PN Deep Dive: 📝Thomas Sowell, Mark Sisson on Longevity, $$$ Tips for Couples, Ibogaine, Alex Karp - Palantir, Huberlearning, Lex Snagged Zelenskyy, Crime and Punishment (Free)
Podcast Notes Playlist: Signal From The Noise: By Podcast Notes
Navigating Inequality and Well-Being
This chapter critiques social policies and affirmative action's unintended consequences on academic success, highlighting the struggles of underprepared students. It also explores effective fitness strategies and managing finances in relationships to promote overall well-being and harmony.
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Thomas Sowell on the Myths of Economic Inequality | Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson (2018)
Results, Not Intentions: Poor people, including African Americans in the United States, were living increasingly better lives throughout the 20th century until the government decided to help (through the welfare state)
* “Despite the grand myth that black economic progress began or accelerated with the passage of the Civil Rights laws and the ‘War on Poverty’ programs of the 1960s, the fact is that the poverty rate among blacks fell from 87% in 1940 to 47% in 1960, but over the next 20 years the poverty rate among blacks fell another 18% points. This was just the continuation of a previous economic trend but at a slower rate of progress. It was not some grand deliverance.” – Thomas Sowell
Affirmative Action Hurts: “There’s a lot of evidence that there are black kids who have all the qualifications to be successors in college, who nevertheless ...” – Thomas Sowell
* Thomas states that black students in the 75th percentile — who would have been successful at a majority of universities — were getting into ...
Smart Idiots Are in Charge: “There are so many people, among the intelligentsia especially, who are...”– Thomas Sowell
* Human beings have an enormous capacity to rationalize, we become ...
Longevity Protocols, Fat Loss Secrets, & Anti-Aging Tips | Mark Sisson on The Genius Life with Max Lugavere
The Original Primal Blueprint:
* Move around a lot and do ...
* Lift heavy things at ...
* Sprint max-effort ...
The United States of Pharma: The average baby boomer takes XX prescription drugs everyday just to get by
* About 6.1% take YY+ prescription drugs per day
* Can any doctor know how all of these drugs interact with each other?
The 3 Defining Characteristics of Longevity: Mobility, ...
Stop Run Maxxing: “Running” is not the panacea for health as it has been advertised; in fact, marathon training is ...
* Running is not the best way to ...
* Today, about 50% of runners get injured at ...
The Fat Runner's Trap: If you go for a run as an overweight person, but have not reset your ...
The skinny-fat runner physique: Runners who never learned how to ...
The major benefits of walking:
* Walking, either barefoot or in minimalist shoes, passively trains our ability to support and orchestrate our unique kinetic chain
* Walking helps to ...
* The majority of cardio exercise should be in Zone 2: the max heart rate in which you burn the most amount of fat without needing to tap glycogen stores for fuel
How to roughly calculate your Zone 2 heart rate: Subtract your age from 180
How to know if you are training in Zone 2: You can have a conversation with someone while you are doing the activity, but it is a little uncomfortable
The Power of Consistency: Mediocre workouts performed consistently are better than “perfect” workouts performed inconsistency
A pre-workout mix: Collagen, LMNT electrolytes, and creatine
* Ingest collagen before a workout so that ...
Book recommendation: Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan
56 Minutes of Money Wisdom for High-Earning Couples | My First Million
4 key numbers you need to know in your financial infrastructure:
* Fixed costs (rent, mortgage, groceries, debt, auto): XX% of take-home pay
* Investments: XX% (that’s where real wealth is created so the higher the better)
* Savings (emergency fund, saving for a down payment, or even for a kid’s activity or vacation): XX%
* Guilt-free spending (eating out, travel): XX%
4 money types: avoiders, optimizers, worriers, dreamers
* Avoiders (most common): ...
* Optimizers: ...
* Worriers: ...
* Dreamers: ...
The Business of Marriage: “When you are married, you are running a business—it is the business of ...
Half of Couples NEVER Talk Money: “XXX% of couples who talk to me do not know their household income.” – Ramit
How to address disagreements:
* Define your rich life as a couple: Ask, “What do we ...
* Avoid “$3 conversations”: If your household income is ...
Set up a proper account system:
* Use a joint account for ...
* Have some money flow into ...
* Each partner can spend their allocated money guilt-free on whatever they want, whether it’s $5 iced tea or a $20 tip
* Step 1: Look through photos from the year. What were your most memorable moments?
* Step 2: Ask questions like, ...
* Step 3: Review what you loved ...
* Step 4: Review the numbers: ...
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Rick Perry & W. Bryan Hubbard: The Most Sophisticated Medication on the Planet | Joe Rogan Experience (#2251)
The Magic of Ibogaine: Ibogaine can fully resolve physiological opioid dependence with a single administration for 80% of people the first time, and 97% with a second dose!
How ibogaine works: “Ibogaine has this incredible ability to reset the brain’s dopamine and serotonin production back to normal levels in 36 to 48 hours” – W. Bryan Hubbard
* Abstinence-only has a 7% success rate
Are there any risks? There’s a serious cardiac risk with ibogaine
* It can prolong the QT interval, which means the beats between your heart slow down too much, and it can stop your heart
* If it’s not administered properly, someone could die
* WARNING: Don’t try to order ibogaine online or find a random clinic
Safer Ibogaine Analog in Development: Gilgamesh Pharma was awarded a $14M grant from the NIH-NIDA to develop a novel analog that removes this heart risk
ibogaine’s three key benefits:
* Resolves physiological substance dependence quickly
* Restores psychological ownership and control over life
* Provides a profound spiritual affirmation of purpose
Ibogaine Has Been Illegal for Decades: “Any system which maintains ibogaine’s criminality is in fact criminal and needs to be torn apart brick by brick.” – W. Bryan Hubbard
Need Help, Look Here- Reputable clinics like Ambio and Beond follow strict safety protocols, including using magnesium to prevent heart issues
Stamford Study in Special Forces PTSD: “The results of that study are nothing short of miraculous when it comes to how ibogaine has been revealed to have significant neuro-regenerative properties that impact the human brain with profound implications for conditions for which there are no current effective treatments.” – W.Bryan Hubbard
* The average reversal of brain age among these 30 veterans was 1.5 years with some of them seeing a reversal of almost 5 years!
The Truth Behind Lots of Chronic Pain: “These ladies had worked lifetimes looking at a dead jobs end and at the time that they had their work accident, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back for any hope they had of a future defined by dignity and autonomy and their hope had been broken and that broken hope came through as profound physical pain that was rooted within their spirit.” - Brian Hubbard
Truth and Justice: He thought the law was about truth and justice, but law school opened his eyes: “Law is often times nothing other than the tyrants will and always so when it is used to produce predetermined manipulated outcomes in the hands of judges who drive results based on their own individual biases, predilections, and preferences.” – W. Bryan Hubbard
Skyrocketing Disability Numbers in Kentucky: The population grew by 20%, but disability enrollment rose by 249%
* Childhood disability enrollment exploded by over 4,000%
* Prescription opioid use among adults in the program increased by 210%
* Psychotropic drug use among children rose by 68%
How to Use Exercise to Improve Your Brain’s Health, Longevity & Performance | Huberman Lab
4 things everyone should include in their weekly exercise routine:
* (1) Long slow distance (LSD) / zone 2 cardio
* (2) High-intensity interval training (HIIT)
* (3) Time under tension (TUT) resistance training
* (4) Explosive and eccentric control training
* BONUS: (5) Do something you don’t want to do (both psychologically and physically challenging but safe) to activate the anterior mid-cingulate cortex (AMCC)
2 Types of Cardio:
* Short-duration, high-intensity efforts: e.g., 30 seconds to 4 minutes of all-out effort, followed by rest
* Longer-duration, lower-intensity efforts: e.g., 20-60 minutes at a steady pace, maintaining elevated heart rates
2 Types of Resistance Training:
* Compound, multi-joint exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, shoulder presses, and dips
* Single-joint isolation exercises like single-leg leg extensions
Increases in autonomic arousal, whether during or after learning, enhance:
* How much you learn
* Your memory of the details
* The persistence of that learning over time
Value of HIIT: HIIT done just before cognitive flexibility tasks significantly improves performance on those tasks, probably because of enhanced arousal and increased cerebral blood flow
You're Not Tired Because You Exercises, You're Tired Because You Didn't Exercise: Next time you feel tired and want to skip a workout, remember: Exercise actually gives you energy through these pathways, boosting focus and mental clarity
Adrenal burnout is a myth: People often talk about burning out your adrenals from coffee or excessive exercise. This isn’t true
Adrenal insufficiency syndrome is real, but it’s not related to exercise or coffee. This is a medical condition that’s different from the normal stress-response system of your body
3 categories of brain areas communicate with the adrenals to release adrenaline:
* Cognitive areas: Involved in thinking and decision-making
* Affective areas: Linked to emotions and how you perceive and react to the environment
* Motor areas: Control your body movement. These areas in the cerebral cortex send signals to the spinal cord, which then triggers the release of acetylcholine to activate the adrenal medulla
The Technological Republic – Palantir CEO Alex Karp & Stanley Druckenmiller In Conversation
Talented people want to be around other talented people: If you are starting a team that already consists of immensely talented people, then other A-players will want to join; this dynamic positively compounds with time and becomes reflexive
The type of person you want to hire: A truth-seeking, justice-seeking, fairness fanatic, who is justifiably snobby about their intellect (but not because of where they went to school) and who pushes responsibility into their area of expertise and takes over – and who, at the margin, may be unusual and difficult
The moral and ethical conundrums of modern warfare: The West is at technological parity with its adversaries, but not morally; our adversaries are far more willing to send their young men and women to die on the battlefield than we are
On AI Accelerationism – The US military does not have a choice regarding AI accelerationism; its adversaries will not slow down AI progress, and therefore, the game theory is such that the US cannot slow down either
Law School Sucks: “I thought of it as moral sophistry in the service of prestige.”
Go Woke, Go Broke: “The Valley has realized that you just cannot placate the anti-intellectual left. It will destroy your business.” – Alex Karp
* Basic things that most sane believe in are fairness, meritocracy, inputs being even across society, and that the outputs will not be evenly distributed
* “Our society is crying for things that work. The instruments of measurement have been corroded everywhere.” – Alex Karp
The Left Broke Everything: People are sick of their border not being a border, their United Nations not being united, their schools not functioning as schools, and their government only taking inflows but not creating productive outflows
An Essentialism Future: Every institution must clearly define its purpose, be transparent in what it spends to reach its objectives, and measure its output – which should be greater than its input
Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Ukraine, War, Peace, Putin, Trump, NATO, and Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast (#456)
Peace Through Strength: " “I think that we share a position on peace through strength. That is very important. It means that if you are strong, you can speak.” - Zelenskyy
Trump can stop this war: “I now see that when I talk about something with Donald Trump, whether we meet in person or we just have a call, all the European leaders always ask, “How was it?” This shows the influence of Donald Trump, and this has never happened before with an American president.” – Zelenskyy
No US, No NATO: If the U.S. left NATO, it would essentially fall apart. The U.S. is critical to NATO’s strength and global security. The role America played in World War II shows how much its support matters in conflicts like this
Forgiveness? “Russia will have to apologize. This will happen because they are guilty.”– Zelenskyy
Ukraine’s future is with Europe, not Russia: “I think the most important thing is to remain open and not change our direction because culturally aligning with Russia, it’s one idea, while aligning with Europe is another. Our people have chosen Europe. It’s their choice, it’s our choice, the choice of our nation, and I think it’s very important.” – Zelenskyy
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky | Philosophize This! with Stephen West (#219)
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky: A tormented man wrestles with guilt and morality after a desperate act, unraveling a gripping exploration of justice, redemption, and the human soul.
“Rational utopianism” – A belief that suggests through utilitarian rational calculations, we can arrive at moral truth and create a utopian socialist system of organizing people that can be perfected if this moral calculus improves over time
2 Problems with rational utopianism and Russian nihilism:
* (1) Consider how quickly Raskolnikov’s perfectly crafted plan resulted in an innocent person getting an axe to the head; and
* (2) The rational egoism that often accompanies Russian nihilism magically places Raskolnikov at the center of the decision-maker process
Raskolnikov is not an example of Nietzsche’s Ubermensch: Instead, he is an example of a very particular kind of nihilism that was gaining popularity in Russia at the time Dostoevsky wrote the book
You're Not That Special: Dostoevsky was very skeptical of any individual who thought they were special compared to the people around them
The Stories We Tell Ourselves: “It is uniquely possible in this modern world to exist in a way where your whole life never becomes about facing the discomfort of looking at yourself honestly, but about endlessly rationalizing your behavior and then coming up with a story that sounds pretty good about it.” – Stephen West
Save What You Can: The choices that we have to make are not always optimal and they are often dictated by circumstances that are outside of our control; but no matter the circumstances in this sometimes horrible world, there is always at least some personal salvation that is possible in consent and affirmation of our place in a relational network
Accountability: Taking accountability for what you are wrong about is one of the only ways to grow as a person and is one of the most powerful things that you can do in your life
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