“None of us honours our souls as we should.”
Plato

Mindless consumption

Our time and attention are slipping away. Content distribution platforms like TikTok present themselves as tools of expression while destroying our brains at scale, especially young ones. Dopamine is dispensed at calculated intervals to keep us hooked. A minute becomes an hour, then a year. Suddenly, a decade is gone. For a 20-year-old, that’s an era. We’re exposed to countless images and contemplate foreign ideas as if they were ours, making us less likely to observe or even value our own thoughts.

The heart of this problem is how algorithms cultivate and optimise content without having our best interest at heart. Their ad-based business model are no different from TV:

“The audience’s brain must be available. Our programs have the aspiration to (...) distract and relax to prepare it between two messages.[…] What we sell to Coca-Cola is available brain time.”
Patrick Le Lay, former CEO of TF1 (France’s most popular commercial TV channel)

Algorithms are more subtle than TV programming. Not only are they getting smarter by the day, but they are also influencing the unconscious part of our brains.

Eric Sadin, a technology philosopher, encapsulates this phenomenon within the spectral life concept. A life guided by unseen voices nudging our decision-making. Just like an autocomplete feature can write emails in our stead or dating apps can design our succession, content anchors themes, ideas, or memes in our brains which, in turn, influence our everyday decisions and the people in our surroundings.

Content grinder

There was a time when Netflix produced interesting hits. Nowadays, their titles are rarely arresting or perhaps their sheer number drowns out the remarkable ones. And yet we browse until finding the piece of content that will satisfy us, akin to pornography.

News also have an addictive dimension. Some documentaries are harder to tell apart from fiction. More often than we'd like to believe, they're manufactured to carry hidden agendas. They can be force-fed to us as a diversion from reality when given a disproportional share of voice within news cycles. This accentuates their actual urgency and makes us prone to take an unconscious stance on a given issue.

Intentional consumption

To free ourselves from this invisible form of control we need individual revolutions.

Cutting our ties to social networks is still the most effective strategy, but this can be too much for the addicts we have become.

Understanding our dependence to content, with social networks as industrial dealers and AI acting as the new sophisticated producer, is a critical first step.

Asking companies what metrics their algorithms are optimising for is a long shot, but we need to prevent losing our authenticity and free will.

At the very least, let’s become a conscious and intentional audience before we forget how important this is.

AI is reshaping the world in unexpected ways and it’s high time to make this business idea or personal project you’ve been thinking about a reality.

But where should you start? Let me show you how I have helped founders express what makes their ideas unique and shape them into meaningful missions.

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Two decades ago, social media emerged along with streaming. While these technologies were game-changing, they came with a heavy bag of isolation, distress and distractions, especially for young generations — the overwhelming negative implications of which are only just starting to surface.

Today, whoever isn't using AI is made to feel at a disadvantage.

And while AI could be a formidable bicycle for the brain, our ability to think for ourselves is being atrophied. I'm not saying this, Microsoft and teachers are.

Writing is critical to the formation of thoughts.

Writing is thinking. It's the gateway to activating and transmitting knowledge.

ChatGPT, from one day to another, made the activity of writing obsolete for most of mankind, especially those who didn't write in the first place.

Why write, when a machine can do it instantly, with the research skills of a triple PhD in every single domain, in the style of any literature hall-of-famer?

At the rate at which we're delegating our writing to machines, our individual thoughts may not matter in the future.

If we assume 99% of the web will be made up of synthetic content, we may end up regurgitating synthetic ideas endlessly instead of coming up with new ones. Akin to a snake eating its own tail.

Therefore, we should take great care to protect our ability to think and function in the absence of AI. We want to make sure the plane pilot can fly manual in foggy weather. A person only becomes physically strong if they deliberately train their body on a regular basis. Otherwise they become weak. The same goes for the mind.

We should cultivate independence from machines to preserve brain function.

We should insist that schools are environments where knowledge acquisition techniques have been tested rigorously, instead of going all-in digital just because it’s new and exciting.

Unlike computers, we retain information through friction and effort.

It’s been widely reported that slow acquisition, though pen and paper is still superior for long-term knowledge retention via long form reading and writing. Building a mind that is consistently able to generate and action information would be a valuable outcome of education.

AI tutors may teach our kids one day but we can't afford to let them think for them. So go ahead and write. Humanity’s agency depends on it.

This essay was written without AI.
Susanna Baudoin gracefully reviewed it.

Life-changing technologies are evolving simultaneously at neck-breaking speed: AI, crypto, rockets, biotech.

Robots will reshape in silence our physical environment without taking a break to sleep. Resources will be extracted faster than ever. Production rates won’t be capped by human stamina.

Companies are already picking the low-hanging fruits of AI, reducing knowledge-worker head counts.

Individuals are becoming companies-of-one, surrounded by their AI executive suites and armies of customer service bots.

School and work are going to be disrupted in ways that are difficult to fathom.

At present, everything can be learnt for free but with future AI tutors, who can adapt to each pupil, homeschooling could be embraced at scale.

In light of this, what present education model is the most relevant for kids stepping into adulthood two decades from today? Our children may never know what a job is.

Will rote-learning still be around? Will interest-based curriculums be the norm?

The abundance of intelligence, energy, resources and automated labor will shape the world into a real-life, non-zero sum video game. You'll have freedom to choose an avatar, a place to evolve, partners to play with, projects to complete.

While we enjoy infinite possibilities, we should tread carefully. A new god is at our door and no one but sci-fi authors have prepared for this. AI will make us sovereign or useless.

What are the practical steps to prepare for this shift? How can we use AI to support families? If whole dimensions of labour and work disappears, how will we spend our newfound time, what new types of adventures and meaningful pursuits will appear?

We explore these questions in this newsletter.

This present moment was once the unimaginable future. — Stewart Brand

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PJ

The sound of music

This is my wife’s favourite movie and probably mine as well now. It’s brimming with energy, melody and values. Shot in the seventies, this is a coming of age story masterfully woven with its soundtrack. Set in the Austrian countryside before WW2, the photography is superb, full of contrast and true shadows, very unlike anything shot nowadays. No wonder they haven’t made a remake: Julie Andrews is irreplaceable. She will live in both your head and heart long after. Skip Netflix tonight and experience a piece of content “that won’t leave your body instantly”, as my wife likes to say.

Greyscale your apps selectively (iOS)

Do you ever wonder why Instagram’s logo looks like a lollipop? Turning you phone’s screen into greyscale makes it less addictive but I still need to look at pictures or maps in colours so I designed a tiny program with Apple Shortcuts on iPhone to turn off greyscale when opening select apps:

1. In your phone Settings, type “Colour Filters” in the search bar, activate it and select “Greyscale”

2. Then download and open Apple Shortcuts

3. Tap Automation and + in the upper right corner.

4. Create Personal Automation

5. Tap App

6. In App: select the apps you want to see in colour

7. Keep “is opened” checked

8. In the search bar, type “Set colour filter”

9. Tap Next

10. Deactivate “Ask Before Running”

11. Feel like a genius.

Succession

Eat it cold. For the last season, Succession’s characters slam unbelievably harsh judgements on each other. It’s a great study of human character and our motivations. It can bring your heart rate up so be mindful of when you watch this.

Marketing Strategy

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If you’re about to launch a new product or service, with a new audience, market or channel, or starting to create content, I lead 1-hour workshops:

• to clarify your Company Mission

• identify your Unique Selling points and Themes

• create your Marketing Plan

Learn about my Strategy Services and Clients.

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Yuka

Did you know how good fish fingers are for you? The Yuka app prevents you from squinting your eyes to read the ingredients list of any processed product. It gives you a helpful rating to form a purchase opinion and recommend healthier options. Works for food and cosmetics.

A quote to think about

If war is an industry, how can we have peace in a capitalistic world?

Listening to podcasts in the car with my wife is one of my favourite learning experiences. This episode of Founders was a goodie with a high density of insight per minute. Its host, David Senra, found himself in an exceptional position: having dinner with Charlie Munger. Charlie is Warren Buffet’s co-pilot on managing Berkshire Hathaway, probably the most successful investment fund ever. But beyond being good at making money, Charlie is known for his wisdom and common sense. Here are a few of my favourite takeaways, applicable to life and business:

• Invest in durability.

• Specialise and compound.

• Be extremely interested in what you do, that's the only way to reach excellence.

• “I did not succeed because I’m smart. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.”

• Wise people step on big and growing troubles early.

Why Casio is the ultimate watch for dads

I can appreciate a beautiful mechanical watch but I’ve been wearing this lately:

I bought it when my daughter was born to read the time in the dark during nightly feeds, to time exercise sets and above all, wake me up silently, vibrating, without stirring everybody else. I did consider an Apple watch but it’s distracting with all its apps and cumbersome to recharge on a daily basis. Every function of the Casio is 2 taps away and needs a battery change every 10 years. I found it ugly to begin with but it won me over.

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Befriending cold water makes your days fuller

It’s my new obsession. Listening to the likes of Andrew Huberman or Wim Hof probably brainwashed me through the years. As an adept of meditation, I find value in tolerating a hostile situation for a moment. The brain fights to avoid it, finding excuse after excuse (the more it fights, the better the outcome I found out). It’s similar to any form of procrastination: starting is the real struggle.

So I jump in cold rivers or showers whenever I have the chance and the rest of the day seems to take care of itself, fitting more into it.

A few different outlooks on AI

This week I thought it would be a good time to watch AI by Steven Spielberg. While it did not age well, it poses an important question: will AGI be capable of loving?

Elon Musk and other prominent scientists asked AI company leaders to pause research on large AI experiments for 6 months in this open letter. This is meant to help us take a breath before diving into a future — even Open Ai’s CEO admits — that isn’t risk-free.

On the meantime, people like Chamath Palihapitiya (ex-growth lieutenant at Facebook) are trying to articulate where AI will create the biggest returns. He compares the future financial winners of AI to Coca-Cola, when it made more money than fridge manufacturers during the advent of refrigeration. AI entrepreneurs are going to make money no doubt but whoever knows how to exploit AI will do better:

And while everyone wonders whether we’re making ourselves irrelevant, here’s Nassim Taleb’s take:

Don’t be afraid of the circus

Great share from Arjun Mahadevan:

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I’ve been following Bryan Johnson (ex-founder at Braintree, sold to Paypal for $800m) in his quest for perfect health and rejuvenation. He’s investing $2m per year in a team of 20 age-reversal scientists to use his body as the prototype for the next major sapiens update. His reason for doing this is rarely obvious in the media so here’s my take: our brains are overwhelmed with thousands of daily micro-choices like what to eat or when to sleep, leaving too much room for our primitive selves to make mistakes. Clearer mind, better decisions. He plans to automate protocols like diet or exercise to build a human template that can navigate any version of the future and who can co-exist with your new friendly AI neighbour. (PS: those who aren’t overwhelmed by what’s going on in that space are in for a surprise). Here’s a clip where he explains himself.

Johnson is open-sourcing his Blueprint for us to try his routines while he goes hiking on the frontiers of health optimisation (see how harsh he’s on himself). One of his principal tenets is sleep: lights are out by 8.30 pm in his household, no matter what. I struggle to sleep early so I printed out the following guideline from his feed:

What’s wrong with us?

Tim Urban and his Wait but Why blog posts have been sorely missed. After 6 years of absence, he’s back with an ebook to lay it on us, once again. What’s wrong with us? provides a simple lens to understand how our species’ out-of-date brains are driving us into a hell hole. He describes the constant fight happening between our higher mind (conscious, deliberate) and our primitive one (unconscious, designed for survival) and its impact on society. I absorbed the Kindle sample instantly and I’m now waiting for a spare morning to read the whole thing. I do not recommend reading this at night, as it will keep you up.

AI’s new self-proclaimed president

This statement from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman left me with a weird taste in my brain. Speaking like the new president of the ‘AI state’, he’s drafting the contours of a revolution no one is ready for, while he’s got keys of the cage. He pledges to launch AI tech slowly to control the landing. It’s an operation which has, in his words, “boundless downside and boundless upside”. This is the kind of progress that cannot be stopped. We’re going to have to witness this whether we like it or not, so we might as well try to enjoy it. Hopefully, it’s not a horror flick. Most of us are probably wildly unprepared for what’s coming. AI leaders are discreetly admitting that they are too.

The Last of Us

I’ve been revisiting the world of the Last of Us through its HBO TV adaptation. I played both PlayStation games and immersing myself again in this dire world was oddly compelling. The music and atmosphere are unique and unexpected in this genre. This is not about zombies but about human nature. It’s crude, beautiful and feels real. It’s not a surprise success since its show-runner, Craig Mazin, also ran Chernobyl, another HBO hit. If you’re limited in time, try Episode 3, “Long, Long Time” which features an award-winning performance by Nick Offerman.

Children of Time

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovski is one of my library’s proudest finds. This book from 2015 reminds me of Asimov’s Foundation series with a biotech edge. I don’t want to spoil the synopsis but here’s a taste. Mankind’s last survivors are on a journey to find a new home, while light years away a synthetic virus accelerates the evolution of a specific species on a terraformed planet. The staff manning this expedition use “suspension” to cryopreserve themselves through time, until their skills are required at critical timestamps of their ride. The book surfs across eras comparing two civilisations evolving side-by-side and eventually colliding. It’s quite rare for me to discover a prolific, contemporary sci-fi author who can project mankind beyond immeasurable eras. I wrote my main takeaways from the book in this thread.

Have a good one,

PJ

You need to see this

If you click on a single link from this post, make it this one. OpenAi is deploying their GPTs faster than we can take it. The impact is already being felt and will be visible in the next few months. Google’s business model is under threat, as are many apps which will be replaced by asking questions to an internet-connected ChatGPT. See in this video how to do research, book restaurants or edit video.

World War 101

The Ukrainian conflict has no resolution in sight and the word nuclear is now casually mentioned in the news. It’s a good time to remind ourselves how suddenly war can erupt and what better example than the escalation that led us to World War I? The documentary Apocalypse reveals the day-by-day series of events that led countries and continents into war. The reasons that motivated WW1 look primitive but in no way different than today’s. Frontiers, allegiances and bored armies are thrown onto a casino roulette with no conscience of the pain underway. Putting this footage together was an achievement in itself (some was retrieved through diplomatic briefcases) and the result is relatable, thanks to painstaking research and frame-by-frame cleaning and colouring. No history class or museum can achieve this level of familiarity, unless hearing the story from direct witnesses. From its writer, Isabelle Clarke: “It’s an extreme live-action approach to archival work”.

My 2nd brain

I have been through countless note-taking apps, ever since I could log my thoughts digitally: Evernote, Google Keep, Apple Note, you name it, I’ve tried it. The best system for me are nested-bullet-points structures like Workflowy’s. Whatever my mind dives into, I can just upgrade any bullet into a new nest of subsequent bullets, effortlessly. It’s fast, pared down and functional. That’s all I ask. As a result, I can search every bit of information I’ve mined.

Something I want to try is rewind.ai, which literally records and searches everything you’ve ever seen or heard on your screen. Very much like creating your personal covert listening program?

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Crying is underrated

I was quite sleep-deprived last week and reading this poem made me cry for the first time in years. I’ve always had trouble crying when I needed it the most. Raised in a household where I seldom saw my father cry twice, flushing out tears is not a skill. Why is crying not experienced as often as laughing? It has a cathartic effect:

"Sometimes you have to go through something painful and deep in order to break through to the other side, and tears are a river that can take you there.”

Under anger, there is always sadness. I believe men need to cry so they don’t end up tearing up in anger or violence.

The Whale

I was quite reluctant to watch a movie about someone afflicted with extreme obesity. Of course I was wrong. After Mother and Requiem for a dream, each of Darren Aronofsky’s movie is a LSD trip without taking drugs. This one immerses you into the daily struggle of man who has lost his sense of reality and all control. As a remote literature teacher, he urges his students to write something real they can feel, because he no longer feels anything. Brendan Fraser earned a well-deserved Oscar: he achieves making himself monstrous yet loveable. He shows how, given a specific sequence of events, this could happen to anyone.

A quote I’m often thinking about

One of my recent mantras is: “Joy is found on the other end of sleep.”

PJ

Meditation Superpowers

Someone said that all of mankind’s problems could be solved if everyone sat still in a room alone for 15 minutes every day. I can believe that. I started meditating back in London, at a time when I felt overwhelmed. I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and it led to my meditation practice. No other book has had more impact on my well-being.

Meditation creates a shield from stimuli and thoughts before I head back to life. It applies a slow-motion filter to my response to events. I get additional seconds to assess my options before I react to hunger, arguments or fatigue. I make better decisions as a result.

Meditation, at first, can be a challenge. Our brains seem impossible to tame. I started with guided meditations on the Headspace app but there are others like Calm and Waking Up. Otherwise, here’s a protocol I wrote on how to meditate with a timer.

Arc: the better browser you didn’t know about

My browser “history” since I’ve been on the internet:

Netscape
Internet Explorer
Safari
Mozilla
Chrome
Brave
Arc

You can do almost everything with nothing but an internet connection and Google Docs. With Arc I almost never see my desktop wallpaper anymore. Every file I need (eg: screenshots and downloads mostly) are just a click away within Arc. My tabs are neatly stacked into folders rather than hidden in a dark corner, meaning no more infinite tabs and they’re cleared up automatically every 12 hours. The UI is full of other delicious little features like collaborative, Powerpoint slides to share like this mood board. You can also create several “spaces” (sessions) to keep professional matters separate from personal stuff. The experience feels brand new. Give it a browse without waitlisting here.

The Era of Margin Calls

The Silicon Valley Bank debacle prompted me to watch this again, and even on my 3rd round I still find this movie fascinating. It doesn’t explain how the 2008 crisis happened as The Big Short does but it’s about the people who were in the room and the few conversations that threw the world into disarray. Here’s why I love it:

• An amazing ensemble cast with nuanced acting across the board.

• The layers of each character peeled away artfully.

• The cinematography.

• Jeremy Irons.

• The script.

My take: in the world of finance, the ability to stay isolated from the consequences of your decisions is key to accumulating power. If you like Succession, you’ll love this.

Coming next: Dan Toomey

Mark my words: this guy is going to be huge. Dan is a comedian who produces TikTok-style parodies for Morning Brew on the contradictions of the workplace and other business stories. He’s got a YouTube show called Good Work. And he just graduated. Just consume it all already:

What Americans think working in Finland is like

How Finland thinks America works

The Silicon Valley Bank crash

Elon wakes up

We hired an AI Matthew McConaughey

A quote that stopped me in my tracks

“The way you treat your body is how you treat the world.”

Bryan Johnson on the Impact Theory Podcast

Dopamine streaks

Dopamine is the motivation driver. All actions, even procrastination, consume dopamine, very much like a currency. More dopamine, more action tokens. When the tank is empty, it’s depression time. But here’s the interesting part:

Meaning: if you voluntarily put yourself through some amount of pain, your dopamine baseline resets itself at a higher level than before the pain. With this in mind, you can plan to afford some pain to sustain “happy times” throughout the day. Huberman calls it creating a “Summer in your body”. It’s like a healthy flywheel to push yourself further. I’ve been trying ice baths with my wife and even if they’re scary, we always come out in a better mood. Dopamine levels reach at an all-day high, and we can “consume” our dopamine safely until night comes.

AI 101

Here’s a well synthesised state of AI to share with your parents or anyone who has no idea what we can do with AI right now. From generating images or music from a simple prompt to potential benefits (or threats) to mankind, John Oliver does a great job of making it informative and entertaining. Catch up before it’s too late…

Progressive overload

Progressive overload in strength training is about slowly loading up a barbell with slightly more weight than you can lift, in every session. I started thinking about which areas I could apply this to. It works very well for push-ups if you add one additional rep every day. I went from 30 reps in one set to 60 after a month. It’s all about consistency and compounding power. Let me know in the comments if you have ideas, beyond fitness especially.

Life-changing habit

I’ve always liked the idea of serendipity without time constraints during the weekends. Until my wife begged me to pardon her. Pencil planning the weekends, really, is a game changer. I was reluctant to begin with but the following trick has brought a sense of achievement and satisfaction I did not expect. Having a skeleton plan of things to come, or little moments we’d like to experience with family and friends, is mind-bending, simple sorcery.

Here’s the Suki Protocol:

1. You’ll need paper, pencil, scissors, tape. (I like to keep it DIY)

2. During your morning coffee on Saturday, we all write down ours wants and goals for the weekend side-by-side and cut them into labels.

3. Draw two columns for Saturday and Sunday.

4. Plot the labels in the order you want to achieve them.

5. When everyone’s happy with the plan, secure the labels with tape.

6. Have a look every now and then.

This habits creates an invisible thread that puts the family into action. You’ll be surprised how much you can do in two days.

A Bag for life

The other day my wife and I were chatting about what item we would save from the house if it burnt down.

My wife chose a painting. Our 3-year old went for her soft octopus toy (obviously). I called my backpack. I’ve always been fascinated by this accessory but rarely have I been convinced by any specific design. Exception made for this one-of-a-kind leather treasure which a wandering man dropped in front of me, on floor of ranch in the middle of nowhere, Utah. It’s too bad I didn’t take a picture of him but believe you me when I say the man it belonged to matched his apparel. When I asked him where he lived, he just replied “outside”. Zoom in to find out just how much craft was put into it. The leather was thick and heavy.

Anyhow, for lack of a better alternative as I did not fancy myself a leather artisan, I went for the Rover by Topo Designs. It’s just the right size for any scenario, not a single unused pocket, light and snug, and extendable upwards space if need be. I consider it a ‘Lindy’ item (a concept by Nassim Taleb), which gets better with time, just like wine.

“…being in the shoes of a relationship god felt good.”

This summer, I've been watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hill, season 1 to 5.
I should be ashamed but I’m not. Hanging out with these housewives has been a relief to come back home to. After a day of parenthood problem-solving, being in the shoes of a relationship god felt good.

I used to be snobbish about reality TV. In my teens, I had a literature teacher who made our class into a platform against reality TV. It represented the end of culture as I knew it and the bottom pile of audiovisual arts, until now.

This show follows wealthy people living their lives in the extraordinary context of Beverly Hills. When conflicts erupt, the cast members choose a side, depending on their allegiances, morals or both. Conflict resolution becomes anything but objective but I believe I am. That's what makes these shows so compelling: I possess the keys to resolve their problems and they don't. It's like playing a video game knowing all the cheat-codes and not using them. Reality TV can teach us a few things.

People with good intentions create conflict as much as anyone else, especially when confronting unreasonable, in-denial individuals (I’m looking at you Kim Richards). Prior to the Housewives, I would try to heal relationships between members in my family. It backfired every single time, damaging my own relationships in the process. Since watching the show, my rule of thumb is to avoid conflict at all costs. And so far, so good.

Here’s a typical relationship dilemma that reality TV can help you solve. Tony wants to make out with his friend's ex-girlfriend. Should he:

1. Tell his friend before making a move.
2. Kiss the girl and tell his friend before anyone does?
3. Just go for it.

A show like Too Hot To Handle will play out the worst and most tempting scenarios and break down their consequences for us to watch, enjoy and learn from.

“These shows are like CPR training courses for relationships.”

I've seen situations I hope I will never witness in real life. That said, I did experience a few of them and wish I had seen them in the show beforehand. Watching the housewives is like CPR training courses for relationships.

The cast of these shows provide a public service by making mistakes spectacularly obvious, keeping us from making them ourselves.

When contestants are fired, their recently-met friends cry like Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar. That's a lifetime's worth of raw experiences for them and timeless wisdom for us all.

PJ

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