STORIES MAKE SENSE I write stories, which means I spend all day in a universe where everything happens for a reason. It's so great. In a traditional story (anything not absurd or surrealist), everything has a cause and effect. Scenes build on the ones before until you get a climactic end that obeys logic. It's so satisfying. It's arguably what our brains do every minute of the day: make meaning out of a very chaotic, complex reality. Everything needs to have a cause and effect when they're happening and credit and blame when they're over. Whether it's ourselves or the stars, the gods, fate, or blind luck. Whatever it is - there's a REASON. WHAT IF ALL OF THAT IS WRONG? There's a great deal more happenstance, nonsense, and chance in our lives than I think any of us are comfortable with. There's a story I learned whose origins have been lost to time, though it's been variously attributed to Buddhism and Taoism of an old farmer and chance. I used to absolutely … [Read more...] about 2 Ways to Make Goals in the Face of Randomness and Chaos
Friday Dive
I’m Never Getting on the Metaverse. Or a Boat.
VIRTUAL REALITY IS A TOY It will not become a thing. It will not be universally adopted. I know I JUST wrote a post explaining how I do not make bold predictions after experiencing the worst prediction ever, and I definitely could be wrong about this. The only thing I can confidently predict is that I personally will never, ever put one on. (But I just don't think I'm the only one.) THIS IS NOT A MORAL OBJECTION Tech companies are not morally neutral. They are low-key wrecking democracy as we know it in their pursuit of profits, but that's not new. A new fancy headset is not going to make that worse than it already is. THIS IS A PHYSICAL OBJECTION The reason I will never put on a helmet is because I would puke my guts out. Cyber sickness isn’t new. It’s been estimated that at least 10% of your users experience dizziness and nausea in VR. But a new study has shown that is a drastic understatement, and the number is closer to 65%. Let that sink in. That … [Read more...] about I’m Never Getting on the Metaverse. Or a Boat.
Kids Text Fast. It doesn’t mean they Understand the Internet
JUST BECAUSE WE DON'T GET IT, DOESN'T MEAN THEY DO There's no question that the younger generation are faster texters and have a meme culture that far surpasses anything on the internet heretofore. Quality rhyme, right there. Quality. (This is not sarcasm!) One of my favorite scenes from the TV show Grace and Frankie is when Frankie gets a new computer and calls Apple for support and whispers, "I'm 70!" There is some truth to the idea that older people are not good online and young people are digital natives who, with every generation, will always be soooo much better. But it's only half the truth. START EARLY, GET MORE MUSCLE MEMORY What we mistake for mastery is probably just muscle memory. Muscle memory has nothing to do with muscles. It's actually about an inert white substance in your brain called myelin. This comes from a really excellent book called The Talent Code, about how we get good at things. [Fun fact, researchers thought myelin was … [Read more...] about Kids Text Fast. It doesn’t mean they Understand the Internet
The Future is Now… In Fiction
There is a big misconception that science fiction is about the future. SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY ARE ALWAYS ABOUT NOW Whether authors intend it or not, speculative fiction is always a commentary on the present. Ironically, often more than a lot of contemporary fiction. One of my favorite short stories by Asimov, and I wish I could find it again, had miners working in space with essentially, nanotechnology. But the conflict of the story was about women working in the mines, which was eventually solved with a priest. Women in the mines turned out to be fine, so long as there was somebody there to marry everybody! This is what I'm talking about. Successfully predicted nanotechnology, but thousands of years from now, everyone will act like it's the 1950s... Frank Herbert was particularly topical, whether he intended to be or not. He anchored Dune in politics, government, religion, power and those evolved to match the world from the 50s to the 80s. So I did a little … [Read more...] about The Future is Now… In Fiction
The Worst Prediction in the History of Educating People
It was May 2001 and I was taking World History when I heard the worst prediction in my life. Nothing has come close to matching how wrong this teacher was. It was near the end of the semester, and we were in the 80s and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. The teacher was very proud of the fact that he had a piece of it which he brought like show and tell. As he passed an unremarkable bit of cement from hand to hand, he said the most incorrect statement I have ever heard in my entire life about anything ever. "The fall of the Berlin wall was the most significant historical event to happen within my lifetime. Probably within yours as well." REMEMBER THE OPTIMISM? If you are too young to remember the 90s, or heaven forbid, you weren't even born in the 90s, there was a real sense of optimism. Yes, the Dot Com crash kind of wrecked the economy for a hot second. And yes Y2K and the turn of the new millennium potentially would've wrecked all our computers, but that was a false … [Read more...] about The Worst Prediction in the History of Educating People
A Fiction Author on How to Fall in Love with Reality
WE HAVE VERY FEW REAL PROBLEMS I know that sounds crazy. But bear with me... I write fiction: stories people do not believe. Sometimes I think this newsletter is the mirror to that: deconstructing the stories people automatically believe. The idea for this week came from the news story about the water problem in the Western states of the US and the incredible droughts in Europe. Namely, that there isn't any water. (I mean, I love the TV show Drain the Ocean, but it's not supposed to be literal!) LIFE IN CONSTANT DROUGHT I grew up in Colorado, and it's difficult to describe to someone who hasn't grown up rationing water what it is like. Residents for decades filled fountains with lights instead of water and transformed our yards into rocks and took military showers. But more than any one action, this mindset infects you until it's almost instinct. The craving for water as you watch the world turn beige and light on fire every year. As your skin desiccates and your … [Read more...] about A Fiction Author on How to Fall in Love with Reality
How Bottlenecks and Slushies Help You Get Better Ideas
How do you make the best guess and get better ideas? I talked about last week how we're terrible at the first step in the scientific method: making a hypothesis. We never learn to do it. Here's a few ways to do it better. TELL YOURSELF THE STORY OF WHAT HAPPENED We all have stories about why things happen in the world and in our lives. They can be really awesome stories. Whizbang beginnings, tense conflict, explosive endings. Elaborate backstories. Fifteen sequels. Do they have anything to do with reality? Until we had the scientific method, we had no way to know. But now we do! The fancy word for this is a root cause analysis, digging through the story to try and find the story that most closely matches the reality of what happened. It is shocking how many big decisions people make their lives without the smallest bit of due diligence. They apply for graduate programs without ever talking to someone who's gotten that degree or has the job they think they want. Or … [Read more...] about How Bottlenecks and Slushies Help You Get Better Ideas
How to Learn to Love the Wicked World
DON'T SOLVE PROBLEMS; GET NEW AND BETTER IDEAS I talk a lot in this newsletter about how to dismantle your assumptions and beliefs and question the water that you swim in. But equally important, if not more important, is the ability to get new and better ideas once you've done that. One of humanity's main tools for seeing things differently is the scientific method. Don't click away! I know, boring, Middle School level science, but we have a massive problem. We were never really taught the first step! WHAT WE DID LEARN IN SCHOOL? How many tests and experiments did you run in school? How many times did you have to come up with the question, not just the answer? I remember an upper division writing class in college. I got a C on my first paper. Somewhat gobsmacked, I went to the Professor who informed me that I had come to a different conclusion, not the one he gave me. I said, "Let me get this straight, you gave me the hypothesis, the evidence, and the conclusion … [Read more...] about How to Learn to Love the Wicked World