The Hippie Viking Blog

I heard this years ago on RadioLab, and remembered it. Completely facinates me.  https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/91584-time  - If you listen to the "It's All Relative" show from 10:00-15:49, you will hear two remarkable case studies of Myron and Hester. Questions and Thoughts: What mechanism could cause someone to engage in an activity believing they were operating at a "normal" speed, but really were not? What constitutes "normal" speed in the first place? Maybe if we use some kind of rhythmic anchor like "Sunrise", we could say that Myron could wipe his nose only 12 times per sunrise moving at his perceived "normal" pace, but everyone else could wipe their nose thousands of times per sunrise using their normal pace. When in the state of flow, I "lose track of time" in that I don't actually focus my attention on the passage of time. Hours can go by while I am engaged in the right activity...maybe there is so...

I watched the movie "The Great Hack" and aside from the expected response of incredulity, I also thought more about what data really is - a series of snapshots over time of where we were focusing our attention. Billboards want our attention. The traveling salesman at the circus wanted our attention. The cereal boxes at the grocery store want our attention. But this is more insidious, more invasive, because it is not just that they want our attention at this moment. They have surveilled every available moment that we have focused our attention online, and they then use this profile of attention points to maximize their opportunity to persuade you to buy their snake oil. Make no mistake. The intent of collecting our attention points and then to analyze them is to "qualify" us for the sale attempt, then sell to you.  Questions and thoughts: If a snake oil salesman spent a year watching what you did, where you went, where you shopped, what time you left the house...

We are novelty seeking beings that are also in need of enduring truths. This paradox means that we must make a distinction between "new" and "wise". Just because something is new does not mean it does or does not have wisdom. Ironically, you need wisdom in order to be able to engage in this discernment...so how do we square that? I think it takes wisdom to infuse something new with a message that is valuable. The three little pigs is a biblical teaching. (Matthew 7:24) Old wisdom repackaged constantly into skins that feel “fresh” is a good thing. I think this helps me reconcile the use of pop and rock to enable people to connect to Christ. Thoughts and questions: When is it not ok to re-package ancient wisdom in a new "product"? Why?

Because we can build new software that is increasingly more powerful at continually diminishing durations, we do. When you live at the pointy end of the spear, there is no “normal”. Change is constant, so you have to adjust your expectations that the ecosystem you are working in today may be  totally different tomorrow. The closer you live to things constrained by the natural systems of the world, the more “traction” you have to construct long term optimizations for. The speed that a blueberry becomes a blueberry is likely to stay pretty constant. On the flip side, the closer you are to living in a world constructed by human minds, like software, the more you are subjected to the insanity of egoic desire and fear which constantly pushes things in unknowable directions.

I have no idea how the economy works. I have no idea what the definition of "the economy" is. I have no idea what causes gas prices to go up and down. Could I learn these things? If they are in fact definable and learnable, then of course. But instead, I choose to trust experts to predict whether or not the economy will be good or bad in 6 months or a year from now. The criteria that I use to determine whether or not an expert is trustworthy is probably flawed. I can either spend time to determine effective criteria for distributing trust, or I can dig into the topic myself and learn about it more deeply. Any alternative to those two things is laziness, and if I feel that something is important enough to pay attention to, I have no option but to either have a framework for evaluating experts, or a lot of coffee and time to start learning about yield curves.

My tribe of introverts are actually getting a bit tiresome to listen to. I do not need the universe to bend to my need for recharging, and in fact if everyone did, it would unfairly delete a unique problem that the universe created just for me. I am capable of wearing headphones in an open plan office. I am capable of taking my own car to a party so I can leave when I have had enough. I am capable of deferring a decision when I am put on the spot to make one now. And so are you. My introvert friends, people like us are capable and empowered. If you ever feel compelled to complain about how you are misrepresented and misunderstood, I challenge you to re-empower yourself. Now go grab your book and find a quiet corner to recharge in :)

I have three calendars on my wall. One labeled Sleep, another labeled Nutrition and a third labeled CrossFit. These three domains connect to the behaviors that protect the critical systems of my physical self. If I meet the minimum requirements for a given calendar on a given day, I get a check in the box. The overriding theme is “don’t break the chain.” The minimum requirements for each are well defined. I have found this approach effective for forming the habits I want to have and it resonates well with my natural compulsion to feel good when checking things off of a list.

Our natural compulsion to protect abundance has a weaker emotional connection than our natural compulsion to get out of a deficit. If we are gambling, and started with $100, and are up to $150, the emotional excitement of that condition is not nearly as strong as the emotional pain of being down to $50. I think this is a well known field of study in psychology. I will apply this to nutrition. If we have been eating nutritious food for a solid week, there is an emotional joy of that abundance of health. If we then eat garbage for 2 days straight, the emotional sting of that deficit of health is much stronger than the emotion during abundance. questions and thoughts: What can we do to emotionally connect to the abundance we have created for ourselves so that we are able to emotionally engage in protecting that abundance?

Consider two scenarios: 1. You are stranded on a tropical island with abundant fish, vegetables, nuts and fruit 2. You have been given an unlimited budget in Las Vegas In the first scenario, you are gonna eat "Paleo" whether you like it or not. In the second scenario, your default option is the buffet where you are exposed to all kinds of decadence beyond healthy choices. These extreme examples are designed to underscore that the environment that we are in determines what our default options are; but...key here is that BOTH environments have default options - an option that consumes the smallest amount of willpower energy. Construct the right environment for yourself and you no longer have to expend energy to choose the healthy option.

We now have access to near immediate feedback from whoever we want to get feedback from. A repetitive theme wafts through tech product circles that we should focus on the "minimum viable product" (MVP) so that we can be re-informed about whether we need to make more choices about whether to adjust our trajectory. A concept that was used in the U.S. Air Force called the OODA loop has gained popularity due to the conceptual parallels even though it's original usage has been re-contextualized. Some thoughts and questions: Is "MVP" now and forevermore the best way to do all things?   What about for building a nuclear reactor?  Before MVP was en vogue, the term was "prototyping". So, we have always done this, but I guess now the cycles are shorter because the data to make the cycles shorter exists.  Defining "viable" is central to the decision making process. If "viable" means "highly unlikely it will break ...