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7 episodes with gurwinder
8 episodes with gurwinder
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2 episodes with gurwinder
2 episodes with gurwinder
2 episodes with gurwinder
2 episodes with gurwinder
Ein Schulwechsel kann ganz schön herausfordernd sein! Ob von der Grundschule zur weiterführenden Schule, von der Realschule zum Gymnasium oder von Indien nach Deutschland. Die Fragen sind die gleichen: Finde ich neue Freunde? Bin ich gut genug? Was erwartet mich? Unsere Jugendreporter Evangeline, Ryan und Gurwinder sprechen darüber, welche Wege sie gehen, welche Fächer sie wählen und welche Ängste sie haben.
Spero vi piaccia!!! Sono in ansia lol★ SOCIAL ★Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/4iexis/ Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/4lexis/ Email: chahaotic@gmail.comSe vuoi offrirmi un caffè e supportare il canale: https://ko-fi.com/4lexis Il canale lo trovi anche qui: https://www.youtube.com/@ChahaoticFONTI - La bibliografia purtroppo non entra tutta quindi se volete un articolo in particolare, scrivetemi e ve lo mando :)- Baym, N.K. (2015) ‘Social Media and the Struggle for Society', Social Media + Society, 1(1).- Boyle, S. (2024) ‘Is doom scrolling really rotting our brains? The evidence is getting harder to ignore', The Guardian.- Brown, A. (2009) ‘Google isn't making us dumb – or smart. That's the problem', The Guardian.- Cain, M.S. and Mitroff, S.R. (2011) ‘Distractor filtering in media multitaskers', Perception, 40(10), pp. 1183–1192.- Carr, N. (2008) ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?', The Atlantic.- Cascio, J. (2009) ‘Get Smarter', The Atlantic- Cbkwgl (2022) ‘Bottomless Bowl Experiment and Attention Economy', Project Management and User Experience.- Chayka, K. (2024) ‘The Trump Assassination Attempt Meets the Internet's Brain-Rot Era', The New Yorker.- Clark, A. and Chalmers, D. (1998) ‘The Extended Mind', Analysis, 58(1), pp. 7–19.- Estes, A.C. (2011) ‘Google Is Making Us Stupid and Smart at the Same Time?', The Atlantic.- Firth, J. et al. (2019) ‘The “online brain”: how the Internet may be changing our cognition', World Psychiatry, 18(2), p. 119. - Fleming, A. (2025) ‘All in the mind? The surprising truth about brain rot', The Guardian, 29 January. - Francis, G. (2017) ‘Irresistible: Why We Can't Stop Checking, Scrolling, Clicking and Watching – review', The Guardian.- Greenfield, A. (2017) ‘Rise of the machines: who is the “internet of things” good for?', The Guardian.- Gurwinder (2024) The Intellectual Obesity Crisis. - Heaton, B. (2024) ‘Brain rot' named Oxford Word of the Year 2024, Oxford University Press. - Heller, N. (2024) ‘The Battle for Attention', The New Yorker.- Immerwahr, D. (2025) ‘What if the Attention Crisis Is All a Distraction?', The New Yorker.- ‘Intervista a Maryanne Wolf' (2019) DPU | Diritto Penale e Uomo. - Isaacson, W. (2013) ‘Brain Gain', The New York Times.- Kuss, D.J. and Griffiths, M.D. (2017) ‘Social Networking Sites and Addiction: Ten Lessons Learned', - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(3), p. 311.- Loh, K.K. and Kanai, R. (2014) ‘Higher Media Multi-Tasking Activity Is Associated with Smaller Gray-- Matter Density in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex', PLOS ONE, 9(9), p. e106698. - Media, C. (2010) ‘Our “Deep Reading” Brain: Its Digital Evolution Poses Questions', Nieman Reports.- Moshel, M.L. et al. (2024) ‘Neuropsychological Deficits in Disordered Screen Use Behaviours: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis', Neuropsychology Review, 34(3), pp. 791–822. - Ophir, E., Nass, C. and Wagner, A.D. (2009) ‘Cognitive control in media multitaskers', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(37), pp. 15583–15587. - Orben, A. (2019) ‘We're told that too much screen time hurts our kids. Where's the evidence?', The Observer.- Paul, A.M. (2013) ‘Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer', Time.- Pinker, S. (2010) ‘Opinion | Mind Over Mass Media', The New York Times.- Prior, K.S. (2013) ‘How Reading Makes Us More Human', The Atlantic.- Rajaram, S. and Marsh, E.J. (2019) ‘Cognition in the Internet age: What are the important questions?', Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 8(1), pp. 46–49. - Sparrow, B., Liu, J. and Wegner, D.M. (2011) ‘Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips', Science, 333(6043), pp. 776–778.
In this 12th solo episode, I dive into what's happening in our great nation right now—the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States. It's a historic moment, and I reflect on what this means for the country moving forward.I also tackle the topic of human nature and share my thoughts on the two genders we recognize in America today, as Trump moves to formalize policies on "two genders" and anti-DEI initiatives.Continuing from the last episode, I pick up where we left off with Gurwinder's 40 Useful Concepts That You Should Know. We covered the first three last time, so this episode starts with number 4 and dives deeper into these fascinating ideas.
Happy New Year! In this 11th solo episode (and first of 2025), I dive into heavy topics that hit close to home. For example, I discuss the recent Bourbon Street terror attack in New Orleans. The tragedy of it is particularly unsettling since I've been there at 3am more than once. And watching the horrific videos of people getting hit by a truck going 60mph shook me.I also cover topics ranging from my favorite music to the incompetence stemming from DEI policies. There's also talk about investing. And I hope what's shared here about politics & race is at least thought-provoking, even if you don't agree.Lastly, I go over some of Gurwinder's 40 useful concepts again this year from his X/Twitter post—there are some great takeaways for anyone looking to level-up in 2025.
Get more notes at https://podcastnotes.org Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.
The Psychology of the 5 Types of Non-Player Characters - How to Fix Them and Be a Main Character Thinker. The same story plays out online every day. The same people are getting outraged about the same things again and again. Like Clockwork. The human brain is highly optimised to rely on heuristics and simplistic decisions. Modern media hijacks this system to control our beliefs and emotions based on the agenda of other people. This episode helps listeners build autonomy over their beliefs and emotions by learning the different types of Non-Player-Character: The Conformist NPC - Believes the consensus politically correct ideas The Contrarian NPC - Believes the opposite of the consensus and seeks conspiracy The Disciple NPC - Believes their preferred leader The Tribalist NPC - Follows the tribe and us vs them mentality The Averager NPC - Seeks the middle ground without understanding the merits of an argument. Learn the psychology of the processes behind each NPC type and how different types of critical thinking systems or defence systems get turned on and off based simply on who delivers the message. Building your own worldview is one of the most important things you can do in an increasingly confusing and polarised world. Sources: Gurwinder - Why You Are Probably An NPC People Shot to Death by US Police By Race FBI Crime Data USA National Suicide Data Journal Review: Health of Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated Children Vaccine Research Overview: The Vaccine Question Upgrade to Premium:
Мнение о том, как информационная зависимость разъедает мозг и как придерживаться здоровой информационной диеты. Текстовая версия: https://newochem.io/intellektualnom-ozhirenii/ По материалам GurwinderПереводила: Валерия ЗитеваРедактировал: Фёдор Каузов Озвучил: Миша Ронкаинен, "Тюремный подкаст"
Infinite Loops Key Takeaways Check out the episode pageRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.org“We have created for ourselves a world that we didn't evolve for.” Gurwinder Bhogal is, for my money, one of the most independent, original and insightful thinkers you'll find in our corner of the internet. He returns to discuss how willpower and good old-fashioned human agency can help us reclaim our mental sovereignty and escape the “constant avalanche of concerns that are being vomited over us through our laptop screens, our phones, our TV screens, and in conversations.” For the full transcript, episode takeaways, and bucketloads of other stuff designed to make you go, “Hmm, that's interesting!” check out our Substack. Important Links: Gurwinder's Substack Gurwinder's Twitter Gurwinder's previous Infinite Loops appearance Show Notes: “We have created for ourselves a world we didn't evolve for” The dogged persistence of our stubborn beliefs Gamification; generational differences in agency The societal impact of the education system's changing priorities How to zombify a population Skin in the game: Gurwinder's guide to reclaiming agency LLMs, bullshit, and the atomization of culture How to play better games Willpower is the bottleneck Gurwinder as emperor of the world MORE! Books Mentioned: Why Everything is Becoming a Game; by Gurwinder Bhogal Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know; by Adam Grant The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It; by Will Storr The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements; by Eric Hoffer Why the Mental Health of Liberal Girls Sank First and Fastest; by Jonathan Haidt (After Babel) America's Colleges Are Reaping What They Sowed; by Tyler Austin Harper (The Atlantic) Joe Biden and the Common Knowledge Game; by Ben Hunt (Epsilon Theory) The Emperor's New Clothes; by Hans Christian Andersen Futarchy Details; by Robin Hanson (Overcoming Bias) The Enlightenment Trilogy; by Jed McKenna The Weirdest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous; by Joseph Henrich
“We have created for ourselves a world that we didn't evolve for.” Gurwinder Bhogal is, for my money, one of the most independent, original and insightful thinkers you'll find in our corner of the internet. He returns to discuss how willpower and good old-fashioned human agency can help us reclaim our mental sovereignty and escape the “constant avalanche of concerns that are being vomited over us through our laptop screens, our phones, our TV screens, and in conversations.” For the full transcript, episode takeaways, and bucketloads of other stuff designed to make you go, “Hmm, that's interesting!” check out our Substack. Important Links: Gurwinder's Substack Gurwinder's Twitter Gurwinder's previous Infinite Loops appearance Show Notes: “We have created for ourselves a world we didn't evolve for” The dogged persistence of our stubborn beliefs Gamification; generational differences in agency The societal impact of the education system's changing priorities How to zombify a population Skin in the game: Gurwinder's guide to reclaiming agency LLMs, bullshit, and the atomization of culture How to play better games Willpower is the bottleneck Gurwinder as emperor of the world MORE! Books Mentioned: Why Everything is Becoming a Game; by Gurwinder Bhogal Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know; by Adam Grant The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It; by Will Storr The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements; by Eric Hoffer Why the Mental Health of Liberal Girls Sank First and Fastest; by Jonathan Haidt (After Babel) America's Colleges Are Reaping What They Sowed; by Tyler Austin Harper (The Atlantic) Joe Biden and the Common Knowledge Game; by Ben Hunt (Epsilon Theory) The Emperor's New Clothes; by Hans Christian Andersen Futarchy Details; by Robin Hanson (Overcoming Bias) The Enlightenment Trilogy; by Jed McKenna The Weirdest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous; by Joseph Henrich
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Gurwinder Bhogal, writer of "The Prism" Substack, joins us to discuss how gamification is being used by corporations and big government to control society. - - - Today's Sponsor:Policygenius - Get your free life insurance quote & see how much you could save: http://policygenius.com/Klavan
Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written yet another megathread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's fantastic, and today we go through some of my favourites. Expect to learn why our mental model of the world assumes people are just like us, why Narcissists tend to inject themselves into every story no matter how unrelated or tenuous, the role of Postjournalism in a world of fake news, why we navigate the world through stories and not statistics or facts, why people specialise in things they are actually bad at and much more... Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period from Shopify at https://www.shopify.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Get a 20% discount on Nomatic's amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom (use code MW20) Get the Whoop 4.0 for free and get your first month for free at https://join.whoop.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Driven by technology's inability to address societal issues rooted in biases, Gurwinder "G" Bhogal shifted his career from technology to debugging the human mind. He discusses biases in large language models (LLMs), their manipulation by left-leaning initiatives, and the challenge to test and correct AI biases.G, Christina Buttons, and Peter Boghossian analyze G's Twitter/X thread titled, "10 WAYS TO AVOID BEING FOOLED," where G gave "10 heuristics that will make you smarter." They discuss the importance of understanding opposing viewpoints, critically evaluating information sources, truth-seeking, news consumption habits, and more! Watch this episode on YouTube.
The complete archive of Subversive episodes, including exclusive episodes and my writing, is available on Substack for the monthly cost of an (admittedly extravagant) coffee - 7$. You can also subscribe to the podcast sans writing on Patreon for the price of a (bog standard) coffee - 5$. This is how the show is financed and grows, so I appreciate every contribution! Please subscribe at: https://www.alexkaschuta.com/ https://www.patreon.com/aksubversive We speak about: Positive gamification - giving away rice, planting trees, saving power. Dark gamification - most everything else. Releasing the pressure of expectations on young men. The technological revolution and its consequences. The culture war as a world-spanning game. Ideology as character creation in an RPG. Back to the city after “back to the land” Trad as an attempt to capture something that never was, and much more. Gurwinder Bhogal is a writer, researcher, technologist, and the author of www.gurwinder.blog --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aksubversive/message
Modern Wisdom Key Takeaways Cynicism is not a sign of intelligence, but a substitute for it and a way to shield oneself from betrayal and disappointment without having to actually thinkMore data does not make us more informed, but more confused People define uncertain outcomes as less tolerable than bad outcomesPunishing speech in the form of censorship is ultimately a request to be deceived Many people would rather be hated than unknown Appearing to do good has become more important than actually doing good We are most likely to act when our judgment can be trusted leastYour surroundings greatly impact your beliefs; develop beliefs that are universal As people become more successful, they tend to neglect the habits that made them so interesting in the first place Most people do not navigate the world with a truth-and-false filter, but with an us-vs-them filter Humans turn events into stories because it helps brings order to chaos Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgGurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written yet another megathread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's fantastic, and today we go through some of my favourites. Expect to learn whether cynical people are actually smarter, why people tend to find uncertain outcomes so intolerable, why people would rather lie than say what they really think, whether people would rather be hated than unknown, why appearing to do good has become more important than actually doing good and much more... Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period from Shopify at https://www.shopify.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Get a 20% discount on Nomatic's amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first box at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: http://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: http://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: http://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written yet another megathread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's fantastic, and today we go through some of my favourites. Expect to learn whether cynical people are actually smarter, why people tend to find uncertain outcomes so intolerable, why people would rather lie than say what they really think, whether people would rather be hated than unknown, why appearing to do good has become more important than actually doing good and much more... Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period from Shopify at https://www.shopify.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Get a 20% discount on Nomatic's amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first box at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: http://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: http://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: http://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Opra Admi- Gurwinder Mann ਓਪਰਾ ਆਦਮੀ- ਗੁਰਵਿੰਦਰ ਮਾਨ The protagonists of the story, Kartara and Pali are both strangers to each other yet they are bound to meet at the behest of destiny. Kartara, who has been on a journey to some place, passes through a village. As the day ended Kartara found shelter at one of the most respectable families of that area. Pali was the daughter of the family and Kartara found her modest and kind. Somehow the situations turn in such a way that Pali and Kartara eloped, atleast this was the belief of the villagers but truth was not known to anyone. Why they did that? What really happened that led to such an act? These questions demand introspection while listening to this beautiful story... The cover art of this audiobook has been made by Artist Gurdish Pannu and Dr. Ruminder has given voice to this punjabi short story. #moralstory #trendingpodcast #video #village #lifemotivation #trendingshortstory #motivational #trendingaudiobooks #punjabishortstories #emotional #punjabistories #hardwork #punjabipodcast #famouspodcast #commitment #podcast #indian #india #emotionalstory #life #audiolibrary #audiobooks #story #audiobook #punjabiaudiobooks #punjabi #punjab #shortstories #punjabifolk #listenaudiobooks #books #lovers #artistgurdishpannu #lifestyle #drruminder #viral #videos #trending #trendingonspotify
Why do young men find extremism? Why do liberal women suffer from more mental health problems than conservative women? Why do Westerners imagine problems that aren't there? How has tech incentivized us into unhappiness? Gurwinder Bhogal left his career in tech to become an "amateur psychologist," studying extremism, how tech is changing society, why smart people believe stupid things, and our modern mental health crisis. In this episode, Meghan Murphy speaks with Gurwinder about the ways in which tech has gamified humanity, how Luton became UK's jihadi hub, and the dark places tech will take us if we aren't careful. The Same Drugs is a fully independent, listener-supported podcast. Please consider supporting us with a donation, by becoming a patron, or by subscribing on Substack. You can watch select clips and episodes of The Same Drugs on YouTube and on Rumble. Full videos are available on Patreon. You can support The Same Drugs on Spotify by clicking the "support" button or by donating directly via Stripe. The Same Drugs is on X @thesamedrugs_. Meghan Murphy is on X @meghanemurphy. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-same-drugs/support
If people are behaving more and more like bots on the web, then one of the drivers for this behaviour is the attempt to possess the 'truth' in the information overload in the simplest possible way. The blogger Gurwinder, who deals with the interplay of technology and psychology in the attempt to deceive us, has made an exciting typification and found an almost ingenious explanation for the observable behaviour. His advice on how we ourselves can resist the temptation to cultivate more bot-like behaviour is particularly helpful. If you follow the typification, what does this mean for marketing in social media channels? Should you adapt to the particular context of these types? 15 minutes well spent Shownotes with lots of links: https://en.ka-brandresearch.com/braincandies/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/uwe-ohnemus/message
www.goodluckgabe.life The Perils of Audience Capture How influencers become brainwashed by their audiences The Man Who Ate Himself In 2016, 24 year old Nicholas Perry wanted to be big online. He started uploading videos to his YouTube channel in which he pursued his passion—playing the violin—and extolled the virtues of veganism. He went largely unnoticed. A year later, he abandoned veganism, citing health concerns. Now free to eat whatever he wanted, he began uploading mukbang videos of himself consuming various dishes while talking to the camera, as if having dinner with a friend. These new videos quickly found a sizable audience, but as the audience grew, so did their demands. The comments sections of the videos soon became filled with people challenging Perry to eat as much as he physically could. Eager to please, he began to set himself torturous eating challenges, each bigger than the last. His audience applauded, but always demanded more. Soon, he was filming himself eating entire menus of fast food restaurants in one sitting. In some respects, all his eating paid off; Nikocado Avocado, as Perry is now better known, has amassed over six million subscribers across six channels on YouTube. By satisfying the escalating demands of his audience, he got his wish of blowing up and being big online. But the cost was that he blew up and became big in ways he hadn't anticipated. Top: Nicholas Perry when he first started making mukbang videos. Bottom: Perry transformed by his audience's desires into Nikocado. Nikocado, moulded by his audience's desires into a cartoonish extreme, is now a wholly different character from Nicholas Perry, the vegan violinist who first started making videos. Where Perry was mild-mannered and health conscious, Nikocado is loud, abrasive, and spectacularly grotesque. Where Perry was a picky eater, Nikocado devoured everything he could, including finally Perry himself. The rampant appetite for attention caused the person to be subsumed by the persona. We often talk of "captive audiences," regarding the performer as hypnotizing their viewers. But just as often, it's the viewers hypnotizing the performer. This disease, of which Perry is but one victim of many, is known as audience capture, and it's essential to understanding influencers in particular and the online ecosystem in general. Lost in the Looking Glass Audience capture is an irresistible force in the world of influencing, because it's not just a conscious process but also an unconscious one. While it may ostensibly appear to be a simple case of influencers making a business decision to create more of the content they believe audiences want, and then being incentivized by engagement numbers to remain in this niche forever, it's actually deeper than that. It involves the gradual and unwitting replacement of a person's identity with one custom-made for the audience. To understand how, we must consider how people come to define themselves. A person's identity is being constantly refined, so it needs constant feedback. That feedback typically comes from other people, not so much by what they say they see as by what we think they see. We develop our personalities by imagining ourselves through others' eyes, using their borrowed gazes like mirrors to dress ourselves. Just as lacking a mirror to dress ourselves leaves us disheveled, so lacking other people's eyes to refine our personalities leaves us uncouth. This is why those raised in isolation, like poor Genie, become feral humans, adopting the character of beasts. Put simply, in order to be someone, we need someone to be someone for. Our personalities develop as a role we perform for other people, fulfilling the expectations we think they have of us. The American sociologist Charles Cooley dubbed this phenomenon “the looking glass self.” Evidence for it is diverse, and includes the everyday experience of seeing ourselves through imagined eyes in social situations (the spotlight effect), the tendency for people to alter their behavior when in the presence of pictures of eyes (the watching-eye effect), and the tendency for people in virtual spaces to adopt the traits of their avatars in an attempt to fulfill expectations (the Proteus effect). When we lived in small tight-knit communities, the looking glass self helped us to become the people our loved ones needed us to be. The “Michelangelo phenomenon” is the name given to the semi-conscious cycle of refinement and feedback whereby lovers who genuinely care what each other think gradually grow closer to their partner's original ideal of them. The problem is, we no longer live solely among those we know well. We're now forced to refine our personalities by the countless eyes of strangers. And this has begun to affect the process by which we develop our identities. Gradually we're all gaining online audiences, and we don't really know these people. We can only gauge who they are by what some of them post online, and what people post online is not indicative of who they really are. As such, the people we're increasingly becoming someone for are an abstract illusion. When influencers are analyzing audience feedback, they often find that their more outlandish behavior receives the most attention and approval, which leads them to recalibrate their personalities according to far more extreme social cues than those they'd receive in real life. In doing this they exaggerate the more idiosyncratic facets of their personalities, becoming crude caricatures of themselves. The caricature quickly becomes the influencer's distinct brand, and all subsequent attempts by the influencer to remain on-brand and fulfill audience expectations require them to act like the caricature. As the caricature becomes more familiar than the person, both to the audience and to the influencer, it comes to be regarded by both as the only honest expression of the influencer, so that any deviation from it soon looks and feels inauthentic. At that point the persona has eclipsed the person, and the audience has captured the influencer. The old Greek legends tell of Narcissus, a youth so handsome he became besotted by his own reflection. Unable to look away from his image in the surface of the waters, he fell still forever, and was transformed by the gods into a flower. Similarly, as influencers glimpse their idealized online personas reflected back at them on screens, they too are in danger of becoming eternally besotted by how they appear, and in so doing, forgetting who they were, or could be. III. The Prostitution of the Intellect Audience capture is a particular problem in politics, due to both phenomena being driven by popular approval. On Twitter I've watched many political influencers gradually become radicalized by their audiences, starting off moderate but following their increasingly extreme followers toward the fringes. One example is Louise Mensch, a once-respectable journalist and former Conservative politician who in 2016 published a story about Trump's alleged ties to Russia, which went viral. She subsequently gained a huge audience of #NotMyPresident #Resist types, and, encouraged by her new, indignant audience to uncover more evidence of Trump's corruption, she appears to have begun to view herself as the one who'd prove Russiagate and bring down the Donald. The immense responsibility she felt to her audience seems to have motivated her to see dramatic patterns in pure noise, and to concoct increasingly speculative conspiracy theories about Trump and Russia, such as the claim that Vladimir Putin assassinated Andrew Breitbart, the founder of Breitbart News, so his job would go to Trump ally Steve Bannon. When her former allies, such as the hacker known as "the Jester," expressed concern over her new trajectory toward fringe theories, she doubled down, accusing all her critics of being Trump shills or Putin shills. Another, more recent victim of audience capture is Maajid Nawaz. I've always liked Maajid, and as someone who once worked with the organization he founded, the counter terrorism think-tank Quilliam, I'm aware of how careful and considered he can be. Unfortunately, since the pandemic, he's been different. His descent began with him posting a few vague theories about the virus being a fraud perpetrated on an unsuspecting public, and after his posts went viral he found himself being inundated with new "Covid-skeptic" followers, who showered him with new leads to chase. In January, after he lost his position at the radio show LBC due to his increasingly careless theories about a secretive New World Order, he implied his firing was part of the conspiracy to silence the truth, and urged his loyal followers to subscribe to his Substack, as this was now his family's only source of income. His new audience proved to be generous with both money and attention, and his need to meet their expectations seems to have spurred him, consciously or unconsciously, to double down on his more extreme views. Now almost everything he writes about, from Covid to Ukraine, he somehow ties to the shadowy New World Order. Motivated by his audience to continually uncover new truths about the conspiracy, Maajid has been forced to scrape the barrel of claims. His recent work is his wildest yet, combining common tropes like resurrected Nazi eugenics programs, satanic rituals, and the Bilderberg meeting. Among the fields he now relies on for his evidence are... numerology. Twitter avatar for @MaajidNawaz Maajid أبو عمّار @MaajidNawaz British MPs have begun voting on a motion of ‘no confidence' in the UK Parliament against Prime Minister Johnson. The vote commenced at: 6pm, on the 6th day, of the 6th month. No joke. آل عمران:[54] وَمَكَرُوا وَمَكَرَ اللَّهُ وَاللَّهُ خَيْرُ الْمَاكِرِينَ Twitter avatar for @MaajidNawaz Maajid أبو عمّار @MaajidNawaz 3 of our British MPs were at this dodgy af global Bilderberg meeting: Michael Gove (con) Tom Tugendhat (con) David Lammy (lab) Their attendance alone must be remembered if they ever seek leadership of their respective political parties and hence try to become PM of Britain https://t.co/EKohVzfaiN 6:52 PM ∙ Jun 6, 2022 957 Likes 287 Retweets There is clear value in investigating the corruption that pervades the misty pinnacles of power, but by defining himself by his audience's view of him as the uncoverer of a global conspiracy, Maajid has ensured he'll see evidence of the conspiracy in all things. Instead of performing real investigation, he is now merely playing the role of investigator for his audience, a role that requires drama rather than diligence, and which can lead only to his audience's desired conclusions. Muddying the Waters to Obscure the Reflection Maajid, Mensch, and Perry are far from the only victims of audience capture. Given how fundamental the looking glass self is to the development of our personalities, every influencer has likely been affected by it to some degree. And that includes me. I'm no authority on the degree to which my mind has been captured by you, my audience. But I do suspect that audience capture affects me far less than most influencers because I've taken specific steps to avoid it. I was aware of the pitfall long before I became an influencer. I wanted an audience, but I also knew that having the wrong audience would be worse than having no audience, because they'd constrain me with their expectations, forcing me to focus on one tiny niche of my worldview at the expense of everything else, until I became a parody of myself. It was clear to me that the only way to resist becoming what other people wanted me to be was to have a strong sense of who I wanted to be. And who I wanted to be was someone immune to audience capture, someone who thinks his own thoughts, decides his own destiny, and above all, never stops growing. I knew there were limits to my desired independence, because, whether we like it or not, we all become like the people we surround ourselves with. So I surrounded myself with the people I wanted to be like. On Twitter I cultivated a reasonable, open-minded audience by posting reasonable, open-minded tweets. The biggest jumps in my follower count came from my megathreads of mental models, which cover so many topics from so many perspectives that the people who appreciated them enough to follow me would need to be willing to consider new perspectives. Naturally these people came to view me as, and expected me to be, an independent thinker as open to learning and growing as themselves. In this way I ensured that my brand image—the person that my audience expects me to be—was in alignment with my ideal image—the person I want to be. So even though audience capture likely does affect me in some way, it only makes me more like the person I want to be. I hacked the system. My brand image is, admittedly, diffuse and weak. My Twitter bio is “saboteur of narratives,” and few people can say for sure what I'm about, other than vague things like “thinker” or “dumb fuck.” And that's how I like it. My vagueness makes me hard to pigeonhole, predict, and capture. For this same reason, I'm suspicious of those with strong, sharply delineated brands. Human beings are capricious and largely formless storms of idiosyncrasies, so a human only develops a clear and distinct identity through the artifice of performance. Nikocado has a clear and distinct identity, but its clarity and distinctness make it hard to escape. He may be a millionaire with legions of fans, but his videos, filled with complaints-disguised-as-jokes about his poor health, hardly make him seem happy. Unfortunately, salvation seems out of reach for him because his audience, or at least the audience he imagines, demands he be the same as he was yesterday. And even if he were to find the strength to break character and be himself again, he's been acting for so long that stopping would only make him feel like an imposter. This is the ultimate trapdoor in the hall of fame; to become a prisoner of one's own persona. The desire for recognition in an increasingly atomized world lures us to be who strangers wish us to be. And with personal development so arduous and lonely, there is ease and comfort in crowdsourcing your identity. But amid such temptations, it's worth remembering that when you become who your audience expects at the expense of who you are, the affection you receive is not intended for you but for the character you're playing, a character you'll eventually tire of. So the next time you find yourself in the limelight of other people's gazes, remember that being someone often means being fake, and if you chase the approval of others, you may, in the end, lose the approval of yourself TikTok is a Time Bomb The ultimate weapon of mass distraction For thousands of years, humans sought to subjugate their enemies by inflicting pain, misery, and terror. They did this because these were the most paralyzing emotions they could consistently evoke; all it took was the slash of a sword or pull of a trigger. But as our understanding of psychology has developed, so it has become easier to evoke other emotions in complete strangers. Advances in the understanding of positive reinforcement, driven mostly by people trying to get us to click on links, have now made it possible to consistently give people on the other side of the world dopamine hits at scale. As such, pleasure is now a weapon; a way to incapacitate an enemy as surely as does pain. And the first pleasure-weapon of mass destruction may just be a little app on your phone called TikTok. I. The Smiling Tiger TikTok is the most successful app in history. It emerged in 2017 out of the Chinese video-sharing app Douyin and within three years it had become the most downloaded app in the world, later surpassing Google as the world's most visited web domain. TikTok's conquest of human attention was facilitated by the covid lockdowns of 2020, but its success wasn't mere luck. There's something about the design of the app that makes it unusually irresistible. Other platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, use recommendation algorithms as features to enhance the core product. With TikTok, the recommendation algorithm is the core product. You don't need to form a social network or list your interests for the platform to begin tailoring content to your desires, you just start watching, skipping any videos that don't immediately draw your interest. Tiktok uses a proprietary algorithm, known simply as the For You algorithm, that uses machine learning to build a personality profile of you by training itself on your watch habits (and possibly your facial expressions.) Since a TikTok video is generally much shorter than, say, a YouTube video, the algorithm acquires training data from you at a much faster rate, allowing it to quickly zero in on you. The result is a system that's unsurpassed at figuring you out. And once it's figured you out, it can then show you what it needs to in order to addict you. Since the For You algorithm favors only the most instantly mesmerizing content, its constructive videos—such as “how to” guides and field journalism—tend to be relegated to the fringes in favor of tasty but malignant junk info. Many of the most popular TikTokers, such as Charli D'Amelio, Bella Poarch, and Addison Rae, do little more than vapidly dance and lip-sync. Individually, such videos are harmless, but the algorithm doesn't intend to show you just one. When it receives the signal that it's got your attention, it doubles down on whatever it did to get it. This allows it to feed your obsessions, showing you hypnotic content again and again, reinforcing its imprint on your brain. This content can include promotion of self-harm and eating disorders, and uncritical encouragement of sex-reassignment surgery. There's evidence that watching such content can cause mass psychogenic illness: researchers recently identified a new phenomenon where otherwise healthy young girls who watched clips of Tourette's sufferers developed Tourette's-like tics. A more common way TikTok promotes irrational behavior is with viral trends and “challenges,” where people engage in a specific act of idiocy in the hope it'll make them TikTok-famous. Acts include licking toilets, snorting suntan lotion, eating chicken cooked in NyQuil, and stealing cars. One challenge, known as “devious licks”, encourages kids to vandalize property, while the “blackout challenge,” in which kids purposefully choke themselves with household items, has even led to several deaths, including a little girl a few days ago. As troublesome as TikTok's trends are, the app's greatest danger lies not in any specific content but in its general addictive nature. Studies on long term TikTok addiction don't yet exist for obvious reasons, but, based on what we know of internet addiction generally, we can extrapolate its eventual effects on habitual TikTokers. There's a substantial body of research showing a strong association between smartphone addiction, shrinkage of the brain's gray matter, and “digital dementia,” an umbrella term for the onset of anxiety and depression and the deterioration of memory, attention span, self-esteem, and impulse control (the last of which increases the addiction). These are the problems caused by internet addiction generally. But there's something about TikTok that makes it uniquely dangerous. In order to develop and maintain mental faculties like memory and attention span, one needs to practice using them. TikTok, more than any other app, is designed to give you what you want while requiring you to do as little as possible. It cares little who you follow or what buttons you click; its main consideration is how long you spend watching. Its reliance on machine learning rather than user input, combined with the fact that TikTok clips are so short they require minimal memory and attention span, makes browsing TikTok the most passive, uninteractive experience of all major platforms. If it's the passive nature of online content consumption that causes atrophy of mental faculties, then TikTok, as the most passively used platform, will naturally cause the most atrophy. Indeed many habitual TikTokers can already be found complaining on websites like Reddit about their loss of mental ability, a phenomenon that's come to be known as “TikTok brain.” If the signs are becoming apparent already, imagine what TikTok addiction will have done to young developing brains a decade from now. TikTok's capacity to stupefy people, both acutely by encouraging idiotic behavior, and chronically by atrophying the brain, should prompt consideration of its potential use as a new kind of weapon, one that seeks to neutralize enemies not by inflicting pain and terror, but by inflicting pleasure. Last month FBI Director Chris Wray warned that TikTok is controlled by a Chinese government that could “use it for influence operations.” So how likely is it that one such influence operation might include addicting young Westerners to mind-numbing content to create a generation of nincompoops? The first indication that the Chinese Communist Party is aware of TikTok's malign influence on kids is that it's forbidden access of the app to Chinese kids. The American tech ethicist Tristan Harris pointed out that the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, is a “spinach” version where kids don't see twerkers and toilet-lickers but science experiments and educational videos. Furthermore, Douyin is only accessible to kids for 40 minutes per day, and it cannot be accessed between 10pm and 6am. Has the CCP enforced such rules to protect its people from what it intends to inflict on the West? When one examines the philosophical doctrines behind the rules, it becomes clear that the CCP doesn't just believe that apps like TikTok make people stupid, but that they destroy civilizations. II. Seven Mouths, Eight Tongues China has been suspicious of Western liberal capitalism since the 1800s, when the country's initial openness led to the Western powers flooding China with opium. The epidemic of addiction, combined with the ensuing Opium Wars, accelerated the fall of the Qing Dynasty and led to the Century of Humiliation in which China was subject to harsh and unequal terms by Britain and the US. Mao is credited with eventually crushing the opium epidemic, and since then the view among many in China has been that Western liberalism leads to decadence and that authoritarianism is the cure. But one man has done more than anyone to turn this thesis into policy. His name is Wang Huning, and, despite not being well known outside China, he has been China's top ideological theorist for three decades, and he is now member number 4 of the seven-man Standing Committee—China's most powerful body. He advised China's former leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, and now he advises Xi Jinping, authoring many of his policies. In China he is called “guoshi” (国师: literally, “teacher of the nation”). Wang refuses to do press or to even speak with foreigners, but his worldview can be surmised from the books he wrote earlier in his life. In August 1988, Wang accepted an invitation to spend six months in the US, and traveled from state to state noting the way American society operates, examining its strengths and weaknesses. He recorded his findings in the 1991 book, America Against America, which has since become a key CCP text for understanding the US. The premise of the book is simple: the US is a paradox composed of contradictions: its two primary values—freedom and equality—are mutually exclusive. It has many different cultures, and therefore no overall culture. And its market-driven society has given it economic riches but spiritual poverty. As he writes in the book, “American institutions, culture and values oppose the United States itself.” For Wang, the US's contradictions stem from one source: nihilism. The country has become severed from its traditions and is so individualistic it can't make up its mind what it as a nation believes. Without an overarching culture maintaining its values, the government's regulatory powers are weak, easily corrupted by lobbying or paralyzed by partisan bickering. As such, the nation's progress is directed mostly by blind market forces; it obeys not a single command but a cacophony of three hundred million demands that lead it everywhere and nowhere. In Wang's view, the lack of a unifying culture puts a hard limit on the US's progress. The country is constantly producing wondrous new technologies, but these technologies have no guiding purpose other than their own proliferation. The result is that all technological advancement leads the US along one unfortunate trajectory: toward more and more commodification. Wang writes: “Human flesh, sex, knowledge, politics, power, and law can all become the target of commodification… Commodification, in many ways, corrupts society and leads to a number of serious social problems. These problems, in turn, can increase the pressure on the political and administrative system.” Thus, by turning everything into a product, Western capitalism devours every aspect of American culture, including the traditions that bind it together as a nation, leading to atomization and polarization. The commodification also devours meaning and purpose, and to plug the expanding spiritual hole that this leaves, Americans turn to momentary pleasures—drugs, fast food, and amusements—driving the nation further into decadence and decay. For Wang, then, the US's unprecedented technological progress is leading it into a chasm. Every new microchip, TV, and automobile only distracts and sedates Americans further. As Wang writes in his book, “it is not the people who master the technology, but the technology that masters the people.” Though these words are 30 years old, they could easily have been talking about social media addiction. Wang theorized that the conflict between the US's economic system and its value system made it fundamentally unstable and destined for ever more commodification, nihilism, and decadence, until it finally collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. To prevent China's own technological advancement leading it down the same perilous path, Wang proposed an extreme solution: neo-authoritarianism. In his 1988 essay, “The Structure of China's Changing Political Culture,” Wang wrote that the only way a nation can avoid the US's problems is by instilling “core values”—a national consensus of beliefs and principles rooted in the traditions of the past and directed toward a clear goal in the future. Such a consensus could eventually ward off nihilism and decadence, but cultivating it would in turn require the elimination of nihilism and decadence. This idea has been central to President Xi's governance strategy, which has emphasized “core socialist values” like civility, patriotism, and integrity. So how has the push for these socialist core values affected the CCP's approach to social media? The creator of TikTok and CEO of Bytedance, Zhang Yiming, originally intended for the content on TikTok and its Chinese version, Douyin, to be determined purely by popularity. As such, Douyin started off much like TikTok is now, with the content dominated by teenagers singing and dancing. In April 2018, the CCP began action against Zhang. Its media watchdog, the National Radio and Television Administration, ordered the removal from Chinese app stores of Bytedance's then-most popular app, Toutiao, and its AI news aggregator, Neihan Duanzi, citing their platforming of “improper” content. Zhang then took to social media to offer a groveling public apology, stating: "Our products took the wrong path, and content appeared that was incommensurate with socialist core values." Shortly after, Bytedance announced it would recruit thousands more people to moderate content, and, according to CNN, in the subsequent job ads it stated a preference for CCP members with “strong political sensitivity.” The CCP's influence over Bytedance has only grown since then. Last year, the Party acquired a “golden share” in Bytedance's Beijing entity, and one of its officials, Wu Shugang, took one of the company's three board seats. The CCP's intrusion into Bytedance's operations is part of a broader strategy by Xi, called the “Profound Transformation”, which seeks to clear space for the instituting of core socialist values by ridding China of “decadent” online content. In August 2021, a statement appeared across Chinese state media calling for an end to TikTok-style “tittytainment” for fear that “our young people will lose their strong and masculine vibes and we will collapse.” In the wake of that statement, there have been crackdowns on “sissy-men” fashions, “digital drugs” like online gaming, and “toxic idol worship.” Consequently, many online influencers have been forcibly deprived of their influence, with some, such as the movie star Zhao Wei, having their entire presence erased from the Chinse web. For Xi and the CCP, eliminating “decadent” TikTok-style content from China is a matter of survival, because such content is considered a herald of nihilism, a regression of humans back to beasts, a symptom of the West's terminal illness that must be prevented from metastasizing to China. And yet, while cracking down on this content domestically, China has continued to allow its export internationally as part of Xi's “digital Silk Road” (数字丝绸之路). TikTok is known to censor content that displeases Beijing, such as mentions of Falun Gong or Tiananmen Square, but otherwise it has free rein to show Westerners what it wants; “tittytainment” and “sissy men” are everywhere on the app. So why the hypocritical disparity in rules? Is the digital Silk Road intended as poetic justice for the original Silk Road, whereby the Western powers preached Christian values while trafficking chemical TikTok—opium—into China? Since Wang and Xi believe the West is too decadent to survive, they may have opted to take the Taoist path of wu wei (無為), which is to say, sit back and let the West's appetites take it where they will. But there's another, more sinister and effective approach they may have adopted. To understand it, we must consider one final piece of the puzzle: an amphetamine-fueled philosopher who lived in my hometown. III. The Matricide Laboratory At first glance the British philosopher Nick Land could hardly be more different from Wang Huning. Wang rose to prominence by being dour, discreet, and composed, while Land rose to prominence by ranting about cyborg apocalypses while out of his mind on weed and speed. In the late 1990s Land moved into a house once owned by the Satanist libertine Aleister Crowley (half a mile from where I grew up), and there he apparently binged on drugs and scrawled occult diagrams on the walls. At nearby Warwick University where he taught, his lectures were often bizarre (one infamous “lesson” consisted of Land lying on the floor, croaking into a mic, while frenetic jungle music pulsed in the background.) Land and Wang were not just polar opposites in personality; they also operated at opposite ends of the political spectrum. While Wang would go on to be the top ideological theorist of the Chinese Communist Party, Land would become the top theorist (with Curtis Yarvin) of the influential network of far-right bloggers, NRx. And yet, despite their opposite natures, Land and Wang would develop almost identical visions of liberal capitalism as an all-commodifying, all devouring force, driven by the insatiable hunger of blind market forces, and destined to finally eat Western civilization itself. Land viewed Western liberal capitalism as a kind of AI that's reached the singularity; in other words, an AI that's grown beyond the control of humans and is now unstoppably accelerating toward inhuman ends. As Land feverishly wrote in his 1995 essay, “Meltdown:” “The story goes like this: Earth is captured by a technocapital singularity as renaissance rationalitization and oceanic navigation lock into commoditization take-off. Logistically accelerating techno-economic interactivity crumbles social order in auto-sophisticating machine runaway.” Land's drug-fueled prose is overwrought, so to simplify his point, Western capitalism can be compared to a “paperclip maximizer,” a hypothetical AI programmed by a paperclip business to produce as many paperclips as possible, which leads it to begin recycling everything on earth into paperclips (commodities). When the programmers panic and try to switch it off, the AI turns them into paperclips, since being switched off would stop it fulfilling its goal of creating as many paperclips as possible. Thus, the blind application of short term goals leads to long term ruin. Land believed that, since the runaway AI we call liberal capitalism commodifies everything, including even criticisms of it (which are necessarily published for profit), it cannot be opposed. Every attack on it becomes part of it. Thus, if one wishes to change it, the only way is to accelerate it along its trajectory. As Land stated in a later, more sober writing style: “The point of an analysis of capitalism, or of nihilism, is to do more of it. The process is not to be critiqued. The process is the critique, feeding back into itself, as it escalates. The only way forward is through, which means further in.” —A Quick-and-Dirty Introduction to Accelerationism (2017) This view, that the current system must be accelerated to be transformed, has since become known as “accelerationism.” For Land, acceleration is not just a destructive force but also a creative one; he came to believe that all democracies accelerate toward ruin but a visionary despot unfettered by the concerns of the masses could accelerate a country to prosperity. Land's own life followed the same course he envisioned for the liberal West; following years of high productivity, he fell into nihilism and the decadence of rampant drug use, which drove him to a nervous breakdown. Upon recovering in 2002, he embraced authoritarianism, moved to Shanghai, and began writing for Chinese state media outlets like China Daily and the Shanghai Star. A few years after Land moved to China, talk of accelerationism began to emerge on the Chinese web, where it's become known by its Chinese name, jiasuzhuyi (加速主义). The term has caught on among Chinese democracy advocates, many of whom view the CCP as the runaway AI, hurtling toward greater tyranny; they even refer to Xi as “Accelerator-in-Chief” (总加速师). Domestically, Chinese democracy activists try to accelerate the CCP's authoritarianism ad absurdum; one tactic is to swamp official tip-off lines with reports of minor or made-up infractions, with the intent of breaking the Party by forcing it to enforce all of its own petty rules. As for the CCP itself, it's known to have viewed former US president Donald Trump as the “Accelerator-in-Chief,” or, more accurately, “Chuan Jianguo” (川建国: literally “Build China Trump”) because he was perceived as helping China by accelerating the West's decline. For this reason, support of him was encouraged. The CCP is also known to have engaged in jiasuzhuyi more directly; for instance, during the 2020 US race riots, China used Western social media platforms to douse accelerant over US racial tensions. But the use of TikTok as an accelerant is a whole new scale of accelerationism, one much closer to Land's original, apocalyptic vision. Liberal capitalism is about making people work in order to obtain pleasurable things, and for decades it's been moving toward shortening the delay between desire and gratification, because that's what consumers want. Over the past century the market has taken us toward ever shorter-form entertainment, from cinema in the early 1900s, to TV mid-century, to minutes-long YouTube videos, to seconds-long TikTok clips. With TikTok the delay between desire and gratification is almost instant; there's no longer any patience or effort needed to obtain the reward, so our mental faculties fall into disuse and disrepair. And this is why TikTok could prove such a devastating geopolitical weapon. Slowly but steadily it could turn the West's youth—its future—into perpetually distracted dopamine junkies ill-equipped to maintain the civilization built by their ancestors. We seem to be halfway there already: not only has there been gray matter shrinkage in smartphone-addicted individuals, but, since 1970 the Western average IQ has been steadily falling. Though the decline likely has several causes, it began with the first generation to grow up with widespread TVs in homes, and common sense suggests it's at least partly the result of technology making the attainment of satisfaction increasingly effortless, so that we spend ever more of our time in a passive, vegetative state. If you don't use it, you lose it. And even those still willing to use their brains are at risk of having their efforts foiled by social media, which seems to be affecting not just kids' abilities but also their aspirations; in a survey asking American and Chinese children what job they most wanted, the top answer among Chinese kids was “astronaut,” and the top answer among American kids was “influencer.” If we continue along our present course, the resulting loss of brainpower in key fields could, years from now, begin to harm the West economically. But, more importantly, if it did it would help discredit the very notion of Western liberalism itself, since there is no greater counterargument to a system than to see it destroy itself. And so the CCP would benefit doubly from this outcome: ruin the West and refute it; two birds with one stone (or as they say in China, 箭双雕: one arrow, two eagles.) So, the CCP has both the means and the motive to help the West defeat itself, and part of this could conceivably involve the use of TikTok to accelerate liberal capitalism by closing the gap between desire and gratification. Now, it could be argued that we have no hard evidence of the CCP's intentions, only a set of indications. However, ultimately the CCP's intentions are irrelevant. Accelerationism can't alter an outcome, only hasten it. And TikTok, whether or not it's actively intended as a weapon, is only moving the West further along the course it's long been headed: toward more effortless pleasure, and resulting cognitive decline. The problem, therefore, is not China, but us. America Against America. If TikTok is not a murder weapon, then it's a suicide weapon. China has given the West the means to kill itself, but the death wish is wholly the West's. After all, TikTok dominated our culture as a result of free market forces—the very thing we live by. Land and Wang are correct that the West being controlled by everyone means it's controlled by no one, and without brakes or a steering wheel we're at the market's mercy. Of course, democracies do have some regulatory power. Indian lawmakers banned TikTok in 2020, and US lawmakers are now considering the same. However, while this may stop the theft of our data, it won't stop the theft of our attention; if TikTok is banned then another short-form video site will just take its place. Effortless dopamine hits are what consumers want, and capitalism always tries to give consumers what they want. Anticipating the demand, YouTube has added its own TikTok-style “YouTube Shorts” format, and Twitter recently implemented its own version of TikTok's For You algorithm. The market is a greater accelerator than China could ever hope to be. So what's the solution? Land and Wang may be right about the illness, but they're wrong about the cure. It's true that we in the West have little left of the traditions that once tied us together, and in their absence all that unites us are our animal hungers. But Wang's belief that meaning and purpose can be miraculously imposed on us all by a strongman leader is just a fantasy that has littered history with failed experiments. Sure, democracies are vulnerable because there's no one controlling their advancement, but autocracies are vulnerable precisely for the opposite reason: they're controlled by people, which is to say, by woefully myopic apes. China is currently suffering from the myopia of Xi's zero-covid policy, which has ravaged the country's economy, and from the disastrous one-child policy that's led to China's current population crisis. For all our problems, we'd be unwise to exchange the soft tyranny of dopamine for the hard tyranny of despots. That leaves only one solution: the democratic one. In a democracy responsibility is also democratized, so parents must look out for their own kids. There's a market for this, too: various brands of parental controls can be set on devices to limit kids' access (though many of these, including TikTok's own controls, can be easily bypassed.) But ultimately these are short term measures. In the long term the only way to prevent digital dementia is to raise awareness of the neurological ruin wrought by apps like TikTok, exposing their ugliness so they fall out of fashion like cigarettes. If the weakness of liberalism is its openness, then this is also its strength; word can travel far in democracies. We'll surely sound like alarmists; TikTok destroys so gradually that it seems harmless. But if the app is a time-bomb that'll wreck a whole generation years from now, then we can't wait till its effects are apparent before acting, for then it will be too late. The clock is ticking. Tik. Tok… I just shit and cum. FAQ What does this mean? The amount of shit (and cum) on my computer and floor has increased by one. Why did you do this? There are several reasons I may deem a comment to be worthy of feces or ejaculation. These include, but are not limited to: Being gay Dank copypasta bro, where'd you find it walter Am I going to shit and cum too? No - not yet. But you should refrain from shitposting and cumposting like this in the future. Otherwise I will be forced to shit and cum again, which may put your shitting and cumming privileges in jeopardy. I don't believe my comment deserved being shit and cum at. Can you un-cum it? Sure, mistakes happen. But only in exceedingly rare circumstances will I put shit back into my butt. If you would like to issue an appeal, shoot me a hot load explaining what I got wrong. I tend to respond to retaliatory ejaculation within several minutes. Do note, however, that over 99.9% of semen dies before it can fertilize the egg, and yours is likely no exception. How can I prevent this from happening in the future? Accept the goopy brown and white substance and move on. But learn from this mistake: your behavior will not be tolerated in my mom's basement. I will continue to shit and cum until you improve your conduct. Remember: ejaculation is privilege, not a right. I just came in your asshole. I just came in your asshole. FAQ What does this mean? A large load of baby gravy has been transferred from my testicles into your rectum. Why did I do this? There are several reasons why I came in your ass. These include, but are not limited to: Your comment turned me on You are cute Your dad was too busy How did I do this? I rammed your rectum with my handsome hog until I turned you into a frosting factory. Why am I telling you about this? Your ass will be leaking cum for at least 36 hours and may be a slipping hazard. Also you might be gay. How can you avoid this in the future? Unless you stop looking so breedable in the near future, you can't. I will always find a way to fill your tight little boyhole
Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written yet another megathread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's fantastic, and today we go through some of my favourites. Expect to learn why every debate is fundamentally an argument about the definition of words, whether modern men are right to believe they would be better off living in medieval times, why people fighting injustice might actually be suffering with an identity crisis, why so many people go shopping for their opinions online, how the culture divide we have today stemmed from our tribal roots, why over analysing Tweets is a waste of your time and much more... Sponsors: Get the Whoop 4.0 for free and get your first month for free at http://join.whoop.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get over 37% discount on all products site-wide from MyProtein at https://bit.ly/proteinwisdom (use code: MODERNWISDOM) Get 15% discount on Craftd London's jewellery at https://craftd.com/modernwisdom (use code MW15) Extra Stuff: Follow Gurwinder's Substack - https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit public.substack.comRates of mental illness across the Western world are surging, with young people being disproportionately impacted. From an exponential increase in referrals to pediatric gender clinics to substantial upticks in depression and anxiety diagnoses, the younger generation has never been more unhappy.A common explanation for this phenomenon is the challenges of contemporary living. With a growing tendency towards isolated lifestyles, coupled with spending excessive amounts of time online, youth mental health is put under strain, leading to an array of mood disorders. However, when writer Gurwinder Bhogal delved deeper into the data, he observed a peculiar trend. Liberals are more likely than conservatives to report psychological problems, and notably, a 2020 Pew survey revealed a staggering 56% of white liberal females reported receiving a mental health diagnosis. Why is that? Is liberalism making people sick?Gurwinder argues that this is because central to Leftism is equality and the belief that individuals' successes and failures stem from external factors, rendering them undeserved. Present-day Leftism tends to downplay the significance of human agency while magnifying the influence of environmental circumstances. Consequently, young people are taught to view their challenges as outcomes of societal forces such as late capitalism or systemic racism, and there is now a growing inclination to attribute them to medical explanations.This has led to what Gurwinder calls a “pathologization pandemic,” in which people, predominantly those on the left of the political spectrum, are increasingly interpreting personal issues and the normal struggles of life as medical disorders. But why are so many people on the left “confusing sadness for sickness?”
It is not the world that is the problem but the flawed ways in which we think about it. Gurwinder Bhogal joins Amit Varma in episode 331 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about his interest in meta-cognition -- and what it reveals about us and the world. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Gurwinder Bhogal on Substack and Twitter. 2. My Story -- Gurwinder Bhogal. 3. Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things -- Gurwinder Bhogal. 4. The Perils of Audience Capture -- Gurwinder Bhogal. 5. Skin in the Game -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb. 6. Superforecasting — Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. 7. The Looking-Glass Shelf. 8. Nikocado Avocado -- Nicholas Perry's YouTube channel. 9. God is Not Great -- Christopher Hitchens. 10. The Coddling of the American Mind — Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. 11. A Biologist Explains Why Sex Is Binary -- Colin Wright. 12. The Three Languages of Politics — Arnold Kling. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! Episode art: ‘Think About Thinking' by Simahina.
My guest today is Gurwinder Bhogal. Gurwinder writes The Prism, a blog covering the ways technology and psychology conspire to fool us, and how we can withstand the assault on our senses. We talk about writing, bugs in our psychological software, how we can better understand and manage our emotions and reactions, and the pursuit of finding truth. — (00:38) Gurwinder's background (03:59) Language as the programming language of humanity (11:21) Do humans want to recognize the bugs in our OS & can we convince people to want to do it? (14:16) How much can we actually change our operating system? (30:07) Are our emotions ever valid? (32:01) What is intuition and is it useful? (41:56) Are there systems & institutions that can help the rewiring of humanity at scale? (54:33) How do you know where to draw the line in finding truth vs. trusting sources? (56:25) Gurwinder's final question for listeners — The Prism: https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Gurwinder's Twitter: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Spencer's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer's blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com/
Infinite Loops Podcast Notes Key Takeaways Words that used to carry a certain weight are now levied all the time, and this debases their meaning The Woozle Effect: An article makes a claim without evidence, is then cited by another, which is cited by another (and so on), until the range of citations creates the impression that the claim has evidence when really all articles are citing the same uncorroborated source The Toxoplasma of Rage: Narratives that do the best in the digital age are narratives that not everybody thinks are true, but those that divide people the mostGolden Hammer: When someone, usually an intellectual who has gained a cultish following for popularizing a concept, becomes so drunk with power he thinks he can apply that concept to everything The Streisand Effect: A narrative that people are trying to suppress will eventually leak out, and it becomes even more appealing to everyone else because of the very fact that it was suppressedOur minds are configured not to argue for what is true, but for what we want to believe and what we need to believe in order to be part of the tribe Purity Spiral: Members of political tribes inevitably begin competing with their fellows to be the most ideologically pure. The constant one-upmanship toward moral superiority causes the whole group to become more extreme gradually. You cannot censor an avalanche “Certainty is the death of thought.” – Gurwinder BhogalRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgGurwinder Bhogal is a writer and programmer who writes about the myriad ways in which technology and psychology conspire to fool us and how we can withstand the covert assault on our senses. Gurwinder is known for his epic Twitter ‘Megathreads' which set out a series of powerful concepts for understanding the world. He joins the show to discuss our tendency to narrativize information, how to overcome the bandwidth tax, why Wikipedia is the world's largest source of misinformation, and MUCH more! Important Links: Megathread: Feb 7, 2020 (53,000 likes) Megathread: Feb 11, 2022 (62,000 likes) Megathread: March 18, 2023 (most recent) Gurwinder's Substack Gurwinder's Twitter The Toxoplasma of Rage Show Notes: Megathreads & the Woozle effect AI, the Encyclopedia Disinformatica, and cultivating a garden of Mithridates Capturing the nuance between dishonesty and lying The Toxoplasma of Rage Overcoming the bandwidth tax Brandishing the golden hammer; why we can't comprehend large numbers Tribalism & intersubjectivity The purity spiral Are we facing a lost generation? We are programmed to like complex explanations Narrativizing information “Certainty is the death of thought” Climbing the thinking ladder MUCH more! Books Mentioned: The Fifth Science; by Exurb1a Talking to Strangers; by Malcolm Gladwell Tao Te Ching; by Lao Tzu What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies; by Tim Urban
Gurwinder Bhogal is a writer and programmer who writes about the myriad ways in which technology and psychology conspire to fool us and how we can withstand the covert assault on our senses. Gurwinder is known for his epic Twitter ‘Megathreads' which set out a series of powerful concepts for understanding the world. He joins the show to discuss our tendency to narrativize information, how to overcome the bandwidth tax, why Wikipedia is the world's largest source of misinformation, and MUCH more! Important Links: Megathread: Feb 7, 2020 (53,000 likes) Megathread: Feb 11, 2022 (62,000 likes) Megathread: March 18, 2023 (most recent) Gurwinder's Substack Gurwinder's Twitter The Toxoplasma of Rage Show Notes: Megathreads & the Woozle effect AI, the Encyclopedia Disinformatica, and cultivating a garden of Mithridates Capturing the nuance between dishonesty and lying The Toxoplasma of Rage Overcoming the bandwidth tax Brandishing the golden hammer; why we can't comprehend large numbers Tribalism & intersubjectivity The purity spiral Are we facing a lost generation? We are programmed to like complex explanations Narrativizing information “Certainty is the death of thought” Climbing the thinking ladder MUCH more! Books Mentioned: The Fifth Science; by Exurb1a Talking to Strangers; by Malcolm Gladwell Tao Te Ching; by Lao Tzu What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies; by Tim Urban
Modern Wisdom Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written yet another megathread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's fantastic, and today we go through some of my favourites. Expect to learn why asking questions is the most selfish thing you can do, why people create hatred in an attempt to feel love, the real danger of censorship, why it's more important to avoid being wrong than try to be right, what postjournalism is and why you need to understand it, how to win every debate even if you lose, why you should never take an internet insult personally and much more... Sponsors: Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first box at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Download Hevy, the best workout tracker for free at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hevy-workout-tracker-gym-log/id1458862350 Get 20% discount on House Of Macadamias' nuts at https://houseofmacadamias.com/modernwisdom (use code MW20) Extra Stuff: Check out Gurwinder's Substack - https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Follow Gurwinder on Twitter - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/
He's a renowned economist, he's worked in the IMF, he's an Asia specialist and he loves India. Josh Felman joins Amit Varma in episode 321 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about his life, his times, and all that he has learnt about economics and human beings. This episode is co-hosted by Ajay Shah. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Josh Felman on Twitter, Project Syndicate, JH Consulting and The Marginal Economist. 2. Why India Can't Replace China -- Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman. 3. Three Globalization Shocks Could Hurt China and Help India -- Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman. 4. India's Size Illusion -- Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman. 5. India's Stalled Rise -- Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman. 6. Are Intellectuals Killing Convergence? -- Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman. 7. The Art and Science of Economic Policy — Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah) 8. In Service of the Republic — Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah.. 9. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Ajay Shah: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 10. The Importance of the 1991 Reforms — Episode 237 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Ajay Shah). 11. The Forgotten Greatness of PV Narasimha Rao — Episode 283 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati). 12. The Life and Times of Montek Singh Ahluwalia — Episode 285 of The Seen and the Unseen. 13. What a Long Strange Trip It's Been — Episode 188 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Arvind Subramanian). 14. India's Lost Decade — Episode 116 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra). 15. Demystifying GDP — Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta). 16. Pandemonium in India's Banks — Episode 212 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tamal Bandyopadhyay.) 17. The State of Our Economy (Nov 2021) -- Episode 252 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra and Mohit Satyanand.) 18. Taking Stock of Our Economy (May 2021) — Episode 227 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ila Patnaik). 19. The Indian Economy in 2019 — Episode 153 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul). 20. Two Economic Crises (2008 & 2019) — Episode 135 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Mohit Satynanand). 21. The Long Road From Neeyat to Neeti -- Episode 313 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu S Jaitley). 22. Rukmini Sees India's Multitudes — Episode 261 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rukmini S). 23. The Importance of Data Journalism — Episode 196 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rukmini S). 24. Pramit Bhattacharya Believes in Just One Ism — Episode 256 of The Seen and the Unseen. 25. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok). 26. Maya on IMDb and Wikipedia. 27. The Refreshing Audacity of Vinay Singhal — Episode 291 of The Seen and the Unseen. 28. Stage.in. 29. Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things -- Gurwinder. 30. The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization -- Bryan Ward-Perkins. 31. Richard Clarida and Thomas Laubach. 32. Thomas Laubach remembered by Ila Patnaik and Ajay Shah. 33. Parkinson's Law — C Northcote Parkinson. 34. That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen — Frédéric Bastiat. 35. A History of European Morals — WEH Lecky. 36. I, Pencil — Leonard Read. 37. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome — Mary Beard. 38. Mussolini: A Biography — Dennis Mack Smith. 39. Mussolini — RJB Bosworth. 40. The Great Dictator — Charlie Chaplin. 41. The chair-raising scene between Adenoid Hynkel and Benzino Napaloni. 42. Far Far Away on IMDb and Wikipedia — Amos Why. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! Episode art: ‘A Man, A Dog and the World' by Simahina.
Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written yet another megathread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's fantastic, and today we go through some of my favourites. Expect to learn why asking questions is the most selfish thing you can do, why people create hatred in an attempt to feel love, the real danger of censorship, why it's more important to avoid being wrong than try to be right, what postjournalism is and why you need to understand it, how to win every debate even if you lose, why you should never take an internet insult personally and much more... Sponsors: Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first box at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Download Hevy, the best workout tracker for free at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hevy-workout-tracker-gym-log/id1458862350 Get 20% discount on House Of Macadamias' nuts at https://houseofmacadamias.com/modernwisdom (use code MW20) Extra Stuff: Check out Gurwinder's Substack - https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Follow Gurwinder on Twitter - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/
Matsinaya: Backdoors to state control— Shailesh ChitnisThe Chinese government has signalled a shift in how it plans to control big tech. This month, news reports emerged that state-owned enterprises are set to take a 1% stake in two of its most prominent tech companies, Alibaba and Tencent.Euphemistically dubbed "golden shares," this small stake grants special privileges and gives the government an outsized role in how these companies are run. Typically, these shares come with a board seat and the right to review or veto any content decisions. The stake in Alibaba was acquired by an investment fund set up by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country's central internet regulator and censor.So far, the arrangement seems to target companies with a significant user base for online content. Alibaba owns social media entities, including Youku, the Chinese version of YouTube, and the web browser UCWeb. Tencent operates Tencent Video, a popular Chinese streaming service. In April 2021, the government paid around 2M Rmb (~$290K) for a percent share in ByteDance Technology, the parent of TikTok.Golden shares, known in China as "Special management shares" have been around since 2015 as a mechanism to control online content platforms. But over the past three years, the government has preferred more direct intervention to curtail what it perceives as an overreach by some of its largest companies. In October 2020, Alibaba controlled Ant Financial's IPO listing, which valued the company at a staggering $313 billion, which was pulled at the last minute. In July 2021, the ride-hailing app company Didi was banned from accepting new users over data privacy concerns. In the same month, China's edtech sector was crushed overnight when the government announced rules preventing these companies from making profits, raising capital, or going public.With the Chinese economy faltering and Xi Jinping's coronation completed, Beijing appears to be taking a subtler path to control its biggest technology companies. Business leaders may see this as a preferable approach to more aggressive and, at times, unpredictable regulation. Having a government representative on the board will reduce the companies' independence. But there is less scope for sudden rule changes since the insider would be privy to all content moderation decisions. However, shareholders of these companies, in particular overseas investors, won't be too happy with this arrangement. They will have less visibility and control over how the business operates. These concerns are now playing out publicly in how TikTok is trying to operate in the US. This month, the company shared details of a proposal that would spin off the US arm into a separate entity owned by ByteDance but entirely operated by US government-approved employees. It has also offered to allow Oracle and other third-party monitors to review its video recommendation algorithm. In the absence of a deal, the company is worried that it will be forced to sell its US operations or leave the market.ByteDance's travails highlight how difficult it will be for Chinese-owned companies to straddle both the US and Chinese markets.Antariksh Matters: Opening the doors for redressing orbital dangers— Pranav R Satyanath Over the past several issues of Techopolitik, we have covered several issues surrounding the weaponisation of space and the threats faced by satellites. One topic of particular interest has been the discussions and deliberations within the Open-Ended Working Group on Reducing Space Threats (OEWG). We began covering the OEWG back in May 2022, when the group held its first meeting in Geneva. The second meeting of the OEWG was help in September. And in 2023, we approach the third meeting of the OEWG.Much of the deliberations of the OEWG have been covered in a discussion document released in July 2022. During the deliberations, however, it became evident that India did little to be vocal about its own preferences for space risk reduction. After months of lamenting India's lack of proactiveness, we at the Takshashila Institution have put down our set of recommended approaches for India to pursue at the Conference on Disarmament and the United Nations. The new discussion document titled, “Redressing Orbital Dangers: Approaches to Advance India's Interests in Outer Space,” also provides an analysis of the US-led moratorium destructive DA-ASAT testing and India's position on space risk reduction. Here's an executive summary:In December 2022, the United Nations overwhelmingly adopted a resolution that called for states to commit not to carry out destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite missile tests. The proposed destructive DA-ASAT missile test moratorium does not restrict the research, development and deployment of counterspace capabilities. India, however, abstained from voting on the resolution and indicated its preference for legally-binding instruments. Moreover, India has yet to put forward its proposals for members of international fora to pursue. This document recommends four approaches which India can pursue to secure its interests. These recommendations are:* Pursue legally-binding instruments which ban the destructive testing of anti-satellite capabilities in outer space.* Advocate for mutual proximity notifications wherein states notify one another during close approaches or when one satellite operator notices unusual satellite behaviour by another operator.* Promote sharing space situational awareness data to increase the knowledge of the space environment and build transparency and confidence between states.* Advance existing norms, rules and responsible behaviours in outer space by adopting and strengthening non-legally-binding measures.No single recommended approach can redress all the threats in space. India must therefore advocate for multiple approaches in tandem to achieve peace and prosperity in outer space.Cyberpolitik: Closing all backdoors through open-source— Bharath ReddyOpen-source software (OSS) can help India achieve techno-strategic autonomy, economic growth, technology leadership, and skill development. As India takes on the G20 presidency, it needs to champion the adoption of OSS and create a sustainable ecosystem around it. A pledge by G20 countries to follow an OSS-first procurement policy that opts for proprietary closed-source solutions only when OSS options are unavailable can go a long way in creating an affordable and accessible common digital future. The rise of platforms and cloud-based services is a significant cause for concern in the information age. Big tech companies wield enormous power as gatekeepers of platforms. Network effects and vertically integrated services make it increasingly difficult for users to opt-out. User data often ends up being locked in silos. The need to have ownership and sovereignty over one's data is increasingly being recognised as an essential consideration in determining our choice of software.France and Germany have recognised the perils of having government communication on siloed big tech platforms such as Slack, Teams, WhatsApp or Telegram. They have taken the lead in moving government communication to a decentralised platform based on the Matrix open standard. France and Germany also have, to different extents, banned Microsoft's Office 365 and Google Workspace, citing concerns around compliance with GDPR and data sovereignty.These moves recognise that we live in an environment of increasing geopolitical risks. OSS offers a path to techno-strategic autonomy and data sovereignty. It provides unfettered access to secure, reliable and transparent technologies and ensures that data ownership stays with the users.The ominous term surveillance capitalism accurately describes the practice followed by tech companies to exploit users' personal data for advertising-driven profit. Surveillance capitalism thrives on the power of platforms. Tech companies have convinced users to trade our privacy for convenience to such an extent that they can predict our behaviour and influence it. We need software and algorithms that are transparent and inspire trust. If we indeed want to mitigate surveillance, open-source is the way to go.Building software using OSS components is now the de-facto model. Reusable modular OSS components can reduce costs and speed up the development process. A recent study shows that almost 97% of commercial software contains open-source code. This increased reliance on OSS puts additional strain on the communities of developers who maintain the code. Maintenance of OSS, including feature updates, bug fixes, and security updates, is a significant strain on the developers maintaining this code. Given that OSS forms the backbone of most software, a sustainable ecosystem with a contribution culture is essential.Governments are some of the biggest purchasers of software and IT services. The union government already has a soft preference for OSS in software procurement. Current IT procurement policies, such as the e-Governance Policy Initiatives under Digital India of 2015, state that the government shall endeavour to adopt OSS in e-governance systems and that OSS should be mandatorily considered as one of the options. A stronger preference for OSS in government purchases can go a long way in creating a sustainable open-source ecosystem. IT procurement policies of the union and state governments should mandate that all software purchased through tax-payer funding be open-source. Proprietary and closed technologies should be considered only where adequate OSS technologies are not an option. "Public Money? Public Code!" can be the guiding principle for government software purchases. In practice, this will lead to tax-payer-funded software having the freedom for everyone to use, modify, study, change and redistribute. The trickle-down effects will benefit society as a whole.OSS is an integral part of our common digital future, and promoting it will lead to economic growth and skill development. It will promote open standards and interoperability. It will also lead to skill development, job creation and entrepreneurship. All of these benefits are aligned with the objectives of the G20 in promoting an affordable and accessible common digital future. Investing in OSS will also help countries of the global south access state-of-the-art technologies.Adopting an OSS-first procurement policy by the G20 countries can create strong incentives for a vibrant open-source ecosystem. India must lead the way by adopting such a policy and champion other countries to pledge to do the same. In addition, G20 countries should also create a common fund which shall be used to fund critical OSS projects. The multiplier effects for the economy will far exceed the costs incurred towards maintaining these projects. Our Reading Menu[Blog] TikTok is a New Type of Superweapon by Gurwinder.[Article] Trust but verify: Satellite reconnaissance, secrecy and arms control during the Cold War by Aaron Bateman.[Report] Software Power: The Economic and Geopolitical Implications of Open Source Software by Alice Pannier This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com
Modern Wisdom Podcast Notes Key Takeaways Check out the Modern Wisdom Episode Page & Show NotesRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgGurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written yet another megathread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's one of the best things I've read this year, so I just had to bring him on. Expect to learn how bad things can sometimes feel better than good things, why people die on the hill of opinions they've only just begun believing, why intelligence plus ideology is a nightmare, how comedy can be a troll's last line of defence, the biggest lesson I learned from Joe Rogan, why regret minimisation should be a priority, why authoritarians lose sight of rationality and much more... Sponsors: Get over 37% discount on all products site-wide from MyProtein at https://bit.ly/proteinwisdom (use code: MODERNWISDOM) Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 4.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get the Whoop 4.0 for free and get your first month for free at http://join.whoop.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Check out Gurwinder's Substack - https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Follow Gurwinder on Twitter - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Gurwinder's new MegaThread - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1545510413982474253 Adam Mastroianni's post - https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/underrated-ideas-in-psychology Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/
Modern Wisdom: Read the notes at at podcastnotes.org. Don't forget to subscribe for free to our newsletter, the top 10 ideas of the week, every Monday --------- Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written yet another megathread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's one of the best things I've read this year, so I just had to bring him on. Expect to learn how bad things can sometimes feel better than good things, why people die on the hill of opinions they've only just begun believing, why intelligence plus ideology is a nightmare, how comedy can be a troll's last line of defence, the biggest lesson I learned from Joe Rogan, why regret minimisation should be a priority, why authoritarians lose sight of rationality and much more... Sponsors: Get over 37% discount on all products site-wide from MyProtein at https://bit.ly/proteinwisdom (use code: MODERNWISDOM) Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 4.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get the Whoop 4.0 for free and get your first month for free at http://join.whoop.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Check out Gurwinder's Substack - https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Follow Gurwinder on Twitter - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Gurwinder's new MegaThread - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1545510413982474253 Adam Mastroianni's post - https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/underrated-ideas-in-psychology Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/
Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written yet another megathread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's one of the best things I've read this year, so I just had to bring him on. Expect to learn how bad things can sometimes feel better than good things, why people die on the hill of opinions they've only just begun believing, why intelligence plus ideology is a nightmare, how comedy can be a troll's last line of defence, the biggest lesson I learned from Joe Rogan, why regret minimisation should be a priority, why authoritarians lose sight of rationality and much more... Sponsors: Get over 37% discount on all products site-wide from MyProtein at https://bit.ly/proteinwisdom (use code: MODERNWISDOM) Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 4.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get the Whoop 4.0 for free and get your first month for free at http://join.whoop.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Check out Gurwinder's Substack - https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Follow Gurwinder on Twitter - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Gurwinder's new MegaThread - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1545510413982474253 Adam Mastroianni's post - https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/underrated-ideas-in-psychology Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/
We evolved to take time-saving mental shortcuts. Split-second snap judgments can even save lives. But what are the pitfalls and drawbacks of such heuristics?Can we really see things as they are, or do we see them only through the filters our modern-day tribes have taught us to look through? If a concept is popular, does that mean it's correct—or could it be merely contagious? What makes an idea viral, and what protects our mind's psychological immune system from Trojan horse-styled invaders? And how can assuming we're wrong help us get closer to the truth?In this thought-provoking interview, Gurwinder and I explore numerous topics related to the fallibility of human cognition and emotional reactivity: logical fallacies and cognitive distortions; Richard Dawkins' meme theory and Gad Saad's concept of the parasitic mind; empathy versus theory of mind; evolutionary psychology; modern day internet tribalism; scapegoating; the perception and quarantining of “dangerous” ideas; us-versus-them thinking; the safety-versus-freedom dichotomy, and other values clashes; how reckoning with cognitive dissonance helps us grow; the limits of knowledge; the dark side of compassion; attentional blindness; the Karpman Drama Triangle; Error Theorists versus Conflict Theorists; propaganda; Twitter bans and how to avoid them; how deliberate ignorance can be a skill worth cultivating; plus, Web 3 and the future of the internet. Whether you enjoy heady, mind-expanding conversations, or just love a good British accent, you're not going to want to miss this one.Gurwinder Bhogal is a writer, programmer, and social media influencer based in the UK. His blog about the interplay between psychology and technology can be found at https://gurwinder.substack.com. Follow him on Twitter @G_S_Bhogal for epic mega-threads on cognition.If you enjoyed this conversation, please rate & review it on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share this episode with a friend, or on social media. You can also head over to my YouTube channel, subscribe, like, comment, & share there as well.To get $200 off your EightSleep Pod Pro Cover visit EightSleep.com & enter promo code SOMETHERAPIST. Be sure to check out my shop. In addition to wellness products, you can now find my favorite books!MUSIC: Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission. www.joeypecoraro.comPRODUCTION: Thanks to Eric and Amber Beels at DifMix.com ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Podcast: Modern Wisdom (LS 67 · TOP 0.05% what is this?)Episode: #486 - Gurwinder Bhogal - 14 Mental Models To Understand Human NaturePub date: 2022-06-13Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer.Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written another monstrous thread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's one of the best things I've read this year, so I just had to bring him on.Expect to learn why stupidity is more dangerous than evil, why most content has to appeal to midwits, why political debates are essentially mass-scaled ventriloquizism, how lower stakes lead to more vicious arguments, why the word retard is a strange choice as an unspeakable slur, why being a mess is more likeable than being perfect and much more…Sponsors:Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/Get 2 weeks Free Access to the State App at https://bit.ly/statewisdom (discount automatically applied)Get 2 weeks free access to Wondrium by going to https://www.wondrium.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied)Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and Free Shipping from Athletic Greens at https://athleticgreens.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied)Extra Stuff:Follow Gurwinder on Twitter - https://twitter.com/G_S_BhogalGurwinder's MegaThread: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1527720869191114756 Subscribe to Gurwinder's Substack: https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom-Get in touch.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillxTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillxYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcastEmail: https://chriswillx.com/contact/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesThe podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Chris Williamson, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
Podcast: Modern Wisdom (LS 62 · TOP 0.1% what is this?)Episode: #486 - Gurwinder Bhogal - 14 Mental Models To Understand Human NaturePub date: 2022-06-13Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written another monstrous thread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's one of the best things I've read this year, so I just had to bring him on. Expect to learn why stupidity is more dangerous than evil, why most content has to appeal to midwits, why political debates are essentially mass-scaled ventriloquizism, how lower stakes lead to more vicious arguments, why the word retard is a strange choice as an unspeakable slur, why being a mess is more likeable than being perfect and much more… Sponsors: Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Get 2 weeks Free Access to the State App at https://bit.ly/statewisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 2 weeks free access to Wondrium by going to https://www.wondrium.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and Free Shipping from Athletic Greens at https://athleticgreens.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Follow Gurwinder on Twitter - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Gurwinder's MegaThread: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1527720869191114756 Subscribe to Gurwinder's Substack: https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/ The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Chris Williamson, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
Modern Wisdom Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written another monstrous thread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's one of the best things I've read this year, so I just had to bring him on. Expect to learn why stupidity is more dangerous than evil, why most content has to appeal to midwits, why political debates are essentially mass-scaled ventriloquizism, how lower stakes lead to more vicious arguments, why the word retard is a strange choice as an unspeakable slur, why being a mess is more likeable than being perfect and much more… Sponsors: Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Get 2 weeks Free Access to the State App at https://bit.ly/statewisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 2 weeks free access to Wondrium by going to https://www.wondrium.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and Free Shipping from Athletic Greens at https://athleticgreens.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Follow Gurwinder on Twitter - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Gurwinder's MegaThread: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1527720869191114756 Subscribe to Gurwinder's Substack: https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/
Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. Gurwinder is one of my favourite Twitter follows. He's written another monstrous thread exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's one of the best things I've read this year, so I just had to bring him on. Expect to learn why stupidity is more dangerous than evil, why most content has to appeal to midwits, why political debates are essentially mass-scaled ventriloquizism, how lower stakes lead to more vicious arguments, why the word retard is a strange choice as an unspeakable slur, why being a mess is more likeable than being perfect and much more… Sponsors: Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Get 2 weeks Free Access to the State App at https://bit.ly/statewisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 2 weeks free access to Wondrium by going to https://www.wondrium.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and Free Shipping from Athletic Greens at https://athleticgreens.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Follow Gurwinder on Twitter - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Gurwinder's MegaThread: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1527720869191114756 Subscribe to Gurwinder's Substack: https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/
In this particular episode DrHPM shares 40 tips based on 40 tweets of "Gurwinder". Dr HPM hopes these will add lifetime value to real life.
Modern Wisdom Podcast Notes Key Takeaways “The main problems of the internet are not caused by algorithms, they're caused by people. Algorithms are just a reflection of human behavior”– Gurwinder Bhogal“We have re-primitivized our technology”– Gurwinder BhogalIn the age of information, the internet, and social media we often find that our tribal instincts overpower the search for truth that these tools should be enabling and acceleratingLaw of large numbers – given a wide enough data set, any pattern can be observed“The world hasn't gotten crazier, we are just seeing more of everything” – Gurwinder BhogalBrandolini's Law – it takes more energy to refute bullshit than to produce it, the world is left with a lot of unrefuted bullshitIt doesn't take much effort to be wrong on social media – it creates an illusion that society is dumber than it isThe Tocqueville Paradox – if living standards rise, people's societal expectations also rise. When expectations rise past living standards, disaffection towards society results.We misinterpret our conditions by measuring them in relativity rather than absolutesBulverism – in debate, we assume our opponent is wrong and attempt to retroactively confirm our assumption usually by appealing to the opponents' character or motivesReactance Theory – when someone is restricted from expressing a point of view or pressured into an opposing point of view, they tend to hold their original view even strongerRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgGurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. I got tagged in a monstrous thread of Gurwinder's on Twitter exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's one of the best things I've read this year, so I just had to bring him on. Expect to learn how saying ridiculous things can be a test of loyalty, why people can be too stupid to know that they're stupid, why million-to-one odds happen 8 times a day in New York City, why The Bullshit Principle is actually a thing, why everyone is seeing racism everywhere and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount on the highest quality CBD Products from Pure Sport at https://puresportcbd.com/modernwisdom (use code: MW20) Get perfect teeth 70% cheaper than other invisible aligners from DW Aligners at http://dwaligners.co.uk/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Follow Gurwinder on Twitter - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Gurwinder's MegaThread 1: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1225561131122597896 Gurwinder's MegaThread 2: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1438972527838117895 Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/
Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer. I got tagged in a monstrous thread of Gurwinder's on Twitter exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's one of the best things I've read this year, so I just had to bring him on. Expect to learn how saying ridiculous things can be a test of loyalty, why people can be too stupid to know that they're stupid, why million-to-one odds happen 8 times a day in New York City, why The Bullshit Principle is actually a thing, why everyone is seeing racism everywhere and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount on the highest quality CBD Products from Pure Sport at https://puresportcbd.com/modernwisdom (use code: MW20) Get perfect teeth 70% cheaper than other invisible aligners from DW Aligners at http://dwaligners.co.uk/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Follow Gurwinder on Twitter - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Gurwinder's MegaThread 1: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1225561131122597896 Gurwinder's MegaThread 2: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1438972527838117895 Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/
Follow Gurwider on Twitter: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal You can find all Gurwinder's Areo articles here: https://areomagazine.com/author/gurwinderbhogal/ Articles referenced here: How Not to De-Radicalize a Twitter Neo-Nazi - Areo: https://areomagazine.com/2017/10/28/how-not-to-de-radicalize-a-twitter-neo-nazi/ Alex Jones Was Victimized by One Oligopoly. But He Perpetuated Another: https://quillette.com/2018/09/30/alex-jones-was-victimized-by-one-oligopoly-but-he-perpetuated-another/ The Best Cure for Fake News is Fake News - Rabbit Hole: https://rabbitholemag.com/the-best-cure-for-fake-news-is-fake-news/ Further References You can find all the articles published as part of Areo's free speech fortnight here: https://twitter.com/AreoMagazine/status/1394704394189479939?s=20 My interview with Ayishat Akanbi: https://soundcloud.com/twoforteapodcast/63-ayishat-akanbi-styles-of-identity Ayishat's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ayishat_Akanbi My article on the involuntary nature of belief: Can We Make Ourselves Believe? A Letter Exchange - Areo: https://areomagazine.com/2019/08/18/can-we-make-ourselves-believe-a-letter-exchange/ I misspoke during the podcast. The original letter exchange was between Peter Boghossian and Maarten Boudry: Unbelievable: Can You Believe Something You Know is False? - letter.wiki: https://letter.wiki/conversation/22 Bret Weinstein - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi5N_uAqApEUIlg32QzkPlg AARON Z. LEWIS: www.aaronzlewis.com Timestamps 3:09 Fake news 11:55 Learning and heuristics, signalling, status games 18:08 Social media, virality and the oligopoly of perspectives 33:43 Listening as a persuasive technique 51:26 Conspiracy theories as a spandrel, mithridatism of false information, why it should be freedom of opinion, not freedom of information, how do we solve the problem of conspiracy theories? 57:38 The lab leak hypothesis and the mainstream echo chamber 1:02:18 The Woozle effect 1:10:08 Hypernovelty 1:13:43 Predictive coding
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In today's show, Pancham interviews Gurwinder Singh, real estate developer and investor from NYC. Gurwinder, a former Goldman Sachs employee does grounds up development projects in NYC – perhaps the most challenging market in the world. Is it worth doing grounds-up development in NYC inspite of all the challenges? The short answer is yes! In today's show, Gurwinder gives listeners a peek into the entire construction process – right from planning to closeout. He explains how he evaluates the feasibility of a project, and then goes on to reveal the kind of returns that investors can earn from these projects. If you are looking for some good alternatives to Wall Street investing, this show will interest you greatly. Tune in now Timestamped Shownotes: 00:53 – How did Pancham meet Gurwinder? 02:00 – Gurwinder's background information 03:00 – How and why did Gurwinder get into real estate investing? 05:49 – Was it difficult for Gurwinder to transition from software development to real estate? 07:30 – How does grounds- up development work? Gurwinder gives us a 30,000-foot view 08:36 – Is there vacant land available in NYC for grounds-up development? 09:23 – What are air rights? How do air rights affect the feasibility of a project? 11:22 – Important factors to consider while evaluating project feasibility 12:12 – Understanding “Floor-Area Ratio” in simple terms 13:12 – Gurwinder explains how he conducts a “highest and best case use analysis” 14:12 – What is the purpose of doing a site survey? 16:45 – Process and Timeframe for preparing site plans and getting them approved 18:10 – What is typical time-frame to get construction started? 20:15 – Gurwinder shares how his years of construction experience helps him manage his projects 21:38 – Considering all the challenges, is it worth investing in a grounds-up development? 23:31 – Typical financing arrangement for a grounds up real estate development 24:45 – As a passive investor, what sort of returns can you earn by investing in a grounds-up development? 27:18 - Taking the Leap Round 27:18 - When was the first time you invested outside of Wall Street? 28:07 - What fears did you have to overcome when you first invested outside Wall Street? 29:03 - What was one investment that did not go as expected? 30:53 - What is one piece of advice that you would give to people who are thinking of investing in the Main Street? 32:00 - Gurwinder shares his contact information 3 Key Points: Different challenges of doing grounds-up development in NYC Typical returns that investors earn from a grounds-up development project How to gauge project feasibility for a grounds-up development Get in Touch: Pancham's Email The Gold Collar Investor The Gold Collar Investor Facebook Page Gurwinder's email Call 516-721-9778 to get in touch with Gurwinder Idea Builders
Today's Ask Pancham show is a special one as we have Gurwinder Singh as a guest on this show. Gurwinder Singh, a former JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs employee is now a full-time real estate developer. Gurwinder tuned in to show #18 and show #19 with Kevin Day, and has some pertinent questions about living trusts and irrevocable trusts. If you are looking for some nuanced asset protection tips, this show will surely interest you. Tune in now! Timestamped Shownotes: 00:57 - Pancham welcomes Gurwinder to the show 03:06 - What is the difference between living trust and irrevocable trust? 04:36 - Which assets should you house in your living trust and your irrevocable trust? 05:48 - Should you rely on insurance for asset protection? Or is living trust or irrevocable trust a better option? 07:25 - How do you protect the equity in your house? Pancham explains the concept of equity stripping 3 Key Points: Difference between living trusts and irrevocable trusts Is insurance a good option for asset protection? Using equity stripping to protect your home equity Get in Touch: Pancham's Email The Gold Collar Investor The Gold Collar Investor Facebook Page The Gold Collar Investor Show 18
Gurwinder Bhogal is a writer and researcher known for his deep insights into psychology, technology, and the way humans process information. He joins Zuby to share his experiences infiltrating an extremist group in a British town north of London. They dive into the psychology of conservatives and liberals, the balance between IQ and common sense, and why intelligence alone doesn't guarantee wisdom. They also discuss the West's shift away from common sense, the rapid rate of change shaping the next 50 years, and the growing divide in humanity's future.Sponsors:Sambrosa - Wake up ready to embrace life's opportunities. Try Sambrosa and get 10% off at https://sambrosa.com/zuby10Lucid - Are you a fan of dystopian fiction and sci-fi thrillers? Check out the novel 'Lucid' by Michael S. Milano at https://lucidthebook.com_Timestamp:(00:00) Introduction(03:23) Gurwinder's time in tech(06:43) Gurwinder infiltrates extremist group(20:16) Prison sentencing/repeat offenders, trauma & more(32:23) Conservative vs Liberal psychology, & character traits(39:48) IQ vs common sense, & life outcomes(44:34) Intelligence, Big 5 Personality Traits, & wisdom(50:23) The West's move away from common sense(1:00:05) Rate of change & the next 25 to 50 years(1:06:32) Humanities bifurcation(1:11:16) Issues with prediction(1:15:22) Over-intellectualizing societal issues(1:18:08) Enforcing the ban of abortion/artificial wombs(1:28:10) Convenience culture(1:29:53) Man playing God(1:37:57) High status aspirations as prediction signal(1:48:49) Outro_Follow Zuby:https://x.com/zubymusichttps://instagram.com/zubymusichttps://facebook.com/zubymusicFollow Gurwinder Bhogal:https://x.com/G_S_Bhogal_Subscribe to the 'Real Talk With Zuby' podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify & more - https://fanlink.tv/zubypodcastMerch, Music & Books - https://teamzuby.com'Strong Advice: Zuby's Guide to Fitness For Everybody' eBook - https://gumroad.com/l/zubyfitnessOur Sponsors:* Check out CoinFlip Preferred and use my code ZUBY for 50% off transaction fees. Valid until May 30th, 2025 - https://coinflip.tech/otcSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/real-talk-with-zuby/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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