Four For Friday | Aug 16, 2024

LF136 | Write to connect, The Wellbeing Protocol and biodiversity, the sociont, 4 longevity hacks + artificial Ryan Gosling

Welcome to Looking Forward’s Four For Friday. Four things that have piqued my interest this week, together with a bonus: AI Tip of The Week. Enjoy!

A blog post is a search query

This rather lovely essay (h/t Compound newsletter) validates writing in public. And if you don’t it may rekindle some smouldering interest in starting a blog. The reality is that we’re wired for uniqueness and novelty, yet our society has evolved to put us in simple categories. Then the Internet came along and gave us the opportunity to connect to billions of other people who may delight in your esoteric interests.

On the internet, Wonderland is recursive, with rabbit holes opening up to yet more rabbit holes; you never stop falling. And the further you fall, the less likely it is that anyone you’ve ever met is falling where you are. This will make you immensely sad. You will visit your parents, and when they ask you about your life you will have two choices. You can either be incomprehensible and see them grow concerned about things you are excited about, or you can talk about surface-level things and cry a little when you are alone at night.

This neatly reframes writing from a finished product to an input to a conversation, and so hopefully lowers the stress of it all. How much do you worry about formatting and finessing your Google or ChatGPT queries?

So What? Write in public! Who knows where it could lead.

The Wellbeing Protocol on delivering biodiversity

The previous UK government was better known for formenting right wing extremism and shipping refugees to Africa, so this legislation requiring property developers to deliver a 10% ‘biodiversity net gain’ was as surprising as it is welcome. We need more legislation that recognizes the value of public goods and brings them inside the market (how they got this passed, I’d love to know).

Anyway, kudos to the UK. Regulatory shifts can create new markets - could this help spark markets that track and fund distributed local activities?

Enter The Wellbeing Protocol, a New Zealand-based Web3 protocol that helps channel funds to support impact-focused communities. Their blog post notes how the UK legislation is potentially a good fit for this use case.

So What? I expect other governments will launch similar things - opportunities for first movers to help people implement these changes.

The sociont, and why Tristan da Cunha doesn’t need a police force

I’m not recommending this unreservedly. But if you’re by the beach, had a few aperols (and perhaps some mushrooms), have finished your John Grishams and fancy some mind-expanding listening, do give this a whirl. It’s two deep-thinking polymaths diving in and getting messy.

There are a lot of arcane ideas and references but also some important ideas, such as the concept of the “sociont”. Basically we as humans are not individuals but interconnected social beings. We out-evolved other species because we were able to pool our intelligence together and collaborate, creating a superorganism.

This has many implications, for example for how we think about managing communities and governing groups. Self-policing is fine for small groups (similar thinking to the Dunbar number) - which is likely why a small community like Tristan da Cunha (a UK territory in the South Atlantic) doesn’t have crime - but much harder for groups larger than the size of traditional tribes (between 150 and 1500).

This is a bit more accessible, which puts it thus:

Evolutionary systems cannot see ahead. The ultrasocial system cannot see whether it is locked into an unsustainable resource use pattern.

So rather than expecting central government to create structures that keep people safe and our environment sustainable, let’s shift to a more local model for governance and community management (see story above about biodiversity). This kind of sociont-first thinking is very different from current national policies, which assume adherence to the rule of law and increasingly discredited institutions.

So What? A shift in policy away from people as individuals to people as social units could generate new ideas for delivering communities that care.

Four tips to lower your biological age

It was good to see my friend and colleague Tina Woods profiled about how longevity journey, and how she’s been able to get her biological age down to 35 (she’s 60).

Her four simple (and cheap) hacks (note YMMV):

• Nutrition: One meal a day on four days a week. Supplements: Vit D, B12, Omega 3, collagen, calcium. HRT. Avoid ultraprocessed food, snack on nuts.

• Exercise: Lots of Zumba and strength training, focusing on increasing VO2 max.

• Purpose & Joy: Finding joy. Raves and Parties, DJ-ing and music.

• Sleep. She doesn’t go into detail, but mentions it.

So What? 80/20 rule applies - standard longevity lifestyle advice - plus things that may be more personalized (HRT, collagen) - can add up to a big impact on quality of life and longevity.

Bonus - AI Tip of the Week

How does ChatGPT work? As explained by (fake) Ryan Gosling

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That’s all for this week. As always, feedback welcome. Feel free to share insights or links of interest.

- Stephen