 Boom, what's up everyone welcome to simulation. I'm your host on sake and we are still on site in Boston, Massachusetts This is now our third episode Featuring core is number one question asker Alex K Chen. What's up? Hey? What's up? What's up? Thanks for coming on to the show. Yeah. Yeah for the third time the second time in Boston We came on the show in San Francisco last time. No the first. Yeah, sir versus Boston Oh, yeah, because the first time we're in summer. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, which is in the Boston area So twice in the Boston area. It's just been good and We're having Alex on for the third time because our conversations with Alex are They're multidisciplinary. They're super pushing the cutting edge of knowledge. Well, I'm just very very meta Alex isn't bad. Yeah, that's right. You are I like that a lot and I like how you are again pushing the cutting edges of knowledge a lot and That's what we want to talk about in this episode and I Love thinking about things in terms of like a ring of cutting-edge knowledge and that there's Humanity civilization has evolved to know certain things this collective learning and the collective learning has been pushed to this ring But there's things in the unknown in the outsides of the ring and Alex likes to live And I do too a lot on that outside of that ring trying to scrape and find more information So tell us about why you're so passionate about that edginess, I just know that being that Good things are likely to happen to you more often if you just do edgy scenes you also are more of to stay relevant over time and If you're if you stay relevant over time, it basically means that people more people more willing to pay attention to you or things you touch and Also, it helps you basically adapt to a world that is constantly changing Yes staying relevant. You can actually adapt more in a world that's changing if you stay edgy You're not in the sort of conformist Area that so many other people fall into It's nice to stay on the edge. Mm-hmm. Yeah Okay, keep going on on on edginess. I think If you're constantly edgy, you're also more likely to discover facts about yourself or the world that allow you to escape local maxima that people somehow have a tendency to stick to So it's almost as though there's a Constantly pushing the the boundaries of what is is being discussed in the conversations that you have is Actually will get you much further and they'll get the overall collective learning that's going on in that circle further Yeah, hmm Okay, so how do you push the edge? So I will acknowledge that I'm not I'm I'm not as good as I did as I could be Um Of course this is true for all other people. I think exposing myself to new ideas and people from all the time especially in different domains and also just like Figure out the stimuli the stimuli or people that help you maximize your learning rate per unit of time since there is like a very specific type of pattern information that Basically optimizes your learning rate or optimist or experiencing rates And it has to like there's a relationship between all the knowledge you have And and whatever knowledge that optimizes that that rate is and oftentimes being there Where um where you can't have everything basically thrown at you is one way to um to basically be you know For example, um, oftentimes the fastest when you're talking to someone the fastest learning rates When talking to someone are like when you're in crowded multi-dimensional settings Or like setting through no other people than you see and you basically watch It's like there's a lot of information that that's that's basically covered that that you can basically like kind of figure out even if you can mostly map semantically you um, you just know to observe those over time. So basically like um The more stimuli that faster learning rate Hmm Okay, so optimizing learning rate for yourself and others I like that a lot. So yeah, there's We've talked about this before on the show But it's so sad that we'll never be able to know everything. Well, who knows bring computer interfaces Maybe we'll be tied into everything uh soon But what does for you? What does it mean then to optimize that rate of learning specifically For you you started kind of pointing and uh and touching at it and it we have the limitation in just 80 years of time So we got to figure out what environments what people we should surround ourselves with What information areas on the internet should we surround ourselves with so start talking So I think areas that I'm about to stay relevant those are recurring relevance and um oftentimes um Like those that um the areas so basically I used the areas I used to be attracted to Are aren't areas and most people want to learn unfortunately because they're not relevant You know if he was live even though you can't spend entire lifetimes just spending just studying Areas of psychology that are universally relevant to people um, so even then most people will not necessarily learn, uh, it's um Most people are not served best by learning each and every area of that. Um, oftentimes, um, let's say Seeing how you behave in very unusual situations. For example, the type of learning and then sometimes if you can remember it well enough It gives you the courage to push through Um other situations were not feeling optimal But you know, but you have the confidence that pushing through will basically lead Good things will happen if you if you do push push through so so once you like basically have learned of that kind of confidence but also, um only learn that I learned that area of confidence in areas where you um where you're uh Expectations or feedback loops are in such a way that you won't overstretch and burn yourself out Damn, you you bring up this really important point You can't really push the the edge of knowledge of of humanity without having confidence You have to have confidence to be able to go and know that even though 99 Percent of people aren't thinking the way you're thinking that you can still be right Potentially and you can go and work either with other people or even alone And and aim to push that cutting edge have edgy conversations with people go to edgy places on the internet Now oh the edge that was there was no fight. Yeah, that's right the edge dot org, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah That is it's a good there's a lot of good content there. Um Okay, and the only way that we've gotten to where we are today is because humans decided to push the edge Over and over across all the different disciplines and growing the collective learning pool over time Yeah, so what else do you think are some of the you know the characteristics or the motivations behind people wanting to do that? Um, I mean that sometimes it's just survival um because there are environments where You have a large portion of the population that does get wiped out and though so for example, even just a holocaust And um, the people who usually who got out before everyone got wiped out were those who constantly thought of new information About what happened in the world and they took it step to prepare to move well before that this seems actually happened Damn So that's as though People can sort of uh hedge against upcoming threats Potentially. Mm-hmm. Oh Yeah, that's kind of what we see a little bit with the bunkers that were made during the nuclear cold during the cold war threat Yeah, also, it's not just that you also want to be sufficiently valid enough that said people will want you to basically survive through the Threats because not um, unfortunately um Not everyone Like it's hard to valid every person equally and in situations of scarcity or survival when everyone else is When everyone else is thinking about surviving themselves And in these bottleneck events, um, you basically want to figure out how to um, maximize the chance of going through Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, the I love the chances of becoming irrelevant as you said earlier. You don't want to become irrelevant You want to survive you want to survive and you want to flourish both Okay, so in the modern age now with the abundance of information the abundance of our ability Oh, yeah, oh, yeah It's like attention is also being followed and more and more attention is it's like attention is kind of becoming more Vipslaw-ish it's like more attention is going into fewer people which is why a lot of people are feeling lost neglected and sad and people obviously crisis as some sort of um, so widespread social malaise which in some respects it probably is Um, but on the other hand, um, if people are if people are kind of are insecure and looking only for themselves Then this is something you might you might see a bit more of and this is where like skill where the skills that are important for For staying valued Include ones like pushing the edge in ways that other people are a little bit too afraid of or don't have the energy for or Somehow don't think even think of as possibilities Yeah, so it's like kind of like an upside risk kind of scene Yeah and I want to speak a bit more on the The abundance of information is both Incredible and it's also can be at times. Distractive. Yeah, it can be. Yeah, so talk to us about so it's also a matter of when you're pursuing the information and if you are Um archiving it in a way that allows for easy reaccess in the future And in ways that makes you want to reaccess it into the future Interesting so So the archiving of information, so okay, so as you push the the edge of knowledge and you're You know, we'll talk a bit more about how how you're working with the people on that How do you archive information? Um Like ancient brava histories and agor and basically have this tool to scrape All the sites in ancient brava history. I don't do well enough. I'm taking more screenshots on the computer screen these days And also, um, if if I think something's going to be important for some in the future or for myself or something I want I want I want all future people to know I am definitely screenshot it because otherwise There's no there's going to be no way to capture or bookmark it or or some sort of low stakes way Though I still there are still like setting up costs that sometimes get disrupted when you switch platforms Which has happened to many people over the years. Yeah Okay, so Let's talk about um bloom 2 sigma. Yeah, this is very interesting So you choose to work on a one-on-one basis Ideally ideally with people at the edge of the fields and just or people who are just ridiculously good at what they're at Yeah, yeah, and you're we like using this analogy of playing a game of tennis So you're you know people that are high openness you can basically hit them over an interesting idea tennis ball And they can hit it back over to you with some added thoughts and you can keep pushing the boundaries of the circle of What is the edge of knowledge? Yeah, yeah, not the high openness means not be being a pretentious existence thoughts and also I'll be an attentive to adjusting their frame frame in a way that um, basically makes uh, basically it makes that thought optimal or think about better better ways to um Make make uh applies it optimally applies the knowledge Mm-hmm Okay, I like how you talked about adjusting the frame and and being humble about like Basically augmenting your perspective adding to the lens of what you see the world because somebody can always Hit you with something that is like oh that shatters a way that I saw things before Yeah, yeah, just not being attached to your to your general thoughts at all Which means like not being right of not being obsessed being right all the time And not not even putting emotional valence into being right So what how do you not attach emotional valence to being right? I think having and think curiosity about the world just knowing having the intense conviction that um You need to operate that way in order to in order for good things to continue happening to you or Or whatever your experience in your consciousness in your conscious frame basically The moment that you attach your emotions to Your ideas and and and your ways of thinking and seeing the world And if someone comes and tries to tries to augment your perspective and you're so attached to it You don't see what they're saying you're you lose the opportunity to enhance the way that you see the world Yeah, there are a lot of weird social incentives and all that people hold to being right the first time or to or to say Being the first right answer or just having political views that you don't want to budge from And it's kind of weird because i'm not sure if it's even all that Integrated with and say their utility functions at all in it's actually Uh, I don't know where to put it in terms of utility functions because there seems to be I mean in general people in general people do People do respect people more if they know that they're right on most fundamental issues um Like hey, um if someone tells you I believe Oh, if if x if you say something I i'm really convinced I am i'm really think you're you're right It's kind of flattering in that in that way because uh because it's also like attaching this notion of value and um Intelligence and all that other stuff For example, if you were to To counter my perspective on world peace. I really I want world peace. I believe in world peace I believe that we can dose up on love and get to world peace together and if you're to say it's never going to happen right I stand quite firm on on my on my stance there. I don't I don't want to budge from that So what you're saying is a value judgment not to fill in epistemic judgment. Okay. Okay Like a political judgment of what you want the future to be. Sure. Sure. Um, so then if we're talking like, um The the earth being the third planet from the star or something like that, you know, you can't really budge me from that That's justified truth. That's epistemology. Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Okay. So then you can't budge me from that, right? Right is that what we're mostly. Yeah, mostly. Um, I'm not going to go into the huge debates. Okay. All right. All right um Yeah, there's a lot of different ways to talk about the way to enhance people's perspective in ways that kind of Make it So that people don't feel hurt by them saying that I'm wrong or We're we are quite attached to saying I'm right about things and it actually does cause a lot of of uh of slowdown in civilizational progress due to Due to being attached to the thought of wanting to be right Okay, so let's talk about this. Um bloom to sigma So you pick you pick people that you really will think are open very high openness Low negative emotion. Yeah And you work with them And on pushing the boundaries of what you know and what they know Or like you send them a bunch of emails or questions like what like what I used to do with kora And then sometimes they just reframe it and In a way that makes them more understandable to you and in a way that makes it easier for you to retrieve it later Uh, okay, so so you would You would you would submit your um, you know when you submit your questions kora via email. Yeah, you too used to Um, you would uh have the questions posted and then you get a people that would reply To you on kora, um refame reframing the question in a way that you thought was potentially better And I'll say reframing just answering in a way that um That basically updates my knowledge of it sometimes. Oh, that's cool Give me a good example of that. Do you remember someone's uh someone's class of how someone updated my framing. Yeah. Yeah Um, I'll have to think about that more. I mean nowadays. I just I stick to email threads It's like I mean we started with meditation where someone talked where someone talked about all my verbal games being similar to just Pushing the button the dashboard without actually doing the same it because a lot of times people who are heavy readers or people who Or a lot of even academic people they they have a tendency to just try to describe everything in ways that makes it understandable So that's actually understanding the process itself Oh, okay so What would that look like for give us like an example of when someone is just doing what you just said about not actually Potentially put you're pushing like for example observing someone playing a video game And then then describing it in the way of an anthropological sociological researcher versus actually do actually playing it yourself Get into the scene or a same thing seems to say Um programming when you're just this you're just observing programmers rather than actually programming things yourself um or um Creating huge elaborate social theories of how people interact Without interacting with the people themselves. So sometimes there there isn't really any other option other than by going the data that you have So what would you then recommend is a good balance the strike between the Playing around with the different with the different buttons and also talking about the buttons um So I think talking about the button can redirect attention to uh, ideally towards people towards say, um Uh, have it playing with the buttons for people who have skin in the game. I like that. I like that point So this is the more that you potentially talk about the the the edge let's say of the knowledge The more people will be like, well, why is that interesting? I should maybe talk about that Yeah, I mean it'll be interesting to talk to Nick to leave about it because he probably knows a lot of people who are like Edgy, um, but then take off no skin in the game. Yep. Yep. So, okay. So what about what about, um What about your thoughts on people that are edgy but don't have skin in the game tell us about that? um Well, a lot of philosophers and academics are kind of like that and they just write and write and write And sometimes not without having even exact exact except your feedback loops Um, sometimes they just publish and because there's like a just there's like an explosion of academic journals They're more paid between pubs and their eyeballs eyeballs to read them or even any Feedback loops that people are actually say updating favorably to what what they're publishing Um, though, uh, it does depend from a field to field where how the feedback loops act Mm-hmm And then okay, so when you're uh, I when you've identified the um The individuals that you're working with how many people are you usually aiming to because I see as you interact on your on your daily You're constantly, um task switching between reading and your different threads of people that you're playing this This game of edge tennis with how many people are you playing edge tennis with? Oh, probably like 20 plus a day. Um, I don't know about day Maybe five to ten plus five to ten a day and 20 in like a in a week or something. Yeah, yeah, probably interesting Um, and then that is you would say one of the largest contributors to your intelligence Um, hopefully in the long run. Yes Yeah And then you want to use this sort of process that you're learning about Engaging with people in this edge tennis And you want to help other people see that as a as a strong way to expand one's intelligence? Yeah, yeah Okay and then What what is it like then for you to deal with different give me some examples of like someone that's really high on openness When you play tennis with them. Oh, yeah, oh high an openness someone who basically tries all possible arrangements. They don't they don't Um, they don't stick to the same patterns all the time. They're willing to Embarrass themselves to look foolish or suffer local losses in the process of trying to learn a better route or Roots themselves even if it might not like result in accelerated payoffs in the long run. Um, they could also um, they also As some of them have very good ability also like has strong attachment to their odor games So it allows them to discuss their odor games other people and and tell them insights about their psych um Like they they basically they fundamentally like value. They haven't trained like value of it on their hits on their player history Hmm. Oh, that's good. I like how you mentioned that it's cool for them to kind of take a They're not scared to have an experience where they admit that they're wrong or that they have That they have to give up some sort of a notion that the way that they saw the world And yeah for them to actually gain more. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's really important Um, okay, and then what is it like potentially for you to to work with people at other levels? Do you even do you even do you work with people that have low openness at all? um I mean I interact with my parents And our older generations can sometimes be lower on openness I know sometimes they can nuts them in sometimes you can nudge them a little bit. Yeah So how old are the people that you would say are most on the open? Are you since seeing like 25 year olds? Is that kind of technically highest? highest openness people really are Are young young kids and teenagers except society just somehow decides the best ideas to Insulate them from everyone else which prevents them from really really into true openness and then they just end up And those self-contained grades that aren't exactly different for personal development But also like safety of sesame if it happens over them too, but anyways, I was beside the point. Um in practice people who are high openness um It's like yeah, usually it's um late teens to the 20s And some there are some who stay stay that way even higher up interesting And I mean we've talked about this a little bit before and this is kind of relevant to what you were just saying about how There's uh, there's an over protection That's going on with kids. There's the you know, we were talking to Whitney about this earlier as well just the essence of of Of controlling parenting rather than openness with parents. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so it's like this is also some Related to people once you think they're right Especially like wanting to think to think they're right from trying to protect their kids against when telling the kids for example Don't go into the car back things will happen to you It's that's that's where it starts and then and then people get scared and they have that's an interest in defending their fear Which is like defending one's own fear is one of the biggest impediments to society progress as we see also is What happened before is say gay marriage or weed legalization Oh, interesting. So the the the coddling of the mind ends up Oh, yeah Oh, yeah, even like even today's safety spaces people have that's interesting defending those safety spaces I'm actually trying to see the consequence of what happens if they you expose people to Scenes that don't necessarily directly hurt them. Yeah It we're we got to build up the immune system to adversity And to challenging or the way that we see the yeah in that thing Problem is that a lot of a lot of these things do need to be reframed in ways that are less threatening people And most people don't have the verbal agility to do to do clever reframings This is like like some I saw in a science blog how someone said in order to give feedback Two days these days you have to acknowledge the person that's right in these dimensions Before actually giving them critical feedback. Oh my gosh That's such an interesting point because I've made it clear now that I don't mind however the feedback comes so I have a mentor that delivers. Oh, yeah, you have to see the most And one way to prepare yourself for this is to just tell yourself that The the person it could potentially be open to change their mind about during the future It's just a local opinion that's held right now that can always change And it is quite possible that if you listen to someone that's delivering you feedback in a way that to you may not Be the most pleasing or comfortable Give people return chance give people second chances and not only that but also just like look at them Even though they may be potentially Come in coming at you right giving you that harsher critique But actually listen to every word they say because what they are saying Is actually the most important truth that you need to hear When someone's like looking at you and they're like, you know, you're power hungry or you're like you're overly greedy in these scenarios Or are you coming from a an intent of of malevolence in that scenario? And when they're challenging you in those ways and you're and you you're like no I'm not and you like back away from from from what they're saying You're not even reflecting you can actually deeply take what they're saying and reflect on yourself and say Whoa, okay. Maybe I actually am being a little greedy in this respect or regard. Yeah, and you can grow better So yeah, you gotta get used to having feedback delivered in all kinds of ways Yeah, yeah No, I think in what way that people are not used to having feedback Delivered is because if someone says that hey, maybe you should reframe your goals When you ask other people's life goals, they often reframe They often frame their goals in ways that that can be they're frustratable and that may not necessarily be the most robust and getting people to reframe their goals in a different way can be a way to Get that it makes them more receptive feedback in the long run But this tends to is more likely for people who are not overly invested in the system Yep And this is I want to mention this because you know, you helped bring this to light for me the idea of Of bloom to sigma specifically ends up having a one-on-one Mentor and this is actually something I mentioned about Tibetan Buddhism as well Just the idea that the lineage is passed on from a teacher to a practitioner And I think that's a very exciting way and it's now Really cool really proven that having that sort of a learning style Puts you two standard deviations above someone that doesn't have that style of learning which is huge on the on a skill of growth Now now that's why you pick this style of engagement with these with individuals is this one-on-one on your edge I'm not sure if this is actually what I do. You do a lot of groups as well. Yeah, that's what you do. Yeah, yeah And also, I'm not very intense. I'm very distributed rather than intense. Yeah. Yeah, you are you are well, you're multidisciplinary You're not yeah, yeah, but you do have a focus on aging It's been something that you focused on. Um, yeah Yeah, also just putting the pushing that edge to Okay, so Okay, let's let's see. Let's see where um, where some of these some of these questions get us I've Been I've been I've been investing a lot of of energy into figuring out how civilization got to where it has Oh god, it's so weird Yeah, go on It is very weird. Yeah, it's super strange Tell me why you think it's weird um There are so many ways Okay I mean you have the Fermi paradox and all that um it's also like I don't know. It's like we also did it even though Even though we have like such nasty cognitive algorithms. We're we're so irrational on the massive scale. We're It's like A lot of the people in power are just like have throughout history have been legitimately shitty Even but then there's like technology technology progress happens anyways And people are not most very very very few people actually wise people who write history in fact tend to be a very very um, none representative sample of everyone in the world um And it's like the level of self-awareness in people even the smartest people is like so low Even if you look like the smartest philosophers, it's like there's a lot about life that they don't really get That maybe some modern people get they're all so good Okay, there is I remember when he said that History being written by only a small amount of people So there's so much That we didn't actually accurately We keep as a record of how we got yeah and people because oftentimes um the value The value of the computer people not exactly rewarded for this. They don't necessarily see it as Something that the markets now rewarding people. Yeah for good things are not likely to happen to those who are historians of internet or archivists or um Or just Jesus like even gorn is not exactly as rich as he should be Gorn g-w-w-g-w-e-r-n And that is again the gorn.net. He's like someone, uh, he's like very very methodical in his observations of um basically like, uh Emerging trends in the top 20 years and he's very open about himself in a way that most of people are not open Like it does it does take a very high degree of openness In order to be reliable a historian or narrator Yeah, we're constantly wanting your perspective to be enhanced by new information and being open to it. Yeah. Yeah I find it very weird that We have yet to fully come to the realization that we all Evolved on this rock together and we're still having issues with greed and war and poverty and we're just We have so much abundance But we're so caught up in power controls that we're We forget about how to figure out the long term how to slow down. Oh, yeah Yeah power and control those those stupid power dynamics balance people play with each other like with parents and children for example Where it becomes insufferable to stay with them because of the the constant need the constant need for control or something or like obedience or Yeah um, you highly recommend a path, uh of of Around what age of like 18 or so taking a path of like maybe exploring some metropolises or going away from your nest Oh, the earlier is it better, but yeah Well, you can't really can you go pre-18? It's kind of hard. Look at her sheet of rora. Okay What time does she leave the nest? She left at 16 16. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We can we can be down with uh with helping young people Find places in metropolises to go out and start surrounding themselves with like scientists and engineers and artists and different Thought leaders that would be fun entrepreneurs. Yeah, I like that young people getting out there um Okay, we talked a bit about the weirdness. Um, how about what what about what transcends This reality what exists outside of the 3d reality? Um There are many many theories about this a lot of speculation about it. Um I know so many people who are like obsessed with this question It's like it becomes their singular obsession And what are your thoughts? Um, there are a lot of There are a lot of like loops that people lot thought loops are like memes that people are attracted to like when people say they see Aliens in dmt. I'm not actually sure if I believe it's just a meme that Easily propagates it's somehow it's easily interpreted that that somehow people find easy to believe which actually makes you less believable Mm-hmm Now now is there some sort of a greater power that made this big bang happen? um I at this point, I don't necessarily Have a good idea to get some of this at all. Okay and What have been some of the things that you've been studying at the edge that you think you want to Share with people right now that maybe less that the people don't really know too much about I haven't been studying too much I think a lot of times people even as um, I think as ye waves of Being super open to the world of like publishing all raw data rather than just Published it better. What's it goes in the academic papers? um also ways um also people tell me tell me that it's not just semantic knowledge that I should go for it's also like some sort of experiential knowledge Like oftentimes the type types that easily um that easily moral like one person told me alex What I I would be faster to see what happened to you if you just went for six months In indonesia in java and then just surfed I'll just surf for that period of time it might change your internal lived experience so much that um That in a way that uh say Affects everything in the future in a good made in a good way If alex went to java for six months. Yeah and surfed. Yeah I Yeah, that breath that you just took I think that may happen at a little deeper scale. I think you you may have a potentially a more uh potentially a more A way of seeing reality. Yeah potentially a slower uh Earth connect connecting to earth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know someone else who a good friend who just went to india for like A month and stayed away from the standard academic and fluid convalescent bubble and social bubble. Yeah. Yeah all that yeah And even if you just go for a month. Yeah and come back I think it'll be quite an enriching experience for you. It also depends on what you do Oh, yeah, totally. You just go and hang out internet cafes on social media. It's not what is that? Uh-huh, right, but um Okay, how about What would you say is the central guiding principle of your life? um stay relevant As in staying relevant so You stay relevant for yourself or for society to see you Ask someone that is a beacon at the edge Both uh both are relevant or like some some someone to pay attention or or good things will happen if if say If you pay a little bit more attention to x or even Give them resources and see what what x does makes use with those resources Interesting. I feel similarly about that too. Yeah, some people think I can begin at Optimal resource allocator given my huge knowledge base And also like sometimes insane memory of certain people And What do you what do you take of the uh ethical Quadries that civilization is facing with exponential technology and geopolitics? um State dependent. I do think um A lot of these are like fundamentally confused I think people don't exactly have a clear precise Understanding of what consent means or what their long-term preferences really are and I'm not sure if a lot of people even capable of formulating these because it takes massive imagination to formulate these and especially in the world that Turns out difference from one that you have any imagination to perceive whatsoever Oh, oh, that's good. So it's as though We've had the imagination kind of sucked out of us due to the conformity that's occurring in many ways But that imagination is so crucial for us to envision a world that can have these ethical quadries more easily Oh, yeah, for example, look what happened to indian tribes after the after the europeans invaded their lands The question is are you gonna state your old ways or are you gonna adjust to their ways? Of course It's more complicated than that because some of them do encounter legitimate discrimination when trying to adopt to white ways But in general, if you're if you want to if you want to stay robust yourself it's probably better to accept what change happens and Make the best out of it and not hold to your identity Yeah Very interesting alex So do you have another Thought that comes to mind that you think would be important to share in this conversation that we're having Um Let me think here I had a lot of thoughts the other day, but my mind got wiped earlier today um Yeah, I mean I installed my air pollution meter and holy shit And I really need to take the alex has been obsessing over his air pollution. Yeah. Yeah, it's actually a very yellow in here It's green in here. I bought it three months ago and for whatever reason I didn't even try to start using it until recently and this is like a massive failure mode in my part um There's also just a massive fail in my part because you know those air scenes have 30 day return periods. So really um If you're feeling stuff stuffy or whatever just get one of those because those are the scenes that improve quality of life more than anything else Actually and your lived experience and your lived experience alex brings up a very good point there is that we We we we only really read rarely about these like oh the you know parts per million of some particulate in Mumbai or Beijing this is extremely high and Or in the bay area when we had the fire and then la and whatnot. Yeah There was a high amount of particulate that we shouldn't be inhaling and whatnot But in our living spaces in these homes That the air quality inside of a home is much different than outside. Yeah outside you have much more fresh air than you do inside a home And especially if you're cooked if you're baked in the heat's all the way on There's people that are farting sneezing coughing like on an airplane as well the air quality on an airplane There's like these you know the air quality in a car. There's all these sort of different ways of measuring The air quality and i'm glad that you really tie in the importance of remembering that your lived experience when you're on a beach and you're inhaling Fresh from the ocean or from the sea that air You can like feel more alive. You feel a lot better And so it's important to to keep that in mind. That's a good point um, I think another um another thing that That you um, you know that you care a lot about is the optimization of learning And you know we talked about being at the edge and optimizing your own learning and other people's learnings um, what would be your recommendation to young young people and also Adults as well, but what is the what is a central principle that that people can adopt in order to optimize their learning? um, for one scene if you're going to learn about scenes I don't think of yourself as a competition to learn calculus at the earliest age possible, but rather um, the the most important things to learn first are basically health related experiential um, memorize the glycemic index food indexes of all the major foods Try to get a blood continuous blood glucose monitor to see how to respond to certain foods. Um It's like also live experience get a lux meter to figure out to To measure the light spectrum of your houses to see um And also get the fastest computer you can possible. Um Oftentimes I've learned that for example getting amazon prime is just easier. It's better to be impulsive on the scenes that um Like amazon prime that allow you to be less impulsive on other scenes because most people's attention span was just limited and um, you basically want to um, Set things up early on through free since earlier and also get to the lab will no taking devices later on so you can and also use gmail or Grab some facebook as much as possible At least this is what I do because it's those methods are just much easily searchable than later. Um aggressively archived up is on um On content you think might get deleted in five years. Um because uh, there is a lot of good stuff online that Isn't that gets deleted and it's a tragic and then people and then that's causes people to not remember what scenes were like 10 years ago. Yeah, thank goodness for the internet way back It's Underperforming what yeah, but it's so difficult to archive everything at ever that's ever been posted and collected But that brings up a good point that that that you mentioned and you mentioned a bunch of other good ones They're kind of like increase your day-to-day lived experience with your health Um, okay. Yeah, also, I know the learning rates are much faster We have to say roommates who you tolerate very well because they they don't seem the ones you You remember they remember can build up in really amazing way Especially especially like your memory human human brains are human brains That because human brains human brains remember stuff with other people and their preference is much better than they can remember say most abstract thought Because it was important to give you a context. It also allows someone if you're tired You also have someone to rely on that that you can rely on or whatever Alex this has been a pleasure. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks again for coming on to the show. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, this has been I like our conversation about optimized learning and the edge of knowledge and then working on playing the games of tennis To kind of scrape further past the edge. It's exciting stuff Thanks everyone for tuning in. We greatly appreciate it. We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below Let us know what you're thinking Uh, also, we would love for you to build go create manifest your destiny into the world Yeah, so nothing about edginess I would like to mention is that I think living in places like Boston San Francisco Allow you access to a huge number of smart slash highly open people and In the in the background of knowing a huge amount of people that is the speed of your learning rate and in a really interesting way because I mean people are better at learning facts about other humans than Then they are and still learning things themselves and then you can basically get estimates rough estimates of basic even oftentimes the scenes that people say before they're about you about to partake in a project And this or the context which then allows you to form basically estimates of say The chance of succeeding and start up later on or what exactly they might be missing out Missing out before starting out of the startup Yep, the alexis point. They're so crucial You see things as a topology of competence and influence A lot of the people at the peaks of those topologies exist in metropolises like boston and san francisco and new york and la and whatnot So to go and move out to these areas and go and surround yourself with these other brilliant leaders and go and play These games of tennis at the edges with them is just going to rock you forward Yeah, basically dense survival advantage given Given given a dense social environment, especially when you are in them when you're when you're super young and grow with them Oh, gosh, you're getting in there when you're young 16 18 great ages to get in Um, even earlier is better even at 12. Yeah, get in there young. You get in there young and start tinkering start tinkering Much love go and build the future manifest your destiny into the world everyone. We'll see you soon. Peace. Okay Bye