In 1962, the US and USSR had been stockpiling nuclear weapons. There was a tense moment when the USSR sent submarines to Cuba, off the coast of the US. The crew of the submarine knew this was provocative, and the sub was loaded with nuclear-armed torpedoes, capable of causing strikes the size of the Hiroshima attack. US started dropping (non-nuclear) depth charges on the submarine, and since it was cut off from USSR communications at this point, it had to decide what to do.

From the perspective of the captain, they assumed World War III had started, and they should shoot their nuclear torpedo at nearby US ships. What choice did they have? That was what they had been tasked to do. The second-in-command refused this plan. Despite the immense pressure from his captain, and the policy officer, he kept a cool head and refused.

Instead, the captain backed down, the sub surfaced and peace talks continued.

What would have happened if the second in command had cracked?

The submarine would have kaboomed a range of nearby US ships. The US would have seen this, and responded with a large array of its own nuclear warheads. It would have rained down terror over the USSR, dropping hydrogen bombs over Eastern European cities such as Kyiv and Moscow, and Chinese cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. The USSR may then have responded with strikes on London, Paris, and New York.

The strikes would have killed up to 500 million people directly, and potentially caused a nuclear winter. The dust kicked up into the atmosphere would likely have reduced the sun reaching fields, causing crops to fail globally and large famines.

There would have been huge numbers of deaths, and complete derailment of all the societal progress since 1962, My parents wouldn’t have been born, and the Beatles wouldn’t have written Something or a Day in the Life.

What does it tell us?

The first thing we learn is that history is full of near misses. Forethought have written about how AI is likely to rapidly accelerate tech progress, which causes huge policy challenges -- if nuclear tech had happened way faster, we may have struggled to deal with the policy and ended up in this winter scenario.

Secondly, as the Anthropic v Pentagon debacle recently covered, humans-in-the-loop matter! Even on small scales, life-or-death decisions should rest on humans.

The second thing is, anti-conformity training1 could be hugely important. Arkipov was willing to stand up for his opinion, but humans are naturally terrible at this.. There are studies that show if everyone around you is ignoring smoke alarms, then you will sit through them, even if you see smoke billowing under the door. Other studies show that if your peers all believe that one stick is shorter than the others, even if you know deep down they’re wrong, you’ll likely agree. The result is that decision-makers are naturally primed to do dumb stuff, like allow their commanders to send missiles and start WWIII. To avoid situations like this in the future, humans being good at this could be important.

Anthropic v Pentagon gave us another example of this recently. Dario Amodei broke down an important contract on a dispute over the legal smallprint— taking heat from the government while doing it. Surely other execs in Anthropic advised him against this, urged him to continue the contract and dissent later. Dario being good at saying ‘no’, resisting conformity, has meaningfully changed the conversation on domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.

So the takeaway?

History is a thin tightrope. We are entering an era of AI and rapid progress where the stakes are higher than ever. So the next time you feel the itch to agree and keep the peace, consider practising standing up for your opinion. Get good at using your ‘no’ - the future might need it.

Here’s a better one: you’re smart if you reliably get what you’re aiming at.

A person who wants a PhD, runs experiments for five years, writes the thesis, and gets handed a floppy hat at graduation? Smart.

A person who wants a PhD, buys a degree from a shady online “university,” and proudly prints it out on A4 paper? Also smart—just in a morally dubious way.

Agency sits at the center of this. Goals vary: money, status, comfort, truth, a clean kitchen, a revolution. One person optimizes ruthlessly, another dithers, another forgets halfway through. That’s the actual spectrum of intelligence: not IQ points, but goal achievement under constraints.

This tracks across humans

Babies are not smart. Not because they can’t do calculus, but because they want things—comfort, food, sleep—and fail to get them constantly. They cry, hoping someone else solves their problems.

Teenagers who figure out how to improve their social lives, their freedom, their future prospects? Smart. Good school grades don’t make you smart unless you can actually shape your life the way you want it.

A really intelligent student navigates university strategically and builds the career and lifestyle they’re aiming for. A less intelligent one gets stuck—unable to climb the ladder, unable to pivot, grinding through decades of work they never chose.

Here’s the kicker: on the Cantrill Ladder—a simple 0-10 scale measuring life satisfaction—really smart people should be able to get themselves to a 10. Yet very few people actually achieve this. Most hover around 5-7, wanting better lives but unable to steer toward them.

Not because they’re lazy. Because they lack the optimization power.

This scales across species

An octopus escapes from a sealed tank because it wants fish and refuses to take “no” for an answer. A crow solves multi-step puzzles and caches food where rivals won’t find it. A cow stands in a field, unable to open a gate, unable to flee the slaughterhouse—not because it wants death, but because it has no ability to steer away from it.

The usual approach to animal intelligence asks: can it recognize itself in a mirror? Can it do math? Can it use tools?

But these are human tribal markers. The cleaner metric: when the animal wants something, does it get it?

On that metric: apes and corvids, excellent; chickens, not so much.

The trap

Here’s where people make a convenient mistake: “Less intelligent creatures suffer less.”

This sounds tidy. It’s false.

We already established babies aren’t smart—they can’t achieve their goals. Yet everyone knows hurting babies is monstrous.

If intelligence determined how much suffering mattered, harming babies would barely register.

One step further

Cows can’t escape slaughter. Chickens can’t escape cages. Deer can’t escape parasites and starvation.

Their inability to fix their situation doesn’t mean their situation is fine. That’s the horror: beings that feel pain but can’t do anything about it.

The conclusion isn’t complicated:

Pain and intelligence are different axes. If we care about suffering, we can’t draw the line at “smart enough.”

Factory farms and wild ecosystems are full of beings experiencing intense, unfixable misery. We mostly don’t count it because they’re bad at getting what they want.

But that’s exactly when they need us most.

“AI doesn’t really affect animal welfare—these are separate issues.” I had this (subconscious?) way of thinking until recently. Then I fell on this article by Aidan K which added some new perspective for me.

Substack suggested it might take me two hours to read, so after scanning some key points, I’ve made this nice Claude summary. I’ve tailored it to extract the bits that moved me most and left out things that didn’t.

Key takeaway: Animal welfare will massively change with AI. By becoming AI superusers, we can do more and be more competitive. See below for how.

The Economic Transformation Argument (What Moved Me)

Two Possible Futures:

Scenario 1: Last Factory Farm Closes

• Alternative proteins (cultivated meat) become cheaper than factory farming

• AI accelerates R&D by orders of magnitude (example: Co-Scientist solved 10-year antibiotic resistance problem in 2 days)

• Economic pressure makes factory farming uncompetitive

• Final farms shut down as market collapses

Scenario 2: Superfarm in Space

• AI enables unprecedented efficiency and scale

• Factory farming becomes automated, cheaper, more efficient

• Space colonisation includes industrial animal agriculture

• “5 billion pigs a year: literally the death star”

The Industrial Revolution Parallel:

• Pre-1800: 80% of people worked in agriculture

• Post-industrial: <3% in agriculture, but economy 200x larger

• The change was so profound that a farmer from 1800 couldn’t have imagined 2025

• AI represents another such shift—potentially 1,000x economic growth

• This won’t mean “1,000x more of what we have now”—it means total restructuring

The Stakes:

• Economics has been the main driver of animal suffering (e.g., Chinese middle class growth increased factory farming more than Western activism reduced it)

• AI will reshape the global economy faster than any previous technology

• Factory farming advocates are already using AI for “precision livestock farming” and propaganda

• We have perhaps 5-10 years before the direction becomes locked in

Why This Matters: The side that becomes AI-native first will shape which future we get. If we don’t match the industry’s AI capabilities, we’ll be “bringing a knife to a gunfight.”

Three Tiers of Harnessing AI for Animal Welfare

Tier 1: Become AI Superusers ⚡

Use AI to accelerate everything you’re already doing

Immediate Actions:

• Use Claude/ChatGPT daily for research, writing, strategy

• Learn workflow automation (n8n, Zapier) to run autonomous agents

• Deploy AI coding (Claude Code)—even non-technical people can learn in ~18 hours

• Automate repetitive work: social media replies, research, outreach emails, legal prep

Real Examples:

• One org uses AI to write custom replies to every social media comment (used to take hours daily)

• WhereTheyStand.org tracks 7,000 politicians’ animal welfare positions automatically

• Open Paws created tools to automate corporate campaign research and personalised outreach (process takes minutes vs months)

Key Principle: Provide maximum context in prompts. Treat AI like hiring a brilliant assistant who needs thorough briefing.

Tier 2: Unlock New Strategies 🚀

Do things that were previously impossible

Game-Changing Applications:

1. Cultivated Meat R&D Acceleration

• AI can develop “intuition” for complex problems (like AlphaFold for protein folding)

• The problem: Most alternative protein companies aren’t systematically collecting data for ML training

• The opportunity: Someone without a STEM degree could help companies restructure their R&D around AI (Claude can walk you through it)

• Potential impact: “Greatest suffering reducer in human history”

2. Hyperscale Impact Litigation

• AI handles most legal work outside courtroom

• One lawyer + AI assistants could initiate 2-3x more cases

• Scales up as AI capabilities improve

3. Custom Content at Scale

• Personalised vegan documentaries for every demographic/subculture

• Automated but transparent AI advocates across internet platforms

• Content production costs collapsing

4. Autonomous Organisations

• Y Combinator expects next $10B company to have ≤10 employees

• “What would you do if 1 million volunteers signed up tomorrow?”

• First movers will be recognised as movement leaders

Tier 3: Future-Proof Strategy 🎯

Position for transformative change

Core Insight: Animal advocates and factory farming are in a “tug of war, and AI is the rope.”

Strategic Goals:

1. Strengthen our grip: Build relationships with tech companies and AI regulators

2. Weaken their grip: Create stigma against AI collaboration with factory farms (e.g., CS student pledges)

3. Tilt the field: Push for animal welfare provisions in AI regulations (even minimal rules create friction)

Critical Window: If AI can “lock in” moral values, we need to establish a clear trend that humanity was moving away from factory farming. This means:

• Prioritising momentum-building campaigns that shift public narrative

• Getting animal welfare into mainstream tech ethics discussions

• Acting before the industry becomes even more AI-empowered

Resources for Animal Advocates

Getting Started:

• Open Paws: n8n templates and tools specifically for animal advocacy

• Amplify for Animals: 12-week course on building AI solutions

• Electric Sheep’s Futurekind fellowship: Deeper dive for animal advocates

Tools:

• Claude.ai / ChatGPT for daily AI assistance

• Claude Code for AI-powered coding (no programming knowledge needed)

• n8n / Zapier for workflow automation

Learning More:

• EA Forum AI tag: discussions on AI impact on animals

• 80,000 Hours podcast (especially Prof. Ian Morris episode on economic transformation)

• Cognitive Revolution podcast

Subscribe now

Some Arguments I’m Still Wrestling With

After reading this, there are a few economic and strategic questions I’m still thinking through. I’m presenting both sides here because I genuinely don’t know which view is correct:

The Thermodynamics vs Economies of Scale Question

Optimistic case for cultivated meat: When you’re optimising purely for muscle tissue growth (no bones, organs, immune system, reproduction), the thermodynamic efficiency seems fundamentally better than raising whole animals. Demand for meat is somewhat bounded—it can only increase with population growth or rising incomes. Surely we’ll crack cultivated meat eventually, even if it takes 50 years? At that point, how can factory farming possibly compete on pure economics?

Pessimistic counter: But factory farming also gets AI superpowers. They could breed even larger, faster-growing animals, fully automate facilities (removing labour costs), achieve unprecedented economies of scale, and leverage their massive funding advantage and head start. They’re already deploying “precision livestock farming.”

AI-optimised factory farming might actually widen the cost gap rather than close it. Which economic fundamentals win—the thermodynamic efficiency of cultivated meat, or the economies of scale + head start of factory farming?

The Scale and Inertia Problem

Right now, roughly 70-80 billion land animals are killed annually in factory farms globally. This number could grow substantially as Africa and South Asia develop economically over the next 50 years.

Even if cultivated meat becomes cheaper in 2035, doesn’t the sheer scale of existing infrastructure, supply chains, and consumer habits create enormous inertia? This seems more like the transition from fossil fuels (where we know renewables are better but change is painfully slow) rather than the kerosene-replacing-whale-oil example cited in the article.

The Dangerous Middle Period

The article argues we have 5-10 years before transformative AI reshapes everything—potentially “locking in” moral values or fundamentally changing economics. If cultivated meat is 20+ years away, we’re definitely in that dangerous middle period where factory farming gets massively more efficient before alternatives can compete.

This seems to be the article’s central point: AI will likely make things worse for animals in the short-term unless animal advocates match the industry’s AI capabilities NOW. The urgency isn’t “AI might be bad”—it’s “AI is coming either way, and whichever side harnesses it first will win.”

The Resource Asymmetry Question

The meat industry has:

• Billions in funding

• Existing infrastructure and economies of scale

• Political influence

• A head start on AI adoption

Animal advocates have:

• Smaller budgets

• More fragmented efforts

• Less political clout

Given this asymmetry, is “become AI superusers and we can win” realistic? Or is this a bit like telling climate activists in 2010 “you need to out-innovate the fossil fuel industry on clean energy R&D”—inspiring, but perhaps not viable?

Alternatively, do animal advocates have advantages in the AI race that offset these disadvantages? (Better access to tech talent? Moral urgency that attracts volunteers? Different strategic goals that require less capital?)

Bottom Line

The meat industry is already becoming AI-native. Economic forces will determine the future of factory farming—and economics is moving faster than it ever has.

The good news: You don’t need to be technical. AI tools are becoming easier to use whilst simultaneously becoming more powerful. The learning curve is measured in hours and weeks, not years.

Start today: Pick one repetitive task in your work. Ask Claude how to automate it. See what happens.

The future belongs to the AI-literate. 🌊

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is insect farming a good replacement for factory farming of larger animals?

A: No, I don’t think so. Factory farming is a moral catastrophe because of the billions of sentient beings caught up in incredibly dark, unnatural, painful situations. While we could reasonably argue that insects might have less strong pain responses, or less aversion to unnatural settings, we are not certain of this. As a result, we are in the dark about whether this trade-off is beneficial for moral reasons.

Q: But insects aren’t sentient, are they? They don’t feel pain... right?

A: As humans we have a natural tendency to ignore the pain of beings very different from ourselves. I think size has a big factor to play in this. If a cricket or butterfly were the size of a dog, you would hate to see a child pulling off its wings or piercing its legs. We would see the animal breathing, feeling with its antennae, flinching from pain.

Similarly, if we knew more about the mating practices of crickets, or about how they raise young and hide from predators, we might feel more sympathy for them. Much of our natural aversion to taking their suffering seriously comes from vibes. Therefore, we should think carefully before scaling up insect farms, and take welfare concerns seriously.

Q: But insects don’t feel pain? Or they feel pain way less strongly than we do?

A: We don’t know how strongly insects feel pain. Options:

• They might feel nothing. Although they do exhibit responses to pain [1] [2], as you know if you’ve ever pulled the wings off a butterfly.

• They might feel pain, but less vividly than humans. But what basis do we have for this? Do we think puppies, adult dogs, and babies feel pain less strongly than conscious adult humans? Or do we think all these groups feel pain approximately the same? Difficult to say.

• They might feel pain nearly as strongly as larger mammals or even humans.

Because of this uncertainty, we don’t know what the situation truly is. We might think it’s “probably fine,” but even if there’s a 1 in 10 chance that we’re wrong and insect pain is comparable to human pain, then scaling insect farming would be an enormous moral catastrophe.

Q: Why do you care about insect farming?

A: One reason is it’s a numbers game. To create a kilogram of protein from different animal sources, we should consider the number of minds involved.

Source of protein (10kg)Number of minds involvedCow0.04 (adult cow = 250kg usable meat)Pig0.12 (adult pig = 80kg usable meat)Hen10 (1kg meat per bird)Fish10-50 (depending on size)Shrimp330+ (super colossal shrimp is 30g)Black soldier fly larvae10,000+ minds

Each new mind introduced into an unnatural or potentially suffering lifestyle is a moral problem. When we are uncertain about all the factors involved, massively increasing the number of animals involved in farming could pose a larger moral issue than having suffering concentrated in fewer, larger animals.

Q: What are the considerations that make factory farming cause suffering?

A: Several factors make animals in factory farms suffer:

• Extreme heat or cold

• Absence of adequate food or water

• Overcrowding

• Unnatural conditions (e.g., no sunlight, concrete floors)

• Unaddressed medical issues (e.g., leg fractures in hens, “keel bone fractures”)

• Loneliness or other social issues

• Slaughter methods (e.g., suffocation, burning, crushing)

• Attacks from other animals (e.g., pigs nibbling each other’s tails)

• Procedures to make them more suitable for factory life:

  • Castration (pigs)

  • Eyestalk ablation (shrimp)

  • Teeth filing (pigs)

  • Beak cutting (hens)

  • Separation from young (dairy cows)

In summary, I think this area is very contentious and we should be afraid of making missteps when deciding how to reduce animal suffering.

Fellow veggies and vegans, thanks for thinking hard about such moral quandries.

Note: When engaging with this topic please avoid tribalism. This is an inherently uncertain field, and no one can be too sure of anything.

Volunteering can be a practical way to gain skills, explore different areas of effective altruism, and expand your professional network. In this post, I’ll share my recent experience taking on short volunteer projects with EA-aligned organisations: what I did, what I learned, and why I’d recommend it to others who are early in their careers or transitioning into the space.

Why I Tried This

I’m currently between full-time roles, with a background in corporate data analysis (~2 years in dashboards/spreadsheets) and operations (~1 year). To stay active and develop new skills, I began offering unpaid support to EA organisations.

My goals were:

• Practise new skills in real-world contexts

• Build relationships that might open doors to future opportunities

• Contribute to organisations I care about
  
  

  

How I Found Opportunities

I started by reaching out to 2nd-degree contacts in EA, offering to review their backend operations. When organisations expressed interest, I proposed a simple structure: up to 10 hours of unpaid work on whatever processes they wanted reviewed.

This led to 5+ projects over the past few months (totalling ~60 hours). From what I’ve seen, there is substantial demand for value-aligned volunteers who can provide reliable, flexible support.

How I Approached the Work

I tried to enter initial calls with an open mind, asking:

• Why hasn’t this work been done already?

• Is it worth the time to onboard a volunteer?

• What impact would this project have if completed?
  
  

Most requests fit my data background (e.g. “check if our database follows best practices,” “why is this spreadsheet running slowly”). Others required learning new tools on the fly:

• Google Analytics

• Google Apps Script

• Supabase
  
  

In one case I was asked about CommCare, but that seemed like too large a project.

I usually spent ~2 of the 10 hours up front learning whatever tool or context was needed (e.g. the low-code platform an app was built on). This model could work in other fields too — e.g. basics of brand design, social media strategy, or partnership coordination.

What I Learned

Some benefits I didn’t expect in advance:

• Broader understanding of areas like factory farming and EA founders’ operations

• Practice executing projects independently with little oversight

• Stronger skills in business processes and data handling

• New project ideas and greater confidence starting them

• A sense of momentum and structure (I even got a desk space in town, which helped a lot while job searching).

Advice for Others

If you’re early in your career (say 0–4 years of work experience), changing fields, or just want to get more involved in EA, I recommend trying structured volunteering. A few tips:

• Limit scope (e.g. 10 hours per project) so it’s manageable.

• Focus on areas where you can build transferable skills.

• Treat it like consulting — deliver value quickly and clearly.

• Be mindful of tradeoffs: volunteering is not a substitute for paid work, and organisations shouldn’t rely on it for core functions.
  
  

Closing

Overall, this experiment gave me more skills, connections, and ideas than I expected — and made me more optimistic about contributing to the EA community.

I’d love to hear from others:

• Have you tried volunteering in a similar way?

• What worked well (or didn’t) for you?

• Are there risks or downsides I haven’t covered here?

Everyone loves life advice. Self-help books are wildly popular, to the point where titles like Atomic Habits or Rich Dad, Poor Dad are household names. Diary of a CEO and Huberman Lab, often a source of tips for business and personal realms, are among the world’s most popular podcasts.

One unexpected source of good advice I came across recently: Amazon’s Leadership Principles.

They list them out on their website, and even have CEO Andy Jassy explaining them in a neat video format.

I’ll list them out in full then go over my favourites.

Amazon’s Leadership Principles

Link here

1. Customer Obsession

2. Ownership

3. Invent and Simplify

4. Are Right, A Lot

5. Learn and Be Curious

6. Hire and Develop the Best

7. Insist on the Highest Standards

8. Think Big

9. Bias for Action

10. Frugality

11. Earn Trust

12. Dive Deep

13. Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit

14. Deliver Results

15. Strive to Be Earth’s Best Employer (added July 2021)

16. Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility (added July 2021)

Personally, I love 13 - Disagree and commit. The idea is that you need to be vocal about your ideas, but once the group decides in a direction, you act with complete conviction. No “I told you so” if anything goes wrong.

Number 5 is a classic, “Learn and be curious”. It applies everywhere. At work, I think it feels great to keep advancing, keep reading around. Personally, having hobbies and having a sense of growth is a big part of living a fulfilled life.

Bias for Action, Number 9, is also cool for a ship-and-build mindset. This kind of reminded something I saw say last week, write bad stuff [quicky], then write good stuff later. Good advice.

Why I’m a fan of Amazon’s Leadership Principles

Generally, I am really happy with businesses that post their mantras online. With any workplace, knowing the culture from the outside lets us to know where we will fit in. It gives us an idea of what kind of colleagues to expect, and what behaviour is normal, and what should be challenged.

If you run a business, or even manage a team, consider writing one! As principle number 9 says, if you end up not liking it, most decisions are reversible anyway :)

This week, things started going swimmingly! Really really well. I’ll explain some of the changes and my ideas about what is going on behind the scenes.

Distractibility: Turn off mobile data and WiFi.

First change I’ve made, I’ve got a new habit going. When I don’t want to be distracted, I turn off my WiFi and mobile data. This has had a dramatic effect on my energy levels, my ability to focus, and my motivation for difficult tasks and chores.

Background:

I realise that I pick up my phone between 100-200 times daily, often just to see if I have any new WhatsApp messages.

This can feel super rewarding, but often sends me into a general feeling like I need to be on my phone without knowing why? Up late in bed just waiting for something… not quite clear what… to happen.

Has anyone else heard about notification addiction? It’s more subtle than being hooked on reels or TikTok. But I’ve realised that I’m super addicted to the feeling of getting new messages from people, and I try to be 24-7 available to reply. Not great!

My previous solution to this, reserved for periods of big focus, or sometimes after a rather big phone binge, is to turn off the phone completely.

I would regularly turn my phone off a few times a week, a few hours at a time, for the past year. It’s felt brave and useful, and probably a bit helpful.

But actually I realised - this wasn’t working for me! There are a few reasons why I break the phone off thing and end up just aching for new notifications again.

1. I often want to turn my phone on again to check my alarm for the morning.

2. I want to quickly check Google maps or some other utility.

And I still feel like my energy is sapped, still feel distractible.

New fix: turn off mobile data + WiFi. Some people like to use airplane mode, but somehow this feels too dramatic. And I can’t use Bluetooth to connect to speakers.

So I’d say in total this move; which I’m implementing maybe 3 hours a day, has cut my screen time by about 30%, and has left me feeling so much more free from notifications.

6/10 → 7/10

Poor health: 30 day HIIT challenge

The app Seven has been around for a decade, and used to be shit and highly paywalled. I did a few of their Full Body workouts back-to-back, and found that I generally feel refreshed after. (3 circuits, 21 minutes).

I decided to upgrade, and am a week deep into the Upper Body monthly challenge. Materials required for this are: workout space at 21 DegC. Water.

That’s literally it! It’s such a simple workout, I can see gains in tone and muscle, and it doesn’t take long to do. I back this up with gym stuff, usually I treat this as a warmup and then lift some weights. I use @Bio/Acc’s tips about proper form when doing calisthenics (body-weight exercises).

I’ve also begun eating enough protein, and starting my day with water and apples. This seems healthy, and I hope is making a good change somewhere. Can’t tell if this is affecting my mood though.

7/10 → 8/10.

Sleep: regular wake time, good morning habits

I’ve been listening to Atomic Habits lately. The author explains how repetition of tasks teaches your brain to do them on autopilot, even if they are tricky.

One evening, I set 10 alarms spaced a minute apart. And each time I’d wait in bed with my eyes closed, then practice leaping out of bed, standing straight to salute the day, opening the curtains, then turning the alarm off.

Highly recommend this slightly silly sounding technique. I’m now fantastic at getting up with my alarm.

Pairing this with going to stare at daylight for a few minutes, and I’ve got a fantastic circadian rhythm. I still sleep a bit restlessly, but find myself with lots of energy in the mornings now.

I’ve started getting up at 7:30, regardless of when I slept. Even on 6 hours sleep, I’ll still get up at 7:30, just to maintain the good rhythm. I might just nap in the day to make up for it.

Good sleep. 8-10 → 9/10

Summary

I think people like Musk contribute to the idea that you can neglect your health, neglect phone hygeine, and just do miraculously fine. As I just found out, this is completely untrue for me. My mood is linked to my health!

In short, I’ve been feeling so healthy this week. The simple changes to do with phone hygeine, daily muscular/cardio exercise, sleep routine have had huge effects for me.

My mood is boosted, I’m feeling more proud, I’ve become more enthusiastic. I took the bins out today! I hate that usually. Or I offered to run back up to my friends apartment when he forgot his keys.

This also makes my other hobbies and projects more enjoyable. I’m happy at work. I’m enjoying reading and learning. And I get more excited about new ideas and feedback on my writing.

I have to give credit to another substacker who mentioned this idea, that we are probably deficient in certain vitamins, probably don’t know how healthy we are. And that it’s worth trying out new health fixes to see if we can feel better. He was right, and I hope this keeps up.

TLDR; health is important.

Jordan Peterson has been famous for about ten years. He recently went viral for having what looks like the worst debate session ever. He consistently made poor arguments and was aggressive, and many articles and videos explained how terrible it was.

I realised that I’d never tried reading any of his work. I am aware that he is generally unpopular, but I figured I would try out some of his content for myself. Conveniently, a friend has one of his books on his bedside table: Beyond Order, 2021.

Beyond Order, 2021 - Summary

Frankly, I was shocked. In short: it’s a great book, packed with thoughtful ideas. In long: …

The book is in 12 chapters, each titled a bit like a Bentham’s Bulldog post. “Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens”, or “If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and completely”. I like this, basically stating your argument as the chapter title. Then spending 20 pages expanding.

When reading non-fiction, I like to look over chapter titles, and pick the one that seems newest or most surprising to me. Why read something that I’m just going to agree with? So I start in the place where I’m most confused or unsure.

1. Cultivate Beauty

I started with the chapter “Try to make one room in your house as beautiful as possible”. 

To me it sounded like dumb advice, or useless. I don’t see the need. There’s so much other stuff I could spend time on. Art is fine and cool, but I’m a technology person, and it wouldn’t bother me to never visit an art gallery again.

I’ve never been the aesthetic type. My granddad’s house was full of paintings, and people praised his taste in art. I never knew how he got there, how he chose his works. I didn’t get the value of it either.

This chapter has been a breakthrough for me.

The general concepts of the chapter are:

• Beauty is one of the most essential values in life. Others include love, honesty, gratitude, courage, collaboration, friendliness, devotion, play).

• Recreate beauty in your home. Paintings, sculptures, pretty colours and sensible layout. Fix the lighting. Peterson told a story about turning his ugly factory-looking office cube into a wood-panelled wonder, and it sounded really nice, actually.

• Beautiful room is important to help you touch grass, stay grounded and focused on what matters. If you can keep a sense of beauty you will be a more rounded human.

• Art recreates childlike wonder at the world. Kids are so inspired by the simplest things, but adults become cold and hard to this.

• art needs to be about going beyond, about testing the limit of our understanding, about seeing the world with new eyes. Art that doesn’t seek the unknown is fake.

• Art is sacred. Art is holy objects we put in expensive buildings, and it is global news if a famous piece is damaged or lost. Many people have an intuitive sense for how important art is.So reading this I was amazed at Jordan Peterson.

So will I adopt this rule? Yes, certainly. I have completely neglected art this in the past.

I have long known some movies, songs and books that I love. I recently started looking into poems and felt better for it. I read the ~1200-year-old-poem Beowulf and felt amazing for that also.

But I have completely ignored art, interior design. After reading this, I plan to spend more time finding what I like and adopting it.

2. Abandon Ideology

Another chapter also struck me: “Abandon Ideology”.

The idea is: some public thinkers want to explain all of the history of the world with a single force. For Freud it was sex, for Marx it is wealth. For some people it’s even colonial power that explains all of history.

This is clearly false: jealousy, greed, misogyny, chance, cruelty, companionship, ignorance, honour, don’t even start to explain all of the factors at play in world history.

Furthermore, by having a single explanation for history, you can end up with a single group responsible.

However, it’s completely risky to have a “them” who are responsible for all badness in the world. It’s small-minded and generalistic. I went to the Cambodian genocide museum last month, and it’s patently obvious that by hating anyone who appeared wealthy or educated, the perpetrators convinced themselves to carry out torture and murder of insane proportions.

It’s important to remember: billionaires, police, companies, soldiers, activists, politicians - in every group you will find good and bad actors. Do not generalise.

The virtuous thing to do instead is recognise that there is no perfect villain, no perfect victim.

We are all a mix of good and bad. I might be a great social justice activist, but I can be small minded and hateful. Or I might be a great community member but I can’t control my jealousy.

Benefits of this idea:

• seek complexity

• no perfect villains

Weaknesses:

• doesn’t work for the masses. Even with education, I think it’s unrealistic to expect everyone to get good at seeing this nuance.

Close

Regardless of any culture war stuff that Jordan Peterson is famous for, I find this completely sensible and beautiful advice from him which made me change my ideas.

I know I’ll raise some eyebrows saying this, but I think it’s fair enough to praise him here. Even if you don’t like him, you can still separate the art from the artist.

PS: Some of my favourite culture is:

Favourite book: 100 Years of Solitude

Favourite film: Maidens of Rochefort (look at the colours + choreography!)

Favourite song: You’ve got a Friend.

Favourite poem: Composed upon Westminster bridge

I am a bad cook. The sizzling heat in my face, the running around chopping veg while hoping your onions won’t burn, the making a shopping list. I find it all stressful and overwhelming, and I am prone to becoming snappy and irritable during group efforts. The result of my efforts usually tastes horrible also. I spice my food too much, or it’s really bland and watery. I can just about manage a basic pasta dish or a fried rice, if I’m lucky.

I feel like I never learned how to cook properly. And I never really try to get better. I don’t want to.

Some people feel this way about ironing, or about raising kids, or about hosting parties. We all have chores that we hate.

Recently, I saw this note on my feed, explaining that we shouldn’t want AI to take away menial tasks like laundry - we need it; it’s what makes us human!

I feel like the author might have some other ideas at play here, maybe about laziness being a vice, about being detached from hard work, about too much luxury being a bad thing.

The author might also worry about scarcity. That we don’t have enough energy to give everyone two cars, a fridge, a washing machine and AI servants. (I reckon we do, tbh).

They might simply be saying that laundry is a relaxing task for them, in the same way taking a shower or walking to work can be.

Either way, I think it hides an assumption: that we are doing exactly the perfect amount of chores, right now. That 21st Century well-to-do westerners have fallen on the ideal amount of chores. 4-6 hours a week of shopping, cooking, laundry - it’s just right. It’s just enough to keep us grounded and aware of our privilege, but not too much that it tires us out excessively. And that it would be wrong for us to create new technologies that help us do fewer chores.

I don’t like this vision of the world. I think there are plenty of people doing tasks they don’t like, but they are forced to.

I also think, it’s seriously unlikely that we have already hit the perfect balance. To demonstrate this point, I’ll list out tasks we used to do, but have been quietly simplified by new technology.

Pre-civilisation:

• making a camp

• staying up overnight on watch

• hunting for food, killing + preparing animals

• looking for water

• creating clothes from animal parts, plants

• lots of running and physical activity

Europe, 1800s:

• going to the well to fetch water

• walking hours to get to work

• tending to domestic livestock

• topping up gas lamps or candles

• visiting the post office to send messages

• sewing, fixing clothes

Europe, 2000s:

• laundry

• driving to the store, shopping

• cooking or meal prepping

• exercising

• looking for flights or travel options

• travel to work, working

• scheduling appointments, visiting doctor and dentist

• showering, brushing teeth, doing skincare

When framed like this, I think we could imagine a future where we disappear lots of these tasks. Imagine if we could just keep everyone healthy without exercise, or if we didn’t have to go shopping.

It would free up time for what life is really about (IMO).

• collaborating with friends on art, music, poetry, inventing silly games

• starting or joining reading clubs, tasting events

• speed dating, making new friends

• going travelling, visiting new places

• working really really hard on something like getting good at knitting or sewing

• making presents and gifts for your family

• looking after a pet

So trying to make sure everyone keeps cooking because it’s an innate part of human nature is wrong. It’s like saying that we shouldn’t have houses, it’s more natural for us to always be building camps.

I see this issue like camping or knitting: once you’ve taken away the necessity of it, then we can start to do it for fun. We don’t require everyone to love camping or love running. These are hobbies that you are allowed to explore and see if you like.

So, yes, let’s automate away laundry and every other chore that we are forced to do currently. It makes for happy humans.

In this episode he explains how:

→ some people want to be someone. They set a goal.

→ other people want to do something. They set “constraints”.

Examples of goals:

- become a best selling author

- sell my paintings

- get a prestigious CV

- run an engineering company

- be recognised data scientist

- find a partner

Examples of constraints

- I’ll write every day but never anything I find boring

- I’ll show people my paintings regularly and won’t accept less than £100/hour spent producing them.

- I’ll spend 10 hours a week doing career-useful side projects or networking (maybe missing an extra element here?)

- I’ll spend 10 hours a week working on engineering projects I can do from my shed.

- make new dashboards regularly and share them from your phone

- lll go on dates each week and be frank with each person about whether we are compatible

The idea of constraints is to define a problem to work within. Then this results in better performance, more creation, better progress.

You’ll notice that the name isn’t perfect. Really this just looks like making smaller goals and adding a constraint with it. What do we call that?

I suspect it works for the following reasons:

- quantity over quality: best potters make many pots; rather than just perfecting a single pot (so the saying goes)

- experimentation: perhaps innovation can be found by specialising within a niche

- dedication: focus on the practice rather than the outcome

- SMART goals: the constraint definitions tend to tick some of the SMART boxes around simplicity, time-specific etc. Broad goals don’t always break down easily

- not intimidating: smart goals can be scary to set for some reason. It’s just sooo much effort to do. This constraints thing seems like a nice shortcut.

So, will I apply this rule? Not sure. It’s kind of nice. I suppose I appreciate the idea of dedicating to a practise rather than making lofty goals without thinking about the process.

There are endless possibilities for how the world could look. It’s a quirk of starting conditions and history that the world we see looks the way it does.

For example, we live in a universe that:

- has large galaxies made up of planets, stars, asteroids and other matter

- humans have evolved morals and now use intelligence to rule their world

- humans are the smartest creature alive but still make many errors when trying to achieve their goals.

- humans are social creatures

- Earth is covered 60% in saltwater, the atmosphere is 20% oxygen.

- Chlorophyll-using plants cover most land surface

- Theres lots of single and multicellular life.

- It’s 2025: We have developed industrialisation, computers. We haven’t solved ageing, we haven’t worked out how to command biological material, e.g. lab-grown kidneys and meat.

Here is a list of other possibilities we could have instead observed, for each of the above points:

- the galaxy is 50 billion years old and buzzing with other intelligent creatures who have colonised it; the universe is very sparse and other galaxies are much further away, andromeda galaxy is not heading for us

- Humans never evolved socially, we don’t feel moral obligations to eachother; we are only a cut smarter than other intelligent species

- Humans are better at achieving their goals; humans aren’t obsessed with sex; humans don’t get angry

- Humans evolved to live on their own and separate from their family when they reach a certain age; they are brutal and murderous, socialising doesn’t bring any joy. Babies grow up much faster and heads are smaller compared to body

- Earth is covered in fresh (not salty) water which makes up 95% of the surface, except for patches of ice; Earth is 5x larger and has two moons. Plants never evolved to dominate so the atmosphere has more CO2 and less oxygen.

- the world is full of dumb giants; the world only contains plant and vertebrate life (no insects, no jellyfish).

- Earths land is covered by algae, moss, lichen, small shrubs; Trees never evolved. Many animals evolved chlorophyll also, we have a sort of land-plankton thing that lots of birds and other small creatures eat. The sea is very acidic and devoid of life.

We can also comment on the strengths and weaknesses of our situation given these observations. For example:

It’s useful that to human society that everyone has (similar) morals. This allows us to establish happy, independent lives as part of a wider society. Governments rule, it is not anarchist, people can express views and not live in fear.

It’s convenient that we aren’t getting dominated by extraterrestrial life. No alien species has arrived at any point over our last 10,000 years of civilisation and exploited our resources or people. [We should still rapidly develop defensive technology useful in space, in case we do suddenly meet a new species (societies that weren’t ready for European colonisation were devastated)]

It’s useful that we have discovered electricity and magnetism, that we have found lots of uses for this. This makes modern life comfortable and easy.

Also, it was convenient for early humans that plants exist, that wood is a fantastic building material and burns easily. This rewarded our tool use early on and encouraged more innovations.

However, history also has relative strategic and moral disadvantages for us.

It’s inconvenient that we invented nuclear weapons and now risk killing ourselves.

It’s inconvenient that there are many other forms of life and they all seem to suffer. The universe would be a happier place if nature was less brutal, fewer animals had parasites, fewer diseases exist, wasps and spiders and cats don’t torture their prey.

It’s inconvenient that we find meat tasty and have developed factory farms to harvest this. This also leads to needless suffering, compared to a world where we didn’t discover farm animals and instead relied on corn, soya etc.

It’s a shame that the world wasn’t filled with more deposits of coal and tin; we might have industrialised much sooner. I heard once that the Greeks had developed a steam engine, just never put it to use…

It’s a shame that history is full of sophisticated empires crashing, e.g. the romans, the Incas, the Khmer. It shows a pattern that we might also repeat, of feeling strong and untouchable, before society breaking down. (I’m still hopeful that we will continually improve things and not see a crash like this in our lifetimes, though).

Some of our observations are neutral:

It’s curious that humans developed and migrated worldwide, developing thousands of local cultures and languages.

We could have instead learned to develop languages and cultures even faster, so that every small community (village, town) has a language and identity. Or we could have not migrated before we developed high quality road and sea travel; we could have ended up much closer together and by the time we go exploring outside of Africa/Mesopotamia, we’ve invented big governments and civilisation already.

Thinking further

We don’t have to just think from our current position; we could also do this exercise from different points in history: Europeans observing how they are closely connected with different cultures, how they have horses and livestock and wood, how they have invented science and are developing new technology. Observing how they met certain more powerful forces; eg the Moors, but have not been dominated yet. Observing how their neighbouring countries all agree on a religion.

This kind of exercise allows us to see strengths and weaknesses of our collective position, prepare for unforeseen threats and write cool sci-fi. We could apply the same techniques individually to think of new business ideas, ways to make money, ways to develop science further.

I believe strongly in the idea raised by Utsav Mamoria that when separate ideas overlap, new ones emerge.

I experienced this when, having ignored the same Duolingo-for-memory-training Instagram advert 9 times, I had a different mindset by the 10th time and downloaded it. My mindset has changed and I had developed new interests after gaining a personal hero: the personified Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall.

He had ‘learned memory techniques in Italy’, that allowed him to sense-check figures blindingly fast, recall important dates, contents of past meetings. I wanted to replicate my hero!

I downloaded the app and spent a month racing through the paid version.

Here are some of the things I learned in the process.

King of Birthdays

I learned a range of techniques that I apply to daily life. Tell me your birthday, and I can tell you your star sign. Meet me in a week and I’ll still remember. I have all my family and friends committed to memory now.

The key thing is the act of trying to remember itself. Since dates are usually tricky, memorisers tend to break them down through associations.

Advanced techniques (called the major system) involves replacing numbers with words.

But just making yourself a silly rhyme or something I find also works well. “April the 4th, making a Porsche”. Just pausing to commit it to memory really makes the difference.

A basic explanation is that the memory is very visual. Numbers are so abstract, but I could show you a few seconds of a film and you’d know if you had seen it. Images stick in the mind much easier.

Dame of Names

I’ve always been ok at remembering names. But it’s become a veritable party trick across these past few months of travel, randomly bumping into someone after a month and telling them their name, something we discussed etc.

The trick to this is a bit of a stack:

1. Don’t be afraid to get them to repeat it. “What was your name again? Ah right, I’m Joey by the way”. Do that a couple times while you commit it to memory

2. Remember their answer

3. Associate it with an idea or a rhyme. Jane’s in a plane. Shri is in a tree.

It’s easier if you have a unique aspect about someone, their hair colour or big green eyes or something. Maybe Shri’s trees are poking out of her pupils.

This kind of association sticks in the mind way more easily than just a name.

You are more likely to remember that someone works as a baker, than is named Baker.

Mastery of History

Personally, I love sense-checking every new piece of information I receive.

Someone tells me a conspiracy theory they believe in, or speaks about a period in history, or, worse, uses a superlative like “this has never happened before!”.

I like to sit there with a thoughtful look, and then ask if the Spanish sacking of Peru is a good comparison to the “things never change rapidly” point they are making.

When it comes to memorising history, memory masters use visual timelines in their head. Maybe a famous street, or a street near their home, to represent a decade or century. And going along the street they place famous events.

Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (1808) being composed exists not far from my old barbershop. And looking towards the town hall you see the Eiffel Tower being constructed (1889).

This one takes more practice, and more maintenance also. You have to revisit the street from time to time, with an idea of the things you’re supposed to be remembering.

Instead, you can just put a couple things you want to remember in your notes app, and set an alarm to try and recall them tomorrow. Maybe a piece of information you were really moved by.

If it’s a complicated name or date, don’t be daunted, just try and break it down. n

There are a few more principles that I might save for a follow-up post.

If you’re interested in trying the app that inspired this journey, it’s called MemoryOS. I found the instruction really helpful, and support the project.

If you want to go head-to-head in a memory challenge, message me. It’s kinda fun.