles to establishing this kind of productive environment: Differing values. Besides Hans, I know few other people who would agree with the three facts above. (I call them &ldquo;facts&rdquo; because Hans and I, for the most part, don&rsquo;t question them, not because of their epistemic value). They disagree with the premise that constant improvement is at all necessary. Usually, there are arguments along the lines of &ldquo;when would you have the time to be happy/have fun/enjoy life/etc.?&rdquo; My answer would be that the constant thrill of learning new things and pushing your own limits is the only true happiness. But maybe I&rsquo;m a masochist. If I try, I can respect their point of view. Resistance. Some people do agree with the three facts above, but when push comes to shove - when it&rsquo;s time to actually do the hard work - they quickly give up. What&rsquo;s worse, they won&rsquo;t acknowledge that they&rsquo;re giving up. They simply shut off. Completely stop thinking about it. Some people do acknowledge the situation, but their supply of excuses about why their lack of action is justified seems as endless as Donald Trump&rsquo;s supply of orangutan toupees: &ldquo;In the real world, that&rsquo;s not practical&rdquo;, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m really happy with where I am&rdquo;, &ldquo;this doesn&rsquo;t actually make me better off&rdquo;, &ldquo;I have better things to do with my time&rdquo;, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have time&rdquo;, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s ok if things aren&rsquo;t perfect&rdquo;, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do it in a few months&rdquo;. What the excuse is depends on the situation. Not committing to gut-wrenchingly hard work is always the end result. Detachment. In some situations, a bigger problem stops people long before resistance can kick in - detachment. I recently learned about the famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. He was famous for the care he put into the details of buildings he designed. Early in his career, he built a house for a wealthy family in Germany, and he personally designed every doorknob and cupboard knob to match the design of the house. Similar stories of craftsmanship and attention to detail abound. However when most people hear them, they listen as if they&rsquo;re learning an interesting fact about insects. The idea that this should inspire how they approach their work is completely alien. The don&rsquo;t see themselves in that league, therefore they never will be. As I briefly mentioned, the three items I called &ldquo;facts&rdquo; are really just things that Hans and I generally agree on. There is no empirical data (and there probably never will be) that definitively shows this framework produces better life outcomes. The need for constant improvement is an intuition that is, apparently, shared by a dwindling number of people. The question is: could we build a community (or maybe a company) with these values? I would wager that if we did, such community would produce orders of magnitude more successful people than average. And if we can build a company filled with this culture&hellip; the possibilities would be endless. Who&rsquo;s with me?" />
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After he told me about the internal project he was working on, I asked him how he ended up working on that. &ldquo;I came up with it&rdquo;, he said. &ldquo;So, let me get this straight. You go to work everyday in a space filled with entrepreneurs and investors, you get to choose what you work on, and you get paid a full salary for this. Remind me again what was the frustrating part?&rdquo; While he was primarily focused on the feeling of frustration, this was clearly an opportunity. After discussing it some more, we came to the conclusion that a highly productive use of his time would be to start making more open source contributions. In fact, that was something I had wanted to do as well. &ldquo;Ok&hellip; let me check&hellip; today is July 3rd &ndash;&rdquo;, I said. As soon as these words left my mouth, I heard Hans groan &ldquo;Oh no! Here it comes&hellip;&rdquo;. He knew what was happening. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s make this really easy. By the end of July, we each must have submitted a single pull request to a repository with at least 100 stars.&rdquo; (For those of you not in software development, this is a ridiculously easy goal. If it were a goal for exercising it&rsquo;d be akin to saying &ldquo;you should walk through the gym&rsquo;s entrance at least once this month&rdquo;.) Hans and I both know that a lot of things that make us better off in the long run can be really difficult to get started with due to our all-too-human reluctance to get pushed out of our comfort zones. We also know that focusing on small wins is often the best way to deal with the initial anxiety. I continued setting the terms of the challenge: &ldquo;Whoever hasn&rsquo;t done this by the deadline owes the other one, say&hellip;&rdquo;. &ldquo;Hundred dollars!&rdquo;, Hans chimed in. &ldquo;Hundred, it is&rdquo;, I said. Today, after months of hemming and hawing, I submitted a pull request to a repository with 8000+ stars and over 100 contributors. I&rsquo;m usually pretty good at getting in front of an audience. In this case it felt like getting on stage completely naked. Without the challenge, it would have taken me another few months to do it. What makes my friendship with Hans so valuable is that there is no room for mediocrity. There is no excuse for playing a game at the same level you were playing it yesterday. When we hear of an opportunity for personal or professional growth (whether it&rsquo;s about the value of learning something or doing something a better way), we never discard it or question its utility without a full, thorough consideration - probably also a trial. The most crucial thing is that certain facts are already established between us and do not need to be debated on a per-instance basis. Some examples of these facts include: We should always be improving ourselves in every aspect (personally or professionally). Improvement almost always goes hand-in-hand with internal resistance. Internal resistance almost always leads to rationalizing reasons why you&rsquo;re just good enough the way you are. Armed with this, we also have a few strategies for dealing with internal resistance. Setting challenges like the above is one of them. Having these facts established saves us a lot of time. It means we can get to work on things that make us better off, without endlessly arguing about how to get there or whether getting there is really that important after all. If we read a book on software development that provides some guidelines on how to write better software, we don&rsquo;t end up arguing with the book about whether its guidance is really needed in our &ldquo;real world environment&rdquo; or not. We just do it. Maybe not perfectly, but we make progress. Unfortunately, Hans is one of very few people I know whose company puts me on this path of accelerated improvement. With most other people, there are three main obstacles to establishing this kind of productive environment: Differing values. Besides Hans, I know few other people who would agree with the three facts above. (I call them &ldquo;facts&rdquo; because Hans and I, for the most part, don&rsquo;t question them, not because of their epistemic value). They disagree with the premise that constant improvement is at all necessary. Usually, there are arguments along the lines of &ldquo;when would you have the time to be happy/have fun/enjoy life/etc.?&rdquo; My answer would be that the constant thrill of learning new things and pushing your own limits is the only true happiness. But maybe I&rsquo;m a masochist. If I try, I can respect their point of view. Resistance. Some people do agree with the three facts above, but when push comes to shove - when it&rsquo;s time to actually do the hard work - they quickly give up. What&rsquo;s worse, they won&rsquo;t acknowledge that they&rsquo;re giving up. They simply shut off. Completely stop thinking about it. Some people do acknowledge the situation, but their supply of excuses about why their lack of action is justified seems as endless as Donald Trump&rsquo;s supply of orangutan toupees: &ldquo;In the real world, that&rsquo;s not practical&rdquo;, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m really happy with where I am&rdquo;, &ldquo;this doesn&rsquo;t actually make me better off&rdquo;, &ldquo;I have better things to do with my time&rdquo;, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have time&rdquo;, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s ok if things aren&rsquo;t perfect&rdquo;, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do it in a few months&rdquo;. What the excuse is depends on the situation. Not committing to gut-wrenchingly hard work is always the end result. Detachment. In some situations, a bigger problem stops people long before resistance can kick in - detachment. I recently learned about the famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. He was famous for the care he put into the details of buildings he designed. Early in his career, he built a house for a wealthy family in Germany, and he personally designed every doorknob and cupboard knob to match the design of the house. Similar stories of craftsmanship and attention to detail abound. However when most people hear them, they listen as if they&rsquo;re learning an interesting fact about insects. The idea that this should inspire how they approach their work is completely alien. The don&rsquo;t see themselves in that league, therefore they never will be. As I briefly mentioned, the three items I called &ldquo;facts&rdquo; are really just things that Hans and I generally agree on. There is no empirical data (and there probably never will be) that definitively shows this framework produces better life outcomes. The need for constant improvement is an intuition that is, apparently, shared by a dwindling number of people. The question is: could we build a community (or maybe a company) with these values? I would wager that if we did, such community would produce orders of magnitude more successful people than average. And if we can build a company filled with this culture&hellip; the possibilities would be endless. Who&rsquo;s with me?" />
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After months of working on internal projects, he had just been assigned to a major new project, but that one was soon after terminated, and now he was back on internal projects. He was tired of it. After he told me about the internal project he was working on, I asked him how he ended up working on that. &ldquo;I came up with it&rdquo;, he said. &ldquo;So, let me get this straight. You go to work everyday in a space filled with entrepreneurs and investors, you get to choose what you work on, and you get paid a full salary for this. Remind me again what was the frustrating part?&rdquo; While he was primarily focused on the feeling of frustration, this was clearly an opportunity. After discussing it some more, we came to the conclusion that a highly productive use of his time would be to start making more open source contributions. In fact, that was something I had wanted to do as well. &ldquo;Ok&hellip; let me check&hellip; today is July 3rd &ndash;&rdquo;, I said. As soon as these words left my mouth, I heard Hans groan &ldquo;Oh no! Here it comes&hellip;&rdquo;. He knew what was happening. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s make this really easy. By the end of July, we each must have submitted a single pull request to a repository with at least 100 stars.&rdquo; (For those of you not in software development, this is a ridiculously easy goal. If it were a goal for exercising it&rsquo;d be akin to saying &ldquo;you should walk through the gym&rsquo;s entrance at least once this month&rdquo;.) Hans and I both know that a lot of things that make us better off in the long run can be really difficult to get started with due to our all-too-human reluctance to get pushed out of our comfort zones. We also know that focusing on small wins is often the best way to deal with the initial anxiety. I continued setting the terms of the challenge: &ldquo;Whoever hasn&rsquo;t done this by the deadline owes the other one, say&hellip;&rdquo;. &ldquo;Hundred dollars!&rdquo;, Hans chimed in. &ldquo;Hundred, it is&rdquo;, I said. Today, after months of hemming and hawing, I submitted a pull request to a repository with 8000+ stars and over 100 contributors. I&rsquo;m usually pretty good at getting in front of an audience. In this case it felt like getting on stage completely naked. Without the challenge, it would have taken me another few months to do it. What makes my friendship with Hans so valuable is that there is no room for mediocrity. There is no excuse for playing a game at the same level you were playing it yesterday. When we hear of an opportunity for personal or professional growth (whether it&rsquo;s about the value of learning something or doing something a better way), we never discard it or question its utility without a full, thorough consideration - probably also a trial. The most crucial thing is that certain facts are already established between us and do not need to be debated on a per-instance basis. Some examples of these facts include: We should always be improving ourselves in every aspect (personally or professionally). Improvement almost always goes hand-in-hand with internal resistance. Internal resistance almost always leads to rationalizing reasons why you&rsquo;re just good enough the way you are. Armed with this, we also have a few strategies for dealing with internal resistance. Setting challenges like the above is one of them. Having these facts established saves us a lot of time. It means we can get to work on things that make us better off, without endlessly arguing about how to get there or whether getting there is really that important after all. If we read a book on software development that provides some guidelines on how to write better software, we don&rsquo;t end up arguing with the book about whether its guidance is really needed in our &ldquo;real world environment&rdquo; or not. We just do it. Maybe not perfectly, but we make progress. Unfortunately, Hans is one of very few people I know whose company puts me on this path of accelerated improvement. With most other people, there are three main obstacles to establishing this kind of productive environment: Differing values. Besides Hans, I know few other people who would agree with the three facts above. (I call them &ldquo;facts&rdquo; because Hans and I, for the most part, don&rsquo;t question them, not because of their epistemic value). They disagree with the premise that constant improvement is at all necessary. Usually, there are arguments along the lines of &ldquo;when would you have the time to be happy/have fun/enjoy life/etc.?&rdquo; My answer would be that the constant thrill of learning new things and pushing your own limits is the only true happiness. But maybe I&rsquo;m a masochist. If I try, I can respect their point of view. Resistance. Some people do agree with the three facts above, but when push comes to shove - when it&rsquo;s time to actually do the hard work - they quickly give up. What&rsquo;s worse, they won&rsquo;t acknowledge that they&rsquo;re giving up. They simply shut off. Completely stop thinking about it. Some people do acknowledge the situation, but their supply of excuses about why their lack of action is justified seems as endless as Donald Trump&rsquo;s supply of orangutan toupees: &ldquo;In the real world, that&rsquo;s not practical&rdquo;, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m really happy with where I am&rdquo;, &ldquo;this doesn&rsquo;t actually make me better off&rdquo;, &ldquo;I have better things to do with my time&rdquo;, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have time&rdquo;, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s ok if things aren&rsquo;t perfect&rdquo;, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do it in a few months&rdquo;. What the excuse is depends on the situation. Not committing to gut-wrenchingly hard work is always the end result. Detachment. In some situations, a bigger problem stops people long before resistance can kick in - detachment. I recently learned about the famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. He was famous for the care he put into the details of buildings he designed. Early in his career, he built a house for a wealthy family in Germany, and he personally designed every doorknob and cupboard knob to match the design of the house. Similar stories of craftsmanship and attention to detail abound. However when most people hear them, they listen as if they&rsquo;re learning an interesting fact about insects. The idea that this should inspire how they approach their work is completely alien. The don&rsquo;t see themselves in that league, therefore they never will be. As I briefly mentioned, the three items I called &ldquo;facts&rdquo; are really just things that Hans and I generally agree on. There is no empirical data (and there probably never will be) that definitively shows this framework produces better life outcomes. The need for constant improvement is an intuition that is, apparently, shared by a dwindling number of people. The question is: could we build a community (or maybe a company) with these values? I would wager that if we did, such community would produce orders of magnitude more successful people than average. And if we can build a company filled with this culture&hellip; the possibilities would be endless. Who&rsquo;s with me?","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"My Friend Hans","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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After months of working on internal projects, he had just been assigned to a major new project, but that one was soon after terminated, and now he was back on internal projects. He was tired of it. After he told me about the internal project he was working on, I asked him how he ended up working on that. &ldquo;I came up with it&rdquo;, he said. &ldquo;So, let me get this straight. You go to work everyday in a space filled with entrepreneurs and investors, you get to choose what you work on, and you get paid a full salary for this. Remind me again what was the frustrating part?&rdquo; While he was primarily focused on the feeling of frustration, this was clearly an opportunity. After discussing it some more, we came to the conclusion that a highly productive use of his time would be to start making more open source contributions. In fact, that was something I had wanted to do as well. &ldquo;Ok&hellip; let me check&hellip; today is July 3rd &ndash;&rdquo;, I said. As soon as these words left my mouth, I heard Hans groan &ldquo;Oh no! Here it comes&hellip;&rdquo;. He knew what was happening. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s make this really easy. By the end of July, we each must have submitted a single pull request to a repository with at least 100 stars.&rdquo; (For those of you not in software development, this is a ridiculously easy goal. If it were a goal for exercising it&rsquo;d be akin to saying &ldquo;you should walk through the gym&rsquo;s entrance at least once this month&rdquo;.) Hans and I both know that a lot of things that make us better off in the long run can be really difficult to get started with due to our all-too-human reluctance to get pushed out of our comfort zones. We also know that focusing on small wins is often the best way to deal with the initial anxiety. I continued setting the terms of the challenge: &ldquo;Whoever hasn&rsquo;t done this by the deadline owes the other one, say&hellip;&rdquo;. &ldquo;Hundred dollars!&rdquo;, Hans chimed in. &ldquo;Hundred, it is&rdquo;, I said. Today, after months of hemming and hawing, I submitted a pull request to a repository with 8000+ stars and over 100 contributors. I&rsquo;m usually pretty good at getting in front of an audience. In this case it felt like getting on stage completely naked. Without the challenge, it would have taken me another few months to do it. What makes my friendship with Hans so valuable is that there is no room for mediocrity. There is no excuse for playing a game at the same level you were playing it yesterday. When we hear of an opportunity for personal or professional growth (whether it&rsquo;s about the value of learning something or doing something a better way), we never discard it or question its utility without a full, thorough consideration - probably also a trial. The most crucial thing is that certain facts are already established between us and do not need to be debated on a per-instance basis. Some examples of these facts include: We should always be improving ourselves in every aspect (personally or professionally). Improvement almost always goes hand-in-hand with internal resistance. Internal resistance almost always leads to rationalizing reasons why you&rsquo;re just good enough the way you are. Armed with this, we also have a few strategies for dealing with internal resistance. Setting challenges like the above is one of them. Having these facts established saves us a lot of time. It means we can get to work on things that make us better off, without endlessly arguing about how to get there or whether getting there is really that important after all. If we read a book on software development that provides some guidelines on how to write better software, we don&rsquo;t end up arguing with the book about whether its guidance is really needed in our &ldquo;real world environment&rdquo; or not. We just do it. Maybe not perfectly, but we make progress. Unfortunately, Hans is one of very few people I know whose company puts me on this path of accelerated improvement. With most other people, there are three main obstacles to establishing this kind of productive environment: Differing values. Besides Hans, I know few other people who would agree with the three facts above. (I call them &ldquo;facts&rdquo; because Hans and I, for the most part, don&rsquo;t question them, not because of their epistemic value). They disagree with the premise that constant improvement is at all necessary. Usually, there are arguments along the lines of &ldquo;when would you have the time to be happy/have fun/enjoy life/etc.?&rdquo; My answer would be that the constant thrill of learning new things and pushing your own limits is the only true happiness. But maybe I&rsquo;m a masochist. If I try, I can respect their point of view. Resistance. Some people do agree with the three facts above, but when push comes to shove - when it&rsquo;s time to actually do the hard work - they quickly give up. What&rsquo;s worse, they won&rsquo;t acknowledge that they&rsquo;re giving up. They simply shut off. Completely stop thinking about it. Some people do acknowledge the situation, but their supply of excuses about why their lack of action is justified seems as endless as Donald Trump&rsquo;s supply of orangutan toupees: &ldquo;In the real world, that&rsquo;s not practical&rdquo;, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m really happy with where I am&rdquo;, &ldquo;this doesn&rsquo;t actually make me better off&rdquo;, &ldquo;I have better things to do with my time&rdquo;, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have time&rdquo;, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s ok if things aren&rsquo;t perfect&rdquo;, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do it in a few months&rdquo;. What the excuse is depends on the situation. Not committing to gut-wrenchingly hard work is always the end result. Detachment. In some situations, a bigger problem stops people long before resistance can kick in - detachment. I recently learned about the famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. He was famous for the care he put into the details of buildings he designed. Early in his career, he built a house for a wealthy family in Germany, and he personally designed every doorknob and cupboard knob to match the design of the house. Similar stories of craftsmanship and attention to detail abound. However when most people hear them, they listen as if they&rsquo;re learning an interesting fact about insects. The idea that this should inspire how they approach their work is completely alien. The don&rsquo;t see themselves in that league, therefore they never will be. As I briefly mentioned, the three items I called &ldquo;facts&rdquo; are really just things that Hans and I generally agree on. There is no empirical data (and there probably never will be) that definitively shows this framework produces better life outcomes. The need for constant improvement is an intuition that is, apparently, shared by a dwindling number of people. The question is: could we build a community (or maybe a company) with these values? I would wager that if we did, such community would produce orders of magnitude more successful people than average. And if we can build a company filled with this culture&hellip; the possibilities would be endless. Who&rsquo;s with me?","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"My Friend Hans","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
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 <meta name="description" content="I wrote this post several months ago and never published it. My ideas on this topic have become more refined since then. I plan to write more about this in the future, so this will serve as a good starting point. I was recently introduced to the term &ldquo;white spaces&rdquo;. It&rsquo;s a term that refers to spaces that are&hellip; too white - either dominated by white people or their culture. It is not a term of endearment. I looked it up later and from what I can tell, the term originated from segregation. &ldquo;White space&rdquo; was space for white people in which blacks were not allowed to enter. However, at least in the context that I heard it, the meaning has now been expanded to refer to any space where white people are dominant either in numbers or in power (whatever that means). In its current form, the term is meant to identify spaces where minorities could be at a disadvantage or where covert racism of sorts could be taking place. The key here is that the racism is covert - unlike the racism that the origin of the word refers to. You can&rsquo;t readily identify it, but - people who use such terms would have you believe - it is imperative that we partake in eliminating it, because it is wrong, unjust, and it is having an adverse effect on minorities. This is not a new concept. We&rsquo;ve had a long history of eliminating hard-to-quantify social issues and threats - witches, jews, communists, and now white people who without even knowing it and merely by their presence are making life hell for poor minorities, who just want a fair chance at success. This topic really irks me, but it is also a very interesting phenomena. Historically, there&rsquo;s no shortage of instances of bigotry where people blamed an entire group for the perceived misbehaviours of some of its memebers. The &ldquo;blacks are criminals&rdquo; narrative is a classic example - we instantly recognize it as poor logic. There is also no shortage of instances where members of a minority group were blamed for the actions of their ancestors for generations (eg. blaming Jews for killing Jesus). This is also unacceptable today. But somehow it has now become OK - indeed fashionable - to blame &ldquo;white people&rdquo; for everything, perhaps best characterized by this headline from Salon (try to picture what would happen if a publication posted a similar headline with some other race instead of &ldquo;White America&rdquo;). At least part of the thinking here is that white people being the dominant group in society, the same sensitivities need not apply to them - they don&rsquo;t need the protection. Indeed, their dominance in society must be curtailed to make life better for the minorities. There are too many problems with this line of thinking for one short article. I&rsquo;ll only point out the one flaw that you&rsquo;d think would be most obvious to proponents of racial equality: that the logic of blaming all white people for racism of few is not made more sound by the dominance of &ldquo;white culture&rdquo;. The most interesting thing in this latest instance of bigotry is that it is applied by members of the dominant group to the dominant group. This bigotry is not stemming from some Us-vs-Them mindset. It is, for the most part, middle-class white leftists (commonly, and mistakenly, referred to as &ldquo;liberals&rdquo;) who are championing these ideas about safe spaces, eliminating invisible threats, and curtailing free expression where someone&rsquo;s feelings might be hurt. This is, as was the case with the Salem witch hunts, nothing more than pious posturing. Instead of religious piety, in our modern times, sensitivity is the name of the game, and we&rsquo;re seeing an increasing amounts of it as people try to communicate their own moral virtue by an ever-increasing list of things to which they are sensitive and by which they are offended. Needless to say, as people try to keep up with the inflation in sensitivity (you might say we&rsquo;re in a sensitivity bubble) they reach ever more absurd levels of rationalizing it. We&rsquo;re at the point now where having a &lsquo;trigger warning&rsquo; at the opening of an article is not sensitive enough because the word &lsquo;trigger&rsquo; might itself trigger readers who are sensitive to violence. I digress. Let&rsquo;s get back to white spaces. It&rsquo;s a concept that betrays bigotry, and even if bigotry against the majority is not a significant problem, it at least exposes the fact that the people who throw such terms around have learned nothing from our history of mistakes with bigoted opinions - that zero-sum thinking and tribalist mindsets are what lead to terrible human behaviour in the first place. In other words, the cure to real bigotry is in greater commitment to hard, logical reasoning, and by using terms like &ldquo;white spaces&rdquo; these champions of minority rights cannot claim the moral high ground over the very people whose legacy they try to overturn. The second significance of this term is its suicidal, masochistic nature. Go to any non-western country on the planet and try to find someone with an equivalent masochistic worldview. I would bet you can&rsquo;t. People in Japan aren&rsquo;t entering spaces and thinking: &ldquo;You know, I think there are just too many Japanese people here.&rdquo; Or &ldquo;Japanese culture is too dominant here&rdquo;. No, Japan is where Japanese culture must be dominant. In fact, by all accounts, they will take pains to let you know that you don&rsquo;t belong there if you are an outsider. I may not necessarily agree with that, but one must acknowledge that that wall creates cultural resilience. Similarly, in North America, the culture of the descendants of Europeans who built this place must be dominant - that culture is what made this place so great. Rejecting this notion is nothing short of cultural suicide. And that should not be encouraged - specially not in the world&rsquo;s most advanced civilization. I get the impression that so many people who partake in this sensitivity bubble are worried about minorities because they can&rsquo;t find a middle ground between the complete dissolution of &ldquo;white culture&rdquo; (also commonly referred to as WASP - white Anglo-Saxon protestant) to having people shipped to Auschwitz in cattle cars. I think there are a few shades of gray in between those extremes. And my own experience, at least in urban Canada, tells me that if you are willing to make yourself a contributing member of society, you can reap every reward that a &ldquo;white Canadian&rdquo; peson might. In fact, as I&rsquo;ve mentioned before, I do not think there is a culture or society out there that is better at valuing people by their individual worth and accomplishment. Western culture is what has led to Western civilization, which is at the moment, the best thing we&rsquo;ve got, flaws and all. I&rsquo;m all for admitting mistakes and correcting course, but we&rsquo;d all do well to stop bashing what is dominant and instead ask what makes it so dominant that others lack. Racism exists, and insofar as it can be quantified, it must be addressed. But minorities don&rsquo;t need to worry about &ldquo;white spaces&rdquo; or invisible racism or other scary figments of imagination. They probably do need to worry more about how their own cultural values/beliefs might put them at a disadvantage and how they might need to change that. And that&rsquo;s a topic for another post." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="I wrote this post several months ago and never published it. My ideas on this topic have become more refined since then. I plan to write more about this in the future, so this will serve as a good starting point. I was recently introduced to the term &ldquo;white spaces&rdquo;. It&rsquo;s a term that refers to spaces that are&hellip; too white - either dominated by white people or their culture. It is not a term of endearment. I looked it up later and from what I can tell, the term originated from segregation. &ldquo;White space&rdquo; was space for white people in which blacks were not allowed to enter. However, at least in the context that I heard it, the meaning has now been expanded to refer to any space where white people are dominant either in numbers or in power (whatever that means). In its current form, the term is meant to identify spaces where minorities could be at a disadvantage or where covert racism of sorts could be taking place. The key here is that the racism is covert - unlike the racism that the origin of the word refers to. You can&rsquo;t readily identify it, but - people who use such terms would have you believe - it is imperative that we partake in eliminating it, because it is wrong, unjust, and it is having an adverse effect on minorities. This is not a new concept. We&rsquo;ve had a long history of eliminating hard-to-quantify social issues and threats - witches, jews, communists, and now white people who without even knowing it and merely by their presence are making life hell for poor minorities, who just want a fair chance at success. This topic really irks me, but it is also a very interesting phenomena. Historically, there&rsquo;s no shortage of instances of bigotry where people blamed an entire group for the perceived misbehaviours of some of its memebers. The &ldquo;blacks are criminals&rdquo; narrative is a classic example - we instantly recognize it as poor logic. There is also no shortage of instances where members of a minority group were blamed for the actions of their ancestors for generations (eg. blaming Jews for killing Jesus). This is also unacceptable today. But somehow it has now become OK - indeed fashionable - to blame &ldquo;white people&rdquo; for everything, perhaps best characterized by this headline from Salon (try to picture what would happen if a publication posted a similar headline with some other race instead of &ldquo;White America&rdquo;). At least part of the thinking here is that white people being the dominant group in society, the same sensitivities need not apply to them - they don&rsquo;t need the protection. Indeed, their dominance in society must be curtailed to make life better for the minorities. There are too many problems with this line of thinking for one short article. I&rsquo;ll only point out the one flaw that you&rsquo;d think would be most obvious to proponents of racial equality: that the logic of blaming all white people for racism of few is not made more sound by the dominance of &ldquo;white culture&rdquo;. The most interesting thing in this latest instance of bigotry is that it is applied by members of the dominant group to the dominant group. This bigotry is not stemming from some Us-vs-Them mindset. It is, for the most part, middle-class white leftists (commonly, and mistakenly, referred to as &ldquo;liberals&rdquo;) who are championing these ideas about safe spaces, eliminating invisible threats, and curtailing free expression where someone&rsquo;s feelings might be hurt. This is, as was the case with the Salem witch hunts, nothing more than pious posturing. Instead of religious piety, in our modern times, sensitivity is the name of the game, and we&rsquo;re seeing an increasing amounts of it as people try to communicate their own moral virtue by an ever-increasing list of things to which they are sensitive and by which they are offended. Needless to say, as people try to keep up with the inflation in sensitivity (you might say we&rsquo;re in a sensitivity bubble) they reach ever more absurd levels of rationalizing it. We&rsquo;re at the point now where having a &lsquo;trigger warning&rsquo; at the opening of an article is not sensitive enough because the word &lsquo;trigger&rsquo; might itself trigger readers who are sensitive to violence. I digress. Let&rsquo;s get back to white spaces. It&rsquo;s a concept that betrays bigotry, and even if bigotry against the majority is not a significant problem, it at least exposes the fact that the people who throw such terms around have learned nothing from our history of mistakes with bigoted opinions - that zero-sum thinking and tribalist mindsets are what lead to terrible human behaviour in the first place. In other words, the cure to real bigotry is in greater commitment to hard, logical reasoning, and by using terms like &ldquo;white spaces&rdquo; these champions of minority rights cannot claim the moral high ground over the very people whose legacy they try to overturn. The second significance of this term is its suicidal, masochistic nature. Go to any non-western country on the planet and try to find someone with an equivalent masochistic worldview. I would bet you can&rsquo;t. People in Japan aren&rsquo;t entering spaces and thinking: &ldquo;You know, I think there are just too many Japanese people here.&rdquo; Or &ldquo;Japanese culture is too dominant here&rdquo;. No, Japan is where Japanese culture must be dominant. In fact, by all accounts, they will take pains to let you know that you don&rsquo;t belong there if you are an outsider. I may not necessarily agree with that, but one must acknowledge that that wall creates cultural resilience. Similarly, in North America, the culture of the descendants of Europeans who built this place must be dominant - that culture is what made this place so great. Rejecting this notion is nothing short of cultural suicide. And that should not be encouraged - specially not in the world&rsquo;s most advanced civilization. I get the impression that so many people who partake in this sensitivity bubble are worried about minorities because they can&rsquo;t find a middle ground between the complete dissolution of &ldquo;white culture&rdquo; (also commonly referred to as WASP - white Anglo-Saxon protestant) to having people shipped to Auschwitz in cattle cars. I think there are a few shades of gray in between those extremes. And my own experience, at least in urban Canada, tells me that if you are willing to make yourself a contributing member of society, you can reap every reward that a &ldquo;white Canadian&rdquo; peson might. In fact, as I&rsquo;ve mentioned before, I do not think there is a culture or society out there that is better at valuing people by their individual worth and accomplishment. Western culture is what has led to Western civilization, which is at the moment, the best thing we&rsquo;ve got, flaws and all. I&rsquo;m all for admitting mistakes and correcting course, but we&rsquo;d all do well to stop bashing what is dominant and instead ask what makes it so dominant that others lack. Racism exists, and insofar as it can be quantified, it must be addressed. But minorities don&rsquo;t need to worry about &ldquo;white spaces&rdquo; or invisible racism or other scary figments of imagination. They probably do need to worry more about how their own cultural values/beliefs might put them at a disadvantage and how they might need to change that. And that&rsquo;s a topic for another post." />
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However, at least in the context that I heard it, the meaning has now been expanded to refer to any space where white people are dominant either in numbers or in power (whatever that means). In its current form, the term is meant to identify spaces where minorities could be at a disadvantage or where covert racism of sorts could be taking place. The key here is that the racism is covert - unlike the racism that the origin of the word refers to. You can&rsquo;t readily identify it, but - people who use such terms would have you believe - it is imperative that we partake in eliminating it, because it is wrong, unjust, and it is having an adverse effect on minorities. This is not a new concept. We&rsquo;ve had a long history of eliminating hard-to-quantify social issues and threats - witches, jews, communists, and now white people who without even knowing it and merely by their presence are making life hell for poor minorities, who just want a fair chance at success. This topic really irks me, but it is also a very interesting phenomena. Historically, there&rsquo;s no shortage of instances of bigotry where people blamed an entire group for the perceived misbehaviours of some of its memebers. The &ldquo;blacks are criminals&rdquo; narrative is a classic example - we instantly recognize it as poor logic. There is also no shortage of instances where members of a minority group were blamed for the actions of their ancestors for generations (eg. blaming Jews for killing Jesus). This is also unacceptable today. But somehow it has now become OK - indeed fashionable - to blame &ldquo;white people&rdquo; for everything, perhaps best characterized by this headline from Salon (try to picture what would happen if a publication posted a similar headline with some other race instead of &ldquo;White America&rdquo;). At least part of the thinking here is that white people being the dominant group in society, the same sensitivities need not apply to them - they don&rsquo;t need the protection. Indeed, their dominance in society must be curtailed to make life better for the minorities. There are too many problems with this line of thinking for one short article. I&rsquo;ll only point out the one flaw that you&rsquo;d think would be most obvious to proponents of racial equality: that the logic of blaming all white people for racism of few is not made more sound by the dominance of &ldquo;white culture&rdquo;. The most interesting thing in this latest instance of bigotry is that it is applied by members of the dominant group to the dominant group. This bigotry is not stemming from some Us-vs-Them mindset. It is, for the most part, middle-class white leftists (commonly, and mistakenly, referred to as &ldquo;liberals&rdquo;) who are championing these ideas about safe spaces, eliminating invisible threats, and curtailing free expression where someone&rsquo;s feelings might be hurt. This is, as was the case with the Salem witch hunts, nothing more than pious posturing. Instead of religious piety, in our modern times, sensitivity is the name of the game, and we&rsquo;re seeing an increasing amounts of it as people try to communicate their own moral virtue by an ever-increasing list of things to which they are sensitive and by which they are offended. Needless to say, as people try to keep up with the inflation in sensitivity (you might say we&rsquo;re in a sensitivity bubble) they reach ever more absurd levels of rationalizing it. We&rsquo;re at the point now where having a &lsquo;trigger warning&rsquo; at the opening of an article is not sensitive enough because the word &lsquo;trigger&rsquo; might itself trigger readers who are sensitive to violence. I digress. Let&rsquo;s get back to white spaces. It&rsquo;s a concept that betrays bigotry, and even if bigotry against the majority is not a significant problem, it at least exposes the fact that the people who throw such terms around have learned nothing from our history of mistakes with bigoted opinions - that zero-sum thinking and tribalist mindsets are what lead to terrible human behaviour in the first place. In other words, the cure to real bigotry is in greater commitment to hard, logical reasoning, and by using terms like &ldquo;white spaces&rdquo; these champions of minority rights cannot claim the moral high ground over the very people whose legacy they try to overturn. The second significance of this term is its suicidal, masochistic nature. Go to any non-western country on the planet and try to find someone with an equivalent masochistic worldview. I would bet you can&rsquo;t. People in Japan aren&rsquo;t entering spaces and thinking: &ldquo;You know, I think there are just too many Japanese people here.&rdquo; Or &ldquo;Japanese culture is too dominant here&rdquo;. No, Japan is where Japanese culture must be dominant. In fact, by all accounts, they will take pains to let you know that you don&rsquo;t belong there if you are an outsider. I may not necessarily agree with that, but one must acknowledge that that wall creates cultural resilience. Similarly, in North America, the culture of the descendants of Europeans who built this place must be dominant - that culture is what made this place so great. Rejecting this notion is nothing short of cultural suicide. And that should not be encouraged - specially not in the world&rsquo;s most advanced civilization. I get the impression that so many people who partake in this sensitivity bubble are worried about minorities because they can&rsquo;t find a middle ground between the complete dissolution of &ldquo;white culture&rdquo; (also commonly referred to as WASP - white Anglo-Saxon protestant) to having people shipped to Auschwitz in cattle cars. I think there are a few shades of gray in between those extremes. And my own experience, at least in urban Canada, tells me that if you are willing to make yourself a contributing member of society, you can reap every reward that a &ldquo;white Canadian&rdquo; peson might. In fact, as I&rsquo;ve mentioned before, I do not think there is a culture or society out there that is better at valuing people by their individual worth and accomplishment. Western culture is what has led to Western civilization, which is at the moment, the best thing we&rsquo;ve got, flaws and all. I&rsquo;m all for admitting mistakes and correcting course, but we&rsquo;d all do well to stop bashing what is dominant and instead ask what makes it so dominant that others lack. Racism exists, and insofar as it can be quantified, it must be addressed. But minorities don&rsquo;t need to worry about &ldquo;white spaces&rdquo; or invisible racism or other scary figments of imagination. They probably do need to worry more about how their own cultural values/beliefs might put them at a disadvantage and how they might need to change that. And that&rsquo;s a topic for another post.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"White Spaces","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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However, at least in the context that I heard it, the meaning has now been expanded to refer to any space where white people are dominant either in numbers or in power (whatever that means). In its current form, the term is meant to identify spaces where minorities could be at a disadvantage or where covert racism of sorts could be taking place. The key here is that the racism is covert - unlike the racism that the origin of the word refers to. You can&rsquo;t readily identify it, but - people who use such terms would have you believe - it is imperative that we partake in eliminating it, because it is wrong, unjust, and it is having an adverse effect on minorities. This is not a new concept. We&rsquo;ve had a long history of eliminating hard-to-quantify social issues and threats - witches, jews, communists, and now white people who without even knowing it and merely by their presence are making life hell for poor minorities, who just want a fair chance at success. This topic really irks me, but it is also a very interesting phenomena. Historically, there&rsquo;s no shortage of instances of bigotry where people blamed an entire group for the perceived misbehaviours of some of its memebers. The &ldquo;blacks are criminals&rdquo; narrative is a classic example - we instantly recognize it as poor logic. There is also no shortage of instances where members of a minority group were blamed for the actions of their ancestors for generations (eg. blaming Jews for killing Jesus). This is also unacceptable today. But somehow it has now become OK - indeed fashionable - to blame &ldquo;white people&rdquo; for everything, perhaps best characterized by this headline from Salon (try to picture what would happen if a publication posted a similar headline with some other race instead of &ldquo;White America&rdquo;). At least part of the thinking here is that white people being the dominant group in society, the same sensitivities need not apply to them - they don&rsquo;t need the protection. Indeed, their dominance in society must be curtailed to make life better for the minorities. There are too many problems with this line of thinking for one short article. I&rsquo;ll only point out the one flaw that you&rsquo;d think would be most obvious to proponents of racial equality: that the logic of blaming all white people for racism of few is not made more sound by the dominance of &ldquo;white culture&rdquo;. The most interesting thing in this latest instance of bigotry is that it is applied by members of the dominant group to the dominant group. This bigotry is not stemming from some Us-vs-Them mindset. It is, for the most part, middle-class white leftists (commonly, and mistakenly, referred to as &ldquo;liberals&rdquo;) who are championing these ideas about safe spaces, eliminating invisible threats, and curtailing free expression where someone&rsquo;s feelings might be hurt. This is, as was the case with the Salem witch hunts, nothing more than pious posturing. Instead of religious piety, in our modern times, sensitivity is the name of the game, and we&rsquo;re seeing an increasing amounts of it as people try to communicate their own moral virtue by an ever-increasing list of things to which they are sensitive and by which they are offended. Needless to say, as people try to keep up with the inflation in sensitivity (you might say we&rsquo;re in a sensitivity bubble) they reach ever more absurd levels of rationalizing it. We&rsquo;re at the point now where having a &lsquo;trigger warning&rsquo; at the opening of an article is not sensitive enough because the word &lsquo;trigger&rsquo; might itself trigger readers who are sensitive to violence. I digress. Let&rsquo;s get back to white spaces. It&rsquo;s a concept that betrays bigotry, and even if bigotry against the majority is not a significant problem, it at least exposes the fact that the people who throw such terms around have learned nothing from our history of mistakes with bigoted opinions - that zero-sum thinking and tribalist mindsets are what lead to terrible human behaviour in the first place. In other words, the cure to real bigotry is in greater commitment to hard, logical reasoning, and by using terms like &ldquo;white spaces&rdquo; these champions of minority rights cannot claim the moral high ground over the very people whose legacy they try to overturn. The second significance of this term is its suicidal, masochistic nature. Go to any non-western country on the planet and try to find someone with an equivalent masochistic worldview. I would bet you can&rsquo;t. People in Japan aren&rsquo;t entering spaces and thinking: &ldquo;You know, I think there are just too many Japanese people here.&rdquo; Or &ldquo;Japanese culture is too dominant here&rdquo;. No, Japan is where Japanese culture must be dominant. In fact, by all accounts, they will take pains to let you know that you don&rsquo;t belong there if you are an outsider. I may not necessarily agree with that, but one must acknowledge that that wall creates cultural resilience. Similarly, in North America, the culture of the descendants of Europeans who built this place must be dominant - that culture is what made this place so great. Rejecting this notion is nothing short of cultural suicide. And that should not be encouraged - specially not in the world&rsquo;s most advanced civilization. I get the impression that so many people who partake in this sensitivity bubble are worried about minorities because they can&rsquo;t find a middle ground between the complete dissolution of &ldquo;white culture&rdquo; (also commonly referred to as WASP - white Anglo-Saxon protestant) to having people shipped to Auschwitz in cattle cars. I think there are a few shades of gray in between those extremes. And my own experience, at least in urban Canada, tells me that if you are willing to make yourself a contributing member of society, you can reap every reward that a &ldquo;white Canadian&rdquo; peson might. In fact, as I&rsquo;ve mentioned before, I do not think there is a culture or society out there that is better at valuing people by their individual worth and accomplishment. Western culture is what has led to Western civilization, which is at the moment, the best thing we&rsquo;ve got, flaws and all. I&rsquo;m all for admitting mistakes and correcting course, but we&rsquo;d all do well to stop bashing what is dominant and instead ask what makes it so dominant that others lack. Racism exists, and insofar as it can be quantified, it must be addressed. But minorities don&rsquo;t need to worry about &ldquo;white spaces&rdquo; or invisible racism or other scary figments of imagination. They probably do need to worry more about how their own cultural values/beliefs might put them at a disadvantage and how they might need to change that. And that&rsquo;s a topic for another post.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"White Spaces","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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 <meta name="description" content="Recently, I read Galileo&rsquo;s Middle Finger - an excellent page-turner on what happens when scientists publish findings that run counter to politically correct narratives. The author, Alice Dreger, is a historian and a staunch supporter of (and activist for) social justice. Unlike most social justice activists, however, she has an incovenient belief that scientific evidence matters. Her first step toward getting herself in trouble came when she was investigating a controversy over The Man Who Would Be Queen, a book by J Michael Bailey, a psychologist studying sexual orientation. Bailey&rsquo;s book had been met by fierce criticism from trans-rights activists when it was published. When the Lambda Literary Foundation, which promotes LGBTQ literature, nominated the book for an award, a prominent trans-rights activist told the executive director of the foundation that that was akin to Mein Kampf being nominated for an award on Jewish literature, and the nomination was withdrawn. In the age of a nascent Google that could easily be gamed, Bailey&rsquo;s online profile was hijacked. The trans-rights activists used this online tactic to tarnish his image (accusing him of sexually assaulting his children) and discredit him publicly. Years later, Dreger entered scene expecting to find a bit of nuance on the two sides of the controversy. She expected Bailey to be a typically-aloof scientist who, perhaps unwittingly, had insulted the identities of transgender people, who had naturally taken offence at his book. Instead she found that all allegations against Bailey were complete fabrications. &hellip; they had made up charges against him [that] they knew were not true [and] they had very successfully garnered the help of the liberal media to go after him, to paint him as a crazy, right-wing, Nazi-like character, who had committed all sorts of offences, and none of that was true. &ndash; Alice Dreger, The Saad Truth After the publication of Dreger&rsquo;s (50,000-page) report on the Bailey controversy, the floodgates opened, with scientists who had been victims of &ldquo;social justice&rdquo; crusades asking her to investigate their cases as well. Galileo&rsquo;s Middle Finger is the harrowing chronicle of those investigations - of what happens to scientists who find politically inconvenient facts. It&rsquo;s an engaging and important read, and highlights how easy it is for well-meaning public and journalists to be fooled and swayed by activists with an agenda. Dreger concludes: Evidence really is an ethical issue, the most important ethical issue in a modern democracy. If you want justice, you must work for truth. And if you want to work for truth, you must do a little more than wish for justice. I&rsquo;m posting this now, because at this very moment, the same literary foundation that withdrew Bailey&rsquo;s book under pressure and without due diligence has done the same to Dreger&rsquo;s. Conferences are being petitioned by activists to dis-invite Dreger from speaking engagements. And as well-documented in her book, no by-stander is actually bothering to do any research. Politicians being ever-so-quick to advertise their vacuous orthodoxy, a California congressman has already taken to Twitter to praise the Lambda Foundation for withdrawing &ldquo;the nomination for an anti-transgender book.&rdquo; Everywhere (or at least in circles where it counts; this is small time controversy on the internet scale), the narrative that Dreger is an &ldquo;anti-transgender&rdquo; bigot, is being spread shamelessly and fact-checked by none. And who&rsquo;s doing this? The very people who want you to believe that they&rsquo;re victims or speak for victims. That they must be listened to unquestioningly and that they require special safeguards and protections. When these people co-opt words like &ldquo;justice&rdquo; to carve out a privilidged position for themselves, they make injustice harder to fight. The Alice Dregers of the world - people who care about justice that is based on evidence and good science - are likely to better identify injustices, to make better decisions on how to advocate against various forms of injustice, and to gain more broad-based support in their activism. We&rsquo;d be living in a much better world with more people like Alice Dreger. Please support her by buying and reading Gelileo&rsquo;s Middle Finger." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="Recently, I read Galileo&rsquo;s Middle Finger - an excellent page-turner on what happens when scientists publish findings that run counter to politically correct narratives. The author, Alice Dreger, is a historian and a staunch supporter of (and activist for) social justice. Unlike most social justice activists, however, she has an incovenient belief that scientific evidence matters. Her first step toward getting herself in trouble came when she was investigating a controversy over The Man Who Would Be Queen, a book by J Michael Bailey, a psychologist studying sexual orientation. Bailey&rsquo;s book had been met by fierce criticism from trans-rights activists when it was published. When the Lambda Literary Foundation, which promotes LGBTQ literature, nominated the book for an award, a prominent trans-rights activist told the executive director of the foundation that that was akin to Mein Kampf being nominated for an award on Jewish literature, and the nomination was withdrawn. In the age of a nascent Google that could easily be gamed, Bailey&rsquo;s online profile was hijacked. The trans-rights activists used this online tactic to tarnish his image (accusing him of sexually assaulting his children) and discredit him publicly. Years later, Dreger entered scene expecting to find a bit of nuance on the two sides of the controversy. She expected Bailey to be a typically-aloof scientist who, perhaps unwittingly, had insulted the identities of transgender people, who had naturally taken offence at his book. Instead she found that all allegations against Bailey were complete fabrications. &hellip; they had made up charges against him [that] they knew were not true [and] they had very successfully garnered the help of the liberal media to go after him, to paint him as a crazy, right-wing, Nazi-like character, who had committed all sorts of offences, and none of that was true. &ndash; Alice Dreger, The Saad Truth After the publication of Dreger&rsquo;s (50,000-page) report on the Bailey controversy, the floodgates opened, with scientists who had been victims of &ldquo;social justice&rdquo; crusades asking her to investigate their cases as well. Galileo&rsquo;s Middle Finger is the harrowing chronicle of those investigations - of what happens to scientists who find politically inconvenient facts. It&rsquo;s an engaging and important read, and highlights how easy it is for well-meaning public and journalists to be fooled and swayed by activists with an agenda. Dreger concludes: Evidence really is an ethical issue, the most important ethical issue in a modern democracy. If you want justice, you must work for truth. And if you want to work for truth, you must do a little more than wish for justice. I&rsquo;m posting this now, because at this very moment, the same literary foundation that withdrew Bailey&rsquo;s book under pressure and without due diligence has done the same to Dreger&rsquo;s. Conferences are being petitioned by activists to dis-invite Dreger from speaking engagements. And as well-documented in her book, no by-stander is actually bothering to do any research. Politicians being ever-so-quick to advertise their vacuous orthodoxy, a California congressman has already taken to Twitter to praise the Lambda Foundation for withdrawing &ldquo;the nomination for an anti-transgender book.&rdquo; Everywhere (or at least in circles where it counts; this is small time controversy on the internet scale), the narrative that Dreger is an &ldquo;anti-transgender&rdquo; bigot, is being spread shamelessly and fact-checked by none. And who&rsquo;s doing this? The very people who want you to believe that they&rsquo;re victims or speak for victims. That they must be listened to unquestioningly and that they require special safeguards and protections. When these people co-opt words like &ldquo;justice&rdquo; to carve out a privilidged position for themselves, they make injustice harder to fight. The Alice Dregers of the world - people who care about justice that is based on evidence and good science - are likely to better identify injustices, to make better decisions on how to advocate against various forms of injustice, and to gain more broad-based support in their activism. We&rsquo;d be living in a much better world with more people like Alice Dreger. Please support her by buying and reading Gelileo&rsquo;s Middle Finger." />
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 <meta name="description" content="I recently finished reading The Happiness Hypothesis, the 2006 book by Jonathan Haidt that tries to build a &ldquo;scientific formula&rdquo; for happiness based on all the most recent psychological findings and experiments (as of time of publication). I loved the book not so much for the formula (I actually don&rsquo;t think happiness is all that important) but for the deep insights into our common nature that Haidt&rsquo;s coverage of psychology experiments and their results confers. These are some of my most interesting takeaways: The Rider and the Elephant The metaphor of the rider and the elephant is introduced early in the book, and it is referenced repeatedly throughout the book to make sense of how our minds work. The idea is that you - the conscious being, the haver of thoughts, the &ldquo;owner&rdquo; of your body - are actually merely the product of a relatively late appendage to a brain that has been evolving over millions of years and that had been making decisions long before conscious &ldquo;selves&rdquo; were around to think about them. When you see people repeating bad habits, staying in bad relationships, or otherwise being in denial, it is because their subconscious mind is behaving the way it is wired to behave, and there isn&rsquo;t much the conscious mind can do about it. Haidt calls the conscious part &ldquo;the rider&rdquo; and the subconscious part &ldquo;the elephant&rdquo;. The rider, sitting up high, can see far. He is intelligent, and he can pick the best path forward. But if the elephant really wants to go a different way, there isn&rsquo;t much the rider can do about it. In fact, the rider can&rsquo;t make most of the decisions - he is new to his job and very slow. Most of the decisions are up to the elephant to make. The experiments Haidt summarizes to demonstrate this are very interesting. One is an experiment involving split-brain patients (where the communication between the two brain hemispheres is hampered). These patients were told to stare at a point, and then they were flashed two images, a snow-covered house and car on the left and a chicken claw on the right, such that each brain hemisphere would pick up on a different image. Then the patient was shown a series of images and asked to pick the one that &ldquo;goes with&rdquo; the image he had just seen. The right hand would point at the picture of a chicken, and the left hand would point at the picture of a snow shovel (remember that each brain hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body). Where things got really interesting was when the patients were asked to explain their choices. Because the language processing center is on the left, they had no trouble explaining that the image of the chicken &ldquo;goes with&rdquo; the image of the chicken claw that they had originally seen. But the left side of the brain was unaware of the original picture of the snowed-in car and house that was shown to the right side. When asked why their left hand was pointing to the picture of a snow-shovel, nobody said: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. It must be because of a picture you showed the right side of my brain earlier.&rdquo; Instead, the language module simply made up an explanation: &ldquo;Oh that&rsquo;s easy. The chicken claw goes with the chicken and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed.&rdquo; Multiple experiments like this demonstrate that people can have a thought without knowing why they have it. When our conscious mind recognizes that we&rsquo;re having the thought, it builds a story around why we have that thought, much like a sports commentator that can build a story around why a player made some move, without being privy to the actual reasoning behind it. For this reason, our conscious mind can be thought of as our &ldquo;interpreter module&rdquo; - not, as we might naively imagine, the decision-making module. In other experiments, scientists have shown that our moral reasoning is similarly shrouded in the mysteries of our subconscious minds. The subconscious decides what is right and what is wrong, and our interpreter module makes up the explanation for it. If you start taking apart one explanation, the interpreter module will simply replace it with another. This is why it is so difficult to change someone&rsquo;s mind without an appeal to emotions and through rational arguments alone. None of this is to say that the rider is helpless and simply at the mercy of the elephant. The rider can train the elephant by methodical habit-building, meditation, drugs, therapy, or any combination thereof. Even so, in our day to day lives, the elephant is the one that is most in charge. Remembering that is critical to understanding ourselves. Reciprocity and Tit-for-Tat We humans are a special species because of the way we can build and organize large societies. Some scientists believe that it was our ability to organize ourselves on such large scale that led to our domination over all the other hominid species (like Neanderthals) who could only organize themselves along bloodlines. One of Mother Nature’s primary tools for building cooperative species is reciprocity - where each member of the species feels compelled to help other members that have helped him/her before. But reciprocity is a tough problem: someone&rsquo;s gotta go first. If you&rsquo;re going to help another individual, what guarantee do you have that they will indeed reciprocate? If most individuals in the species are optimists, they will be taken for fools by a defector individual and, soon the defector&rsquo;s genes will spread rapidly in the population and eliminate any cooperation. If most individuals are pessimistic, no cooperation can take place. It turns out that the most effective strategy for reciprocity is playing tit-for-tat. You start out optimistically, but if an individual does not reciprocate, you end all cooperation with that individual. It is possible that many of our uniquely human characteristics, including language and religion, were evolved to facilitate reciprocity. If you can gossip about people, you don&rsquo;t need to have an individual experience with someone to know whether or not they are to be trusted. This means that your network of trusted individuals is now far beyond your blood relatives, who would be the only trustworthy individuals in the absence of language. Similarly, religion can be viewed as a technology that allows strangers to trust one another simply by professing their shared beliefs. Enforcement of the rules of reciprocity is a hard problem, and religion solves it by providing an invisible but all-seeing arbiter of reward and punishment. Our cooperation circuitry has made us what we are. We are constantly in &ldquo;reputation-management&rdquo; mode, trying to communicate our goodness to our fellow humans through our conduct, appearance, or other means of signalling. (Although some of us, like yours truly, seem to be somewhat defective in this arena and take particular pleasure in singing to a different tune, that strategy, too, must have some payoff - I&rsquo;ll let you know when I find out). One of the best ways to show people that you are a good and trustworthy tit-for-tat player, is to actually be an honest one. But an even more rewarding strategy would be to appear to be an honest player but to actually defect when you get the chance, and experiments seem to show this to be case with most of us. In one experiment by a University of Kansas psychologist Dan Batson, participants were told: One member of each team of two will be rewarded for correct responses to questions with a raffle ticket that could win a valuable prize. The other member will receive nothing. Subjects were also told that an additional part of the experiment concerned the effects of control: You, the subject, will decide which of you is rewarded, which of you is not. Your partner is already here, in another room, and the two of you will not meet. Your partner will be told that the decision was made by chance. You can make the decision in any way you like. The participants were given a coin in case they thought that the only fair way of deciding who gets rewarded would be with a coin toss. About half of the participants used the coin. Of those who did not, 90% decided that they themselves should be rewarded. For those who did use the coin, the laws of probability were suspended and 90% of them decided they themselves should be rewarded. And here&rsquo;s the real kicker: People who reported being most concerned about caring for others and about issues of social responsibility were more likely to [use the coin], but they were not more likely to give the other person the [reward]. In other words, people who think they are particularly moral are in fact more likely to “do the right thing” and flip the coin, but when the coin flip comes out against them, they find a way to ignore it and follow their own self-interest. Batson called this tendency to value the appearance of morality over the reality “moral hypocrisy.” This is the Machiavellian tit-for-tat that most of us are wired to play: keep the appearances of fair play while using every chance to get more for oneself. And protestation of virtues - the upkeep of the appearances - is much more compelling when the person making the protestations actually believes them. In other words, not only are you playing the reciprocity game dishonestly, your own mind is lying to you when it tells you that you are playing it fair. (This is, in fact, quite typical of our minds. You can watch this fascinating video to learn how your mind lies to you about what you&rsquo;re seeing.) The Cuckoo in All of Us All of this reminds me of another book that I read a few years ago that completely reshaped my perception of the world: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. One of many examples of evolved traits that Dawkins discusses in that book is the ability of cuckoos to fool other birds into raising their children for them. See, progeny are expensive. First, the parents must expend bodily resources in making them, then they have to expend large amounts of resources to keep them fed and protected until they can be on their own. Cuckoos have evolved a mechanism for avoiding the latter expense by placing their eggs in other birds&#39; nests. To help with this, they have evolved several other traits as well. For one thing, the colours and patterns of their eggs resemble that of the species that they target. Secondly, when the cuckoo eggs hatch, the cuckoo chick begins violently pecking at any other chicks in its vicinity and then tries to push any unhatched eggs out of the nest. You can watch a nice video of this here. It&rsquo;s easy to learn about the cuckoos and be amazed at how cold and brutal nature is. That was certainly my takeaway from Dawkins&#39; book. It illustrated so well how indifferent nature is to us and how all that it produces are simply runaway chemical reactions. But we humans have a bad habit of thinking of ourselves as somehow above or separate from all the other life forms on earth. This is probably another way that our brains lie to us. The two studies above about the nature of our decision making and our Machiavellian tit-for-tat are some of the most potent things I&rsquo;ve heard for disabusing of our notion of superiority. I find the view that us humans are every bit on &ldquo;auto-pilot&rdquo; as any animal - and thus mostly not conscious of what we do - strangely liberating and comforting. It seems to eliminate much of my judgement against others&#39; irrationality, and it also serves as constant reminder that I&rsquo;m not as good, rational, and impartial as my mind might make me believe. From &ldquo;why did that asshole cut me off in traffic!?&rdquo; to &ldquo;how can corrupt politicians and tyrants hurt so many millions of people!?&rdquo;, it all becomes so much easier to take in if you can remind yourself that getting angry/frustrated at what amounts to a chimpanzee 2.0 is just plain silly. In those moments, we can remind ourselves that that person&rsquo;s mind has probably constructed a reality for him/her that is far different from what we see. In that reality, cutting you off in traffic is well within his/her rights and the tyrant is only doing what he&rsquo;s doing for the good of society. Similarly, our own reality isn&rsquo;t as reliable as we&rsquo;d like to think. As a great bumper sticker once said, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t believe everything you think.&rdquo;" />
 <meta property="og:description" content="I recently finished reading The Happiness Hypothesis, the 2006 book by Jonathan Haidt that tries to build a &ldquo;scientific formula&rdquo; for happiness based on all the most recent psychological findings and experiments (as of time of publication). I loved the book not so much for the formula (I actually don&rsquo;t think happiness is all that important) but for the deep insights into our common nature that Haidt&rsquo;s coverage of psychology experiments and their results confers. These are some of my most interesting takeaways: The Rider and the Elephant The metaphor of the rider and the elephant is introduced early in the book, and it is referenced repeatedly throughout the book to make sense of how our minds work. The idea is that you - the conscious being, the haver of thoughts, the &ldquo;owner&rdquo; of your body - are actually merely the product of a relatively late appendage to a brain that has been evolving over millions of years and that had been making decisions long before conscious &ldquo;selves&rdquo; were around to think about them. When you see people repeating bad habits, staying in bad relationships, or otherwise being in denial, it is because their subconscious mind is behaving the way it is wired to behave, and there isn&rsquo;t much the conscious mind can do about it. Haidt calls the conscious part &ldquo;the rider&rdquo; and the subconscious part &ldquo;the elephant&rdquo;. The rider, sitting up high, can see far. He is intelligent, and he can pick the best path forward. But if the elephant really wants to go a different way, there isn&rsquo;t much the rider can do about it. In fact, the rider can&rsquo;t make most of the decisions - he is new to his job and very slow. Most of the decisions are up to the elephant to make. The experiments Haidt summarizes to demonstrate this are very interesting. One is an experiment involving split-brain patients (where the communication between the two brain hemispheres is hampered). These patients were told to stare at a point, and then they were flashed two images, a snow-covered house and car on the left and a chicken claw on the right, such that each brain hemisphere would pick up on a different image. Then the patient was shown a series of images and asked to pick the one that &ldquo;goes with&rdquo; the image he had just seen. The right hand would point at the picture of a chicken, and the left hand would point at the picture of a snow shovel (remember that each brain hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body). Where things got really interesting was when the patients were asked to explain their choices. Because the language processing center is on the left, they had no trouble explaining that the image of the chicken &ldquo;goes with&rdquo; the image of the chicken claw that they had originally seen. But the left side of the brain was unaware of the original picture of the snowed-in car and house that was shown to the right side. When asked why their left hand was pointing to the picture of a snow-shovel, nobody said: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. It must be because of a picture you showed the right side of my brain earlier.&rdquo; Instead, the language module simply made up an explanation: &ldquo;Oh that&rsquo;s easy. The chicken claw goes with the chicken and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed.&rdquo; Multiple experiments like this demonstrate that people can have a thought without knowing why they have it. When our conscious mind recognizes that we&rsquo;re having the thought, it builds a story around why we have that thought, much like a sports commentator that can build a story around why a player made some move, without being privy to the actual reasoning behind it. For this reason, our conscious mind can be thought of as our &ldquo;interpreter module&rdquo; - not, as we might naively imagine, the decision-making module. In other experiments, scientists have shown that our moral reasoning is similarly shrouded in the mysteries of our subconscious minds. The subconscious decides what is right and what is wrong, and our interpreter module makes up the explanation for it. If you start taking apart one explanation, the interpreter module will simply replace it with another. This is why it is so difficult to change someone&rsquo;s mind without an appeal to emotions and through rational arguments alone. None of this is to say that the rider is helpless and simply at the mercy of the elephant. The rider can train the elephant by methodical habit-building, meditation, drugs, therapy, or any combination thereof. Even so, in our day to day lives, the elephant is the one that is most in charge. Remembering that is critical to understanding ourselves. Reciprocity and Tit-for-Tat We humans are a special species because of the way we can build and organize large societies. Some scientists believe that it was our ability to organize ourselves on such large scale that led to our domination over all the other hominid species (like Neanderthals) who could only organize themselves along bloodlines. One of Mother Nature’s primary tools for building cooperative species is reciprocity - where each member of the species feels compelled to help other members that have helped him/her before. But reciprocity is a tough problem: someone&rsquo;s gotta go first. If you&rsquo;re going to help another individual, what guarantee do you have that they will indeed reciprocate? If most individuals in the species are optimists, they will be taken for fools by a defector individual and, soon the defector&rsquo;s genes will spread rapidly in the population and eliminate any cooperation. If most individuals are pessimistic, no cooperation can take place. It turns out that the most effective strategy for reciprocity is playing tit-for-tat. You start out optimistically, but if an individual does not reciprocate, you end all cooperation with that individual. It is possible that many of our uniquely human characteristics, including language and religion, were evolved to facilitate reciprocity. If you can gossip about people, you don&rsquo;t need to have an individual experience with someone to know whether or not they are to be trusted. This means that your network of trusted individuals is now far beyond your blood relatives, who would be the only trustworthy individuals in the absence of language. Similarly, religion can be viewed as a technology that allows strangers to trust one another simply by professing their shared beliefs. Enforcement of the rules of reciprocity is a hard problem, and religion solves it by providing an invisible but all-seeing arbiter of reward and punishment. Our cooperation circuitry has made us what we are. We are constantly in &ldquo;reputation-management&rdquo; mode, trying to communicate our goodness to our fellow humans through our conduct, appearance, or other means of signalling. (Although some of us, like yours truly, seem to be somewhat defective in this arena and take particular pleasure in singing to a different tune, that strategy, too, must have some payoff - I&rsquo;ll let you know when I find out). One of the best ways to show people that you are a good and trustworthy tit-for-tat player, is to actually be an honest one. But an even more rewarding strategy would be to appear to be an honest player but to actually defect when you get the chance, and experiments seem to show this to be case with most of us. In one experiment by a University of Kansas psychologist Dan Batson, participants were told: One member of each team of two will be rewarded for correct responses to questions with a raffle ticket that could win a valuable prize. The other member will receive nothing. Subjects were also told that an additional part of the experiment concerned the effects of control: You, the subject, will decide which of you is rewarded, which of you is not. Your partner is already here, in another room, and the two of you will not meet. Your partner will be told that the decision was made by chance. You can make the decision in any way you like. The participants were given a coin in case they thought that the only fair way of deciding who gets rewarded would be with a coin toss. About half of the participants used the coin. Of those who did not, 90% decided that they themselves should be rewarded. For those who did use the coin, the laws of probability were suspended and 90% of them decided they themselves should be rewarded. And here&rsquo;s the real kicker: People who reported being most concerned about caring for others and about issues of social responsibility were more likely to [use the coin], but they were not more likely to give the other person the [reward]. In other words, people who think they are particularly moral are in fact more likely to “do the right thing” and flip the coin, but when the coin flip comes out against them, they find a way to ignore it and follow their own self-interest. Batson called this tendency to value the appearance of morality over the reality “moral hypocrisy.” This is the Machiavellian tit-for-tat that most of us are wired to play: keep the appearances of fair play while using every chance to get more for oneself. And protestation of virtues - the upkeep of the appearances - is much more compelling when the person making the protestations actually believes them. In other words, not only are you playing the reciprocity game dishonestly, your own mind is lying to you when it tells you that you are playing it fair. (This is, in fact, quite typical of our minds. You can watch this fascinating video to learn how your mind lies to you about what you&rsquo;re seeing.) The Cuckoo in All of Us All of this reminds me of another book that I read a few years ago that completely reshaped my perception of the world: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. One of many examples of evolved traits that Dawkins discusses in that book is the ability of cuckoos to fool other birds into raising their children for them. See, progeny are expensive. First, the parents must expend bodily resources in making them, then they have to expend large amounts of resources to keep them fed and protected until they can be on their own. Cuckoos have evolved a mechanism for avoiding the latter expense by placing their eggs in other birds&#39; nests. To help with this, they have evolved several other traits as well. For one thing, the colours and patterns of their eggs resemble that of the species that they target. Secondly, when the cuckoo eggs hatch, the cuckoo chick begins violently pecking at any other chicks in its vicinity and then tries to push any unhatched eggs out of the nest. You can watch a nice video of this here. It&rsquo;s easy to learn about the cuckoos and be amazed at how cold and brutal nature is. That was certainly my takeaway from Dawkins&#39; book. It illustrated so well how indifferent nature is to us and how all that it produces are simply runaway chemical reactions. But we humans have a bad habit of thinking of ourselves as somehow above or separate from all the other life forms on earth. This is probably another way that our brains lie to us. The two studies above about the nature of our decision making and our Machiavellian tit-for-tat are some of the most potent things I&rsquo;ve heard for disabusing of our notion of superiority. I find the view that us humans are every bit on &ldquo;auto-pilot&rdquo; as any animal - and thus mostly not conscious of what we do - strangely liberating and comforting. It seems to eliminate much of my judgement against others&#39; irrationality, and it also serves as constant reminder that I&rsquo;m not as good, rational, and impartial as my mind might make me believe. From &ldquo;why did that asshole cut me off in traffic!?&rdquo; to &ldquo;how can corrupt politicians and tyrants hurt so many millions of people!?&rdquo;, it all becomes so much easier to take in if you can remind yourself that getting angry/frustrated at what amounts to a chimpanzee 2.0 is just plain silly. In those moments, we can remind ourselves that that person&rsquo;s mind has probably constructed a reality for him/her that is far different from what we see. In that reality, cutting you off in traffic is well within his/her rights and the tyrant is only doing what he&rsquo;s doing for the good of society. Similarly, our own reality isn&rsquo;t as reliable as we&rsquo;d like to think. As a great bumper sticker once said, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t believe everything you think.&rdquo;" />
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-{"dateModified":"2016-08-20T21:42:51-07:00","datePublished":"2016-08-20T21:42:51-07:00","url":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2016/08/20/man-and-cuckoo.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2016/08/20/man-and-cuckoo.html"},"description":"I recently finished reading The Happiness Hypothesis, the 2006 book by Jonathan Haidt that tries to build a &ldquo;scientific formula&rdquo; for happiness based on all the most recent psychological findings and experiments (as of time of publication). I loved the book not so much for the formula (I actually don&rsquo;t think happiness is all that important) but for the deep insights into our common nature that Haidt&rsquo;s coverage of psychology experiments and their results confers. These are some of my most interesting takeaways: The Rider and the Elephant The metaphor of the rider and the elephant is introduced early in the book, and it is referenced repeatedly throughout the book to make sense of how our minds work. The idea is that you - the conscious being, the haver of thoughts, the &ldquo;owner&rdquo; of your body - are actually merely the product of a relatively late appendage to a brain that has been evolving over millions of years and that had been making decisions long before conscious &ldquo;selves&rdquo; were around to think about them. When you see people repeating bad habits, staying in bad relationships, or otherwise being in denial, it is because their subconscious mind is behaving the way it is wired to behave, and there isn&rsquo;t much the conscious mind can do about it. Haidt calls the conscious part &ldquo;the rider&rdquo; and the subconscious part &ldquo;the elephant&rdquo;. The rider, sitting up high, can see far. He is intelligent, and he can pick the best path forward. But if the elephant really wants to go a different way, there isn&rsquo;t much the rider can do about it. In fact, the rider can&rsquo;t make most of the decisions - he is new to his job and very slow. Most of the decisions are up to the elephant to make. The experiments Haidt summarizes to demonstrate this are very interesting. One is an experiment involving split-brain patients (where the communication between the two brain hemispheres is hampered). These patients were told to stare at a point, and then they were flashed two images, a snow-covered house and car on the left and a chicken claw on the right, such that each brain hemisphere would pick up on a different image. Then the patient was shown a series of images and asked to pick the one that &ldquo;goes with&rdquo; the image he had just seen. The right hand would point at the picture of a chicken, and the left hand would point at the picture of a snow shovel (remember that each brain hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body). Where things got really interesting was when the patients were asked to explain their choices. Because the language processing center is on the left, they had no trouble explaining that the image of the chicken &ldquo;goes with&rdquo; the image of the chicken claw that they had originally seen. But the left side of the brain was unaware of the original picture of the snowed-in car and house that was shown to the right side. When asked why their left hand was pointing to the picture of a snow-shovel, nobody said: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. It must be because of a picture you showed the right side of my brain earlier.&rdquo; Instead, the language module simply made up an explanation: &ldquo;Oh that&rsquo;s easy. The chicken claw goes with the chicken and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed.&rdquo; Multiple experiments like this demonstrate that people can have a thought without knowing why they have it. When our conscious mind recognizes that we&rsquo;re having the thought, it builds a story around why we have that thought, much like a sports commentator that can build a story around why a player made some move, without being privy to the actual reasoning behind it. For this reason, our conscious mind can be thought of as our &ldquo;interpreter module&rdquo; - not, as we might naively imagine, the decision-making module. In other experiments, scientists have shown that our moral reasoning is similarly shrouded in the mysteries of our subconscious minds. The subconscious decides what is right and what is wrong, and our interpreter module makes up the explanation for it. If you start taking apart one explanation, the interpreter module will simply replace it with another. This is why it is so difficult to change someone&rsquo;s mind without an appeal to emotions and through rational arguments alone. None of this is to say that the rider is helpless and simply at the mercy of the elephant. The rider can train the elephant by methodical habit-building, meditation, drugs, therapy, or any combination thereof. Even so, in our day to day lives, the elephant is the one that is most in charge. Remembering that is critical to understanding ourselves. Reciprocity and Tit-for-Tat We humans are a special species because of the way we can build and organize large societies. Some scientists believe that it was our ability to organize ourselves on such large scale that led to our domination over all the other hominid species (like Neanderthals) who could only organize themselves along bloodlines. One of Mother Nature’s primary tools for building cooperative species is reciprocity - where each member of the species feels compelled to help other members that have helped him/her before. But reciprocity is a tough problem: someone&rsquo;s gotta go first. If you&rsquo;re going to help another individual, what guarantee do you have that they will indeed reciprocate? If most individuals in the species are optimists, they will be taken for fools by a defector individual and, soon the defector&rsquo;s genes will spread rapidly in the population and eliminate any cooperation. If most individuals are pessimistic, no cooperation can take place. It turns out that the most effective strategy for reciprocity is playing tit-for-tat. You start out optimistically, but if an individual does not reciprocate, you end all cooperation with that individual. It is possible that many of our uniquely human characteristics, including language and religion, were evolved to facilitate reciprocity. If you can gossip about people, you don&rsquo;t need to have an individual experience with someone to know whether or not they are to be trusted. This means that your network of trusted individuals is now far beyond your blood relatives, who would be the only trustworthy individuals in the absence of language. Similarly, religion can be viewed as a technology that allows strangers to trust one another simply by professing their shared beliefs. Enforcement of the rules of reciprocity is a hard problem, and religion solves it by providing an invisible but all-seeing arbiter of reward and punishment. Our cooperation circuitry has made us what we are. We are constantly in &ldquo;reputation-management&rdquo; mode, trying to communicate our goodness to our fellow humans through our conduct, appearance, or other means of signalling. (Although some of us, like yours truly, seem to be somewhat defective in this arena and take particular pleasure in singing to a different tune, that strategy, too, must have some payoff - I&rsquo;ll let you know when I find out). One of the best ways to show people that you are a good and trustworthy tit-for-tat player, is to actually be an honest one. But an even more rewarding strategy would be to appear to be an honest player but to actually defect when you get the chance, and experiments seem to show this to be case with most of us. In one experiment by a University of Kansas psychologist Dan Batson, participants were told: One member of each team of two will be rewarded for correct responses to questions with a raffle ticket that could win a valuable prize. The other member will receive nothing. Subjects were also told that an additional part of the experiment concerned the effects of control: You, the subject, will decide which of you is rewarded, which of you is not. Your partner is already here, in another room, and the two of you will not meet. Your partner will be told that the decision was made by chance. You can make the decision in any way you like. The participants were given a coin in case they thought that the only fair way of deciding who gets rewarded would be with a coin toss. About half of the participants used the coin. Of those who did not, 90% decided that they themselves should be rewarded. For those who did use the coin, the laws of probability were suspended and 90% of them decided they themselves should be rewarded. And here&rsquo;s the real kicker: People who reported being most concerned about caring for others and about issues of social responsibility were more likely to [use the coin], but they were not more likely to give the other person the [reward]. In other words, people who think they are particularly moral are in fact more likely to “do the right thing” and flip the coin, but when the coin flip comes out against them, they find a way to ignore it and follow their own self-interest. Batson called this tendency to value the appearance of morality over the reality “moral hypocrisy.” This is the Machiavellian tit-for-tat that most of us are wired to play: keep the appearances of fair play while using every chance to get more for oneself. And protestation of virtues - the upkeep of the appearances - is much more compelling when the person making the protestations actually believes them. In other words, not only are you playing the reciprocity game dishonestly, your own mind is lying to you when it tells you that you are playing it fair. (This is, in fact, quite typical of our minds. You can watch this fascinating video to learn how your mind lies to you about what you&rsquo;re seeing.) The Cuckoo in All of Us All of this reminds me of another book that I read a few years ago that completely reshaped my perception of the world: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. One of many examples of evolved traits that Dawkins discusses in that book is the ability of cuckoos to fool other birds into raising their children for them. See, progeny are expensive. First, the parents must expend bodily resources in making them, then they have to expend large amounts of resources to keep them fed and protected until they can be on their own. Cuckoos have evolved a mechanism for avoiding the latter expense by placing their eggs in other birds&#39; nests. To help with this, they have evolved several other traits as well. For one thing, the colours and patterns of their eggs resemble that of the species that they target. Secondly, when the cuckoo eggs hatch, the cuckoo chick begins violently pecking at any other chicks in its vicinity and then tries to push any unhatched eggs out of the nest. You can watch a nice video of this here. It&rsquo;s easy to learn about the cuckoos and be amazed at how cold and brutal nature is. That was certainly my takeaway from Dawkins&#39; book. It illustrated so well how indifferent nature is to us and how all that it produces are simply runaway chemical reactions. But we humans have a bad habit of thinking of ourselves as somehow above or separate from all the other life forms on earth. This is probably another way that our brains lie to us. The two studies above about the nature of our decision making and our Machiavellian tit-for-tat are some of the most potent things I&rsquo;ve heard for disabusing of our notion of superiority. I find the view that us humans are every bit on &ldquo;auto-pilot&rdquo; as any animal - and thus mostly not conscious of what we do - strangely liberating and comforting. It seems to eliminate much of my judgement against others&#39; irrationality, and it also serves as constant reminder that I&rsquo;m not as good, rational, and impartial as my mind might make me believe. From &ldquo;why did that asshole cut me off in traffic!?&rdquo; to &ldquo;how can corrupt politicians and tyrants hurt so many millions of people!?&rdquo;, it all becomes so much easier to take in if you can remind yourself that getting angry/frustrated at what amounts to a chimpanzee 2.0 is just plain silly. In those moments, we can remind ourselves that that person&rsquo;s mind has probably constructed a reality for him/her that is far different from what we see. In that reality, cutting you off in traffic is well within his/her rights and the tyrant is only doing what he&rsquo;s doing for the good of society. Similarly, our own reality isn&rsquo;t as reliable as we&rsquo;d like to think. As a great bumper sticker once said, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t believe everything you think.&rdquo;","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Man and Cuckoo","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2016-08-20T21:42:51-07:00","datePublished":"2016-08-20T21:42:51-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2016/08/20/man-and-cuckoo.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2016/08/20/man-and-cuckoo.html"},"description":"I recently finished reading The Happiness Hypothesis, the 2006 book by Jonathan Haidt that tries to build a &ldquo;scientific formula&rdquo; for happiness based on all the most recent psychological findings and experiments (as of time of publication). I loved the book not so much for the formula (I actually don&rsquo;t think happiness is all that important) but for the deep insights into our common nature that Haidt&rsquo;s coverage of psychology experiments and their results confers. These are some of my most interesting takeaways: The Rider and the Elephant The metaphor of the rider and the elephant is introduced early in the book, and it is referenced repeatedly throughout the book to make sense of how our minds work. The idea is that you - the conscious being, the haver of thoughts, the &ldquo;owner&rdquo; of your body - are actually merely the product of a relatively late appendage to a brain that has been evolving over millions of years and that had been making decisions long before conscious &ldquo;selves&rdquo; were around to think about them. When you see people repeating bad habits, staying in bad relationships, or otherwise being in denial, it is because their subconscious mind is behaving the way it is wired to behave, and there isn&rsquo;t much the conscious mind can do about it. Haidt calls the conscious part &ldquo;the rider&rdquo; and the subconscious part &ldquo;the elephant&rdquo;. The rider, sitting up high, can see far. He is intelligent, and he can pick the best path forward. But if the elephant really wants to go a different way, there isn&rsquo;t much the rider can do about it. In fact, the rider can&rsquo;t make most of the decisions - he is new to his job and very slow. Most of the decisions are up to the elephant to make. The experiments Haidt summarizes to demonstrate this are very interesting. One is an experiment involving split-brain patients (where the communication between the two brain hemispheres is hampered). These patients were told to stare at a point, and then they were flashed two images, a snow-covered house and car on the left and a chicken claw on the right, such that each brain hemisphere would pick up on a different image. Then the patient was shown a series of images and asked to pick the one that &ldquo;goes with&rdquo; the image he had just seen. The right hand would point at the picture of a chicken, and the left hand would point at the picture of a snow shovel (remember that each brain hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body). Where things got really interesting was when the patients were asked to explain their choices. Because the language processing center is on the left, they had no trouble explaining that the image of the chicken &ldquo;goes with&rdquo; the image of the chicken claw that they had originally seen. But the left side of the brain was unaware of the original picture of the snowed-in car and house that was shown to the right side. When asked why their left hand was pointing to the picture of a snow-shovel, nobody said: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. It must be because of a picture you showed the right side of my brain earlier.&rdquo; Instead, the language module simply made up an explanation: &ldquo;Oh that&rsquo;s easy. The chicken claw goes with the chicken and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed.&rdquo; Multiple experiments like this demonstrate that people can have a thought without knowing why they have it. When our conscious mind recognizes that we&rsquo;re having the thought, it builds a story around why we have that thought, much like a sports commentator that can build a story around why a player made some move, without being privy to the actual reasoning behind it. For this reason, our conscious mind can be thought of as our &ldquo;interpreter module&rdquo; - not, as we might naively imagine, the decision-making module. In other experiments, scientists have shown that our moral reasoning is similarly shrouded in the mysteries of our subconscious minds. The subconscious decides what is right and what is wrong, and our interpreter module makes up the explanation for it. If you start taking apart one explanation, the interpreter module will simply replace it with another. This is why it is so difficult to change someone&rsquo;s mind without an appeal to emotions and through rational arguments alone. None of this is to say that the rider is helpless and simply at the mercy of the elephant. The rider can train the elephant by methodical habit-building, meditation, drugs, therapy, or any combination thereof. Even so, in our day to day lives, the elephant is the one that is most in charge. Remembering that is critical to understanding ourselves. Reciprocity and Tit-for-Tat We humans are a special species because of the way we can build and organize large societies. Some scientists believe that it was our ability to organize ourselves on such large scale that led to our domination over all the other hominid species (like Neanderthals) who could only organize themselves along bloodlines. One of Mother Nature’s primary tools for building cooperative species is reciprocity - where each member of the species feels compelled to help other members that have helped him/her before. But reciprocity is a tough problem: someone&rsquo;s gotta go first. If you&rsquo;re going to help another individual, what guarantee do you have that they will indeed reciprocate? If most individuals in the species are optimists, they will be taken for fools by a defector individual and, soon the defector&rsquo;s genes will spread rapidly in the population and eliminate any cooperation. If most individuals are pessimistic, no cooperation can take place. It turns out that the most effective strategy for reciprocity is playing tit-for-tat. You start out optimistically, but if an individual does not reciprocate, you end all cooperation with that individual. It is possible that many of our uniquely human characteristics, including language and religion, were evolved to facilitate reciprocity. If you can gossip about people, you don&rsquo;t need to have an individual experience with someone to know whether or not they are to be trusted. This means that your network of trusted individuals is now far beyond your blood relatives, who would be the only trustworthy individuals in the absence of language. Similarly, religion can be viewed as a technology that allows strangers to trust one another simply by professing their shared beliefs. Enforcement of the rules of reciprocity is a hard problem, and religion solves it by providing an invisible but all-seeing arbiter of reward and punishment. Our cooperation circuitry has made us what we are. We are constantly in &ldquo;reputation-management&rdquo; mode, trying to communicate our goodness to our fellow humans through our conduct, appearance, or other means of signalling. (Although some of us, like yours truly, seem to be somewhat defective in this arena and take particular pleasure in singing to a different tune, that strategy, too, must have some payoff - I&rsquo;ll let you know when I find out). One of the best ways to show people that you are a good and trustworthy tit-for-tat player, is to actually be an honest one. But an even more rewarding strategy would be to appear to be an honest player but to actually defect when you get the chance, and experiments seem to show this to be case with most of us. In one experiment by a University of Kansas psychologist Dan Batson, participants were told: One member of each team of two will be rewarded for correct responses to questions with a raffle ticket that could win a valuable prize. The other member will receive nothing. Subjects were also told that an additional part of the experiment concerned the effects of control: You, the subject, will decide which of you is rewarded, which of you is not. Your partner is already here, in another room, and the two of you will not meet. Your partner will be told that the decision was made by chance. You can make the decision in any way you like. The participants were given a coin in case they thought that the only fair way of deciding who gets rewarded would be with a coin toss. About half of the participants used the coin. Of those who did not, 90% decided that they themselves should be rewarded. For those who did use the coin, the laws of probability were suspended and 90% of them decided they themselves should be rewarded. And here&rsquo;s the real kicker: People who reported being most concerned about caring for others and about issues of social responsibility were more likely to [use the coin], but they were not more likely to give the other person the [reward]. In other words, people who think they are particularly moral are in fact more likely to “do the right thing” and flip the coin, but when the coin flip comes out against them, they find a way to ignore it and follow their own self-interest. Batson called this tendency to value the appearance of morality over the reality “moral hypocrisy.” This is the Machiavellian tit-for-tat that most of us are wired to play: keep the appearances of fair play while using every chance to get more for oneself. And protestation of virtues - the upkeep of the appearances - is much more compelling when the person making the protestations actually believes them. In other words, not only are you playing the reciprocity game dishonestly, your own mind is lying to you when it tells you that you are playing it fair. (This is, in fact, quite typical of our minds. You can watch this fascinating video to learn how your mind lies to you about what you&rsquo;re seeing.) The Cuckoo in All of Us All of this reminds me of another book that I read a few years ago that completely reshaped my perception of the world: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. One of many examples of evolved traits that Dawkins discusses in that book is the ability of cuckoos to fool other birds into raising their children for them. See, progeny are expensive. First, the parents must expend bodily resources in making them, then they have to expend large amounts of resources to keep them fed and protected until they can be on their own. Cuckoos have evolved a mechanism for avoiding the latter expense by placing their eggs in other birds&#39; nests. To help with this, they have evolved several other traits as well. For one thing, the colours and patterns of their eggs resemble that of the species that they target. Secondly, when the cuckoo eggs hatch, the cuckoo chick begins violently pecking at any other chicks in its vicinity and then tries to push any unhatched eggs out of the nest. You can watch a nice video of this here. It&rsquo;s easy to learn about the cuckoos and be amazed at how cold and brutal nature is. That was certainly my takeaway from Dawkins&#39; book. It illustrated so well how indifferent nature is to us and how all that it produces are simply runaway chemical reactions. But we humans have a bad habit of thinking of ourselves as somehow above or separate from all the other life forms on earth. This is probably another way that our brains lie to us. The two studies above about the nature of our decision making and our Machiavellian tit-for-tat are some of the most potent things I&rsquo;ve heard for disabusing of our notion of superiority. I find the view that us humans are every bit on &ldquo;auto-pilot&rdquo; as any animal - and thus mostly not conscious of what we do - strangely liberating and comforting. It seems to eliminate much of my judgement against others&#39; irrationality, and it also serves as constant reminder that I&rsquo;m not as good, rational, and impartial as my mind might make me believe. From &ldquo;why did that asshole cut me off in traffic!?&rdquo; to &ldquo;how can corrupt politicians and tyrants hurt so many millions of people!?&rdquo;, it all becomes so much easier to take in if you can remind yourself that getting angry/frustrated at what amounts to a chimpanzee 2.0 is just plain silly. In those moments, we can remind ourselves that that person&rsquo;s mind has probably constructed a reality for him/her that is far different from what we see. In that reality, cutting you off in traffic is well within his/her rights and the tyrant is only doing what he&rsquo;s doing for the good of society. Similarly, our own reality isn&rsquo;t as reliable as we&rsquo;d like to think. As a great bumper sticker once said, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t believe everything you think.&rdquo;","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Man and Cuckoo","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="The capacity to imagine the future is a powerful feature of the human mind. But, like many matters of the mind, it can also deceive us. One pattern that I&rsquo;ve noticed in myself and friends repeatedly is that the idea of success in anything is much more pleasure-inducing than the success itself. When you are thinking about a new undertaking, it&rsquo;s easy to imagine yourself at the end of the journey, having achieved everything you set out to achieve, and bask in the glories of this imaginary world. However, if you pursue the goal seriously, you&rsquo;ll soon be relieved of this romanticized vision. Most worthy goals are not easy to achieve. The road to success is treacherous and rocky, and it&rsquo;ll almost certainly take longer than you expect. That&rsquo;s when the people who initially basked in their imaginary success hit the next natural phase: disillusionment. This is where most people give up. They can no longer convince themselves that their glorified future is right around the corner. Disappointed, they will start inventing excuses about why the goal is no longer worth pursuing. A few, however, will readjust their worldview and keep going. They&rsquo;ll realize that the initial expectations were unrealistic. That they were only looking at a rosy picture of a world that does not exist. They&rsquo;ll realize that, with enough hard work, they can, indeed, achieve what they wanted to, but that perhaps they need to be more disciplined, more systematic, and more patient to get there. By the time someone is successful at any endeavour, they&rsquo;ve been dragged through the mud and arrived at the destination with their head bloody but unbowed. At that point, there is no longer a romanticized view of where they&rsquo;re at. While they may be grateful that they&rsquo;ve made it, the pleasure that they thought they&rsquo;d get out of the achievement is replaced with an attitude of &ldquo;this is mine and I&rsquo;m taking it&rdquo;. Being cognizant of this is important for two reasons - one cultural, one personal: On a cultural level, outsiders who have not walked the same path as the successful person only perceive the end result, and so often, they&rsquo;ll feel resentful. That is totally understandable. The pain, sacrifice, and hard work that goes into achieving success is always invisible but the result is not. In Australia, there was a name for this phenomena: Tall Poppy Syndrome - where people who are perceived as &ldquo;above the others&rdquo; are cut down to size. Unchecked, this can lead to a culture that punishes achievement and enforces mediocrity. On a personal level, if you allow yourself to get sucked into your daydreams of a glorious future where you have achieved your goals, you&rsquo;re probably setting yourself up for disappointment and possibly failure. You&rsquo;ll do much better to stop yourself from fantasizing about the future, and getting down to work. Know that you&rsquo;ll be doing this work for a long time. If it&rsquo;s something worth doing, that won&rsquo;t be a problem. The downside of this is that much of the motivation people have to take action toward their goals seems to come from exactly such daydreams. But as a Navy SEAL once said: if you&rsquo;re relying on motivation to achieve your goals, you&rsquo;ve already failed - motivation is transient and fickle. You need to use discipline if you want to get it done." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="The capacity to imagine the future is a powerful feature of the human mind. But, like many matters of the mind, it can also deceive us. One pattern that I&rsquo;ve noticed in myself and friends repeatedly is that the idea of success in anything is much more pleasure-inducing than the success itself. When you are thinking about a new undertaking, it&rsquo;s easy to imagine yourself at the end of the journey, having achieved everything you set out to achieve, and bask in the glories of this imaginary world. However, if you pursue the goal seriously, you&rsquo;ll soon be relieved of this romanticized vision. Most worthy goals are not easy to achieve. The road to success is treacherous and rocky, and it&rsquo;ll almost certainly take longer than you expect. That&rsquo;s when the people who initially basked in their imaginary success hit the next natural phase: disillusionment. This is where most people give up. They can no longer convince themselves that their glorified future is right around the corner. Disappointed, they will start inventing excuses about why the goal is no longer worth pursuing. A few, however, will readjust their worldview and keep going. They&rsquo;ll realize that the initial expectations were unrealistic. That they were only looking at a rosy picture of a world that does not exist. They&rsquo;ll realize that, with enough hard work, they can, indeed, achieve what they wanted to, but that perhaps they need to be more disciplined, more systematic, and more patient to get there. By the time someone is successful at any endeavour, they&rsquo;ve been dragged through the mud and arrived at the destination with their head bloody but unbowed. At that point, there is no longer a romanticized view of where they&rsquo;re at. While they may be grateful that they&rsquo;ve made it, the pleasure that they thought they&rsquo;d get out of the achievement is replaced with an attitude of &ldquo;this is mine and I&rsquo;m taking it&rdquo;. Being cognizant of this is important for two reasons - one cultural, one personal: On a cultural level, outsiders who have not walked the same path as the successful person only perceive the end result, and so often, they&rsquo;ll feel resentful. That is totally understandable. The pain, sacrifice, and hard work that goes into achieving success is always invisible but the result is not. In Australia, there was a name for this phenomena: Tall Poppy Syndrome - where people who are perceived as &ldquo;above the others&rdquo; are cut down to size. Unchecked, this can lead to a culture that punishes achievement and enforces mediocrity. On a personal level, if you allow yourself to get sucked into your daydreams of a glorious future where you have achieved your goals, you&rsquo;re probably setting yourself up for disappointment and possibly failure. You&rsquo;ll do much better to stop yourself from fantasizing about the future, and getting down to work. Know that you&rsquo;ll be doing this work for a long time. If it&rsquo;s something worth doing, that won&rsquo;t be a problem. The downside of this is that much of the motivation people have to take action toward their goals seems to come from exactly such daydreams. But as a Navy SEAL once said: if you&rsquo;re relying on motivation to achieve your goals, you&rsquo;ve already failed - motivation is transient and fickle. You need to use discipline if you want to get it done." />
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diff --git a/essays/2017/01/23/politics-ban.html b/essays/2017/01/23/politics-ban.html
index 2f115e7..c1442e2 100644
--- a/essays/2017/01/23/politics-ban.html
+++ b/essays/2017/01/23/politics-ban.html
@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="Well, we have President Trump now. This season of Who Wants to Be The American President is over. Tune in again in four years. I&rsquo;ve thoroughly enjoyed watching this season. We had a candidate, who will be remembered as the Dick Frosbury of politics. He played the game in an all new way, and nobody could compete. But while the show has been incredibly entertaining and enlightening (I mean&hellip; to think that we ever believed policies mattered in a democratic election!), I&rsquo;ve been disappointed by religiosity shown by people whose politics I traditionally agreed with. &ldquo;Progressives&rdquo; (of whom I used to count myself) have traditionally congratulated ourselves on tolerance and rationality in contrast to the &ldquo;uneducated&rdquo;, &ldquo;backward&rdquo; views of conservatives. The events of the past two years - both around the election and society at large - have shown this to be a blatantly delusional idea. Progressives are just as tribal and just as illiberal and anti-science (when it doesn&rsquo;t fit their ideology) as anyone. I now firmly believe that policies do not, and probably never have, mattered in an election. People are not capable of rational thought as often as we like to think. For the most part, we&rsquo;re running our automatic adaptations in response to the situations we find ourselves in, and we do it completely unaware of the why. The book The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt is very enlightening on this topic - more on that. As Adam Smith said, people want to be &ldquo;loved&rdquo; and they want to &ldquo;be lovely&rdquo;. What he meant by the latter was that people want to be seen by society at large to be good. In the context of politics, this is perfectly predicitive of the increasing divide we see between the left and the right. When the majority of people around you have a certain set of beliefs, you will subconsciously adjust your own beliefs to match them. This is a clearly beneficial adaptation. I want to try, futile as it may be, to escape this trap. I try to keep my identity small, so that there may be as few groups with whom I identify - and whose shared beliefs can blind me - as possible. Part of this means that I&rsquo;ll always try to look for valid points in the stance that is the opposite of whatever most people around me believe, and I&rsquo;ll always try to be more curious and interested in the reasons why my current set of beliefs is incorrect and people whose views are totally foreign to me are right. If you&rsquo;ve been following me on social media, you&rsquo;ve probably seen one or two posts that were evidence of this. (From an evolutionary point of view, this is a seriously maladaptive stance. In the company of fascists, I look like a communist and vice versa. I&rsquo;ll be first to get killed regardless of which one takes over, but my genes have made it this far, so there must be an upside&hellip;?). At the time of writing I find myself in a confused place: on the one hand, I don&rsquo;t believe political beliefs matter (in that I don&rsquo;t think people are really in control of what they think and why, and this is even more true in politics), on the other hand I still feel invested in some of my own political stances. In other words, even though I may tell you that almost all political beliefs are either evidence of or gateways to tribalism, I have not yet internalized this concept deeply enough. I feel the end game here is to fully &ldquo;graduate&rdquo; the stage where one is invested in political ideas. I&rsquo;m not quite sure what that looks like. Of course, I&rsquo;m continuing to learn more about psychology and evolution. I feel understanding of our adaptations is the best way to understand the mechanics by which we organize our societies. Just as a mechanic is impartial to how an engine works and simply cares about understanding it, I feel the same indifference is necessary for a rational understanding of politics. A rational understanding of politics will include an understanding of the nature of how people operate in the political environment and how a political system may account for this to mitigate gravitation to extremes under various circumstances. Given this, I have decided to stop discussing specific political events on social media completely at least for a month. I may still blog about things I find important (given my history with this blog, this is highly unlikely). However, I will not post or comment or otherwise engage anyone on social media regarding politics. These discussions are always anathema to the goal of disengaging from tribalist views. They are both draining and shallow. I will use the time I save to deepen my understanding in the areas discussed above, and this policy will be revisited at the end of February :) So! If you follow me on social media, from today until the end of February, 2017, if you see me post anything political and you call me out on it, I owe you $10. Be vigilant!" />
 <meta property="og:description" content="Well, we have President Trump now. This season of Who Wants to Be The American President is over. Tune in again in four years. I&rsquo;ve thoroughly enjoyed watching this season. We had a candidate, who will be remembered as the Dick Frosbury of politics. He played the game in an all new way, and nobody could compete. But while the show has been incredibly entertaining and enlightening (I mean&hellip; to think that we ever believed policies mattered in a democratic election!), I&rsquo;ve been disappointed by religiosity shown by people whose politics I traditionally agreed with. &ldquo;Progressives&rdquo; (of whom I used to count myself) have traditionally congratulated ourselves on tolerance and rationality in contrast to the &ldquo;uneducated&rdquo;, &ldquo;backward&rdquo; views of conservatives. The events of the past two years - both around the election and society at large - have shown this to be a blatantly delusional idea. Progressives are just as tribal and just as illiberal and anti-science (when it doesn&rsquo;t fit their ideology) as anyone. I now firmly believe that policies do not, and probably never have, mattered in an election. People are not capable of rational thought as often as we like to think. For the most part, we&rsquo;re running our automatic adaptations in response to the situations we find ourselves in, and we do it completely unaware of the why. The book The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt is very enlightening on this topic - more on that. As Adam Smith said, people want to be &ldquo;loved&rdquo; and they want to &ldquo;be lovely&rdquo;. What he meant by the latter was that people want to be seen by society at large to be good. In the context of politics, this is perfectly predicitive of the increasing divide we see between the left and the right. When the majority of people around you have a certain set of beliefs, you will subconsciously adjust your own beliefs to match them. This is a clearly beneficial adaptation. I want to try, futile as it may be, to escape this trap. I try to keep my identity small, so that there may be as few groups with whom I identify - and whose shared beliefs can blind me - as possible. Part of this means that I&rsquo;ll always try to look for valid points in the stance that is the opposite of whatever most people around me believe, and I&rsquo;ll always try to be more curious and interested in the reasons why my current set of beliefs is incorrect and people whose views are totally foreign to me are right. If you&rsquo;ve been following me on social media, you&rsquo;ve probably seen one or two posts that were evidence of this. (From an evolutionary point of view, this is a seriously maladaptive stance. In the company of fascists, I look like a communist and vice versa. I&rsquo;ll be first to get killed regardless of which one takes over, but my genes have made it this far, so there must be an upside&hellip;?). At the time of writing I find myself in a confused place: on the one hand, I don&rsquo;t believe political beliefs matter (in that I don&rsquo;t think people are really in control of what they think and why, and this is even more true in politics), on the other hand I still feel invested in some of my own political stances. In other words, even though I may tell you that almost all political beliefs are either evidence of or gateways to tribalism, I have not yet internalized this concept deeply enough. I feel the end game here is to fully &ldquo;graduate&rdquo; the stage where one is invested in political ideas. I&rsquo;m not quite sure what that looks like. Of course, I&rsquo;m continuing to learn more about psychology and evolution. I feel understanding of our adaptations is the best way to understand the mechanics by which we organize our societies. Just as a mechanic is impartial to how an engine works and simply cares about understanding it, I feel the same indifference is necessary for a rational understanding of politics. A rational understanding of politics will include an understanding of the nature of how people operate in the political environment and how a political system may account for this to mitigate gravitation to extremes under various circumstances. Given this, I have decided to stop discussing specific political events on social media completely at least for a month. I may still blog about things I find important (given my history with this blog, this is highly unlikely). However, I will not post or comment or otherwise engage anyone on social media regarding politics. These discussions are always anathema to the goal of disengaging from tribalist views. They are both draining and shallow. I will use the time I save to deepen my understanding in the areas discussed above, and this policy will be revisited at the end of February :) So! If you follow me on social media, from today until the end of February, 2017, if you see me post anything political and you call me out on it, I owe you $10. Be vigilant!" />
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But while the show has been incredibly entertaining and enlightening (I mean&hellip; to think that we ever believed policies mattered in a democratic election!), I&rsquo;ve been disappointed by religiosity shown by people whose politics I traditionally agreed with. &ldquo;Progressives&rdquo; (of whom I used to count myself) have traditionally congratulated ourselves on tolerance and rationality in contrast to the &ldquo;uneducated&rdquo;, &ldquo;backward&rdquo; views of conservatives. The events of the past two years - both around the election and society at large - have shown this to be a blatantly delusional idea. Progressives are just as tribal and just as illiberal and anti-science (when it doesn&rsquo;t fit their ideology) as anyone. I now firmly believe that policies do not, and probably never have, mattered in an election. People are not capable of rational thought as often as we like to think. For the most part, we&rsquo;re running our automatic adaptations in response to the situations we find ourselves in, and we do it completely unaware of the why. The book The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt is very enlightening on this topic - more on that. As Adam Smith said, people want to be &ldquo;loved&rdquo; and they want to &ldquo;be lovely&rdquo;. What he meant by the latter was that people want to be seen by society at large to be good. In the context of politics, this is perfectly predicitive of the increasing divide we see between the left and the right. When the majority of people around you have a certain set of beliefs, you will subconsciously adjust your own beliefs to match them. This is a clearly beneficial adaptation. I want to try, futile as it may be, to escape this trap. I try to keep my identity small, so that there may be as few groups with whom I identify - and whose shared beliefs can blind me - as possible. Part of this means that I&rsquo;ll always try to look for valid points in the stance that is the opposite of whatever most people around me believe, and I&rsquo;ll always try to be more curious and interested in the reasons why my current set of beliefs is incorrect and people whose views are totally foreign to me are right. If you&rsquo;ve been following me on social media, you&rsquo;ve probably seen one or two posts that were evidence of this. (From an evolutionary point of view, this is a seriously maladaptive stance. In the company of fascists, I look like a communist and vice versa. I&rsquo;ll be first to get killed regardless of which one takes over, but my genes have made it this far, so there must be an upside&hellip;?). At the time of writing I find myself in a confused place: on the one hand, I don&rsquo;t believe political beliefs matter (in that I don&rsquo;t think people are really in control of what they think and why, and this is even more true in politics), on the other hand I still feel invested in some of my own political stances. In other words, even though I may tell you that almost all political beliefs are either evidence of or gateways to tribalism, I have not yet internalized this concept deeply enough. I feel the end game here is to fully &ldquo;graduate&rdquo; the stage where one is invested in political ideas. I&rsquo;m not quite sure what that looks like. Of course, I&rsquo;m continuing to learn more about psychology and evolution. I feel understanding of our adaptations is the best way to understand the mechanics by which we organize our societies. Just as a mechanic is impartial to how an engine works and simply cares about understanding it, I feel the same indifference is necessary for a rational understanding of politics. A rational understanding of politics will include an understanding of the nature of how people operate in the political environment and how a political system may account for this to mitigate gravitation to extremes under various circumstances. Given this, I have decided to stop discussing specific political events on social media completely at least for a month. I may still blog about things I find important (given my history with this blog, this is highly unlikely). However, I will not post or comment or otherwise engage anyone on social media regarding politics. These discussions are always anathema to the goal of disengaging from tribalist views. They are both draining and shallow. I will use the time I save to deepen my understanding in the areas discussed above, and this policy will be revisited at the end of February :) So! If you follow me on social media, from today until the end of February, 2017, if you see me post anything political and you call me out on it, I owe you $10. Be vigilant!","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Politics Ban","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2017-01-23T17:08:08-08:00","datePublished":"2017-01-23T17:08:08-08:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2017/01/23/politics-ban.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2017/01/23/politics-ban.html"},"description":"Well, we have President Trump now. This season of Who Wants to Be The American President is over. Tune in again in four years. I&rsquo;ve thoroughly enjoyed watching this season. We had a candidate, who will be remembered as the Dick Frosbury of politics. He played the game in an all new way, and nobody could compete. But while the show has been incredibly entertaining and enlightening (I mean&hellip; to think that we ever believed policies mattered in a democratic election!), I&rsquo;ve been disappointed by religiosity shown by people whose politics I traditionally agreed with. &ldquo;Progressives&rdquo; (of whom I used to count myself) have traditionally congratulated ourselves on tolerance and rationality in contrast to the &ldquo;uneducated&rdquo;, &ldquo;backward&rdquo; views of conservatives. The events of the past two years - both around the election and society at large - have shown this to be a blatantly delusional idea. Progressives are just as tribal and just as illiberal and anti-science (when it doesn&rsquo;t fit their ideology) as anyone. I now firmly believe that policies do not, and probably never have, mattered in an election. People are not capable of rational thought as often as we like to think. For the most part, we&rsquo;re running our automatic adaptations in response to the situations we find ourselves in, and we do it completely unaware of the why. The book The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt is very enlightening on this topic - more on that. As Adam Smith said, people want to be &ldquo;loved&rdquo; and they want to &ldquo;be lovely&rdquo;. What he meant by the latter was that people want to be seen by society at large to be good. In the context of politics, this is perfectly predicitive of the increasing divide we see between the left and the right. When the majority of people around you have a certain set of beliefs, you will subconsciously adjust your own beliefs to match them. This is a clearly beneficial adaptation. I want to try, futile as it may be, to escape this trap. I try to keep my identity small, so that there may be as few groups with whom I identify - and whose shared beliefs can blind me - as possible. Part of this means that I&rsquo;ll always try to look for valid points in the stance that is the opposite of whatever most people around me believe, and I&rsquo;ll always try to be more curious and interested in the reasons why my current set of beliefs is incorrect and people whose views are totally foreign to me are right. If you&rsquo;ve been following me on social media, you&rsquo;ve probably seen one or two posts that were evidence of this. (From an evolutionary point of view, this is a seriously maladaptive stance. In the company of fascists, I look like a communist and vice versa. I&rsquo;ll be first to get killed regardless of which one takes over, but my genes have made it this far, so there must be an upside&hellip;?). At the time of writing I find myself in a confused place: on the one hand, I don&rsquo;t believe political beliefs matter (in that I don&rsquo;t think people are really in control of what they think and why, and this is even more true in politics), on the other hand I still feel invested in some of my own political stances. In other words, even though I may tell you that almost all political beliefs are either evidence of or gateways to tribalism, I have not yet internalized this concept deeply enough. I feel the end game here is to fully &ldquo;graduate&rdquo; the stage where one is invested in political ideas. I&rsquo;m not quite sure what that looks like. Of course, I&rsquo;m continuing to learn more about psychology and evolution. I feel understanding of our adaptations is the best way to understand the mechanics by which we organize our societies. Just as a mechanic is impartial to how an engine works and simply cares about understanding it, I feel the same indifference is necessary for a rational understanding of politics. A rational understanding of politics will include an understanding of the nature of how people operate in the political environment and how a political system may account for this to mitigate gravitation to extremes under various circumstances. Given this, I have decided to stop discussing specific political events on social media completely at least for a month. I may still blog about things I find important (given my history with this blog, this is highly unlikely). However, I will not post or comment or otherwise engage anyone on social media regarding politics. These discussions are always anathema to the goal of disengaging from tribalist views. They are both draining and shallow. I will use the time I save to deepen my understanding in the areas discussed above, and this policy will be revisited at the end of February :) So! If you follow me on social media, from today until the end of February, 2017, if you see me post anything political and you call me out on it, I owe you $10. Be vigilant!","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Politics Ban","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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diff --git a/essays/2017/01/28/the-other-ban.html b/essays/2017/01/28/the-other-ban.html
index fb36efb..73b0742 100644
--- a/essays/2017/01/28/the-other-ban.html
+++ b/essays/2017/01/28/the-other-ban.html
@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="Well. I picked a bad time for my politics ban. I did say in that post that I was more interested in the underlying mechanics of politics (meta-politics?) than in individual events themselves. Since making the abstract concrete is a great way of communicating it, I feel like a great opportunity just landed in my lap. Unless you&rsquo;ve been living in a cave for the last 24 hours, you doubtless know that President Trump has signed an executive order banning all nationals of certain countries from entering the US. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this, but at the moment, this rule appears to apply to two groups that have traditionally been exempt from rules of entry for nationals of countries with less than stellar relations with the U.S.: Dual nationals of one of the seven countries and another country (say, Iranian-Canadians), Green-card holders Those with valid visas This is to say nothing of the blanket ban on taking in Syrian refugees and the ethical issues around that. I won&rsquo;t be the first to tell you that this ban is absolutely absurd, but as usual, many people I find on social media who are making the same statement are doing so for reasons I fundamentally disagree with. Since I&rsquo;m not allowed to talk about politics on social media, I&rsquo;m writing this post to break down what I see as the most detrimental aspect of this policy: erosion of trust. I need to state this clearly upfront: to me, the only criteria for evaluating whether or not a particular piece of American policy is &ldquo;good&rdquo; is to gauge whether it is good for America - the same holds for any country of course. I don&rsquo;t think people who are not in the U.S. have any right to be considered by American statesmen in policy making. I also see countries allowing foreign nationals in their territories as a privelege for said foreign nationals, not a right. (Even though, yes, this policy may adversely affect me, the principle doesn&rsquo;t change). Applying a ban like this to green card holders or to those who hold valid work or student visas is unmistakably bad for America. At the most basic level, a government has two jobs: prevent violence ensure contracts are honoured Fail the first, and you&rsquo;ll be the Phillipines. In this case, the U.S. government has failed the second by neglecting their side of a bargain. The rules that they themselves have established for green card holders and those with valid visas are suddenly being applied differently to different people. If reports are true, border agents are making a &ldquo;case-by-case&rdquo; judgement on which people with valid green cards and visas can get in and which can&rsquo;t. Western countries are where they are today because they can run effective institutions at the national scale while maintaining a high trust in said institutions. Trust is a core component in creation of prosperous societies, and Trump&rsquo;s executive order is a direct assault on the trust in the U.S. government. This policy will now call into question all kinds of bargains that the U.S. government has agreed to uphold. You can&rsquo;t have a society in which the rule of law is applied differently according to the mood of a border patrol officer. As anyone from any of these banned nations will tell you, on a long enough timeline, the end result of such a policy is that the officers&#39; mood will be directly proportional to the amount of &lsquo;favours&rsquo; they receive. At that point, the entire point of having these institutions is negated. To use a software engineering analogy: often people will write software components that many programmers will reuse in their own projects. The components (called &ldquo;libraries&rdquo; or &ldquo;frameworks&rdquo;) that become popular are those where the community trusts the maintainers to do a good job (usually). The best maintainers of software (private or open source) are extremely careful about the changes they make to the public interface of their code because they know people are depending on it. They announce breaking changes far in advance and provide easy upgrade paths. This reliability and predictability is the only way the software ecosystems survive. Governments usually operate by a similar metric - making sure to account for all types of people who may be affected by a new policy and adding appropriate provisions. This executive order doesn&rsquo;t do that. To continue the software analogy, the administration wrote a policy and pushed it straight to production with no test or review. So even if there was irrefutable evidence that banning nationals of these seven countries is a net benefit to U.S. national security, making this change in a way that leaves upwards of 500,000 individuals in limbo is extremely bad governance. One can only imagine that the motives would be to either continue surprising the media and the opposition and stay one step ahead, a Trumpian negotiating technique whereby he starts at an extreme so that what he really wants seems more palatable later, or just pure incompetence. As outrageous as the individual things that Trump says or does may be, I&rsquo;ve always said that his biggest damage will be to American institutions. His candidacy demolished long-established norms of conduct for politicians. Now his policies - if they continue this way - may be slowly eroding away the very foundation of American institutions and the public trust in them. Final Note I&rsquo;d be remiss if I didn&rsquo;t scream this one last factoid from the rooftops, since nobody is talking about it. Many people have noted that this ban by the Trump Administration makes little sense, because it targets countries that have had no links to past terrorist attacks while nations that are well-known sponsors of terror (e.g. Saudi Barbaria) are exempt. What you may not know, because your wonderfully incompetent media won&rsquo;t mention it (instead talking about irrelevant but more infuriating things such as Trump&rsquo;s business interests), is that Trump&rsquo;s executive order did not name the seven countries that are banned. It merely referred to countries that had previously been targetted by the executive orders and DHS policies under Obama. Remember all the outrage about racism those policies garnered under Obama? Me neither. So as always, if you&rsquo;re an American and decide this is unacceptable, I suggest you stop taking seriously sensationalist journalists who are slowly shedding all pretense of neutrality and devise a real strategy of opposition." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="Well. I picked a bad time for my politics ban. I did say in that post that I was more interested in the underlying mechanics of politics (meta-politics?) than in individual events themselves. Since making the abstract concrete is a great way of communicating it, I feel like a great opportunity just landed in my lap. Unless you&rsquo;ve been living in a cave for the last 24 hours, you doubtless know that President Trump has signed an executive order banning all nationals of certain countries from entering the US. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this, but at the moment, this rule appears to apply to two groups that have traditionally been exempt from rules of entry for nationals of countries with less than stellar relations with the U.S.: Dual nationals of one of the seven countries and another country (say, Iranian-Canadians), Green-card holders Those with valid visas This is to say nothing of the blanket ban on taking in Syrian refugees and the ethical issues around that. I won&rsquo;t be the first to tell you that this ban is absolutely absurd, but as usual, many people I find on social media who are making the same statement are doing so for reasons I fundamentally disagree with. Since I&rsquo;m not allowed to talk about politics on social media, I&rsquo;m writing this post to break down what I see as the most detrimental aspect of this policy: erosion of trust. I need to state this clearly upfront: to me, the only criteria for evaluating whether or not a particular piece of American policy is &ldquo;good&rdquo; is to gauge whether it is good for America - the same holds for any country of course. I don&rsquo;t think people who are not in the U.S. have any right to be considered by American statesmen in policy making. I also see countries allowing foreign nationals in their territories as a privelege for said foreign nationals, not a right. (Even though, yes, this policy may adversely affect me, the principle doesn&rsquo;t change). Applying a ban like this to green card holders or to those who hold valid work or student visas is unmistakably bad for America. At the most basic level, a government has two jobs: prevent violence ensure contracts are honoured Fail the first, and you&rsquo;ll be the Phillipines. In this case, the U.S. government has failed the second by neglecting their side of a bargain. The rules that they themselves have established for green card holders and those with valid visas are suddenly being applied differently to different people. If reports are true, border agents are making a &ldquo;case-by-case&rdquo; judgement on which people with valid green cards and visas can get in and which can&rsquo;t. Western countries are where they are today because they can run effective institutions at the national scale while maintaining a high trust in said institutions. Trust is a core component in creation of prosperous societies, and Trump&rsquo;s executive order is a direct assault on the trust in the U.S. government. This policy will now call into question all kinds of bargains that the U.S. government has agreed to uphold. You can&rsquo;t have a society in which the rule of law is applied differently according to the mood of a border patrol officer. As anyone from any of these banned nations will tell you, on a long enough timeline, the end result of such a policy is that the officers&#39; mood will be directly proportional to the amount of &lsquo;favours&rsquo; they receive. At that point, the entire point of having these institutions is negated. To use a software engineering analogy: often people will write software components that many programmers will reuse in their own projects. The components (called &ldquo;libraries&rdquo; or &ldquo;frameworks&rdquo;) that become popular are those where the community trusts the maintainers to do a good job (usually). The best maintainers of software (private or open source) are extremely careful about the changes they make to the public interface of their code because they know people are depending on it. They announce breaking changes far in advance and provide easy upgrade paths. This reliability and predictability is the only way the software ecosystems survive. Governments usually operate by a similar metric - making sure to account for all types of people who may be affected by a new policy and adding appropriate provisions. This executive order doesn&rsquo;t do that. To continue the software analogy, the administration wrote a policy and pushed it straight to production with no test or review. So even if there was irrefutable evidence that banning nationals of these seven countries is a net benefit to U.S. national security, making this change in a way that leaves upwards of 500,000 individuals in limbo is extremely bad governance. One can only imagine that the motives would be to either continue surprising the media and the opposition and stay one step ahead, a Trumpian negotiating technique whereby he starts at an extreme so that what he really wants seems more palatable later, or just pure incompetence. As outrageous as the individual things that Trump says or does may be, I&rsquo;ve always said that his biggest damage will be to American institutions. His candidacy demolished long-established norms of conduct for politicians. Now his policies - if they continue this way - may be slowly eroding away the very foundation of American institutions and the public trust in them. Final Note I&rsquo;d be remiss if I didn&rsquo;t scream this one last factoid from the rooftops, since nobody is talking about it. Many people have noted that this ban by the Trump Administration makes little sense, because it targets countries that have had no links to past terrorist attacks while nations that are well-known sponsors of terror (e.g. Saudi Barbaria) are exempt. What you may not know, because your wonderfully incompetent media won&rsquo;t mention it (instead talking about irrelevant but more infuriating things such as Trump&rsquo;s business interests), is that Trump&rsquo;s executive order did not name the seven countries that are banned. It merely referred to countries that had previously been targetted by the executive orders and DHS policies under Obama. Remember all the outrage about racism those policies garnered under Obama? Me neither. So as always, if you&rsquo;re an American and decide this is unacceptable, I suggest you stop taking seriously sensationalist journalists who are slowly shedding all pretense of neutrality and devise a real strategy of opposition." />
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-<meta property="og:url" content="http://localhost:4000/essays/2017/01/28/the-other-ban.html" />
+<link rel="canonical" href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2017/01/28/the-other-ban.html" />
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 <meta property="og:site_name" content="Making the map match the territory" />
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-{"dateModified":"2017-01-28T17:17:38-08:00","datePublished":"2017-01-28T17:17:38-08:00","url":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2017/01/28/the-other-ban.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2017/01/28/the-other-ban.html"},"description":"Well. I picked a bad time for my politics ban. I did say in that post that I was more interested in the underlying mechanics of politics (meta-politics?) than in individual events themselves. Since making the abstract concrete is a great way of communicating it, I feel like a great opportunity just landed in my lap. Unless you&rsquo;ve been living in a cave for the last 24 hours, you doubtless know that President Trump has signed an executive order banning all nationals of certain countries from entering the US. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this, but at the moment, this rule appears to apply to two groups that have traditionally been exempt from rules of entry for nationals of countries with less than stellar relations with the U.S.: Dual nationals of one of the seven countries and another country (say, Iranian-Canadians), Green-card holders Those with valid visas This is to say nothing of the blanket ban on taking in Syrian refugees and the ethical issues around that. I won&rsquo;t be the first to tell you that this ban is absolutely absurd, but as usual, many people I find on social media who are making the same statement are doing so for reasons I fundamentally disagree with. Since I&rsquo;m not allowed to talk about politics on social media, I&rsquo;m writing this post to break down what I see as the most detrimental aspect of this policy: erosion of trust. I need to state this clearly upfront: to me, the only criteria for evaluating whether or not a particular piece of American policy is &ldquo;good&rdquo; is to gauge whether it is good for America - the same holds for any country of course. I don&rsquo;t think people who are not in the U.S. have any right to be considered by American statesmen in policy making. I also see countries allowing foreign nationals in their territories as a privelege for said foreign nationals, not a right. (Even though, yes, this policy may adversely affect me, the principle doesn&rsquo;t change). Applying a ban like this to green card holders or to those who hold valid work or student visas is unmistakably bad for America. At the most basic level, a government has two jobs: prevent violence ensure contracts are honoured Fail the first, and you&rsquo;ll be the Phillipines. In this case, the U.S. government has failed the second by neglecting their side of a bargain. The rules that they themselves have established for green card holders and those with valid visas are suddenly being applied differently to different people. If reports are true, border agents are making a &ldquo;case-by-case&rdquo; judgement on which people with valid green cards and visas can get in and which can&rsquo;t. Western countries are where they are today because they can run effective institutions at the national scale while maintaining a high trust in said institutions. Trust is a core component in creation of prosperous societies, and Trump&rsquo;s executive order is a direct assault on the trust in the U.S. government. This policy will now call into question all kinds of bargains that the U.S. government has agreed to uphold. You can&rsquo;t have a society in which the rule of law is applied differently according to the mood of a border patrol officer. As anyone from any of these banned nations will tell you, on a long enough timeline, the end result of such a policy is that the officers&#39; mood will be directly proportional to the amount of &lsquo;favours&rsquo; they receive. At that point, the entire point of having these institutions is negated. To use a software engineering analogy: often people will write software components that many programmers will reuse in their own projects. The components (called &ldquo;libraries&rdquo; or &ldquo;frameworks&rdquo;) that become popular are those where the community trusts the maintainers to do a good job (usually). The best maintainers of software (private or open source) are extremely careful about the changes they make to the public interface of their code because they know people are depending on it. They announce breaking changes far in advance and provide easy upgrade paths. This reliability and predictability is the only way the software ecosystems survive. Governments usually operate by a similar metric - making sure to account for all types of people who may be affected by a new policy and adding appropriate provisions. This executive order doesn&rsquo;t do that. To continue the software analogy, the administration wrote a policy and pushed it straight to production with no test or review. So even if there was irrefutable evidence that banning nationals of these seven countries is a net benefit to U.S. national security, making this change in a way that leaves upwards of 500,000 individuals in limbo is extremely bad governance. One can only imagine that the motives would be to either continue surprising the media and the opposition and stay one step ahead, a Trumpian negotiating technique whereby he starts at an extreme so that what he really wants seems more palatable later, or just pure incompetence. As outrageous as the individual things that Trump says or does may be, I&rsquo;ve always said that his biggest damage will be to American institutions. His candidacy demolished long-established norms of conduct for politicians. Now his policies - if they continue this way - may be slowly eroding away the very foundation of American institutions and the public trust in them. Final Note I&rsquo;d be remiss if I didn&rsquo;t scream this one last factoid from the rooftops, since nobody is talking about it. Many people have noted that this ban by the Trump Administration makes little sense, because it targets countries that have had no links to past terrorist attacks while nations that are well-known sponsors of terror (e.g. Saudi Barbaria) are exempt. What you may not know, because your wonderfully incompetent media won&rsquo;t mention it (instead talking about irrelevant but more infuriating things such as Trump&rsquo;s business interests), is that Trump&rsquo;s executive order did not name the seven countries that are banned. It merely referred to countries that had previously been targetted by the executive orders and DHS policies under Obama. Remember all the outrage about racism those policies garnered under Obama? Me neither. So as always, if you&rsquo;re an American and decide this is unacceptable, I suggest you stop taking seriously sensationalist journalists who are slowly shedding all pretense of neutrality and devise a real strategy of opposition.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"The Other Ban","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2017-01-28T17:17:38-08:00","datePublished":"2017-01-28T17:17:38-08:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2017/01/28/the-other-ban.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2017/01/28/the-other-ban.html"},"description":"Well. I picked a bad time for my politics ban. I did say in that post that I was more interested in the underlying mechanics of politics (meta-politics?) than in individual events themselves. Since making the abstract concrete is a great way of communicating it, I feel like a great opportunity just landed in my lap. Unless you&rsquo;ve been living in a cave for the last 24 hours, you doubtless know that President Trump has signed an executive order banning all nationals of certain countries from entering the US. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this, but at the moment, this rule appears to apply to two groups that have traditionally been exempt from rules of entry for nationals of countries with less than stellar relations with the U.S.: Dual nationals of one of the seven countries and another country (say, Iranian-Canadians), Green-card holders Those with valid visas This is to say nothing of the blanket ban on taking in Syrian refugees and the ethical issues around that. I won&rsquo;t be the first to tell you that this ban is absolutely absurd, but as usual, many people I find on social media who are making the same statement are doing so for reasons I fundamentally disagree with. Since I&rsquo;m not allowed to talk about politics on social media, I&rsquo;m writing this post to break down what I see as the most detrimental aspect of this policy: erosion of trust. I need to state this clearly upfront: to me, the only criteria for evaluating whether or not a particular piece of American policy is &ldquo;good&rdquo; is to gauge whether it is good for America - the same holds for any country of course. I don&rsquo;t think people who are not in the U.S. have any right to be considered by American statesmen in policy making. I also see countries allowing foreign nationals in their territories as a privelege for said foreign nationals, not a right. (Even though, yes, this policy may adversely affect me, the principle doesn&rsquo;t change). Applying a ban like this to green card holders or to those who hold valid work or student visas is unmistakably bad for America. At the most basic level, a government has two jobs: prevent violence ensure contracts are honoured Fail the first, and you&rsquo;ll be the Phillipines. In this case, the U.S. government has failed the second by neglecting their side of a bargain. The rules that they themselves have established for green card holders and those with valid visas are suddenly being applied differently to different people. If reports are true, border agents are making a &ldquo;case-by-case&rdquo; judgement on which people with valid green cards and visas can get in and which can&rsquo;t. Western countries are where they are today because they can run effective institutions at the national scale while maintaining a high trust in said institutions. Trust is a core component in creation of prosperous societies, and Trump&rsquo;s executive order is a direct assault on the trust in the U.S. government. This policy will now call into question all kinds of bargains that the U.S. government has agreed to uphold. You can&rsquo;t have a society in which the rule of law is applied differently according to the mood of a border patrol officer. As anyone from any of these banned nations will tell you, on a long enough timeline, the end result of such a policy is that the officers&#39; mood will be directly proportional to the amount of &lsquo;favours&rsquo; they receive. At that point, the entire point of having these institutions is negated. To use a software engineering analogy: often people will write software components that many programmers will reuse in their own projects. The components (called &ldquo;libraries&rdquo; or &ldquo;frameworks&rdquo;) that become popular are those where the community trusts the maintainers to do a good job (usually). The best maintainers of software (private or open source) are extremely careful about the changes they make to the public interface of their code because they know people are depending on it. They announce breaking changes far in advance and provide easy upgrade paths. This reliability and predictability is the only way the software ecosystems survive. Governments usually operate by a similar metric - making sure to account for all types of people who may be affected by a new policy and adding appropriate provisions. This executive order doesn&rsquo;t do that. To continue the software analogy, the administration wrote a policy and pushed it straight to production with no test or review. So even if there was irrefutable evidence that banning nationals of these seven countries is a net benefit to U.S. national security, making this change in a way that leaves upwards of 500,000 individuals in limbo is extremely bad governance. One can only imagine that the motives would be to either continue surprising the media and the opposition and stay one step ahead, a Trumpian negotiating technique whereby he starts at an extreme so that what he really wants seems more palatable later, or just pure incompetence. As outrageous as the individual things that Trump says or does may be, I&rsquo;ve always said that his biggest damage will be to American institutions. His candidacy demolished long-established norms of conduct for politicians. Now his policies - if they continue this way - may be slowly eroding away the very foundation of American institutions and the public trust in them. Final Note I&rsquo;d be remiss if I didn&rsquo;t scream this one last factoid from the rooftops, since nobody is talking about it. Many people have noted that this ban by the Trump Administration makes little sense, because it targets countries that have had no links to past terrorist attacks while nations that are well-known sponsors of terror (e.g. Saudi Barbaria) are exempt. What you may not know, because your wonderfully incompetent media won&rsquo;t mention it (instead talking about irrelevant but more infuriating things such as Trump&rsquo;s business interests), is that Trump&rsquo;s executive order did not name the seven countries that are banned. It merely referred to countries that had previously been targetted by the executive orders and DHS policies under Obama. Remember all the outrage about racism those policies garnered under Obama? Me neither. So as always, if you&rsquo;re an American and decide this is unacceptable, I suggest you stop taking seriously sensationalist journalists who are slowly shedding all pretense of neutrality and devise a real strategy of opposition.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"The Other Ban","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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--- a/essays/2017/06/10/the-may-of-my-life.html
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 <meta name="description" content="You Spent Your Vacation Doing What!? I&rsquo;m back in Vancouver after a month-long trip with my friend, Michael, and I&rsquo;ve been answering a lot of questions about what I did during a whole month in Spain and Portugal. I know that my answers will sound underwhelming to some people when they realize that I went to very few tourist attractions and spent much of my time working in the apartment, and having long walks and discussions with Michael. I had been looking forward to this trip for a long time. It had been several months where I felt like I was stagnating, and an extended stay in a new environment sounded like an excellent way to get yanked out of my normal routine and take time to reflect. In order to get a grip on where we were in our lives, and how we should make important decisions going forward, Michael and I decided to follow the process outlined by Alex Vermeer in his guide, 8760 Hours, on planning the next year of one&rsquo;s life. Going through this exercise was a several days long process. I&rsquo;ll outline the gist here and the interested reader can download the guide from Alex&rsquo;s site. The first step is to divide your life into its core areas. Previously, I always assessed my life in terms of health, wealth, and relationships. That&rsquo;s not bad, but it&rsquo;s so primitive compared to Alex&rsquo;s method. He uses the following categories: Values and purpose Contribution and impact Career and work Money and finances Location and tangibles Health and fitness Emotions and well being Character and identity Education and skill development Social life and relationships Productivity and organization Adventure and creativity As you can see, this categorization paints a much more complete picture of the current state of affairs than my previous system. For each of these areas, we go through the following steps: Establish where things stand right now. Answer questions like: Where did I try hard over the last year? Where did I not try hard enough over the last year? What went well? What did not go well? How would I rate this area of my life? What one project, if completed successfully, would make the biggest improvement? Establish where things would be in your ideal world. Answer questions like: What have I always wanted to do here? What would this look like if it was perfect? If I were to die in a year, what would I do? Once you&rsquo;ve completed this for each of the twelve areas — which took me several days — you&rsquo;re ready to plan the next year. I did not do a yearly plan. I felt like 6 months was more appropriate to take this new process for a test drive. For each of the areas, I wrote down the smallest possible thing that I could do that would have the biggest impact (following the Pareto principle). When I was done, I looked over all the projects and picked a few that I think I could do by the end of the year. The final step was making sure we have a system that&rsquo;d keep our feet to the fire, and make sure we stick to the plan and actually complete our projects. To do this, Michael and I broke our projects into several smaller goals for each month and each quarter that was ahead of us. Each month, we will get together (virtually) and discuss our progress with each project. This should go a long way in keeping us accountable. Now, it&rsquo;s time to execute on the plan, and I&rsquo;m sure my life will be in a better place when i complete the projects I&rsquo;ve planned. However, this exercise has already been immensely valuable. Firstly, capturing a snapshot of my life across these twelve areas has given me a much clearer picture of where I&rsquo;m really struggling and where I&rsquo;m doing well. You might think this is something you&rsquo;d have an intuitive understanding for. It is your life, after all. But what I found was that I have tendencies to focus on some areas and neglect others, and that my rationalization in doing so was unjustified. For example, I&rsquo;m unduly obsessed with my work, career, finances, and my long term hobbies (like aikido), and these areas have never been better (because I focus on them so much). But I&rsquo;m not concerned enough about health and fitness or my social life. I justify this by telling myself I need to focus on work (for various reasons), but answering some of the above questions about my future goals made it clear that there&rsquo;s never been a better time to shift focus away from my usual defaults. Secondly, determining where I want each of these twelve areas to be in an ideal world, and writing it down, has given me a greater feeling of control over where my life is heading and clearer metrics on how to measure progress. The large amount of effort that I put into building the thorough mind maps that this exercise required will pay off over time. Anytime I think of a change I might want to make in my life, I can simply add it to these mind maps as an item in the backlog of things to be considered during my next major planning session. Finally, assessing the state of some areas, like values &amp; purpose or contribution &amp; impact, was excruciatingly difficult. We&rsquo;re not used to thinking about our core values in a way that can be written down concisely. Nor do we pay enough attention to whether our existence has any meaningful impact. For these areas, I must say I basically did not know myself at all. I still don&rsquo;t, but now I&rsquo;m paying more attention. I wrote down my values by analyzing my past behaviour in various situations and asking &ldquo;what values would produce this behaviour?&rdquo;. The next step is to reason about whether having these values even makes sense or what other values should be on the list. To think clearly about anything, it always helps to make the implicit explicit, and this exercise helped me do that in certain aspects of my life that I had never given thought to before. This planning process is nothing new. Product development follows a similar process. Similarly, business coaches follow a similar workflow to help ensure their clients achieve their business goals. But it&rsquo;s not very common to apply this kind of framework to one&rsquo;s personal life. And that&rsquo;s a shame, I think. Exercises like these are things we should have been taught in school. At least for some personality types, they are critical to to having any meaningful achievement. If that sounds like you, give Alex&rsquo;s guide a try." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="You Spent Your Vacation Doing What!? I&rsquo;m back in Vancouver after a month-long trip with my friend, Michael, and I&rsquo;ve been answering a lot of questions about what I did during a whole month in Spain and Portugal. I know that my answers will sound underwhelming to some people when they realize that I went to very few tourist attractions and spent much of my time working in the apartment, and having long walks and discussions with Michael. I had been looking forward to this trip for a long time. It had been several months where I felt like I was stagnating, and an extended stay in a new environment sounded like an excellent way to get yanked out of my normal routine and take time to reflect. In order to get a grip on where we were in our lives, and how we should make important decisions going forward, Michael and I decided to follow the process outlined by Alex Vermeer in his guide, 8760 Hours, on planning the next year of one&rsquo;s life. Going through this exercise was a several days long process. I&rsquo;ll outline the gist here and the interested reader can download the guide from Alex&rsquo;s site. The first step is to divide your life into its core areas. Previously, I always assessed my life in terms of health, wealth, and relationships. That&rsquo;s not bad, but it&rsquo;s so primitive compared to Alex&rsquo;s method. He uses the following categories: Values and purpose Contribution and impact Career and work Money and finances Location and tangibles Health and fitness Emotions and well being Character and identity Education and skill development Social life and relationships Productivity and organization Adventure and creativity As you can see, this categorization paints a much more complete picture of the current state of affairs than my previous system. For each of these areas, we go through the following steps: Establish where things stand right now. Answer questions like: Where did I try hard over the last year? Where did I not try hard enough over the last year? What went well? What did not go well? How would I rate this area of my life? What one project, if completed successfully, would make the biggest improvement? Establish where things would be in your ideal world. Answer questions like: What have I always wanted to do here? What would this look like if it was perfect? If I were to die in a year, what would I do? Once you&rsquo;ve completed this for each of the twelve areas — which took me several days — you&rsquo;re ready to plan the next year. I did not do a yearly plan. I felt like 6 months was more appropriate to take this new process for a test drive. For each of the areas, I wrote down the smallest possible thing that I could do that would have the biggest impact (following the Pareto principle). When I was done, I looked over all the projects and picked a few that I think I could do by the end of the year. The final step was making sure we have a system that&rsquo;d keep our feet to the fire, and make sure we stick to the plan and actually complete our projects. To do this, Michael and I broke our projects into several smaller goals for each month and each quarter that was ahead of us. Each month, we will get together (virtually) and discuss our progress with each project. This should go a long way in keeping us accountable. Now, it&rsquo;s time to execute on the plan, and I&rsquo;m sure my life will be in a better place when i complete the projects I&rsquo;ve planned. However, this exercise has already been immensely valuable. Firstly, capturing a snapshot of my life across these twelve areas has given me a much clearer picture of where I&rsquo;m really struggling and where I&rsquo;m doing well. You might think this is something you&rsquo;d have an intuitive understanding for. It is your life, after all. But what I found was that I have tendencies to focus on some areas and neglect others, and that my rationalization in doing so was unjustified. For example, I&rsquo;m unduly obsessed with my work, career, finances, and my long term hobbies (like aikido), and these areas have never been better (because I focus on them so much). But I&rsquo;m not concerned enough about health and fitness or my social life. I justify this by telling myself I need to focus on work (for various reasons), but answering some of the above questions about my future goals made it clear that there&rsquo;s never been a better time to shift focus away from my usual defaults. Secondly, determining where I want each of these twelve areas to be in an ideal world, and writing it down, has given me a greater feeling of control over where my life is heading and clearer metrics on how to measure progress. The large amount of effort that I put into building the thorough mind maps that this exercise required will pay off over time. Anytime I think of a change I might want to make in my life, I can simply add it to these mind maps as an item in the backlog of things to be considered during my next major planning session. Finally, assessing the state of some areas, like values &amp; purpose or contribution &amp; impact, was excruciatingly difficult. We&rsquo;re not used to thinking about our core values in a way that can be written down concisely. Nor do we pay enough attention to whether our existence has any meaningful impact. For these areas, I must say I basically did not know myself at all. I still don&rsquo;t, but now I&rsquo;m paying more attention. I wrote down my values by analyzing my past behaviour in various situations and asking &ldquo;what values would produce this behaviour?&rdquo;. The next step is to reason about whether having these values even makes sense or what other values should be on the list. To think clearly about anything, it always helps to make the implicit explicit, and this exercise helped me do that in certain aspects of my life that I had never given thought to before. This planning process is nothing new. Product development follows a similar process. Similarly, business coaches follow a similar workflow to help ensure their clients achieve their business goals. But it&rsquo;s not very common to apply this kind of framework to one&rsquo;s personal life. And that&rsquo;s a shame, I think. Exercises like these are things we should have been taught in school. At least for some personality types, they are critical to to having any meaningful achievement. If that sounds like you, give Alex&rsquo;s guide a try." />
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In order to get a grip on where we were in our lives, and how we should make important decisions going forward, Michael and I decided to follow the process outlined by Alex Vermeer in his guide, 8760 Hours, on planning the next year of one&rsquo;s life. Going through this exercise was a several days long process. I&rsquo;ll outline the gist here and the interested reader can download the guide from Alex&rsquo;s site. The first step is to divide your life into its core areas. Previously, I always assessed my life in terms of health, wealth, and relationships. That&rsquo;s not bad, but it&rsquo;s so primitive compared to Alex&rsquo;s method. He uses the following categories: Values and purpose Contribution and impact Career and work Money and finances Location and tangibles Health and fitness Emotions and well being Character and identity Education and skill development Social life and relationships Productivity and organization Adventure and creativity As you can see, this categorization paints a much more complete picture of the current state of affairs than my previous system. For each of these areas, we go through the following steps: Establish where things stand right now. Answer questions like: Where did I try hard over the last year? Where did I not try hard enough over the last year? What went well? What did not go well? How would I rate this area of my life? What one project, if completed successfully, would make the biggest improvement? Establish where things would be in your ideal world. Answer questions like: What have I always wanted to do here? What would this look like if it was perfect? If I were to die in a year, what would I do? Once you&rsquo;ve completed this for each of the twelve areas — which took me several days — you&rsquo;re ready to plan the next year. I did not do a yearly plan. I felt like 6 months was more appropriate to take this new process for a test drive. For each of the areas, I wrote down the smallest possible thing that I could do that would have the biggest impact (following the Pareto principle). When I was done, I looked over all the projects and picked a few that I think I could do by the end of the year. The final step was making sure we have a system that&rsquo;d keep our feet to the fire, and make sure we stick to the plan and actually complete our projects. To do this, Michael and I broke our projects into several smaller goals for each month and each quarter that was ahead of us. Each month, we will get together (virtually) and discuss our progress with each project. This should go a long way in keeping us accountable. Now, it&rsquo;s time to execute on the plan, and I&rsquo;m sure my life will be in a better place when i complete the projects I&rsquo;ve planned. However, this exercise has already been immensely valuable. Firstly, capturing a snapshot of my life across these twelve areas has given me a much clearer picture of where I&rsquo;m really struggling and where I&rsquo;m doing well. You might think this is something you&rsquo;d have an intuitive understanding for. It is your life, after all. But what I found was that I have tendencies to focus on some areas and neglect others, and that my rationalization in doing so was unjustified. For example, I&rsquo;m unduly obsessed with my work, career, finances, and my long term hobbies (like aikido), and these areas have never been better (because I focus on them so much). But I&rsquo;m not concerned enough about health and fitness or my social life. I justify this by telling myself I need to focus on work (for various reasons), but answering some of the above questions about my future goals made it clear that there&rsquo;s never been a better time to shift focus away from my usual defaults. Secondly, determining where I want each of these twelve areas to be in an ideal world, and writing it down, has given me a greater feeling of control over where my life is heading and clearer metrics on how to measure progress. The large amount of effort that I put into building the thorough mind maps that this exercise required will pay off over time. Anytime I think of a change I might want to make in my life, I can simply add it to these mind maps as an item in the backlog of things to be considered during my next major planning session. Finally, assessing the state of some areas, like values &amp; purpose or contribution &amp; impact, was excruciatingly difficult. We&rsquo;re not used to thinking about our core values in a way that can be written down concisely. Nor do we pay enough attention to whether our existence has any meaningful impact. For these areas, I must say I basically did not know myself at all. I still don&rsquo;t, but now I&rsquo;m paying more attention. I wrote down my values by analyzing my past behaviour in various situations and asking &ldquo;what values would produce this behaviour?&rdquo;. The next step is to reason about whether having these values even makes sense or what other values should be on the list. To think clearly about anything, it always helps to make the implicit explicit, and this exercise helped me do that in certain aspects of my life that I had never given thought to before. This planning process is nothing new. Product development follows a similar process. Similarly, business coaches follow a similar workflow to help ensure their clients achieve their business goals. But it&rsquo;s not very common to apply this kind of framework to one&rsquo;s personal life. And that&rsquo;s a shame, I think. Exercises like these are things we should have been taught in school. At least for some personality types, they are critical to to having any meaningful achievement. If that sounds like you, give Alex&rsquo;s guide a try.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"The May of My Life","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2017-06-10T19:34:11-07:00","datePublished":"2017-06-10T19:34:11-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2017/06/10/the-may-of-my-life.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2017/06/10/the-may-of-my-life.html"},"description":"You Spent Your Vacation Doing What!? I&rsquo;m back in Vancouver after a month-long trip with my friend, Michael, and I&rsquo;ve been answering a lot of questions about what I did during a whole month in Spain and Portugal. I know that my answers will sound underwhelming to some people when they realize that I went to very few tourist attractions and spent much of my time working in the apartment, and having long walks and discussions with Michael. I had been looking forward to this trip for a long time. It had been several months where I felt like I was stagnating, and an extended stay in a new environment sounded like an excellent way to get yanked out of my normal routine and take time to reflect. In order to get a grip on where we were in our lives, and how we should make important decisions going forward, Michael and I decided to follow the process outlined by Alex Vermeer in his guide, 8760 Hours, on planning the next year of one&rsquo;s life. Going through this exercise was a several days long process. I&rsquo;ll outline the gist here and the interested reader can download the guide from Alex&rsquo;s site. The first step is to divide your life into its core areas. Previously, I always assessed my life in terms of health, wealth, and relationships. That&rsquo;s not bad, but it&rsquo;s so primitive compared to Alex&rsquo;s method. He uses the following categories: Values and purpose Contribution and impact Career and work Money and finances Location and tangibles Health and fitness Emotions and well being Character and identity Education and skill development Social life and relationships Productivity and organization Adventure and creativity As you can see, this categorization paints a much more complete picture of the current state of affairs than my previous system. For each of these areas, we go through the following steps: Establish where things stand right now. Answer questions like: Where did I try hard over the last year? Where did I not try hard enough over the last year? What went well? What did not go well? How would I rate this area of my life? What one project, if completed successfully, would make the biggest improvement? Establish where things would be in your ideal world. Answer questions like: What have I always wanted to do here? What would this look like if it was perfect? If I were to die in a year, what would I do? Once you&rsquo;ve completed this for each of the twelve areas — which took me several days — you&rsquo;re ready to plan the next year. I did not do a yearly plan. I felt like 6 months was more appropriate to take this new process for a test drive. For each of the areas, I wrote down the smallest possible thing that I could do that would have the biggest impact (following the Pareto principle). When I was done, I looked over all the projects and picked a few that I think I could do by the end of the year. The final step was making sure we have a system that&rsquo;d keep our feet to the fire, and make sure we stick to the plan and actually complete our projects. To do this, Michael and I broke our projects into several smaller goals for each month and each quarter that was ahead of us. Each month, we will get together (virtually) and discuss our progress with each project. This should go a long way in keeping us accountable. Now, it&rsquo;s time to execute on the plan, and I&rsquo;m sure my life will be in a better place when i complete the projects I&rsquo;ve planned. However, this exercise has already been immensely valuable. Firstly, capturing a snapshot of my life across these twelve areas has given me a much clearer picture of where I&rsquo;m really struggling and where I&rsquo;m doing well. You might think this is something you&rsquo;d have an intuitive understanding for. It is your life, after all. But what I found was that I have tendencies to focus on some areas and neglect others, and that my rationalization in doing so was unjustified. For example, I&rsquo;m unduly obsessed with my work, career, finances, and my long term hobbies (like aikido), and these areas have never been better (because I focus on them so much). But I&rsquo;m not concerned enough about health and fitness or my social life. I justify this by telling myself I need to focus on work (for various reasons), but answering some of the above questions about my future goals made it clear that there&rsquo;s never been a better time to shift focus away from my usual defaults. Secondly, determining where I want each of these twelve areas to be in an ideal world, and writing it down, has given me a greater feeling of control over where my life is heading and clearer metrics on how to measure progress. The large amount of effort that I put into building the thorough mind maps that this exercise required will pay off over time. Anytime I think of a change I might want to make in my life, I can simply add it to these mind maps as an item in the backlog of things to be considered during my next major planning session. Finally, assessing the state of some areas, like values &amp; purpose or contribution &amp; impact, was excruciatingly difficult. We&rsquo;re not used to thinking about our core values in a way that can be written down concisely. Nor do we pay enough attention to whether our existence has any meaningful impact. For these areas, I must say I basically did not know myself at all. I still don&rsquo;t, but now I&rsquo;m paying more attention. I wrote down my values by analyzing my past behaviour in various situations and asking &ldquo;what values would produce this behaviour?&rdquo;. The next step is to reason about whether having these values even makes sense or what other values should be on the list. To think clearly about anything, it always helps to make the implicit explicit, and this exercise helped me do that in certain aspects of my life that I had never given thought to before. This planning process is nothing new. Product development follows a similar process. Similarly, business coaches follow a similar workflow to help ensure their clients achieve their business goals. But it&rsquo;s not very common to apply this kind of framework to one&rsquo;s personal life. And that&rsquo;s a shame, I think. Exercises like these are things we should have been taught in school. At least for some personality types, they are critical to to having any meaningful achievement. If that sounds like you, give Alex&rsquo;s guide a try.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"The May of My Life","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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   <div class="wrapper"><a class="site-title" rel="author" href="/">Making the map match the territory</a><nav class="site-nav">
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index 00cf5ff..ea59da4 100644
--- a/essays/2017/08/15/on-the-google-fiasco.html
+++ b/essays/2017/08/15/on-the-google-fiasco.html
@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="Last week, Google fired an engineer, James Damore, who had written an internal memo, pointing out that Google&rsquo;s ideological echo chamber prevented it from effectively tackling its problem with gender diversity. For those of us who have been alarmed that free expression is constantly losing ground in its birthplace, this is one of the most disappointing setbacks, and also the most compelling evidence that fighting for free speech and open discourse is the moral duty of our lifetimes. A software engineer was fired for uttering basic scientific truth, who had a master&rsquo;s degree in biology, working at a leading tech company at the forefront of transforming society. Ironically, the response to the memo almost made it look like its detractors mistook it for a screenplay in which they were the actors. If their goal was to prove Damore right, they could not have done a better job. The arguments I&rsquo;ve seen in support of Damore&rsquo;s firing are all the usual suspects: he was a sexist bigot, he thought his female colleagues were genetically inferior, he made others feel unsafe, he created a hostile work environment, etc. These arguments are based on either: a) a mischaracterization of what Damore said, or b) an ideological framework that cannot allow discussions that run counter to its dogma. The mischaracterizations are abundantly clear to anyone who compares media coverage of the affair with the original document. As Conor Friedersdorf wrote in The Atlantic: I cannot remember the last time so many outlets and observers mischaracterized so many aspects of a text everyone possessed. But let&rsquo;s set the mischaracterizations aside. I&rsquo;m much more interested in studying the forces that have landed us where we are today: in a state of perpetual moral panic. For several years, there has been a growing system of morality on the left in which &ldquo;virtue&rdquo; is equated with ever-increasing empathy for ever-more-minutely-marginalized identity groups. This positive feedback loop is something I call the &ldquo;inflation of communal values&rdquo; (to be the topic of a future post) – where members of a group must constantly make ever-more-powerful proclamations in support of that which the group finds valuable. In other words, a dollar of, say, racial sensitivity today doesn&rsquo;t go as far to make you morally respectable tomorrow. The absurd conclusions that this line of reasoning leads to would be hilariously comical if they were not so serious. Examples of these absurdities include: Calling Newton&rsquo;s Principia Methematica a rape manual, Indoctrinating four and five year olds in scientifically dubious gender theory, Claiming that evidence-based science is exclusionary and an example of &ldquo;microfascism&rdquo;. People often don&rsquo;t take me seriously when I say the radical left is rotting western civilization from the inside. I can&rsquo;t blame them. Nobody in their right mind could conjure ideas such as these, and yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I could provide examples like these til the cows come home, and some people do. Side note: These kinds of views and identity politics are almost universally informed by a school of philosophy called &ldquo;Postmodernism&rdquo;. The influence of postmodernism on the humanities seems to have grown over the 20th centure, which has led to an increasing number of college graduates subscribing to some version of it. My understanding of this is still too incomplete (I don&rsquo;t even think postmodernists know what postmodernism means), so I&rsquo;m avoiding commenting on it in this post. To give credit where it&rsquo;s due, it is a testament to the marketing prowess of these so-called &ldquo;social justice&rdquo; activists that their ideology has become as widespread as it has. Who would want to counter a group of people who have assigned to themselves the label of &ldquo;social justice&rdquo;? The very act paints dissenters as proponents of injustice! Moreover, their ideology has an easy way into the mindspace of otherwise sane and liberal-minded individuals using a technique called &ldquo;commitment &amp; consistency&rdquo; in the bible of psychological influence. In short, if you ask people for a large commitment, they will often refuse. But if you ask them for a minimal commitment, they will accept. If you then follow up with the same large ask, they are much more likely to accept because humans have a tendency to want to be consistent. This has been used to great effect during elections (as chronicled in the book). I suspect it&rsquo;s also at play among those who are concerned for issues of social justice. Most people, for example, support equal rights for all races. That is their commitment. It&rsquo;s not an outrageous one. But now, under the guise of racial sensitivity, you might be asked to police yourself and others for increasingly minute &ldquo;microaggressions&rdquo; that racial minorities &ldquo;suffer&rdquo;. Most sensible people, in response to this, will either become uncomfortable and quiet, or they will become willing participants who will demonstrate sensitivity even beyond what&rsquo;s required of them (this phenomenon is called moral grandstanding). This in turn shifts the baseline for racial sensitivity further. This positive feedback loop is the inflation of the communcal value of &ldquo;racial sensitivity&rdquo;. For the most part, the only ones willing to stand up and say &ldquo;no&rdquo; to this regression to infantilism would be the ones who did not support racial equality in the first place. As the degree of expected sensitivity goes to infinity, we can expect the quiet and uncomfortable crowd (the silent majority) to increasingly find the no-racial-equality crowd more preferrable than the group they were initially a part of. To the people who subscribe to this system of morality, however, there has always been one glaring problem: they can&rsquo;t win on the power of arguments, so it doesn&rsquo;t take too many critics to scare them, and they have never been able to sufficiently silence their critics. Free speech has been a thorn in their side for a long time. So they have resorted to some impressive mental gymnastics to categorize increasingly imperceptible offences as forms of violence. As the Google fiasco has demonstrated amply well, there is no negotiation with this radical leftist ideology. No counterpoint, no matter how judiciously made, can be tolerated by them. One interesting point briefly made by Damore in his interview with Jordan Peterson was that when he first wrote his memo, he submitted it to a skeptics group within Google and asked for feedback. In other words, he presented his case and asked how he could be wrong, not asserted that it was true (even though it was). This is the point we have come to, ladies and gentlement. Merely questioning of radical leftist dogma can have massive repercussions. But this is nothing new. Isolated incidents like this have been happening for a long time. For a historical perspective on this, I recommend Alice Dreger&rsquo;s excellent book, Galileo&rsquo;s Middle Finger. Dreger was (is) as staunch a social justice activist as any, but the book chronicles her career as she decides to stick to scientific truth over dogma and thus diverges from her activist colleagues. My favourite story is that of her encounter with a researcher named J. Michael Bailey, who had been subject of similar witch hunts to Damore twice in his career: once in the early 2000s for his categorization of types of transsexualism, and once in the early 1990s for this: I looked up Bailey&rsquo;s work and saw that most of it consisted of serious peer-reviewed scientific articles, quite different from his chatty and footnote-free book. I came across his old twin studies – controversial work that had showed that identical twins are more likely to have the same sexual orientation than are siblings who are not genetically identical, strongly suggesting that sexual orientation may sometimes be inborn. Suddenly I placed his name: I had actually taught my undergraduates criticisms of Bailey&rsquo;s work on twins many years before. Back in those days, saying gay people might have been born that way, as Bailey was doing, was politically unpopular among many gay-rights activists and among humanists in the academy, who were fighting any claims of unalterable or predestined &ldquo;human nature.&rdquo; I love this story because it so clearly illustrates how wrongheaded (while possibly well-intentioned) the social justice ideology of yesteryear was. Michael Bailey was attacked and demonized for publishing scientific findings that were not only true but that have since provided a rock solid grounds upon which to build widespread support for gay rights. This story also illustrates a second point: it&rsquo;s not even true that this ideology is trading a little bit of freedom of speech of a handful of bigots for a better outcome for particular minority groups. In their fact-blind quest to dub themselves &ldquo;protectors&rdquo; of these groups, these &ldquo;social justice&rdquo; fanatics end up taking on positions that often hurt or denigrate the very people they purport to protect. My favourite example was the opposition on one college campus to a minute of silence to commemorate 9/11. The rationale for this opposition? That Muslim students might feel offended. To take this position you have to assume that either: a) Muslims (in general) were to blame for 9/11, or b) most Muslims sympathize with terrorists and would be uncomfortable with a single minute of silence once per year. A few years ago, those of us who found this concerning could be dismissed as hysterics who are making too much noise about obscure academics. As poor a treatment as Michael Bailey received, his detractors were mostly confined to academia. The Google fiasco demonstrates that this toxic ideology has bled out of the humanities and into mainstream culture. It spreads by masquerading as compassion and parasitizing the minds of those who are simply trying to be good to their fellow citizens. I submit that you can&rsquo;t have a moral ideology that demands a suspension of one&rsquo;s rational faculties or that places empathy and compassion above truth or principles. Dreger spent her career investigating cases where scholars had discoveries that ran counter to social justice activists&#39; narratives. These are her closing words: I know that a lot of people who met me along the way in this work thought I&rsquo;d end up on one side of the war between activists and scholars. The deeper I went, however, the more obvious it became that the best activists and the best scholars actually long for the same kind of world – a free one. Here&rsquo;s the one thing I now know for sure after this very long trip: Evidence is an ethical issue, the most important ethical issue in a modern democracy. If you want justice, you must work for truth. And if you want to work for truth, you must do a little more than wish for justice." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="Last week, Google fired an engineer, James Damore, who had written an internal memo, pointing out that Google&rsquo;s ideological echo chamber prevented it from effectively tackling its problem with gender diversity. For those of us who have been alarmed that free expression is constantly losing ground in its birthplace, this is one of the most disappointing setbacks, and also the most compelling evidence that fighting for free speech and open discourse is the moral duty of our lifetimes. A software engineer was fired for uttering basic scientific truth, who had a master&rsquo;s degree in biology, working at a leading tech company at the forefront of transforming society. Ironically, the response to the memo almost made it look like its detractors mistook it for a screenplay in which they were the actors. If their goal was to prove Damore right, they could not have done a better job. The arguments I&rsquo;ve seen in support of Damore&rsquo;s firing are all the usual suspects: he was a sexist bigot, he thought his female colleagues were genetically inferior, he made others feel unsafe, he created a hostile work environment, etc. These arguments are based on either: a) a mischaracterization of what Damore said, or b) an ideological framework that cannot allow discussions that run counter to its dogma. The mischaracterizations are abundantly clear to anyone who compares media coverage of the affair with the original document. As Conor Friedersdorf wrote in The Atlantic: I cannot remember the last time so many outlets and observers mischaracterized so many aspects of a text everyone possessed. But let&rsquo;s set the mischaracterizations aside. I&rsquo;m much more interested in studying the forces that have landed us where we are today: in a state of perpetual moral panic. For several years, there has been a growing system of morality on the left in which &ldquo;virtue&rdquo; is equated with ever-increasing empathy for ever-more-minutely-marginalized identity groups. This positive feedback loop is something I call the &ldquo;inflation of communal values&rdquo; (to be the topic of a future post) – where members of a group must constantly make ever-more-powerful proclamations in support of that which the group finds valuable. In other words, a dollar of, say, racial sensitivity today doesn&rsquo;t go as far to make you morally respectable tomorrow. The absurd conclusions that this line of reasoning leads to would be hilariously comical if they were not so serious. Examples of these absurdities include: Calling Newton&rsquo;s Principia Methematica a rape manual, Indoctrinating four and five year olds in scientifically dubious gender theory, Claiming that evidence-based science is exclusionary and an example of &ldquo;microfascism&rdquo;. People often don&rsquo;t take me seriously when I say the radical left is rotting western civilization from the inside. I can&rsquo;t blame them. Nobody in their right mind could conjure ideas such as these, and yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I could provide examples like these til the cows come home, and some people do. Side note: These kinds of views and identity politics are almost universally informed by a school of philosophy called &ldquo;Postmodernism&rdquo;. The influence of postmodernism on the humanities seems to have grown over the 20th centure, which has led to an increasing number of college graduates subscribing to some version of it. My understanding of this is still too incomplete (I don&rsquo;t even think postmodernists know what postmodernism means), so I&rsquo;m avoiding commenting on it in this post. To give credit where it&rsquo;s due, it is a testament to the marketing prowess of these so-called &ldquo;social justice&rdquo; activists that their ideology has become as widespread as it has. Who would want to counter a group of people who have assigned to themselves the label of &ldquo;social justice&rdquo;? The very act paints dissenters as proponents of injustice! Moreover, their ideology has an easy way into the mindspace of otherwise sane and liberal-minded individuals using a technique called &ldquo;commitment &amp; consistency&rdquo; in the bible of psychological influence. In short, if you ask people for a large commitment, they will often refuse. But if you ask them for a minimal commitment, they will accept. If you then follow up with the same large ask, they are much more likely to accept because humans have a tendency to want to be consistent. This has been used to great effect during elections (as chronicled in the book). I suspect it&rsquo;s also at play among those who are concerned for issues of social justice. Most people, for example, support equal rights for all races. That is their commitment. It&rsquo;s not an outrageous one. But now, under the guise of racial sensitivity, you might be asked to police yourself and others for increasingly minute &ldquo;microaggressions&rdquo; that racial minorities &ldquo;suffer&rdquo;. Most sensible people, in response to this, will either become uncomfortable and quiet, or they will become willing participants who will demonstrate sensitivity even beyond what&rsquo;s required of them (this phenomenon is called moral grandstanding). This in turn shifts the baseline for racial sensitivity further. This positive feedback loop is the inflation of the communcal value of &ldquo;racial sensitivity&rdquo;. For the most part, the only ones willing to stand up and say &ldquo;no&rdquo; to this regression to infantilism would be the ones who did not support racial equality in the first place. As the degree of expected sensitivity goes to infinity, we can expect the quiet and uncomfortable crowd (the silent majority) to increasingly find the no-racial-equality crowd more preferrable than the group they were initially a part of. To the people who subscribe to this system of morality, however, there has always been one glaring problem: they can&rsquo;t win on the power of arguments, so it doesn&rsquo;t take too many critics to scare them, and they have never been able to sufficiently silence their critics. Free speech has been a thorn in their side for a long time. So they have resorted to some impressive mental gymnastics to categorize increasingly imperceptible offences as forms of violence. As the Google fiasco has demonstrated amply well, there is no negotiation with this radical leftist ideology. No counterpoint, no matter how judiciously made, can be tolerated by them. One interesting point briefly made by Damore in his interview with Jordan Peterson was that when he first wrote his memo, he submitted it to a skeptics group within Google and asked for feedback. In other words, he presented his case and asked how he could be wrong, not asserted that it was true (even though it was). This is the point we have come to, ladies and gentlement. Merely questioning of radical leftist dogma can have massive repercussions. But this is nothing new. Isolated incidents like this have been happening for a long time. For a historical perspective on this, I recommend Alice Dreger&rsquo;s excellent book, Galileo&rsquo;s Middle Finger. Dreger was (is) as staunch a social justice activist as any, but the book chronicles her career as she decides to stick to scientific truth over dogma and thus diverges from her activist colleagues. My favourite story is that of her encounter with a researcher named J. Michael Bailey, who had been subject of similar witch hunts to Damore twice in his career: once in the early 2000s for his categorization of types of transsexualism, and once in the early 1990s for this: I looked up Bailey&rsquo;s work and saw that most of it consisted of serious peer-reviewed scientific articles, quite different from his chatty and footnote-free book. I came across his old twin studies – controversial work that had showed that identical twins are more likely to have the same sexual orientation than are siblings who are not genetically identical, strongly suggesting that sexual orientation may sometimes be inborn. Suddenly I placed his name: I had actually taught my undergraduates criticisms of Bailey&rsquo;s work on twins many years before. Back in those days, saying gay people might have been born that way, as Bailey was doing, was politically unpopular among many gay-rights activists and among humanists in the academy, who were fighting any claims of unalterable or predestined &ldquo;human nature.&rdquo; I love this story because it so clearly illustrates how wrongheaded (while possibly well-intentioned) the social justice ideology of yesteryear was. Michael Bailey was attacked and demonized for publishing scientific findings that were not only true but that have since provided a rock solid grounds upon which to build widespread support for gay rights. This story also illustrates a second point: it&rsquo;s not even true that this ideology is trading a little bit of freedom of speech of a handful of bigots for a better outcome for particular minority groups. In their fact-blind quest to dub themselves &ldquo;protectors&rdquo; of these groups, these &ldquo;social justice&rdquo; fanatics end up taking on positions that often hurt or denigrate the very people they purport to protect. My favourite example was the opposition on one college campus to a minute of silence to commemorate 9/11. The rationale for this opposition? That Muslim students might feel offended. To take this position you have to assume that either: a) Muslims (in general) were to blame for 9/11, or b) most Muslims sympathize with terrorists and would be uncomfortable with a single minute of silence once per year. A few years ago, those of us who found this concerning could be dismissed as hysterics who are making too much noise about obscure academics. As poor a treatment as Michael Bailey received, his detractors were mostly confined to academia. The Google fiasco demonstrates that this toxic ideology has bled out of the humanities and into mainstream culture. It spreads by masquerading as compassion and parasitizing the minds of those who are simply trying to be good to their fellow citizens. I submit that you can&rsquo;t have a moral ideology that demands a suspension of one&rsquo;s rational faculties or that places empathy and compassion above truth or principles. Dreger spent her career investigating cases where scholars had discoveries that ran counter to social justice activists&#39; narratives. These are her closing words: I know that a lot of people who met me along the way in this work thought I&rsquo;d end up on one side of the war between activists and scholars. The deeper I went, however, the more obvious it became that the best activists and the best scholars actually long for the same kind of world – a free one. Here&rsquo;s the one thing I now know for sure after this very long trip: Evidence is an ethical issue, the most important ethical issue in a modern democracy. If you want justice, you must work for truth. And if you want to work for truth, you must do a little more than wish for justice." />
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Ironically, the response to the memo almost made it look like its detractors mistook it for a screenplay in which they were the actors. If their goal was to prove Damore right, they could not have done a better job. The arguments I&rsquo;ve seen in support of Damore&rsquo;s firing are all the usual suspects: he was a sexist bigot, he thought his female colleagues were genetically inferior, he made others feel unsafe, he created a hostile work environment, etc. These arguments are based on either: a) a mischaracterization of what Damore said, or b) an ideological framework that cannot allow discussions that run counter to its dogma. The mischaracterizations are abundantly clear to anyone who compares media coverage of the affair with the original document. As Conor Friedersdorf wrote in The Atlantic: I cannot remember the last time so many outlets and observers mischaracterized so many aspects of a text everyone possessed. But let&rsquo;s set the mischaracterizations aside. I&rsquo;m much more interested in studying the forces that have landed us where we are today: in a state of perpetual moral panic. For several years, there has been a growing system of morality on the left in which &ldquo;virtue&rdquo; is equated with ever-increasing empathy for ever-more-minutely-marginalized identity groups. This positive feedback loop is something I call the &ldquo;inflation of communal values&rdquo; (to be the topic of a future post) – where members of a group must constantly make ever-more-powerful proclamations in support of that which the group finds valuable. In other words, a dollar of, say, racial sensitivity today doesn&rsquo;t go as far to make you morally respectable tomorrow. The absurd conclusions that this line of reasoning leads to would be hilariously comical if they were not so serious. Examples of these absurdities include: Calling Newton&rsquo;s Principia Methematica a rape manual, Indoctrinating four and five year olds in scientifically dubious gender theory, Claiming that evidence-based science is exclusionary and an example of &ldquo;microfascism&rdquo;. People often don&rsquo;t take me seriously when I say the radical left is rotting western civilization from the inside. I can&rsquo;t blame them. Nobody in their right mind could conjure ideas such as these, and yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I could provide examples like these til the cows come home, and some people do. Side note: These kinds of views and identity politics are almost universally informed by a school of philosophy called &ldquo;Postmodernism&rdquo;. The influence of postmodernism on the humanities seems to have grown over the 20th centure, which has led to an increasing number of college graduates subscribing to some version of it. My understanding of this is still too incomplete (I don&rsquo;t even think postmodernists know what postmodernism means), so I&rsquo;m avoiding commenting on it in this post. To give credit where it&rsquo;s due, it is a testament to the marketing prowess of these so-called &ldquo;social justice&rdquo; activists that their ideology has become as widespread as it has. Who would want to counter a group of people who have assigned to themselves the label of &ldquo;social justice&rdquo;? The very act paints dissenters as proponents of injustice! Moreover, their ideology has an easy way into the mindspace of otherwise sane and liberal-minded individuals using a technique called &ldquo;commitment &amp; consistency&rdquo; in the bible of psychological influence. In short, if you ask people for a large commitment, they will often refuse. But if you ask them for a minimal commitment, they will accept. If you then follow up with the same large ask, they are much more likely to accept because humans have a tendency to want to be consistent. This has been used to great effect during elections (as chronicled in the book). I suspect it&rsquo;s also at play among those who are concerned for issues of social justice. Most people, for example, support equal rights for all races. That is their commitment. It&rsquo;s not an outrageous one. But now, under the guise of racial sensitivity, you might be asked to police yourself and others for increasingly minute &ldquo;microaggressions&rdquo; that racial minorities &ldquo;suffer&rdquo;. Most sensible people, in response to this, will either become uncomfortable and quiet, or they will become willing participants who will demonstrate sensitivity even beyond what&rsquo;s required of them (this phenomenon is called moral grandstanding). This in turn shifts the baseline for racial sensitivity further. This positive feedback loop is the inflation of the communcal value of &ldquo;racial sensitivity&rdquo;. For the most part, the only ones willing to stand up and say &ldquo;no&rdquo; to this regression to infantilism would be the ones who did not support racial equality in the first place. As the degree of expected sensitivity goes to infinity, we can expect the quiet and uncomfortable crowd (the silent majority) to increasingly find the no-racial-equality crowd more preferrable than the group they were initially a part of. To the people who subscribe to this system of morality, however, there has always been one glaring problem: they can&rsquo;t win on the power of arguments, so it doesn&rsquo;t take too many critics to scare them, and they have never been able to sufficiently silence their critics. Free speech has been a thorn in their side for a long time. So they have resorted to some impressive mental gymnastics to categorize increasingly imperceptible offences as forms of violence. As the Google fiasco has demonstrated amply well, there is no negotiation with this radical leftist ideology. No counterpoint, no matter how judiciously made, can be tolerated by them. One interesting point briefly made by Damore in his interview with Jordan Peterson was that when he first wrote his memo, he submitted it to a skeptics group within Google and asked for feedback. In other words, he presented his case and asked how he could be wrong, not asserted that it was true (even though it was). This is the point we have come to, ladies and gentlement. Merely questioning of radical leftist dogma can have massive repercussions. But this is nothing new. Isolated incidents like this have been happening for a long time. For a historical perspective on this, I recommend Alice Dreger&rsquo;s excellent book, Galileo&rsquo;s Middle Finger. Dreger was (is) as staunch a social justice activist as any, but the book chronicles her career as she decides to stick to scientific truth over dogma and thus diverges from her activist colleagues. My favourite story is that of her encounter with a researcher named J. Michael Bailey, who had been subject of similar witch hunts to Damore twice in his career: once in the early 2000s for his categorization of types of transsexualism, and once in the early 1990s for this: I looked up Bailey&rsquo;s work and saw that most of it consisted of serious peer-reviewed scientific articles, quite different from his chatty and footnote-free book. I came across his old twin studies – controversial work that had showed that identical twins are more likely to have the same sexual orientation than are siblings who are not genetically identical, strongly suggesting that sexual orientation may sometimes be inborn. Suddenly I placed his name: I had actually taught my undergraduates criticisms of Bailey&rsquo;s work on twins many years before. Back in those days, saying gay people might have been born that way, as Bailey was doing, was politically unpopular among many gay-rights activists and among humanists in the academy, who were fighting any claims of unalterable or predestined &ldquo;human nature.&rdquo; I love this story because it so clearly illustrates how wrongheaded (while possibly well-intentioned) the social justice ideology of yesteryear was. Michael Bailey was attacked and demonized for publishing scientific findings that were not only true but that have since provided a rock solid grounds upon which to build widespread support for gay rights. This story also illustrates a second point: it&rsquo;s not even true that this ideology is trading a little bit of freedom of speech of a handful of bigots for a better outcome for particular minority groups. In their fact-blind quest to dub themselves &ldquo;protectors&rdquo; of these groups, these &ldquo;social justice&rdquo; fanatics end up taking on positions that often hurt or denigrate the very people they purport to protect. My favourite example was the opposition on one college campus to a minute of silence to commemorate 9/11. The rationale for this opposition? That Muslim students might feel offended. To take this position you have to assume that either: a) Muslims (in general) were to blame for 9/11, or b) most Muslims sympathize with terrorists and would be uncomfortable with a single minute of silence once per year. A few years ago, those of us who found this concerning could be dismissed as hysterics who are making too much noise about obscure academics. As poor a treatment as Michael Bailey received, his detractors were mostly confined to academia. The Google fiasco demonstrates that this toxic ideology has bled out of the humanities and into mainstream culture. It spreads by masquerading as compassion and parasitizing the minds of those who are simply trying to be good to their fellow citizens. I submit that you can&rsquo;t have a moral ideology that demands a suspension of one&rsquo;s rational faculties or that places empathy and compassion above truth or principles. Dreger spent her career investigating cases where scholars had discoveries that ran counter to social justice activists&#39; narratives. These are her closing words: I know that a lot of people who met me along the way in this work thought I&rsquo;d end up on one side of the war between activists and scholars. The deeper I went, however, the more obvious it became that the best activists and the best scholars actually long for the same kind of world – a free one. Here&rsquo;s the one thing I now know for sure after this very long trip: Evidence is an ethical issue, the most important ethical issue in a modern democracy. If you want justice, you must work for truth. And if you want to work for truth, you must do a little more than wish for justice.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"On the Google Fiasco","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2017-08-15T23:57:05-07:00","datePublished":"2017-08-15T23:57:05-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2017/08/15/on-the-google-fiasco.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2017/08/15/on-the-google-fiasco.html"},"description":"Last week, Google fired an engineer, James Damore, who had written an internal memo, pointing out that Google&rsquo;s ideological echo chamber prevented it from effectively tackling its problem with gender diversity. For those of us who have been alarmed that free expression is constantly losing ground in its birthplace, this is one of the most disappointing setbacks, and also the most compelling evidence that fighting for free speech and open discourse is the moral duty of our lifetimes. A software engineer was fired for uttering basic scientific truth, who had a master&rsquo;s degree in biology, working at a leading tech company at the forefront of transforming society. Ironically, the response to the memo almost made it look like its detractors mistook it for a screenplay in which they were the actors. If their goal was to prove Damore right, they could not have done a better job. The arguments I&rsquo;ve seen in support of Damore&rsquo;s firing are all the usual suspects: he was a sexist bigot, he thought his female colleagues were genetically inferior, he made others feel unsafe, he created a hostile work environment, etc. These arguments are based on either: a) a mischaracterization of what Damore said, or b) an ideological framework that cannot allow discussions that run counter to its dogma. The mischaracterizations are abundantly clear to anyone who compares media coverage of the affair with the original document. As Conor Friedersdorf wrote in The Atlantic: I cannot remember the last time so many outlets and observers mischaracterized so many aspects of a text everyone possessed. But let&rsquo;s set the mischaracterizations aside. I&rsquo;m much more interested in studying the forces that have landed us where we are today: in a state of perpetual moral panic. For several years, there has been a growing system of morality on the left in which &ldquo;virtue&rdquo; is equated with ever-increasing empathy for ever-more-minutely-marginalized identity groups. This positive feedback loop is something I call the &ldquo;inflation of communal values&rdquo; (to be the topic of a future post) – where members of a group must constantly make ever-more-powerful proclamations in support of that which the group finds valuable. In other words, a dollar of, say, racial sensitivity today doesn&rsquo;t go as far to make you morally respectable tomorrow. The absurd conclusions that this line of reasoning leads to would be hilariously comical if they were not so serious. Examples of these absurdities include: Calling Newton&rsquo;s Principia Methematica a rape manual, Indoctrinating four and five year olds in scientifically dubious gender theory, Claiming that evidence-based science is exclusionary and an example of &ldquo;microfascism&rdquo;. People often don&rsquo;t take me seriously when I say the radical left is rotting western civilization from the inside. I can&rsquo;t blame them. Nobody in their right mind could conjure ideas such as these, and yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I could provide examples like these til the cows come home, and some people do. Side note: These kinds of views and identity politics are almost universally informed by a school of philosophy called &ldquo;Postmodernism&rdquo;. The influence of postmodernism on the humanities seems to have grown over the 20th centure, which has led to an increasing number of college graduates subscribing to some version of it. My understanding of this is still too incomplete (I don&rsquo;t even think postmodernists know what postmodernism means), so I&rsquo;m avoiding commenting on it in this post. To give credit where it&rsquo;s due, it is a testament to the marketing prowess of these so-called &ldquo;social justice&rdquo; activists that their ideology has become as widespread as it has. Who would want to counter a group of people who have assigned to themselves the label of &ldquo;social justice&rdquo;? The very act paints dissenters as proponents of injustice! Moreover, their ideology has an easy way into the mindspace of otherwise sane and liberal-minded individuals using a technique called &ldquo;commitment &amp; consistency&rdquo; in the bible of psychological influence. In short, if you ask people for a large commitment, they will often refuse. But if you ask them for a minimal commitment, they will accept. If you then follow up with the same large ask, they are much more likely to accept because humans have a tendency to want to be consistent. This has been used to great effect during elections (as chronicled in the book). I suspect it&rsquo;s also at play among those who are concerned for issues of social justice. Most people, for example, support equal rights for all races. That is their commitment. It&rsquo;s not an outrageous one. But now, under the guise of racial sensitivity, you might be asked to police yourself and others for increasingly minute &ldquo;microaggressions&rdquo; that racial minorities &ldquo;suffer&rdquo;. Most sensible people, in response to this, will either become uncomfortable and quiet, or they will become willing participants who will demonstrate sensitivity even beyond what&rsquo;s required of them (this phenomenon is called moral grandstanding). This in turn shifts the baseline for racial sensitivity further. This positive feedback loop is the inflation of the communcal value of &ldquo;racial sensitivity&rdquo;. For the most part, the only ones willing to stand up and say &ldquo;no&rdquo; to this regression to infantilism would be the ones who did not support racial equality in the first place. As the degree of expected sensitivity goes to infinity, we can expect the quiet and uncomfortable crowd (the silent majority) to increasingly find the no-racial-equality crowd more preferrable than the group they were initially a part of. To the people who subscribe to this system of morality, however, there has always been one glaring problem: they can&rsquo;t win on the power of arguments, so it doesn&rsquo;t take too many critics to scare them, and they have never been able to sufficiently silence their critics. Free speech has been a thorn in their side for a long time. So they have resorted to some impressive mental gymnastics to categorize increasingly imperceptible offences as forms of violence. As the Google fiasco has demonstrated amply well, there is no negotiation with this radical leftist ideology. No counterpoint, no matter how judiciously made, can be tolerated by them. One interesting point briefly made by Damore in his interview with Jordan Peterson was that when he first wrote his memo, he submitted it to a skeptics group within Google and asked for feedback. In other words, he presented his case and asked how he could be wrong, not asserted that it was true (even though it was). This is the point we have come to, ladies and gentlement. Merely questioning of radical leftist dogma can have massive repercussions. But this is nothing new. Isolated incidents like this have been happening for a long time. For a historical perspective on this, I recommend Alice Dreger&rsquo;s excellent book, Galileo&rsquo;s Middle Finger. Dreger was (is) as staunch a social justice activist as any, but the book chronicles her career as she decides to stick to scientific truth over dogma and thus diverges from her activist colleagues. My favourite story is that of her encounter with a researcher named J. Michael Bailey, who had been subject of similar witch hunts to Damore twice in his career: once in the early 2000s for his categorization of types of transsexualism, and once in the early 1990s for this: I looked up Bailey&rsquo;s work and saw that most of it consisted of serious peer-reviewed scientific articles, quite different from his chatty and footnote-free book. I came across his old twin studies – controversial work that had showed that identical twins are more likely to have the same sexual orientation than are siblings who are not genetically identical, strongly suggesting that sexual orientation may sometimes be inborn. Suddenly I placed his name: I had actually taught my undergraduates criticisms of Bailey&rsquo;s work on twins many years before. Back in those days, saying gay people might have been born that way, as Bailey was doing, was politically unpopular among many gay-rights activists and among humanists in the academy, who were fighting any claims of unalterable or predestined &ldquo;human nature.&rdquo; I love this story because it so clearly illustrates how wrongheaded (while possibly well-intentioned) the social justice ideology of yesteryear was. Michael Bailey was attacked and demonized for publishing scientific findings that were not only true but that have since provided a rock solid grounds upon which to build widespread support for gay rights. This story also illustrates a second point: it&rsquo;s not even true that this ideology is trading a little bit of freedom of speech of a handful of bigots for a better outcome for particular minority groups. In their fact-blind quest to dub themselves &ldquo;protectors&rdquo; of these groups, these &ldquo;social justice&rdquo; fanatics end up taking on positions that often hurt or denigrate the very people they purport to protect. My favourite example was the opposition on one college campus to a minute of silence to commemorate 9/11. The rationale for this opposition? That Muslim students might feel offended. To take this position you have to assume that either: a) Muslims (in general) were to blame for 9/11, or b) most Muslims sympathize with terrorists and would be uncomfortable with a single minute of silence once per year. A few years ago, those of us who found this concerning could be dismissed as hysterics who are making too much noise about obscure academics. As poor a treatment as Michael Bailey received, his detractors were mostly confined to academia. The Google fiasco demonstrates that this toxic ideology has bled out of the humanities and into mainstream culture. It spreads by masquerading as compassion and parasitizing the minds of those who are simply trying to be good to their fellow citizens. I submit that you can&rsquo;t have a moral ideology that demands a suspension of one&rsquo;s rational faculties or that places empathy and compassion above truth or principles. Dreger spent her career investigating cases where scholars had discoveries that ran counter to social justice activists&#39; narratives. These are her closing words: I know that a lot of people who met me along the way in this work thought I&rsquo;d end up on one side of the war between activists and scholars. The deeper I went, however, the more obvious it became that the best activists and the best scholars actually long for the same kind of world – a free one. Here&rsquo;s the one thing I now know for sure after this very long trip: Evidence is an ethical issue, the most important ethical issue in a modern democracy. If you want justice, you must work for truth. And if you want to work for truth, you must do a little more than wish for justice.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"On the Google Fiasco","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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diff --git a/essays/2017/11/17/cheap-chopsticks.html b/essays/2017/11/17/cheap-chopsticks.html
index cf537bb..26a235d 100644
--- a/essays/2017/11/17/cheap-chopsticks.html
+++ b/essays/2017/11/17/cheap-chopsticks.html
@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="The Poke Guy is an excellent little hole-in-the-wall in Vancouver&rsquo;s Gastown district. It sells customizable dishes with rice, fish, veggies, and some delicious sauces. It&rsquo;s high quality food – the kind of eating out that you don&rsquo;t have to feel guilty about. I ordered a big dish with a little bit of everything, complete with a sprinkle of wasabi mayo. When you walk into The Poke Guy, you can tell it&rsquo;s a well-thought-through business. Customers are moved, very quickly, from one end of the queue all the way to the cashier like parts on an assembly line. The displays look good, and their unusual pricing model can be easily gleaned by a glance at their menu. Whoever runs this place clearly put a lot of thought (and/or experience) into it. But&hellip; They chose to use the cheapest kinds of chopsticks that are available. From a purely mathematical cost/benefit analysis, that&rsquo;s not such a bad trade-off. Perhaps, they can pass those savings onto their customers. Maybe, after all the effort and thought that&rsquo;s gone into the food and the process, having cheap chopsticks is a reasonable tradeoff. Who&rsquo;d ever notice the meek chopstick? As I sat down to eat the food I had just ordered, I grabbed a pair of chopsticks that were available from a cup in front of me. As I applied force to the chopsticks to grasp the first bite, one of the chopsticks snapped in mid-air, flinging mayo-covered veggies on my face, my shirt, and my pants. The initial upset from an unfortunate event like this dissipates fairly quickly, but it does offer an opportunity for reflection. Would the owners of The Poke Guy think that one (at least) of their customers having this experience is OK? If being in business required that every once in a while they take a bunch of saunce-covered food and fling it in someone&rsquo;s face, would they still do it? I think the answer is a resounding &lsquo;no&rsquo;. And yet, for some reason, we&rsquo;re constantly OK with making these tradeoffs if the causal chain between our decision and the negative outcome for one of our customers gets long enough. Every time you decide to do shoddy work or to use cheap materials or to hire unreliable staff, you&rsquo;re implicitly deciding that a shitty experience for your customers is OK. I&rsquo;m as big a fan of capitalism as anyone, but the pursuit of pure profits without a sense of a greater mission is precisely what gives capitalism a bad rap. Once these compromises permeate all of our day-to-day experiences (and they do), we become blind to them, and we accept them as inevitabilities. This acceptance, in turn, will lead us to perform our own duties in life more neglectfully and carelessly. It&rsquo;s a vicious cycle. It might sound trite to say this as a response to a broken chopstick, but it is exactly the triviality that makes this a worthy case study. Minute decisions a business makes can have a magnified impact on the world. We cannot seek praise for what we do that is already in our own self-interest. Virtue is only worthy of praise precisely when it poses a difficulty for the virtuous. If we believe in capitalism with mission and values, if – as so many silicon valley companies profess – we actually want to build businesses that change the world, then we must pursue the betterment of our customers&#39; lives, not as a marketing strategy but as a sacred value and with religious fervour. Of course, profit and loss is an existential limitation that should be taken seriously by any rationally-thinking businessperson, but we can&rsquo;t lose sight of the fact that it is an obstacle that we must overcome and not the goal itself. I suspect that the vast majority of those who love to hate capitalism do so precisely because of so many encounters with business entities that preach one thing but practice something else - businesses that try to project a false image. People may not be able to articulate this point exactly, but they feel it at an emotional level, and much like an inauthentic encounter with someone you know is a pathological liar, they feel disgust at these profit-seekers who have no greater sense of virtue. Of course, the beauty of capitalism is that we are, collectively, in control of this situation. If we decide that it is worthwhile to pay extra to businesses that pour their heart and soul in to their products and services, we can incentivize this behaviour. As customers, it is our duty to reward good behaviour, and as businesses, we need to realize that our impact in the world goes far beyond what can be captured on a spreadsheet. I thought about all this as I cleaned off stains of wasabi mayo from my clothes before heading back to the office. Luckily, there were no important meetings that day and stain-covered clothes were not a huge impediment." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="The Poke Guy is an excellent little hole-in-the-wall in Vancouver&rsquo;s Gastown district. It sells customizable dishes with rice, fish, veggies, and some delicious sauces. It&rsquo;s high quality food – the kind of eating out that you don&rsquo;t have to feel guilty about. I ordered a big dish with a little bit of everything, complete with a sprinkle of wasabi mayo. When you walk into The Poke Guy, you can tell it&rsquo;s a well-thought-through business. Customers are moved, very quickly, from one end of the queue all the way to the cashier like parts on an assembly line. The displays look good, and their unusual pricing model can be easily gleaned by a glance at their menu. Whoever runs this place clearly put a lot of thought (and/or experience) into it. But&hellip; They chose to use the cheapest kinds of chopsticks that are available. From a purely mathematical cost/benefit analysis, that&rsquo;s not such a bad trade-off. Perhaps, they can pass those savings onto their customers. Maybe, after all the effort and thought that&rsquo;s gone into the food and the process, having cheap chopsticks is a reasonable tradeoff. Who&rsquo;d ever notice the meek chopstick? As I sat down to eat the food I had just ordered, I grabbed a pair of chopsticks that were available from a cup in front of me. As I applied force to the chopsticks to grasp the first bite, one of the chopsticks snapped in mid-air, flinging mayo-covered veggies on my face, my shirt, and my pants. The initial upset from an unfortunate event like this dissipates fairly quickly, but it does offer an opportunity for reflection. Would the owners of The Poke Guy think that one (at least) of their customers having this experience is OK? If being in business required that every once in a while they take a bunch of saunce-covered food and fling it in someone&rsquo;s face, would they still do it? I think the answer is a resounding &lsquo;no&rsquo;. And yet, for some reason, we&rsquo;re constantly OK with making these tradeoffs if the causal chain between our decision and the negative outcome for one of our customers gets long enough. Every time you decide to do shoddy work or to use cheap materials or to hire unreliable staff, you&rsquo;re implicitly deciding that a shitty experience for your customers is OK. I&rsquo;m as big a fan of capitalism as anyone, but the pursuit of pure profits without a sense of a greater mission is precisely what gives capitalism a bad rap. Once these compromises permeate all of our day-to-day experiences (and they do), we become blind to them, and we accept them as inevitabilities. This acceptance, in turn, will lead us to perform our own duties in life more neglectfully and carelessly. It&rsquo;s a vicious cycle. It might sound trite to say this as a response to a broken chopstick, but it is exactly the triviality that makes this a worthy case study. Minute decisions a business makes can have a magnified impact on the world. We cannot seek praise for what we do that is already in our own self-interest. Virtue is only worthy of praise precisely when it poses a difficulty for the virtuous. If we believe in capitalism with mission and values, if – as so many silicon valley companies profess – we actually want to build businesses that change the world, then we must pursue the betterment of our customers&#39; lives, not as a marketing strategy but as a sacred value and with religious fervour. Of course, profit and loss is an existential limitation that should be taken seriously by any rationally-thinking businessperson, but we can&rsquo;t lose sight of the fact that it is an obstacle that we must overcome and not the goal itself. I suspect that the vast majority of those who love to hate capitalism do so precisely because of so many encounters with business entities that preach one thing but practice something else - businesses that try to project a false image. People may not be able to articulate this point exactly, but they feel it at an emotional level, and much like an inauthentic encounter with someone you know is a pathological liar, they feel disgust at these profit-seekers who have no greater sense of virtue. Of course, the beauty of capitalism is that we are, collectively, in control of this situation. If we decide that it is worthwhile to pay extra to businesses that pour their heart and soul in to their products and services, we can incentivize this behaviour. As customers, it is our duty to reward good behaviour, and as businesses, we need to realize that our impact in the world goes far beyond what can be captured on a spreadsheet. I thought about all this as I cleaned off stains of wasabi mayo from my clothes before heading back to the office. Luckily, there were no important meetings that day and stain-covered clothes were not a huge impediment." />
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-{"dateModified":"2017-11-17T10:51:12-08:00","datePublished":"2017-11-17T10:51:12-08:00","url":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2017/11/17/cheap-chopsticks.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2017/11/17/cheap-chopsticks.html"},"description":"The Poke Guy is an excellent little hole-in-the-wall in Vancouver&rsquo;s Gastown district. It sells customizable dishes with rice, fish, veggies, and some delicious sauces. It&rsquo;s high quality food – the kind of eating out that you don&rsquo;t have to feel guilty about. I ordered a big dish with a little bit of everything, complete with a sprinkle of wasabi mayo. When you walk into The Poke Guy, you can tell it&rsquo;s a well-thought-through business. Customers are moved, very quickly, from one end of the queue all the way to the cashier like parts on an assembly line. The displays look good, and their unusual pricing model can be easily gleaned by a glance at their menu. Whoever runs this place clearly put a lot of thought (and/or experience) into it. But&hellip; They chose to use the cheapest kinds of chopsticks that are available. From a purely mathematical cost/benefit analysis, that&rsquo;s not such a bad trade-off. Perhaps, they can pass those savings onto their customers. Maybe, after all the effort and thought that&rsquo;s gone into the food and the process, having cheap chopsticks is a reasonable tradeoff. Who&rsquo;d ever notice the meek chopstick? As I sat down to eat the food I had just ordered, I grabbed a pair of chopsticks that were available from a cup in front of me. As I applied force to the chopsticks to grasp the first bite, one of the chopsticks snapped in mid-air, flinging mayo-covered veggies on my face, my shirt, and my pants. The initial upset from an unfortunate event like this dissipates fairly quickly, but it does offer an opportunity for reflection. Would the owners of The Poke Guy think that one (at least) of their customers having this experience is OK? If being in business required that every once in a while they take a bunch of saunce-covered food and fling it in someone&rsquo;s face, would they still do it? I think the answer is a resounding &lsquo;no&rsquo;. And yet, for some reason, we&rsquo;re constantly OK with making these tradeoffs if the causal chain between our decision and the negative outcome for one of our customers gets long enough. Every time you decide to do shoddy work or to use cheap materials or to hire unreliable staff, you&rsquo;re implicitly deciding that a shitty experience for your customers is OK. I&rsquo;m as big a fan of capitalism as anyone, but the pursuit of pure profits without a sense of a greater mission is precisely what gives capitalism a bad rap. Once these compromises permeate all of our day-to-day experiences (and they do), we become blind to them, and we accept them as inevitabilities. This acceptance, in turn, will lead us to perform our own duties in life more neglectfully and carelessly. It&rsquo;s a vicious cycle. It might sound trite to say this as a response to a broken chopstick, but it is exactly the triviality that makes this a worthy case study. Minute decisions a business makes can have a magnified impact on the world. We cannot seek praise for what we do that is already in our own self-interest. Virtue is only worthy of praise precisely when it poses a difficulty for the virtuous. If we believe in capitalism with mission and values, if – as so many silicon valley companies profess – we actually want to build businesses that change the world, then we must pursue the betterment of our customers&#39; lives, not as a marketing strategy but as a sacred value and with religious fervour. Of course, profit and loss is an existential limitation that should be taken seriously by any rationally-thinking businessperson, but we can&rsquo;t lose sight of the fact that it is an obstacle that we must overcome and not the goal itself. I suspect that the vast majority of those who love to hate capitalism do so precisely because of so many encounters with business entities that preach one thing but practice something else - businesses that try to project a false image. People may not be able to articulate this point exactly, but they feel it at an emotional level, and much like an inauthentic encounter with someone you know is a pathological liar, they feel disgust at these profit-seekers who have no greater sense of virtue. Of course, the beauty of capitalism is that we are, collectively, in control of this situation. If we decide that it is worthwhile to pay extra to businesses that pour their heart and soul in to their products and services, we can incentivize this behaviour. As customers, it is our duty to reward good behaviour, and as businesses, we need to realize that our impact in the world goes far beyond what can be captured on a spreadsheet. I thought about all this as I cleaned off stains of wasabi mayo from my clothes before heading back to the office. Luckily, there were no important meetings that day and stain-covered clothes were not a huge impediment.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Cheap Chopsticks","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2017-11-17T10:51:12-08:00","datePublished":"2017-11-17T10:51:12-08:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2017/11/17/cheap-chopsticks.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2017/11/17/cheap-chopsticks.html"},"description":"The Poke Guy is an excellent little hole-in-the-wall in Vancouver&rsquo;s Gastown district. It sells customizable dishes with rice, fish, veggies, and some delicious sauces. It&rsquo;s high quality food – the kind of eating out that you don&rsquo;t have to feel guilty about. I ordered a big dish with a little bit of everything, complete with a sprinkle of wasabi mayo. When you walk into The Poke Guy, you can tell it&rsquo;s a well-thought-through business. Customers are moved, very quickly, from one end of the queue all the way to the cashier like parts on an assembly line. The displays look good, and their unusual pricing model can be easily gleaned by a glance at their menu. Whoever runs this place clearly put a lot of thought (and/or experience) into it. But&hellip; They chose to use the cheapest kinds of chopsticks that are available. From a purely mathematical cost/benefit analysis, that&rsquo;s not such a bad trade-off. Perhaps, they can pass those savings onto their customers. Maybe, after all the effort and thought that&rsquo;s gone into the food and the process, having cheap chopsticks is a reasonable tradeoff. Who&rsquo;d ever notice the meek chopstick? As I sat down to eat the food I had just ordered, I grabbed a pair of chopsticks that were available from a cup in front of me. As I applied force to the chopsticks to grasp the first bite, one of the chopsticks snapped in mid-air, flinging mayo-covered veggies on my face, my shirt, and my pants. The initial upset from an unfortunate event like this dissipates fairly quickly, but it does offer an opportunity for reflection. Would the owners of The Poke Guy think that one (at least) of their customers having this experience is OK? If being in business required that every once in a while they take a bunch of saunce-covered food and fling it in someone&rsquo;s face, would they still do it? I think the answer is a resounding &lsquo;no&rsquo;. And yet, for some reason, we&rsquo;re constantly OK with making these tradeoffs if the causal chain between our decision and the negative outcome for one of our customers gets long enough. Every time you decide to do shoddy work or to use cheap materials or to hire unreliable staff, you&rsquo;re implicitly deciding that a shitty experience for your customers is OK. I&rsquo;m as big a fan of capitalism as anyone, but the pursuit of pure profits without a sense of a greater mission is precisely what gives capitalism a bad rap. Once these compromises permeate all of our day-to-day experiences (and they do), we become blind to them, and we accept them as inevitabilities. This acceptance, in turn, will lead us to perform our own duties in life more neglectfully and carelessly. It&rsquo;s a vicious cycle. It might sound trite to say this as a response to a broken chopstick, but it is exactly the triviality that makes this a worthy case study. Minute decisions a business makes can have a magnified impact on the world. We cannot seek praise for what we do that is already in our own self-interest. Virtue is only worthy of praise precisely when it poses a difficulty for the virtuous. If we believe in capitalism with mission and values, if – as so many silicon valley companies profess – we actually want to build businesses that change the world, then we must pursue the betterment of our customers&#39; lives, not as a marketing strategy but as a sacred value and with religious fervour. Of course, profit and loss is an existential limitation that should be taken seriously by any rationally-thinking businessperson, but we can&rsquo;t lose sight of the fact that it is an obstacle that we must overcome and not the goal itself. I suspect that the vast majority of those who love to hate capitalism do so precisely because of so many encounters with business entities that preach one thing but practice something else - businesses that try to project a false image. People may not be able to articulate this point exactly, but they feel it at an emotional level, and much like an inauthentic encounter with someone you know is a pathological liar, they feel disgust at these profit-seekers who have no greater sense of virtue. Of course, the beauty of capitalism is that we are, collectively, in control of this situation. If we decide that it is worthwhile to pay extra to businesses that pour their heart and soul in to their products and services, we can incentivize this behaviour. As customers, it is our duty to reward good behaviour, and as businesses, we need to realize that our impact in the world goes far beyond what can be captured on a spreadsheet. I thought about all this as I cleaned off stains of wasabi mayo from my clothes before heading back to the office. Luckily, there were no important meetings that day and stain-covered clothes were not a huge impediment.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Cheap Chopsticks","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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index 749d36c..1fd6a81 100644
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@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
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 <meta name="description" content="A month ago, I took an early morning Greyhound bus from Vancouver to Merritt to attend a 10-day meditation programme. I think when I look back, I will see this as one of the most profound experiences of my life. It was hard and gruelling, and I was apprehensive leading up to it, but I’m so glad that I went for it. Here, I will try to provide an overview/summary of the experience. Caveat: It&rsquo;s impossible for me for convey the experience of meditation through a blog post and I&rsquo;m not going to try. In this post, I&rsquo;ve written about some of my takeaways from the experience. It&rsquo;s important to remember that ALL of the takeaways discussed here are besides the central point of the retreat, which is the practice of meditation. In other words, what I&rsquo;ve discussed here were the byproducts for me at the time I took the course. Most important takeway of all is that the practice of meditation can lead to many such insights (and probably much more profound ones). Background Why meditate? I initially got into meditation as a stress management technique. One night when I was 28, I found myself in the office, alone, at 8 PM. I had just released a buggy version of our app, and it was causing issues on our customers’ phones. I had no idea what had gone wrong. As I was pouring over pages and pages of log data to detect the issue, I suddenly became cognizant of the sharp pains I was experiencing in my chest. My next thought was that since the office building is now empty, if I have a heart attack, nobody will find me until the next morning. I had heard many guests on The Tim Ferriss Podcast talk about their meditation practice, so in 2017, I made it a new years’ resolution to establish a regular meditation practice, to be able to gain better control over my stress response. I stuck to a routine of doing 5-minutes/day, but I knew I did not understand what meditation really was, so I signed up for the retreat. Now, I know that the promise of meditation is much loftier than simple “stress management”. Meditation is the practice by which one can end one’s suffering. I’ve written before about my philosophy of handling setbacks and unhappiness. This philosophy revolves around the acceptance of what is and being content with all things — desirable or undesirable — that are outside of one’s control. Even the subtitle of this blog (“making the map match the territory”) is about my quest to see the world as it is, not as I want it to be. I’ve learned these lessons from stoic writings from Ancient Rome, and I’ve heard them echoed by Lao Tzu in Tao Te Ching. As I’ve learned now, Buddhist thinking follows a similar theme. However, while Lao Tzu and the Roman stoics were very clear about the end goal (building a strong mind), they were less clear about the path to get there. Vipassana meditation is, according to its practitioners, the Buddha’s method. And by training the mind, it promises to end all suffering. So tell me about the retreat! The meditation centre I attended is called Dhamma Surabhi, a 20-minute drive outside of Merritt. The main building is a square structure with a courtyard in the middle. On one end of the square is a large meditation hall, on the other end, there is a dining hall. The corridors connecting the two contain the rooms and bathrooms for the students, one side for men, the other for women. There is complete gender segregation for the duration of the course. At the start, the students are asked to commit to the following moral code for the duration of the course: I will abstain from killing I will abstain from stealing I will abstain from all sexual activity I will abstain from wrong speech I will abstain from all intoxicants These precepts are interpreted rather broadly. The food at the retreat is all vegetarian because eating meat would violate the first precept — you’re supporting killing. And since it’s impossible for people to communicate with pure truth, students must observe “Noble Silence” for the duration of the course. This means no talking, no gestures, and no eye contact. There is a designated manager for men and women and students can raise any concerns with them if necessary. When you check-in, you&rsquo;re asked to hand over your phone and any other electronic devices, plus any reading or writing material. Journalling, note-taking, and reading are all forbidden. More on that later. Every day of the course follows a timetable that you&rsquo;re given on Day 0: 4:00 AM: Wake up bell. 4:30 AM - 6:30 AM: Meditation in your room or in the hall. 6:30 AM - 8:00 AM: Breakfast break (but breakfast is only served in the first 45 minutes). 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM: Group meditation in the hall. 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Meditate in the hall or in your room, according to the teacher&rsquo;s instructions. 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM: Lunch break (but lunch is only served in the first 45 minutes). 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Meditate in the hall or in your room. 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall. 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Meditate in the hall or in your room, according to the teacher&rsquo;s instructions. 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Tea break. 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall. 7:00 PM - 8:15 PM: The day&rsquo;s discourse. 8:15 PM - 9:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall. 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM: Students can stay in the hall and ask questions from the assistant teacher. 10:00 PM: Lights out. There are several things you might notice from the above schedule: There are 11 hours and 45 minutes of meditation time everyday. That doesn&rsquo;t leave time for much else, which is just fine, because there isn&rsquo;t much else you could do. There&rsquo;s no dinner. During the tea break, new students (those who are doing their first 10-day course) get fruits in addition to tea. Old students get nothing. Food is served in short windows. Part of the reason for this is that the whole operation is run by few volunteers (at a time), and running the kitchen is difficult. In fact, this was one of the most impressive things I learned about the organization that runs these courses: they have approx. 170 centres in over 90 countries and it&rsquo;s all run by volunteers using donations. The break times are the only times you have for doing personal things you need to do, such as showering. And physical activity? You can go outside for a walk but the course boundary is a pretty limited area. You can&rsquo;t run, as that might disturb the peace. Ok, what did you learn? The 10-day course is almost exclusively focused on learning a technique of meditation called Vipassana. I was very impressed by how laser-focused every aspect of the programme was on the technique and how hard they tried to avoid having it polluted by anything else. As you can see from the timetable, the daily discourses were the only time we were not either practicing meditation or taking time for some manner of bodily function (sleep, eating, or cleaning). The daily discourses did delve into philosophy and psychology – essentially covering the why of the technique – but even they repeatedly put the utmost importance on the practice and shunned &ldquo;playing intellectual games&rdquo;. The discourse was given only as it was necessary to frame what the technique is and how it helps. In short, Vipassana is a meditation that teaches you: The ability to focus your mind. The ability to feel, at an experiential level, that all things are changing. The ability to be equanimous to things one does not have control over, thus putting an end to craving and aversion - the two sources of unhappiness. By constantly training the mind on the impermanence of things, one begins to break the uncontrollable cycles of craving and aversion and learns to accept reality as it is, not as one wants it to be. This is the meaning of &ldquo;Vipassana&rdquo; – seeing reality. That&rsquo;s a very brief summary of the technique. As I mentioned, the technique was the most important thing and the thing we spent 11 hours on every day. It&rsquo;s hard to do it justice in a blog post. If you want to learn how to meditate, I suggest you do the 10-day course. If you don&rsquo;t want to do that, download an app, like 10% Happier and get started with a few minutes per day. What I will talk about now are my takeaways outside of the technique (but facilitated by the heightened powers of observation/awareness that the technique cultivates). The Silence When I told people I was going to be silent for 10 days, they were shocked. Most thought of not being able to talk as some kind of unbearable torture. I can emphatically say that the silence is the easiest part of the experience. Two days into the programme, I realized that I had not noticed any silence at all – there was plenty of chatter in my head to keep me busy. On the third night, my mind was starting to slow down and break out of its normal patterns of constantly generating thoughts. I went outside for a walk one evening, and sky was clear. I got to see the stars and I could see the clouds of the Milky Way. There aren&rsquo;t too many things I get excited about. That was the most excited I&rsquo;ve been in a long time. I recalled a story I&rsquo;d heard recently about a couple who met while each one was living in a remote cabin in the woods in northern BC, and they raised a family there for some time – far from the nearest town. After I&rsquo;d heard this story, I found myself thinking about it repeatedly. It sounds insane. And yet so appealing. The constant barage of stimulii we live with – and are often unaware of – are constantly giving us fuel for worry and stress. Silence gives us space and peace. To experience this kind of living is something I&rsquo;ve talked about with my friends for a long time, but over the last several years, I have increasingly deprived myself of it, for various invalid excuses. This is something I&rsquo;ll be thinking about for some time and changing. Elimination of all distractions By Day 5 of the course, I was seeing some real improvements in my ability to focus. I was getting acquainted with the silence and had starting untying some metaphorical knots I had recently created in my own mind. I was gaining clarity on where some of my recent struggles had originated and how I had contributed to them. I felt like I was having new epiphanies and insights every day. At the same time, I was learning this cool new technique, and I was learning about its origin: the story of the Buddha, Buddhist philosophy, and a little bit about the history of India – all topics I knew nothing about previously. As I said above, the utmost importance was placed on the techniques, and all of these topics were broached only as necessary to frame the technique. But they whet my apetite to learn more. When I&rsquo;m having epiphanies and ideas, I typically like to write them down so I don&rsquo;t forget. I like to discuss them with others. One way or another, I want to dwell on them. I could not do that during the retreat, and this was hard and irritating. Similarly, when I get curious about any topic, I love the power of pulling out my phone and instantly learning more about it. I could not do this during the retreat. This was also irritating. I spent some time living with these frustrations. Then I had a new realization about how dumb these frustrations were. Everything about the format of this course is meant to be laser-focused on teaching these methods of meditation. The ban on journaling and internet access is meant precisely to keep the monkey minds of people like me from wandering off the goal. I had committed to 10 days of intense meditation practice. Now, instead of doing the practice, I wanted to look up the history of India 3000 years ago or write down my thoughts about the last thing I was upset about. This was madness, and it took me a while to realize because these behaviours seem so innocuous and are so ingrained. I realized that there are countless distractions that pop up in my mind that I&rsquo;m totally aloof to. How much are these hurting the things I really want to accomplish? How much would we gain if we could eliminate these distractions that are being hurled at us more often? Since returning from the retreat, I&rsquo;ve often caught myself in total distraction. I love the impact that our modern electronics have had on our lives, but there&rsquo;s a serious downside that we need to learn to manage as well. Almost every time I take my phone out of my pocket, it is out of some unconscious habit that distracts me from what&rsquo;s happening here and now. I love the fact that I can do so much with my phone – that so much knowledge is immediately available to me. But I realized that I have my mouth on a fire hose, trying to drink. This behaviour needs to be tamed. Since this technology is available to us now, we need a cultural shift in learning how to manage it. Unfortunately, as I spent more time in &ldquo;real life&rdquo; after the retreat, my ability to block out these distractions and focus my mind has dwindled rapidly. Only regular practice can make this a lasting gain. Side note: I wrote a part of this blog post on a flight from Vancouver to Paris. I realized that flights are one area where I had already discovered the beauty of eliminating these distractions. On a flight, there is nothing to do. You can sit, sleep, work (if you work on a computer), read, or watch movies. This year when I was flying a lot, I started resisting the temptation of the in-flight entertainment system. Now, being on planes is some of my most productive time! Compassion The Persian religion of Zarathushthrianism has a maxim: Good thoughts, good words, good deeds. They&rsquo;re put in that specific order, presumably because each depends on the one before. Similarly, in Vipassana great importance is placed on purity of thought. If the thoughts are not good, the actions can&rsquo;t be, and if the actions are not good, according to Buddhist beliefs, one cannot progress on the path to &ldquo;enlightenment&rdquo;. Cultivating compassion is an important aspect of ridding one&rsquo;s mind of &ldquo;impurities&rdquo;. The reason for this can start from a selfish place – the uncompassionate thoughts cause misery for oneself before they affect anyone else. It is also the end goal. Once you &ldquo;reach enlightenment&rdquo; and see the world as it is, your sense of self – as a separate thing from other beings – melts away, and you&rsquo;re compelled to try to quell suffering whereever you find it. This is the theory, and whether it&rsquo;s true or not is not that important. The part that I bought into completely is the notion that being more compassionate makes one happier. It&rsquo;s a win-win that I find hard to argue with. Over the duration of the course, I observed my inner talk shifting toward being more and more compassionate. Maybe this was the result of having bought into the above idea or maybe it was a product of meditating a lot. I&rsquo;m not sure. Typically, I like to be judgemental of people if for no other reason than self-amusement. When I started the course, even though it was impossible to communicate with the other students, I found myself having judgemental thoughts toward them. For exampe, I would watch people struggle with sitting on the floor. They were building elaborate monuments out of pillows and foams to make themselves more comfortable and they&rsquo;d still not be able to sit still without constant shuffling. One of my roommates, who had clearly smoked a few too many joints in his day, slept through the first 5 days of the programme. This was annoying because it meant I could never meditate in the room because he&rsquo;d be snoring in it. I found myself thinking: &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t they kick him out if he&rsquo;s just sleeping all the time!?&rdquo;. There was a woman who was constantly coughing in the meditation hall. The cough was clearly psychosomatic. In fact, I had split a taxi with her on our way to the centre. During the 20 minute taxi ride (and during the social time at the end of the course) she never coughed once. Her incessant fake-coughing in the meditation hall also made me think: &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t they kick her out!?&rdquo; Over the next 9 days, through no direct effort, I observed my inner-dialogue shift to a more compassionate version: I would feel bad about the people who were constantly shuffling pillows – clearly they were very uncomfortable with this style of sitting; I would think the fact that my pothead roommate was actually sticking around for the whole gruelling 10 days was pretty impressive; and I would feel bad for the fake-cougher – clearly she was living with a lack of self-awareness that surely must hurt her in her life. By Day 8, the transformation of my inner-dialogue was very noticeable and I started worrying that this progress would be undone the minute I left the sanguine confines of the retreat. This has, indeed, occurred, but less than I was fearing. Like the ability to focus the mind, regular practice is required. Priya&rsquo;s Misery The fake-cougher was an Indian woman, named Priya. At the end of Day 9, just when I was being concerned about losing my progress in awareness and compassionate thought after the retreat, she gave me the perfect opportunity to see how what I learned applies in &ldquo;real world&rdquo; scenarios. During the question period, she approached the assistant teacher and (with a distressed voice) started asking an ambiguous question involving past lives and future lives. If you know me, you know that I have a very sensitive Bullshit-o-meter, and any serious talk of reincarnation triggers it, and here we had reincarnation being discussed seriously. I was annoyed. The assistant teacher tried to get clarification. Priya finally said: &ldquo;In my country, they say that you live 840,000 lives before being born as a human - because they counted the species.&rdquo; My inner dialogue: &ldquo;Excuse me? The year is 2017, we&rsquo;ve put men on the moon but we still can&rsquo;t find all the species on Earth, and you think some asshole in India from 5000 years ago counted all the species to know how long it takes to be reincarnated as a human!? And it’s 840,000 round, huh? Not 845,238, just 840,000 - how fucking convenient!&rdquo; Bullshit-o-meter was really going off now. Priya continued (and I&rsquo;m paraphrasing): &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve done this course two times now, and I just wanna know what happens to the work I&rsquo;ve done here, because you know, I&rsquo;m so tired of this cycle – I just want it to end.&rdquo; Inner dialogue: &ldquo;YOU ARE WHAT? BITCH, DO YOU REMEMBER HAVING DONE THE WORK FOR ALL THOSE 840,000 PAST LIVES? HOW INSANE ARE YOU!? WHY IS EVERYONE LOOKING AT THIS LIKE IT&rsquo;S A SERIOUS DISCUSSION?&rdquo; The assistant teacher, at a loss, said: &ldquo;You know, I can&rsquo;t tell you what will happen in a future life, but I can tell you that this practice makes me happier today. Can you take that? Just be happy with that.&rdquo; Priya: &ldquo;Yes. Thank you. You know, I didn&rsquo;t actually want you to answer this question. But it&rsquo;s such a big problem for me that I had to put the question out there, so maybe the universe will give me the answer.&rdquo; My bullshit-o-meter was off the charts. Firstly, this woman believes in reincarnation with an absurd specificity about its mechanism; secondly, her insanity is so deep that she feels tired of having been reincarnated so many times, making her desperate to end the cycle; and third, she hopes to be saved by the law of attraction, which is one of the most despicable and idiotic pseudo-religious quackery to have gained traction in my lifetime. At this point, I was fuming. As I left the hall, I knew two things: any sense of compassion had gone out the window, and that this was my perfect opportunity to practice what I had learned. I tried to find a more compassionate framing. Who was I angry at? I didn&rsquo;t know. I couldn&rsquo;t possibly have been angry at Priya. She hadn&rsquo;t done anything. If anything, I should feel bad for her – she&rsquo;s clearly suffering and in emotional distress. As I laid in bed, I tried to meditate. It didn&rsquo;t do anything to remove the anger and agitation but it did give me an opportunity to step outside of the normal thought loops that one gets stuck in during anger. I noticed that I was so agitated that I had gotten chest pains. Then I remembered a Buddhist parable I had heard a few days earlier: One day an angry young man lashed out at the Buddha. &ldquo;When the man had finished his abuse, the Buddha asked him, saying: &lsquo;Son, if a man declined to accept a present made to him, to whom would it belong?&rsquo; And he answered: &lsquo;In that case it would belong to the man who offered it.&rsquo; &ldquo;&lsquo;My son,&rsquo; said the Buddha, &lsquo;thou hast railed at me, but I decline to accept thy abuse, and request thee to keep it thyself. Will it not be a source of misery to thee? As the echo belongs to the sound, and the shadow to the substance, so misery will overtake the evil-doer without fail.&rsquo;&rdquo; (source) I realized that Priya had not tried to give me a gift of misery – I had forcibly yanked it away from her. Meditation didn&rsquo;t eliminate my anger, but it did open the opportunity for me to learn from it, and to observe how helpless I was as thoughts I had no control over emerged and overwhelmed my rational faculties. When I discussed this episode with the assistant teacher, he said I had the correct approach, and as I do this again and again, I will learn to notice and step outside of the anger earlier and earlier, until eventually, it simply ceases to emerge. Views on Religion You may be shocked to hear that I have&rsquo;t been the biggest fan of religion. Over the years, when I would criticize various religions, people would try to defend them with really bad and weak arguments. Over the last 1-2 years, however, I feel like I&rsquo;ve been &ldquo;deriving&rdquo; religion for myself from first principles – finding rationale for various religious practices that make sense to me. This meditation retreat certainly accelerated that project. Much of what was discussed during the course was about concepts I already knew and bought into. I realized, however, that these concepts were not of much use when I would hit real obstacles in life. I would always get overwhelmed by an emotional response and I would forget the principles by which I believed I should handle obstacles. I realized that there is a lot of value in having a group of people who all share a mental model of the world to get together periodically and have a &ldquo;sermon&rdquo; on the same concepts they already believe. There is value in this repetition/reinforcement because it&rsquo;s so difficult to remember the big picture when the going gets tough. I realized this is basically the practice of going to church every Sunday or doing Friday prayers. Of course, this reinforcement practice is predicated on the underlying philosophy being sound/helpful, which I would argue is not the case with most sects. However, the practice is useful and we should not discard it due to its common application to poor ideologies. Throughout the course, I spent a lot of time reflecting on the ways my thought patterns had created misery for me, and the ways in which awareness of these thought-patterns could help remedy the situation. As if suddenly struck by lightening, I understood Jordan Peterson&rsquo;s view on religion and &ldquo;truth&rdquo;. This was a stance of his that I could never understand or support before (you can listen to a gruelling conversation between him and Sam Harris on &ldquo;What is truth&rdquo; here). My rephrasing (or perhaps, misinterpretation) of his stance makes much more sense to me than any articulation I&rsquo;ve heard from him, and it is this: Religion is true and science is true. They are both &ldquo;true&rdquo; at the same time. So how do we explain the contradictions between them? Jordan Peterson would say there mustn&rsquo;t be a contradiction if we understand what these truths are, which he claims neither the religious nor science-oriented do. Religion is true in the domain of human psychology, science is true in the domain of objective reality. In other words, a &ldquo;truth&rdquo; belongs to a domain, and what is true in one domain may not necessarily &ldquo;map&rdquo; to another domain. So when Jordan Peterson talks about the bible, he has a very specific interpretation of, say, the story of genesis that pertains to certain facts of human experience and behaviour (with themes around jealousy, greed, etc). His interpretations of the bible always sounded good to me, but the question in my mind has always been: &ldquo;But why that interpretation and not another one?&rdquo; Well, I feel like I understand this now. If you view religion as a set of truths in the domain of human behaviour, then you must interpret it in a way that makes sense in that domain. This, to me, sounds like a way to have our cake and eat it too. We can take the benefits of religious belief and practice and leave its harms by the door, if we understand the domain in which religion operates. I don&rsquo;t see this being a very scalable or realisitic path, but at an individual level, it is helpful. Conclusion The meditation retreat was an arduous experience. By Day 5, the static routine and 2-meal-per-day regimen was starting to wear me out. While I never thought about quitting, I did start thinking: &ldquo;Ok, I&rsquo;ve already learned some things. Ten days is really too long.&rdquo; Throughout Days 6 and 7, I felt like I was still learning new things, but I was counting the hours and waiting for Day 10 to arrive. By Day 8, however, things changed, and I started realizing that the 10-day format was really just right and that everyday I was learning more and more. I started worrying that ten days were not enough, and that I wouldn&rsquo;t be able to retain everything I&rsquo;d learned. They claim that this 10-day format was exactly how the Buddha taught Vipassana to &ldquo;householders&rdquo; (ie. laymen, not monks). Whether or not that&rsquo;s true, it&rsquo;s certainly been around for long enough that, in my opinion, it is perfect. I could not think of one way in which the course could be improved. Surprisingly enough, I found starting the course much easier than ending it. When Noble Silence ended, the sudden rush of noise all around me was overwhelming and unpleasant. And when I entered the city, with my hightened awareness and increased sensitivity to stimuli, my body felt like that of a scared animal. The first night, when I tried to meditate at home, I could feel subtle trembling all over my body. It was uncomfortable (and I tried to remember that it&rsquo;s impermanent). Of course, the only measure of whether this experience was worthwhile or not is in its long term impact, and it can only have this impact with regular practice. They recommend that practitioners should do at least one hour of meditation in the morning and one hour in the evening. I thought that was an excessive prescription, but having done only one hour for a few weeks now, I see that the two hours is actually a minimum. I will now need to re-evaluate some priorities to ensure I get sufficient practice, and I hope I can do one retreat every year." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="A month ago, I took an early morning Greyhound bus from Vancouver to Merritt to attend a 10-day meditation programme. I think when I look back, I will see this as one of the most profound experiences of my life. It was hard and gruelling, and I was apprehensive leading up to it, but I’m so glad that I went for it. Here, I will try to provide an overview/summary of the experience. Caveat: It&rsquo;s impossible for me for convey the experience of meditation through a blog post and I&rsquo;m not going to try. In this post, I&rsquo;ve written about some of my takeaways from the experience. It&rsquo;s important to remember that ALL of the takeaways discussed here are besides the central point of the retreat, which is the practice of meditation. In other words, what I&rsquo;ve discussed here were the byproducts for me at the time I took the course. Most important takeway of all is that the practice of meditation can lead to many such insights (and probably much more profound ones). Background Why meditate? I initially got into meditation as a stress management technique. One night when I was 28, I found myself in the office, alone, at 8 PM. I had just released a buggy version of our app, and it was causing issues on our customers’ phones. I had no idea what had gone wrong. As I was pouring over pages and pages of log data to detect the issue, I suddenly became cognizant of the sharp pains I was experiencing in my chest. My next thought was that since the office building is now empty, if I have a heart attack, nobody will find me until the next morning. I had heard many guests on The Tim Ferriss Podcast talk about their meditation practice, so in 2017, I made it a new years’ resolution to establish a regular meditation practice, to be able to gain better control over my stress response. I stuck to a routine of doing 5-minutes/day, but I knew I did not understand what meditation really was, so I signed up for the retreat. Now, I know that the promise of meditation is much loftier than simple “stress management”. Meditation is the practice by which one can end one’s suffering. I’ve written before about my philosophy of handling setbacks and unhappiness. This philosophy revolves around the acceptance of what is and being content with all things — desirable or undesirable — that are outside of one’s control. Even the subtitle of this blog (“making the map match the territory”) is about my quest to see the world as it is, not as I want it to be. I’ve learned these lessons from stoic writings from Ancient Rome, and I’ve heard them echoed by Lao Tzu in Tao Te Ching. As I’ve learned now, Buddhist thinking follows a similar theme. However, while Lao Tzu and the Roman stoics were very clear about the end goal (building a strong mind), they were less clear about the path to get there. Vipassana meditation is, according to its practitioners, the Buddha’s method. And by training the mind, it promises to end all suffering. So tell me about the retreat! The meditation centre I attended is called Dhamma Surabhi, a 20-minute drive outside of Merritt. The main building is a square structure with a courtyard in the middle. On one end of the square is a large meditation hall, on the other end, there is a dining hall. The corridors connecting the two contain the rooms and bathrooms for the students, one side for men, the other for women. There is complete gender segregation for the duration of the course. At the start, the students are asked to commit to the following moral code for the duration of the course: I will abstain from killing I will abstain from stealing I will abstain from all sexual activity I will abstain from wrong speech I will abstain from all intoxicants These precepts are interpreted rather broadly. The food at the retreat is all vegetarian because eating meat would violate the first precept — you’re supporting killing. And since it’s impossible for people to communicate with pure truth, students must observe “Noble Silence” for the duration of the course. This means no talking, no gestures, and no eye contact. There is a designated manager for men and women and students can raise any concerns with them if necessary. When you check-in, you&rsquo;re asked to hand over your phone and any other electronic devices, plus any reading or writing material. Journalling, note-taking, and reading are all forbidden. More on that later. Every day of the course follows a timetable that you&rsquo;re given on Day 0: 4:00 AM: Wake up bell. 4:30 AM - 6:30 AM: Meditation in your room or in the hall. 6:30 AM - 8:00 AM: Breakfast break (but breakfast is only served in the first 45 minutes). 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM: Group meditation in the hall. 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Meditate in the hall or in your room, according to the teacher&rsquo;s instructions. 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM: Lunch break (but lunch is only served in the first 45 minutes). 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Meditate in the hall or in your room. 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall. 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Meditate in the hall or in your room, according to the teacher&rsquo;s instructions. 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Tea break. 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall. 7:00 PM - 8:15 PM: The day&rsquo;s discourse. 8:15 PM - 9:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall. 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM: Students can stay in the hall and ask questions from the assistant teacher. 10:00 PM: Lights out. There are several things you might notice from the above schedule: There are 11 hours and 45 minutes of meditation time everyday. That doesn&rsquo;t leave time for much else, which is just fine, because there isn&rsquo;t much else you could do. There&rsquo;s no dinner. During the tea break, new students (those who are doing their first 10-day course) get fruits in addition to tea. Old students get nothing. Food is served in short windows. Part of the reason for this is that the whole operation is run by few volunteers (at a time), and running the kitchen is difficult. In fact, this was one of the most impressive things I learned about the organization that runs these courses: they have approx. 170 centres in over 90 countries and it&rsquo;s all run by volunteers using donations. The break times are the only times you have for doing personal things you need to do, such as showering. And physical activity? You can go outside for a walk but the course boundary is a pretty limited area. You can&rsquo;t run, as that might disturb the peace. Ok, what did you learn? The 10-day course is almost exclusively focused on learning a technique of meditation called Vipassana. I was very impressed by how laser-focused every aspect of the programme was on the technique and how hard they tried to avoid having it polluted by anything else. As you can see from the timetable, the daily discourses were the only time we were not either practicing meditation or taking time for some manner of bodily function (sleep, eating, or cleaning). The daily discourses did delve into philosophy and psychology – essentially covering the why of the technique – but even they repeatedly put the utmost importance on the practice and shunned &ldquo;playing intellectual games&rdquo;. The discourse was given only as it was necessary to frame what the technique is and how it helps. In short, Vipassana is a meditation that teaches you: The ability to focus your mind. The ability to feel, at an experiential level, that all things are changing. The ability to be equanimous to things one does not have control over, thus putting an end to craving and aversion - the two sources of unhappiness. By constantly training the mind on the impermanence of things, one begins to break the uncontrollable cycles of craving and aversion and learns to accept reality as it is, not as one wants it to be. This is the meaning of &ldquo;Vipassana&rdquo; – seeing reality. That&rsquo;s a very brief summary of the technique. As I mentioned, the technique was the most important thing and the thing we spent 11 hours on every day. It&rsquo;s hard to do it justice in a blog post. If you want to learn how to meditate, I suggest you do the 10-day course. If you don&rsquo;t want to do that, download an app, like 10% Happier and get started with a few minutes per day. What I will talk about now are my takeaways outside of the technique (but facilitated by the heightened powers of observation/awareness that the technique cultivates). The Silence When I told people I was going to be silent for 10 days, they were shocked. Most thought of not being able to talk as some kind of unbearable torture. I can emphatically say that the silence is the easiest part of the experience. Two days into the programme, I realized that I had not noticed any silence at all – there was plenty of chatter in my head to keep me busy. On the third night, my mind was starting to slow down and break out of its normal patterns of constantly generating thoughts. I went outside for a walk one evening, and sky was clear. I got to see the stars and I could see the clouds of the Milky Way. There aren&rsquo;t too many things I get excited about. That was the most excited I&rsquo;ve been in a long time. I recalled a story I&rsquo;d heard recently about a couple who met while each one was living in a remote cabin in the woods in northern BC, and they raised a family there for some time – far from the nearest town. After I&rsquo;d heard this story, I found myself thinking about it repeatedly. It sounds insane. And yet so appealing. The constant barage of stimulii we live with – and are often unaware of – are constantly giving us fuel for worry and stress. Silence gives us space and peace. To experience this kind of living is something I&rsquo;ve talked about with my friends for a long time, but over the last several years, I have increasingly deprived myself of it, for various invalid excuses. This is something I&rsquo;ll be thinking about for some time and changing. Elimination of all distractions By Day 5 of the course, I was seeing some real improvements in my ability to focus. I was getting acquainted with the silence and had starting untying some metaphorical knots I had recently created in my own mind. I was gaining clarity on where some of my recent struggles had originated and how I had contributed to them. I felt like I was having new epiphanies and insights every day. At the same time, I was learning this cool new technique, and I was learning about its origin: the story of the Buddha, Buddhist philosophy, and a little bit about the history of India – all topics I knew nothing about previously. As I said above, the utmost importance was placed on the techniques, and all of these topics were broached only as necessary to frame the technique. But they whet my apetite to learn more. When I&rsquo;m having epiphanies and ideas, I typically like to write them down so I don&rsquo;t forget. I like to discuss them with others. One way or another, I want to dwell on them. I could not do that during the retreat, and this was hard and irritating. Similarly, when I get curious about any topic, I love the power of pulling out my phone and instantly learning more about it. I could not do this during the retreat. This was also irritating. I spent some time living with these frustrations. Then I had a new realization about how dumb these frustrations were. Everything about the format of this course is meant to be laser-focused on teaching these methods of meditation. The ban on journaling and internet access is meant precisely to keep the monkey minds of people like me from wandering off the goal. I had committed to 10 days of intense meditation practice. Now, instead of doing the practice, I wanted to look up the history of India 3000 years ago or write down my thoughts about the last thing I was upset about. This was madness, and it took me a while to realize because these behaviours seem so innocuous and are so ingrained. I realized that there are countless distractions that pop up in my mind that I&rsquo;m totally aloof to. How much are these hurting the things I really want to accomplish? How much would we gain if we could eliminate these distractions that are being hurled at us more often? Since returning from the retreat, I&rsquo;ve often caught myself in total distraction. I love the impact that our modern electronics have had on our lives, but there&rsquo;s a serious downside that we need to learn to manage as well. Almost every time I take my phone out of my pocket, it is out of some unconscious habit that distracts me from what&rsquo;s happening here and now. I love the fact that I can do so much with my phone – that so much knowledge is immediately available to me. But I realized that I have my mouth on a fire hose, trying to drink. This behaviour needs to be tamed. Since this technology is available to us now, we need a cultural shift in learning how to manage it. Unfortunately, as I spent more time in &ldquo;real life&rdquo; after the retreat, my ability to block out these distractions and focus my mind has dwindled rapidly. Only regular practice can make this a lasting gain. Side note: I wrote a part of this blog post on a flight from Vancouver to Paris. I realized that flights are one area where I had already discovered the beauty of eliminating these distractions. On a flight, there is nothing to do. You can sit, sleep, work (if you work on a computer), read, or watch movies. This year when I was flying a lot, I started resisting the temptation of the in-flight entertainment system. Now, being on planes is some of my most productive time! Compassion The Persian religion of Zarathushthrianism has a maxim: Good thoughts, good words, good deeds. They&rsquo;re put in that specific order, presumably because each depends on the one before. Similarly, in Vipassana great importance is placed on purity of thought. If the thoughts are not good, the actions can&rsquo;t be, and if the actions are not good, according to Buddhist beliefs, one cannot progress on the path to &ldquo;enlightenment&rdquo;. Cultivating compassion is an important aspect of ridding one&rsquo;s mind of &ldquo;impurities&rdquo;. The reason for this can start from a selfish place – the uncompassionate thoughts cause misery for oneself before they affect anyone else. It is also the end goal. Once you &ldquo;reach enlightenment&rdquo; and see the world as it is, your sense of self – as a separate thing from other beings – melts away, and you&rsquo;re compelled to try to quell suffering whereever you find it. This is the theory, and whether it&rsquo;s true or not is not that important. The part that I bought into completely is the notion that being more compassionate makes one happier. It&rsquo;s a win-win that I find hard to argue with. Over the duration of the course, I observed my inner talk shifting toward being more and more compassionate. Maybe this was the result of having bought into the above idea or maybe it was a product of meditating a lot. I&rsquo;m not sure. Typically, I like to be judgemental of people if for no other reason than self-amusement. When I started the course, even though it was impossible to communicate with the other students, I found myself having judgemental thoughts toward them. For exampe, I would watch people struggle with sitting on the floor. They were building elaborate monuments out of pillows and foams to make themselves more comfortable and they&rsquo;d still not be able to sit still without constant shuffling. One of my roommates, who had clearly smoked a few too many joints in his day, slept through the first 5 days of the programme. This was annoying because it meant I could never meditate in the room because he&rsquo;d be snoring in it. I found myself thinking: &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t they kick him out if he&rsquo;s just sleeping all the time!?&rdquo;. There was a woman who was constantly coughing in the meditation hall. The cough was clearly psychosomatic. In fact, I had split a taxi with her on our way to the centre. During the 20 minute taxi ride (and during the social time at the end of the course) she never coughed once. Her incessant fake-coughing in the meditation hall also made me think: &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t they kick her out!?&rdquo; Over the next 9 days, through no direct effort, I observed my inner-dialogue shift to a more compassionate version: I would feel bad about the people who were constantly shuffling pillows – clearly they were very uncomfortable with this style of sitting; I would think the fact that my pothead roommate was actually sticking around for the whole gruelling 10 days was pretty impressive; and I would feel bad for the fake-cougher – clearly she was living with a lack of self-awareness that surely must hurt her in her life. By Day 8, the transformation of my inner-dialogue was very noticeable and I started worrying that this progress would be undone the minute I left the sanguine confines of the retreat. This has, indeed, occurred, but less than I was fearing. Like the ability to focus the mind, regular practice is required. Priya&rsquo;s Misery The fake-cougher was an Indian woman, named Priya. At the end of Day 9, just when I was being concerned about losing my progress in awareness and compassionate thought after the retreat, she gave me the perfect opportunity to see how what I learned applies in &ldquo;real world&rdquo; scenarios. During the question period, she approached the assistant teacher and (with a distressed voice) started asking an ambiguous question involving past lives and future lives. If you know me, you know that I have a very sensitive Bullshit-o-meter, and any serious talk of reincarnation triggers it, and here we had reincarnation being discussed seriously. I was annoyed. The assistant teacher tried to get clarification. Priya finally said: &ldquo;In my country, they say that you live 840,000 lives before being born as a human - because they counted the species.&rdquo; My inner dialogue: &ldquo;Excuse me? The year is 2017, we&rsquo;ve put men on the moon but we still can&rsquo;t find all the species on Earth, and you think some asshole in India from 5000 years ago counted all the species to know how long it takes to be reincarnated as a human!? And it’s 840,000 round, huh? Not 845,238, just 840,000 - how fucking convenient!&rdquo; Bullshit-o-meter was really going off now. Priya continued (and I&rsquo;m paraphrasing): &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve done this course two times now, and I just wanna know what happens to the work I&rsquo;ve done here, because you know, I&rsquo;m so tired of this cycle – I just want it to end.&rdquo; Inner dialogue: &ldquo;YOU ARE WHAT? BITCH, DO YOU REMEMBER HAVING DONE THE WORK FOR ALL THOSE 840,000 PAST LIVES? HOW INSANE ARE YOU!? WHY IS EVERYONE LOOKING AT THIS LIKE IT&rsquo;S A SERIOUS DISCUSSION?&rdquo; The assistant teacher, at a loss, said: &ldquo;You know, I can&rsquo;t tell you what will happen in a future life, but I can tell you that this practice makes me happier today. Can you take that? Just be happy with that.&rdquo; Priya: &ldquo;Yes. Thank you. You know, I didn&rsquo;t actually want you to answer this question. But it&rsquo;s such a big problem for me that I had to put the question out there, so maybe the universe will give me the answer.&rdquo; My bullshit-o-meter was off the charts. Firstly, this woman believes in reincarnation with an absurd specificity about its mechanism; secondly, her insanity is so deep that she feels tired of having been reincarnated so many times, making her desperate to end the cycle; and third, she hopes to be saved by the law of attraction, which is one of the most despicable and idiotic pseudo-religious quackery to have gained traction in my lifetime. At this point, I was fuming. As I left the hall, I knew two things: any sense of compassion had gone out the window, and that this was my perfect opportunity to practice what I had learned. I tried to find a more compassionate framing. Who was I angry at? I didn&rsquo;t know. I couldn&rsquo;t possibly have been angry at Priya. She hadn&rsquo;t done anything. If anything, I should feel bad for her – she&rsquo;s clearly suffering and in emotional distress. As I laid in bed, I tried to meditate. It didn&rsquo;t do anything to remove the anger and agitation but it did give me an opportunity to step outside of the normal thought loops that one gets stuck in during anger. I noticed that I was so agitated that I had gotten chest pains. Then I remembered a Buddhist parable I had heard a few days earlier: One day an angry young man lashed out at the Buddha. &ldquo;When the man had finished his abuse, the Buddha asked him, saying: &lsquo;Son, if a man declined to accept a present made to him, to whom would it belong?&rsquo; And he answered: &lsquo;In that case it would belong to the man who offered it.&rsquo; &ldquo;&lsquo;My son,&rsquo; said the Buddha, &lsquo;thou hast railed at me, but I decline to accept thy abuse, and request thee to keep it thyself. Will it not be a source of misery to thee? As the echo belongs to the sound, and the shadow to the substance, so misery will overtake the evil-doer without fail.&rsquo;&rdquo; (source) I realized that Priya had not tried to give me a gift of misery – I had forcibly yanked it away from her. Meditation didn&rsquo;t eliminate my anger, but it did open the opportunity for me to learn from it, and to observe how helpless I was as thoughts I had no control over emerged and overwhelmed my rational faculties. When I discussed this episode with the assistant teacher, he said I had the correct approach, and as I do this again and again, I will learn to notice and step outside of the anger earlier and earlier, until eventually, it simply ceases to emerge. Views on Religion You may be shocked to hear that I have&rsquo;t been the biggest fan of religion. Over the years, when I would criticize various religions, people would try to defend them with really bad and weak arguments. Over the last 1-2 years, however, I feel like I&rsquo;ve been &ldquo;deriving&rdquo; religion for myself from first principles – finding rationale for various religious practices that make sense to me. This meditation retreat certainly accelerated that project. Much of what was discussed during the course was about concepts I already knew and bought into. I realized, however, that these concepts were not of much use when I would hit real obstacles in life. I would always get overwhelmed by an emotional response and I would forget the principles by which I believed I should handle obstacles. I realized that there is a lot of value in having a group of people who all share a mental model of the world to get together periodically and have a &ldquo;sermon&rdquo; on the same concepts they already believe. There is value in this repetition/reinforcement because it&rsquo;s so difficult to remember the big picture when the going gets tough. I realized this is basically the practice of going to church every Sunday or doing Friday prayers. Of course, this reinforcement practice is predicated on the underlying philosophy being sound/helpful, which I would argue is not the case with most sects. However, the practice is useful and we should not discard it due to its common application to poor ideologies. Throughout the course, I spent a lot of time reflecting on the ways my thought patterns had created misery for me, and the ways in which awareness of these thought-patterns could help remedy the situation. As if suddenly struck by lightening, I understood Jordan Peterson&rsquo;s view on religion and &ldquo;truth&rdquo;. This was a stance of his that I could never understand or support before (you can listen to a gruelling conversation between him and Sam Harris on &ldquo;What is truth&rdquo; here). My rephrasing (or perhaps, misinterpretation) of his stance makes much more sense to me than any articulation I&rsquo;ve heard from him, and it is this: Religion is true and science is true. They are both &ldquo;true&rdquo; at the same time. So how do we explain the contradictions between them? Jordan Peterson would say there mustn&rsquo;t be a contradiction if we understand what these truths are, which he claims neither the religious nor science-oriented do. Religion is true in the domain of human psychology, science is true in the domain of objective reality. In other words, a &ldquo;truth&rdquo; belongs to a domain, and what is true in one domain may not necessarily &ldquo;map&rdquo; to another domain. So when Jordan Peterson talks about the bible, he has a very specific interpretation of, say, the story of genesis that pertains to certain facts of human experience and behaviour (with themes around jealousy, greed, etc). His interpretations of the bible always sounded good to me, but the question in my mind has always been: &ldquo;But why that interpretation and not another one?&rdquo; Well, I feel like I understand this now. If you view religion as a set of truths in the domain of human behaviour, then you must interpret it in a way that makes sense in that domain. This, to me, sounds like a way to have our cake and eat it too. We can take the benefits of religious belief and practice and leave its harms by the door, if we understand the domain in which religion operates. I don&rsquo;t see this being a very scalable or realisitic path, but at an individual level, it is helpful. Conclusion The meditation retreat was an arduous experience. By Day 5, the static routine and 2-meal-per-day regimen was starting to wear me out. While I never thought about quitting, I did start thinking: &ldquo;Ok, I&rsquo;ve already learned some things. Ten days is really too long.&rdquo; Throughout Days 6 and 7, I felt like I was still learning new things, but I was counting the hours and waiting for Day 10 to arrive. By Day 8, however, things changed, and I started realizing that the 10-day format was really just right and that everyday I was learning more and more. I started worrying that ten days were not enough, and that I wouldn&rsquo;t be able to retain everything I&rsquo;d learned. They claim that this 10-day format was exactly how the Buddha taught Vipassana to &ldquo;householders&rdquo; (ie. laymen, not monks). Whether or not that&rsquo;s true, it&rsquo;s certainly been around for long enough that, in my opinion, it is perfect. I could not think of one way in which the course could be improved. Surprisingly enough, I found starting the course much easier than ending it. When Noble Silence ended, the sudden rush of noise all around me was overwhelming and unpleasant. And when I entered the city, with my hightened awareness and increased sensitivity to stimuli, my body felt like that of a scared animal. The first night, when I tried to meditate at home, I could feel subtle trembling all over my body. It was uncomfortable (and I tried to remember that it&rsquo;s impermanent). Of course, the only measure of whether this experience was worthwhile or not is in its long term impact, and it can only have this impact with regular practice. They recommend that practitioners should do at least one hour of meditation in the morning and one hour in the evening. I thought that was an excessive prescription, but having done only one hour for a few weeks now, I see that the two hours is actually a minimum. I will now need to re-evaluate some priorities to ensure I get sufficient practice, and I hope I can do one retreat every year." />
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It&rsquo;s important to remember that ALL of the takeaways discussed here are besides the central point of the retreat, which is the practice of meditation. In other words, what I&rsquo;ve discussed here were the byproducts for me at the time I took the course. Most important takeway of all is that the practice of meditation can lead to many such insights (and probably much more profound ones). Background Why meditate? I initially got into meditation as a stress management technique. One night when I was 28, I found myself in the office, alone, at 8 PM. I had just released a buggy version of our app, and it was causing issues on our customers’ phones. I had no idea what had gone wrong. As I was pouring over pages and pages of log data to detect the issue, I suddenly became cognizant of the sharp pains I was experiencing in my chest. My next thought was that since the office building is now empty, if I have a heart attack, nobody will find me until the next morning. I had heard many guests on The Tim Ferriss Podcast talk about their meditation practice, so in 2017, I made it a new years’ resolution to establish a regular meditation practice, to be able to gain better control over my stress response. I stuck to a routine of doing 5-minutes/day, but I knew I did not understand what meditation really was, so I signed up for the retreat. Now, I know that the promise of meditation is much loftier than simple “stress management”. Meditation is the practice by which one can end one’s suffering. I’ve written before about my philosophy of handling setbacks and unhappiness. This philosophy revolves around the acceptance of what is and being content with all things — desirable or undesirable — that are outside of one’s control. Even the subtitle of this blog (“making the map match the territory”) is about my quest to see the world as it is, not as I want it to be. I’ve learned these lessons from stoic writings from Ancient Rome, and I’ve heard them echoed by Lao Tzu in Tao Te Ching. As I’ve learned now, Buddhist thinking follows a similar theme. However, while Lao Tzu and the Roman stoics were very clear about the end goal (building a strong mind), they were less clear about the path to get there. Vipassana meditation is, according to its practitioners, the Buddha’s method. And by training the mind, it promises to end all suffering. So tell me about the retreat! The meditation centre I attended is called Dhamma Surabhi, a 20-minute drive outside of Merritt. The main building is a square structure with a courtyard in the middle. On one end of the square is a large meditation hall, on the other end, there is a dining hall. The corridors connecting the two contain the rooms and bathrooms for the students, one side for men, the other for women. There is complete gender segregation for the duration of the course. At the start, the students are asked to commit to the following moral code for the duration of the course: I will abstain from killing I will abstain from stealing I will abstain from all sexual activity I will abstain from wrong speech I will abstain from all intoxicants These precepts are interpreted rather broadly. The food at the retreat is all vegetarian because eating meat would violate the first precept — you’re supporting killing. And since it’s impossible for people to communicate with pure truth, students must observe “Noble Silence” for the duration of the course. This means no talking, no gestures, and no eye contact. There is a designated manager for men and women and students can raise any concerns with them if necessary. When you check-in, you&rsquo;re asked to hand over your phone and any other electronic devices, plus any reading or writing material. Journalling, note-taking, and reading are all forbidden. More on that later. Every day of the course follows a timetable that you&rsquo;re given on Day 0: 4:00 AM: Wake up bell. 4:30 AM - 6:30 AM: Meditation in your room or in the hall. 6:30 AM - 8:00 AM: Breakfast break (but breakfast is only served in the first 45 minutes). 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM: Group meditation in the hall. 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Meditate in the hall or in your room, according to the teacher&rsquo;s instructions. 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM: Lunch break (but lunch is only served in the first 45 minutes). 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Meditate in the hall or in your room. 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall. 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Meditate in the hall or in your room, according to the teacher&rsquo;s instructions. 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Tea break. 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall. 7:00 PM - 8:15 PM: The day&rsquo;s discourse. 8:15 PM - 9:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall. 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM: Students can stay in the hall and ask questions from the assistant teacher. 10:00 PM: Lights out. There are several things you might notice from the above schedule: There are 11 hours and 45 minutes of meditation time everyday. That doesn&rsquo;t leave time for much else, which is just fine, because there isn&rsquo;t much else you could do. There&rsquo;s no dinner. During the tea break, new students (those who are doing their first 10-day course) get fruits in addition to tea. Old students get nothing. Food is served in short windows. Part of the reason for this is that the whole operation is run by few volunteers (at a time), and running the kitchen is difficult. In fact, this was one of the most impressive things I learned about the organization that runs these courses: they have approx. 170 centres in over 90 countries and it&rsquo;s all run by volunteers using donations. The break times are the only times you have for doing personal things you need to do, such as showering. And physical activity? You can go outside for a walk but the course boundary is a pretty limited area. You can&rsquo;t run, as that might disturb the peace. Ok, what did you learn? The 10-day course is almost exclusively focused on learning a technique of meditation called Vipassana. I was very impressed by how laser-focused every aspect of the programme was on the technique and how hard they tried to avoid having it polluted by anything else. As you can see from the timetable, the daily discourses were the only time we were not either practicing meditation or taking time for some manner of bodily function (sleep, eating, or cleaning). The daily discourses did delve into philosophy and psychology – essentially covering the why of the technique – but even they repeatedly put the utmost importance on the practice and shunned &ldquo;playing intellectual games&rdquo;. The discourse was given only as it was necessary to frame what the technique is and how it helps. In short, Vipassana is a meditation that teaches you: The ability to focus your mind. The ability to feel, at an experiential level, that all things are changing. The ability to be equanimous to things one does not have control over, thus putting an end to craving and aversion - the two sources of unhappiness. By constantly training the mind on the impermanence of things, one begins to break the uncontrollable cycles of craving and aversion and learns to accept reality as it is, not as one wants it to be. This is the meaning of &ldquo;Vipassana&rdquo; – seeing reality. That&rsquo;s a very brief summary of the technique. As I mentioned, the technique was the most important thing and the thing we spent 11 hours on every day. It&rsquo;s hard to do it justice in a blog post. If you want to learn how to meditate, I suggest you do the 10-day course. If you don&rsquo;t want to do that, download an app, like 10% Happier and get started with a few minutes per day. What I will talk about now are my takeaways outside of the technique (but facilitated by the heightened powers of observation/awareness that the technique cultivates). The Silence When I told people I was going to be silent for 10 days, they were shocked. Most thought of not being able to talk as some kind of unbearable torture. I can emphatically say that the silence is the easiest part of the experience. Two days into the programme, I realized that I had not noticed any silence at all – there was plenty of chatter in my head to keep me busy. On the third night, my mind was starting to slow down and break out of its normal patterns of constantly generating thoughts. I went outside for a walk one evening, and sky was clear. I got to see the stars and I could see the clouds of the Milky Way. There aren&rsquo;t too many things I get excited about. That was the most excited I&rsquo;ve been in a long time. I recalled a story I&rsquo;d heard recently about a couple who met while each one was living in a remote cabin in the woods in northern BC, and they raised a family there for some time – far from the nearest town. After I&rsquo;d heard this story, I found myself thinking about it repeatedly. It sounds insane. And yet so appealing. The constant barage of stimulii we live with – and are often unaware of – are constantly giving us fuel for worry and stress. Silence gives us space and peace. To experience this kind of living is something I&rsquo;ve talked about with my friends for a long time, but over the last several years, I have increasingly deprived myself of it, for various invalid excuses. This is something I&rsquo;ll be thinking about for some time and changing. Elimination of all distractions By Day 5 of the course, I was seeing some real improvements in my ability to focus. I was getting acquainted with the silence and had starting untying some metaphorical knots I had recently created in my own mind. I was gaining clarity on where some of my recent struggles had originated and how I had contributed to them. I felt like I was having new epiphanies and insights every day. At the same time, I was learning this cool new technique, and I was learning about its origin: the story of the Buddha, Buddhist philosophy, and a little bit about the history of India – all topics I knew nothing about previously. As I said above, the utmost importance was placed on the techniques, and all of these topics were broached only as necessary to frame the technique. But they whet my apetite to learn more. When I&rsquo;m having epiphanies and ideas, I typically like to write them down so I don&rsquo;t forget. I like to discuss them with others. One way or another, I want to dwell on them. I could not do that during the retreat, and this was hard and irritating. Similarly, when I get curious about any topic, I love the power of pulling out my phone and instantly learning more about it. I could not do this during the retreat. This was also irritating. I spent some time living with these frustrations. Then I had a new realization about how dumb these frustrations were. Everything about the format of this course is meant to be laser-focused on teaching these methods of meditation. The ban on journaling and internet access is meant precisely to keep the monkey minds of people like me from wandering off the goal. I had committed to 10 days of intense meditation practice. Now, instead of doing the practice, I wanted to look up the history of India 3000 years ago or write down my thoughts about the last thing I was upset about. This was madness, and it took me a while to realize because these behaviours seem so innocuous and are so ingrained. I realized that there are countless distractions that pop up in my mind that I&rsquo;m totally aloof to. How much are these hurting the things I really want to accomplish? How much would we gain if we could eliminate these distractions that are being hurled at us more often? Since returning from the retreat, I&rsquo;ve often caught myself in total distraction. I love the impact that our modern electronics have had on our lives, but there&rsquo;s a serious downside that we need to learn to manage as well. Almost every time I take my phone out of my pocket, it is out of some unconscious habit that distracts me from what&rsquo;s happening here and now. I love the fact that I can do so much with my phone – that so much knowledge is immediately available to me. But I realized that I have my mouth on a fire hose, trying to drink. This behaviour needs to be tamed. Since this technology is available to us now, we need a cultural shift in learning how to manage it. Unfortunately, as I spent more time in &ldquo;real life&rdquo; after the retreat, my ability to block out these distractions and focus my mind has dwindled rapidly. Only regular practice can make this a lasting gain. Side note: I wrote a part of this blog post on a flight from Vancouver to Paris. I realized that flights are one area where I had already discovered the beauty of eliminating these distractions. On a flight, there is nothing to do. You can sit, sleep, work (if you work on a computer), read, or watch movies. This year when I was flying a lot, I started resisting the temptation of the in-flight entertainment system. Now, being on planes is some of my most productive time! Compassion The Persian religion of Zarathushthrianism has a maxim: Good thoughts, good words, good deeds. They&rsquo;re put in that specific order, presumably because each depends on the one before. Similarly, in Vipassana great importance is placed on purity of thought. If the thoughts are not good, the actions can&rsquo;t be, and if the actions are not good, according to Buddhist beliefs, one cannot progress on the path to &ldquo;enlightenment&rdquo;. Cultivating compassion is an important aspect of ridding one&rsquo;s mind of &ldquo;impurities&rdquo;. The reason for this can start from a selfish place – the uncompassionate thoughts cause misery for oneself before they affect anyone else. It is also the end goal. Once you &ldquo;reach enlightenment&rdquo; and see the world as it is, your sense of self – as a separate thing from other beings – melts away, and you&rsquo;re compelled to try to quell suffering whereever you find it. This is the theory, and whether it&rsquo;s true or not is not that important. The part that I bought into completely is the notion that being more compassionate makes one happier. It&rsquo;s a win-win that I find hard to argue with. Over the duration of the course, I observed my inner talk shifting toward being more and more compassionate. Maybe this was the result of having bought into the above idea or maybe it was a product of meditating a lot. I&rsquo;m not sure. Typically, I like to be judgemental of people if for no other reason than self-amusement. When I started the course, even though it was impossible to communicate with the other students, I found myself having judgemental thoughts toward them. For exampe, I would watch people struggle with sitting on the floor. They were building elaborate monuments out of pillows and foams to make themselves more comfortable and they&rsquo;d still not be able to sit still without constant shuffling. One of my roommates, who had clearly smoked a few too many joints in his day, slept through the first 5 days of the programme. This was annoying because it meant I could never meditate in the room because he&rsquo;d be snoring in it. I found myself thinking: &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t they kick him out if he&rsquo;s just sleeping all the time!?&rdquo;. There was a woman who was constantly coughing in the meditation hall. The cough was clearly psychosomatic. In fact, I had split a taxi with her on our way to the centre. During the 20 minute taxi ride (and during the social time at the end of the course) she never coughed once. Her incessant fake-coughing in the meditation hall also made me think: &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t they kick her out!?&rdquo; Over the next 9 days, through no direct effort, I observed my inner-dialogue shift to a more compassionate version: I would feel bad about the people who were constantly shuffling pillows – clearly they were very uncomfortable with this style of sitting; I would think the fact that my pothead roommate was actually sticking around for the whole gruelling 10 days was pretty impressive; and I would feel bad for the fake-cougher – clearly she was living with a lack of self-awareness that surely must hurt her in her life. By Day 8, the transformation of my inner-dialogue was very noticeable and I started worrying that this progress would be undone the minute I left the sanguine confines of the retreat. This has, indeed, occurred, but less than I was fearing. Like the ability to focus the mind, regular practice is required. Priya&rsquo;s Misery The fake-cougher was an Indian woman, named Priya. At the end of Day 9, just when I was being concerned about losing my progress in awareness and compassionate thought after the retreat, she gave me the perfect opportunity to see how what I learned applies in &ldquo;real world&rdquo; scenarios. During the question period, she approached the assistant teacher and (with a distressed voice) started asking an ambiguous question involving past lives and future lives. If you know me, you know that I have a very sensitive Bullshit-o-meter, and any serious talk of reincarnation triggers it, and here we had reincarnation being discussed seriously. I was annoyed. The assistant teacher tried to get clarification. Priya finally said: &ldquo;In my country, they say that you live 840,000 lives before being born as a human - because they counted the species.&rdquo; My inner dialogue: &ldquo;Excuse me? The year is 2017, we&rsquo;ve put men on the moon but we still can&rsquo;t find all the species on Earth, and you think some asshole in India from 5000 years ago counted all the species to know how long it takes to be reincarnated as a human!? And it’s 840,000 round, huh? Not 845,238, just 840,000 - how fucking convenient!&rdquo; Bullshit-o-meter was really going off now. Priya continued (and I&rsquo;m paraphrasing): &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve done this course two times now, and I just wanna know what happens to the work I&rsquo;ve done here, because you know, I&rsquo;m so tired of this cycle – I just want it to end.&rdquo; Inner dialogue: &ldquo;YOU ARE WHAT? BITCH, DO YOU REMEMBER HAVING DONE THE WORK FOR ALL THOSE 840,000 PAST LIVES? HOW INSANE ARE YOU!? WHY IS EVERYONE LOOKING AT THIS LIKE IT&rsquo;S A SERIOUS DISCUSSION?&rdquo; The assistant teacher, at a loss, said: &ldquo;You know, I can&rsquo;t tell you what will happen in a future life, but I can tell you that this practice makes me happier today. Can you take that? Just be happy with that.&rdquo; Priya: &ldquo;Yes. Thank you. You know, I didn&rsquo;t actually want you to answer this question. But it&rsquo;s such a big problem for me that I had to put the question out there, so maybe the universe will give me the answer.&rdquo; My bullshit-o-meter was off the charts. Firstly, this woman believes in reincarnation with an absurd specificity about its mechanism; secondly, her insanity is so deep that she feels tired of having been reincarnated so many times, making her desperate to end the cycle; and third, she hopes to be saved by the law of attraction, which is one of the most despicable and idiotic pseudo-religious quackery to have gained traction in my lifetime. At this point, I was fuming. As I left the hall, I knew two things: any sense of compassion had gone out the window, and that this was my perfect opportunity to practice what I had learned. I tried to find a more compassionate framing. Who was I angry at? I didn&rsquo;t know. I couldn&rsquo;t possibly have been angry at Priya. She hadn&rsquo;t done anything. If anything, I should feel bad for her – she&rsquo;s clearly suffering and in emotional distress. As I laid in bed, I tried to meditate. It didn&rsquo;t do anything to remove the anger and agitation but it did give me an opportunity to step outside of the normal thought loops that one gets stuck in during anger. I noticed that I was so agitated that I had gotten chest pains. Then I remembered a Buddhist parable I had heard a few days earlier: One day an angry young man lashed out at the Buddha. &ldquo;When the man had finished his abuse, the Buddha asked him, saying: &lsquo;Son, if a man declined to accept a present made to him, to whom would it belong?&rsquo; And he answered: &lsquo;In that case it would belong to the man who offered it.&rsquo; &ldquo;&lsquo;My son,&rsquo; said the Buddha, &lsquo;thou hast railed at me, but I decline to accept thy abuse, and request thee to keep it thyself. Will it not be a source of misery to thee? As the echo belongs to the sound, and the shadow to the substance, so misery will overtake the evil-doer without fail.&rsquo;&rdquo; (source) I realized that Priya had not tried to give me a gift of misery – I had forcibly yanked it away from her. Meditation didn&rsquo;t eliminate my anger, but it did open the opportunity for me to learn from it, and to observe how helpless I was as thoughts I had no control over emerged and overwhelmed my rational faculties. When I discussed this episode with the assistant teacher, he said I had the correct approach, and as I do this again and again, I will learn to notice and step outside of the anger earlier and earlier, until eventually, it simply ceases to emerge. Views on Religion You may be shocked to hear that I have&rsquo;t been the biggest fan of religion. Over the years, when I would criticize various religions, people would try to defend them with really bad and weak arguments. Over the last 1-2 years, however, I feel like I&rsquo;ve been &ldquo;deriving&rdquo; religion for myself from first principles – finding rationale for various religious practices that make sense to me. This meditation retreat certainly accelerated that project. Much of what was discussed during the course was about concepts I already knew and bought into. I realized, however, that these concepts were not of much use when I would hit real obstacles in life. I would always get overwhelmed by an emotional response and I would forget the principles by which I believed I should handle obstacles. I realized that there is a lot of value in having a group of people who all share a mental model of the world to get together periodically and have a &ldquo;sermon&rdquo; on the same concepts they already believe. There is value in this repetition/reinforcement because it&rsquo;s so difficult to remember the big picture when the going gets tough. I realized this is basically the practice of going to church every Sunday or doing Friday prayers. Of course, this reinforcement practice is predicated on the underlying philosophy being sound/helpful, which I would argue is not the case with most sects. However, the practice is useful and we should not discard it due to its common application to poor ideologies. Throughout the course, I spent a lot of time reflecting on the ways my thought patterns had created misery for me, and the ways in which awareness of these thought-patterns could help remedy the situation. As if suddenly struck by lightening, I understood Jordan Peterson&rsquo;s view on religion and &ldquo;truth&rdquo;. This was a stance of his that I could never understand or support before (you can listen to a gruelling conversation between him and Sam Harris on &ldquo;What is truth&rdquo; here). My rephrasing (or perhaps, misinterpretation) of his stance makes much more sense to me than any articulation I&rsquo;ve heard from him, and it is this: Religion is true and science is true. They are both &ldquo;true&rdquo; at the same time. So how do we explain the contradictions between them? Jordan Peterson would say there mustn&rsquo;t be a contradiction if we understand what these truths are, which he claims neither the religious nor science-oriented do. Religion is true in the domain of human psychology, science is true in the domain of objective reality. In other words, a &ldquo;truth&rdquo; belongs to a domain, and what is true in one domain may not necessarily &ldquo;map&rdquo; to another domain. So when Jordan Peterson talks about the bible, he has a very specific interpretation of, say, the story of genesis that pertains to certain facts of human experience and behaviour (with themes around jealousy, greed, etc). His interpretations of the bible always sounded good to me, but the question in my mind has always been: &ldquo;But why that interpretation and not another one?&rdquo; Well, I feel like I understand this now. If you view religion as a set of truths in the domain of human behaviour, then you must interpret it in a way that makes sense in that domain. This, to me, sounds like a way to have our cake and eat it too. We can take the benefits of religious belief and practice and leave its harms by the door, if we understand the domain in which religion operates. I don&rsquo;t see this being a very scalable or realisitic path, but at an individual level, it is helpful. Conclusion The meditation retreat was an arduous experience. By Day 5, the static routine and 2-meal-per-day regimen was starting to wear me out. While I never thought about quitting, I did start thinking: &ldquo;Ok, I&rsquo;ve already learned some things. Ten days is really too long.&rdquo; Throughout Days 6 and 7, I felt like I was still learning new things, but I was counting the hours and waiting for Day 10 to arrive. By Day 8, however, things changed, and I started realizing that the 10-day format was really just right and that everyday I was learning more and more. I started worrying that ten days were not enough, and that I wouldn&rsquo;t be able to retain everything I&rsquo;d learned. They claim that this 10-day format was exactly how the Buddha taught Vipassana to &ldquo;householders&rdquo; (ie. laymen, not monks). Whether or not that&rsquo;s true, it&rsquo;s certainly been around for long enough that, in my opinion, it is perfect. I could not think of one way in which the course could be improved. Surprisingly enough, I found starting the course much easier than ending it. When Noble Silence ended, the sudden rush of noise all around me was overwhelming and unpleasant. And when I entered the city, with my hightened awareness and increased sensitivity to stimuli, my body felt like that of a scared animal. The first night, when I tried to meditate at home, I could feel subtle trembling all over my body. It was uncomfortable (and I tried to remember that it&rsquo;s impermanent). Of course, the only measure of whether this experience was worthwhile or not is in its long term impact, and it can only have this impact with regular practice. They recommend that practitioners should do at least one hour of meditation in the morning and one hour in the evening. I thought that was an excessive prescription, but having done only one hour for a few weeks now, I see that the two hours is actually a minimum. I will now need to re-evaluate some priorities to ensure I get sufficient practice, and I hope I can do one retreat every year.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Meditation Retreat Recap","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2018-01-06T14:17:15-08:00","datePublished":"2018-01-06T14:17:15-08:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/01/06/meditation-retreat-recap.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/01/06/meditation-retreat-recap.html"},"description":"A month ago, I took an early morning Greyhound bus from Vancouver to Merritt to attend a 10-day meditation programme. I think when I look back, I will see this as one of the most profound experiences of my life. It was hard and gruelling, and I was apprehensive leading up to it, but I’m so glad that I went for it. Here, I will try to provide an overview/summary of the experience. Caveat: It&rsquo;s impossible for me for convey the experience of meditation through a blog post and I&rsquo;m not going to try. In this post, I&rsquo;ve written about some of my takeaways from the experience. It&rsquo;s important to remember that ALL of the takeaways discussed here are besides the central point of the retreat, which is the practice of meditation. In other words, what I&rsquo;ve discussed here were the byproducts for me at the time I took the course. Most important takeway of all is that the practice of meditation can lead to many such insights (and probably much more profound ones). Background Why meditate? I initially got into meditation as a stress management technique. One night when I was 28, I found myself in the office, alone, at 8 PM. I had just released a buggy version of our app, and it was causing issues on our customers’ phones. I had no idea what had gone wrong. As I was pouring over pages and pages of log data to detect the issue, I suddenly became cognizant of the sharp pains I was experiencing in my chest. My next thought was that since the office building is now empty, if I have a heart attack, nobody will find me until the next morning. I had heard many guests on The Tim Ferriss Podcast talk about their meditation practice, so in 2017, I made it a new years’ resolution to establish a regular meditation practice, to be able to gain better control over my stress response. I stuck to a routine of doing 5-minutes/day, but I knew I did not understand what meditation really was, so I signed up for the retreat. Now, I know that the promise of meditation is much loftier than simple “stress management”. Meditation is the practice by which one can end one’s suffering. I’ve written before about my philosophy of handling setbacks and unhappiness. This philosophy revolves around the acceptance of what is and being content with all things — desirable or undesirable — that are outside of one’s control. Even the subtitle of this blog (“making the map match the territory”) is about my quest to see the world as it is, not as I want it to be. I’ve learned these lessons from stoic writings from Ancient Rome, and I’ve heard them echoed by Lao Tzu in Tao Te Ching. As I’ve learned now, Buddhist thinking follows a similar theme. However, while Lao Tzu and the Roman stoics were very clear about the end goal (building a strong mind), they were less clear about the path to get there. Vipassana meditation is, according to its practitioners, the Buddha’s method. And by training the mind, it promises to end all suffering. So tell me about the retreat! The meditation centre I attended is called Dhamma Surabhi, a 20-minute drive outside of Merritt. The main building is a square structure with a courtyard in the middle. On one end of the square is a large meditation hall, on the other end, there is a dining hall. The corridors connecting the two contain the rooms and bathrooms for the students, one side for men, the other for women. There is complete gender segregation for the duration of the course. At the start, the students are asked to commit to the following moral code for the duration of the course: I will abstain from killing I will abstain from stealing I will abstain from all sexual activity I will abstain from wrong speech I will abstain from all intoxicants These precepts are interpreted rather broadly. The food at the retreat is all vegetarian because eating meat would violate the first precept — you’re supporting killing. And since it’s impossible for people to communicate with pure truth, students must observe “Noble Silence” for the duration of the course. This means no talking, no gestures, and no eye contact. There is a designated manager for men and women and students can raise any concerns with them if necessary. When you check-in, you&rsquo;re asked to hand over your phone and any other electronic devices, plus any reading or writing material. Journalling, note-taking, and reading are all forbidden. More on that later. Every day of the course follows a timetable that you&rsquo;re given on Day 0: 4:00 AM: Wake up bell. 4:30 AM - 6:30 AM: Meditation in your room or in the hall. 6:30 AM - 8:00 AM: Breakfast break (but breakfast is only served in the first 45 minutes). 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM: Group meditation in the hall. 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Meditate in the hall or in your room, according to the teacher&rsquo;s instructions. 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM: Lunch break (but lunch is only served in the first 45 minutes). 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Meditate in the hall or in your room. 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall. 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Meditate in the hall or in your room, according to the teacher&rsquo;s instructions. 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Tea break. 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall. 7:00 PM - 8:15 PM: The day&rsquo;s discourse. 8:15 PM - 9:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall. 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM: Students can stay in the hall and ask questions from the assistant teacher. 10:00 PM: Lights out. There are several things you might notice from the above schedule: There are 11 hours and 45 minutes of meditation time everyday. That doesn&rsquo;t leave time for much else, which is just fine, because there isn&rsquo;t much else you could do. There&rsquo;s no dinner. During the tea break, new students (those who are doing their first 10-day course) get fruits in addition to tea. Old students get nothing. Food is served in short windows. Part of the reason for this is that the whole operation is run by few volunteers (at a time), and running the kitchen is difficult. In fact, this was one of the most impressive things I learned about the organization that runs these courses: they have approx. 170 centres in over 90 countries and it&rsquo;s all run by volunteers using donations. The break times are the only times you have for doing personal things you need to do, such as showering. And physical activity? You can go outside for a walk but the course boundary is a pretty limited area. You can&rsquo;t run, as that might disturb the peace. Ok, what did you learn? The 10-day course is almost exclusively focused on learning a technique of meditation called Vipassana. I was very impressed by how laser-focused every aspect of the programme was on the technique and how hard they tried to avoid having it polluted by anything else. As you can see from the timetable, the daily discourses were the only time we were not either practicing meditation or taking time for some manner of bodily function (sleep, eating, or cleaning). The daily discourses did delve into philosophy and psychology – essentially covering the why of the technique – but even they repeatedly put the utmost importance on the practice and shunned &ldquo;playing intellectual games&rdquo;. The discourse was given only as it was necessary to frame what the technique is and how it helps. In short, Vipassana is a meditation that teaches you: The ability to focus your mind. The ability to feel, at an experiential level, that all things are changing. The ability to be equanimous to things one does not have control over, thus putting an end to craving and aversion - the two sources of unhappiness. By constantly training the mind on the impermanence of things, one begins to break the uncontrollable cycles of craving and aversion and learns to accept reality as it is, not as one wants it to be. This is the meaning of &ldquo;Vipassana&rdquo; – seeing reality. That&rsquo;s a very brief summary of the technique. As I mentioned, the technique was the most important thing and the thing we spent 11 hours on every day. It&rsquo;s hard to do it justice in a blog post. If you want to learn how to meditate, I suggest you do the 10-day course. If you don&rsquo;t want to do that, download an app, like 10% Happier and get started with a few minutes per day. What I will talk about now are my takeaways outside of the technique (but facilitated by the heightened powers of observation/awareness that the technique cultivates). The Silence When I told people I was going to be silent for 10 days, they were shocked. Most thought of not being able to talk as some kind of unbearable torture. I can emphatically say that the silence is the easiest part of the experience. Two days into the programme, I realized that I had not noticed any silence at all – there was plenty of chatter in my head to keep me busy. On the third night, my mind was starting to slow down and break out of its normal patterns of constantly generating thoughts. I went outside for a walk one evening, and sky was clear. I got to see the stars and I could see the clouds of the Milky Way. There aren&rsquo;t too many things I get excited about. That was the most excited I&rsquo;ve been in a long time. I recalled a story I&rsquo;d heard recently about a couple who met while each one was living in a remote cabin in the woods in northern BC, and they raised a family there for some time – far from the nearest town. After I&rsquo;d heard this story, I found myself thinking about it repeatedly. It sounds insane. And yet so appealing. The constant barage of stimulii we live with – and are often unaware of – are constantly giving us fuel for worry and stress. Silence gives us space and peace. To experience this kind of living is something I&rsquo;ve talked about with my friends for a long time, but over the last several years, I have increasingly deprived myself of it, for various invalid excuses. This is something I&rsquo;ll be thinking about for some time and changing. Elimination of all distractions By Day 5 of the course, I was seeing some real improvements in my ability to focus. I was getting acquainted with the silence and had starting untying some metaphorical knots I had recently created in my own mind. I was gaining clarity on where some of my recent struggles had originated and how I had contributed to them. I felt like I was having new epiphanies and insights every day. At the same time, I was learning this cool new technique, and I was learning about its origin: the story of the Buddha, Buddhist philosophy, and a little bit about the history of India – all topics I knew nothing about previously. As I said above, the utmost importance was placed on the techniques, and all of these topics were broached only as necessary to frame the technique. But they whet my apetite to learn more. When I&rsquo;m having epiphanies and ideas, I typically like to write them down so I don&rsquo;t forget. I like to discuss them with others. One way or another, I want to dwell on them. I could not do that during the retreat, and this was hard and irritating. Similarly, when I get curious about any topic, I love the power of pulling out my phone and instantly learning more about it. I could not do this during the retreat. This was also irritating. I spent some time living with these frustrations. Then I had a new realization about how dumb these frustrations were. Everything about the format of this course is meant to be laser-focused on teaching these methods of meditation. The ban on journaling and internet access is meant precisely to keep the monkey minds of people like me from wandering off the goal. I had committed to 10 days of intense meditation practice. Now, instead of doing the practice, I wanted to look up the history of India 3000 years ago or write down my thoughts about the last thing I was upset about. This was madness, and it took me a while to realize because these behaviours seem so innocuous and are so ingrained. I realized that there are countless distractions that pop up in my mind that I&rsquo;m totally aloof to. How much are these hurting the things I really want to accomplish? How much would we gain if we could eliminate these distractions that are being hurled at us more often? Since returning from the retreat, I&rsquo;ve often caught myself in total distraction. I love the impact that our modern electronics have had on our lives, but there&rsquo;s a serious downside that we need to learn to manage as well. Almost every time I take my phone out of my pocket, it is out of some unconscious habit that distracts me from what&rsquo;s happening here and now. I love the fact that I can do so much with my phone – that so much knowledge is immediately available to me. But I realized that I have my mouth on a fire hose, trying to drink. This behaviour needs to be tamed. Since this technology is available to us now, we need a cultural shift in learning how to manage it. Unfortunately, as I spent more time in &ldquo;real life&rdquo; after the retreat, my ability to block out these distractions and focus my mind has dwindled rapidly. Only regular practice can make this a lasting gain. Side note: I wrote a part of this blog post on a flight from Vancouver to Paris. I realized that flights are one area where I had already discovered the beauty of eliminating these distractions. On a flight, there is nothing to do. You can sit, sleep, work (if you work on a computer), read, or watch movies. This year when I was flying a lot, I started resisting the temptation of the in-flight entertainment system. Now, being on planes is some of my most productive time! Compassion The Persian religion of Zarathushthrianism has a maxim: Good thoughts, good words, good deeds. They&rsquo;re put in that specific order, presumably because each depends on the one before. Similarly, in Vipassana great importance is placed on purity of thought. If the thoughts are not good, the actions can&rsquo;t be, and if the actions are not good, according to Buddhist beliefs, one cannot progress on the path to &ldquo;enlightenment&rdquo;. Cultivating compassion is an important aspect of ridding one&rsquo;s mind of &ldquo;impurities&rdquo;. The reason for this can start from a selfish place – the uncompassionate thoughts cause misery for oneself before they affect anyone else. It is also the end goal. Once you &ldquo;reach enlightenment&rdquo; and see the world as it is, your sense of self – as a separate thing from other beings – melts away, and you&rsquo;re compelled to try to quell suffering whereever you find it. This is the theory, and whether it&rsquo;s true or not is not that important. The part that I bought into completely is the notion that being more compassionate makes one happier. It&rsquo;s a win-win that I find hard to argue with. Over the duration of the course, I observed my inner talk shifting toward being more and more compassionate. Maybe this was the result of having bought into the above idea or maybe it was a product of meditating a lot. I&rsquo;m not sure. Typically, I like to be judgemental of people if for no other reason than self-amusement. When I started the course, even though it was impossible to communicate with the other students, I found myself having judgemental thoughts toward them. For exampe, I would watch people struggle with sitting on the floor. They were building elaborate monuments out of pillows and foams to make themselves more comfortable and they&rsquo;d still not be able to sit still without constant shuffling. One of my roommates, who had clearly smoked a few too many joints in his day, slept through the first 5 days of the programme. This was annoying because it meant I could never meditate in the room because he&rsquo;d be snoring in it. I found myself thinking: &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t they kick him out if he&rsquo;s just sleeping all the time!?&rdquo;. There was a woman who was constantly coughing in the meditation hall. The cough was clearly psychosomatic. In fact, I had split a taxi with her on our way to the centre. During the 20 minute taxi ride (and during the social time at the end of the course) she never coughed once. Her incessant fake-coughing in the meditation hall also made me think: &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t they kick her out!?&rdquo; Over the next 9 days, through no direct effort, I observed my inner-dialogue shift to a more compassionate version: I would feel bad about the people who were constantly shuffling pillows – clearly they were very uncomfortable with this style of sitting; I would think the fact that my pothead roommate was actually sticking around for the whole gruelling 10 days was pretty impressive; and I would feel bad for the fake-cougher – clearly she was living with a lack of self-awareness that surely must hurt her in her life. By Day 8, the transformation of my inner-dialogue was very noticeable and I started worrying that this progress would be undone the minute I left the sanguine confines of the retreat. This has, indeed, occurred, but less than I was fearing. Like the ability to focus the mind, regular practice is required. Priya&rsquo;s Misery The fake-cougher was an Indian woman, named Priya. At the end of Day 9, just when I was being concerned about losing my progress in awareness and compassionate thought after the retreat, she gave me the perfect opportunity to see how what I learned applies in &ldquo;real world&rdquo; scenarios. During the question period, she approached the assistant teacher and (with a distressed voice) started asking an ambiguous question involving past lives and future lives. If you know me, you know that I have a very sensitive Bullshit-o-meter, and any serious talk of reincarnation triggers it, and here we had reincarnation being discussed seriously. I was annoyed. The assistant teacher tried to get clarification. Priya finally said: &ldquo;In my country, they say that you live 840,000 lives before being born as a human - because they counted the species.&rdquo; My inner dialogue: &ldquo;Excuse me? The year is 2017, we&rsquo;ve put men on the moon but we still can&rsquo;t find all the species on Earth, and you think some asshole in India from 5000 years ago counted all the species to know how long it takes to be reincarnated as a human!? And it’s 840,000 round, huh? Not 845,238, just 840,000 - how fucking convenient!&rdquo; Bullshit-o-meter was really going off now. Priya continued (and I&rsquo;m paraphrasing): &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve done this course two times now, and I just wanna know what happens to the work I&rsquo;ve done here, because you know, I&rsquo;m so tired of this cycle – I just want it to end.&rdquo; Inner dialogue: &ldquo;YOU ARE WHAT? BITCH, DO YOU REMEMBER HAVING DONE THE WORK FOR ALL THOSE 840,000 PAST LIVES? HOW INSANE ARE YOU!? WHY IS EVERYONE LOOKING AT THIS LIKE IT&rsquo;S A SERIOUS DISCUSSION?&rdquo; The assistant teacher, at a loss, said: &ldquo;You know, I can&rsquo;t tell you what will happen in a future life, but I can tell you that this practice makes me happier today. Can you take that? Just be happy with that.&rdquo; Priya: &ldquo;Yes. Thank you. You know, I didn&rsquo;t actually want you to answer this question. But it&rsquo;s such a big problem for me that I had to put the question out there, so maybe the universe will give me the answer.&rdquo; My bullshit-o-meter was off the charts. Firstly, this woman believes in reincarnation with an absurd specificity about its mechanism; secondly, her insanity is so deep that she feels tired of having been reincarnated so many times, making her desperate to end the cycle; and third, she hopes to be saved by the law of attraction, which is one of the most despicable and idiotic pseudo-religious quackery to have gained traction in my lifetime. At this point, I was fuming. As I left the hall, I knew two things: any sense of compassion had gone out the window, and that this was my perfect opportunity to practice what I had learned. I tried to find a more compassionate framing. Who was I angry at? I didn&rsquo;t know. I couldn&rsquo;t possibly have been angry at Priya. She hadn&rsquo;t done anything. If anything, I should feel bad for her – she&rsquo;s clearly suffering and in emotional distress. As I laid in bed, I tried to meditate. It didn&rsquo;t do anything to remove the anger and agitation but it did give me an opportunity to step outside of the normal thought loops that one gets stuck in during anger. I noticed that I was so agitated that I had gotten chest pains. Then I remembered a Buddhist parable I had heard a few days earlier: One day an angry young man lashed out at the Buddha. &ldquo;When the man had finished his abuse, the Buddha asked him, saying: &lsquo;Son, if a man declined to accept a present made to him, to whom would it belong?&rsquo; And he answered: &lsquo;In that case it would belong to the man who offered it.&rsquo; &ldquo;&lsquo;My son,&rsquo; said the Buddha, &lsquo;thou hast railed at me, but I decline to accept thy abuse, and request thee to keep it thyself. Will it not be a source of misery to thee? As the echo belongs to the sound, and the shadow to the substance, so misery will overtake the evil-doer without fail.&rsquo;&rdquo; (source) I realized that Priya had not tried to give me a gift of misery – I had forcibly yanked it away from her. Meditation didn&rsquo;t eliminate my anger, but it did open the opportunity for me to learn from it, and to observe how helpless I was as thoughts I had no control over emerged and overwhelmed my rational faculties. When I discussed this episode with the assistant teacher, he said I had the correct approach, and as I do this again and again, I will learn to notice and step outside of the anger earlier and earlier, until eventually, it simply ceases to emerge. Views on Religion You may be shocked to hear that I have&rsquo;t been the biggest fan of religion. Over the years, when I would criticize various religions, people would try to defend them with really bad and weak arguments. Over the last 1-2 years, however, I feel like I&rsquo;ve been &ldquo;deriving&rdquo; religion for myself from first principles – finding rationale for various religious practices that make sense to me. This meditation retreat certainly accelerated that project. Much of what was discussed during the course was about concepts I already knew and bought into. I realized, however, that these concepts were not of much use when I would hit real obstacles in life. I would always get overwhelmed by an emotional response and I would forget the principles by which I believed I should handle obstacles. I realized that there is a lot of value in having a group of people who all share a mental model of the world to get together periodically and have a &ldquo;sermon&rdquo; on the same concepts they already believe. There is value in this repetition/reinforcement because it&rsquo;s so difficult to remember the big picture when the going gets tough. I realized this is basically the practice of going to church every Sunday or doing Friday prayers. Of course, this reinforcement practice is predicated on the underlying philosophy being sound/helpful, which I would argue is not the case with most sects. However, the practice is useful and we should not discard it due to its common application to poor ideologies. Throughout the course, I spent a lot of time reflecting on the ways my thought patterns had created misery for me, and the ways in which awareness of these thought-patterns could help remedy the situation. As if suddenly struck by lightening, I understood Jordan Peterson&rsquo;s view on religion and &ldquo;truth&rdquo;. This was a stance of his that I could never understand or support before (you can listen to a gruelling conversation between him and Sam Harris on &ldquo;What is truth&rdquo; here). My rephrasing (or perhaps, misinterpretation) of his stance makes much more sense to me than any articulation I&rsquo;ve heard from him, and it is this: Religion is true and science is true. They are both &ldquo;true&rdquo; at the same time. So how do we explain the contradictions between them? Jordan Peterson would say there mustn&rsquo;t be a contradiction if we understand what these truths are, which he claims neither the religious nor science-oriented do. Religion is true in the domain of human psychology, science is true in the domain of objective reality. In other words, a &ldquo;truth&rdquo; belongs to a domain, and what is true in one domain may not necessarily &ldquo;map&rdquo; to another domain. So when Jordan Peterson talks about the bible, he has a very specific interpretation of, say, the story of genesis that pertains to certain facts of human experience and behaviour (with themes around jealousy, greed, etc). His interpretations of the bible always sounded good to me, but the question in my mind has always been: &ldquo;But why that interpretation and not another one?&rdquo; Well, I feel like I understand this now. If you view religion as a set of truths in the domain of human behaviour, then you must interpret it in a way that makes sense in that domain. This, to me, sounds like a way to have our cake and eat it too. We can take the benefits of religious belief and practice and leave its harms by the door, if we understand the domain in which religion operates. I don&rsquo;t see this being a very scalable or realisitic path, but at an individual level, it is helpful. Conclusion The meditation retreat was an arduous experience. By Day 5, the static routine and 2-meal-per-day regimen was starting to wear me out. While I never thought about quitting, I did start thinking: &ldquo;Ok, I&rsquo;ve already learned some things. Ten days is really too long.&rdquo; Throughout Days 6 and 7, I felt like I was still learning new things, but I was counting the hours and waiting for Day 10 to arrive. By Day 8, however, things changed, and I started realizing that the 10-day format was really just right and that everyday I was learning more and more. I started worrying that ten days were not enough, and that I wouldn&rsquo;t be able to retain everything I&rsquo;d learned. They claim that this 10-day format was exactly how the Buddha taught Vipassana to &ldquo;householders&rdquo; (ie. laymen, not monks). Whether or not that&rsquo;s true, it&rsquo;s certainly been around for long enough that, in my opinion, it is perfect. I could not think of one way in which the course could be improved. Surprisingly enough, I found starting the course much easier than ending it. When Noble Silence ended, the sudden rush of noise all around me was overwhelming and unpleasant. And when I entered the city, with my hightened awareness and increased sensitivity to stimuli, my body felt like that of a scared animal. The first night, when I tried to meditate at home, I could feel subtle trembling all over my body. It was uncomfortable (and I tried to remember that it&rsquo;s impermanent). Of course, the only measure of whether this experience was worthwhile or not is in its long term impact, and it can only have this impact with regular practice. They recommend that practitioners should do at least one hour of meditation in the morning and one hour in the evening. I thought that was an excessive prescription, but having done only one hour for a few weeks now, I see that the two hours is actually a minimum. I will now need to re-evaluate some priorities to ensure I get sufficient practice, and I hope I can do one retreat every year.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Meditation Retreat Recap","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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 <meta name="description" content="One of the most impactful books I read in my early 20s was The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by clinical psychologist, Nathaniel Branden. It was a prescription for living a good life, long before I had learned about stoicism or meditation. In Branden’s view self-esteem is our competence in life. It is the confidence that we can take on the challenges of life and be successful and that we are deserving of that success. Additionally, self-esteem doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s something that can be cultivated through deliberate practice, and it leads to a virtuous cycle: deliberate practice makes one more competent, the result of the competence increases one’s self-esteem, which makes the practice easier. One of the core components of self-esteem is the practice of self-responsibility. Self-responsibility is the sense of control over one’s own life and actions. According to Branden, self-responsibility entails the following realizations: I am responsible for the achievement of my desires. I am responsible for my choices and actions. I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my work. I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my relationships. I am responsible for my behavior with other people – coworkers, associates, customers, spouse, children, friends. I am responsible for how I prioritize my time. I am responsible for the quality of my communications. I am responsible for my personal happiness. I am responsible for accepting or choosing the values by which I live. I am responsible for raising my self-esteem. This was the part of the book that stuck with me the most. It is an incredibly empowering concept. What if we take this practice to an extreme? When things don’t go our way, it is far too easy for our minds to construct elaborate excuses and find a scapegoat. This is when we begin to resent others, or hate the world/god for what it has done to us. We can avoid this trap if we simply take responsibility for… everything. Did I have a fight with a friend? I am responsible for that. Are things going poorly at work? I am responsible for that. Have I not achieved my goals? I am responsible for that. “But that’s impossible.” It’s more possible than you’d think. In talking to friends and family about this subject, I’ve found the main objection to the idea of extreme self-responsibility to be naive ideas around “fairness”. Some adverse event occurs and we immediately lament that it was not fair that it happened to us. Instead, what we can do is to a) try to pinpoint how our own actions led to that outcome, and b) see what we can do to alleviate the situation given that it has already occurred. This shifts the narrative from a sense of victimhood (“things are happening to me”) to a sense of empowerment (“I make things happen”). Being responsible for things and those things being fair are totally unrelated. “But I thought you went to a meditation retreat and are all about acceptance.” It seems living well is accepting what is outside of our control, and making an honest effort in improving that which is under our control. Extreme self-responsibility simply expands the domain of control. It is a mental hack to counteract our mind’s brilliance in taking the lazy way out. Self-responsibility does not mean that unfortunate events are your fault. It means that regardless of whose fault it is, it is within your power to influence things that are important to you/your life. For example, it may have been unfair that you had a mean math teacher in grade 10, who discouraged you from learning math for the rest of your life. But if you now deem math to be something helpful, you are responsible for overcoming that. Or it may be true that you had an unfortunate childhood that left you with many emotional baggages that make life harder now. But regardless, you are responsible for moving toward your goals and either overcome or work around those limitations. In psychology there is a concept called “locus of control”. It measures how much people feel they have control over their own lives. People with an external locus of control are those who believe things happen to them. People with an internal locus of control are those who believe they can make things happen. Having an internal locus of control is associated with greater motivation and drive and higher resiliency in the face of adversity. (This why an internal locus of control is highly correlated with entrepreneurship). Having an external locus of control is associated with higher anxiety and greater susceptibility to depression. Extreme self-responsibility is a practice for shifting one’s locus of control inward. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that this philosophy runs in total opposition to the currently prevalent culture of victimhood. Instead of raising responsible, high self-esteem kids that trust their own competence in life, so many schools and universities are running in the direction of protecting everyone against the most minute slight. This aversion to anything that may be remotely unpleasant eliminates any sense of self-responsibility, and it raises impotent adults who are taught they’re unequipped to face the world as it is. In this way, victimhood culture worsens the lives of the very people it feigns compassion for. But, let us put our own house in order first. Extreme self-responsibility is something I had lost focus on for a long time, and I wanted to write about it as a refresher. I’m trying to put a renewed focus on this going forward." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="One of the most impactful books I read in my early 20s was The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by clinical psychologist, Nathaniel Branden. It was a prescription for living a good life, long before I had learned about stoicism or meditation. In Branden’s view self-esteem is our competence in life. It is the confidence that we can take on the challenges of life and be successful and that we are deserving of that success. Additionally, self-esteem doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s something that can be cultivated through deliberate practice, and it leads to a virtuous cycle: deliberate practice makes one more competent, the result of the competence increases one’s self-esteem, which makes the practice easier. One of the core components of self-esteem is the practice of self-responsibility. Self-responsibility is the sense of control over one’s own life and actions. According to Branden, self-responsibility entails the following realizations: I am responsible for the achievement of my desires. I am responsible for my choices and actions. I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my work. I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my relationships. I am responsible for my behavior with other people – coworkers, associates, customers, spouse, children, friends. I am responsible for how I prioritize my time. I am responsible for the quality of my communications. I am responsible for my personal happiness. I am responsible for accepting or choosing the values by which I live. I am responsible for raising my self-esteem. This was the part of the book that stuck with me the most. It is an incredibly empowering concept. What if we take this practice to an extreme? When things don’t go our way, it is far too easy for our minds to construct elaborate excuses and find a scapegoat. This is when we begin to resent others, or hate the world/god for what it has done to us. We can avoid this trap if we simply take responsibility for… everything. Did I have a fight with a friend? I am responsible for that. Are things going poorly at work? I am responsible for that. Have I not achieved my goals? I am responsible for that. “But that’s impossible.” It’s more possible than you’d think. In talking to friends and family about this subject, I’ve found the main objection to the idea of extreme self-responsibility to be naive ideas around “fairness”. Some adverse event occurs and we immediately lament that it was not fair that it happened to us. Instead, what we can do is to a) try to pinpoint how our own actions led to that outcome, and b) see what we can do to alleviate the situation given that it has already occurred. This shifts the narrative from a sense of victimhood (“things are happening to me”) to a sense of empowerment (“I make things happen”). Being responsible for things and those things being fair are totally unrelated. “But I thought you went to a meditation retreat and are all about acceptance.” It seems living well is accepting what is outside of our control, and making an honest effort in improving that which is under our control. Extreme self-responsibility simply expands the domain of control. It is a mental hack to counteract our mind’s brilliance in taking the lazy way out. Self-responsibility does not mean that unfortunate events are your fault. It means that regardless of whose fault it is, it is within your power to influence things that are important to you/your life. For example, it may have been unfair that you had a mean math teacher in grade 10, who discouraged you from learning math for the rest of your life. But if you now deem math to be something helpful, you are responsible for overcoming that. Or it may be true that you had an unfortunate childhood that left you with many emotional baggages that make life harder now. But regardless, you are responsible for moving toward your goals and either overcome or work around those limitations. In psychology there is a concept called “locus of control”. It measures how much people feel they have control over their own lives. People with an external locus of control are those who believe things happen to them. People with an internal locus of control are those who believe they can make things happen. Having an internal locus of control is associated with greater motivation and drive and higher resiliency in the face of adversity. (This why an internal locus of control is highly correlated with entrepreneurship). Having an external locus of control is associated with higher anxiety and greater susceptibility to depression. Extreme self-responsibility is a practice for shifting one’s locus of control inward. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that this philosophy runs in total opposition to the currently prevalent culture of victimhood. Instead of raising responsible, high self-esteem kids that trust their own competence in life, so many schools and universities are running in the direction of protecting everyone against the most minute slight. This aversion to anything that may be remotely unpleasant eliminates any sense of self-responsibility, and it raises impotent adults who are taught they’re unequipped to face the world as it is. In this way, victimhood culture worsens the lives of the very people it feigns compassion for. But, let us put our own house in order first. Extreme self-responsibility is something I had lost focus on for a long time, and I wanted to write about it as a refresher. I’m trying to put a renewed focus on this going forward." />
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It’s something that can be cultivated through deliberate practice, and it leads to a virtuous cycle: deliberate practice makes one more competent, the result of the competence increases one’s self-esteem, which makes the practice easier. One of the core components of self-esteem is the practice of self-responsibility. Self-responsibility is the sense of control over one’s own life and actions. According to Branden, self-responsibility entails the following realizations: I am responsible for the achievement of my desires. I am responsible for my choices and actions. I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my work. I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my relationships. I am responsible for my behavior with other people – coworkers, associates, customers, spouse, children, friends. I am responsible for how I prioritize my time. I am responsible for the quality of my communications. I am responsible for my personal happiness. I am responsible for accepting or choosing the values by which I live. I am responsible for raising my self-esteem. This was the part of the book that stuck with me the most. It is an incredibly empowering concept. What if we take this practice to an extreme? When things don’t go our way, it is far too easy for our minds to construct elaborate excuses and find a scapegoat. This is when we begin to resent others, or hate the world/god for what it has done to us. We can avoid this trap if we simply take responsibility for… everything. Did I have a fight with a friend? I am responsible for that. Are things going poorly at work? I am responsible for that. Have I not achieved my goals? I am responsible for that. “But that’s impossible.” It’s more possible than you’d think. In talking to friends and family about this subject, I’ve found the main objection to the idea of extreme self-responsibility to be naive ideas around “fairness”. Some adverse event occurs and we immediately lament that it was not fair that it happened to us. Instead, what we can do is to a) try to pinpoint how our own actions led to that outcome, and b) see what we can do to alleviate the situation given that it has already occurred. This shifts the narrative from a sense of victimhood (“things are happening to me”) to a sense of empowerment (“I make things happen”). Being responsible for things and those things being fair are totally unrelated. “But I thought you went to a meditation retreat and are all about acceptance.” It seems living well is accepting what is outside of our control, and making an honest effort in improving that which is under our control. Extreme self-responsibility simply expands the domain of control. It is a mental hack to counteract our mind’s brilliance in taking the lazy way out. Self-responsibility does not mean that unfortunate events are your fault. It means that regardless of whose fault it is, it is within your power to influence things that are important to you/your life. For example, it may have been unfair that you had a mean math teacher in grade 10, who discouraged you from learning math for the rest of your life. But if you now deem math to be something helpful, you are responsible for overcoming that. Or it may be true that you had an unfortunate childhood that left you with many emotional baggages that make life harder now. But regardless, you are responsible for moving toward your goals and either overcome or work around those limitations. In psychology there is a concept called “locus of control”. It measures how much people feel they have control over their own lives. People with an external locus of control are those who believe things happen to them. People with an internal locus of control are those who believe they can make things happen. Having an internal locus of control is associated with greater motivation and drive and higher resiliency in the face of adversity. (This why an internal locus of control is highly correlated with entrepreneurship). Having an external locus of control is associated with higher anxiety and greater susceptibility to depression. Extreme self-responsibility is a practice for shifting one’s locus of control inward. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that this philosophy runs in total opposition to the currently prevalent culture of victimhood. Instead of raising responsible, high self-esteem kids that trust their own competence in life, so many schools and universities are running in the direction of protecting everyone against the most minute slight. This aversion to anything that may be remotely unpleasant eliminates any sense of self-responsibility, and it raises impotent adults who are taught they’re unequipped to face the world as it is. In this way, victimhood culture worsens the lives of the very people it feigns compassion for. But, let us put our own house in order first. Extreme self-responsibility is something I had lost focus on for a long time, and I wanted to write about it as a refresher. I’m trying to put a renewed focus on this going forward.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Extreme Self-Responsibility","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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It’s something that can be cultivated through deliberate practice, and it leads to a virtuous cycle: deliberate practice makes one more competent, the result of the competence increases one’s self-esteem, which makes the practice easier. One of the core components of self-esteem is the practice of self-responsibility. Self-responsibility is the sense of control over one’s own life and actions. According to Branden, self-responsibility entails the following realizations: I am responsible for the achievement of my desires. I am responsible for my choices and actions. I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my work. I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my relationships. I am responsible for my behavior with other people – coworkers, associates, customers, spouse, children, friends. I am responsible for how I prioritize my time. I am responsible for the quality of my communications. I am responsible for my personal happiness. I am responsible for accepting or choosing the values by which I live. I am responsible for raising my self-esteem. This was the part of the book that stuck with me the most. It is an incredibly empowering concept. What if we take this practice to an extreme? When things don’t go our way, it is far too easy for our minds to construct elaborate excuses and find a scapegoat. This is when we begin to resent others, or hate the world/god for what it has done to us. We can avoid this trap if we simply take responsibility for… everything. Did I have a fight with a friend? I am responsible for that. Are things going poorly at work? I am responsible for that. Have I not achieved my goals? I am responsible for that. “But that’s impossible.” It’s more possible than you’d think. In talking to friends and family about this subject, I’ve found the main objection to the idea of extreme self-responsibility to be naive ideas around “fairness”. Some adverse event occurs and we immediately lament that it was not fair that it happened to us. Instead, what we can do is to a) try to pinpoint how our own actions led to that outcome, and b) see what we can do to alleviate the situation given that it has already occurred. This shifts the narrative from a sense of victimhood (“things are happening to me”) to a sense of empowerment (“I make things happen”). Being responsible for things and those things being fair are totally unrelated. “But I thought you went to a meditation retreat and are all about acceptance.” It seems living well is accepting what is outside of our control, and making an honest effort in improving that which is under our control. Extreme self-responsibility simply expands the domain of control. It is a mental hack to counteract our mind’s brilliance in taking the lazy way out. Self-responsibility does not mean that unfortunate events are your fault. It means that regardless of whose fault it is, it is within your power to influence things that are important to you/your life. For example, it may have been unfair that you had a mean math teacher in grade 10, who discouraged you from learning math for the rest of your life. But if you now deem math to be something helpful, you are responsible for overcoming that. Or it may be true that you had an unfortunate childhood that left you with many emotional baggages that make life harder now. But regardless, you are responsible for moving toward your goals and either overcome or work around those limitations. In psychology there is a concept called “locus of control”. It measures how much people feel they have control over their own lives. People with an external locus of control are those who believe things happen to them. People with an internal locus of control are those who believe they can make things happen. Having an internal locus of control is associated with greater motivation and drive and higher resiliency in the face of adversity. (This why an internal locus of control is highly correlated with entrepreneurship). Having an external locus of control is associated with higher anxiety and greater susceptibility to depression. Extreme self-responsibility is a practice for shifting one’s locus of control inward. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that this philosophy runs in total opposition to the currently prevalent culture of victimhood. Instead of raising responsible, high self-esteem kids that trust their own competence in life, so many schools and universities are running in the direction of protecting everyone against the most minute slight. This aversion to anything that may be remotely unpleasant eliminates any sense of self-responsibility, and it raises impotent adults who are taught they’re unequipped to face the world as it is. In this way, victimhood culture worsens the lives of the very people it feigns compassion for. But, let us put our own house in order first. Extreme self-responsibility is something I had lost focus on for a long time, and I wanted to write about it as a refresher. I’m trying to put a renewed focus on this going forward.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Extreme Self-Responsibility","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="“Why are you squeezing my arms!? It’s way too much force! It needs to be much more subtle.” I had been taking dance lessons for several months and I was now getting into the difficult stuff. In this lesson, I had to learn to guide my partner’s head while softly holding the hands. It was not easy. As a beginner, I had watched experienced dancers do this many times before and it made perfect sense - like a mechanical inevitability. Reproducing it was a different story. I was doing my best to copy the shape I had observed the teacher make, but the technique required a much more intricate movement than what I could observe. Before I could do this movement, I had to feel how it worked rather than observe. This is a theme that comes up often when one is learning something new. To the non-practitioner, things either look too mysterious, magical, and overwhelming, or they look much simpler than they actually are. Rarely can the non-practitioner dissect the elements that make the end result great. In this situation, there are two erroneous reaction that outside observers or novice practitioners have when they observe a master: They&rsquo;re overwhelmed by the master&rsquo;s achievement and they can&rsquo;t fathom the steps that would take them to the same level of mastery. This kind of thinking leads them to undue admiration of the master or simply giving up the pursuit in desperation. They attribute the overall success to one small component that they can understand. This, in turn, leads them to either belittle the overall accomplishment by claiming that the one understandable component is not that special, or, if they are novice practitioners trying to reproduce the master’s result, they might focus on doing more of the thing they can understand. With time and attention, however, the practitioner’s field of vision expands to detect more of the nuance and the intricacies. Their attention during practice can then shift to the new areas that they’ve become aware of. This is how they can approach mastery. Imagine that a master chef begins using a rare ingredient in a new recipe. He does this because he understands how this ingredient interacts with all the others and the impact it might have, considering its place in the meal among the other courses. A less skilled chef who’s aspiring to be great may see this, and he may decide he wants to use the exact same ingredient. But since his understanding of the ingredient and its place in the big picture is not as comprehensive as the master’s, he might use this ingredient in a way that is jarring to his patron or not as well considered. Conversely, a second type of error can occur in outside observers. Let’s say the less skilled chef is the first to pioneer this rare ingredient. While he might score some points for boldness, his output is still commensurate to his skill level. If the master chef then adopts this new ingredient in his own recipe, an untrained outside observer may fault him for being a copycat. The urge to do this among people who are not experts is particularly strong due to tall poppy syndrome. I got thinking about this after the last product announcements from Apple. As they always do after an event like this, the detractors came out in droves to explain how Apple had built things that were available in Samsung products earlier. What these detractors miss is that the individual features that they’re focusing on are akin to ingredients in a recipe. We don’t set our expectations for a recipe solely on the basis of the ingredients used in them, but on the basis of who the chef is and their track record. A master chef can use an ingredient tastefully and to great effect. A mediocre one can use the same recipes indiscriminately and with poor results. From martial arts, to technology products, to dance, I’ve observed these two errors in nearly every field I’ve been involved with, it pays to be conscious of them and to detect them in ourselves and others. Misattribute success to one invalid trait and you set your training back by years. Listen to a critic who bases their judgement on bad heuristics and their commentary can cost you more than it helps." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="“Why are you squeezing my arms!? It’s way too much force! It needs to be much more subtle.” I had been taking dance lessons for several months and I was now getting into the difficult stuff. In this lesson, I had to learn to guide my partner’s head while softly holding the hands. It was not easy. As a beginner, I had watched experienced dancers do this many times before and it made perfect sense - like a mechanical inevitability. Reproducing it was a different story. I was doing my best to copy the shape I had observed the teacher make, but the technique required a much more intricate movement than what I could observe. Before I could do this movement, I had to feel how it worked rather than observe. This is a theme that comes up often when one is learning something new. To the non-practitioner, things either look too mysterious, magical, and overwhelming, or they look much simpler than they actually are. Rarely can the non-practitioner dissect the elements that make the end result great. In this situation, there are two erroneous reaction that outside observers or novice practitioners have when they observe a master: They&rsquo;re overwhelmed by the master&rsquo;s achievement and they can&rsquo;t fathom the steps that would take them to the same level of mastery. This kind of thinking leads them to undue admiration of the master or simply giving up the pursuit in desperation. They attribute the overall success to one small component that they can understand. This, in turn, leads them to either belittle the overall accomplishment by claiming that the one understandable component is not that special, or, if they are novice practitioners trying to reproduce the master’s result, they might focus on doing more of the thing they can understand. With time and attention, however, the practitioner’s field of vision expands to detect more of the nuance and the intricacies. Their attention during practice can then shift to the new areas that they’ve become aware of. This is how they can approach mastery. Imagine that a master chef begins using a rare ingredient in a new recipe. He does this because he understands how this ingredient interacts with all the others and the impact it might have, considering its place in the meal among the other courses. A less skilled chef who’s aspiring to be great may see this, and he may decide he wants to use the exact same ingredient. But since his understanding of the ingredient and its place in the big picture is not as comprehensive as the master’s, he might use this ingredient in a way that is jarring to his patron or not as well considered. Conversely, a second type of error can occur in outside observers. Let’s say the less skilled chef is the first to pioneer this rare ingredient. While he might score some points for boldness, his output is still commensurate to his skill level. If the master chef then adopts this new ingredient in his own recipe, an untrained outside observer may fault him for being a copycat. The urge to do this among people who are not experts is particularly strong due to tall poppy syndrome. I got thinking about this after the last product announcements from Apple. As they always do after an event like this, the detractors came out in droves to explain how Apple had built things that were available in Samsung products earlier. What these detractors miss is that the individual features that they’re focusing on are akin to ingredients in a recipe. We don’t set our expectations for a recipe solely on the basis of the ingredients used in them, but on the basis of who the chef is and their track record. A master chef can use an ingredient tastefully and to great effect. A mediocre one can use the same recipes indiscriminately and with poor results. From martial arts, to technology products, to dance, I’ve observed these two errors in nearly every field I’ve been involved with, it pays to be conscious of them and to detect them in ourselves and others. Misattribute success to one invalid trait and you set your training back by years. Listen to a critic who bases their judgement on bad heuristics and their commentary can cost you more than it helps." />
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diff --git a/essays/2018/10/06/goodbye.html b/essays/2018/10/06/goodbye.html
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 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="Almost everything here is my takeaway from ideas put forth by Ben Thompson from Stratechery and the Exponent podcast, being rehashed to cement my own understanding. The world has changed a lot since 90s. Even though I&rsquo;m only 30, I&rsquo;m old enough to remember a time when the world looked very different. I remember fax machines and answering machines that recorded messages on tape. I remember the first computers that grade-school-me would see as nothing more than glorified game consoles. I remember when you had be very mindful of your time on the internet because your ISP was charging you by the kilobyte. In the 90s and early 2000s, you had broadcast media with fixed schedules that you had to adapt yourself to, produced by a few big national players; you had big box stores that you&rsquo;d drive to in order to purchase consumer packaged goods from brands that had been established for upwards of a century; and you had a handful of news sources that would tell you more or less the same thing, possibly with a slightly different slant. We don&rsquo;t have those things anymore. If we do, they&rsquo;re merely a shadow of their old selves, clinging to dear life until their last remnants die with the last generation that doesn&rsquo;t know how to use the internet. Why did these things go away? The central theme is that the internet allowed a shift from a world where the winners controlled the supply, to a world where the winners control demand. The few media companies that controlled the narrative surrounding the news before the internet didn&rsquo;t do so because theirs was the only narrative people wanted to read or hear. They did so because they owned printing presses and trucks and it was far too expensive for anybody else to compete with them. The consumer packaged goods that you would buy from the likes of, say, Gillette weren&rsquo;t there because they were the best product on the market, they were there because the manufacturers had the best deals with the big box retailers and could effectively block anyone else from entering the market. Shelf space was limited and they controlled it. You could try to get your own competing products built with a higher quality or a lower price, but good luck to you for getting it to the market. Similarly, your cable or phone company was not entrenched thanks to consumer choice but because they owned precious limited infrastructure that nobody else could use, so consumers had no choice but to accept their poor service at outrageous prices. Interestingly, this was even true of the technology companies of the 80s and 90s. Microsoft&rsquo;s dominance was built around it being difficult for consumers to be able to use the tools they wanted on any platform other than Microsoft&rsquo;s. The internet changed all of this. It made distribution essentially free, so all of these industries that were predicated on monopolized distribution channels began to lose their grip. In the case of Microsoft, for example, the tools people really wanted were now one layer of abstraction above the chokepoint – you can access the information on the internet through any device regardless of whether it runs Windows or not. For the consumer packaged goods industry, online distribution meant that they were now on a level playing field with anyone who could produce the same product at them and deliver them to the consumers&#39; homes. Shelf space was unlimited. The story of the last decade has been one of distribution monopolies being sidelined by a new world where their strengths are no longer competitive. What they&rsquo;ve been replaced by are new monopolies. These are monopolies of demand, such as Facebook, Google, or Amazon. People don&rsquo;t use Facebook, Google, or Amazon because they have to. In fact, you and I are more than free to build and market our own competing products/services to all three (in part courtesy of Amazon and Google services) and market them directly to the same consumers who use them. But it won&rsquo;t make a difference. People won&rsquo;t want to use our service, they&rsquo;ll want to use theirs because they have network effects. You can build an alternative search engine (there are many), but Google&rsquo;s will always work better. You can build your own social network but it won&rsquo;t mean anything because people are already on Facebook (in fact, Google tried and failed). You can still go to any retailer and buy the same old products you see on Amazon, but nobody wants to do that. This much is clear enough. Where it gets really interesting is when you consider the nearly limitless scope of these changes, and the one most pertinent to the times is the impact of free distribution on politics. In the US, at least as long as parties have had votes for their presidential nominees, there has been an understanding that the selection of the nominee is somewhat democratic. In reality that was never the case. While the party base could vote to choose the nominee, they were really only picking one among a handful of candidates pre-selected by the party establishment. If you wanted to win an election, you needed the support of the establishment in securing donors and getting media coverage. The first time this changed was before the 2008 election when the preferred Democratic party nominee, Hilary Clinton, got sidelined by a newcomer that used the new media to garner a larger support among the base. Then Trump took that game to a whole new level in 2016. In a sense, this is the same pattern we&rsquo;ve observed in multiple other consumer industries. The incumbent monopolies (the big political parties) held the choke point for reaching the masses. They controlled the supply (access to money, which then bought media). You could run for office on your own, but you weren&rsquo;t gonna get very far. The parties&#39; monopoly has now been subverted by the internet. Distribution is now free – anybody can reach the populace just as well as anyone else on social media – and what matters is who controls demand. Viewed in this light, the current political situation in the US is both unsurprising and an inevitability. Any expectation that we will go back to the good old days of &ldquo;normal&rdquo; politics are foolish. The entire paradigm has shifted and new actors (no pun intended) who can navigate the new world are going to win. Like every distruption brought about by the internet, this will be a double-edged sword. While this disruption of the old order has led to some chaos (and will continue to do so until we figure out how to navigate the new paradigm skillfully), there is now some room for innovation in politics Admittedly, this may take some time. Personally, I don&rsquo;t think Trump is going to be the final iteration of this change. When Facebook and Google disrupted old school mass advertising, they may have eaten the lunch of the old media, but they also made possible entire new industries that couldn&rsquo;t have existed in the world of the old media. Today you can have successful Kickstarter campaigns that turn into new businesses with the support of a few tens or hundreds of thousands of people. In the old world, an ad campaign that only converted 20,000 customers would be an utter failure, given the cost of reaching them and distributing the goods to them. In the modern world, virtual mom-and-pop business can be started over night by targetting a narrow niche of just that size. The major obstacle I see to this innovation is the marriage of politics to physical geography. On the internet, niche markets can be targetted because they&rsquo;re not constrained by the physical world. I&rsquo;m not sure what the answer is here (perhaps Peter Thiel&rsquo;s floating cities). The only thing I&rsquo;m sure of is that there&rsquo;s no going back to the old paradigm, and we can expect this new paradigm to become ever more pervasive: across more levels of government and across more governments." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="Almost everything here is my takeaway from ideas put forth by Ben Thompson from Stratechery and the Exponent podcast, being rehashed to cement my own understanding. The world has changed a lot since 90s. Even though I&rsquo;m only 30, I&rsquo;m old enough to remember a time when the world looked very different. I remember fax machines and answering machines that recorded messages on tape. I remember the first computers that grade-school-me would see as nothing more than glorified game consoles. I remember when you had be very mindful of your time on the internet because your ISP was charging you by the kilobyte. In the 90s and early 2000s, you had broadcast media with fixed schedules that you had to adapt yourself to, produced by a few big national players; you had big box stores that you&rsquo;d drive to in order to purchase consumer packaged goods from brands that had been established for upwards of a century; and you had a handful of news sources that would tell you more or less the same thing, possibly with a slightly different slant. We don&rsquo;t have those things anymore. If we do, they&rsquo;re merely a shadow of their old selves, clinging to dear life until their last remnants die with the last generation that doesn&rsquo;t know how to use the internet. Why did these things go away? The central theme is that the internet allowed a shift from a world where the winners controlled the supply, to a world where the winners control demand. The few media companies that controlled the narrative surrounding the news before the internet didn&rsquo;t do so because theirs was the only narrative people wanted to read or hear. They did so because they owned printing presses and trucks and it was far too expensive for anybody else to compete with them. The consumer packaged goods that you would buy from the likes of, say, Gillette weren&rsquo;t there because they were the best product on the market, they were there because the manufacturers had the best deals with the big box retailers and could effectively block anyone else from entering the market. Shelf space was limited and they controlled it. You could try to get your own competing products built with a higher quality or a lower price, but good luck to you for getting it to the market. Similarly, your cable or phone company was not entrenched thanks to consumer choice but because they owned precious limited infrastructure that nobody else could use, so consumers had no choice but to accept their poor service at outrageous prices. Interestingly, this was even true of the technology companies of the 80s and 90s. Microsoft&rsquo;s dominance was built around it being difficult for consumers to be able to use the tools they wanted on any platform other than Microsoft&rsquo;s. The internet changed all of this. It made distribution essentially free, so all of these industries that were predicated on monopolized distribution channels began to lose their grip. In the case of Microsoft, for example, the tools people really wanted were now one layer of abstraction above the chokepoint – you can access the information on the internet through any device regardless of whether it runs Windows or not. For the consumer packaged goods industry, online distribution meant that they were now on a level playing field with anyone who could produce the same product at them and deliver them to the consumers&#39; homes. Shelf space was unlimited. The story of the last decade has been one of distribution monopolies being sidelined by a new world where their strengths are no longer competitive. What they&rsquo;ve been replaced by are new monopolies. These are monopolies of demand, such as Facebook, Google, or Amazon. People don&rsquo;t use Facebook, Google, or Amazon because they have to. In fact, you and I are more than free to build and market our own competing products/services to all three (in part courtesy of Amazon and Google services) and market them directly to the same consumers who use them. But it won&rsquo;t make a difference. People won&rsquo;t want to use our service, they&rsquo;ll want to use theirs because they have network effects. You can build an alternative search engine (there are many), but Google&rsquo;s will always work better. You can build your own social network but it won&rsquo;t mean anything because people are already on Facebook (in fact, Google tried and failed). You can still go to any retailer and buy the same old products you see on Amazon, but nobody wants to do that. This much is clear enough. Where it gets really interesting is when you consider the nearly limitless scope of these changes, and the one most pertinent to the times is the impact of free distribution on politics. In the US, at least as long as parties have had votes for their presidential nominees, there has been an understanding that the selection of the nominee is somewhat democratic. In reality that was never the case. While the party base could vote to choose the nominee, they were really only picking one among a handful of candidates pre-selected by the party establishment. If you wanted to win an election, you needed the support of the establishment in securing donors and getting media coverage. The first time this changed was before the 2008 election when the preferred Democratic party nominee, Hilary Clinton, got sidelined by a newcomer that used the new media to garner a larger support among the base. Then Trump took that game to a whole new level in 2016. In a sense, this is the same pattern we&rsquo;ve observed in multiple other consumer industries. The incumbent monopolies (the big political parties) held the choke point for reaching the masses. They controlled the supply (access to money, which then bought media). You could run for office on your own, but you weren&rsquo;t gonna get very far. The parties&#39; monopoly has now been subverted by the internet. Distribution is now free – anybody can reach the populace just as well as anyone else on social media – and what matters is who controls demand. Viewed in this light, the current political situation in the US is both unsurprising and an inevitability. Any expectation that we will go back to the good old days of &ldquo;normal&rdquo; politics are foolish. The entire paradigm has shifted and new actors (no pun intended) who can navigate the new world are going to win. Like every distruption brought about by the internet, this will be a double-edged sword. While this disruption of the old order has led to some chaos (and will continue to do so until we figure out how to navigate the new paradigm skillfully), there is now some room for innovation in politics Admittedly, this may take some time. Personally, I don&rsquo;t think Trump is going to be the final iteration of this change. When Facebook and Google disrupted old school mass advertising, they may have eaten the lunch of the old media, but they also made possible entire new industries that couldn&rsquo;t have existed in the world of the old media. Today you can have successful Kickstarter campaigns that turn into new businesses with the support of a few tens or hundreds of thousands of people. In the old world, an ad campaign that only converted 20,000 customers would be an utter failure, given the cost of reaching them and distributing the goods to them. In the modern world, virtual mom-and-pop business can be started over night by targetting a narrow niche of just that size. The major obstacle I see to this innovation is the marriage of politics to physical geography. On the internet, niche markets can be targetted because they&rsquo;re not constrained by the physical world. I&rsquo;m not sure what the answer is here (perhaps Peter Thiel&rsquo;s floating cities). The only thing I&rsquo;m sure of is that there&rsquo;s no going back to the old paradigm, and we can expect this new paradigm to become ever more pervasive: across more levels of government and across more governments." />
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In the 90s and early 2000s, you had broadcast media with fixed schedules that you had to adapt yourself to, produced by a few big national players; you had big box stores that you&rsquo;d drive to in order to purchase consumer packaged goods from brands that had been established for upwards of a century; and you had a handful of news sources that would tell you more or less the same thing, possibly with a slightly different slant. We don&rsquo;t have those things anymore. If we do, they&rsquo;re merely a shadow of their old selves, clinging to dear life until their last remnants die with the last generation that doesn&rsquo;t know how to use the internet. Why did these things go away? The central theme is that the internet allowed a shift from a world where the winners controlled the supply, to a world where the winners control demand. The few media companies that controlled the narrative surrounding the news before the internet didn&rsquo;t do so because theirs was the only narrative people wanted to read or hear. They did so because they owned printing presses and trucks and it was far too expensive for anybody else to compete with them. The consumer packaged goods that you would buy from the likes of, say, Gillette weren&rsquo;t there because they were the best product on the market, they were there because the manufacturers had the best deals with the big box retailers and could effectively block anyone else from entering the market. Shelf space was limited and they controlled it. You could try to get your own competing products built with a higher quality or a lower price, but good luck to you for getting it to the market. Similarly, your cable or phone company was not entrenched thanks to consumer choice but because they owned precious limited infrastructure that nobody else could use, so consumers had no choice but to accept their poor service at outrageous prices. Interestingly, this was even true of the technology companies of the 80s and 90s. Microsoft&rsquo;s dominance was built around it being difficult for consumers to be able to use the tools they wanted on any platform other than Microsoft&rsquo;s. The internet changed all of this. It made distribution essentially free, so all of these industries that were predicated on monopolized distribution channels began to lose their grip. In the case of Microsoft, for example, the tools people really wanted were now one layer of abstraction above the chokepoint – you can access the information on the internet through any device regardless of whether it runs Windows or not. For the consumer packaged goods industry, online distribution meant that they were now on a level playing field with anyone who could produce the same product at them and deliver them to the consumers&#39; homes. Shelf space was unlimited. The story of the last decade has been one of distribution monopolies being sidelined by a new world where their strengths are no longer competitive. What they&rsquo;ve been replaced by are new monopolies. These are monopolies of demand, such as Facebook, Google, or Amazon. People don&rsquo;t use Facebook, Google, or Amazon because they have to. In fact, you and I are more than free to build and market our own competing products/services to all three (in part courtesy of Amazon and Google services) and market them directly to the same consumers who use them. But it won&rsquo;t make a difference. People won&rsquo;t want to use our service, they&rsquo;ll want to use theirs because they have network effects. You can build an alternative search engine (there are many), but Google&rsquo;s will always work better. You can build your own social network but it won&rsquo;t mean anything because people are already on Facebook (in fact, Google tried and failed). You can still go to any retailer and buy the same old products you see on Amazon, but nobody wants to do that. This much is clear enough. Where it gets really interesting is when you consider the nearly limitless scope of these changes, and the one most pertinent to the times is the impact of free distribution on politics. In the US, at least as long as parties have had votes for their presidential nominees, there has been an understanding that the selection of the nominee is somewhat democratic. In reality that was never the case. While the party base could vote to choose the nominee, they were really only picking one among a handful of candidates pre-selected by the party establishment. If you wanted to win an election, you needed the support of the establishment in securing donors and getting media coverage. The first time this changed was before the 2008 election when the preferred Democratic party nominee, Hilary Clinton, got sidelined by a newcomer that used the new media to garner a larger support among the base. Then Trump took that game to a whole new level in 2016. In a sense, this is the same pattern we&rsquo;ve observed in multiple other consumer industries. The incumbent monopolies (the big political parties) held the choke point for reaching the masses. They controlled the supply (access to money, which then bought media). You could run for office on your own, but you weren&rsquo;t gonna get very far. The parties&#39; monopoly has now been subverted by the internet. Distribution is now free – anybody can reach the populace just as well as anyone else on social media – and what matters is who controls demand. Viewed in this light, the current political situation in the US is both unsurprising and an inevitability. Any expectation that we will go back to the good old days of &ldquo;normal&rdquo; politics are foolish. The entire paradigm has shifted and new actors (no pun intended) who can navigate the new world are going to win. Like every distruption brought about by the internet, this will be a double-edged sword. While this disruption of the old order has led to some chaos (and will continue to do so until we figure out how to navigate the new paradigm skillfully), there is now some room for innovation in politics Admittedly, this may take some time. Personally, I don&rsquo;t think Trump is going to be the final iteration of this change. When Facebook and Google disrupted old school mass advertising, they may have eaten the lunch of the old media, but they also made possible entire new industries that couldn&rsquo;t have existed in the world of the old media. Today you can have successful Kickstarter campaigns that turn into new businesses with the support of a few tens or hundreds of thousands of people. In the old world, an ad campaign that only converted 20,000 customers would be an utter failure, given the cost of reaching them and distributing the goods to them. In the modern world, virtual mom-and-pop business can be started over night by targetting a narrow niche of just that size. The major obstacle I see to this innovation is the marriage of politics to physical geography. On the internet, niche markets can be targetted because they&rsquo;re not constrained by the physical world. I&rsquo;m not sure what the answer is here (perhaps Peter Thiel&rsquo;s floating cities). The only thing I&rsquo;m sure of is that there&rsquo;s no going back to the old paradigm, and we can expect this new paradigm to become ever more pervasive: across more levels of government and across more governments.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Goodbye, Old Politics","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2018-10-06T16:48:32-07:00","datePublished":"2018-10-06T16:48:32-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/10/06/goodbye.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/10/06/goodbye.html"},"description":"Almost everything here is my takeaway from ideas put forth by Ben Thompson from Stratechery and the Exponent podcast, being rehashed to cement my own understanding. The world has changed a lot since 90s. Even though I&rsquo;m only 30, I&rsquo;m old enough to remember a time when the world looked very different. I remember fax machines and answering machines that recorded messages on tape. I remember the first computers that grade-school-me would see as nothing more than glorified game consoles. I remember when you had be very mindful of your time on the internet because your ISP was charging you by the kilobyte. In the 90s and early 2000s, you had broadcast media with fixed schedules that you had to adapt yourself to, produced by a few big national players; you had big box stores that you&rsquo;d drive to in order to purchase consumer packaged goods from brands that had been established for upwards of a century; and you had a handful of news sources that would tell you more or less the same thing, possibly with a slightly different slant. We don&rsquo;t have those things anymore. If we do, they&rsquo;re merely a shadow of their old selves, clinging to dear life until their last remnants die with the last generation that doesn&rsquo;t know how to use the internet. Why did these things go away? The central theme is that the internet allowed a shift from a world where the winners controlled the supply, to a world where the winners control demand. The few media companies that controlled the narrative surrounding the news before the internet didn&rsquo;t do so because theirs was the only narrative people wanted to read or hear. They did so because they owned printing presses and trucks and it was far too expensive for anybody else to compete with them. The consumer packaged goods that you would buy from the likes of, say, Gillette weren&rsquo;t there because they were the best product on the market, they were there because the manufacturers had the best deals with the big box retailers and could effectively block anyone else from entering the market. Shelf space was limited and they controlled it. You could try to get your own competing products built with a higher quality or a lower price, but good luck to you for getting it to the market. Similarly, your cable or phone company was not entrenched thanks to consumer choice but because they owned precious limited infrastructure that nobody else could use, so consumers had no choice but to accept their poor service at outrageous prices. Interestingly, this was even true of the technology companies of the 80s and 90s. Microsoft&rsquo;s dominance was built around it being difficult for consumers to be able to use the tools they wanted on any platform other than Microsoft&rsquo;s. The internet changed all of this. It made distribution essentially free, so all of these industries that were predicated on monopolized distribution channels began to lose their grip. In the case of Microsoft, for example, the tools people really wanted were now one layer of abstraction above the chokepoint – you can access the information on the internet through any device regardless of whether it runs Windows or not. For the consumer packaged goods industry, online distribution meant that they were now on a level playing field with anyone who could produce the same product at them and deliver them to the consumers&#39; homes. Shelf space was unlimited. The story of the last decade has been one of distribution monopolies being sidelined by a new world where their strengths are no longer competitive. What they&rsquo;ve been replaced by are new monopolies. These are monopolies of demand, such as Facebook, Google, or Amazon. People don&rsquo;t use Facebook, Google, or Amazon because they have to. In fact, you and I are more than free to build and market our own competing products/services to all three (in part courtesy of Amazon and Google services) and market them directly to the same consumers who use them. But it won&rsquo;t make a difference. People won&rsquo;t want to use our service, they&rsquo;ll want to use theirs because they have network effects. You can build an alternative search engine (there are many), but Google&rsquo;s will always work better. You can build your own social network but it won&rsquo;t mean anything because people are already on Facebook (in fact, Google tried and failed). You can still go to any retailer and buy the same old products you see on Amazon, but nobody wants to do that. This much is clear enough. Where it gets really interesting is when you consider the nearly limitless scope of these changes, and the one most pertinent to the times is the impact of free distribution on politics. In the US, at least as long as parties have had votes for their presidential nominees, there has been an understanding that the selection of the nominee is somewhat democratic. In reality that was never the case. While the party base could vote to choose the nominee, they were really only picking one among a handful of candidates pre-selected by the party establishment. If you wanted to win an election, you needed the support of the establishment in securing donors and getting media coverage. The first time this changed was before the 2008 election when the preferred Democratic party nominee, Hilary Clinton, got sidelined by a newcomer that used the new media to garner a larger support among the base. Then Trump took that game to a whole new level in 2016. In a sense, this is the same pattern we&rsquo;ve observed in multiple other consumer industries. The incumbent monopolies (the big political parties) held the choke point for reaching the masses. They controlled the supply (access to money, which then bought media). You could run for office on your own, but you weren&rsquo;t gonna get very far. The parties&#39; monopoly has now been subverted by the internet. Distribution is now free – anybody can reach the populace just as well as anyone else on social media – and what matters is who controls demand. Viewed in this light, the current political situation in the US is both unsurprising and an inevitability. Any expectation that we will go back to the good old days of &ldquo;normal&rdquo; politics are foolish. The entire paradigm has shifted and new actors (no pun intended) who can navigate the new world are going to win. Like every distruption brought about by the internet, this will be a double-edged sword. While this disruption of the old order has led to some chaos (and will continue to do so until we figure out how to navigate the new paradigm skillfully), there is now some room for innovation in politics Admittedly, this may take some time. Personally, I don&rsquo;t think Trump is going to be the final iteration of this change. When Facebook and Google disrupted old school mass advertising, they may have eaten the lunch of the old media, but they also made possible entire new industries that couldn&rsquo;t have existed in the world of the old media. Today you can have successful Kickstarter campaigns that turn into new businesses with the support of a few tens or hundreds of thousands of people. In the old world, an ad campaign that only converted 20,000 customers would be an utter failure, given the cost of reaching them and distributing the goods to them. In the modern world, virtual mom-and-pop business can be started over night by targetting a narrow niche of just that size. The major obstacle I see to this innovation is the marriage of politics to physical geography. On the internet, niche markets can be targetted because they&rsquo;re not constrained by the physical world. I&rsquo;m not sure what the answer is here (perhaps Peter Thiel&rsquo;s floating cities). The only thing I&rsquo;m sure of is that there&rsquo;s no going back to the old paradigm, and we can expect this new paradigm to become ever more pervasive: across more levels of government and across more governments.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Goodbye, Old Politics","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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diff --git a/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html b/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html
index c84ec8e..a8e380d 100644
--- a/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html
+++ b/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html
@@ -9,15 +9,15 @@
 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="When the great Tao is forgotten, goodness and piety appear. When the body&rsquo;s intelligence declines, cleverness and knowledge step forth. When there is no peace in the family, filial piety begins. When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born. - Lao Tzu They say judging people is bad. I’m not sure I agree. Regardless, we all do it anyway. I want to continuously improve my heuristics to make good judgements of people. Good heuristics are rare, but I have one that’s fairly reliable that I’m going to share with you here. Last year, I attended a ten day meditation retreat. There was one specific individual at this retreat who stood out. He was an “old student”, which means he had done at least one ten-day course before. While the attendees were socializing at the meditation centre before the beginning of the course and before Noble Silence was to be observed, he was sitting quietly in a corner. If someone tried to speak to him, he would turn his head toward them extremely slowly, give the shortest possible answer, and go back to being quiet. In addition to his behaviour, he also stood out because of his appearance. He was wearing what looked like rags — what you might expect to see on a beggar on an Indian street. Except it didn’t look authentic. The rags were quite nice. It was what you might expect to see from a well-off white guy impersonating a poor Indian beggar. He also walked barefoot. The next time I noticed him was on the last day of the retreat. For ten days, we had all been silent. On the last day, Noble Silence ended and people started chattering again. However, talking was still disallowed in the main meditation hall. At one point, while some people were talking in the hallway, I was in the meditation hall, trying to practice. This individual was also there, sitting a few rows in front of me. In between us, two people started talking. The meditation hall was already not so quiet, considering that the chatter from the hallway was easily audible. The additional noise from the two talkers inside the hall was too much for this individual to bear. He turned around and gave the two talkers an angry “SSSSHHHHH!!!”. I’ll never forget the look of rage on his face. Ten days of working on increasing compassion had evaporated in an instance. This individual, in my mind, represents the quintessential “peacock” in a community. He went to great lengths to put on appearances about his devotion to the practice, but at the end of the day, he exhibited none of the skill. Peacocks exist in every walk of life, and observing many of them has led me to this heuristic: I am instantly suspicious of people who are putting on excessive appearances. These appearances can be visual (eg. clothing) or behavioural (eg. acting overly sensitive to certain subjects) or verbal (eg. the proverbial “blowing of one’s own trumpet”). The purpose of this peacocking is to elevate one’s status in a community. Peacocks thrive in environments where the authenticity of status signals are hard to gauge. In the tech community, peacocking is difficult. You can’t fool people into thinking you’re a good engineer by putting on thicker glasses and lowering your social skills. At the end of the day, you’ll have to speak knowledgeably and write good code. Nassim Taleb has pointed out in Skin In The Game, the ultimate authentic signal is courage: a display of courage is proof of its true existence. Most signals that people send each other don’t have this high of a signal-to-substance ratio. For example, zouk and aikido communities that I’m part of are rife with peacocks. In zouk, these people gravitate toward a style of dance that (they think) does not require rigorous work on fundamentals. They might state that feeling is more important than technique. They might wear genie pants to look like time-travelling hippies who escaped their commune in the ’60s. The teachers they idolize look this way, so they copy the appearance. Those teachers, however, are often highly skilled, but where their technique might take years of hard practice to copy, their outward appearance can be copied very quickly and used as a status signal in the community. These people often don’t have a regular teacher that they train under, but they attend all the big events and sometimes take private lessons, which they use as an opportunity to &ldquo;socialize&rdquo; with well-known teachers and tell their friends about it. In aikido, the story is not so different. Strength and stamina are often used to signal skill in aikido where there is none. Unnecessarily long or elaborate demonstrations are used to impress untrained spectators or equally unskilled peers. The trained eye can see that every technique in these demonstrations is performed with the most egregious mistakes. Often, similar to the zouk peacocks, the aikido peacocks will attend seminars with famous teachers with no attention whatever to the lessons being taught. They love collecting a large catalogue of famous teachers who they can claim they’ve trained under. They might collect photos with these teachers, in which they’ll pose like thugs with a stern face and clenched fists to make sure they look tough. It’s important to emphasize that merely sending these signals by itself is not evidence of anything wrong. Strength and stamina are not bad things. Attending lots of seminars is not a bad thing. Looking like a hippie&hellip; well, ok, that one’s unforgivable. The issue with peacocks is not just that they send these signals. It’s that they’re signalling a lie. They want you to believe they possess substance that they simply don’t. Substance is hard to gauge, but we notice others’ signals right away. But here’s the thing about people with substance: they are in no rush and they can wait for you to see theirs. They’re confident and reassured. Peacocks are neither of these things. So when I see someone sending signals a little too loudly, I think the lady doth protest too much. Heuristics are not perfect, and I try to give people a chance even when my peacock radar is going off. But I’ve often been right about peacocks, and whatever any individual’s merits may be, peacocking is at the very least a sign of disingenuity and perhaps dishonesty. In communities where they can thrive, peacocks will eventually become teachers or leaders, and they will mislead entire contingents of beginners who don’t know any better about choosing who to follow. That is the biggest harm of the peacock." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="When the great Tao is forgotten, goodness and piety appear. When the body&rsquo;s intelligence declines, cleverness and knowledge step forth. When there is no peace in the family, filial piety begins. When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born. - Lao Tzu They say judging people is bad. I’m not sure I agree. Regardless, we all do it anyway. I want to continuously improve my heuristics to make good judgements of people. Good heuristics are rare, but I have one that’s fairly reliable that I’m going to share with you here. Last year, I attended a ten day meditation retreat. There was one specific individual at this retreat who stood out. He was an “old student”, which means he had done at least one ten-day course before. While the attendees were socializing at the meditation centre before the beginning of the course and before Noble Silence was to be observed, he was sitting quietly in a corner. If someone tried to speak to him, he would turn his head toward them extremely slowly, give the shortest possible answer, and go back to being quiet. In addition to his behaviour, he also stood out because of his appearance. He was wearing what looked like rags — what you might expect to see on a beggar on an Indian street. Except it didn’t look authentic. The rags were quite nice. It was what you might expect to see from a well-off white guy impersonating a poor Indian beggar. He also walked barefoot. The next time I noticed him was on the last day of the retreat. For ten days, we had all been silent. On the last day, Noble Silence ended and people started chattering again. However, talking was still disallowed in the main meditation hall. At one point, while some people were talking in the hallway, I was in the meditation hall, trying to practice. This individual was also there, sitting a few rows in front of me. In between us, two people started talking. The meditation hall was already not so quiet, considering that the chatter from the hallway was easily audible. The additional noise from the two talkers inside the hall was too much for this individual to bear. He turned around and gave the two talkers an angry “SSSSHHHHH!!!”. I’ll never forget the look of rage on his face. Ten days of working on increasing compassion had evaporated in an instance. This individual, in my mind, represents the quintessential “peacock” in a community. He went to great lengths to put on appearances about his devotion to the practice, but at the end of the day, he exhibited none of the skill. Peacocks exist in every walk of life, and observing many of them has led me to this heuristic: I am instantly suspicious of people who are putting on excessive appearances. These appearances can be visual (eg. clothing) or behavioural (eg. acting overly sensitive to certain subjects) or verbal (eg. the proverbial “blowing of one’s own trumpet”). The purpose of this peacocking is to elevate one’s status in a community. Peacocks thrive in environments where the authenticity of status signals are hard to gauge. In the tech community, peacocking is difficult. You can’t fool people into thinking you’re a good engineer by putting on thicker glasses and lowering your social skills. At the end of the day, you’ll have to speak knowledgeably and write good code. Nassim Taleb has pointed out in Skin In The Game, the ultimate authentic signal is courage: a display of courage is proof of its true existence. Most signals that people send each other don’t have this high of a signal-to-substance ratio. For example, zouk and aikido communities that I’m part of are rife with peacocks. In zouk, these people gravitate toward a style of dance that (they think) does not require rigorous work on fundamentals. They might state that feeling is more important than technique. They might wear genie pants to look like time-travelling hippies who escaped their commune in the ’60s. The teachers they idolize look this way, so they copy the appearance. Those teachers, however, are often highly skilled, but where their technique might take years of hard practice to copy, their outward appearance can be copied very quickly and used as a status signal in the community. These people often don’t have a regular teacher that they train under, but they attend all the big events and sometimes take private lessons, which they use as an opportunity to &ldquo;socialize&rdquo; with well-known teachers and tell their friends about it. In aikido, the story is not so different. Strength and stamina are often used to signal skill in aikido where there is none. Unnecessarily long or elaborate demonstrations are used to impress untrained spectators or equally unskilled peers. The trained eye can see that every technique in these demonstrations is performed with the most egregious mistakes. Often, similar to the zouk peacocks, the aikido peacocks will attend seminars with famous teachers with no attention whatever to the lessons being taught. They love collecting a large catalogue of famous teachers who they can claim they’ve trained under. They might collect photos with these teachers, in which they’ll pose like thugs with a stern face and clenched fists to make sure they look tough. It’s important to emphasize that merely sending these signals by itself is not evidence of anything wrong. Strength and stamina are not bad things. Attending lots of seminars is not a bad thing. Looking like a hippie&hellip; well, ok, that one’s unforgivable. The issue with peacocks is not just that they send these signals. It’s that they’re signalling a lie. They want you to believe they possess substance that they simply don’t. Substance is hard to gauge, but we notice others’ signals right away. But here’s the thing about people with substance: they are in no rush and they can wait for you to see theirs. They’re confident and reassured. Peacocks are neither of these things. So when I see someone sending signals a little too loudly, I think the lady doth protest too much. Heuristics are not perfect, and I try to give people a chance even when my peacock radar is going off. But I’ve often been right about peacocks, and whatever any individual’s merits may be, peacocking is at the very least a sign of disingenuity and perhaps dishonesty. In communities where they can thrive, peacocks will eventually become teachers or leaders, and they will mislead entire contingents of beginners who don’t know any better about choosing who to follow. That is the biggest harm of the peacock." />
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-{"dateModified":"2018-11-12T17:44:58-08:00","datePublished":"2018-11-12T17:44:58-08:00","url":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html"},"description":"When the great Tao is forgotten, goodness and piety appear. When the body&rsquo;s intelligence declines, cleverness and knowledge step forth. When there is no peace in the family, filial piety begins. When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born. - Lao Tzu They say judging people is bad. I’m not sure I agree. Regardless, we all do it anyway. I want to continuously improve my heuristics to make good judgements of people. Good heuristics are rare, but I have one that’s fairly reliable that I’m going to share with you here. Last year, I attended a ten day meditation retreat. There was one specific individual at this retreat who stood out. He was an “old student”, which means he had done at least one ten-day course before. While the attendees were socializing at the meditation centre before the beginning of the course and before Noble Silence was to be observed, he was sitting quietly in a corner. If someone tried to speak to him, he would turn his head toward them extremely slowly, give the shortest possible answer, and go back to being quiet. In addition to his behaviour, he also stood out because of his appearance. He was wearing what looked like rags — what you might expect to see on a beggar on an Indian street. Except it didn’t look authentic. The rags were quite nice. It was what you might expect to see from a well-off white guy impersonating a poor Indian beggar. He also walked barefoot. The next time I noticed him was on the last day of the retreat. For ten days, we had all been silent. On the last day, Noble Silence ended and people started chattering again. However, talking was still disallowed in the main meditation hall. At one point, while some people were talking in the hallway, I was in the meditation hall, trying to practice. This individual was also there, sitting a few rows in front of me. In between us, two people started talking. The meditation hall was already not so quiet, considering that the chatter from the hallway was easily audible. The additional noise from the two talkers inside the hall was too much for this individual to bear. He turned around and gave the two talkers an angry “SSSSHHHHH!!!”. I’ll never forget the look of rage on his face. Ten days of working on increasing compassion had evaporated in an instance. This individual, in my mind, represents the quintessential “peacock” in a community. He went to great lengths to put on appearances about his devotion to the practice, but at the end of the day, he exhibited none of the skill. Peacocks exist in every walk of life, and observing many of them has led me to this heuristic: I am instantly suspicious of people who are putting on excessive appearances. These appearances can be visual (eg. clothing) or behavioural (eg. acting overly sensitive to certain subjects) or verbal (eg. the proverbial “blowing of one’s own trumpet”). The purpose of this peacocking is to elevate one’s status in a community. Peacocks thrive in environments where the authenticity of status signals are hard to gauge. In the tech community, peacocking is difficult. You can’t fool people into thinking you’re a good engineer by putting on thicker glasses and lowering your social skills. At the end of the day, you’ll have to speak knowledgeably and write good code. Nassim Taleb has pointed out in Skin In The Game, the ultimate authentic signal is courage: a display of courage is proof of its true existence. Most signals that people send each other don’t have this high of a signal-to-substance ratio. For example, zouk and aikido communities that I’m part of are rife with peacocks. In zouk, these people gravitate toward a style of dance that (they think) does not require rigorous work on fundamentals. They might state that feeling is more important than technique. They might wear genie pants to look like time-travelling hippies who escaped their commune in the ’60s. The teachers they idolize look this way, so they copy the appearance. Those teachers, however, are often highly skilled, but where their technique might take years of hard practice to copy, their outward appearance can be copied very quickly and used as a status signal in the community. These people often don’t have a regular teacher that they train under, but they attend all the big events and sometimes take private lessons, which they use as an opportunity to &ldquo;socialize&rdquo; with well-known teachers and tell their friends about it. In aikido, the story is not so different. Strength and stamina are often used to signal skill in aikido where there is none. Unnecessarily long or elaborate demonstrations are used to impress untrained spectators or equally unskilled peers. The trained eye can see that every technique in these demonstrations is performed with the most egregious mistakes. Often, similar to the zouk peacocks, the aikido peacocks will attend seminars with famous teachers with no attention whatever to the lessons being taught. They love collecting a large catalogue of famous teachers who they can claim they’ve trained under. They might collect photos with these teachers, in which they’ll pose like thugs with a stern face and clenched fists to make sure they look tough. It’s important to emphasize that merely sending these signals by itself is not evidence of anything wrong. Strength and stamina are not bad things. Attending lots of seminars is not a bad thing. Looking like a hippie&hellip; well, ok, that one’s unforgivable. The issue with peacocks is not just that they send these signals. It’s that they’re signalling a lie. They want you to believe they possess substance that they simply don’t. Substance is hard to gauge, but we notice others’ signals right away. But here’s the thing about people with substance: they are in no rush and they can wait for you to see theirs. They’re confident and reassured. Peacocks are neither of these things. So when I see someone sending signals a little too loudly, I think the lady doth protest too much. Heuristics are not perfect, and I try to give people a chance even when my peacock radar is going off. But I’ve often been right about peacocks, and whatever any individual’s merits may be, peacocking is at the very least a sign of disingenuity and perhaps dishonesty. In communities where they can thrive, peacocks will eventually become teachers or leaders, and they will mislead entire contingents of beginners who don’t know any better about choosing who to follow. That is the biggest harm of the peacock.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Don&rsquo;t Trust the Peacock","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2018-11-12T17:44:58-08:00","datePublished":"2018-11-12T17:44:58-08:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html"},"description":"When the great Tao is forgotten, goodness and piety appear. When the body&rsquo;s intelligence declines, cleverness and knowledge step forth. When there is no peace in the family, filial piety begins. When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born. - Lao Tzu They say judging people is bad. I’m not sure I agree. Regardless, we all do it anyway. I want to continuously improve my heuristics to make good judgements of people. Good heuristics are rare, but I have one that’s fairly reliable that I’m going to share with you here. Last year, I attended a ten day meditation retreat. There was one specific individual at this retreat who stood out. He was an “old student”, which means he had done at least one ten-day course before. While the attendees were socializing at the meditation centre before the beginning of the course and before Noble Silence was to be observed, he was sitting quietly in a corner. If someone tried to speak to him, he would turn his head toward them extremely slowly, give the shortest possible answer, and go back to being quiet. In addition to his behaviour, he also stood out because of his appearance. He was wearing what looked like rags — what you might expect to see on a beggar on an Indian street. Except it didn’t look authentic. The rags were quite nice. It was what you might expect to see from a well-off white guy impersonating a poor Indian beggar. He also walked barefoot. The next time I noticed him was on the last day of the retreat. For ten days, we had all been silent. On the last day, Noble Silence ended and people started chattering again. However, talking was still disallowed in the main meditation hall. At one point, while some people were talking in the hallway, I was in the meditation hall, trying to practice. This individual was also there, sitting a few rows in front of me. In between us, two people started talking. The meditation hall was already not so quiet, considering that the chatter from the hallway was easily audible. The additional noise from the two talkers inside the hall was too much for this individual to bear. He turned around and gave the two talkers an angry “SSSSHHHHH!!!”. I’ll never forget the look of rage on his face. Ten days of working on increasing compassion had evaporated in an instance. This individual, in my mind, represents the quintessential “peacock” in a community. He went to great lengths to put on appearances about his devotion to the practice, but at the end of the day, he exhibited none of the skill. Peacocks exist in every walk of life, and observing many of them has led me to this heuristic: I am instantly suspicious of people who are putting on excessive appearances. These appearances can be visual (eg. clothing) or behavioural (eg. acting overly sensitive to certain subjects) or verbal (eg. the proverbial “blowing of one’s own trumpet”). The purpose of this peacocking is to elevate one’s status in a community. Peacocks thrive in environments where the authenticity of status signals are hard to gauge. In the tech community, peacocking is difficult. You can’t fool people into thinking you’re a good engineer by putting on thicker glasses and lowering your social skills. At the end of the day, you’ll have to speak knowledgeably and write good code. Nassim Taleb has pointed out in Skin In The Game, the ultimate authentic signal is courage: a display of courage is proof of its true existence. Most signals that people send each other don’t have this high of a signal-to-substance ratio. For example, zouk and aikido communities that I’m part of are rife with peacocks. In zouk, these people gravitate toward a style of dance that (they think) does not require rigorous work on fundamentals. They might state that feeling is more important than technique. They might wear genie pants to look like time-travelling hippies who escaped their commune in the ’60s. The teachers they idolize look this way, so they copy the appearance. Those teachers, however, are often highly skilled, but where their technique might take years of hard practice to copy, their outward appearance can be copied very quickly and used as a status signal in the community. These people often don’t have a regular teacher that they train under, but they attend all the big events and sometimes take private lessons, which they use as an opportunity to &ldquo;socialize&rdquo; with well-known teachers and tell their friends about it. In aikido, the story is not so different. Strength and stamina are often used to signal skill in aikido where there is none. Unnecessarily long or elaborate demonstrations are used to impress untrained spectators or equally unskilled peers. The trained eye can see that every technique in these demonstrations is performed with the most egregious mistakes. Often, similar to the zouk peacocks, the aikido peacocks will attend seminars with famous teachers with no attention whatever to the lessons being taught. They love collecting a large catalogue of famous teachers who they can claim they’ve trained under. They might collect photos with these teachers, in which they’ll pose like thugs with a stern face and clenched fists to make sure they look tough. It’s important to emphasize that merely sending these signals by itself is not evidence of anything wrong. Strength and stamina are not bad things. Attending lots of seminars is not a bad thing. Looking like a hippie&hellip; well, ok, that one’s unforgivable. The issue with peacocks is not just that they send these signals. It’s that they’re signalling a lie. They want you to believe they possess substance that they simply don’t. Substance is hard to gauge, but we notice others’ signals right away. But here’s the thing about people with substance: they are in no rush and they can wait for you to see theirs. They’re confident and reassured. Peacocks are neither of these things. So when I see someone sending signals a little too loudly, I think the lady doth protest too much. Heuristics are not perfect, and I try to give people a chance even when my peacock radar is going off. But I’ve often been right about peacocks, and whatever any individual’s merits may be, peacocking is at the very least a sign of disingenuity and perhaps dishonesty. In communities where they can thrive, peacocks will eventually become teachers or leaders, and they will mislead entire contingents of beginners who don’t know any better about choosing who to follow. That is the biggest harm of the peacock.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Don&rsquo;t Trust the Peacock","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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 <meta property="og:description" content="Like everyone else, I&rsquo;ve had a number of conversation in the last few weeks around the question of &ldquo;when will we go back to normal?&rdquo;. So here&rsquo;s how I think we need to approach the answer, based on my readings so far. The TL;DR is &ldquo;not soon&rdquo;." />
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+{"dateModified":"2020-04-26T18:19:30-07:00","datePublished":"2020-04-26T18:19:30-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/04/26/pandemic-predictions-part-1.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/04/26/pandemic-predictions-part-1.html"},"description":"Like everyone else, I&rsquo;ve had a number of conversation in the last few weeks around the question of &ldquo;when will we go back to normal?&rdquo;. So here&rsquo;s how I think we need to approach the answer, based on my readings so far. The TL;DR is &ldquo;not soon&rdquo;.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Pandemic Predictions (Part 1)","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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 <meta name="description" content="In the previous post, I talked about when we might go back to normal. Today, let&rsquo;s think about what possible long-term ramifications the COVID19 pandemic might have. It would be an interesting thought exercise to do this for a variety of economic sectors. For this post, I&rsquo;ll start with the most obvious long term impact: the impact on commercial real estate. This first became obvious to me about a week or two into North America being hit, and it has been pointed out by a number of writers. This is a living post - I will update it as I think this through more deeply. Prediction I think commercial real estate is going to see a permanent drop in demand and therefore in prices. This does not hold true for all types of commercial real estate, but it does hold true for many. My Reasoning An anecdote: my company recently got acquired by a bank. When we joined them, just a few months ago, people steeped in bank culture found the idea of remote work not only alien, but somewhat disturbing. On the other hand, walking 20-30 minutes between multiple towers in downtown Toronto for a meeting is something they don&rsquo;t bat an eye at. In 2020, there is no legimate reason why business needs to be conducted that way - specially in technology-focused businesses. This was not a failure of capability, as much as it was a failure of culture. Coronavirus has shattered that culture. Everyone at those offices is now working from home. This is not to say that everyone likes working from home right now (I&rsquo;ve noticed having children is a particular impediment in enjoying WFH). But they&rsquo;ve all been forced into a mandatory two-month-long trial, which is likely to continue. It&rsquo;s a similar story across all sorts of businesses, of course. Once we&rsquo;re through this pandemic, I expect everyone to return to business-as-usual. But I expect some key lessons will be learned from this about the benefits of remote work in cultures that would otherwise never imagine it. When the pandemic is over, more workplaces will be offering remote work options for more types of roles. With this, lack of remote work options will become an impediment to hiring top talent, as it already has for tech hires. When the pandemic is over, many workplaces will be reviewing how much they got done with everyone working from home, and they&rsquo;ll be eyeing the expense line on their cash flows as a top candidate for cost-cutting. Even workplaces that are primarily office-based may need a reduced capacity as some portion of their workforce can work remotely at any given time. Large corporations that own their own real estate may see it as less essential and will be more likely to divest, increasing supply. Culture shifts take time to be ingrained, but the pandemic has massively accelerated the shift. Outside of office space, many businesses will be innovating with a lower reliance on expensive, prime real estate. Cloud kitchens, for example, were a trend pre-pandemic, and that will only continue. If Amazon had habituated us to buy things online and get them a few days later, pandemic will take this to the next level, with delivery of all essentials becoming not just a preference, but a matter of safety. One big impediment to remote work is legal. When I bought my apartment, I had to commute for approx. 45 minutes to a lawyer&rsquo;s office, sign a few documents in front of her (which took 5 minutes), then commute back for 45 minutes. This was and is infuriarting and nobody should accept it as &lsquo;normal&rsquo; or &lsquo;okay&rsquo;. We have better ways, and the pandemic has also set the stage for updating our legal frameworks to be more remote-friendly – changes that would otherwise move at a glacial pace. For now, many of these changes are poised as temporary measures, but that&rsquo;s how it&rsquo;ll start. All of these factors will conspire to decrease the demand in commercial real estate. You&rsquo;ve heard about the obvious winners in the current circumstance: remote communication tools, e-commerce, to name a few. This is the flipside of that coin - commercial real estate is the obvious loser. We&rsquo;re going to be spending less time in wasteful commutes, and more time getting shit done. We&rsquo;ll be happier, and in the very long term, we may even have more beautiful, less car-focused, more environmentally-friendly, and more decentralized cities. (The impact of this change on the urban landscape is another very interesting thread - to be pulled on in another post perhaps.) Not all types of commercial real estate will see this drop in demand, of course. As we spend more time in our homes, and more time away from a &ldquo;downtown core&rdquo;, we&rsquo;ll need increasingly better infrastructure to serve our needs where we are. Many services that are currently concentrated in business districts will be downsized and spread more evenly across the urban landscape, closer to where people live." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="In the previous post, I talked about when we might go back to normal. Today, let&rsquo;s think about what possible long-term ramifications the COVID19 pandemic might have. It would be an interesting thought exercise to do this for a variety of economic sectors. For this post, I&rsquo;ll start with the most obvious long term impact: the impact on commercial real estate. This first became obvious to me about a week or two into North America being hit, and it has been pointed out by a number of writers. This is a living post - I will update it as I think this through more deeply. Prediction I think commercial real estate is going to see a permanent drop in demand and therefore in prices. This does not hold true for all types of commercial real estate, but it does hold true for many. My Reasoning An anecdote: my company recently got acquired by a bank. When we joined them, just a few months ago, people steeped in bank culture found the idea of remote work not only alien, but somewhat disturbing. On the other hand, walking 20-30 minutes between multiple towers in downtown Toronto for a meeting is something they don&rsquo;t bat an eye at. In 2020, there is no legimate reason why business needs to be conducted that way - specially in technology-focused businesses. This was not a failure of capability, as much as it was a failure of culture. Coronavirus has shattered that culture. Everyone at those offices is now working from home. This is not to say that everyone likes working from home right now (I&rsquo;ve noticed having children is a particular impediment in enjoying WFH). But they&rsquo;ve all been forced into a mandatory two-month-long trial, which is likely to continue. It&rsquo;s a similar story across all sorts of businesses, of course. Once we&rsquo;re through this pandemic, I expect everyone to return to business-as-usual. But I expect some key lessons will be learned from this about the benefits of remote work in cultures that would otherwise never imagine it. When the pandemic is over, more workplaces will be offering remote work options for more types of roles. With this, lack of remote work options will become an impediment to hiring top talent, as it already has for tech hires. When the pandemic is over, many workplaces will be reviewing how much they got done with everyone working from home, and they&rsquo;ll be eyeing the expense line on their cash flows as a top candidate for cost-cutting. Even workplaces that are primarily office-based may need a reduced capacity as some portion of their workforce can work remotely at any given time. Large corporations that own their own real estate may see it as less essential and will be more likely to divest, increasing supply. Culture shifts take time to be ingrained, but the pandemic has massively accelerated the shift. Outside of office space, many businesses will be innovating with a lower reliance on expensive, prime real estate. Cloud kitchens, for example, were a trend pre-pandemic, and that will only continue. If Amazon had habituated us to buy things online and get them a few days later, pandemic will take this to the next level, with delivery of all essentials becoming not just a preference, but a matter of safety. One big impediment to remote work is legal. When I bought my apartment, I had to commute for approx. 45 minutes to a lawyer&rsquo;s office, sign a few documents in front of her (which took 5 minutes), then commute back for 45 minutes. This was and is infuriarting and nobody should accept it as &lsquo;normal&rsquo; or &lsquo;okay&rsquo;. We have better ways, and the pandemic has also set the stage for updating our legal frameworks to be more remote-friendly – changes that would otherwise move at a glacial pace. For now, many of these changes are poised as temporary measures, but that&rsquo;s how it&rsquo;ll start. All of these factors will conspire to decrease the demand in commercial real estate. You&rsquo;ve heard about the obvious winners in the current circumstance: remote communication tools, e-commerce, to name a few. This is the flipside of that coin - commercial real estate is the obvious loser. We&rsquo;re going to be spending less time in wasteful commutes, and more time getting shit done. We&rsquo;ll be happier, and in the very long term, we may even have more beautiful, less car-focused, more environmentally-friendly, and more decentralized cities. (The impact of this change on the urban landscape is another very interesting thread - to be pulled on in another post perhaps.) Not all types of commercial real estate will see this drop in demand, of course. As we spend more time in our homes, and more time away from a &ldquo;downtown core&rdquo;, we&rsquo;ll need increasingly better infrastructure to serve our needs where we are. Many services that are currently concentrated in business districts will be downsized and spread more evenly across the urban landscape, closer to where people live." />
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-{"dateModified":"2020-05-02T15:26:35-07:00","datePublished":"2020-05-02T15:26:35-07:00","url":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/02/pandemic-predictions-part-2.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/02/pandemic-predictions-part-2.html"},"description":"In the previous post, I talked about when we might go back to normal. Today, let&rsquo;s think about what possible long-term ramifications the COVID19 pandemic might have. It would be an interesting thought exercise to do this for a variety of economic sectors. For this post, I&rsquo;ll start with the most obvious long term impact: the impact on commercial real estate. This first became obvious to me about a week or two into North America being hit, and it has been pointed out by a number of writers. This is a living post - I will update it as I think this through more deeply. Prediction I think commercial real estate is going to see a permanent drop in demand and therefore in prices. This does not hold true for all types of commercial real estate, but it does hold true for many. My Reasoning An anecdote: my company recently got acquired by a bank. When we joined them, just a few months ago, people steeped in bank culture found the idea of remote work not only alien, but somewhat disturbing. On the other hand, walking 20-30 minutes between multiple towers in downtown Toronto for a meeting is something they don&rsquo;t bat an eye at. In 2020, there is no legimate reason why business needs to be conducted that way - specially in technology-focused businesses. This was not a failure of capability, as much as it was a failure of culture. Coronavirus has shattered that culture. Everyone at those offices is now working from home. This is not to say that everyone likes working from home right now (I&rsquo;ve noticed having children is a particular impediment in enjoying WFH). But they&rsquo;ve all been forced into a mandatory two-month-long trial, which is likely to continue. It&rsquo;s a similar story across all sorts of businesses, of course. Once we&rsquo;re through this pandemic, I expect everyone to return to business-as-usual. But I expect some key lessons will be learned from this about the benefits of remote work in cultures that would otherwise never imagine it. When the pandemic is over, more workplaces will be offering remote work options for more types of roles. With this, lack of remote work options will become an impediment to hiring top talent, as it already has for tech hires. When the pandemic is over, many workplaces will be reviewing how much they got done with everyone working from home, and they&rsquo;ll be eyeing the expense line on their cash flows as a top candidate for cost-cutting. Even workplaces that are primarily office-based may need a reduced capacity as some portion of their workforce can work remotely at any given time. Large corporations that own their own real estate may see it as less essential and will be more likely to divest, increasing supply. Culture shifts take time to be ingrained, but the pandemic has massively accelerated the shift. Outside of office space, many businesses will be innovating with a lower reliance on expensive, prime real estate. Cloud kitchens, for example, were a trend pre-pandemic, and that will only continue. If Amazon had habituated us to buy things online and get them a few days later, pandemic will take this to the next level, with delivery of all essentials becoming not just a preference, but a matter of safety. One big impediment to remote work is legal. When I bought my apartment, I had to commute for approx. 45 minutes to a lawyer&rsquo;s office, sign a few documents in front of her (which took 5 minutes), then commute back for 45 minutes. This was and is infuriarting and nobody should accept it as &lsquo;normal&rsquo; or &lsquo;okay&rsquo;. We have better ways, and the pandemic has also set the stage for updating our legal frameworks to be more remote-friendly – changes that would otherwise move at a glacial pace. For now, many of these changes are poised as temporary measures, but that&rsquo;s how it&rsquo;ll start. All of these factors will conspire to decrease the demand in commercial real estate. You&rsquo;ve heard about the obvious winners in the current circumstance: remote communication tools, e-commerce, to name a few. This is the flipside of that coin - commercial real estate is the obvious loser. We&rsquo;re going to be spending less time in wasteful commutes, and more time getting shit done. We&rsquo;ll be happier, and in the very long term, we may even have more beautiful, less car-focused, more environmentally-friendly, and more decentralized cities. (The impact of this change on the urban landscape is another very interesting thread - to be pulled on in another post perhaps.) Not all types of commercial real estate will see this drop in demand, of course. As we spend more time in our homes, and more time away from a &ldquo;downtown core&rdquo;, we&rsquo;ll need increasingly better infrastructure to serve our needs where we are. Many services that are currently concentrated in business districts will be downsized and spread more evenly across the urban landscape, closer to where people live.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Pandemic Predictions (Part 2)","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2020-05-02T15:26:35-07:00","datePublished":"2020-05-02T15:26:35-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/02/pandemic-predictions-part-2.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/02/pandemic-predictions-part-2.html"},"description":"In the previous post, I talked about when we might go back to normal. Today, let&rsquo;s think about what possible long-term ramifications the COVID19 pandemic might have. It would be an interesting thought exercise to do this for a variety of economic sectors. For this post, I&rsquo;ll start with the most obvious long term impact: the impact on commercial real estate. This first became obvious to me about a week or two into North America being hit, and it has been pointed out by a number of writers. This is a living post - I will update it as I think this through more deeply. Prediction I think commercial real estate is going to see a permanent drop in demand and therefore in prices. This does not hold true for all types of commercial real estate, but it does hold true for many. My Reasoning An anecdote: my company recently got acquired by a bank. When we joined them, just a few months ago, people steeped in bank culture found the idea of remote work not only alien, but somewhat disturbing. On the other hand, walking 20-30 minutes between multiple towers in downtown Toronto for a meeting is something they don&rsquo;t bat an eye at. In 2020, there is no legimate reason why business needs to be conducted that way - specially in technology-focused businesses. This was not a failure of capability, as much as it was a failure of culture. Coronavirus has shattered that culture. Everyone at those offices is now working from home. This is not to say that everyone likes working from home right now (I&rsquo;ve noticed having children is a particular impediment in enjoying WFH). But they&rsquo;ve all been forced into a mandatory two-month-long trial, which is likely to continue. It&rsquo;s a similar story across all sorts of businesses, of course. Once we&rsquo;re through this pandemic, I expect everyone to return to business-as-usual. But I expect some key lessons will be learned from this about the benefits of remote work in cultures that would otherwise never imagine it. When the pandemic is over, more workplaces will be offering remote work options for more types of roles. With this, lack of remote work options will become an impediment to hiring top talent, as it already has for tech hires. When the pandemic is over, many workplaces will be reviewing how much they got done with everyone working from home, and they&rsquo;ll be eyeing the expense line on their cash flows as a top candidate for cost-cutting. Even workplaces that are primarily office-based may need a reduced capacity as some portion of their workforce can work remotely at any given time. Large corporations that own their own real estate may see it as less essential and will be more likely to divest, increasing supply. Culture shifts take time to be ingrained, but the pandemic has massively accelerated the shift. Outside of office space, many businesses will be innovating with a lower reliance on expensive, prime real estate. Cloud kitchens, for example, were a trend pre-pandemic, and that will only continue. If Amazon had habituated us to buy things online and get them a few days later, pandemic will take this to the next level, with delivery of all essentials becoming not just a preference, but a matter of safety. One big impediment to remote work is legal. When I bought my apartment, I had to commute for approx. 45 minutes to a lawyer&rsquo;s office, sign a few documents in front of her (which took 5 minutes), then commute back for 45 minutes. This was and is infuriarting and nobody should accept it as &lsquo;normal&rsquo; or &lsquo;okay&rsquo;. We have better ways, and the pandemic has also set the stage for updating our legal frameworks to be more remote-friendly – changes that would otherwise move at a glacial pace. For now, many of these changes are poised as temporary measures, but that&rsquo;s how it&rsquo;ll start. All of these factors will conspire to decrease the demand in commercial real estate. You&rsquo;ve heard about the obvious winners in the current circumstance: remote communication tools, e-commerce, to name a few. This is the flipside of that coin - commercial real estate is the obvious loser. We&rsquo;re going to be spending less time in wasteful commutes, and more time getting shit done. We&rsquo;ll be happier, and in the very long term, we may even have more beautiful, less car-focused, more environmentally-friendly, and more decentralized cities. (The impact of this change on the urban landscape is another very interesting thread - to be pulled on in another post perhaps.) Not all types of commercial real estate will see this drop in demand, of course. As we spend more time in our homes, and more time away from a &ldquo;downtown core&rdquo;, we&rsquo;ll need increasingly better infrastructure to serve our needs where we are. Many services that are currently concentrated in business districts will be downsized and spread more evenly across the urban landscape, closer to where people live.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Pandemic Predictions (Part 2)","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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 <meta name="description" content="Here&rsquo;s another (short) prediction about the long term effects of Coronavirus, along with a call for help. Today&rsquo;s prediction relates to the airlines, and it&rsquo;s closely related to the previous prediction around commercial real estate. In fact, I wanted to include this in that post, but I decided to dig for some data to paint a fuller picture. I failed on that front. If you&rsquo;re good at business/industry analysis and you read this, I have a few asks for you at the end. For the prediction: In the previous post, I noted that I expect more and more workplaces to divest of their real estate and for remote work to become much more prevalent. Related to that, I foresee business travel to see a permanent reduction as a result of a much more widely-adopted remote work cultures. I can think of three types of business travel: Work that requires physical presence in a certain location. For example, a large engineering company may land a construction project far from their HQ and will need to send staff back and forth. Work that is more effective in-person. I think this is primarily sales. Building rapport with potential customers is much more effective in person. Other. Companies often make people travel due to geographically-constrained workplaces, even though the nature of the work doesn&rsquo;t necessarily require being co-located. I believe the last category, in the long run, will nearly vanish, as remote work becomes widely adopted and cost savings of less travel become possible and attractive. This will reduce demand for air travel from business customers. Demand will be further reduced in the second category as well - while some work is better done in person, the additional risk factor will move that cutoff line higher. Here&rsquo;s where having some data could&rsquo;ve been useful. Given the above predictions, I would like to know: What portion of annual airline revenues come from business travellers and in which sectors? What portion of annual airline profits come from business travellers? Which airlines had the majority of their revenues and profits from business customers? In which routes do business travel revenues dominate? Given the above information, one could make some further predictions about the airline industry in general. I suspect that business travellers are less cost conscious than leisure travellers, and that business travellers are less likely to travel on discount airlines than on higher-end airlines. On a long timeline, I don&rsquo;t think leisure travel will see much permanent reduction in demand. We&rsquo;re not out of the woods yet with COVID19, and even cruise liners are seeing sales recover already. Unfortunately, without more data, these predictions can&rsquo;t say much about how the supply side may change due to the predicted changes in demand. Here&rsquo;s where my ask comes in: if you know where one can obtain the above stats, please get in touch and give me a hand - I&rsquo;m flying blind here :)" />
 <meta property="og:description" content="Here&rsquo;s another (short) prediction about the long term effects of Coronavirus, along with a call for help. Today&rsquo;s prediction relates to the airlines, and it&rsquo;s closely related to the previous prediction around commercial real estate. In fact, I wanted to include this in that post, but I decided to dig for some data to paint a fuller picture. I failed on that front. If you&rsquo;re good at business/industry analysis and you read this, I have a few asks for you at the end. For the prediction: In the previous post, I noted that I expect more and more workplaces to divest of their real estate and for remote work to become much more prevalent. Related to that, I foresee business travel to see a permanent reduction as a result of a much more widely-adopted remote work cultures. I can think of three types of business travel: Work that requires physical presence in a certain location. For example, a large engineering company may land a construction project far from their HQ and will need to send staff back and forth. Work that is more effective in-person. I think this is primarily sales. Building rapport with potential customers is much more effective in person. Other. Companies often make people travel due to geographically-constrained workplaces, even though the nature of the work doesn&rsquo;t necessarily require being co-located. I believe the last category, in the long run, will nearly vanish, as remote work becomes widely adopted and cost savings of less travel become possible and attractive. This will reduce demand for air travel from business customers. Demand will be further reduced in the second category as well - while some work is better done in person, the additional risk factor will move that cutoff line higher. Here&rsquo;s where having some data could&rsquo;ve been useful. Given the above predictions, I would like to know: What portion of annual airline revenues come from business travellers and in which sectors? What portion of annual airline profits come from business travellers? Which airlines had the majority of their revenues and profits from business customers? In which routes do business travel revenues dominate? Given the above information, one could make some further predictions about the airline industry in general. I suspect that business travellers are less cost conscious than leisure travellers, and that business travellers are less likely to travel on discount airlines than on higher-end airlines. On a long timeline, I don&rsquo;t think leisure travel will see much permanent reduction in demand. We&rsquo;re not out of the woods yet with COVID19, and even cruise liners are seeing sales recover already. Unfortunately, without more data, these predictions can&rsquo;t say much about how the supply side may change due to the predicted changes in demand. Here&rsquo;s where my ask comes in: if you know where one can obtain the above stats, please get in touch and give me a hand - I&rsquo;m flying blind here :)" />
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-{"dateModified":"2020-05-17T21:12:31-07:00","datePublished":"2020-05-17T21:12:31-07:00","url":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/17/pandemic-predictions-part-3.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/17/pandemic-predictions-part-3.html"},"description":"Here&rsquo;s another (short) prediction about the long term effects of Coronavirus, along with a call for help. Today&rsquo;s prediction relates to the airlines, and it&rsquo;s closely related to the previous prediction around commercial real estate. In fact, I wanted to include this in that post, but I decided to dig for some data to paint a fuller picture. I failed on that front. If you&rsquo;re good at business/industry analysis and you read this, I have a few asks for you at the end. For the prediction: In the previous post, I noted that I expect more and more workplaces to divest of their real estate and for remote work to become much more prevalent. Related to that, I foresee business travel to see a permanent reduction as a result of a much more widely-adopted remote work cultures. I can think of three types of business travel: Work that requires physical presence in a certain location. For example, a large engineering company may land a construction project far from their HQ and will need to send staff back and forth. Work that is more effective in-person. I think this is primarily sales. Building rapport with potential customers is much more effective in person. Other. Companies often make people travel due to geographically-constrained workplaces, even though the nature of the work doesn&rsquo;t necessarily require being co-located. I believe the last category, in the long run, will nearly vanish, as remote work becomes widely adopted and cost savings of less travel become possible and attractive. This will reduce demand for air travel from business customers. Demand will be further reduced in the second category as well - while some work is better done in person, the additional risk factor will move that cutoff line higher. Here&rsquo;s where having some data could&rsquo;ve been useful. Given the above predictions, I would like to know: What portion of annual airline revenues come from business travellers and in which sectors? What portion of annual airline profits come from business travellers? Which airlines had the majority of their revenues and profits from business customers? In which routes do business travel revenues dominate? Given the above information, one could make some further predictions about the airline industry in general. I suspect that business travellers are less cost conscious than leisure travellers, and that business travellers are less likely to travel on discount airlines than on higher-end airlines. On a long timeline, I don&rsquo;t think leisure travel will see much permanent reduction in demand. We&rsquo;re not out of the woods yet with COVID19, and even cruise liners are seeing sales recover already. Unfortunately, without more data, these predictions can&rsquo;t say much about how the supply side may change due to the predicted changes in demand. Here&rsquo;s where my ask comes in: if you know where one can obtain the above stats, please get in touch and give me a hand - I&rsquo;m flying blind here :)","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Pandemic Predictions (Part 3)","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
+{"dateModified":"2020-05-17T21:12:31-07:00","datePublished":"2020-05-17T21:12:31-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/17/pandemic-predictions-part-3.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/17/pandemic-predictions-part-3.html"},"description":"Here&rsquo;s another (short) prediction about the long term effects of Coronavirus, along with a call for help. Today&rsquo;s prediction relates to the airlines, and it&rsquo;s closely related to the previous prediction around commercial real estate. In fact, I wanted to include this in that post, but I decided to dig for some data to paint a fuller picture. I failed on that front. If you&rsquo;re good at business/industry analysis and you read this, I have a few asks for you at the end. For the prediction: In the previous post, I noted that I expect more and more workplaces to divest of their real estate and for remote work to become much more prevalent. Related to that, I foresee business travel to see a permanent reduction as a result of a much more widely-adopted remote work cultures. I can think of three types of business travel: Work that requires physical presence in a certain location. For example, a large engineering company may land a construction project far from their HQ and will need to send staff back and forth. Work that is more effective in-person. I think this is primarily sales. Building rapport with potential customers is much more effective in person. Other. Companies often make people travel due to geographically-constrained workplaces, even though the nature of the work doesn&rsquo;t necessarily require being co-located. I believe the last category, in the long run, will nearly vanish, as remote work becomes widely adopted and cost savings of less travel become possible and attractive. This will reduce demand for air travel from business customers. Demand will be further reduced in the second category as well - while some work is better done in person, the additional risk factor will move that cutoff line higher. Here&rsquo;s where having some data could&rsquo;ve been useful. Given the above predictions, I would like to know: What portion of annual airline revenues come from business travellers and in which sectors? What portion of annual airline profits come from business travellers? Which airlines had the majority of their revenues and profits from business customers? In which routes do business travel revenues dominate? Given the above information, one could make some further predictions about the airline industry in general. I suspect that business travellers are less cost conscious than leisure travellers, and that business travellers are less likely to travel on discount airlines than on higher-end airlines. On a long timeline, I don&rsquo;t think leisure travel will see much permanent reduction in demand. We&rsquo;re not out of the woods yet with COVID19, and even cruise liners are seeing sales recover already. Unfortunately, without more data, these predictions can&rsquo;t say much about how the supply side may change due to the predicted changes in demand. Here&rsquo;s where my ask comes in: if you know where one can obtain the above stats, please get in touch and give me a hand - I&rsquo;m flying blind here :)","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Pandemic Predictions (Part 3)","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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diff --git a/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html b/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html
index 8571a81..d5d95c1 100644
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 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="Why can some businesses generate vast amounts of profits while others can&rsquo;t, even with comparable products and services? How can a manager ensure that his business can maintain healthy profit margins for extended periods of time without having those profits eroded by competition? How can an investor identify companies likely to generate healthy returns on capital? If these questions interest you, Hamilton Helmer&rsquo;s 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy might be the most important book you&rsquo;ve never heard of. Unlike most business books, its 210 pages are packed with valuable insight and clear explanations. This is a book on business strategy, and it addresses the topic at a foundational level. It aims to provide the reader with a &ldquo;strategy compass&rdquo;. For the manager of a business operation the strategy compass is a guide on navigating the trials of the business world to arrive (with some luck) at an attractive strategic position such that the business can command healthy profit margins and yet be protected from the arbitraging effect of competition. For the investor, the strategy compass provides a means of identifying strong and high-potential businesses that may not have been discovered yet. Jeff Bezos famously said &ldquo;your margin is my opportunity&rdquo;. This quote captures the dilemma for everyone who operates a business. A new venture starts by identifying a need for its customer base that has not been met. A solution is developed for this need and the business is off to a great start. Soon enough, however, others take notice and copycats emerge. They also want a piece of the pie, and what better way to compete with the pioneer than by undercutting their prices? Before long, the attractive profits enjoyed by the pioneering venture have been eroded by competitors. Yet some businesses are immune from this effect. In spite of years of developing competitive (or superior) technologies, AMD could never dethrone Intel as the dominant supplier of chips for PCs. What&rsquo;s the difference between businesses that are immune to competition and those that are not? Helmer&rsquo;s answer is that there are seven strategic positions (powers) that allow businesses to command high profits and keep them protected from competition. So what are the seven powers? Network effects: Any product that improves as more people use it benefits from network effects. Facebook is the most uniquitous example of this. A social network is only as good as the friends you have on it. Facebook established itself as the dominant social network. This position was so powerful that in 2011, even $200B Google couldn&rsquo;t challenge Facebook&rsquo;s dominance with its Google+ offering. Scale economies: Some products cost too much unless they&rsquo;re made for a sufficiently large number of customers, such that the cost per each customer comes down. Microprocessors are a perfect example. They&rsquo;re incredibly expensive to develop. Once Intel raced ahead in its market size, it became increasingly difficult for AMD to challenge them because Intel could outcompete AMD by spreading its costs across the larger customer base. Switching costs: Some products make it incredibly difficult for customers to switch once they have adopted the product. For example, a complicated piece of entreprise software requires expensive installation process. Then the workforce needs to be trained on the new software. Then the software needs to be supported on an ongoing basis. Each of these phases makes it less likely that the customer will consider an alternative vendor in the future. High installation costs are a deterrent. The need to re-train the workforce is another deterrent, and the personal relationships forged with the personnel of the existing vendor are yet another deterrent. Counter-positioning: Sometimes, it&rsquo;s possible to challenge an incumbent by offering a unique angle on an existing product. The example Helmer provides is Vanguard. Its founder was thought insane by existing active money managers who charged large fees for their management services. Vanguard offered index funds with low fees and no active management. Even once the new approach proved popular and profitable, the incumbents had an institutional aversion to embracing it because it meant canibalizing their existing profitable businesses. Branding: This one is pretty obvious. Brands are incredibly powerful and command loyalty from their base. However, they&rsquo;re also one of the most elusive power types because they require persistent investment over a long period of time. Cornered resource: A company can sustain high profit margins if it has exclusive control over a valuable resource. Here, &ldquo;resource&rdquo; can refer to anything from patents (as in the case of pharmaceuticals) to talent (as was the case of Pixar&rsquo;s &ldquo;brain trust&rdquo; consisting of Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, and Steve Jobs). Process power: This is the most rare of the powers. A company can develop a process that delivers superior results that cannot be copied by others. Helmer provides the example of the Toyota Production System. The company spent decades trying to optimize its manufacturing. When it became clear that Toyota was building superior cars, it even allowed staff from GM to observe its factories and question its staff. Still, GM could not reproduce Toyota&rsquo;s success. These are the seven powers. Companies that don&rsquo;t enjoy at least one of these powers are bound to fall into a race-to-the-bottom as competitors erode their profit margins. For the interested reader, Helmer also shows mathematically the impact of each power type on the bottom line. Each of these powers include a benefit enjoyed by the winning business. Equally crucially, they create a barrier that makes it undesirable for others to compete with the winning business. This combination of benefit and barrier is what leads to power. Helmer calls these the &ldquo;strategy statics&rdquo;. These are desirable destinations for any business. How to reach these destinations is what Helmer calls &ldquo;strategy dynamics&rdquo;. These are my main takeaways on dynamics: Strategy is not made in a vaccum, it is crafted. As Helmer puts it in the book, &ldquo;the rudder only works when the ship is moving&rdquo;. Nobody can invent a winning strategy in isolation. It requires the business leaders to be intimately familiar with every aspect of their business and their market. They need to keep their eyes on the seven destinations above and use their feel of their organizational capability and the market landscape to navigate to those destinations. &ldquo;The first cause of every Power is invention &hellip; of product, process, business model, or brand.&rdquo; The opportunity for invention arises out of external conditions. When these are ripe, the company uses its existing resources and capabilities to invent in any of the axes specified above to bring compelling value to market - value that is not currently offered by incumbents. Without the right combination of external conditions and invention, power can&rsquo;t be achieved. An invention that brings compelling value to market, creates or significantly expands the market. There are three ways to bring compelling value to market: Capabilities-led. The company uses its capabilities to invent. The risk here is that there may not be a market for the invention. Customer-led. The company starts from the needs of the customers to invent. The risk here is that it may not have the right capabilities. Competitor-led. Sometimes a competitor has successfully brought a compelling product to market but the company can invent a superior or adjacent product that expands the market. Additionally, Helmer points out that each of the seven powers need to be achieved in different phases of the company lifecycle. It does not make sense, for example, to invest heavily in the branding of a fledgling startup. Similarly, the time to achieve sufficient market share is during the early growth. So that&rsquo;s a quick summary of Helmer&rsquo;s strategy compass. I highly recommend you read the book if you&rsquo;re interested in business strategy. I also recommend reading Henry Mintzberg&rsquo;s &ldquo;Crafting Strategy&rdquo; article that Helmer references. The notion that strategy is not designed but crafted rejects some approaches to strategy where managers who are distant from the business can get in a room and think their way to a strategy. It highlights the fact that ultimately, strategy comes down to judgement, which in turn comes down to an intimate familiarity with every facet of the organization, the customer base, and the industry. With this knowledge, good judgement, and a little luck, the manager can use Helmer&rsquo;s strategy compass to navigate the business to one of the desirable destinations above." />
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For the manager of a business operation the strategy compass is a guide on navigating the trials of the business world to arrive (with some luck) at an attractive strategic position such that the business can command healthy profit margins and yet be protected from the arbitraging effect of competition. For the investor, the strategy compass provides a means of identifying strong and high-potential businesses that may not have been discovered yet. Jeff Bezos famously said &ldquo;your margin is my opportunity&rdquo;. This quote captures the dilemma for everyone who operates a business. A new venture starts by identifying a need for its customer base that has not been met. A solution is developed for this need and the business is off to a great start. Soon enough, however, others take notice and copycats emerge. They also want a piece of the pie, and what better way to compete with the pioneer than by undercutting their prices? Before long, the attractive profits enjoyed by the pioneering venture have been eroded by competitors. Yet some businesses are immune from this effect. In spite of years of developing competitive (or superior) technologies, AMD could never dethrone Intel as the dominant supplier of chips for PCs. What&rsquo;s the difference between businesses that are immune to competition and those that are not? Helmer&rsquo;s answer is that there are seven strategic positions (powers) that allow businesses to command high profits and keep them protected from competition. So what are the seven powers? Network effects: Any product that improves as more people use it benefits from network effects. Facebook is the most uniquitous example of this. A social network is only as good as the friends you have on it. Facebook established itself as the dominant social network. This position was so powerful that in 2011, even $200B Google couldn&rsquo;t challenge Facebook&rsquo;s dominance with its Google+ offering. Scale economies: Some products cost too much unless they&rsquo;re made for a sufficiently large number of customers, such that the cost per each customer comes down. Microprocessors are a perfect example. They&rsquo;re incredibly expensive to develop. Once Intel raced ahead in its market size, it became increasingly difficult for AMD to challenge them because Intel could outcompete AMD by spreading its costs across the larger customer base. Switching costs: Some products make it incredibly difficult for customers to switch once they have adopted the product. For example, a complicated piece of entreprise software requires expensive installation process. Then the workforce needs to be trained on the new software. Then the software needs to be supported on an ongoing basis. Each of these phases makes it less likely that the customer will consider an alternative vendor in the future. High installation costs are a deterrent. The need to re-train the workforce is another deterrent, and the personal relationships forged with the personnel of the existing vendor are yet another deterrent. Counter-positioning: Sometimes, it&rsquo;s possible to challenge an incumbent by offering a unique angle on an existing product. The example Helmer provides is Vanguard. Its founder was thought insane by existing active money managers who charged large fees for their management services. Vanguard offered index funds with low fees and no active management. Even once the new approach proved popular and profitable, the incumbents had an institutional aversion to embracing it because it meant canibalizing their existing profitable businesses. Branding: This one is pretty obvious. Brands are incredibly powerful and command loyalty from their base. However, they&rsquo;re also one of the most elusive power types because they require persistent investment over a long period of time. Cornered resource: A company can sustain high profit margins if it has exclusive control over a valuable resource. Here, &ldquo;resource&rdquo; can refer to anything from patents (as in the case of pharmaceuticals) to talent (as was the case of Pixar&rsquo;s &ldquo;brain trust&rdquo; consisting of Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, and Steve Jobs). Process power: This is the most rare of the powers. A company can develop a process that delivers superior results that cannot be copied by others. Helmer provides the example of the Toyota Production System. The company spent decades trying to optimize its manufacturing. When it became clear that Toyota was building superior cars, it even allowed staff from GM to observe its factories and question its staff. Still, GM could not reproduce Toyota&rsquo;s success. These are the seven powers. Companies that don&rsquo;t enjoy at least one of these powers are bound to fall into a race-to-the-bottom as competitors erode their profit margins. For the interested reader, Helmer also shows mathematically the impact of each power type on the bottom line. Each of these powers include a benefit enjoyed by the winning business. Equally crucially, they create a barrier that makes it undesirable for others to compete with the winning business. This combination of benefit and barrier is what leads to power. Helmer calls these the &ldquo;strategy statics&rdquo;. These are desirable destinations for any business. How to reach these destinations is what Helmer calls &ldquo;strategy dynamics&rdquo;. These are my main takeaways on dynamics: Strategy is not made in a vaccum, it is crafted. As Helmer puts it in the book, &ldquo;the rudder only works when the ship is moving&rdquo;. Nobody can invent a winning strategy in isolation. It requires the business leaders to be intimately familiar with every aspect of their business and their market. They need to keep their eyes on the seven destinations above and use their feel of their organizational capability and the market landscape to navigate to those destinations. &ldquo;The first cause of every Power is invention &hellip; of product, process, business model, or brand.&rdquo; The opportunity for invention arises out of external conditions. When these are ripe, the company uses its existing resources and capabilities to invent in any of the axes specified above to bring compelling value to market - value that is not currently offered by incumbents. Without the right combination of external conditions and invention, power can&rsquo;t be achieved. An invention that brings compelling value to market, creates or significantly expands the market. There are three ways to bring compelling value to market: Capabilities-led. The company uses its capabilities to invent. The risk here is that there may not be a market for the invention. Customer-led. The company starts from the needs of the customers to invent. The risk here is that it may not have the right capabilities. Competitor-led. Sometimes a competitor has successfully brought a compelling product to market but the company can invent a superior or adjacent product that expands the market. Additionally, Helmer points out that each of the seven powers need to be achieved in different phases of the company lifecycle. It does not make sense, for example, to invest heavily in the branding of a fledgling startup. Similarly, the time to achieve sufficient market share is during the early growth. So that&rsquo;s a quick summary of Helmer&rsquo;s strategy compass. I highly recommend you read the book if you&rsquo;re interested in business strategy. I also recommend reading Henry Mintzberg&rsquo;s &ldquo;Crafting Strategy&rdquo; article that Helmer references. The notion that strategy is not designed but crafted rejects some approaches to strategy where managers who are distant from the business can get in a room and think their way to a strategy. It highlights the fact that ultimately, strategy comes down to judgement, which in turn comes down to an intimate familiarity with every facet of the organization, the customer base, and the industry. With this knowledge, good judgement, and a little luck, the manager can use Helmer&rsquo;s strategy compass to navigate the business to one of the desirable destinations above." />
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This is a book on business strategy, and it addresses the topic at a foundational level. It aims to provide the reader with a &ldquo;strategy compass&rdquo;. For the manager of a business operation the strategy compass is a guide on navigating the trials of the business world to arrive (with some luck) at an attractive strategic position such that the business can command healthy profit margins and yet be protected from the arbitraging effect of competition. For the investor, the strategy compass provides a means of identifying strong and high-potential businesses that may not have been discovered yet. Jeff Bezos famously said &ldquo;your margin is my opportunity&rdquo;. This quote captures the dilemma for everyone who operates a business. A new venture starts by identifying a need for its customer base that has not been met. A solution is developed for this need and the business is off to a great start. Soon enough, however, others take notice and copycats emerge. They also want a piece of the pie, and what better way to compete with the pioneer than by undercutting their prices? Before long, the attractive profits enjoyed by the pioneering venture have been eroded by competitors. Yet some businesses are immune from this effect. In spite of years of developing competitive (or superior) technologies, AMD could never dethrone Intel as the dominant supplier of chips for PCs. What&rsquo;s the difference between businesses that are immune to competition and those that are not? Helmer&rsquo;s answer is that there are seven strategic positions (powers) that allow businesses to command high profits and keep them protected from competition. So what are the seven powers? Network effects: Any product that improves as more people use it benefits from network effects. Facebook is the most uniquitous example of this. A social network is only as good as the friends you have on it. Facebook established itself as the dominant social network. This position was so powerful that in 2011, even $200B Google couldn&rsquo;t challenge Facebook&rsquo;s dominance with its Google+ offering. Scale economies: Some products cost too much unless they&rsquo;re made for a sufficiently large number of customers, such that the cost per each customer comes down. Microprocessors are a perfect example. They&rsquo;re incredibly expensive to develop. Once Intel raced ahead in its market size, it became increasingly difficult for AMD to challenge them because Intel could outcompete AMD by spreading its costs across the larger customer base. Switching costs: Some products make it incredibly difficult for customers to switch once they have adopted the product. For example, a complicated piece of entreprise software requires expensive installation process. Then the workforce needs to be trained on the new software. Then the software needs to be supported on an ongoing basis. Each of these phases makes it less likely that the customer will consider an alternative vendor in the future. High installation costs are a deterrent. The need to re-train the workforce is another deterrent, and the personal relationships forged with the personnel of the existing vendor are yet another deterrent. Counter-positioning: Sometimes, it&rsquo;s possible to challenge an incumbent by offering a unique angle on an existing product. The example Helmer provides is Vanguard. Its founder was thought insane by existing active money managers who charged large fees for their management services. Vanguard offered index funds with low fees and no active management. Even once the new approach proved popular and profitable, the incumbents had an institutional aversion to embracing it because it meant canibalizing their existing profitable businesses. Branding: This one is pretty obvious. Brands are incredibly powerful and command loyalty from their base. However, they&rsquo;re also one of the most elusive power types because they require persistent investment over a long period of time. Cornered resource: A company can sustain high profit margins if it has exclusive control over a valuable resource. Here, &ldquo;resource&rdquo; can refer to anything from patents (as in the case of pharmaceuticals) to talent (as was the case of Pixar&rsquo;s &ldquo;brain trust&rdquo; consisting of Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, and Steve Jobs). Process power: This is the most rare of the powers. A company can develop a process that delivers superior results that cannot be copied by others. Helmer provides the example of the Toyota Production System. The company spent decades trying to optimize its manufacturing. When it became clear that Toyota was building superior cars, it even allowed staff from GM to observe its factories and question its staff. Still, GM could not reproduce Toyota&rsquo;s success. These are the seven powers. Companies that don&rsquo;t enjoy at least one of these powers are bound to fall into a race-to-the-bottom as competitors erode their profit margins. For the interested reader, Helmer also shows mathematically the impact of each power type on the bottom line. Each of these powers include a benefit enjoyed by the winning business. Equally crucially, they create a barrier that makes it undesirable for others to compete with the winning business. This combination of benefit and barrier is what leads to power. Helmer calls these the &ldquo;strategy statics&rdquo;. These are desirable destinations for any business. How to reach these destinations is what Helmer calls &ldquo;strategy dynamics&rdquo;. These are my main takeaways on dynamics: Strategy is not made in a vaccum, it is crafted. As Helmer puts it in the book, &ldquo;the rudder only works when the ship is moving&rdquo;. Nobody can invent a winning strategy in isolation. It requires the business leaders to be intimately familiar with every aspect of their business and their market. They need to keep their eyes on the seven destinations above and use their feel of their organizational capability and the market landscape to navigate to those destinations. &ldquo;The first cause of every Power is invention &hellip; of product, process, business model, or brand.&rdquo; The opportunity for invention arises out of external conditions. When these are ripe, the company uses its existing resources and capabilities to invent in any of the axes specified above to bring compelling value to market - value that is not currently offered by incumbents. Without the right combination of external conditions and invention, power can&rsquo;t be achieved. An invention that brings compelling value to market, creates or significantly expands the market. There are three ways to bring compelling value to market: Capabilities-led. The company uses its capabilities to invent. The risk here is that there may not be a market for the invention. Customer-led. The company starts from the needs of the customers to invent. The risk here is that it may not have the right capabilities. Competitor-led. Sometimes a competitor has successfully brought a compelling product to market but the company can invent a superior or adjacent product that expands the market. Additionally, Helmer points out that each of the seven powers need to be achieved in different phases of the company lifecycle. It does not make sense, for example, to invest heavily in the branding of a fledgling startup. Similarly, the time to achieve sufficient market share is during the early growth. So that&rsquo;s a quick summary of Helmer&rsquo;s strategy compass. I highly recommend you read the book if you&rsquo;re interested in business strategy. I also recommend reading Henry Mintzberg&rsquo;s &ldquo;Crafting Strategy&rdquo; article that Helmer references. The notion that strategy is not designed but crafted rejects some approaches to strategy where managers who are distant from the business can get in a room and think their way to a strategy. It highlights the fact that ultimately, strategy comes down to judgement, which in turn comes down to an intimate familiarity with every facet of the organization, the customer base, and the industry. With this knowledge, good judgement, and a little luck, the manager can use Helmer&rsquo;s strategy compass to navigate the business to one of the desirable destinations above.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Notes From 7 Powers","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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This is a book on business strategy, and it addresses the topic at a foundational level. It aims to provide the reader with a &ldquo;strategy compass&rdquo;. For the manager of a business operation the strategy compass is a guide on navigating the trials of the business world to arrive (with some luck) at an attractive strategic position such that the business can command healthy profit margins and yet be protected from the arbitraging effect of competition. For the investor, the strategy compass provides a means of identifying strong and high-potential businesses that may not have been discovered yet. Jeff Bezos famously said &ldquo;your margin is my opportunity&rdquo;. This quote captures the dilemma for everyone who operates a business. A new venture starts by identifying a need for its customer base that has not been met. A solution is developed for this need and the business is off to a great start. Soon enough, however, others take notice and copycats emerge. They also want a piece of the pie, and what better way to compete with the pioneer than by undercutting their prices? Before long, the attractive profits enjoyed by the pioneering venture have been eroded by competitors. Yet some businesses are immune from this effect. In spite of years of developing competitive (or superior) technologies, AMD could never dethrone Intel as the dominant supplier of chips for PCs. What&rsquo;s the difference between businesses that are immune to competition and those that are not? Helmer&rsquo;s answer is that there are seven strategic positions (powers) that allow businesses to command high profits and keep them protected from competition. So what are the seven powers? Network effects: Any product that improves as more people use it benefits from network effects. Facebook is the most uniquitous example of this. A social network is only as good as the friends you have on it. Facebook established itself as the dominant social network. This position was so powerful that in 2011, even $200B Google couldn&rsquo;t challenge Facebook&rsquo;s dominance with its Google+ offering. Scale economies: Some products cost too much unless they&rsquo;re made for a sufficiently large number of customers, such that the cost per each customer comes down. Microprocessors are a perfect example. They&rsquo;re incredibly expensive to develop. Once Intel raced ahead in its market size, it became increasingly difficult for AMD to challenge them because Intel could outcompete AMD by spreading its costs across the larger customer base. Switching costs: Some products make it incredibly difficult for customers to switch once they have adopted the product. For example, a complicated piece of entreprise software requires expensive installation process. Then the workforce needs to be trained on the new software. Then the software needs to be supported on an ongoing basis. Each of these phases makes it less likely that the customer will consider an alternative vendor in the future. High installation costs are a deterrent. The need to re-train the workforce is another deterrent, and the personal relationships forged with the personnel of the existing vendor are yet another deterrent. Counter-positioning: Sometimes, it&rsquo;s possible to challenge an incumbent by offering a unique angle on an existing product. The example Helmer provides is Vanguard. Its founder was thought insane by existing active money managers who charged large fees for their management services. Vanguard offered index funds with low fees and no active management. Even once the new approach proved popular and profitable, the incumbents had an institutional aversion to embracing it because it meant canibalizing their existing profitable businesses. Branding: This one is pretty obvious. Brands are incredibly powerful and command loyalty from their base. However, they&rsquo;re also one of the most elusive power types because they require persistent investment over a long period of time. Cornered resource: A company can sustain high profit margins if it has exclusive control over a valuable resource. Here, &ldquo;resource&rdquo; can refer to anything from patents (as in the case of pharmaceuticals) to talent (as was the case of Pixar&rsquo;s &ldquo;brain trust&rdquo; consisting of Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, and Steve Jobs). Process power: This is the most rare of the powers. A company can develop a process that delivers superior results that cannot be copied by others. Helmer provides the example of the Toyota Production System. The company spent decades trying to optimize its manufacturing. When it became clear that Toyota was building superior cars, it even allowed staff from GM to observe its factories and question its staff. Still, GM could not reproduce Toyota&rsquo;s success. These are the seven powers. Companies that don&rsquo;t enjoy at least one of these powers are bound to fall into a race-to-the-bottom as competitors erode their profit margins. For the interested reader, Helmer also shows mathematically the impact of each power type on the bottom line. Each of these powers include a benefit enjoyed by the winning business. Equally crucially, they create a barrier that makes it undesirable for others to compete with the winning business. This combination of benefit and barrier is what leads to power. Helmer calls these the &ldquo;strategy statics&rdquo;. These are desirable destinations for any business. How to reach these destinations is what Helmer calls &ldquo;strategy dynamics&rdquo;. These are my main takeaways on dynamics: Strategy is not made in a vaccum, it is crafted. As Helmer puts it in the book, &ldquo;the rudder only works when the ship is moving&rdquo;. Nobody can invent a winning strategy in isolation. It requires the business leaders to be intimately familiar with every aspect of their business and their market. They need to keep their eyes on the seven destinations above and use their feel of their organizational capability and the market landscape to navigate to those destinations. &ldquo;The first cause of every Power is invention &hellip; of product, process, business model, or brand.&rdquo; The opportunity for invention arises out of external conditions. When these are ripe, the company uses its existing resources and capabilities to invent in any of the axes specified above to bring compelling value to market - value that is not currently offered by incumbents. Without the right combination of external conditions and invention, power can&rsquo;t be achieved. An invention that brings compelling value to market, creates or significantly expands the market. There are three ways to bring compelling value to market: Capabilities-led. The company uses its capabilities to invent. The risk here is that there may not be a market for the invention. Customer-led. The company starts from the needs of the customers to invent. The risk here is that it may not have the right capabilities. Competitor-led. Sometimes a competitor has successfully brought a compelling product to market but the company can invent a superior or adjacent product that expands the market. Additionally, Helmer points out that each of the seven powers need to be achieved in different phases of the company lifecycle. It does not make sense, for example, to invest heavily in the branding of a fledgling startup. Similarly, the time to achieve sufficient market share is during the early growth. So that&rsquo;s a quick summary of Helmer&rsquo;s strategy compass. I highly recommend you read the book if you&rsquo;re interested in business strategy. I also recommend reading Henry Mintzberg&rsquo;s &ldquo;Crafting Strategy&rdquo; article that Helmer references. The notion that strategy is not designed but crafted rejects some approaches to strategy where managers who are distant from the business can get in a room and think their way to a strategy. It highlights the fact that ultimately, strategy comes down to judgement, which in turn comes down to an intimate familiarity with every facet of the organization, the customer base, and the industry. With this knowledge, good judgement, and a little luck, the manager can use Helmer&rsquo;s strategy compass to navigate the business to one of the desirable destinations above.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Notes From 7 Powers","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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 <meta name="description" content="I remember the first time I set foot inside a large bookstore. I was about 13 years old, and something had broken with my computer, which I needed to play games. My teacher at the time suggested I read a book on how to fix computers myself. When I entered the computer books section of Chapters, my mind was blown by the sheer number of books. Something clicked in my head and I thought: &ldquo;I need to read all of these!&rdquo; From that point on, I had an insatiable appetite for learning. The only exception to this were my university years – nothing can stifle a desire to learn like post-secondary education. I always imagined that given infinite resources and the ability to spend my time any way I wanted, I would just spend it learning and reading as much as I could. That notion is now deeply ingrained in my mind. But with age, I&rsquo;m realizing how misguided it is. The bottleneck to learning is not just time to read. It is time to apply. True learning is impossible without meaningful application. We don&rsquo;t learn through words but through all the senses. As the saying goes, &ldquo;the rudder only works when the ship is moving&rdquo; and building a large ship but never leaving port is simply a wasted investment. I&rsquo;ve always longed for the day when I can finally do nothing but learn. It&rsquo;s easy for us to construct visions of an ideal future where we&rsquo;ll be happier than now, and boundless time to read was (and is) a huge part of my utopian vision. But these visions are like dreams that don&rsquo;t make sense upon a second inspection, and if we cling to them for too long or believe them too much, we&rsquo;ll be unhappy when they (the impossible) are not realized. And if we do manage to achieve them, we&rsquo;ll find that while all the conditions of our dreams are met, the envisioned happiness is not to be found, and we&rsquo;ll repeat the cycle with a new vision. All of this means that the range of topics and skills that I can truly learn and apply is much more limited than what I imagined in my head. It also means that I&rsquo;m already living the life that I always wanted as much as is practical. If I was retired, the dials might get slightly tweaked and I may have a few extra hours per week to learn something or apply it. But life will not be radically different." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="I remember the first time I set foot inside a large bookstore. I was about 13 years old, and something had broken with my computer, which I needed to play games. My teacher at the time suggested I read a book on how to fix computers myself. When I entered the computer books section of Chapters, my mind was blown by the sheer number of books. Something clicked in my head and I thought: &ldquo;I need to read all of these!&rdquo; From that point on, I had an insatiable appetite for learning. The only exception to this were my university years – nothing can stifle a desire to learn like post-secondary education. I always imagined that given infinite resources and the ability to spend my time any way I wanted, I would just spend it learning and reading as much as I could. That notion is now deeply ingrained in my mind. But with age, I&rsquo;m realizing how misguided it is. The bottleneck to learning is not just time to read. It is time to apply. True learning is impossible without meaningful application. We don&rsquo;t learn through words but through all the senses. As the saying goes, &ldquo;the rudder only works when the ship is moving&rdquo; and building a large ship but never leaving port is simply a wasted investment. I&rsquo;ve always longed for the day when I can finally do nothing but learn. It&rsquo;s easy for us to construct visions of an ideal future where we&rsquo;ll be happier than now, and boundless time to read was (and is) a huge part of my utopian vision. But these visions are like dreams that don&rsquo;t make sense upon a second inspection, and if we cling to them for too long or believe them too much, we&rsquo;ll be unhappy when they (the impossible) are not realized. And if we do manage to achieve them, we&rsquo;ll find that while all the conditions of our dreams are met, the envisioned happiness is not to be found, and we&rsquo;ll repeat the cycle with a new vision. All of this means that the range of topics and skills that I can truly learn and apply is much more limited than what I imagined in my head. It also means that I&rsquo;m already living the life that I always wanted as much as is practical. If I was retired, the dials might get slightly tweaked and I may have a few extra hours per week to learn something or apply it. But life will not be radically different." />
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+{"dateModified":"2020-08-23T11:26:57-07:00","datePublished":"2020-08-23T11:26:57-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/08/23/learning-and-applying.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/08/23/learning-and-applying.html"},"description":"I remember the first time I set foot inside a large bookstore. I was about 13 years old, and something had broken with my computer, which I needed to play games. My teacher at the time suggested I read a book on how to fix computers myself. When I entered the computer books section of Chapters, my mind was blown by the sheer number of books. Something clicked in my head and I thought: &ldquo;I need to read all of these!&rdquo; From that point on, I had an insatiable appetite for learning. The only exception to this were my university years – nothing can stifle a desire to learn like post-secondary education. I always imagined that given infinite resources and the ability to spend my time any way I wanted, I would just spend it learning and reading as much as I could. That notion is now deeply ingrained in my mind. But with age, I&rsquo;m realizing how misguided it is. The bottleneck to learning is not just time to read. It is time to apply. True learning is impossible without meaningful application. We don&rsquo;t learn through words but through all the senses. As the saying goes, &ldquo;the rudder only works when the ship is moving&rdquo; and building a large ship but never leaving port is simply a wasted investment. I&rsquo;ve always longed for the day when I can finally do nothing but learn. It&rsquo;s easy for us to construct visions of an ideal future where we&rsquo;ll be happier than now, and boundless time to read was (and is) a huge part of my utopian vision. But these visions are like dreams that don&rsquo;t make sense upon a second inspection, and if we cling to them for too long or believe them too much, we&rsquo;ll be unhappy when they (the impossible) are not realized. And if we do manage to achieve them, we&rsquo;ll find that while all the conditions of our dreams are met, the envisioned happiness is not to be found, and we&rsquo;ll repeat the cycle with a new vision. All of this means that the range of topics and skills that I can truly learn and apply is much more limited than what I imagined in my head. It also means that I&rsquo;m already living the life that I always wanted as much as is practical. If I was retired, the dials might get slightly tweaked and I may have a few extra hours per week to learn something or apply it. But life will not be radically different.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Learning and Applying","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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 <meta name="description" content="What are you worried about these days? Our minds are perpetually getting themselves trapped in different worries or anxieties: &ldquo;Am I good enough?&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I doing a good job at work?&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I being a good husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend?&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I being a good parent?&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I making enough money?&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I focused on the right things?&rdquo; &ldquo;How do I compare to others?&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I doing things that matter?&rdquo; These fundamental worries get so bad sometimes that we have specific names for them: &ldquo;mid-life crisis&rdquo; or the newly popularized &ldquo;quarter-life&rdquo; crisis. All of these questions are valid and helpful in small doses, but often, if they occupy a large portion of your thoughts, it&rsquo;s a sign your that mind has been focusing far too much on something you cannot control. Then these concerns cease to be helpful and thought-provoking and instead lead to paralysis or bad decision making. You will never live a peaceful, worry-free life. That is until you realize that an overactive, anxious, and worried mind is a natural part of your baser self, and your challenge as a (trying to be) self-aware human is to struggle against it and try to overcome it. The problem you are dwelling on today is not &ldquo;the problem&rdquo; in your life, since even if you could completely solve it now and put it behind you, your mind will replace it with another one. The subject of your anxiety is not the obstacle to your happiness. The obstacle is your mind that is untamed. Acknowledge this fact and see these worries and anxieties for what they are: mental waste - byproducts of your mind working; byproducts that, through difficult mental training, should receive no more attention than any other bodily waste. Regular meditation is the only way to achieve this. But like any worthwhile practice, its fruits are at the end of a long and treacherous journey." />
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+{"dateModified":"2016-08-06T15:20:48-07:00","datePublished":"2016-08-06T15:20:48-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/stoicism/2016/08/06/on-worries-and-anxieties.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/stoicism/2016/08/06/on-worries-and-anxieties.html"},"description":"What are you worried about these days? Our minds are perpetually getting themselves trapped in different worries or anxieties: &ldquo;Am I good enough?&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I doing a good job at work?&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I being a good husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend?&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I being a good parent?&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I making enough money?&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I focused on the right things?&rdquo; &ldquo;How do I compare to others?&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I doing things that matter?&rdquo; These fundamental worries get so bad sometimes that we have specific names for them: &ldquo;mid-life crisis&rdquo; or the newly popularized &ldquo;quarter-life&rdquo; crisis. All of these questions are valid and helpful in small doses, but often, if they occupy a large portion of your thoughts, it&rsquo;s a sign your that mind has been focusing far too much on something you cannot control. Then these concerns cease to be helpful and thought-provoking and instead lead to paralysis or bad decision making. You will never live a peaceful, worry-free life. That is until you realize that an overactive, anxious, and worried mind is a natural part of your baser self, and your challenge as a (trying to be) self-aware human is to struggle against it and try to overcome it. The problem you are dwelling on today is not &ldquo;the problem&rdquo; in your life, since even if you could completely solve it now and put it behind you, your mind will replace it with another one. The subject of your anxiety is not the obstacle to your happiness. The obstacle is your mind that is untamed. Acknowledge this fact and see these worries and anxieties for what they are: mental waste - byproducts of your mind working; byproducts that, through difficult mental training, should receive no more attention than any other bodily waste. Regular meditation is the only way to achieve this. But like any worthwhile practice, its fruits are at the end of a long and treacherous journey.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"on worries and anxieties","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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diff --git a/essays/stoicism/2016/08/14/hardship-and-loss.html b/essays/stoicism/2016/08/14/hardship-and-loss.html
index 51fca12..4deeb7a 100644
--- a/essays/stoicism/2016/08/14/hardship-and-loss.html
+++ b/essays/stoicism/2016/08/14/hardship-and-loss.html
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 <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
 <meta name="description" content="The word &ldquo;Islam&rdquo; means &ldquo;to surrender&rdquo;. The idea is that everything that happens is an act of God. When things start going bad, the devout Muslim can take solace in the fact that all is according to God&rsquo;s will and since God has perfect knowledge and is infinitely good, all that happens according to his will is good, whether or not we, in our limited understanding, may think so at the time. This is a brutally effective reframing technique and it&rsquo;s my one favourite feature of Islam. I haven&rsquo;t seen studies on this and I&rsquo;m not sure they&rsquo;d be possible, but I can imagine the psychological benefits of this line of thinking are enormous. The acceptance of that which we might think is undesirable is a common thread among many spiritual practices, but the only one I know of that focuses on it almost exclusively is Stoicism. I am a big fan of Stoic philosophy, which teaches that virtue is freeing oneself from desires and to conquer our natural impulses that perpetually make us unhappy. Unlike Muslims, Stoics did not have a personified god, so they used terms like &ldquo;Fortune&rdquo; or &ldquo;Nature&rdquo; to refer to the prime mover. By giving up desires and attachments, we can finally be free to surrender to whatever hands Fortune may deal. Whether it is losing our mundane, material possessions that we think are necessary for a happy life or losing a loved one, sooner or later Fortune will put us in an &ldquo;undesirable&rdquo; situation. The person with the mental fortitude to be unmoved by such challenges is the person who can truly live a peaceful life. Through meditation, Stoics try to strengthen their minds and reduce their attachments to things before they are taken away. In many ways, I&rsquo;ve tried to incorporate stoic principles in my life. I mostly avoid buying the kinds of nice things that many people are enamoured with. I typically don&rsquo;t care too much for my looks. I own very few things, and I sleep on a futon. This is a good way to practice reducing one&rsquo;s attachment to things like material possessions or creature comforts, but denying oneself an additional pleasure that one does not already have is not the real challenge. The truly difficult task is dealing with loss of things or people that were precious to us. Loss hits us harder than anything, and it is inescapable: death of a family member or friend, end of a relationship, or a life-changing injury or illness. However, whatever the loss you&rsquo;re coping with today, a bigger loss is always possible because the ultimate loss is death. &ldquo;Smaller&rdquo; losses can be seen as opportunities for practicing mental fortitude that one will need when much bigger losses inevitably occur. The best case scenario facing any of us is that we get to live to an old age where our friends start dying one by one and when we start losing the most basic functions of our bodies. The stoics believe that everything - the things you own, the people in your life, and your life itself - is a loan to you from Nature. One day (and that day may come much sooner than you expect), Nature will call in its loans. On that day, the person who has strengthened her mind will return to Nature what is hers not begrudgingly but with dignity and gratitude for the time she got to have with what was not her own." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="The word &ldquo;Islam&rdquo; means &ldquo;to surrender&rdquo;. The idea is that everything that happens is an act of God. When things start going bad, the devout Muslim can take solace in the fact that all is according to God&rsquo;s will and since God has perfect knowledge and is infinitely good, all that happens according to his will is good, whether or not we, in our limited understanding, may think so at the time. This is a brutally effective reframing technique and it&rsquo;s my one favourite feature of Islam. I haven&rsquo;t seen studies on this and I&rsquo;m not sure they&rsquo;d be possible, but I can imagine the psychological benefits of this line of thinking are enormous. The acceptance of that which we might think is undesirable is a common thread among many spiritual practices, but the only one I know of that focuses on it almost exclusively is Stoicism. I am a big fan of Stoic philosophy, which teaches that virtue is freeing oneself from desires and to conquer our natural impulses that perpetually make us unhappy. Unlike Muslims, Stoics did not have a personified god, so they used terms like &ldquo;Fortune&rdquo; or &ldquo;Nature&rdquo; to refer to the prime mover. By giving up desires and attachments, we can finally be free to surrender to whatever hands Fortune may deal. Whether it is losing our mundane, material possessions that we think are necessary for a happy life or losing a loved one, sooner or later Fortune will put us in an &ldquo;undesirable&rdquo; situation. The person with the mental fortitude to be unmoved by such challenges is the person who can truly live a peaceful life. Through meditation, Stoics try to strengthen their minds and reduce their attachments to things before they are taken away. In many ways, I&rsquo;ve tried to incorporate stoic principles in my life. I mostly avoid buying the kinds of nice things that many people are enamoured with. I typically don&rsquo;t care too much for my looks. I own very few things, and I sleep on a futon. This is a good way to practice reducing one&rsquo;s attachment to things like material possessions or creature comforts, but denying oneself an additional pleasure that one does not already have is not the real challenge. The truly difficult task is dealing with loss of things or people that were precious to us. Loss hits us harder than anything, and it is inescapable: death of a family member or friend, end of a relationship, or a life-changing injury or illness. However, whatever the loss you&rsquo;re coping with today, a bigger loss is always possible because the ultimate loss is death. &ldquo;Smaller&rdquo; losses can be seen as opportunities for practicing mental fortitude that one will need when much bigger losses inevitably occur. The best case scenario facing any of us is that we get to live to an old age where our friends start dying one by one and when we start losing the most basic functions of our bodies. The stoics believe that everything - the things you own, the people in your life, and your life itself - is a loan to you from Nature. One day (and that day may come much sooner than you expect), Nature will call in its loans. On that day, the person who has strengthened her mind will return to Nature what is hers not begrudgingly but with dignity and gratitude for the time she got to have with what was not her own." />
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+{"dateModified":"2016-08-14T21:46:17-07:00","datePublished":"2016-08-14T21:46:17-07:00","url":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/stoicism/2016/08/14/hardship-and-loss.html","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http://hirad.github.io/essays/stoicism/2016/08/14/hardship-and-loss.html"},"description":"The word &ldquo;Islam&rdquo; means &ldquo;to surrender&rdquo;. The idea is that everything that happens is an act of God. When things start going bad, the devout Muslim can take solace in the fact that all is according to God&rsquo;s will and since God has perfect knowledge and is infinitely good, all that happens according to his will is good, whether or not we, in our limited understanding, may think so at the time. This is a brutally effective reframing technique and it&rsquo;s my one favourite feature of Islam. I haven&rsquo;t seen studies on this and I&rsquo;m not sure they&rsquo;d be possible, but I can imagine the psychological benefits of this line of thinking are enormous. The acceptance of that which we might think is undesirable is a common thread among many spiritual practices, but the only one I know of that focuses on it almost exclusively is Stoicism. I am a big fan of Stoic philosophy, which teaches that virtue is freeing oneself from desires and to conquer our natural impulses that perpetually make us unhappy. Unlike Muslims, Stoics did not have a personified god, so they used terms like &ldquo;Fortune&rdquo; or &ldquo;Nature&rdquo; to refer to the prime mover. By giving up desires and attachments, we can finally be free to surrender to whatever hands Fortune may deal. Whether it is losing our mundane, material possessions that we think are necessary for a happy life or losing a loved one, sooner or later Fortune will put us in an &ldquo;undesirable&rdquo; situation. The person with the mental fortitude to be unmoved by such challenges is the person who can truly live a peaceful life. Through meditation, Stoics try to strengthen their minds and reduce their attachments to things before they are taken away. In many ways, I&rsquo;ve tried to incorporate stoic principles in my life. I mostly avoid buying the kinds of nice things that many people are enamoured with. I typically don&rsquo;t care too much for my looks. I own very few things, and I sleep on a futon. This is a good way to practice reducing one&rsquo;s attachment to things like material possessions or creature comforts, but denying oneself an additional pleasure that one does not already have is not the real challenge. The truly difficult task is dealing with loss of things or people that were precious to us. Loss hits us harder than anything, and it is inescapable: death of a family member or friend, end of a relationship, or a life-changing injury or illness. However, whatever the loss you&rsquo;re coping with today, a bigger loss is always possible because the ultimate loss is death. &ldquo;Smaller&rdquo; losses can be seen as opportunities for practicing mental fortitude that one will need when much bigger losses inevitably occur. The best case scenario facing any of us is that we get to live to an old age where our friends start dying one by one and when we start losing the most basic functions of our bodies. The stoics believe that everything - the things you own, the people in your life, and your life itself - is a loan to you from Nature. One day (and that day may come much sooner than you expect), Nature will call in its loans. On that day, the person who has strengthened her mind will return to Nature what is hers not begrudgingly but with dignity and gratitude for the time she got to have with what was not her own.","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Hardship &amp; Loss","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
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-<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" ><generator uri="https://jekyllrb.com/" version="3.8.6">Jekyll</generator><link href="http://localhost:4000/feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" /><link href="http://localhost:4000/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" /><updated>2020-09-11T17:55:37-07:00</updated><id>http://localhost:4000/feed.xml</id><title type="html">Making the map match the territory</title><entry><title type="html">Learning and Applying</title><link href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/08/23/learning-and-applying.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Learning and Applying" /><published>2020-08-23T11:26:57-07:00</published><updated>2020-08-23T11:26:57-07:00</updated><id>http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/08/23/learning-and-applying</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/08/23/learning-and-applying.html">&lt;p&gt;I remember the first time I set foot inside a large bookstore. I was about 13 years old, and something had broken with my computer, which I needed to play games. My teacher at the time suggested I read a book on how to fix computers myself. When I entered the computer books section of Chapters, my mind was blown by the sheer number of books. Something clicked in my head and I thought: &amp;ldquo;I need to read all of these!&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" ><generator uri="https://jekyllrb.com/" version="3.8.6">Jekyll</generator><link href="http://hirad.github.io/feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" /><link href="http://hirad.github.io/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" /><updated>2020-09-11T18:12:35-07:00</updated><id>http://hirad.github.io/feed.xml</id><title type="html">Making the map match the territory</title><entry><title type="html">Learning and Applying</title><link href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/08/23/learning-and-applying.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Learning and Applying" /><published>2020-08-23T11:26:57-07:00</published><updated>2020-08-23T11:26:57-07:00</updated><id>http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/08/23/learning-and-applying</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/08/23/learning-and-applying.html">&lt;p&gt;I remember the first time I set foot inside a large bookstore. I was about 13 years old, and something had broken with my computer, which I needed to play games. My teacher at the time suggested I read a book on how to fix computers myself. When I entered the computer books section of Chapters, my mind was blown by the sheer number of books. Something clicked in my head and I thought: &amp;ldquo;I need to read all of these!&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;From that point on, I had an insatiable appetite for learning. The only exception to this were my university years – nothing can stifle a desire to learn like post-secondary education. I always imagined that given infinite resources and the ability to spend my time any way I wanted, I would just spend it learning and reading as much as I could.&lt;/p&gt;
 
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 
 &lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;ve always longed for the day when I can finally do nothing but learn. It&amp;rsquo;s easy for us to construct visions of an ideal future where we&amp;rsquo;ll be happier than now, and boundless time to read was (and is) a huge part of my utopian vision. But these visions are like dreams that don&amp;rsquo;t make sense upon a second inspection, and if we cling to them for too long or believe them too much, we&amp;rsquo;ll be unhappy when they (the impossible) are not realized. And if we do manage to achieve them, we&amp;rsquo;ll find that while all the conditions of our dreams are met, the envisioned happiness is not to be found, and we&amp;rsquo;ll repeat the cycle with a new vision.&lt;/p&gt;
 
-&lt;p&gt;All of this means that the range of topics and skills that I can truly learn and apply is much more limited than what I imagined in my head. It also means that I&amp;rsquo;m already living the life that I always wanted as much as is practical. If I was retired, the dials might get slightly tweaked and I may have a few extra hours per week to learn something or apply it. But life will not be radically different.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><category term="essays" /><summary type="html">I remember the first time I set foot inside a large bookstore. I was about 13 years old, and something had broken with my computer, which I needed to play games. My teacher at the time suggested I read a book on how to fix computers myself. When I entered the computer books section of Chapters, my mind was blown by the sheer number of books. Something clicked in my head and I thought: &amp;ldquo;I need to read all of these!&amp;rdquo; From that point on, I had an insatiable appetite for learning. The only exception to this were my university years – nothing can stifle a desire to learn like post-secondary education. I always imagined that given infinite resources and the ability to spend my time any way I wanted, I would just spend it learning and reading as much as I could. That notion is now deeply ingrained in my mind. But with age, I&amp;rsquo;m realizing how misguided it is. The bottleneck to learning is not just time to read. It is time to apply. True learning is impossible without meaningful application. We don&amp;rsquo;t learn through words but through all the senses. As the saying goes, &amp;ldquo;the rudder only works when the ship is moving&amp;rdquo; and building a large ship but never leaving port is simply a wasted investment. I&amp;rsquo;ve always longed for the day when I can finally do nothing but learn. It&amp;rsquo;s easy for us to construct visions of an ideal future where we&amp;rsquo;ll be happier than now, and boundless time to read was (and is) a huge part of my utopian vision. But these visions are like dreams that don&amp;rsquo;t make sense upon a second inspection, and if we cling to them for too long or believe them too much, we&amp;rsquo;ll be unhappy when they (the impossible) are not realized. And if we do manage to achieve them, we&amp;rsquo;ll find that while all the conditions of our dreams are met, the envisioned happiness is not to be found, and we&amp;rsquo;ll repeat the cycle with a new vision. All of this means that the range of topics and skills that I can truly learn and apply is much more limited than what I imagined in my head. It also means that I&amp;rsquo;m already living the life that I always wanted as much as is practical. If I was retired, the dials might get slightly tweaked and I may have a few extra hours per week to learn something or apply it. But life will not be radically different.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Notes From 7 Powers</title><link href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Notes From 7 Powers" /><published>2020-05-24T21:54:24-07:00</published><updated>2020-05-24T21:54:24-07:00</updated><id>http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html">&lt;p&gt;Why can some businesses generate vast amounts of profits while others can&amp;rsquo;t, even with comparable products and services? How can a manager ensure that his business can maintain healthy profit margins for extended periods of time without having those profits eroded by competition? How can an investor identify companies likely to generate healthy returns on capital?&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;All of this means that the range of topics and skills that I can truly learn and apply is much more limited than what I imagined in my head. It also means that I&amp;rsquo;m already living the life that I always wanted as much as is practical. If I was retired, the dials might get slightly tweaked and I may have a few extra hours per week to learn something or apply it. But life will not be radically different.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><category term="essays" /><summary type="html">I remember the first time I set foot inside a large bookstore. I was about 13 years old, and something had broken with my computer, which I needed to play games. My teacher at the time suggested I read a book on how to fix computers myself. When I entered the computer books section of Chapters, my mind was blown by the sheer number of books. Something clicked in my head and I thought: &amp;ldquo;I need to read all of these!&amp;rdquo; From that point on, I had an insatiable appetite for learning. The only exception to this were my university years – nothing can stifle a desire to learn like post-secondary education. I always imagined that given infinite resources and the ability to spend my time any way I wanted, I would just spend it learning and reading as much as I could. That notion is now deeply ingrained in my mind. But with age, I&amp;rsquo;m realizing how misguided it is. The bottleneck to learning is not just time to read. It is time to apply. True learning is impossible without meaningful application. We don&amp;rsquo;t learn through words but through all the senses. As the saying goes, &amp;ldquo;the rudder only works when the ship is moving&amp;rdquo; and building a large ship but never leaving port is simply a wasted investment. I&amp;rsquo;ve always longed for the day when I can finally do nothing but learn. It&amp;rsquo;s easy for us to construct visions of an ideal future where we&amp;rsquo;ll be happier than now, and boundless time to read was (and is) a huge part of my utopian vision. But these visions are like dreams that don&amp;rsquo;t make sense upon a second inspection, and if we cling to them for too long or believe them too much, we&amp;rsquo;ll be unhappy when they (the impossible) are not realized. And if we do manage to achieve them, we&amp;rsquo;ll find that while all the conditions of our dreams are met, the envisioned happiness is not to be found, and we&amp;rsquo;ll repeat the cycle with a new vision. All of this means that the range of topics and skills that I can truly learn and apply is much more limited than what I imagined in my head. It also means that I&amp;rsquo;m already living the life that I always wanted as much as is practical. If I was retired, the dials might get slightly tweaked and I may have a few extra hours per week to learn something or apply it. But life will not be radically different.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Notes From 7 Powers</title><link href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Notes From 7 Powers" /><published>2020-05-24T21:54:24-07:00</published><updated>2020-05-24T21:54:24-07:00</updated><id>http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/24/notes-from-7-powers.html">&lt;p&gt;Why can some businesses generate vast amounts of profits while others can&amp;rsquo;t, even with comparable products and services? How can a manager ensure that his business can maintain healthy profit margins for extended periods of time without having those profits eroded by competition? How can an investor identify companies likely to generate healthy returns on capital?&lt;/p&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;If these questions interest you, Hamilton Helmer&amp;rsquo;s &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.ca/7-Powers-Foundations-Business-Strategy/dp/0998116319&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; might be the most important book you&amp;rsquo;ve never heard of. Unlike most business books, its 210 pages are packed with valuable insight and clear explanations.&lt;/p&gt;
 
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@
 
 &lt;p&gt;Additionally, Helmer points out that each of the seven powers need to be achieved in different phases of the company lifecycle. It does not make sense, for example, to invest heavily in the branding of a fledgling startup. Similarly, the time to achieve sufficient market share is during the early growth.&lt;/p&gt;
 
-&lt;p&gt;So that&amp;rsquo;s a quick summary of Helmer&amp;rsquo;s strategy compass. I highly recommend you read the book if you&amp;rsquo;re interested in business strategy. I also recommend reading Henry Mintzberg&amp;rsquo;s &lt;a href=&quot;https://hbr.org/1987/07/crafting-strategy&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;Crafting Strategy&amp;rdquo;&lt;/a&gt; article that Helmer references. The notion that strategy is not designed but crafted rejects some approaches to strategy where managers who are distant from the business can get in a room and think their way to a strategy. It highlights the fact that ultimately, strategy comes down to judgement, which in turn comes down to an intimate familiarity with every facet of the organization, the customer base, and the industry. With this knowledge, good judgement, and a little luck, the manager can use Helmer&amp;rsquo;s strategy compass to navigate the business to one of the desirable destinations above.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><category term="essays" /><summary type="html">Why can some businesses generate vast amounts of profits while others can&amp;rsquo;t, even with comparable products and services? How can a manager ensure that his business can maintain healthy profit margins for extended periods of time without having those profits eroded by competition? How can an investor identify companies likely to generate healthy returns on capital? If these questions interest you, Hamilton Helmer&amp;rsquo;s 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy might be the most important book you&amp;rsquo;ve never heard of. Unlike most business books, its 210 pages are packed with valuable insight and clear explanations. This is a book on business strategy, and it addresses the topic at a foundational level. It aims to provide the reader with a &amp;ldquo;strategy compass&amp;rdquo;. For the manager of a business operation the strategy compass is a guide on navigating the trials of the business world to arrive (with some luck) at an attractive strategic position such that the business can command healthy profit margins and yet be protected from the arbitraging effect of competition. For the investor, the strategy compass provides a means of identifying strong and high-potential businesses that may not have been discovered yet. Jeff Bezos famously said &amp;ldquo;your margin is my opportunity&amp;rdquo;. This quote captures the dilemma for everyone who operates a business. A new venture starts by identifying a need for its customer base that has not been met. A solution is developed for this need and the business is off to a great start. Soon enough, however, others take notice and copycats emerge. They also want a piece of the pie, and what better way to compete with the pioneer than by undercutting their prices? Before long, the attractive profits enjoyed by the pioneering venture have been eroded by competitors. Yet some businesses are immune from this effect. In spite of years of developing competitive (or superior) technologies, AMD could never dethrone Intel as the dominant supplier of chips for PCs. What&amp;rsquo;s the difference between businesses that are immune to competition and those that are not? Helmer&amp;rsquo;s answer is that there are seven strategic positions (powers) that allow businesses to command high profits and keep them protected from competition. So what are the seven powers? Network effects: Any product that improves as more people use it benefits from network effects. Facebook is the most uniquitous example of this. A social network is only as good as the friends you have on it. Facebook established itself as the dominant social network. This position was so powerful that in 2011, even $200B Google couldn&amp;rsquo;t challenge Facebook&amp;rsquo;s dominance with its Google+ offering. Scale economies: Some products cost too much unless they&amp;rsquo;re made for a sufficiently large number of customers, such that the cost per each customer comes down. Microprocessors are a perfect example. They&amp;rsquo;re incredibly expensive to develop. Once Intel raced ahead in its market size, it became increasingly difficult for AMD to challenge them because Intel could outcompete AMD by spreading its costs across the larger customer base. Switching costs: Some products make it incredibly difficult for customers to switch once they have adopted the product. For example, a complicated piece of entreprise software requires expensive installation process. Then the workforce needs to be trained on the new software. Then the software needs to be supported on an ongoing basis. Each of these phases makes it less likely that the customer will consider an alternative vendor in the future. High installation costs are a deterrent. The need to re-train the workforce is another deterrent, and the personal relationships forged with the personnel of the existing vendor are yet another deterrent. Counter-positioning: Sometimes, it&amp;rsquo;s possible to challenge an incumbent by offering a unique angle on an existing product. The example Helmer provides is Vanguard. Its founder was thought insane by existing active money managers who charged large fees for their management services. Vanguard offered index funds with low fees and no active management. Even once the new approach proved popular and profitable, the incumbents had an institutional aversion to embracing it because it meant canibalizing their existing profitable businesses. Branding: This one is pretty obvious. Brands are incredibly powerful and command loyalty from their base. However, they&amp;rsquo;re also one of the most elusive power types because they require persistent investment over a long period of time. Cornered resource: A company can sustain high profit margins if it has exclusive control over a valuable resource. Here, &amp;ldquo;resource&amp;rdquo; can refer to anything from patents (as in the case of pharmaceuticals) to talent (as was the case of Pixar&amp;rsquo;s &amp;ldquo;brain trust&amp;rdquo; consisting of Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, and Steve Jobs). Process power: This is the most rare of the powers. A company can develop a process that delivers superior results that cannot be copied by others. Helmer provides the example of the Toyota Production System. The company spent decades trying to optimize its manufacturing. When it became clear that Toyota was building superior cars, it even allowed staff from GM to observe its factories and question its staff. Still, GM could not reproduce Toyota&amp;rsquo;s success. These are the seven powers. Companies that don&amp;rsquo;t enjoy at least one of these powers are bound to fall into a race-to-the-bottom as competitors erode their profit margins. For the interested reader, Helmer also shows mathematically the impact of each power type on the bottom line. Each of these powers include a benefit enjoyed by the winning business. Equally crucially, they create a barrier that makes it undesirable for others to compete with the winning business. This combination of benefit and barrier is what leads to power. Helmer calls these the &amp;ldquo;strategy statics&amp;rdquo;. These are desirable destinations for any business. How to reach these destinations is what Helmer calls &amp;ldquo;strategy dynamics&amp;rdquo;. These are my main takeaways on dynamics: Strategy is not made in a vaccum, it is crafted. As Helmer puts it in the book, &amp;ldquo;the rudder only works when the ship is moving&amp;rdquo;. Nobody can invent a winning strategy in isolation. It requires the business leaders to be intimately familiar with every aspect of their business and their market. They need to keep their eyes on the seven destinations above and use their feel of their organizational capability and the market landscape to navigate to those destinations. &amp;ldquo;The first cause of every Power is invention &amp;hellip; of product, process, business model, or brand.&amp;rdquo; The opportunity for invention arises out of external conditions. When these are ripe, the company uses its existing resources and capabilities to invent in any of the axes specified above to bring compelling value to market - value that is not currently offered by incumbents. Without the right combination of external conditions and invention, power can&amp;rsquo;t be achieved. An invention that brings compelling value to market, creates or significantly expands the market. There are three ways to bring compelling value to market: Capabilities-led. The company uses its capabilities to invent. The risk here is that there may not be a market for the invention. Customer-led. The company starts from the needs of the customers to invent. The risk here is that it may not have the right capabilities. Competitor-led. Sometimes a competitor has successfully brought a compelling product to market but the company can invent a superior or adjacent product that expands the market. Additionally, Helmer points out that each of the seven powers need to be achieved in different phases of the company lifecycle. It does not make sense, for example, to invest heavily in the branding of a fledgling startup. Similarly, the time to achieve sufficient market share is during the early growth. So that&amp;rsquo;s a quick summary of Helmer&amp;rsquo;s strategy compass. I highly recommend you read the book if you&amp;rsquo;re interested in business strategy. I also recommend reading Henry Mintzberg&amp;rsquo;s &amp;ldquo;Crafting Strategy&amp;rdquo; article that Helmer references. The notion that strategy is not designed but crafted rejects some approaches to strategy where managers who are distant from the business can get in a room and think their way to a strategy. It highlights the fact that ultimately, strategy comes down to judgement, which in turn comes down to an intimate familiarity with every facet of the organization, the customer base, and the industry. With this knowledge, good judgement, and a little luck, the manager can use Helmer&amp;rsquo;s strategy compass to navigate the business to one of the desirable destinations above.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Pandemic Predictions (Part 3)</title><link href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/17/pandemic-predictions-part-3.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Pandemic Predictions (Part 3)" /><published>2020-05-17T21:12:31-07:00</published><updated>2020-05-17T21:12:31-07:00</updated><id>http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/17/pandemic-predictions-part-3</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/17/pandemic-predictions-part-3.html">&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;rsquo;s another (short) prediction about the long term effects of Coronavirus, along with a call for help.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;So that&amp;rsquo;s a quick summary of Helmer&amp;rsquo;s strategy compass. I highly recommend you read the book if you&amp;rsquo;re interested in business strategy. I also recommend reading Henry Mintzberg&amp;rsquo;s &lt;a href=&quot;https://hbr.org/1987/07/crafting-strategy&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;Crafting Strategy&amp;rdquo;&lt;/a&gt; article that Helmer references. The notion that strategy is not designed but crafted rejects some approaches to strategy where managers who are distant from the business can get in a room and think their way to a strategy. It highlights the fact that ultimately, strategy comes down to judgement, which in turn comes down to an intimate familiarity with every facet of the organization, the customer base, and the industry. With this knowledge, good judgement, and a little luck, the manager can use Helmer&amp;rsquo;s strategy compass to navigate the business to one of the desirable destinations above.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><category term="essays" /><summary type="html">Why can some businesses generate vast amounts of profits while others can&amp;rsquo;t, even with comparable products and services? How can a manager ensure that his business can maintain healthy profit margins for extended periods of time without having those profits eroded by competition? How can an investor identify companies likely to generate healthy returns on capital? If these questions interest you, Hamilton Helmer&amp;rsquo;s 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy might be the most important book you&amp;rsquo;ve never heard of. Unlike most business books, its 210 pages are packed with valuable insight and clear explanations. This is a book on business strategy, and it addresses the topic at a foundational level. It aims to provide the reader with a &amp;ldquo;strategy compass&amp;rdquo;. For the manager of a business operation the strategy compass is a guide on navigating the trials of the business world to arrive (with some luck) at an attractive strategic position such that the business can command healthy profit margins and yet be protected from the arbitraging effect of competition. For the investor, the strategy compass provides a means of identifying strong and high-potential businesses that may not have been discovered yet. Jeff Bezos famously said &amp;ldquo;your margin is my opportunity&amp;rdquo;. This quote captures the dilemma for everyone who operates a business. A new venture starts by identifying a need for its customer base that has not been met. A solution is developed for this need and the business is off to a great start. Soon enough, however, others take notice and copycats emerge. They also want a piece of the pie, and what better way to compete with the pioneer than by undercutting their prices? Before long, the attractive profits enjoyed by the pioneering venture have been eroded by competitors. Yet some businesses are immune from this effect. In spite of years of developing competitive (or superior) technologies, AMD could never dethrone Intel as the dominant supplier of chips for PCs. What&amp;rsquo;s the difference between businesses that are immune to competition and those that are not? Helmer&amp;rsquo;s answer is that there are seven strategic positions (powers) that allow businesses to command high profits and keep them protected from competition. So what are the seven powers? Network effects: Any product that improves as more people use it benefits from network effects. Facebook is the most uniquitous example of this. A social network is only as good as the friends you have on it. Facebook established itself as the dominant social network. This position was so powerful that in 2011, even $200B Google couldn&amp;rsquo;t challenge Facebook&amp;rsquo;s dominance with its Google+ offering. Scale economies: Some products cost too much unless they&amp;rsquo;re made for a sufficiently large number of customers, such that the cost per each customer comes down. Microprocessors are a perfect example. They&amp;rsquo;re incredibly expensive to develop. Once Intel raced ahead in its market size, it became increasingly difficult for AMD to challenge them because Intel could outcompete AMD by spreading its costs across the larger customer base. Switching costs: Some products make it incredibly difficult for customers to switch once they have adopted the product. For example, a complicated piece of entreprise software requires expensive installation process. Then the workforce needs to be trained on the new software. Then the software needs to be supported on an ongoing basis. Each of these phases makes it less likely that the customer will consider an alternative vendor in the future. High installation costs are a deterrent. The need to re-train the workforce is another deterrent, and the personal relationships forged with the personnel of the existing vendor are yet another deterrent. Counter-positioning: Sometimes, it&amp;rsquo;s possible to challenge an incumbent by offering a unique angle on an existing product. The example Helmer provides is Vanguard. Its founder was thought insane by existing active money managers who charged large fees for their management services. Vanguard offered index funds with low fees and no active management. Even once the new approach proved popular and profitable, the incumbents had an institutional aversion to embracing it because it meant canibalizing their existing profitable businesses. Branding: This one is pretty obvious. Brands are incredibly powerful and command loyalty from their base. However, they&amp;rsquo;re also one of the most elusive power types because they require persistent investment over a long period of time. Cornered resource: A company can sustain high profit margins if it has exclusive control over a valuable resource. Here, &amp;ldquo;resource&amp;rdquo; can refer to anything from patents (as in the case of pharmaceuticals) to talent (as was the case of Pixar&amp;rsquo;s &amp;ldquo;brain trust&amp;rdquo; consisting of Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, and Steve Jobs). Process power: This is the most rare of the powers. A company can develop a process that delivers superior results that cannot be copied by others. Helmer provides the example of the Toyota Production System. The company spent decades trying to optimize its manufacturing. When it became clear that Toyota was building superior cars, it even allowed staff from GM to observe its factories and question its staff. Still, GM could not reproduce Toyota&amp;rsquo;s success. These are the seven powers. Companies that don&amp;rsquo;t enjoy at least one of these powers are bound to fall into a race-to-the-bottom as competitors erode their profit margins. For the interested reader, Helmer also shows mathematically the impact of each power type on the bottom line. Each of these powers include a benefit enjoyed by the winning business. Equally crucially, they create a barrier that makes it undesirable for others to compete with the winning business. This combination of benefit and barrier is what leads to power. Helmer calls these the &amp;ldquo;strategy statics&amp;rdquo;. These are desirable destinations for any business. How to reach these destinations is what Helmer calls &amp;ldquo;strategy dynamics&amp;rdquo;. These are my main takeaways on dynamics: Strategy is not made in a vaccum, it is crafted. As Helmer puts it in the book, &amp;ldquo;the rudder only works when the ship is moving&amp;rdquo;. Nobody can invent a winning strategy in isolation. It requires the business leaders to be intimately familiar with every aspect of their business and their market. They need to keep their eyes on the seven destinations above and use their feel of their organizational capability and the market landscape to navigate to those destinations. &amp;ldquo;The first cause of every Power is invention &amp;hellip; of product, process, business model, or brand.&amp;rdquo; The opportunity for invention arises out of external conditions. When these are ripe, the company uses its existing resources and capabilities to invent in any of the axes specified above to bring compelling value to market - value that is not currently offered by incumbents. Without the right combination of external conditions and invention, power can&amp;rsquo;t be achieved. An invention that brings compelling value to market, creates or significantly expands the market. There are three ways to bring compelling value to market: Capabilities-led. The company uses its capabilities to invent. The risk here is that there may not be a market for the invention. Customer-led. The company starts from the needs of the customers to invent. The risk here is that it may not have the right capabilities. Competitor-led. Sometimes a competitor has successfully brought a compelling product to market but the company can invent a superior or adjacent product that expands the market. Additionally, Helmer points out that each of the seven powers need to be achieved in different phases of the company lifecycle. It does not make sense, for example, to invest heavily in the branding of a fledgling startup. Similarly, the time to achieve sufficient market share is during the early growth. So that&amp;rsquo;s a quick summary of Helmer&amp;rsquo;s strategy compass. I highly recommend you read the book if you&amp;rsquo;re interested in business strategy. I also recommend reading Henry Mintzberg&amp;rsquo;s &amp;ldquo;Crafting Strategy&amp;rdquo; article that Helmer references. The notion that strategy is not designed but crafted rejects some approaches to strategy where managers who are distant from the business can get in a room and think their way to a strategy. It highlights the fact that ultimately, strategy comes down to judgement, which in turn comes down to an intimate familiarity with every facet of the organization, the customer base, and the industry. With this knowledge, good judgement, and a little luck, the manager can use Helmer&amp;rsquo;s strategy compass to navigate the business to one of the desirable destinations above.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Pandemic Predictions (Part 3)</title><link href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/17/pandemic-predictions-part-3.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Pandemic Predictions (Part 3)" /><published>2020-05-17T21:12:31-07:00</published><updated>2020-05-17T21:12:31-07:00</updated><id>http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/17/pandemic-predictions-part-3</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/17/pandemic-predictions-part-3.html">&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;rsquo;s another (short) prediction about the long term effects of Coronavirus, along with a call for help.&lt;/p&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Today&amp;rsquo;s prediction relates to the airlines, and it&amp;rsquo;s closely related to the previous &lt;a href=&quot;http://hirad.ca/essays/2020/05/02/pandemic-predictions-part-2.html&quot;&gt;prediction around commercial real estate&lt;/a&gt;. In fact, I wanted to include this in that post, but I decided to dig for some data to paint a fuller picture. I failed on that front. If you&amp;rsquo;re good at business/industry analysis and you read this, I have a few asks for you at the end.&lt;/p&gt;
 
@@ -84,7 +84,7 @@
 
 &lt;p&gt;On a long timeline, I don&amp;rsquo;t think leisure travel will see much permanent reduction in demand. We&amp;rsquo;re not out of the woods yet with COVID19, and even cruise liners are seeing sales recover already.&lt;/p&gt;
 
-&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, without more data, these predictions can&amp;rsquo;t say much about how the supply side may change due to the predicted changes in demand. Here&amp;rsquo;s where my ask comes in: if you know where one can obtain the above stats, please get in touch and give me a hand - I&amp;rsquo;m flying blind here :)&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><category term="essays" /><summary type="html">Here&amp;rsquo;s another (short) prediction about the long term effects of Coronavirus, along with a call for help. Today&amp;rsquo;s prediction relates to the airlines, and it&amp;rsquo;s closely related to the previous prediction around commercial real estate. In fact, I wanted to include this in that post, but I decided to dig for some data to paint a fuller picture. I failed on that front. If you&amp;rsquo;re good at business/industry analysis and you read this, I have a few asks for you at the end. For the prediction: In the previous post, I noted that I expect more and more workplaces to divest of their real estate and for remote work to become much more prevalent. Related to that, I foresee business travel to see a permanent reduction as a result of a much more widely-adopted remote work cultures. I can think of three types of business travel: Work that requires physical presence in a certain location. For example, a large engineering company may land a construction project far from their HQ and will need to send staff back and forth. Work that is more effective in-person. I think this is primarily sales. Building rapport with potential customers is much more effective in person. Other. Companies often make people travel due to geographically-constrained workplaces, even though the nature of the work doesn&amp;rsquo;t necessarily require being co-located. I believe the last category, in the long run, will nearly vanish, as remote work becomes widely adopted and cost savings of less travel become possible and attractive. This will reduce demand for air travel from business customers. Demand will be further reduced in the second category as well - while some work is better done in person, the additional risk factor will move that cutoff line higher. Here&amp;rsquo;s where having some data could&amp;rsquo;ve been useful. Given the above predictions, I would like to know: What portion of annual airline revenues come from business travellers and in which sectors? What portion of annual airline profits come from business travellers? Which airlines had the majority of their revenues and profits from business customers? In which routes do business travel revenues dominate? Given the above information, one could make some further predictions about the airline industry in general. I suspect that business travellers are less cost conscious than leisure travellers, and that business travellers are less likely to travel on discount airlines than on higher-end airlines. On a long timeline, I don&amp;rsquo;t think leisure travel will see much permanent reduction in demand. We&amp;rsquo;re not out of the woods yet with COVID19, and even cruise liners are seeing sales recover already. Unfortunately, without more data, these predictions can&amp;rsquo;t say much about how the supply side may change due to the predicted changes in demand. Here&amp;rsquo;s where my ask comes in: if you know where one can obtain the above stats, please get in touch and give me a hand - I&amp;rsquo;m flying blind here :)</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Pandemic Predictions (Part 2)</title><link href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/02/pandemic-predictions-part-2.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Pandemic Predictions (Part 2)" /><published>2020-05-02T15:26:35-07:00</published><updated>2020-05-02T15:26:35-07:00</updated><id>http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/02/pandemic-predictions-part-2</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/05/02/pandemic-predictions-part-2.html">&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://hirad.ca/2020/04/26/pandemic-predictions-part-1.html&quot;&gt;previous post&lt;/a&gt;, I talked about when we might go back to normal. Today, let&amp;rsquo;s think about what possible long-term ramifications the COVID19 pandemic might have. It would be an interesting thought exercise to do this for a variety of economic sectors. For this post, I&amp;rsquo;ll start with the most obvious long term impact: the impact on commercial real estate. This first became obvious to me about a week or two into North America being hit, and it has been pointed out by a number of writers.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, without more data, these predictions can&amp;rsquo;t say much about how the supply side may change due to the predicted changes in demand. Here&amp;rsquo;s where my ask comes in: if you know where one can obtain the above stats, please get in touch and give me a hand - I&amp;rsquo;m flying blind here :)&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><category term="essays" /><summary type="html">Here&amp;rsquo;s another (short) prediction about the long term effects of Coronavirus, along with a call for help. Today&amp;rsquo;s prediction relates to the airlines, and it&amp;rsquo;s closely related to the previous prediction around commercial real estate. In fact, I wanted to include this in that post, but I decided to dig for some data to paint a fuller picture. I failed on that front. If you&amp;rsquo;re good at business/industry analysis and you read this, I have a few asks for you at the end. For the prediction: In the previous post, I noted that I expect more and more workplaces to divest of their real estate and for remote work to become much more prevalent. Related to that, I foresee business travel to see a permanent reduction as a result of a much more widely-adopted remote work cultures. I can think of three types of business travel: Work that requires physical presence in a certain location. For example, a large engineering company may land a construction project far from their HQ and will need to send staff back and forth. Work that is more effective in-person. I think this is primarily sales. Building rapport with potential customers is much more effective in person. Other. Companies often make people travel due to geographically-constrained workplaces, even though the nature of the work doesn&amp;rsquo;t necessarily require being co-located. I believe the last category, in the long run, will nearly vanish, as remote work becomes widely adopted and cost savings of less travel become possible and attractive. This will reduce demand for air travel from business customers. Demand will be further reduced in the second category as well - while some work is better done in person, the additional risk factor will move that cutoff line higher. Here&amp;rsquo;s where having some data could&amp;rsquo;ve been useful. Given the above predictions, I would like to know: What portion of annual airline revenues come from business travellers and in which sectors? What portion of annual airline profits come from business travellers? Which airlines had the majority of their revenues and profits from business customers? In which routes do business travel revenues dominate? Given the above information, one could make some further predictions about the airline industry in general. I suspect that business travellers are less cost conscious than leisure travellers, and that business travellers are less likely to travel on discount airlines than on higher-end airlines. On a long timeline, I don&amp;rsquo;t think leisure travel will see much permanent reduction in demand. We&amp;rsquo;re not out of the woods yet with COVID19, and even cruise liners are seeing sales recover already. Unfortunately, without more data, these predictions can&amp;rsquo;t say much about how the supply side may change due to the predicted changes in demand. Here&amp;rsquo;s where my ask comes in: if you know where one can obtain the above stats, please get in touch and give me a hand - I&amp;rsquo;m flying blind here :)</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Pandemic Predictions (Part 2)</title><link href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/02/pandemic-predictions-part-2.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Pandemic Predictions (Part 2)" /><published>2020-05-02T15:26:35-07:00</published><updated>2020-05-02T15:26:35-07:00</updated><id>http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/02/pandemic-predictions-part-2</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/05/02/pandemic-predictions-part-2.html">&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://hirad.ca/2020/04/26/pandemic-predictions-part-1.html&quot;&gt;previous post&lt;/a&gt;, I talked about when we might go back to normal. Today, let&amp;rsquo;s think about what possible long-term ramifications the COVID19 pandemic might have. It would be an interesting thought exercise to do this for a variety of economic sectors. For this post, I&amp;rsquo;ll start with the most obvious long term impact: the impact on commercial real estate. This first became obvious to me about a week or two into North America being hit, and it has been pointed out by a number of writers.&lt;/p&gt;
 
 &lt;!-- more --&gt;
 
@@ -119,7 +119,7 @@
 
 &lt;p&gt;(The impact of this change on the urban landscape is another very interesting thread - to be pulled on in another post perhaps.)&lt;/p&gt;
 
-&lt;p&gt;Not all types of commercial real estate will see this drop in demand, of course. As we spend more time in our homes, and more time away from a &amp;ldquo;downtown core&amp;rdquo;, we&amp;rsquo;ll need increasingly better infrastructure to serve our needs where we are. Many services that are currently concentrated in business districts will be downsized and spread more evenly across the urban landscape, closer to where people live.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><category term="essays" /><summary type="html">In the previous post, I talked about when we might go back to normal. Today, let&amp;rsquo;s think about what possible long-term ramifications the COVID19 pandemic might have. It would be an interesting thought exercise to do this for a variety of economic sectors. For this post, I&amp;rsquo;ll start with the most obvious long term impact: the impact on commercial real estate. This first became obvious to me about a week or two into North America being hit, and it has been pointed out by a number of writers. This is a living post - I will update it as I think this through more deeply. Prediction I think commercial real estate is going to see a permanent drop in demand and therefore in prices. This does not hold true for all types of commercial real estate, but it does hold true for many. My Reasoning An anecdote: my company recently got acquired by a bank. When we joined them, just a few months ago, people steeped in bank culture found the idea of remote work not only alien, but somewhat disturbing. On the other hand, walking 20-30 minutes between multiple towers in downtown Toronto for a meeting is something they don&amp;rsquo;t bat an eye at. In 2020, there is no legimate reason why business needs to be conducted that way - specially in technology-focused businesses. This was not a failure of capability, as much as it was a failure of culture. Coronavirus has shattered that culture. Everyone at those offices is now working from home. This is not to say that everyone likes working from home right now (I&amp;rsquo;ve noticed having children is a particular impediment in enjoying WFH). But they&amp;rsquo;ve all been forced into a mandatory two-month-long trial, which is likely to continue. It&amp;rsquo;s a similar story across all sorts of businesses, of course. Once we&amp;rsquo;re through this pandemic, I expect everyone to return to business-as-usual. But I expect some key lessons will be learned from this about the benefits of remote work in cultures that would otherwise never imagine it. When the pandemic is over, more workplaces will be offering remote work options for more types of roles. With this, lack of remote work options will become an impediment to hiring top talent, as it already has for tech hires. When the pandemic is over, many workplaces will be reviewing how much they got done with everyone working from home, and they&amp;rsquo;ll be eyeing the expense line on their cash flows as a top candidate for cost-cutting. Even workplaces that are primarily office-based may need a reduced capacity as some portion of their workforce can work remotely at any given time. Large corporations that own their own real estate may see it as less essential and will be more likely to divest, increasing supply. Culture shifts take time to be ingrained, but the pandemic has massively accelerated the shift. Outside of office space, many businesses will be innovating with a lower reliance on expensive, prime real estate. Cloud kitchens, for example, were a trend pre-pandemic, and that will only continue. If Amazon had habituated us to buy things online and get them a few days later, pandemic will take this to the next level, with delivery of all essentials becoming not just a preference, but a matter of safety. One big impediment to remote work is legal. When I bought my apartment, I had to commute for approx. 45 minutes to a lawyer&amp;rsquo;s office, sign a few documents in front of her (which took 5 minutes), then commute back for 45 minutes. This was and is infuriarting and nobody should accept it as &amp;lsquo;normal&amp;rsquo; or &amp;lsquo;okay&amp;rsquo;. We have better ways, and the pandemic has also set the stage for updating our legal frameworks to be more remote-friendly – changes that would otherwise move at a glacial pace. For now, many of these changes are poised as temporary measures, but that&amp;rsquo;s how it&amp;rsquo;ll start. All of these factors will conspire to decrease the demand in commercial real estate. You&amp;rsquo;ve heard about the obvious winners in the current circumstance: remote communication tools, e-commerce, to name a few. This is the flipside of that coin - commercial real estate is the obvious loser. We&amp;rsquo;re going to be spending less time in wasteful commutes, and more time getting shit done. We&amp;rsquo;ll be happier, and in the very long term, we may even have more beautiful, less car-focused, more environmentally-friendly, and more decentralized cities. (The impact of this change on the urban landscape is another very interesting thread - to be pulled on in another post perhaps.) Not all types of commercial real estate will see this drop in demand, of course. As we spend more time in our homes, and more time away from a &amp;ldquo;downtown core&amp;rdquo;, we&amp;rsquo;ll need increasingly better infrastructure to serve our needs where we are. Many services that are currently concentrated in business districts will be downsized and spread more evenly across the urban landscape, closer to where people live.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Pandemic Predictions (Part 1)</title><link href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/04/26/pandemic-predictions-part-1.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Pandemic Predictions (Part 1)" /><published>2020-04-26T18:19:30-07:00</published><updated>2020-04-26T18:19:30-07:00</updated><id>http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/04/26/pandemic-predictions-part-1</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://localhost:4000/essays/2020/04/26/pandemic-predictions-part-1.html">&lt;p&gt;Like everyone else, I&amp;rsquo;ve had a number of conversation in the last few weeks around the question of &amp;ldquo;when will we go back to normal?&amp;rdquo;. So here&amp;rsquo;s how I think we need to approach the answer, based on my readings so far. The TL;DR is &amp;ldquo;not soon&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;Not all types of commercial real estate will see this drop in demand, of course. As we spend more time in our homes, and more time away from a &amp;ldquo;downtown core&amp;rdquo;, we&amp;rsquo;ll need increasingly better infrastructure to serve our needs where we are. Many services that are currently concentrated in business districts will be downsized and spread more evenly across the urban landscape, closer to where people live.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><category term="essays" /><summary type="html">In the previous post, I talked about when we might go back to normal. Today, let&amp;rsquo;s think about what possible long-term ramifications the COVID19 pandemic might have. It would be an interesting thought exercise to do this for a variety of economic sectors. For this post, I&amp;rsquo;ll start with the most obvious long term impact: the impact on commercial real estate. This first became obvious to me about a week or two into North America being hit, and it has been pointed out by a number of writers. This is a living post - I will update it as I think this through more deeply. Prediction I think commercial real estate is going to see a permanent drop in demand and therefore in prices. This does not hold true for all types of commercial real estate, but it does hold true for many. My Reasoning An anecdote: my company recently got acquired by a bank. When we joined them, just a few months ago, people steeped in bank culture found the idea of remote work not only alien, but somewhat disturbing. On the other hand, walking 20-30 minutes between multiple towers in downtown Toronto for a meeting is something they don&amp;rsquo;t bat an eye at. In 2020, there is no legimate reason why business needs to be conducted that way - specially in technology-focused businesses. This was not a failure of capability, as much as it was a failure of culture. Coronavirus has shattered that culture. Everyone at those offices is now working from home. This is not to say that everyone likes working from home right now (I&amp;rsquo;ve noticed having children is a particular impediment in enjoying WFH). But they&amp;rsquo;ve all been forced into a mandatory two-month-long trial, which is likely to continue. It&amp;rsquo;s a similar story across all sorts of businesses, of course. Once we&amp;rsquo;re through this pandemic, I expect everyone to return to business-as-usual. But I expect some key lessons will be learned from this about the benefits of remote work in cultures that would otherwise never imagine it. When the pandemic is over, more workplaces will be offering remote work options for more types of roles. With this, lack of remote work options will become an impediment to hiring top talent, as it already has for tech hires. When the pandemic is over, many workplaces will be reviewing how much they got done with everyone working from home, and they&amp;rsquo;ll be eyeing the expense line on their cash flows as a top candidate for cost-cutting. Even workplaces that are primarily office-based may need a reduced capacity as some portion of their workforce can work remotely at any given time. Large corporations that own their own real estate may see it as less essential and will be more likely to divest, increasing supply. Culture shifts take time to be ingrained, but the pandemic has massively accelerated the shift. Outside of office space, many businesses will be innovating with a lower reliance on expensive, prime real estate. Cloud kitchens, for example, were a trend pre-pandemic, and that will only continue. If Amazon had habituated us to buy things online and get them a few days later, pandemic will take this to the next level, with delivery of all essentials becoming not just a preference, but a matter of safety. One big impediment to remote work is legal. When I bought my apartment, I had to commute for approx. 45 minutes to a lawyer&amp;rsquo;s office, sign a few documents in front of her (which took 5 minutes), then commute back for 45 minutes. This was and is infuriarting and nobody should accept it as &amp;lsquo;normal&amp;rsquo; or &amp;lsquo;okay&amp;rsquo;. We have better ways, and the pandemic has also set the stage for updating our legal frameworks to be more remote-friendly – changes that would otherwise move at a glacial pace. For now, many of these changes are poised as temporary measures, but that&amp;rsquo;s how it&amp;rsquo;ll start. All of these factors will conspire to decrease the demand in commercial real estate. You&amp;rsquo;ve heard about the obvious winners in the current circumstance: remote communication tools, e-commerce, to name a few. This is the flipside of that coin - commercial real estate is the obvious loser. We&amp;rsquo;re going to be spending less time in wasteful commutes, and more time getting shit done. We&amp;rsquo;ll be happier, and in the very long term, we may even have more beautiful, less car-focused, more environmentally-friendly, and more decentralized cities. (The impact of this change on the urban landscape is another very interesting thread - to be pulled on in another post perhaps.) Not all types of commercial real estate will see this drop in demand, of course. As we spend more time in our homes, and more time away from a &amp;ldquo;downtown core&amp;rdquo;, we&amp;rsquo;ll need increasingly better infrastructure to serve our needs where we are. Many services that are currently concentrated in business districts will be downsized and spread more evenly across the urban landscape, closer to where people live.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Pandemic Predictions (Part 1)</title><link href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/04/26/pandemic-predictions-part-1.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Pandemic Predictions (Part 1)" /><published>2020-04-26T18:19:30-07:00</published><updated>2020-04-26T18:19:30-07:00</updated><id>http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/04/26/pandemic-predictions-part-1</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2020/04/26/pandemic-predictions-part-1.html">&lt;p&gt;Like everyone else, I&amp;rsquo;ve had a number of conversation in the last few weeks around the question of &amp;ldquo;when will we go back to normal?&amp;rdquo;. So here&amp;rsquo;s how I think we need to approach the answer, based on my readings so far. The TL;DR is &amp;ldquo;not soon&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/p&gt;
 
 &lt;!--more--&gt;
 
@@ -154,7 +154,7 @@
 
 &lt;p&gt;Some things, like international travel or large-crowd events (concerts, sports), will be the last to make a come back. Other activities can come back more quickly. We may be able to hang out in small groups. Some public spaces may be able to open with some restrictions (like mandatory masks). Some workplaces may be able to operate in-person again (should they still want to). And I sure hope BC will open its provincial parks again. But we should not hope to go back to living the way we used to any time soon. In fact, we probably never will.&lt;/p&gt;
 
-&lt;p&gt;A long period of living under restrictions will re-shape society. We will find new ways of doing the things we did before, and we may find that the new ways are, in some cases, not so bad. For example, more people will work from home permanently. This will have widespread ramifications for the economy. I &lt;em&gt;hope&lt;/em&gt; to follow up with additional posts on how I think this situation will affect different industries. Stay tuned.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><summary type="html">Like everyone else, I&amp;rsquo;ve had a number of conversation in the last few weeks around the question of &amp;ldquo;when will we go back to normal?&amp;rdquo;. So here&amp;rsquo;s how I think we need to approach the answer, based on my readings so far. The TL;DR is &amp;ldquo;not soon&amp;rdquo;.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Don’t Trust the Peacock</title><link href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Don't Trust the Peacock" /><published>2018-11-12T17:44:58-08:00</published><updated>2018-11-12T17:44:58-08:00</updated><id>http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html">&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;When the great Tao is forgotten,
+&lt;p&gt;A long period of living under restrictions will re-shape society. We will find new ways of doing the things we did before, and we may find that the new ways are, in some cases, not so bad. For example, more people will work from home permanently. This will have widespread ramifications for the economy. I &lt;em&gt;hope&lt;/em&gt; to follow up with additional posts on how I think this situation will affect different industries. Stay tuned.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><summary type="html">Like everyone else, I&amp;rsquo;ve had a number of conversation in the last few weeks around the question of &amp;ldquo;when will we go back to normal?&amp;rdquo;. So here&amp;rsquo;s how I think we need to approach the answer, based on my readings so far. The TL;DR is &amp;ldquo;not soon&amp;rdquo;.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Don’t Trust the Peacock</title><link href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Don't Trust the Peacock" /><published>2018-11-12T17:44:58-08:00</published><updated>2018-11-12T17:44:58-08:00</updated><id>http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/11/12/dont-trust-the-peacock.html">&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;When the great Tao is forgotten,
 goodness and piety appear.
 When the body&amp;rsquo;s intelligence declines,
 cleverness and knowledge step forth.
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ patriotism is born.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The issue with peacocks is not just that they send these signals. It’s that they’re signalling a lie. They want you to believe they possess substance that they simply don’t. Substance is hard to gauge, but we notice others’ signals right away. But here’s the thing about people with substance: they are in no rush and they can wait for you to see theirs. They’re confident and reassured. Peacocks are neither of these things. So when I see someone sending signals a little too loudly, I think the lady doth protest too much.&lt;/p&gt;
 
-&lt;p&gt;Heuristics are not perfect, and I try to give people a chance even when my peacock radar is going off. But I’ve often been right about peacocks, and whatever any individual’s merits may be, peacocking is at the very least a sign of disingenuity and perhaps dishonesty. In communities where they can thrive, peacocks will eventually become teachers or leaders, and they will mislead entire contingents of beginners who don’t know any better about choosing who to follow. That is the biggest harm of the peacock.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><summary type="html">When the great Tao is forgotten, goodness and piety appear. When the body&amp;rsquo;s intelligence declines, cleverness and knowledge step forth. When there is no peace in the family, filial piety begins. When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born. - Lao Tzu They say judging people is bad. I’m not sure I agree. Regardless, we all do it anyway. I want to continuously improve my heuristics to make good judgements of people. Good heuristics are rare, but I have one that’s fairly reliable that I’m going to share with you here. Last year, I attended a ten day meditation retreat. There was one specific individual at this retreat who stood out. He was an “old student”, which means he had done at least one ten-day course before. While the attendees were socializing at the meditation centre before the beginning of the course and before Noble Silence was to be observed, he was sitting quietly in a corner. If someone tried to speak to him, he would turn his head toward them extremely slowly, give the shortest possible answer, and go back to being quiet. In addition to his behaviour, he also stood out because of his appearance. He was wearing what looked like rags — what you might expect to see on a beggar on an Indian street. Except it didn’t look authentic. The rags were quite nice. It was what you might expect to see from a well-off white guy impersonating a poor Indian beggar. He also walked barefoot. The next time I noticed him was on the last day of the retreat. For ten days, we had all been silent. On the last day, Noble Silence ended and people started chattering again. However, talking was still disallowed in the main meditation hall. At one point, while some people were talking in the hallway, I was in the meditation hall, trying to practice. This individual was also there, sitting a few rows in front of me. In between us, two people started talking. The meditation hall was already not so quiet, considering that the chatter from the hallway was easily audible. The additional noise from the two talkers inside the hall was too much for this individual to bear. He turned around and gave the two talkers an angry “SSSSHHHHH!!!”. I’ll never forget the look of rage on his face. Ten days of working on increasing compassion had evaporated in an instance. This individual, in my mind, represents the quintessential “peacock” in a community. He went to great lengths to put on appearances about his devotion to the practice, but at the end of the day, he exhibited none of the skill. Peacocks exist in every walk of life, and observing many of them has led me to this heuristic: I am instantly suspicious of people who are putting on excessive appearances. These appearances can be visual (eg. clothing) or behavioural (eg. acting overly sensitive to certain subjects) or verbal (eg. the proverbial “blowing of one’s own trumpet”). The purpose of this peacocking is to elevate one’s status in a community. Peacocks thrive in environments where the authenticity of status signals are hard to gauge. In the tech community, peacocking is difficult. You can’t fool people into thinking you’re a good engineer by putting on thicker glasses and lowering your social skills. At the end of the day, you’ll have to speak knowledgeably and write good code. Nassim Taleb has pointed out in Skin In The Game, the ultimate authentic signal is courage: a display of courage is proof of its true existence. Most signals that people send each other don’t have this high of a signal-to-substance ratio. For example, zouk and aikido communities that I’m part of are rife with peacocks. In zouk, these people gravitate toward a style of dance that (they think) does not require rigorous work on fundamentals. They might state that feeling is more important than technique. They might wear genie pants to look like time-travelling hippies who escaped their commune in the ’60s. The teachers they idolize look this way, so they copy the appearance. Those teachers, however, are often highly skilled, but where their technique might take years of hard practice to copy, their outward appearance can be copied very quickly and used as a status signal in the community. These people often don’t have a regular teacher that they train under, but they attend all the big events and sometimes take private lessons, which they use as an opportunity to &amp;ldquo;socialize&amp;rdquo; with well-known teachers and tell their friends about it. In aikido, the story is not so different. Strength and stamina are often used to signal skill in aikido where there is none. Unnecessarily long or elaborate demonstrations are used to impress untrained spectators or equally unskilled peers. The trained eye can see that every technique in these demonstrations is performed with the most egregious mistakes. Often, similar to the zouk peacocks, the aikido peacocks will attend seminars with famous teachers with no attention whatever to the lessons being taught. They love collecting a large catalogue of famous teachers who they can claim they’ve trained under. They might collect photos with these teachers, in which they’ll pose like thugs with a stern face and clenched fists to make sure they look tough. It’s important to emphasize that merely sending these signals by itself is not evidence of anything wrong. Strength and stamina are not bad things. Attending lots of seminars is not a bad thing. Looking like a hippie&amp;hellip; well, ok, that one’s unforgivable. The issue with peacocks is not just that they send these signals. It’s that they’re signalling a lie. They want you to believe they possess substance that they simply don’t. Substance is hard to gauge, but we notice others’ signals right away. But here’s the thing about people with substance: they are in no rush and they can wait for you to see theirs. They’re confident and reassured. Peacocks are neither of these things. So when I see someone sending signals a little too loudly, I think the lady doth protest too much. Heuristics are not perfect, and I try to give people a chance even when my peacock radar is going off. But I’ve often been right about peacocks, and whatever any individual’s merits may be, peacocking is at the very least a sign of disingenuity and perhaps dishonesty. In communities where they can thrive, peacocks will eventually become teachers or leaders, and they will mislead entire contingents of beginners who don’t know any better about choosing who to follow. That is the biggest harm of the peacock.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Goodbye, Old Politics</title><link href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/10/06/goodbye.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Goodbye, Old Politics" /><published>2018-10-06T16:48:32-07:00</published><updated>2018-10-06T16:48:32-07:00</updated><id>http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/10/06/goodbye</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/10/06/goodbye.html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Almost everything here is my takeaway from ideas put forth by Ben Thompson from &lt;a href=&quot;https://stratechery.com&quot;&gt;Stratechery&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://exponent.fm&quot;&gt;Exponent podcast&lt;/a&gt;, being rehashed to cement my own understanding&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;Heuristics are not perfect, and I try to give people a chance even when my peacock radar is going off. But I’ve often been right about peacocks, and whatever any individual’s merits may be, peacocking is at the very least a sign of disingenuity and perhaps dishonesty. In communities where they can thrive, peacocks will eventually become teachers or leaders, and they will mislead entire contingents of beginners who don’t know any better about choosing who to follow. That is the biggest harm of the peacock.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><summary type="html">When the great Tao is forgotten, goodness and piety appear. When the body&amp;rsquo;s intelligence declines, cleverness and knowledge step forth. When there is no peace in the family, filial piety begins. When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born. - Lao Tzu They say judging people is bad. I’m not sure I agree. Regardless, we all do it anyway. I want to continuously improve my heuristics to make good judgements of people. Good heuristics are rare, but I have one that’s fairly reliable that I’m going to share with you here. Last year, I attended a ten day meditation retreat. There was one specific individual at this retreat who stood out. He was an “old student”, which means he had done at least one ten-day course before. While the attendees were socializing at the meditation centre before the beginning of the course and before Noble Silence was to be observed, he was sitting quietly in a corner. If someone tried to speak to him, he would turn his head toward them extremely slowly, give the shortest possible answer, and go back to being quiet. In addition to his behaviour, he also stood out because of his appearance. He was wearing what looked like rags — what you might expect to see on a beggar on an Indian street. Except it didn’t look authentic. The rags were quite nice. It was what you might expect to see from a well-off white guy impersonating a poor Indian beggar. He also walked barefoot. The next time I noticed him was on the last day of the retreat. For ten days, we had all been silent. On the last day, Noble Silence ended and people started chattering again. However, talking was still disallowed in the main meditation hall. At one point, while some people were talking in the hallway, I was in the meditation hall, trying to practice. This individual was also there, sitting a few rows in front of me. In between us, two people started talking. The meditation hall was already not so quiet, considering that the chatter from the hallway was easily audible. The additional noise from the two talkers inside the hall was too much for this individual to bear. He turned around and gave the two talkers an angry “SSSSHHHHH!!!”. I’ll never forget the look of rage on his face. Ten days of working on increasing compassion had evaporated in an instance. This individual, in my mind, represents the quintessential “peacock” in a community. He went to great lengths to put on appearances about his devotion to the practice, but at the end of the day, he exhibited none of the skill. Peacocks exist in every walk of life, and observing many of them has led me to this heuristic: I am instantly suspicious of people who are putting on excessive appearances. These appearances can be visual (eg. clothing) or behavioural (eg. acting overly sensitive to certain subjects) or verbal (eg. the proverbial “blowing of one’s own trumpet”). The purpose of this peacocking is to elevate one’s status in a community. Peacocks thrive in environments where the authenticity of status signals are hard to gauge. In the tech community, peacocking is difficult. You can’t fool people into thinking you’re a good engineer by putting on thicker glasses and lowering your social skills. At the end of the day, you’ll have to speak knowledgeably and write good code. Nassim Taleb has pointed out in Skin In The Game, the ultimate authentic signal is courage: a display of courage is proof of its true existence. Most signals that people send each other don’t have this high of a signal-to-substance ratio. For example, zouk and aikido communities that I’m part of are rife with peacocks. In zouk, these people gravitate toward a style of dance that (they think) does not require rigorous work on fundamentals. They might state that feeling is more important than technique. They might wear genie pants to look like time-travelling hippies who escaped their commune in the ’60s. The teachers they idolize look this way, so they copy the appearance. Those teachers, however, are often highly skilled, but where their technique might take years of hard practice to copy, their outward appearance can be copied very quickly and used as a status signal in the community. These people often don’t have a regular teacher that they train under, but they attend all the big events and sometimes take private lessons, which they use as an opportunity to &amp;ldquo;socialize&amp;rdquo; with well-known teachers and tell their friends about it. In aikido, the story is not so different. Strength and stamina are often used to signal skill in aikido where there is none. Unnecessarily long or elaborate demonstrations are used to impress untrained spectators or equally unskilled peers. The trained eye can see that every technique in these demonstrations is performed with the most egregious mistakes. Often, similar to the zouk peacocks, the aikido peacocks will attend seminars with famous teachers with no attention whatever to the lessons being taught. They love collecting a large catalogue of famous teachers who they can claim they’ve trained under. They might collect photos with these teachers, in which they’ll pose like thugs with a stern face and clenched fists to make sure they look tough. It’s important to emphasize that merely sending these signals by itself is not evidence of anything wrong. Strength and stamina are not bad things. Attending lots of seminars is not a bad thing. Looking like a hippie&amp;hellip; well, ok, that one’s unforgivable. The issue with peacocks is not just that they send these signals. It’s that they’re signalling a lie. They want you to believe they possess substance that they simply don’t. Substance is hard to gauge, but we notice others’ signals right away. But here’s the thing about people with substance: they are in no rush and they can wait for you to see theirs. They’re confident and reassured. Peacocks are neither of these things. So when I see someone sending signals a little too loudly, I think the lady doth protest too much. Heuristics are not perfect, and I try to give people a chance even when my peacock radar is going off. But I’ve often been right about peacocks, and whatever any individual’s merits may be, peacocking is at the very least a sign of disingenuity and perhaps dishonesty. In communities where they can thrive, peacocks will eventually become teachers or leaders, and they will mislead entire contingents of beginners who don’t know any better about choosing who to follow. That is the biggest harm of the peacock.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Goodbye, Old Politics</title><link href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/10/06/goodbye.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Goodbye, Old Politics" /><published>2018-10-06T16:48:32-07:00</published><updated>2018-10-06T16:48:32-07:00</updated><id>http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/10/06/goodbye</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/10/06/goodbye.html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Almost everything here is my takeaway from ideas put forth by Ben Thompson from &lt;a href=&quot;https://stratechery.com&quot;&gt;Stratechery&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://exponent.fm&quot;&gt;Exponent podcast&lt;/a&gt;, being rehashed to cement my own understanding&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The world has changed a lot since 90s. Even though I&amp;rsquo;m only 30, I&amp;rsquo;m old enough to remember a time when the world looked very different. I remember fax machines and answering machines that recorded messages on tape. I remember the first computers that grade-school-me would see as nothing more than glorified game consoles. I remember when you had be very mindful of your time on the internet because your ISP was charging you by the kilobyte.&lt;/p&gt;
 
@@ -223,7 +223,7 @@ patriotism is born.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Like every distruption brought about by the internet, this will be a double-edged sword. While this disruption of the old order has led to some chaos (and will continue to do so until we figure out how to navigate the new paradigm skillfully), there is now &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; room for innovation in politics Admittedly, this may take some time. Personally, I don&amp;rsquo;t think Trump is going to be the final iteration of this change. When Facebook and Google disrupted old school mass advertising, they may have eaten the lunch of the old media, but they also made possible entire new industries that couldn&amp;rsquo;t have existed in the world of the old media. Today you can have successful Kickstarter campaigns that turn into new businesses with the support of a few tens or hundreds of thousands of people. In the old world, an ad campaign that only converted 20,000 customers would be an utter failure, given the cost of reaching them and distributing the goods to them. In the modern world, virtual mom-and-pop business can be started over night by targetting a narrow niche of just that size.&lt;/p&gt;
 
-&lt;p&gt;The major obstacle I see to this innovation is the marriage of politics to physical geography. On the internet, niche markets can be targetted because they&amp;rsquo;re not constrained by the physical world. I&amp;rsquo;m not sure what the answer is here (perhaps Peter Thiel&amp;rsquo;s &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.businessinsider.com/floating-city-plans-seasteading-institute-peter-thiel-blue-frontiers-2017-12#at-the-same-time-rising-sea-levels-due-to-climate-change-threaten-coastal-cities-around-the-world-building-a-floating-city-could-be-one-option-for-tackling-that-14&quot;&gt;floating cities&lt;/a&gt;). The only thing I&amp;rsquo;m sure of is that there&amp;rsquo;s no going back to the old paradigm, and we can expect this new paradigm to become ever more pervasive: across more levels of government and across more governments.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><summary type="html">Almost everything here is my takeaway from ideas put forth by Ben Thompson from Stratechery and the Exponent podcast, being rehashed to cement my own understanding. The world has changed a lot since 90s. Even though I&amp;rsquo;m only 30, I&amp;rsquo;m old enough to remember a time when the world looked very different. I remember fax machines and answering machines that recorded messages on tape. I remember the first computers that grade-school-me would see as nothing more than glorified game consoles. I remember when you had be very mindful of your time on the internet because your ISP was charging you by the kilobyte. In the 90s and early 2000s, you had broadcast media with fixed schedules that you had to adapt yourself to, produced by a few big national players; you had big box stores that you&amp;rsquo;d drive to in order to purchase consumer packaged goods from brands that had been established for upwards of a century; and you had a handful of news sources that would tell you more or less the same thing, possibly with a slightly different slant. We don&amp;rsquo;t have those things anymore. If we do, they&amp;rsquo;re merely a shadow of their old selves, clinging to dear life until their last remnants die with the last generation that doesn&amp;rsquo;t know how to use the internet. Why did these things go away? The central theme is that the internet allowed a shift from a world where the winners controlled the supply, to a world where the winners control demand. The few media companies that controlled the narrative surrounding the news before the internet didn&amp;rsquo;t do so because theirs was the only narrative people wanted to read or hear. They did so because they owned printing presses and trucks and it was far too expensive for anybody else to compete with them. The consumer packaged goods that you would buy from the likes of, say, Gillette weren&amp;rsquo;t there because they were the best product on the market, they were there because the manufacturers had the best deals with the big box retailers and could effectively block anyone else from entering the market. Shelf space was limited and they controlled it. You could try to get your own competing products built with a higher quality or a lower price, but good luck to you for getting it to the market. Similarly, your cable or phone company was not entrenched thanks to consumer choice but because they owned precious limited infrastructure that nobody else could use, so consumers had no choice but to accept their poor service at outrageous prices. Interestingly, this was even true of the technology companies of the 80s and 90s. Microsoft&amp;rsquo;s dominance was built around it being difficult for consumers to be able to use the tools they wanted on any platform other than Microsoft&amp;rsquo;s. The internet changed all of this. It made distribution essentially free, so all of these industries that were predicated on monopolized distribution channels began to lose their grip. In the case of Microsoft, for example, the tools people really wanted were now one layer of abstraction above the chokepoint – you can access the information on the internet through any device regardless of whether it runs Windows or not. For the consumer packaged goods industry, online distribution meant that they were now on a level playing field with anyone who could produce the same product at them and deliver them to the consumers' homes. Shelf space was unlimited. The story of the last decade has been one of distribution monopolies being sidelined by a new world where their strengths are no longer competitive. What they&amp;rsquo;ve been replaced by are new monopolies. These are monopolies of demand, such as Facebook, Google, or Amazon. People don&amp;rsquo;t use Facebook, Google, or Amazon because they have to. In fact, you and I are more than free to build and market our own competing products/services to all three (in part courtesy of Amazon and Google services) and market them directly to the same consumers who use them. But it won&amp;rsquo;t make a difference. People won&amp;rsquo;t want to use our service, they&amp;rsquo;ll want to use theirs because they have network effects. You can build an alternative search engine (there are many), but Google&amp;rsquo;s will always work better. You can build your own social network but it won&amp;rsquo;t mean anything because people are already on Facebook (in fact, Google tried and failed). You can still go to any retailer and buy the same old products you see on Amazon, but nobody wants to do that. This much is clear enough. Where it gets really interesting is when you consider the nearly limitless scope of these changes, and the one most pertinent to the times is the impact of free distribution on politics. In the US, at least as long as parties have had votes for their presidential nominees, there has been an understanding that the selection of the nominee is somewhat democratic. In reality that was never the case. While the party base could vote to choose the nominee, they were really only picking one among a handful of candidates pre-selected by the party establishment. If you wanted to win an election, you needed the support of the establishment in securing donors and getting media coverage. The first time this changed was before the 2008 election when the preferred Democratic party nominee, Hilary Clinton, got sidelined by a newcomer that used the new media to garner a larger support among the base. Then Trump took that game to a whole new level in 2016. In a sense, this is the same pattern we&amp;rsquo;ve observed in multiple other consumer industries. The incumbent monopolies (the big political parties) held the choke point for reaching the masses. They controlled the supply (access to money, which then bought media). You could run for office on your own, but you weren&amp;rsquo;t gonna get very far. The parties' monopoly has now been subverted by the internet. Distribution is now free – anybody can reach the populace just as well as anyone else on social media – and what matters is who controls demand. Viewed in this light, the current political situation in the US is both unsurprising and an inevitability. Any expectation that we will go back to the good old days of &amp;ldquo;normal&amp;rdquo; politics are foolish. The entire paradigm has shifted and new actors (no pun intended) who can navigate the new world are going to win. Like every distruption brought about by the internet, this will be a double-edged sword. While this disruption of the old order has led to some chaos (and will continue to do so until we figure out how to navigate the new paradigm skillfully), there is now some room for innovation in politics Admittedly, this may take some time. Personally, I don&amp;rsquo;t think Trump is going to be the final iteration of this change. When Facebook and Google disrupted old school mass advertising, they may have eaten the lunch of the old media, but they also made possible entire new industries that couldn&amp;rsquo;t have existed in the world of the old media. Today you can have successful Kickstarter campaigns that turn into new businesses with the support of a few tens or hundreds of thousands of people. In the old world, an ad campaign that only converted 20,000 customers would be an utter failure, given the cost of reaching them and distributing the goods to them. In the modern world, virtual mom-and-pop business can be started over night by targetting a narrow niche of just that size. The major obstacle I see to this innovation is the marriage of politics to physical geography. On the internet, niche markets can be targetted because they&amp;rsquo;re not constrained by the physical world. I&amp;rsquo;m not sure what the answer is here (perhaps Peter Thiel&amp;rsquo;s floating cities). The only thing I&amp;rsquo;m sure of is that there&amp;rsquo;s no going back to the old paradigm, and we can expect this new paradigm to become ever more pervasive: across more levels of government and across more governments.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">The Master’s Work is Invisible</title><link href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/02/02/the-masters-work-is-invisible.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="The Master's Work is Invisible" /><published>2018-02-02T23:15:48-08:00</published><updated>2018-02-02T23:15:48-08:00</updated><id>http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/02/02/the-masters-work-is-invisible</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/02/02/the-masters-work-is-invisible.html">&lt;p&gt;“Why are you squeezing my arms!? It’s way too much force! It needs to be much more subtle.”&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;The major obstacle I see to this innovation is the marriage of politics to physical geography. On the internet, niche markets can be targetted because they&amp;rsquo;re not constrained by the physical world. I&amp;rsquo;m not sure what the answer is here (perhaps Peter Thiel&amp;rsquo;s &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.businessinsider.com/floating-city-plans-seasteading-institute-peter-thiel-blue-frontiers-2017-12#at-the-same-time-rising-sea-levels-due-to-climate-change-threaten-coastal-cities-around-the-world-building-a-floating-city-could-be-one-option-for-tackling-that-14&quot;&gt;floating cities&lt;/a&gt;). The only thing I&amp;rsquo;m sure of is that there&amp;rsquo;s no going back to the old paradigm, and we can expect this new paradigm to become ever more pervasive: across more levels of government and across more governments.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><summary type="html">Almost everything here is my takeaway from ideas put forth by Ben Thompson from Stratechery and the Exponent podcast, being rehashed to cement my own understanding. The world has changed a lot since 90s. Even though I&amp;rsquo;m only 30, I&amp;rsquo;m old enough to remember a time when the world looked very different. I remember fax machines and answering machines that recorded messages on tape. I remember the first computers that grade-school-me would see as nothing more than glorified game consoles. I remember when you had be very mindful of your time on the internet because your ISP was charging you by the kilobyte. In the 90s and early 2000s, you had broadcast media with fixed schedules that you had to adapt yourself to, produced by a few big national players; you had big box stores that you&amp;rsquo;d drive to in order to purchase consumer packaged goods from brands that had been established for upwards of a century; and you had a handful of news sources that would tell you more or less the same thing, possibly with a slightly different slant. We don&amp;rsquo;t have those things anymore. If we do, they&amp;rsquo;re merely a shadow of their old selves, clinging to dear life until their last remnants die with the last generation that doesn&amp;rsquo;t know how to use the internet. Why did these things go away? The central theme is that the internet allowed a shift from a world where the winners controlled the supply, to a world where the winners control demand. The few media companies that controlled the narrative surrounding the news before the internet didn&amp;rsquo;t do so because theirs was the only narrative people wanted to read or hear. They did so because they owned printing presses and trucks and it was far too expensive for anybody else to compete with them. The consumer packaged goods that you would buy from the likes of, say, Gillette weren&amp;rsquo;t there because they were the best product on the market, they were there because the manufacturers had the best deals with the big box retailers and could effectively block anyone else from entering the market. Shelf space was limited and they controlled it. You could try to get your own competing products built with a higher quality or a lower price, but good luck to you for getting it to the market. Similarly, your cable or phone company was not entrenched thanks to consumer choice but because they owned precious limited infrastructure that nobody else could use, so consumers had no choice but to accept their poor service at outrageous prices. Interestingly, this was even true of the technology companies of the 80s and 90s. Microsoft&amp;rsquo;s dominance was built around it being difficult for consumers to be able to use the tools they wanted on any platform other than Microsoft&amp;rsquo;s. The internet changed all of this. It made distribution essentially free, so all of these industries that were predicated on monopolized distribution channels began to lose their grip. In the case of Microsoft, for example, the tools people really wanted were now one layer of abstraction above the chokepoint – you can access the information on the internet through any device regardless of whether it runs Windows or not. For the consumer packaged goods industry, online distribution meant that they were now on a level playing field with anyone who could produce the same product at them and deliver them to the consumers' homes. Shelf space was unlimited. The story of the last decade has been one of distribution monopolies being sidelined by a new world where their strengths are no longer competitive. What they&amp;rsquo;ve been replaced by are new monopolies. These are monopolies of demand, such as Facebook, Google, or Amazon. People don&amp;rsquo;t use Facebook, Google, or Amazon because they have to. In fact, you and I are more than free to build and market our own competing products/services to all three (in part courtesy of Amazon and Google services) and market them directly to the same consumers who use them. But it won&amp;rsquo;t make a difference. People won&amp;rsquo;t want to use our service, they&amp;rsquo;ll want to use theirs because they have network effects. You can build an alternative search engine (there are many), but Google&amp;rsquo;s will always work better. You can build your own social network but it won&amp;rsquo;t mean anything because people are already on Facebook (in fact, Google tried and failed). You can still go to any retailer and buy the same old products you see on Amazon, but nobody wants to do that. This much is clear enough. Where it gets really interesting is when you consider the nearly limitless scope of these changes, and the one most pertinent to the times is the impact of free distribution on politics. In the US, at least as long as parties have had votes for their presidential nominees, there has been an understanding that the selection of the nominee is somewhat democratic. In reality that was never the case. While the party base could vote to choose the nominee, they were really only picking one among a handful of candidates pre-selected by the party establishment. If you wanted to win an election, you needed the support of the establishment in securing donors and getting media coverage. The first time this changed was before the 2008 election when the preferred Democratic party nominee, Hilary Clinton, got sidelined by a newcomer that used the new media to garner a larger support among the base. Then Trump took that game to a whole new level in 2016. In a sense, this is the same pattern we&amp;rsquo;ve observed in multiple other consumer industries. The incumbent monopolies (the big political parties) held the choke point for reaching the masses. They controlled the supply (access to money, which then bought media). You could run for office on your own, but you weren&amp;rsquo;t gonna get very far. The parties' monopoly has now been subverted by the internet. Distribution is now free – anybody can reach the populace just as well as anyone else on social media – and what matters is who controls demand. Viewed in this light, the current political situation in the US is both unsurprising and an inevitability. Any expectation that we will go back to the good old days of &amp;ldquo;normal&amp;rdquo; politics are foolish. The entire paradigm has shifted and new actors (no pun intended) who can navigate the new world are going to win. Like every distruption brought about by the internet, this will be a double-edged sword. While this disruption of the old order has led to some chaos (and will continue to do so until we figure out how to navigate the new paradigm skillfully), there is now some room for innovation in politics Admittedly, this may take some time. Personally, I don&amp;rsquo;t think Trump is going to be the final iteration of this change. When Facebook and Google disrupted old school mass advertising, they may have eaten the lunch of the old media, but they also made possible entire new industries that couldn&amp;rsquo;t have existed in the world of the old media. Today you can have successful Kickstarter campaigns that turn into new businesses with the support of a few tens or hundreds of thousands of people. In the old world, an ad campaign that only converted 20,000 customers would be an utter failure, given the cost of reaching them and distributing the goods to them. In the modern world, virtual mom-and-pop business can be started over night by targetting a narrow niche of just that size. The major obstacle I see to this innovation is the marriage of politics to physical geography. On the internet, niche markets can be targetted because they&amp;rsquo;re not constrained by the physical world. I&amp;rsquo;m not sure what the answer is here (perhaps Peter Thiel&amp;rsquo;s floating cities). The only thing I&amp;rsquo;m sure of is that there&amp;rsquo;s no going back to the old paradigm, and we can expect this new paradigm to become ever more pervasive: across more levels of government and across more governments.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">The Master’s Work is Invisible</title><link href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/02/02/the-masters-work-is-invisible.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="The Master's Work is Invisible" /><published>2018-02-02T23:15:48-08:00</published><updated>2018-02-02T23:15:48-08:00</updated><id>http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/02/02/the-masters-work-is-invisible</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/02/02/the-masters-work-is-invisible.html">&lt;p&gt;“Why are you squeezing my arms!? It’s way too much force! It needs to be much more subtle.”&lt;/p&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;I had been taking dance lessons for several months and I was now getting into the difficult stuff. In this lesson, I had to learn to guide my partner’s head while softly holding the hands. It was not easy. As a beginner, I had watched experienced dancers do this many times before and it made perfect sense - like a mechanical inevitability. Reproducing it was a different story. I was doing my best to copy the shape I had observed the teacher make, but the technique required a much more intricate movement than what I could observe. Before I could do this movement, I had to &lt;em&gt;feel&lt;/em&gt; how it worked rather than observe.&lt;/p&gt;
 
@@ -246,7 +246,7 @@ patriotism is born.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;I got thinking about this after the last product announcements from Apple. As they always do after an event like this, the detractors came out in droves to explain how Apple had built things that were available in Samsung products earlier. What these detractors miss is that the individual features that they’re focusing on are akin to ingredients in a recipe. We don’t set our expectations for a recipe solely on the basis of the ingredients used in them, but on the basis of who the chef is and their track record. A master chef can use an ingredient tastefully and to great effect. A mediocre one can use the same recipes indiscriminately and with poor results.&lt;/p&gt;
 
-&lt;p&gt;From martial arts, to technology products, to dance, I’ve observed these two errors in nearly every field I’ve been involved with, it pays to be conscious of them and to detect them in ourselves and others. Misattribute success to one invalid trait and you set your training back by years. Listen to a critic who bases their judgement on bad heuristics and their commentary can cost you more than it helps.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><summary type="html">“Why are you squeezing my arms!? It’s way too much force! It needs to be much more subtle.” I had been taking dance lessons for several months and I was now getting into the difficult stuff. In this lesson, I had to learn to guide my partner’s head while softly holding the hands. It was not easy. As a beginner, I had watched experienced dancers do this many times before and it made perfect sense - like a mechanical inevitability. Reproducing it was a different story. I was doing my best to copy the shape I had observed the teacher make, but the technique required a much more intricate movement than what I could observe. Before I could do this movement, I had to feel how it worked rather than observe. This is a theme that comes up often when one is learning something new. To the non-practitioner, things either look too mysterious, magical, and overwhelming, or they look much simpler than they actually are. Rarely can the non-practitioner dissect the elements that make the end result great. In this situation, there are two erroneous reaction that outside observers or novice practitioners have when they observe a master: They&amp;rsquo;re overwhelmed by the master&amp;rsquo;s achievement and they can&amp;rsquo;t fathom the steps that would take them to the same level of mastery. This kind of thinking leads them to undue admiration of the master or simply giving up the pursuit in desperation. They attribute the overall success to one small component that they can understand. This, in turn, leads them to either belittle the overall accomplishment by claiming that the one understandable component is not that special, or, if they are novice practitioners trying to reproduce the master’s result, they might focus on doing more of the thing they can understand. With time and attention, however, the practitioner’s field of vision expands to detect more of the nuance and the intricacies. Their attention during practice can then shift to the new areas that they’ve become aware of. This is how they can approach mastery. Imagine that a master chef begins using a rare ingredient in a new recipe. He does this because he understands how this ingredient interacts with all the others and the impact it might have, considering its place in the meal among the other courses. A less skilled chef who’s aspiring to be great may see this, and he may decide he wants to use the exact same ingredient. But since his understanding of the ingredient and its place in the big picture is not as comprehensive as the master’s, he might use this ingredient in a way that is jarring to his patron or not as well considered. Conversely, a second type of error can occur in outside observers. Let’s say the less skilled chef is the first to pioneer this rare ingredient. While he might score some points for boldness, his output is still commensurate to his skill level. If the master chef then adopts this new ingredient in his own recipe, an untrained outside observer may fault him for being a copycat. The urge to do this among people who are not experts is particularly strong due to tall poppy syndrome. I got thinking about this after the last product announcements from Apple. As they always do after an event like this, the detractors came out in droves to explain how Apple had built things that were available in Samsung products earlier. What these detractors miss is that the individual features that they’re focusing on are akin to ingredients in a recipe. We don’t set our expectations for a recipe solely on the basis of the ingredients used in them, but on the basis of who the chef is and their track record. A master chef can use an ingredient tastefully and to great effect. A mediocre one can use the same recipes indiscriminately and with poor results. From martial arts, to technology products, to dance, I’ve observed these two errors in nearly every field I’ve been involved with, it pays to be conscious of them and to detect them in ourselves and others. Misattribute success to one invalid trait and you set your training back by years. Listen to a critic who bases their judgement on bad heuristics and their commentary can cost you more than it helps.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Extreme Self-Responsibility</title><link href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/01/20/extreme-self-responsibility.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Extreme Self-Responsibility" /><published>2018-01-20T07:40:55-08:00</published><updated>2018-01-20T07:40:55-08:00</updated><id>http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/01/20/extreme-self-responsibility</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/01/20/extreme-self-responsibility.html">&lt;p&gt;One of the most impactful books I read in my early 20s was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/79352.Six_Pillars_of_Self_Esteem&quot;&gt;The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem&lt;/a&gt; by clinical psychologist, Nathaniel Branden. It was a prescription for living a good life, long before I had learned about stoicism or meditation.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;From martial arts, to technology products, to dance, I’ve observed these two errors in nearly every field I’ve been involved with, it pays to be conscious of them and to detect them in ourselves and others. Misattribute success to one invalid trait and you set your training back by years. Listen to a critic who bases their judgement on bad heuristics and their commentary can cost you more than it helps.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><summary type="html">“Why are you squeezing my arms!? It’s way too much force! It needs to be much more subtle.” I had been taking dance lessons for several months and I was now getting into the difficult stuff. In this lesson, I had to learn to guide my partner’s head while softly holding the hands. It was not easy. As a beginner, I had watched experienced dancers do this many times before and it made perfect sense - like a mechanical inevitability. Reproducing it was a different story. I was doing my best to copy the shape I had observed the teacher make, but the technique required a much more intricate movement than what I could observe. Before I could do this movement, I had to feel how it worked rather than observe. This is a theme that comes up often when one is learning something new. To the non-practitioner, things either look too mysterious, magical, and overwhelming, or they look much simpler than they actually are. Rarely can the non-practitioner dissect the elements that make the end result great. In this situation, there are two erroneous reaction that outside observers or novice practitioners have when they observe a master: They&amp;rsquo;re overwhelmed by the master&amp;rsquo;s achievement and they can&amp;rsquo;t fathom the steps that would take them to the same level of mastery. This kind of thinking leads them to undue admiration of the master or simply giving up the pursuit in desperation. They attribute the overall success to one small component that they can understand. This, in turn, leads them to either belittle the overall accomplishment by claiming that the one understandable component is not that special, or, if they are novice practitioners trying to reproduce the master’s result, they might focus on doing more of the thing they can understand. With time and attention, however, the practitioner’s field of vision expands to detect more of the nuance and the intricacies. Their attention during practice can then shift to the new areas that they’ve become aware of. This is how they can approach mastery. Imagine that a master chef begins using a rare ingredient in a new recipe. He does this because he understands how this ingredient interacts with all the others and the impact it might have, considering its place in the meal among the other courses. A less skilled chef who’s aspiring to be great may see this, and he may decide he wants to use the exact same ingredient. But since his understanding of the ingredient and its place in the big picture is not as comprehensive as the master’s, he might use this ingredient in a way that is jarring to his patron or not as well considered. Conversely, a second type of error can occur in outside observers. Let’s say the less skilled chef is the first to pioneer this rare ingredient. While he might score some points for boldness, his output is still commensurate to his skill level. If the master chef then adopts this new ingredient in his own recipe, an untrained outside observer may fault him for being a copycat. The urge to do this among people who are not experts is particularly strong due to tall poppy syndrome. I got thinking about this after the last product announcements from Apple. As they always do after an event like this, the detractors came out in droves to explain how Apple had built things that were available in Samsung products earlier. What these detractors miss is that the individual features that they’re focusing on are akin to ingredients in a recipe. We don’t set our expectations for a recipe solely on the basis of the ingredients used in them, but on the basis of who the chef is and their track record. A master chef can use an ingredient tastefully and to great effect. A mediocre one can use the same recipes indiscriminately and with poor results. From martial arts, to technology products, to dance, I’ve observed these two errors in nearly every field I’ve been involved with, it pays to be conscious of them and to detect them in ourselves and others. Misattribute success to one invalid trait and you set your training back by years. Listen to a critic who bases their judgement on bad heuristics and their commentary can cost you more than it helps.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Extreme Self-Responsibility</title><link href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/01/20/extreme-self-responsibility.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Extreme Self-Responsibility" /><published>2018-01-20T07:40:55-08:00</published><updated>2018-01-20T07:40:55-08:00</updated><id>http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/01/20/extreme-self-responsibility</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/01/20/extreme-self-responsibility.html">&lt;p&gt;One of the most impactful books I read in my early 20s was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/79352.Six_Pillars_of_Self_Esteem&quot;&gt;The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem&lt;/a&gt; by clinical psychologist, Nathaniel Branden. It was a prescription for living a good life, long before I had learned about stoicism or meditation.&lt;/p&gt;
 
 &lt;!-- More --&gt;
 
@@ -301,7 +301,7 @@ patriotism is born.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;This aversion to anything that may be remotely unpleasant  eliminates any sense of self-responsibility, and it raises impotent adults who are taught they’re unequipped to face the world as it is. In this way, victimhood culture worsens the lives of the very people it feigns compassion for.&lt;/p&gt;
 
-&lt;p&gt;But, let us put our own house in order first. Extreme self-responsibility is something I had lost focus on for a long time, and I wanted to write about it as a refresher. I’m trying to put a renewed focus on this going forward.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><summary type="html">One of the most impactful books I read in my early 20s was The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by clinical psychologist, Nathaniel Branden. It was a prescription for living a good life, long before I had learned about stoicism or meditation. In Branden’s view self-esteem is our competence in life. It is the confidence that we can take on the challenges of life and be successful and that we are deserving of that success. Additionally, self-esteem doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s something that can be cultivated through deliberate practice, and it leads to a virtuous cycle: deliberate practice makes one more competent, the result of the competence increases one’s self-esteem, which makes the practice easier. One of the core components of self-esteem is the practice of self-responsibility. Self-responsibility is the sense of control over one’s own life and actions. According to Branden, self-responsibility entails the following realizations: I am responsible for the achievement of my desires. I am responsible for my choices and actions. I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my work. I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my relationships. I am responsible for my behavior with other people – coworkers, associates, customers, spouse, children, friends. I am responsible for how I prioritize my time. I am responsible for the quality of my communications. I am responsible for my personal happiness. I am responsible for accepting or choosing the values by which I live. I am responsible for raising my self-esteem. This was the part of the book that stuck with me the most. It is an incredibly empowering concept. What if we take this practice to an extreme? When things don’t go our way, it is far too easy for our minds to construct elaborate excuses and find a scapegoat. This is when we begin to resent others, or hate the world/god for what it has done to us. We can avoid this trap if we simply take responsibility for… everything. Did I have a fight with a friend? I am responsible for that. Are things going poorly at work? I am responsible for that. Have I not achieved my goals? I am responsible for that. “But that’s impossible.” It’s more possible than you’d think. In talking to friends and family about this subject, I’ve found the main objection to the idea of extreme self-responsibility to be naive ideas around “fairness”. Some adverse event occurs and we immediately lament that it was not fair that it happened to us. Instead, what we can do is to a) try to pinpoint how our own actions led to that outcome, and b) see what we can do to alleviate the situation given that it has already occurred. This shifts the narrative from a sense of victimhood (“things are happening to me”) to a sense of empowerment (“I make things happen”). Being responsible for things and those things being fair are totally unrelated. “But I thought you went to a meditation retreat and are all about acceptance.” It seems living well is accepting what is outside of our control, and making an honest effort in improving that which is under our control. Extreme self-responsibility simply expands the domain of control. It is a mental hack to counteract our mind’s brilliance in taking the lazy way out. Self-responsibility does not mean that unfortunate events are your fault. It means that regardless of whose fault it is, it is within your power to influence things that are important to you/your life. For example, it may have been unfair that you had a mean math teacher in grade 10, who discouraged you from learning math for the rest of your life. But if you now deem math to be something helpful, you are responsible for overcoming that. Or it may be true that you had an unfortunate childhood that left you with many emotional baggages that make life harder now. But regardless, you are responsible for moving toward your goals and either overcome or work around those limitations. In psychology there is a concept called “locus of control”. It measures how much people feel they have control over their own lives. People with an external locus of control are those who believe things happen to them. People with an internal locus of control are those who believe they can make things happen. Having an internal locus of control is associated with greater motivation and drive and higher resiliency in the face of adversity. (This why an internal locus of control is highly correlated with entrepreneurship). Having an external locus of control is associated with higher anxiety and greater susceptibility to depression. Extreme self-responsibility is a practice for shifting one’s locus of control inward. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that this philosophy runs in total opposition to the currently prevalent culture of victimhood. Instead of raising responsible, high self-esteem kids that trust their own competence in life, so many schools and universities are running in the direction of protecting everyone against the most minute slight. This aversion to anything that may be remotely unpleasant eliminates any sense of self-responsibility, and it raises impotent adults who are taught they’re unequipped to face the world as it is. In this way, victimhood culture worsens the lives of the very people it feigns compassion for. But, let us put our own house in order first. Extreme self-responsibility is something I had lost focus on for a long time, and I wanted to write about it as a refresher. I’m trying to put a renewed focus on this going forward.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Meditation Retreat Recap</title><link href="http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/01/06/meditation-retreat-recap.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Meditation Retreat Recap" /><published>2018-01-06T14:17:15-08:00</published><updated>2018-01-06T14:17:15-08:00</updated><id>http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/01/06/meditation-retreat-recap</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://localhost:4000/essays/2018/01/06/meditation-retreat-recap.html">&lt;p&gt;A month ago, I took an early morning Greyhound bus from Vancouver to Merritt to attend a 10-day meditation programme. I think when I look back, I will see this as one of the most profound experiences of my life. It was hard and gruelling, and I was apprehensive leading up to it, but I’m so glad that I went for it. Here, I will try to provide an overview/summary of the experience.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;But, let us put our own house in order first. Extreme self-responsibility is something I had lost focus on for a long time, and I wanted to write about it as a refresher. I’m trying to put a renewed focus on this going forward.&lt;/p&gt;</content><author><name></name></author><summary type="html">One of the most impactful books I read in my early 20s was The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by clinical psychologist, Nathaniel Branden. It was a prescription for living a good life, long before I had learned about stoicism or meditation. In Branden’s view self-esteem is our competence in life. It is the confidence that we can take on the challenges of life and be successful and that we are deserving of that success. Additionally, self-esteem doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s something that can be cultivated through deliberate practice, and it leads to a virtuous cycle: deliberate practice makes one more competent, the result of the competence increases one’s self-esteem, which makes the practice easier. One of the core components of self-esteem is the practice of self-responsibility. Self-responsibility is the sense of control over one’s own life and actions. According to Branden, self-responsibility entails the following realizations: I am responsible for the achievement of my desires. I am responsible for my choices and actions. I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my work. I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my relationships. I am responsible for my behavior with other people – coworkers, associates, customers, spouse, children, friends. I am responsible for how I prioritize my time. I am responsible for the quality of my communications. I am responsible for my personal happiness. I am responsible for accepting or choosing the values by which I live. I am responsible for raising my self-esteem. This was the part of the book that stuck with me the most. It is an incredibly empowering concept. What if we take this practice to an extreme? When things don’t go our way, it is far too easy for our minds to construct elaborate excuses and find a scapegoat. This is when we begin to resent others, or hate the world/god for what it has done to us. We can avoid this trap if we simply take responsibility for… everything. Did I have a fight with a friend? I am responsible for that. Are things going poorly at work? I am responsible for that. Have I not achieved my goals? I am responsible for that. “But that’s impossible.” It’s more possible than you’d think. In talking to friends and family about this subject, I’ve found the main objection to the idea of extreme self-responsibility to be naive ideas around “fairness”. Some adverse event occurs and we immediately lament that it was not fair that it happened to us. Instead, what we can do is to a) try to pinpoint how our own actions led to that outcome, and b) see what we can do to alleviate the situation given that it has already occurred. This shifts the narrative from a sense of victimhood (“things are happening to me”) to a sense of empowerment (“I make things happen”). Being responsible for things and those things being fair are totally unrelated. “But I thought you went to a meditation retreat and are all about acceptance.” It seems living well is accepting what is outside of our control, and making an honest effort in improving that which is under our control. Extreme self-responsibility simply expands the domain of control. It is a mental hack to counteract our mind’s brilliance in taking the lazy way out. Self-responsibility does not mean that unfortunate events are your fault. It means that regardless of whose fault it is, it is within your power to influence things that are important to you/your life. For example, it may have been unfair that you had a mean math teacher in grade 10, who discouraged you from learning math for the rest of your life. But if you now deem math to be something helpful, you are responsible for overcoming that. Or it may be true that you had an unfortunate childhood that left you with many emotional baggages that make life harder now. But regardless, you are responsible for moving toward your goals and either overcome or work around those limitations. In psychology there is a concept called “locus of control”. It measures how much people feel they have control over their own lives. People with an external locus of control are those who believe things happen to them. People with an internal locus of control are those who believe they can make things happen. Having an internal locus of control is associated with greater motivation and drive and higher resiliency in the face of adversity. (This why an internal locus of control is highly correlated with entrepreneurship). Having an external locus of control is associated with higher anxiety and greater susceptibility to depression. Extreme self-responsibility is a practice for shifting one’s locus of control inward. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that this philosophy runs in total opposition to the currently prevalent culture of victimhood. Instead of raising responsible, high self-esteem kids that trust their own competence in life, so many schools and universities are running in the direction of protecting everyone against the most minute slight. This aversion to anything that may be remotely unpleasant eliminates any sense of self-responsibility, and it raises impotent adults who are taught they’re unequipped to face the world as it is. In this way, victimhood culture worsens the lives of the very people it feigns compassion for. But, let us put our own house in order first. Extreme self-responsibility is something I had lost focus on for a long time, and I wanted to write about it as a refresher. I’m trying to put a renewed focus on this going forward.</summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Meditation Retreat Recap</title><link href="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/01/06/meditation-retreat-recap.html" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Meditation Retreat Recap" /><published>2018-01-06T14:17:15-08:00</published><updated>2018-01-06T14:17:15-08:00</updated><id>http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/01/06/meditation-retreat-recap</id><content type="html" xml:base="http://hirad.github.io/essays/2018/01/06/meditation-retreat-recap.html">&lt;p&gt;A month ago, I took an early morning Greyhound bus from Vancouver to Merritt to attend a 10-day meditation programme. I think when I look back, I will see this as one of the most profound experiences of my life. It was hard and gruelling, and I was apprehensive leading up to it, but I’m so glad that I went for it. Here, I will try to provide an overview/summary of the experience.&lt;/p&gt;
 
 &lt;!-- More --&gt; 
 
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index ac04a40..5c4a105 100644
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 <meta name="description" content="Over the summer, I&rsquo;ve been really busy trying to ship products for my startup. At the same time, I&rsquo;ve been teaching (part-time) a two-month-long iOS bootcamp at Lighthouse Labs, which involves preparing lecture material, homework exercises, etc. It&rsquo;s been a busy summer, and I haven&rsquo;t had a chance to play with Swift as much as I wanted to. So last week, a few of the Lighthouse Labs instructors and TAs got together for some dedicated Swift time. These are my notes about what I learned, while trying to implement Skip Wilson&rsquo;s challenge for TopCoder - a playground program to convert any number from -1 million to 1 million from a numerical representation to its english representation." />
 <meta property="og:description" content="Over the summer, I&rsquo;ve been really busy trying to ship products for my startup. At the same time, I&rsquo;ve been teaching (part-time) a two-month-long iOS bootcamp at Lighthouse Labs, which involves preparing lecture material, homework exercises, etc. It&rsquo;s been a busy summer, and I haven&rsquo;t had a chance to play with Swift as much as I wanted to. So last week, a few of the Lighthouse Labs instructors and TAs got together for some dedicated Swift time. These are my notes about what I learned, while trying to implement Skip Wilson&rsquo;s challenge for TopCoder - a playground program to convert any number from -1 million to 1 million from a numerical representation to its english representation." />
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