Made You Think

“Democracies are not lucky. They do not attract civic-minded leaders by chance. Rather, they attract survival-oriented leaders who understand that, given their dependence on many essentials, they can only come to and stay in power if they figure out the right basket of public goods to provide.” In this episode of Made You Think, Nat and Neil are joined by Adil Majid to discuss their key takeaways from The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. The Dictator's Handbook delivers five rules for staying in power and succeeding within the political system. In this episode of Made You Think, we cover a wide range of topics including: How dictators get in power and stay in power The Selectorate theory Taxation and why leaders are so fond of taxes FIFA, Olympics, and giving bribes for more power Decentralized finance as an alternative to the current financial system   And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat, Neil, and Adil on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the Show Episode 7: A Crash Course in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cryptocurrency (0:43) Episode 33: An Animal of No Significance: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari – Part I (1:25) Episode 34: Money, Power, and God: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari – Part II (1:40) Selectorate theory (4:57) Assets of the Federal Reserve (22:00) Ba'ath Party; Saddam Hussein (29:05) Caliphate (54:11) Arab Spring (1:11:10) Democracy Index 2017 (1:12:28) ConstitutionDAO (1:16:01) Corruption in FIFA (1:15:43) Bribing in Olympics (1:15:43) Marijuana episode (1:24:27) A Tale of Two Talebs (1:33:19) Ledger (1:59:31)   Books Mentioned The 48 Laws of Power (2:09) (Nat’s Book Notes) The Sovereign Individual (4:36) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) Seeing Like a State (4:37) (Nat's Book Notes) Antifragile (1:31:38) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) The Bitcoin Standard (1:34:26)   People Mentioned Robert Mugabe (10:32) Elizabeth Warren (12:49) Bernie Sanders (12:50) Elon Musk (13:10) Ron DeSantis (15:13) Donald Trump (15:42) Machiavelli (23:45) Fidel Castro (41:41) Che Guevara (41:47) Rasputin (42:48) Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1:11:40) Julias Caesar (1:21:25) Nassim Taleb (1:32:23) Gary Vaynerchuk (1:33:53)   Show Notes 1:10 Today we are joined by Adil Majid. You may remember him from some of our previous episodes (#7, #33, #34). Today’s book is the Dictator’s Handbook, a book that shares the rules of the game in politics exactly how it is. What we think is good or bad in politics may be the exact opposite. 3:27 Relying on a larger coalition of individuals results in a more equitable and just system. How this idea ties in with decentralized finance. 4:57 Adil talks about the Selectorate theory and the 3 different groups: the nominal selectorate, the real selectorate, and the winning coalition. The primary goal of a leader is to stay in power and to do this, they must keep the support from members of the winning coalition. 9:59 The way our voting system in the U.S. narrows who's vote counts. Politicians can play the game of staying in power by understanding which votes they need. "When addressing politics, we must accustom ourselves to think and speak about the actions and interests of specific, named leaders rather than thinking and talking about fuzzy ideas like the national interest, the common good, and the general welfare. Once we think about what helps leaders come to and stay in power, we will also begin to see how to fix politics. Politics, like all of life, is about individuals, each motivated to do what is good for them, not what is good for others.” To stay in power, politicians are not making decisions about general welfare and the common good. Bueno de Mesquita notes that it's all about what's good for them, not for us. 12:33 This brings up the question, why do politicians seem to believe things so extremely? An outside-in approach: A candidate needs to appeal to the extreme then come back to the middle and more neutral voters to win a general election. 18:25 Questionable social media sprees from politicians, and how it could be a tool for covering something up. Inflation and stimulus checks. 24:42 There are five basic rules leaders can use to succeed in any system.  Rule 1: Keep your winning coalition as small as possible. Having a small coalition is to your advantage in taking and keeping power. There are fewer people to keep happy, and keeping them happy is a key to staying in power. 30:50 There are so many institutions in government but not all of them are necessary in keeping and maintaining power. Corruption as an essential political tool.  "The causal ties run both ways: power leads to corruption and corruption leads to power." 33:59 Informational asymmetry between members of the winning coalition and the nominal electorate. Transparency within companies; there's certain information that is only shared with the leaders that is not available to all within the company.  37:38 Rule 2: Keep your nominal selectorate as large as possible. Nat, Neil, and Adil discuss rigged elections. These are a periodic reminder that everyone is replaceable. The way to thrive in a dictatorship is not to be the dictator himself, but to be a highly irreplaceable member of the winning coalition. It’s tough to be irreplaceable, as you also don’t want to become a threat. 43:30 Once you accumulate power, it’s all about keeping power. It’s chaotic to transition from one leader to the next. Fratricide is the act of killing one's brother. How this has been seen in history before as well as in animal behavior. 45:32 Rule 3: Control the flow of revenue. If your leader doesn't know how to make money and increase wealth for your country, it's essential that they know who to pay to stay in power. Example: Mugabe from Zimbabwe stayed in power despite starvation and epidemics throughout the country. It was less about what happens to the people, as long as the army was paid. “When debt exceeds the ability to pay, the problem for a leader is not so much that good public works must be cut back, but rather that the incumbent doesn’t have the resources necessary to purchase political loyalty from key backers." 49:25 Taxation: Maximize taxation while maintaining productivity if you’re an autocratic country with no natural resources. Taxes on crypto in other countries vs. the U.S. 54:02 “It seems that many non-Muslims, realizing that they could reduce the tax collectors’ reach by becoming Muslim, put their religious beliefs aside and converted." Some religious empires collected taxes instead of direct rule. There was also tax farming where central authority bids on the taxes from different regions, and kept some of the collected tax for their own use. 58:17 Official exchange rates vs. street rates. The street rates would essentially be a better deal because the government was taking a cut out of the official exchange rates. This idea connects again with cryptocurrency where if a transaction isn’t traceable by the government, it can be a good deal for everyone involved.  1:04:20 "Rule 4: Pay your key supporters just enough to keep them loyal." Dichotomy in the lives of people in the same country, Saudi Arabia as an example. Some people live very wealthy, whereas some areas of the country don’t even have paved roads. Within the same country are extremely different ways of living. 1:08:54 A dictatorship is so much easier to control than a democracy when it comes to foreign aid. They’re no longer under American control when they become a democracy. 1:12:58 Relationship between military and government in other countries. 1:14:56 "Rule 5: Don’t take money out of your supporter’s pockets to make the people’s lives better." Bribes in FIFA and the Olympics. Buying votes to win hosting rights for your country. 1:20:19 Dictators who try to support the people at the expense of their coalition often found themselves on the losing end. “Julius Caesar’s mistake was to help the people at the expense of his backers and this too cost him his life." 1:23:25 The progression of making marijuana legal in the states. States have power in some large topics such as marijuana legalization and abortion where one state may create laws in complete opposite of another state. 1:29:10 Political divide these days can often appear less about the individual policies and more about whether it should be a Federal or State issue.  1:32:01 Nassim Taleb tangent, and the story of how Nat got blocked on Twitter. 1:37:00 Getting sick as a dictator. Those who depend on you are no longer secure, so they’re looking for someone else. It's important to have a succession plan lined up that your key supporters believe in. They don't want their future to come into question. 1:41:40 The monarchy in England and other European countries, and the way that they’re born into power. 1:45:28 The more democratic a group is, the weaker it is. If it’s weak, slow, and requires a lot of consensus, there is less power. Same goes for companies. 1:50:13 Crypto and selectorate theory. Some tokens are very autocratic while some are very community-owned and community-driven. Low exit costs in crypto, if you don’t like what you see, you can take your money and go elsewhere. 1:59:40 Thanks for listening! Adil will be back in a future episode where we cover Seeing Like a State. If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes and tell a friend. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! You can say hi to us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS and @nateliason and share your thoughts on this episode. You can now support Made You Think using the Value-for-Value feature of Podcasting 2.0. This means you can directly tip the co-hosts in BTC with minimal transaction fees. To get started, simply download a podcast app (like Fountain or Breez) that supports Value-for-Value and send some BTC to your in-app wallet. You can then use that to support shows who have opted-in, including Made You Think! We'll be going with this direct support model moving forward, rather than ads. Thanks for listening. See you next time!

"The most beautiful as well as the most ugly inclinations of man are not part of a fixed and biologically given human nature, but result from the social process which creates man. In other words, society has not only a suppressing function—although it has that too—but it has also a creative function. Man’s nature, his passions, and anxieties are a cultural product; as a matter of fact, man himself is the most important creation and achievement of the continuous human effort, the record of which we call history." In this episode of Made You Think, Nat and Neil are joined by Paul Millerd to discuss their key takeaways from Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm. In this book, Fromm makes a connection between the rise of capitalism to the beginning of man's conflict with the modern sense of freedom. In this episode of Made You Think, we cover a wide range of topics including: Positive freedom and negative freedom Finding work that is internally motivating rather than work that is thrust upon you How the economic system impacts our psychology Comparison: Why it's easy to compare your progress and accomplishments to others' The two-fold approach on the pursuit of power   And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat, Neil, and Paul on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the Show Episode 69: The Quest of the Simple Life (6:19) Mixergy (24:33) 2Pac video (33:04) Episode 66: Making the Navalmanack (36:07) Principal of 2 Schools (48:26)   Books Mentioned Escape From Freedom (Nat's Book Notes) Awaken the Giant Within (9:47) (Nat’s Book Notes) The Art of Loving (27:02) Amusing Ourselves to Death (35:16) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) Finite and Infinite Games (38:14) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) The Almanack of Naval Ravikant (42:12) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) The Beginning of Infinity (52:10) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (53:00) The Pathless Path (58:15) King, Warrior, Magician, Lover (1:12:37) The Dictator’s Handbook (12:40:17)   People Mentioned Tony Robbins (9:49) Cal Newport (36:51) David Perell (59:40) Tiago Forte (59:41) Tim Ferriss (1:01:53) David Foster Wallace (1:03:26) Scott Alexander (1:07:20)   Show Notes 0:34 Today we are joined by Paul Millerd, long-time MYT listener and author of The Pathless Path. Paul touches on the ideas of negative freedom and positive freedom that were discussed in the book, and shares how those ideas have fit into his story over the past few years. 4:19 A lot of what we think that we want is not what we actually want. Paul shares the underlying reasons of why he left his high-paying job years ago upon reflecting on the principles that were most important to him. "All our energy is spent for the purpose of getting what we want, and most people never question the premise of this activity: that they know their true wants. They do not stop to think whether the aims they are pursuing are something they themselves want." Many people go through their life going through the motions without actually reflecting on what is most important to them. 11:06 Nat talks about his experience living off of passive income in South America. While complete freedom from obligation sounds attractive, there’s an importance in having something meaningful to work towards.  16:45 "Capitalism not only freed man from traditional bonds, but it also contributed tremendously to the positive freedom, to the growth of an active, critical, and responsible self." In Fromm's time, your job was your primary identity. With the growth of business and capitalism, more options are created on what you can be. Some people cling onto what they know because it's stable and secure, and the idea of having so many options in front of them creates fear. Others lean into that freedom of having more possibilities and transcend their status in life. 20:29 Insecurity coming from a loss of identity and place in the world. When you separate yourself from your regular job, it can be challenging to understand your identity. People tend to ask more questions to those who aren’t in a typical job but rather control their own schedule.  25:27 Having individuals or influences in your life. These days many people find these influences through media. It’s helpful to have examples out there of people who have taken a path less traveled and strayed from norms. Nat, Neil, and Paul discuss another one of Fromm's Books: The Art of Loving. Love is what we’re all aiming for, and there are many ways we can arrive at love. One way is work. It gives us a connectedness to self and the world.  29:29 When you find things that bring you meaning, double down on those. Lean into those things that bring you meaning and embrace it. While there is much less toil now than when the book was written, we must recognize the gap that leaves. Your mind has so much time to think, and too much time to think can lead you to feel empty. 31:20 Fromm begins to hit on mindfulness. "Man misses the only satisfaction that can give him real happiness—the experience of the activity of the present moment—and chases after a phantom that leaves him disappointed as soon as he believes he has caught it—the illusory happiness called success." Finding things that are internally motivating that resonates with you vs. doing things that are thrust upon you by others or society. Living in the present moment, not living for the future state. It can be hard to overcome our compulsion to immediately fill gaps in our day with our phones or other stimulation.  34:29 How the economic system is impacting our psychology. Fromm calls on people to be aware of it. As humans, we take in as much information as we can all the time, it’s hard to turn it off. There’s reward in being online and having your presence online, but it also consumes your time.  Your psychology mixed with the psychology you get from the system is evolving together, this can be a barrier to leaning into the positive vision of freedom. 38:11 Neil talks about the connection with Finite and Infinite Games. Whether it’s the self-employment game, crypto, or other, there’s so many “games” you can play. Where you get caught is if you start thinking that game is reality. If you remember that it’s a game, then that’s all it is. It can still add meaning and enjoyment to your life. 42:30 The alternate path of being a creator isn’t always the best option for everyone. Pseudo-freedom. Not everyone is wired the same way. The development of remote work in the past decade. It provides a new way to relate to your work and for some, is more comfortable and less restricting.  46:53 Is there an alternative metric to tracking work aside from tracking hours? How to measure outcomes at work. "Life has ceased to be lived in a closed world the center of which was man; the world has become limitless and the same time threatening. By losing his fixed place in a closed world man loses the answer to the meaning of his life; the result is that doubt has befallen him concerning himself and the aim of life." 49:58 The world has changed so much in the past 150 years from many different standpoints, including technology and what the average day-to-day looks like. Even within the past few decades along, there has been so much change. Will things continue to evolve rapidly or will it level out? 54:40 When things change, how is it decided what will change? We may think the world will change in one way but it’s unpredictable the way it would actually go.  1:00:15 When comparing yourself to others, you have to remember to play your own game. What others do may fit them better than it will fit you. Even those who you compare yourself to surely has someone that they compare themselves to. 1:05:01 It’s impossible to be good at everything, and to have it all. There are some things you can’t have simultaneously. Do you truly want all these things or are you just conditioned to want it? 1:08:16 The pursuit of power, and the two-fold approach. 1:12:22 When the reality we want in our mind isn’t the story that’s actively happening, it can bring us anxiety. Deciding if what you want is worth the costs you pay to get there.  1:16:19 Thank you for listening! Make sure to pick up a copy of Dictator’s Handbook and King, Warrior, Magician, Lover to follow along before our next episodes. If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes and tell a friend. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! You can say hi to us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS and @nateliason and share your thoughts on this episode. You can now support Made You Think using the Value-for-Value feature of Podcasting 2.0. This means you can directly tip the co-hosts in BTC with minimal transaction fees. To get started, simply download a podcast app (like Fountain or Breez) that supports Value-for-Value and send some BTC to your in-app wallet. You can then use that to support shows who have opted-in, including Made You Think! We'll be going with this direct support model moving forward, rather than ads. Thanks for listening. See you next time!

"To feel that it is bliss to be alive, health alone is needed.  And by health I mean not the absence of physical ailment or disease, but a high condition of vitality. This the country gave me; this the town denied me.  The only question was then, at what rate did I value the boon?" In this episode of Made You Think, Nat and Neil are joined by Andrew Lynch to discuss their key takeaways from The Quest of the Simple Life by William Dawson. The setting takes place in London in the early 1900s, and Dawson takes us through his reflections and insights as he moves from the city to the countryside to fulfill his desire of living a more simple life. We cover a wide range of topics including: • Finding value in the work you do • How organic social interactions differ from planned social events and meetups • Cost of living in a small village vs. big city • The idea of having a 3rd place where people spend time in outside their home and workspace • Why money shouldn't be the main metric you base the success of your life on And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat, Neil, and Andrew on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode. Links from the Episode: Mentioned in the show: Scribe Media (0:56) Andrew’s "How I Got Fired" article (1:10) FIRE Movement (3:04) King Ranch (7:10) Right Move (9:01) Fountain (1:19:30) Breez (1:19:31) Books Mentioned: The Quest of the Simple Life Letters From a Stoic (2:38) (Nat’s Book Notes) (Book Episode) Alchemy (43:38) Shop Class as Soulcraft (1:05:26) People Mentioned: Tucker Max (0:57) Zach Obront (0:58) Morgan Housel (1:36) Seneca (2:42) Tim O’Reilly (34:03) Rory Sutherland (43:34) Chamath Palihapitiya (47:14) Nassim Taleb (1:03:49) Show Topics: 0:10 Our guest today is Andrew Lynch, long-time Made You Think listener from the UK who works as a finance director and writes about health, wealth, and wisdom on his website. 1:25 The book we're discussing today is the Quest of the Simple Life. This memoir by William Dawson is timeless, in that many of the thoughts and ideas expressed by Dawson in the early 1900s still ring true for many people in today's age.  5:12 It's difficult to find the perfect spot to settle in when you want to have everything: a nice piece of land, river views, proximity to what's important yet space away from everything. The homes that check all of your boxes are hard to come across, and often times not available. 9:01 Andrew shares some insights on the countryside areas that the author is moving to in the UK.  10:15 One problem with moving to the countryside that wasn’t mentioned in the book is the social aspect. Moving to the country often means less social interaction and more distance between yourself and your circle of people.  13:41 "There is none of that pleasant 'dropping-in' for an evening which is possible in country towns of not immoderate radius. Time-tables have to be consulted, engagement-books scanned, serious preparations made, with the poor result, perhaps, of two hours' hurried intercourse." The author makes the case that it’s actually easier to socialize in a smaller village than a big town because there’s less distance to travel, it's more condensed, and you're more likely to run into friends out and about in a smaller town. 16:56 A "third place" is somewhere (bar, coffee shop, social area) where you can run into friends without having to schedule anything. Unplanned social interactions. Nat talks about creating small town energy in a big town. 20:21 The social schedules that occur in college. It's ideal to have all of your friends living within the same few mile radius as you, and you're sure to have many natural encounters simply by visiting the popular places on campus. Andrew talks about social clubs and activities, such as Crossfit. Having connections within those places encourages you to go there more often knowing you will see people you're familiar with week-to-week. 22:43 Can you create a "third place" organically, and does it defeat the purpose if its not organic?  26:27 Nat, Neil, and Andrew discuss the tie between money and social life, as well as money and family size. When you have more money, having more children is no issue. You can afford more help and childcare, and you can keep up with your lifestyle even when your family size grows. Family size can also be bigger in lower income families because they tend to not frequently go out to eat, travel, and make big purchases. They don't have the luxurious life to keep affording. Where does this leave people in the middle? 30:11 Some people choose to stay closer to family and friends their whole life. Their location now has that built in social network. There's also those who move often, and are tasked with finding new friendships and connections wherever they move to. 32:13 "The thing that is least perceived about wealth is that all pleasure in money ends at the point where economy becomes unnecessary. The man who can buy anything he covets, without any consultation with his banker, values nothing that he buys." It’s easy to try and measure the success of your life on the money you have, and while it unlocks different opportunities, it’s not the be-all and end-all of our existence. Andrew makes a connection to a quote from Tim O'Reilly: "Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don't want to run out of gas on your trip, but you're not doing a tour of gas stations." Money gives you more options and opens more doors, but the point of a road trip isn’t to accumulate as much gas as you can. 34:45 Commuting, work styles, and how things have shift post-Covid. Since this shift, it's tough for many businesses to justify employees having to come in at 8 hours per day. Blending of the office and the 3rd place, and how you can turn an office into a social, yet productive environment 38:58 What is the underlying dissatisfaction that gets solved by moving to the country? Nat points out that there aren’t better food options, there won’t be more people to meet, so what is it solving? Is it the outdoor life and nature of being in the country? "Those rare excursions which I took into the genuine country left me aching for days afterwards with an exquisite pain." Its arguably instinctive to want to be outdoors in nature. 41:17 "If I could choose for myself I would even now choose the life of pleasant alternation between town and country, because I am persuaded that the true piquancy and zest of all pleasures lies in contrast." The setup of having both, a little bit in the city and a little bit in the country. When someone finds they can’t have both at once, they take middle ground which is the suburbs. 46:00 “Men may chafe for years at the conditions of their lot without in any way attempting to amend them." The lesson here is to either make the most of your current situation, or take action on what you want to change. It may feel good to complain because you’re letting your frustration out, but in the end, no progress was made. It’s easy to whine but harder to do something about it. 51:17 We have to be honest with ourselves on the things we say we’ll do. Some things sound great on paper, and we hope to accomplish them, but it doesn’t make us any better or worse of a person whether we accomplish it or not. 55:02 It’s important to remember that everyone has their own preferences. People share different preferences on whether they like to complete projects with others or work alone. We can’t compare ourselves to someone who has a totally different style than us.  56:58 Cost of living in the city vs. countryside. Money seems to "fall off" of you in the city as things are more pricy. Little purchases add up because in a city, there’s so many more little places that you can spend your money throughout the day. 59:16 Neil and Andrew share some outdated sayings and beliefs in the book. 1:02:52 Physical labor around the house is just as good as exercising, and you also get something else out of it. When you renovate your house and take on some of the physical projects yourself, you get to see the outcome of the work you put in. It’s tangible.  1:08:12 Working with big companies vs. small companies. In most instances, it’s easier to see the difference you’re making in a small company. The company culture also differs based on company size. It's all about finding something to do that your heart is also in to. 1:12:21 Andrew and Neil share their biggest takeaways from the book. A few lessons they learned: So much of what we choose is not for ourselves, but of what others will think about it. Make decisions based on what's best for you. Using money as a metric isn’t the best way to think. Don't force yourself to do work that you don’t like. Spend more time outdoors. Be more deliberate. 1:19:00 Thanks for listening! Make sure to grab a copy of The Quest of the Simple Life as well as The Dictator's Handbook if you’d like to read up before our next episode. If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes and tell a friend. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! You can say hi to us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS and @nateliason and share your thoughts on this episode. You can now support Made You Think using the Value-for-Value feature of Podcasting 2.0. This means you can directly tip the co-hosts in BTC with minimal transaction fees. To get started, simply download a podcast app (like Fountain or Breez) that supports Value-for-Value and send some BTC to your in-app wallet. You can then use that to support shows who have opted-in, including Made You Think! We'll be going with this direct support model moving forward, rather than ads. Thanks for listening. See you next time!

Made You Think is back! And if you heard our previous update episode from a few weeks ago, consider this the Update 2.0 on what's to come for the podcast. We are excited to bring you new episodes this year, so stay tuned and follow our show on Spotify so you don't miss an episode. In this episode of Made You Think, Nat and Neil cover a wide range of topics including: The rapidly growing world of Crypto and Web3 Podcasting 2.0 - How you can further support your favorite podcast hosts  The Anti-work movement How the pandemic has exposed the fragility in supply chains Corruption in Congress  And much more. Make sure to follow Neil and Nat on Twitter and give some suggestions on what books you'd like us to cover. We hope you enjoy this episode! Links from the Episode: Mentioned in the show: Solidity (5:05) Solana (7:36) Avalanche (7:39) Polygon (7:40) MYT #7: A Crash Course in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cryptocurrency (7:58) MYT #11: This Podcast Will Save Your Life: Emergency by Neil Strauss (10:26) Wild Planet (11:54) Podcasting 2.0 (12:16) Anchor (12:40) Adam Curry - The Joe Rogan Experience (13:06) Lightning Network (13:21) New CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal (15:31) Neil’s Twitter thread of quotes (19:03) Anti-work Reddit (19:22) Over 40% of New Stores Opening in the U.S. Are Dollar Stores (28:05) The Next: Justin Mares (30:28) EatWild (30:30) MYT #48: UBI Q&A. A Conversation with Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang (42:01) Fountain (44:06) Books Mentioned: Emergency by Neil Strauss (10:22) [Podcast Episode] Gulag Archipelago (22:11) [Neil's Twitter Thread] The Fourth Turning (35:54) Dictator’s Handbook (43:02) The Quest of the Simple Life (43:07) People Mentioned: Nader Dabit (4:25) Adam Curry (13:04) Parag Agrawal (15:16) Jack Dorsey (15:25) Nancy Pelosi (39:14) Andrew Yang (42:01) Show Topics 0:00 We’re back again! Neil and Nat catch up and fill you in on what’s to come for the Made You Think podcast. 1:02 Security in cryptocurrency; Nat shares an error he made early on in crypto that ended up costing him. While there is lack of good educational material in this space, one way you can learn crypto programming is reading open source smart contracts. 5:48 The speed at which Web3 is moving makes it near impossible to keep up with every new thing going on. The key is to pick a niche or chain to stay on top of. Since the bull run of 2017, so many uses of cryptocurrency have been uncovered. 10:18 Neil and Nat talk about their favorite survival foods and reflected briefly on their Emergency episode.   12:11 What is Podcasting 2.0? You can now tip podcast creators directly using the lightning network. Think Patreon, but without any centralized authority.  19:22 There’s now a growing group of people who are anti-work. Neil and Nat discuss wealth disparity in the U.S. and how inflation has played a role. 24:55 Being a small business owner has its many challenges. Between the failure to prosecute crimes against small businesses and the hardships faced by store owners over the past two years of Covid, it’s the smaller businesses who are having to close their doors permanently.  29:00 Fragility of supply chains. This affects prices of products at grocery stores as well as the consumers who choose which products to buy, especially those with lower incomes. 33:09 Given the many systemic issues mentioned in the episode, Nat and Neil chat about the competency of our leaders to solve the problems the country is facing. A significant change is needed, but it’s currently unknown what’s it going to take and how long. 38:15 Neil briefly discusses some ideas found in the Dictator’s Handbook. Differences in authoritarian vs. democratically-elected systems. Corruption, lying, and our current system. Is the system too far gone? (Flashback to our Andrew Yang episode!) 42:47 Thank you for listening! Hear what’s next for the Made You Think podcast and make sure to grab your copies of The Quest of the Simple Life and The Dictator's Handbook if you’d like to read up before our next episode. If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes and tell a friend. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! You can say hi to us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS and @nateliason and share your thoughts on this episode. You can now support Made You Think using the Value-for-Value feature of Podcasting 2.0. This means you can directly tip the co-hosts in BTC with minimal transaction fees. To get started, simply download a podcast app (like Fountain) that supports Value-for-Value and send some BTC to your in-app wallet. You can then use that to support shows who have opted-in, including Made You Think! We'll be going with this direct support model moving forward, rather than ads. Thanks for listening. Until next time!

Hey everyone, this is an update episode.  Made You Think is coming back this month! The biggest change is that Nat will not be a co-host on most episodes moving forward, due to other time commitments. Instead, we'll have other co-hosts on each episode, some of whom you've heard on the show before.  For those that want to follow along, the next two books we're covering are: The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics by Alastair Smith and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita The Quest of the Simple Life by William James Dawson You can now support Made You Think using the Value-for-Value feature of Podcasting 2.0. This means you can directly tip the co-hosts in BTC with minimal transaction fees. To get started, simply download a podcast app (like Fountain) that supports Value-for-Value and send some BTC to your in-app wallet. You can then use that to support shows who have opted-in, including Made You Think! We'll be going with this direct support model moving forward, rather than ads.   Learn more about Podcasting 2.0 here: https://medium.com/@everywheretrip/an-introduction-to-podcasting-2-0-3c4f61ea17f4 If you need help setting up your wallet, DM Neil on Twitter at @therealneils and he'll help you get started.  As usual, if you have any book or content recommendations, we'd love to hear them. Excited to be back! 

“Even today, what to study and how to study it are more important than where to study it and for how long. The best teachers are on the Internet. The best books are on the Internet. The best peers are on the Internet. The tools for learning are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.” - Naval Ravikant In this episode of Made You Think, Nat and Neil are joined by Eric Jorgenson. Eric is a writer, product strategist, and author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.  We cover a wide range of topics including: How Eric came to the idea of writing The Almanack What Eric's biggest lessons and takeaways were from authoring this book What topics didn't end up making the final cut  The future of education and online courses The idea of leverage and how it can be used And much more. If you haven't already, make sure to check out our last episode where we talked in great depth about The Almanack and discussed our key takeaways from the book. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a tweet to Nat, Neil, and Eric! Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Previous MYT Episode (0:35) Naval on Shane Parrish's podcast (2:27) Readwise (10:30) Bonus Section: Education (27:07)  Building a Second Brain (32:22) Lambda School (32:55) How To Think Like Elon Musk - Made You Think Episode (44:37) SpaceX (45:40) Books Mentioned The Almanack of Naval Ravikant Debt: The First 5000 Years (11:23) Infinite Jest (13:58) (Nat's Book Notes) (Book Episode pt. 1) (Book Episode pt. 2) Vagabonding (52:02) (Nat's Book Notes) People Mentioned Naval Ravikant Trevor McKendrick (7:38) Elon Musk (41:41) Tim Ferriss (50:40) Show Notes: 0:52 - Eric Jorgenson, author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, shares how his idea of writing the book came to be. 5:35 - From the start, Eric knew he didn’t want it to just be a summary book. How he was able to hone in on the writing style of the book to capture the interest of his readers all the way through. 9:20 - Highlight density. Using highlight data to estimate book quality. Skipping chapters and not finishing books. 14:14 - Eric’s key takeaways from the book and what knowledge he has carried away from writing it. The importance of equity, accountability and leverage. We have the tendency to want to do everything ourselves rather than to create systems and put the pieces together. 19:04 - How Twitter and other social media usage affects mindset and energy. Discussions of Naval’s Twitter usage and utilizing it as an outlet for his unfiltered thoughts and ideas. 21:56 - What were the communication patterns between Naval and Eric during the creation of The Almanack? 24:05 - The variety and depth of Naval’s ideas. Eric allowed himself to take time to dive in and explore these topics to let them sink in before writing about it. 26:02 - One topic that didn’t make the final cut was Education. Naval has talked about the flaws within the education system as well as the future of education. If you’re curious to read more, you can find that here! The rise of online courses and the potential for digital course creators. When you’re learning locally, you have the best person in the area teaching you. When you’re learning on a platform that’s global, you’ll be learning from the best of the best, plus increased accessibility. 32:44 - The future of online learning and career preparation is promising. How will the online course market grow within the upcoming decades? Tiktok education in the format of 60 second videos shot from your phone. 37:45 - English as the language of business and the history of the qwerty keyboard. 40:50 - If Eric could write about another influencer of thought, who would it be? 42:10 - Elon Musk, PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX. Writing a biography about Elon Musk: he has a hefty list of accomplishments but his principles and concepts are timeless. 48:24 - What do we know about Naval’s relationships and family? His ideas and concepts are what he is widely known for, so not much is known about his personal life. 53:53 - Eric’s next steps includes creating a course to help build a framework on this idea of leverage that Naval often speaks about. 57:01 - Leverage can be utilized at a personal, managerial, and company level in many different ways. Productivity of a company is no longer about how many employees there are. People leverage. 1:01:59 - Pick up a copy of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant on Amazon, follow Eric on Twitter, visit navalmanack.com, and follow along with upcoming projects on Eric's website! If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes and tell a friend. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! Find us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS and @nateliason. The best way to stay up to date on future episodes and show updates is to join our email list at Made You Think Podcast. Check out ways you can support the show here!

“My old definition was "freedom to." Freedom to do anything I want. Freedom to do whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like. Now, the freedom I'm looking for is internal freedom. It's “freedom from." Freedom from reaction. Freedom from feeling angry. Freedom from being sad. Freedom from being forced to do things. I'm looking for "freedom from," internally and externally, whereas before I was looking for “freedom to." On this episode of Made You Think, Nat and Neil discuss The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson, Jack Butcher, and Tim Ferriss. This book contains insights to wealth and happiness according to investor and entrepreneur, Naval Ravikant. From Naval's podcasts and essays to tweets and interviews, his collection of wisdom is put into one piece of writing, sparking great conversations and discussions from Nat and Neil (and tangents of course!) We cover a wide range of topics including: The relationship between wealth and happiness How Naval frames the idea of mental peace Why tools and technology are essential in leveraging the online space Differences between being a contrarian and a conformist Angel investors vs. early investors And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat and Neil on Twitter to hear which book will be the topic of the next episode! Links from the episode Mentioned in the show Angel List (1:50) Product Hunt (5:27) Social Capital in Silicon Valley (8:08) Honeycomb Credit (10:14) Aurochs Brewing (10:39) Facebook Bitcoin Ads and Scams (12:44) Happiness and Income(17:30) Growth Machine (31:56) The Systems Mindset (34:57) Effortless Output in Roam (38:16) Forte Labs (39:36) Open Innovation Leads (42:41) Books mentioned The Tower (20:00) (Book Episode) In Praise of Idleness (1:11:10) (Nat’s Book Notes) (Book Episode) Finite and Infinite Games (1:15:08) (Nat's Book Notes) (Book Episode) Denial of Death (1:15:23) (Nat's Book Notes) (Book Episode) Way of Zen (1:15:29) (Nat's Book Notes) (Neil's Book Notes) (Book Episode) Letter From a Stoic (1:15:35)(Nat's Book Notes) (Book Episode) Psychology of Human Misjudgments (1:15:47) (Book Episode) People mentioned James Altucher (12:44) Dave Chapelle (21:40) Show notes 0:34 - Today, Nat and Neil are discussing The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson, Jack Butcher, and Tim Ferriss. This book is based off of interviews, podcasts, tweets, and other content from Naval Ravikant, exploring his worldview and how he perceives different ideas such as wealth and happiness. Additionally, Naval is a well-known investor and former CEO of AngelList.  5:51 - Angel investors vs. early investors. The reasons why someone may choose to invest early in a growing company, with one of those reasons often being to increase your social capital. 10:15 - Small business crowdfunding. How a brewing company in Pennsylvania leverages their customers and local community. 12:20 - Naval was also into cryptocurrency, and co-founded a cryptocurrency hedge fund with his brother, Kamal. He's what they call a Twitter philosopher, and is able to provide timeless wisdom into small packages that resonates with a lot of people. 16:50 - “Let's get you rich first. I'm very practical about it because, you know, Buddha was a prince. He started off really rich, then he got to go off in the woods.” Is there a link between increased wealth and happiness? Wealth first, so you can have the freedom to say ‘no’ to things that don’t make you happy, and from there you can build a happier life. 22:01 - “To me, the real winners are the ones who step out of the game entirely, who don't even play the game, who rise above it. Those are the people who have such internal mental and self-control and self-awareness, they need nothing from anybody else.” Money and fame. It’s hard to say no to money, and at what point do you say no to something? Examples of public figures who have stepped out of the public eye. 24:59 - Earlier in Naval’s career, he was quick to temper, and it’s been a big goal to get that under control. It can be hard to balance business and mental peace, especially when you’re at the level that Naval is. 28:18 - The idea of “Freedom from” comes back into play here. Having more control of people who you work with and work for, and wealth gives you the power to say ‘no’ to things that make you unhappy or drain your energy. Clearing up mental space. 33:42 - It’s important to use automation and outsource repetitive work to save your resource of time, which ultimately allows you to scale your income. “Technology democratizes consumption but consolidates production.” 38:07 - Leveraging online tools. The nearly unlimited scalability of an e-product or online course. There’s real value in having an audience of supporters and an email list. 44:05 - “Learn to sell, learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.” The two go hand-in-hand when you can learn to build things that can sell itself effortlessly while you sleep. The broader definition of ‘sell’ includes marketing, too. “The year I generated the most wealth for myself was actually the year I worked the least hard and cared the least about the future. I was mostly doing things for the sheer fun of it. I was basically telling people, "I'm retired, I'm not working." Then, I had the time for whatever was my highest valued project in front of me. By doing things for their own sake, I did them at their best.”  This ties back in with the idea stepping out of the game, it’s more difficult to do if you’re trading your time for money. 50:55 - Code and media are both extremely scaleable. A one-time creation of a video, podcast, course, etc. can be accessible and profitable for years to come with little to no additional effort on the part of the creator. 52:53 - Product revenue vs. ad revenue. 53:39 - Made You Think custom themed Yeti or merch? Tweet us @TheRealNeilS and @nateliason! 54:55 - The price of a paycheck and the reward that freedom brings. What’s more valuable to you: freedom, money, or can you ultimately have both? 58:29 - “One day, I realized with all these people I was jealous of, I couldn't just choose little aspects of their life. I couldn't say I want his body, I want her money, I want his personality. You have to be that person. Do you want to actually be that person with all of their reactions, their desires, their family, their happiness level, their outlook on life, their self-image? If you're not willing to do a wholesale, 24/7, 100 percent swap with who that person is, then there is no point in being jealous.” You don’t see the ‘behind the scenes’ of someone else’s life, especially when you only know what they put on social media. Jealousy and comparison. Think about what you would lose if you were to actually switch lives with somebody else. 1:00:35 - The difference between being a contrarian and a conformist. Beliefs you took in a ‘package’ should be reevaluated individually. Thinking for yourself rather than minimizing yourself to fit into a certain box or group of beliefs. 1:06:18 - Signaling. Deliberate signaling to filter who ends up around you, but signaling can also be inadvertent. Political signals. 1:10:50 - Rapid fire quotations from the book… and go! 1:17:24 - One last paradox - how is Naval so big on peace of mind yet so active on Twitter? 1:19:22 - Make sure to grab a copy of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant and tell Eric Jorgenson and Naval Ravikant how much you enjoyed this episode. Follow us on Twitter to find out what book we are reading next! And tweet us about some potential MYT swag ideas... If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes and tell a friend. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! Find us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS and @nateliason. The best way to stay up to date on future episodes and show updates is to join our email list at Made You Think Podcast. Check out ways you can support the show here!

From a fundamental biophysical perspective, both prehistoric human evolution and the course of history can be seen as the quest for controlling greater stores and flows of more concentrated and more versatile forms of energy and converting them, in more affordable ways at lower costs and with higher efficiencies, into heat, light, and motion. Energy and Civilization by Vaclav Smil provides an explanation of energy in its relation to society. Smil dives deeply into the history of energy. From scavenging and foraging to the modern uses of water, wind, and solar power, energy drives every existing thing in today's world. Interestingly enough, it's difficult to place what exactly energy is, as it's not as tangible as other forms of measurement. Nat and Neil discuss their key takeaways from this book in today's episode of Made You Think. We cover a wide range of topics including: Survival features that are unique to humans  Energy density of different foods, and how diet has adapted over time  Pre-historic methods of gathering food efficiently Renewable and non-renewable resources  Technological advancements in transportation  And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat and Neil on Twitter to hear which book will be the topic of the next episode! Links from the episode Mentioned in the show Nat's Youtube channel (1:27) Bitcoin episode with Taylor Pearson (8:24)  Only humans sweat(18:32)  Flood Myth (28:59) Protein Poisoning (36:40)  Crime hypothesis (1:07:25)  Traffic and infant health(1:08:47)  China air quality in COVID (1:17:17)  Hiroshima (1:20:07)  List of Nuclear Disasters  (1:20:49)  Medical errors (1:27:35)  Boom unveils its first prototype (1:38:56)  Books mentioned The Prize by Daniel Yergin (6:15) The Fish That Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen (7:03) (Nat's Book Notes) Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (9:44) (Nat's Book Notes) (Book Episode pt. 1) (Book Episode pt. 2) Scale by Geoffrey West (9:45) (Nat's Book Notes) (Book Episode) The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant (12:15) (Nat's Book Notes) The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant (14:06) (Nat's Book Notes) Smoke Signals by Martin A. Lee (1:29:51) (Nat's Book Notes) (Book Episode) The Riddle of the Gun by Sam Harris (1:33:43) (Book Episode) People mentioned Bill Gates (8:07) Richard Feynman (17:05) Show notes 0:16 - Thank you for the support of the Made You Think podcast! Nat and Neil dive into discussion on the book Energy and Civilization by Vaclav Smil this week. If you’re curious to pick up a copy, you can do so here. 8:33 - Energy and Civilization discusses how energy has shaped the progress of humanity and the history of civilization as humans harness more and more energy. Energy drives everything in today’s world from basic human activity to the technological advances throughout time. 13:06 - Is growth limited by the energy that could be harnessed? The author uses energy as his lens to viewing the growth and history. 14:58 - Energy and Pre-history. By nature, humans are made to conserve energy. It’s shown in many everyday tasks such as walking on two legs rather than four and regulating our body heat by sweating. Energy is essential to everything, however it’s hard to place what exactly energy is, as it’s not as tangible as other forms of measurement. 18:13 - Ability to exercise and sweat. Humans are the only species that sweats. While many animals lose water to cool down in the form of panting, humans can do so at a much higher rate through sweating. The idea of a panting threshold in running, and how training can increase how long you can run without panting. Different factors in exercise such as physique, body weight, and training style. 24:09 - Temporary dehydration. Humans can function being dehydrated better than animals, and that ultimately benefits our species from a survival standpoint. Humans’ ability to live in different climates as compared to animals who may only live in a certain temperature range. 30:14 - Energy density of different foods. How diets differ between species based on their need for nutrients and what is essential for their survival. Additionally, energy expended while hunting and gathering also needed to be considered. Energy cost vs. energy returned. Is what you are consuming enough to cover the work you did to hunt or gather the food? 40:47 - Farming, foraging and pasturing. Early farming typically required higher energy input when compared to foraging, but it also could provide a more reliable food supply and support a higher population. Pasturing can also be argued as highly reliable and fairly energy-efficient. 44:06 - Traditional farming. Domesticated animals such as dogs and horses, and the way they have co-adapted with humans. Their partnership with humans in farming and companionship. Evolving to modern foods and diet. 50:05 - Prime movers and fuels. This section of the book talked about a variety of energy types such as water power, wind power, gunpowder, biomass fuels, wood, charcoal, etc. Being efficient with the resources that are available. Are there tools or pieces of knowledge that have been forgotten or lost from the previous society? 57:49 - Use of charcoal and it’s importance in pre-historic times. Various amounts of energy used in different methods of cooking. 1:01:32 - Renewable and nonrenewable resources. The oil industry. Oil sands in Canada reserve around 165 billion barrels. 1:07:25 - Nat shares about the hypothesized link between elevated lead levels in children and crime rate in the U.S. in the late 1900s. Neil discusses a study linking E-ZPass with reduced prematurity and low birth weight in infants whose birth givers lived within 2km of a toll plaza. Possible implications of air pollution. Use of alternate means of energy such as solar power. 1:12:12 - The reality vs. the narrative in oil supply and energy. Fluctuation of prices. The journey from fossil fuels to renewable energy; viewing it as a transition rather than a light switch. The author talks about the advantages of using fossil fuels in comparison to using the natural elements for an energy source. 1:16:54 - COVID’s effect on air quality and cleanliness. 1:17:38 - "No terrestrial civilization can be anything else but a solar society dependent on the sun’s radiation.” Not only are living beings dependent on the sun’s radiation but other forces such as wind and water flow as well. The sun has always been a source of energy. 1:18:26 - Nuclear energy. The first nuclear reactors were for submarines. From there, they were used on land to generate power. When we think about nuclear energy, people are quick to picture the dangers of it and the atomic bombings. 1:21:35 - Metrics surrounding death and death reporting. Excess death rate in the COVID era has gone down in many cities due to people staying in, overall less driving, decreased going out and drinking. Medical mistakes; when is it necessary for one to go to the hospital? 1:28:52 - Supercharged political issues: nearly every topic out there involves a split in views or invokes a reaction from many people. Marijuana, taxes, gun control, COVID. Legality across different states. 1:37:06 - Fossil fuel civilization. The speed of innovation, especially in the 20th century. Advancements in forms of transportation such as jets and airplanes, and the largely increased energy usage in comparison to the previous century. Software innovation has seen quicker growth than hardware innovation in the past few decades. So much of it has been in our phones or in the digital space. 1:44:32 - When we think about the future in energy and development, which companies and innovations will be leading? Nat and Neil share their final thoughts of the book. 1:47:10 - Thanks for listening! If you’d like to support the Made You Think podcast, you can leave a review, share with a friend, and stay tuned for future episodes. If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! Find us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS and @nateliason. The best way to stay up to date on future episodes and show updates is to join our email list at Made You Think Podcast. Check out ways you can support the show here!  

Scale by Geoffrey West focuses on the the principles and patterns connecting the ways that cities, organisms, and companies grow. West, a theoretical physicist, studied the way in which sizes of mammals related to their life expectancy, and further connected these laws to the growth and longevity of cities and the world of business. Nat and Neil unpack these laws and principles on today's podcast episode. We cover a wide range of topics including: The idea of '1 billion heartbeats' per lifetime How COVID has impacted growth of cities and business Human life expectancy Paradigm shifting innovations Growth in its relation to socioeconomic factors And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of Scale by Geoffrey West! Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Readwise (0:02) Antilibrary (Umberto Eco) (4:41) Evernote (1:07) Notion (1:07) Roam (1:07) Airr (8:58) Of Mice and Elephants: A Matter of Scale (21:08) Steve Jobs introduces WiFi…with a hula hoop! (48:43) Books mentioned Seeing Like A State by James C. Scott (7:36) (Nat’s Book Notes) Antifragile (7:40) (Nat’s Book Notes) (Book Episode) The Blueprint for Armageddon by Dan Carlin (8:48) The Startup Gold Mine (Neil Soni) (13:05) Scale by Geoffrey West (14:08) (Nat’s Book Notes) Darwin’s Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett (27:08) (Nat’s Book Notes) (Book Episode) The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch (30:05) (Nat’s Book Notes) (Book Episode) The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (35:31) (Nat’s Book Notes) Happy Accidents by Morton Meyers (59:02) (Nat’s Book Notes) (Book Episode) In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (1:17:44) (Nat’s Book Notes) (Book Episode)   People Mentioned Umberto Eco (4:41) Dan Carlin (8:48) Geoffrey West (14:08) David Deutsch (27:03) Daniel Dennett (27:08) Arthur Clarke (50:14) Nassim Taleb (1:29:30) Show notes: 0:27 - Using Readwise to gather your notes to export to other sites. Scanning book pages of physical books. Nat and Neil discuss their preferences surrounding digital vs. physical books. 6:32 - Re-reading books. The difficulty of finding a ‘mind-blowing’ book to read. If you have any book recommendations for a future podcast episode, send them our way! 8:45 - Airr - Highlight audio as you listen to podcasts. How to make podcast listening more educational for yourself. Purposes of podcasts can be both educational and entertaining. The massive market for “How To” content. 14:08 - This week’s episode is on the book Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies by Geoffrey West. The book talks about how things grow, continue to grow, decline in growth, or decay. The author primarily focuses on growth of organisms, cities, and companies, as the book title suggests, but also within these large structures are smaller substructures that grow and change, too. Some of the same laws of growth apply in seemingly different systems. 20:31 - There are many things that scale along with size that are not growing at a 1:1 ratio. The number of heartbeats in a specific mammal’s life is roughly the same across species. Neil describes an article in which each species receives an average of 1 billion heartbeats per lifetime. The heart rate varies on size of the being. Different lifespans between species. From an objective standpoint, an elephant tends to live longer than a mouse, but subjectively, do life spans feel the same length to each individual creature? 23:45 - How humans fit into this research of lifespan vs. body size. Differences in lifespan pre-technology vs. today’s era. Life extension - whether or not the maximum life expectancy can be extended. The age of 125 seems to be the maximum at this point according to West. 28:02 - Entropy and natural decay in the cell’s ability to replicate. You can bring things from disordered back to ordered, and with that creates externalities. Example: the waste created when we use the bathroom. Are there ways to minimize that?   30:46 - “The problem is that the theory also predicts that unbounded growth cannot be sustained without having either infinite resources or inducing major paradigm shifts that reset the clock before potential collapse occurs. We have sustained open-ended growth and avoided collapse by invoking continuous cycles of paradigm shifting innovations, such as those associated on the big scale of human history with discoveries of iron, steam, coal, computation, and most recently digital information technology.” (pg. 31) This quote is talking about finite-time singularity. This leads into a discussion in paradigm shifting innovations in today’s world. Resetting the paradigm clock. 35:45 - The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin - One thing brought up in this book is that humans, technologically, are an exponentially developing species. Geoffrey West brings up the possibility of hitting a wall and running out of paradigm shifts. To continue growing at an exponential rate, do we have to keep discovering this innovations at an exponential rate? 37:12 - Growth and the way society is structured. A shrink in population would pose the issue of how a generation smaller in numbers would have to be paying Social Security for the generation above them. Continued growth is ‘built-in’ to the system, and if it doesn’t grow at the anticipated rate, a collapse is possible. 41:09 - Across different cultures and countries comes different values: community, family, the state, society, tradition, religion. In America, it’s perceived that one’s self is the most valued, also referred to as individualism. 45:06 - The release of new inventions and technology in the ‘80s and ‘90s: computers, digital cameras, cell phones, and laptops. From big, clunky, and colorless inventions to high-speed and attractive new pieces of technology. It becomes interesting to think about how unique and magical these inventions feel at the time they come out, and also how quickly the next piece of upgraded technology follows. 52:11 - There are products that improve and add more features at a higher rate, and products where that growth is not as rapid. As noted in the book, these paradigm shifts happen, there’s a massive spike, and new innovations slowly come from that spike. The spike jump starts the innovations, and the innovations slow until there’s another spike. 54:26 - Discussions over whether COVID will bring a new spike. There have been many changes in our society with the way we work, make money, education, etc. that it poses the question on what will follow. Making use of underutilized resources. It comes down to what is more efficient. 56:34 - Intellectual capital has been opened up in a new way since COVID, as we are no longer expected to be in the same place. The downfall of Silicon Valley between COVID, remote work, and being on literal fire. With people working remotely now more than ever, it seems to point us in the direction of growth in the digital space and information innovation. 1:00:07 - How these changes in the way we live and work will affect the scaling laws discussed in the book. Urbanization in the U.S. People moving out of big cities. Changes in the way companies and their employees are now working. 1:06:05 - Companies and their current policies: remote, in-person, or a mixture of both. Depends on the needs and what industry they are in. Coworking spaces and working remotely around people, without actually working with them. 1:10:10 - Human’s ability to regulate their internal body temperature. West brings up global warming, and how an increase of 2 degrees Celsius could increase the pace of all biological lives by 20-30% - living and dying faster. Inversely, if you could lower your own body temperature by 1 degree Celsius, you could enhance your life span by 10-15%. 1:14:32 - Growth of cities and its relation with socioeconomic factors: wages, innovation, crime, pollution, etc. “The multiplicative compounding of socioeconomic interactivity engendered by urbanization has inevitably led to the contraction of time. Rather than being bored to death, our actual challenge is to avoid anxiety attacks, psychotic breakdowns, heart attacks, and strokes resulting from being accelerated to death.” (pg. 332) 1:20:03 - Population size in cities and productively interacting with others - discussions on whether innovations can come from a city that stays stagnant or even decreases in size. Commute times and the ‘one hour’ rule. 1:25:03 - Shared ideologies from across the world without a way to bring those people together. Sense of community from these shared interests and ideas, even if there is no physical meeting place for all to share. 1:29:58 - The next book we will be reading and discussing is Energy and Civilization by Vaclav Smil. Feel free to pick up a copy of the book to read along with us before the next podcast episode! If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! Find us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS and @nateliason. The best way to stay up to date on future episodes and show updates is to join our email list at Made You Think Podcast. Check out ways you can support the show here!

Made You Think is BACK! In this episode of the podcast, Nat and Neil catch up after a year and a half hiatus. Their plan was to catch up on what’s been going on, but that didn’t happen as they ended up talking a lot about COVID, the economy, politics, some books they’d read, and a whole lot more. We cover a wide range of topics, including: The rise of Tiktok and Twitter Media coverage and confirmation bias Cargo cult science and research in the Health field How COVID has affected the workplace Our take on schools reopening And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to stay tuned for future episodes! Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Oatly Article (18:15) Subreddit: Not the Onion (46:06) Cargo cult science (59:03) ALS (1:08:09) Right To Try Law (1:10:34) Uyghur Muslims (1:20:46) Operation Mockingbird (1:23:00) Wealth Disparity (1:32:11) Airtable (1:43:26) Zapier (1:43:27) Roam Research (1:43:50) (Nat's Blog Post) Notion (1:44:00)   Books mentioned Infinite Jest (4:08) (Book episode) Discipline & Punish (5:26) (Book episode) The Denial of Death (5:41) (Book episode) Hiroshima Diary (5:45) (Book episode) Atlas Shrugged (11:02) (Book episode) You Are A Badass (12:42) Outliers (12:44) How to Lie with Statistics (50:22) Scale (1:44:58)   People mentioned Kanye West (5:26) (Album Notes) Dan Carlin (9:58) Jen Sincero (12:42) Mark Manson (13:32) Jeff Nobbs (19:03) David Perell (22:13) Steve Jobs (26:38) Sam Harris (40:20) The Riddle of the Gun (Book episode) Donald Trump (51:29) Nancy Pelosi (51:30) Richard Feynman (59:06)   Show Topics 3:05 - Nat and Neil catch up and reflect on past podcast episodes. How like-minded people have connected over Made You Think (MYT) podcast with nearly 250,000 downloads. The future of MYT and what listeners can expect from the podcast.   9:28 - Podcasts as well as other forms of media have evolved in what it takes to be successful and keep their audience interested. Between making things ‘pop’ and sticking to their roots, authors and artists alike need to balance making money and doing the work they want to do.   14:12 - The rise of popularity in Twitter and Tiktok in both regular users and those looking to earn. Discussions of other social media platforms and how they have evolved in popularity.   19:33 - The price of being an influencer: receiving more criticism over the Internet, nearly everything you say can be taken out of context, internal battles with your mindset. Having a large following can come with downsides, but there are ways you can respond that are helpful and productive.   27:26 - Recognizing what people are trying to get from critical comments or responses. How to respond, diffuse, or block out the incoming negativity on social media. It’s easy to think they’re coming at you from a place of dislike, when it could be for attention, for conversation, or for clarification on a topic.   32:24 - What’s real vs. what’s not? Social media can easily distort our senses about what is going on. Covid, riots, media coverage and confirmation bias. We are quick to discard information that doesn’t match the beliefs of ideas that we support. It’s important to recognize the bias in order to have the discussion.   40:02 -  Stereotypes. Media can paint the picture that a certain idea is contained in an idea set, and if you believe one idea from the set, you believe all within the set. Overlap between ideas are assumed   43:05 - Mask usage during the Covid times. The term ‘anti-masker’. Different states have different laws regarding masks. As of August 10, Wisconsin’s state agency requires employees to wear masks even on Zoom calls   45:58 - With all that’s happening in the world, especially the year of 2020, it’s almost laughable we can’t tell real news from fake news. What institutions can we trust with the most up-to-date news?   50:15 - False information: fault of the media and those in positions of authority, or fault of the people? We want to be able to trust what we read and hear without needing to fact check everything.   55:25 - Health and nutrition research studies. The samples, methods, biases, and why those make a difference in the results of the study. Trials and results often only published when it is in your favor or confirm what it is that you wanted to prove.   59:10 - Richard Feynman’s speech on the dangers of cargo cult science. Feynman’s tells of a tribal society who often received supplies and materials from an airplane during war times. They tried to re-attain these goods by creating imitation runway landings and bamboo radio antennas. Although they were doing all the preparation work to receive the supplies, they did not understand why it didn’t come. Science that lacks integrity, although looks “scientific” is what we call cargo cult science.   1:02:55 - Link between science and marketing. Funding a study that will produce results in your favor to appear more credible and support your message. Hydroxychloroquine and it’s supposed ability to treat Covid topic attracting strong opinions on social media, to the form of bot usage.   1:07:40 - Drug approvals and Right to Try law. Drug companies need to pass phase 3 testing to receive support from insurance companies, and also most report results from treatments of patients from the Right to Try law. Often times with those patients being extremely sick given their only option is to shell out the money without the help of insurance, it could hurt the chances of drug approvals.   1:13:57 - The rate at which the vaccine for Covid is coming vs. treatments for other diseases. There is the ‘hype’ element behind Covid mixed with the way lifestyle has been impacted by the virus that has pushed up the need to find a vaccine for it quickly.   1:17:58 - North Korea: Covid cases in Korea, the death hoax of Kim Jong-un, and North Korean wine.   1:20:01 - Number of cases in the U.S. and how we are perceived by other countries. Uighur concentration camps in China. Propaganda and distrust of media. What is propaganda within our country being spread and being exported out of the country? We have seen a lot of propaganda both for and against Trump during his presidency, that accelerated the distrust of media.   1:23:00 - Operation Mockingbird. While some of the information surrounding Operation Mockingbird is unconfirmed, it’s interesting to read into these theories regarding operations to eavesdrop on journalists, alleged CIA operations to manipulate news media for propaganda purposes, etc.   1:27:11 - Fearful mentality within our country stemming from the upcoming election, riots, protesting, and lingering worry from Covid.   1:30:02 - Reopening schools debate is becoming very politically charged. Not to mention the food distribution that schools provide. With families staying home, and many families disproportionately being affected by Covid, the question becomes how will they be able to physically attend their jobs while the children are home, and provide the extra 2 meals per day that the schools were supplying?   1:32:11 - Wealth disparity. The large companies are benefitting from the downfall of their smaller competitors from the decline of consumer demand due to Covid. Other companies with an online presence saw a boost in business as good and services moved online. The debate whether companies will stay remote long after the virus to lower company costs.   1:39:27 - With work moving online, this brings the option of hiring workers from overseas that’s lower in cost relative to the U.S. Cost of being an employee vs. employer.   1:42:22 - Tools for automation.   1:44:55 - Scale by Jeffrey West is the book used for the next podcast episode. Stay tuned for future episodes. We are happy to be back!   We're back with an off-topic episode of Made You Think after almost a year and a half hiatus. The plan was to catch up on what's been going on, but that didn't happen and we ended up talking a lot about COVID, the economy, politics, some books we'd read, and a whole lot more.   If you've missed us or are new to the pod, this is a great way to dive back in before our next real episode which should be out in a week or two.