My recent thoughts
Pointless death
- I am currently sitting in a graveyard in Bonn. Sitting here, surrounded by tombstones and trees, makes me realise how much I dislike human death. Not just personally (although I have mentioned how I would like to live longer than Legolas), but on a societal scale.
- The nearest row of tombstones that I can see shows the headstones of two doctors, a pharmacist, and an artist. Humanity lost these people's skills and thoughts1 because of biology rather than choice.
- Death by ageing might have been evolution clearing the way for new organisms. But, death as a result of old age seems like an enormous waste in modern society.
“One funeral at a time”
- One criticism of the above thought is that human death advances our progress by clearing the way for people with new ideas. As Max Planck said, "Science progresses one funeral at a time".2
- I disagree. I think that humans don’t hold their beliefs so rigidly that they must die for society to progress. Planck’s principle might be true where a small elite control knowledge (e.g., some scientific journals).
- But, the notion that people have to die for new ideas to replace old ideas seems so inefficient that it can't be true. This conflicts with the concept of the modern market. If someone creates a device that is much better than an iPhone, the market means that this device will win.3 Ideas are the primary competitors, not reputations.
- So, death as a result of ageing is pointless, besides being sad.4 People die of old age because of how evolution made us. As in "Look to Windward", I look forward to when death as a result of ageing ends.
Trait blindness
- We can be blind regarding our behaviour.5 Recently, a close friend described how he had acted towards his employees like an "overbearing parent". This shows great self-awareness on his part. However, the striking thing for me was that I had been aware of this. I had wrongly assumed that he had consciously chosen to act in this way.
- The principle for me is: If you are not having frequent, small revelations about how others see you, you might be highly self-unaware (or have highly open and reflective friends).
- Regarding techniques to become more self-aware, one method could be to record everything that you say for several days and then listen back.6
Outro
- I was interested to read about how high inflation currently is.7 In the UK, the current inflation rate means that every £1000 in your bank account will effectively turn into £970 within 1 year.8 In the EU, every €1000 will effectively turn into €950 within 1 year.9 Perhaps time to turn all that cash into Ethereum, or start a business?
- I am considering committing to writing the newsletter for another 25 weeks. Let me know what you think.
- I am about to go walking through a Bonn forest with an old friend. I hope that you are having a super week.
Tom :)
Perhaps the dead people will have left some recorded knowledge behind. But this pales in comparison to the contribution that the person could make if they were still alive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle. See this study with evidence in favour of Max Plank’s principle: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/science-really-does-advance-one-funeral-at-a-time-study-suggests/3010961.article
Eventually.
I note that you would need to solve lots of other problems caused by overpopulation if no one died as a result of old age. However, solving these problems would be much better than your loved ones dying.
Regarding over-confidence in skills, see the Dunning-Kruger effect
Email me if you try this out. I would love to know how it goes. Regarding the practical implementation, you could cut wear bluetooth earphones to record, and then cut out the silences automatically with Audacity.
Perhaps this inflation rate was obvious giving the Corona-spending sprees.
~3%, https://www.officialdata.org/1860-GBP-in-2017?amount=1
~5%, https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/inflation-cpi
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