#653 - George Mack - 16 Life-Changing Ideas Youve Never Heard Of

Most people think they have a software problem when they actually have a hardware problem. So, if I'm finding myself thinking more cynically, thinking more negatively, I'll just try and fix the hardware. So, it's like some kind of breathing exercise, sauna, run, exercise, eat well.

Bragging razor: If someone brags about their success or happiness, assume it's half what they claim. If someone downplays their success or happiness, assume it's double what they claim.

Narcissism razor: If you're worried about people's opinions, remember they are too busy worrying about other people's opinions of them. 99% of the time, you're an extra in someone else's movie.

When we feel uncertain, when randomness intrudes upon our lives, we respond by reintroducing order in some other way. Superstitions and conspiracy theories speak to this need. It is not easy to accept that important events are shaped by random forces.

Sofa friends versus treadmill friends. And there's certain friends that I hang around with, afterwards, I need to lie on a sofa because they kind of drain you of that energy. And then there's other friends that me and you know; you hang around with them, you're like, fuck! Seven mile run! Let's go! We overclock our brains.

There's a opportunity cost that exists for every single thought. So, whenever you have a thought, there's trillions of other thoughts that you could be having, but because your supercomputer can only run one program at a time, it's not having.

Instagram razor: When you see a photo of an influencer looking attractive on Instagram, assume that there were 99 worse variations of that photo you haven't seen.

If you was stuck in a third-world prison or you was stuck on an island, and you had to call someone to bail you out, who would you call? And that alone will identify the most high-agency person in your life.

Relentlessly prune bullshit ... Whenever it gets in your life, prune it—purely because there's a thinking cost to everything that you do and every thought that you have.

The problem that the optimism crowd has, in my opinion, it's a marketing problem. They've oversold it. The best put-down ever was Dave Chappelle, where he's saying 'If the secret was true, why aren't all the starving kids in Africa manifesting food?'

If you have optimism with a low sense of agency, that isn't valuable at all; but paired with high-agency, I think that's one of the most beautiful things.

Low-agency is life happening to you; high-agency is you happening to life. I'd say that's the fundamental difference.

If you were to go back to 1850 and try and explain the concept of Wi-Fi... it would not be seen as fathomable. But the idea exists; you just need a combination of ideas, which we spoke about earlier, and then high-agency individuals, and humanity working together and compounding.

The problem with creativity is people treat it like productivity where they just try and do the same thing harder versus try and get as many different inputs into the system as possible.

Thinking cost is the idea that... every thought has an opportunity cost, and you should be hyper-vigilant to that.

I have this theory that video game designers know more about human psychology than 99% of psychologists.

Market optimism as a 1% improvement every single day, and then you'll probably get more people to believe it. I think that's the problem with optimism—it was oversold.

Questions are the answers you might need.