so we have a Utopia in our future potentially we also have all this power to potentially screw it up for ourselves and really really really have a bad time in the future and so I’d see it as I don’t see this much in between I don’t think we’d go to 2060 in a time machine and get out and say it’s okay here it’s either going to be absolutely mind-blowingly awesome or like perhaps like really awful you’d say oh my God we didn’t know how good we had in 2022 I that’s how I see it and a massive transformative purpose is what you’re telling the world it’s like this is who I am this is what I’m going to do this is the dent I’m going to make in the universe welcome to mindsets and moonshots my guest today is Tim Urban one of the most popular writers on the internet uh Tim is the creator of the blog wait but why uh which gets millions of unique page views thousands of patrons a bunch of very famous people on it uh from Elon Musk and Sam Harris to Susan Kane and of course Evan Williams
[00:01:03] uh Tim’s blog wa but why combines deep analytical long- firm writing with an incredible range of topics and engaging illustrations uh manages to inform all of us if you haven’t seen wa but why it’s a treat for your mind and your and your cognitive Surplus as fast company said Tim has captured a level of reader engagement that even the New Media Giants would be envious of uh Tim couple of seconds about you a graduate of Harvard University I forgive you for that uh you are an entrepreneur co-founder of arborbridge how many students has arborbridge uh prepared and tutored order magnitude that’s a good question um uh started arborbridge with um my friend Andrew Finn and we uh sold the company uh last year so I don’t know the exact numbers um I think probably I would say over time we’ve tutored um
[00:02:00] we’ve um we’ve probably tutored three or four thousand students maybe maybe 5,000 students it’s um you know it’s small high touch company you know we work with a few hundred a year nice and and weight but wise on its uh on its ninth year started in 2013 uh you’ve been on the can’t believe that but yes yes uh yeah wait why 2013 so yeah it’s uh it’s coming up on year nine um and uh yeah did Ted a couple years after that in 2016 never again if you had to guess how many more years of weight but y do you have is it 10 is it 50 is it 100 I that’s a great question um well let’s let’s let’s do an optimistic and pessimistic the the pessimistic I’ll say well really pessimistic you know not medium pessimistic I would say um 40 which is you know I’m I’m I’m still publishing stuff into my late 70s which I hope I I I have no intention of stopping making stuff through the
[00:03:01] platform whether it’s podcasts or um blog post or books or whatever just like that’s what I like to do so that’s medium pessimistic because I could obviously die before that but then optimistic it’s like well you know I’m talking to the right the right guy here to to about this because I mean I don’t a hundred years only because I feel like if just so let’s just discuss here so if I’m 140 some some cool [ __ ] has happened right like like we’re not in today’s world anymore oh we’re we’re pluged into each other’s brains yes we’re uploading ourselves right so am I really writing blog posts at that point like what is that still a thing at all right like uh um but I I consider um I for me I consider way wi just like a platform where I can like express ideas and and and and and put out content so you know yeah we’ll see I I would consider the sort of the longevity of we by wa but Y is a function of how long are blogs
[00:04:00] still relevant how long are you still passionate about it and ultimately you know is there a new form in which you’re affecting people’s minds with the cool ideas yeah yeah I would say that like it’s it’s it’s blogs being relevant probably not because like what’s a Blog you know it’s like but I I would say in in a hundred years if we’re if people are living a long time people are still going to want to express themselves right there’s still going to be certain people who they decide their calling in life is to you know learn stuff and EXP play it or think about stuff and and and synthesize it and put it out there or or make people laugh or put out you know and what whatever the the various kind of and and so I feel like that will still be a thing and and so I I imagine I would still be interested in doing that kind of stuff back that down then but you know I do think that you know we’re gonna always want to hear from each other in some way or another all right so at least the next year maybe the next 100 we’ll find out okay can you imagine if there’s like sorry but when how about when we can think with with each other
[00:05:00] are they going to be like I always think about neuralink and stuff you know we can oh you and I could think together or maybe a group of four but what if there’s like a thinking broadcast where like someone is thinking to 10 million people like that’s weird it’s kind of intense I think that’s actually what life is right you’re a collection of 30 trillion cells that operate together as a single organism you call Tim I call Peter and you know so what happens when we connect eight billion people’s minds do we become conscious on a new level and then you know what part of that conscious brain do you want to be I mean that’s I think where we’re going I mean you spent a lot of time at neuralink not the topic I wanted to have the conversation on but one that I absolutely love yeah it’s fascinating and weird but um I agree there could be some crazy emerging properties we don’t even know about yet there will be hey thanks for listening to moonshots and mindsets I want to take a second to tell you about a company that I love it’s called levels and it helps me be responsible for the food that I eat what I bring into my
[00:06:00] body see we were never designed as humans to eat as much sugar as we do and sugar is not good for your brain or your heart or your body in general levels helps me monitor the impact the foods that I eat by monitoring my blood sugar for example I learned that if I dip my bread in olive oil it blunts my glycemic response which is good for my health if you’re interested learn more by going to levels. link back/ Peter levels will give you an extra 2 months of membership it’s something that is critical for the future of your longevity all right let’s get back to the conversation in the episode so I want to talk about mindset in particular want to talk about curiosity mindset so if you don’t mind uh let’s dive in because I think wait but why uh is a curiosity play so let me ask a broad question I I definitely think I probably do right I mean a curiosity mindset in general um is one in which like uh you are
[00:07:03] actively interested in pulling information in from the world right and adding to your little knowledge Tower in your brain adding adding on to it or whatever um and trying to think where it actually comes from because sometimes I think it’s a um like for for me it’s I almost would call it like an uh a uh desire to understand things that I don’t understand but that desire is kind of binary where like I I haven’t dug into crypto yet in the full sense I would need to to write a really good blog post about it and I find myself not actually that curious like I there’s some part of me that’s like I I do want to understand what’s what really the big picture is here with something like crypto what is really going on um but because I haven’t gotten that tree trunk of knowledge yet where I have like a basic understanding it it it it it’s not
[00:08:00] that interesting to me but then once I do once I start learning about something say like brain machine interfaces and you know I don’t know about anything about that and then I start reading about I start learning about it and talking to the engineers and I start to understand and it becomes it kind of there there a structure in my brain gets developed that that knows how to think about that and now I suddenly come it lights up my curiosity I want to learn everything I want to read everything I want to put it all and my AI is another thing when I started doing that deep dive you know I couldn’t get it I read I a bunch of what you had to say about that so it’s I can talk a lot more about it but that’s kind of some initial thoughts well I mean I don’t think everybody has this level of curiosity that you have and goes as deep as you do you there’s a lot of um there’s a lot of things that you people can have this instinct to put their effort towards and curiosity is just one of them and um I’m trying to think like what makes it’s like where your focus is your focus has to be on like um you you have you get dopamine hits from learning
[00:09:01] things like in the short term so there’s a short-term thing where you just like you like learning something new you see an article you don’t know anything about it you you’re excited to read it and it feels great to oh my I’m learning about this and then you go on Wikipedia and you go on a spiral and you start learning about stuff on the internet you’re watching YouTube videos on this topic and three hours later you you learn so much about it and it feels great but there’s also kind of a macro project that I think can drive curiosity which is you have this um this life story which is I’m a learner and and I and you’re So Satisfied by how much you’ve learned in the past and how and it’s so fun to add to that and to continue to learn in the future so um so so I think um I think it’s a mindset that not everyone has but I think even amongst people who have a curiosity mindset it can emerge from totally different places so I want to dig deeper in here because it’s really important I want to learn from you about this I honestly truly want to learn from you about this because I view you as a very curious person who uh as a methodology uh for digging in and then
[00:10:03] making use of what you’ve learned to make the you know uplift Humanity right to inspire people with that uh I if we Define a curiosity mindset as as uh you know asking why a lot and and not taking things for face value is that a a reasonable definition I think it’s one definition how defition I think like well you could ask how like someone who might be saying they see an an engine and they say how does that work I need to know I need I want to take it apart put it back together right and and that’s different than why right that’s they might be bored by why right they they might want to know how how how right yeah um um or or even um what they might want to know um they they might be really curious to know where all the countries are and all the city big cities are in the world or know all the hisor hisorical events uh as well as they can
[00:11:01] and so that’s kind of a that’s what curiosity right they want to know they want to kind of so why curiosity is a type of curiosity that there’s probably a lot of crossover the how people probably also are interested in the why often but I think the why is I I guess you know it gets a little semantic because you could say that you know why is the world The Way It Is Well you have to learn how it works and then you can understand why it is right but there’s certain like there are certain elements of like um getting into the weeds with ethics for example is like some people are can get enough right it’s it’s endlessly interesting they want to understand what makes right and wrong and and you know how um we can live ethically together and and what the the the most just kind of ways to do things are I like it I think it’s kind of interesting but in that my in that area like I feel like there’s a lot of why there right that’s a kind of a lot um and I I think I’m I you know I know the name of my site is wait but why but
[00:12:02] I think I think I I’m probably more a how person myself do you remember the first time you got intensely curious about something I mean that you dug in and it became somewhat of an obsession uh to find out the why how where or what about something was it as a kid were you born with it you know i’ I’ve always liked the feeling of something that was confusing coming clear mhm and then it becomes this incredibly fun uh mental toy and the dopamine hits from it’s clear and suddenly you feel so smart when you think about it and you can explain it to others so my grandfather sat me down once and I was like five and he was like so you know you can multiply anything any two-digit number by 11 uh very easily and I was like oh yeah he’s like yeah in your head I was like okay and he’s like okay so you just add the two numbers so if you’re going to do 23 times 11 you add
[00:13:02] two and three together it’s five you open the two and three and you put the five in the middle 253 do it with 30 you know do it with with uh with with 36 396 and I was like just right so I’m five and I was so excited about this new trick I told it to everyone probably annoyingly um and uh and it was like you know this boost of confidence this boost of like intellectual excitement right so that’s a little five-year-old mini version of I think the same exact thing I’m doing today when I will dig really deep into understanding how cryonics works and first I’m like what’s this icky topic and it seems like it’s full of weirdos and then I start reading about it and then it clicks and I start to be you know I read the the Alcor FAQ which is a great really thorough page and as I’m going there it’s all these holes are starting to fill in and and I’m starting to develop this understanding the
[00:14:00] structure in my head for the topic and now boom it’s like the 11 trick I’m like okay I love this topic now now I want to learn a lot more let me read a ton of stuff about this now how can I now then there’s a lot of excitement for me it wasn’t just learning the 11 trick it was explaining it to everyone else that’s a weird me thing right I happen to have that instinct um I want to share it I wanted I want I want other people to know and I want I want to talk about it with my friends that’s why I blog so I could just read about cryic and learn about it a lot of people do and they stop there I happen to be someone who now I I have this Instinct where it’s like I’m only halfway there now I got to tell everyone that I know about this cool new thing or people who are interested and so a blog is a great tool for that obviously so now I’ll spend time getting it together and I’m so excited to kind of share the same dopamine hit that I got the same Epiphany um uh and dose of clarity with a bunch of other people so I I I posit that having a curiosity mindset is a good thing um that it’s going to help
[00:15:00] you in a multitude of ways and just being passive and accepting the information coming in puts you in a less successful competitive position in life do you believe that you think you’re saying that not being curious puts you in a less competitive position I’m saying being curious has a lot of advantages to it and benefits especially for an entrepreneur I totally agree and the reason is like if you think about if you’re not curious um you go to school you’re forced to learn stuff because you have to spit it out in the exam but when I’m not curious and I’m forced to memorize something it it’s gone like a day later right so it’s only it’s it’s it’s when I’m curious that my actual Consciousness like wraps itself around this thing and thinks about it if I’m not curious it’s some other dumb part of my brain can memorize it and
[00:16:00] spit it out and I’ll forget it so a you’re not really learning in school and then you’re not really learning after school you might learn in you know from life experience of course everyone learns throughout their life but um your knowledge of how the world works and how history works and how um and and you know all the kind of new things that are cropping up throughout your life it stops because you’re not going to put the it takes effort to learn new things and and and we’re not going to just put in effort for no reason in school we do because we have to at job and a job you know you know ideally you’re putting in effort because you like to but if you’re but if you need to get paid then at worst you’re going to put in effort because you have to you’re not going to put an effort to learn if you don’t like it right no one’s making you do it so curiosity is a quality that makes uh people want to learn and like learning and so therefore they’re going to learn a lot again and again and again and retain their learning and apply that learning I love
[00:17:00] this I I have a personal example when I was in medical school my third year medical school I took a leave of absence because the idea of becoming a real doctor and an intern and being responsible people’s lives scared the hell out of me and I went back to MIT and I did uh an aerospace engineering degree and so I was in uh something called unified engineering and I was a graduate student with all the sophomores and all the sophomores are like in the back of the class I’m in the front row because I love space and I want to learn everything I could and it was a very different experience learning with that Curiosity mindset like why does that happen you know why do rocket engines work that way why do wings have lift in that in that design so you’re right that was that is a a hugely powerful element I have a friend um who uh my friend Noah who is every bit as smart as I am like we’re we’re we’re you know very equal in
[00:18:00] so many ways we took a class together called The Magic of numbers and um he does not like that topic it it’s it was about probability you know we learned um we learned um how to uh it was it was a probability we would learn how to you know take um if there’s 10 things you have to or you know organize them in a certain way you take factorials you do 10 choose six or you know this kind of thing um and I loved it I thought it was I and super interesting and like it just clicked with it clicked with how I think and the kind of stuff I’m good at and I aced the class which is rare in college for me I was a terrible college student AC the class you know it was a breeze and I and so I was talking to him the other he was his least favorite class and we were talking about it and I was talking about the actual things in the class and he was like how do you remember anything from that class and I was like I remember everything from the class and again it’s he meanwhile we we talk about other classes of his other things and he can tell you every single thing he learned so this it really is
[00:19:00] like there’s some part of your brain that retains that is not necessarily on uh when you’re you know being forced to learn something um you know another example of this is if you read an article so I I could use um I I I um you know I might use like crypto as an example right now because I crypto is where is a topic where I feel disoriented again I know the basics I know that I could I could explain like the the kind of idea about how um blockchain works I could explain a lot of the theories about uh why this is might be important in the future and why decentralized things can be a big deal um I don’t really understand it I don’t have it doesn’t I don’t have all the analogies that I have in my head for things when I really understand things and I um and it’s all a little icky right I I haven’t like dug in I don’t know where things are going when I buy something on coinbase what’s actually going on behind the scenes when I don’t know that now it’s the whole thing kind of is this gray fog so so if I read an article about crypto right now and it’s
[00:20:02] not a really big explanatory article it’s just kind of like an opinion about a certain kind of thing or I’m hearing a conversation at a at a lunch and there people are arguing about um you know the future of a theorum and whether it’s going to be whatever um I’m not actually going to learn very much even if I’m listening to every word even if I’m trying to memorize every word because I don’t have the tool yet to learn on this topic this is a you know you can think of knowledge as kind of like a tree right this is I think Elon Musk I think is the first person who I I heard talk about this if knowledge is a tree um you need a tree trunk before you can add leaves and branches and twigs because if you know if you read an article it’s like it’s like a leaf and you what are you going to stick it to it falls down F Falls to nothing if you have a tree trunk now you can start sticking stuff to it and of course it’s interesting all the articles are suddenly fascinating because oh I see where that fits in oh that’s enhancing
[00:21:00] this part of the tree trunk so cool otherwise so um so it’s the same concept where it’s like if you if you’re um if you don’t have uh a tree trunk because we think oh I’m not interested in this thing and therefore I don’t learn when I right but it can go the other way because you don’t understand it you’re not interested so crypto will flip from a not that interesting topic to a fascinating topic for me as soon as I get my tree trunk and then I’ll start learning yeah so it’s interesting right the idea that if you’re curious about a subject it’s prepping your brain to receive data and information and actually engage with it and store it and it’s when you’re asking questions and getting answers and you get like you said that dopamine hit and it locks it in I mean the neurochemistry of learning is extraordinary I want to stick on the subject of the benefits of curiosity so enhance learning uh is definitely one if you’re curious you’re going to likely learn things and apply it more uh other benefits of curiosity yeah I think
[00:22:00] you’re not it’s not just that you’re going to learn and apply more you’re gonna Explore More in life you know you’re gonna you know you’re gonna go outside your comfort zone you’re gonna you’re going to leave your comfort zone because it’s your Cur look there there’s there’s a negative there’s a there’s a negative aspect of leaving your comfort zone for almost everyone and the question is if if the Curiosity can be a positive aspect of lead it and if it’s strong enough it can outweigh the negative aspects of leaving it right I mean it’s just you know the the fear that we have of leaving our comfort zone but also just the energy it requires and um and and um but but so so curiosity can thrust us out of our comfort zone whether that’s in trying new things trying new hobbies or skills traveling to new places meeting new kinds of people right I mean c curiosity can lead to a lot more friends over time but also I I think this is a really important thing you know the most important thing for happiness in all the studies is relationships close relationships
[00:23:02] right one of the best qualities someone can have is curiosity about other people and ah love that love that and when you’re and a a really curious person not only are they GNA you know be out there meeting more people all right and and but they’re GNA when they’re in a conversation they’re going to be actually interested they’re going to be listening to what’s being said they’re going to ask questions it’s amazing how if if if you just approach if you sometimes you almost forget a curious person to pull out pull out your curiosity in that moment when you’re meeting someone pull it out see where it takes you and it’s amazing how close you’re G about to get with that person because they’re gonna love you because they’re gonna think wow this person you know it’s it’s so noticeable when someone genuinely cares about what you’re saying and they’re asking good questions and you’re like wow what an awesome person all they’re doing is they’re they’re they’re they’re applying their curiosity to this so you’ll not just meet more more people and and try new things and travel to new places but when you meet people you you’ll dig deeper when you travel to places you’ll
[00:24:00] learn the history you’ll you’ll talk to locals you’ll actually you’ll soak in the experience much more than if you travel with not curi without curiosity so yeah one way to think about it is you don’t know if you’re living your best life if you’re stuck doing what you’re doing and with the people you’re with and there is as you said there’s a cost to maybe you are maybe you are spending the time with the most extraordinary people in your life doing the most amazing job you’ll ever do in your life but you’ll never know that if you don’t you know if you aren’t curious and look around and so it’s a chance to uh to truly explore uh your passions your purpose um and maximizing your happiness that’s a it’s a fantastic benefit of curiosity yeah and otherwise you’re G to stick with what you did first with what people around you are doing with what you thought you were going to do when you were seven with what your parents your par yeah exactly with who with who you grew up with with who you work with you know and and you know that’s that’s there’s a very small chance that that’s the best life for you right and so
[00:25:01] you’re you’re you’re just G to you know yeah it’s exactly what you said yeah uh and that’s Pro you know out of all the all the benefits for curiosity for me that’s probably the most uh compelling in terms of uh magnitude of impact on an individual I would say um I would say you’ve had another benefit of curiosity which is uh it’s LED you to meet and it’s along the same lines of this but you to meet some amazing people uh I think you know wait but why LED you to a uh a relatively uh strong relationship with Elon uh and his companies and neuralink and so forth Soh would you say the more Curious you are the more uh sort of unique opportunities or uh you know good luck comes your way yeah I mean I think I think getting out of your comfort zone and trying new things is the best way to stumble upon something you happen to
[00:26:01] be really good at and and really like and when you find that thing you’re really good at and you really like um you you know a lot more is gonna happen uh it’s gonna it’s gonna yes you’re going to meet great people through it you’re going to feel more gratified probably will be good for your relationships because you’ll be happier and more satisfied you can give more time to others and um and um you’ll probably will be you know usually when you’re doing that’s when you do really good work that actually can have a really good impact on others you know the so so so yeah I mean I think I think it’s not necessarily um uh like my curiosity uh in my weight but why work because I think you could do lots of work whether it involves curiosity or not but it was my curiosity in general I think that like led me to continue to search and try a bunch of things and expl you know when I I first blogged in 2005 when a friend of mine was like you know you can put something on the internet on your own page I was like wow really and it was like crazy blogger
[00:27:01] just started the site blogger was like this re re you know Revelation um and people forget at the time it was like no one knew how to put something on the Internet themselves without like a developer blogger was like Wow anyone can just from their computer just suddenly that’s my web page it was crazy so I started doing it but like when I saw that like I lit up and I didn’t know I was going to be uh drawn to it I didn’t know it was going to be something I really liked or not it was just like I want try that right and so um that it’s it’s that kind of attitude of like something new let me try it maybe I’ll love it is is a I think a good it’s a good way to find stumble upon things so final subject on curiosity for me your advice for people we’ve said being curious is uh got advantages uh we named a couple uh how do you advise someone to become more Curious aren’t they tricks or or or you
[00:28:00] know what would someone how would they change or shape their mindset become more curious what would they do on a daily basis any any advice yeah I I think so I I really think that um there’s very few people who are not curious people about anything I think everyone if you actually think about um something is grabbing you right some is interesting to something use delicious you can’t stop watching this YouTube video you can’t um look away from something right everyone’s curious everyone has curiosity it’s a but some people is part of their identity you and you and I for example we both are very openly very proudly you know curious people other people I think they have given up on themselves as a curious person they’ve actually kind of they’ve um they have uh they pruned the branches of their tree yeah they they’ve made their own identity as someone who I I Bor I don’t
[00:29:01] care about that that’s boring you know and what this is what I was saying before about the tree trunk is I I think what we what it looks like is some people are curious naturally and that leads them to learn and I’ll do all this stuff and explore all these things and stumble upon great things and other people are just not curious and then they don’t and I don’t think that’s what it is I think it’s that some people have built up a confidence in their own in their some kind of confidence that has made curiosity a fun thing and and made them believe in their own curiosity and believe that Curiosity will lead them to good things and so now they run with it and other people gave up on gave up on themselves as a curious person and again I use this tree truck example because I can see it in myself I will think that I’m not curious about a topic crypto I’ll think I’m not curious about a topic and I know from an experience now that that’s not true it’s that I don’t have my tree trunk yet and that when I have my treat trunk I will realize this where is this topic been my whole life and so I think people who think they’re B
[00:30:00] they’re bored by things I think that that that they simply um they they haven’t gotten the basics of it yet and that and that no one has the basics of stuff when they’re born right you have to everyone at some point learns and you can do that too there’s nothing stopping you from look getting a tree trunk on any topic and you I think you’ll be shocked how much curiosity Will Will Spring out of you that you didn’t realize was there so someone said to me once like um if you Ju Just as like the last Point here like I if you [Music] um it’s like it’s a choice a lot of the times to be curious um one of the best ways to be charismatic is to when you’re talking to someone ask yourself what is fascinating about this person and be on a mission to find it out be on a mission to say I will figure out what is fascinating about this person and if you go on that if you go on that mission what’ll happen is you know it’s like you start forcing yourself to go on the mission but a second later you will find you’re in a great conversation you
[00:31:02] are um you’re you’re actually probably actually wow this is much more interesting and I actually do want to keep learning about this now and they they of course will think you’re the best person in the world because of how an incredible listener you are and all of this so that’s an example for interpersonal but I think you can you can do that apply that anywhere like for example if you’re listening to a lecture on something you don’t care about or bored I mean maybe asking the question there is something here that’s useful to me I’m going to find that thing that’s useful to me on this on this topic whatever it might be that’s would you agree that that’s yeah okay it was in one of your in one of your way but why uh cartoons um which I loved uh was about kids let me just read this uh it says when kids repeatedly ask why they’re trying to see the underlying reasoning behind what they’ve been uh what they’re told by authorities um Because I Said So rejects the Instinct and says stop reasoning and Obey uh we
[00:32:02] then become adults only know how to trust authorities other than ourselves that was fascinating I mean we’re all inherently curious as kids but a lot of people turn that off as they grow up so there’s actually a lot of research about um there there’s been some amazing studies where they track five year-olds like a same group of 5-year-olds and they have a certain criteria for whether they have you know kind of creative instincts whether they are creative um and then they track the same group when they’re 20 and it’s like it’s some number like 25 there’s some pretty high number of the five-year-olds that are very creative and then like it plummets to like a tenth of that number when they’re 20 and it’s that because I think we have the creativity trained out of us I mean what is creativity it’s it’s it’s original thinking it’s making something new you’re Crea right you’re not copying it’s the opposite of creativity is
[00:33:00] you’re going to photocopy the way something’s already been done you’re going to follow an existing recipe which is again fine most of the time but there’s sometimes when it’s good to be creative to to to to make your own reasoning to make your own art to make your own um new ideas right which is it’s a hard thing to do and kids when they’re saying why why why what they’re trying to do is understand how are conclusions built you know it’s the same thing when I said about you know an engine there are certain people will want to take the engine apart and see how it’s put together and when you you know Richard fan says anything that I can’t like I think he says anything that I can’t construct myself I don’t understand I think there’s some some version of that and it’s this idea where the kid is trying to take apart the conclusion their parents say this is what you have to do this is what’s important in life you know you this is how you’re a good person the kid says why they’re trying to say well they they want to understand the pieces of that puzzle so they can make their own and if you if if um and that is this instinct which is
[00:34:01] the heart of creativity it’s the instinct to reason from first principles to to um be able to take the axioms that you see and that you know and the the very basic things and then build conclusions from them and kids are trying to basically say help me become a good conclusion Builder a good um you know a good Reasoner and what parents and teachers say and Society in general kind of says is because I said so right they say don’t hurt yourself reasoning leave that to the authorities and your job is to obey to obey Authority essentially and then they go to school where you know they are trained specifically to you know conform everyone’s going to sit in these rows of seats and we’re going to answer the same exact questions on the test and you know this is kind of Seth Goden talks about how that that that is a remnant of a really old um system that was built in the industrial era to to try to create assembly line workers um and so um so
[00:35:03] yeah I think I think a lot of um uh a lot of these instincts are trained out of us and then once they’re trained out of us we don’t we don’t use those muscles we don’t practice with them we don’t we we lose our confidence in them we forget that we ever even had them and we don’t think of ourselves as a creative person and we don’t think of ourselves as original and sometimes they’ll still have original thoughts but you don’t trust them you you you assume well if if this were such a good business idea it would have been done if this were um I if you know if if this were if if um you you just you just assume well conventional wisdom is smarter than I am um because that’s what you’re again that’s obey the authority you know that conventional wisdom is the ultimate because because Society said so right so um I think it’s a great practice for grown-ups to try to bring back that muscle and realize that conventional wisdom is quite dumb and on the author ities often you know the the way things are supposed to be is
[00:36:00] often not very well thought out sometimes it stems back to the industrial era you know and uh and yeah a lot of things and I think it’s you know creativity and curiosity are the two elements that are uh sort of trained out of us or is uh is silenced in us so to speak uh because uh we conform to society better uh Tim I want to I want to turn the conversation now to passion and purpose um something I’m uh I’m on a mission to help people find their passion and purpose and let’s start with a question uh how do you see the difference between passion and purpose do you have a distinction between the two well I think passion is internal right passion is what do you what grabs you what do you like and I think it’s totally valid to say I’ve won life and what I really like is going to be my purpose and the truth is I I often tell people you know some
[00:37:02] people think I need to make impact so I should do something that’s like very directly impactful I should you know you know you know some kind of philanthropic thing and and maybe that maybe but for example I didn’t do that right I I was like uh I’m gonna follow what I like and I like writing and I’m having fun that was honestly fun me having fun was my main Instinct here um I’d like to like oh I wanted to explain things and and and and and and and really help and yes also but like if it weren’t fun I wouldn’t have done it but by doing something I really liked and that was really fun it ended up actually having an impact that I couldn’t quite see when I started and I think that goes for all kinds of people in all kinds of professions if there’s something that just you love that’s really grabbing you so passion I think that is I think that is enough for a lot of people and I don’t think that you should have to feel like you need more than that to say that’s also my purpose this is grabbing me to this extent and I feel this passion that’s my purpose now I think you could
[00:38:01] also argue that if you wanted to if if if you felt that um so some people would say I think that you need you know purpose should should be something that is not just about you and what you like but how it impacts others right so it’s passion is what you how how how it feels for you and then impact is how it affects others and when you have a combo of something that is both a good you know for you is passionate on your end and it’s also a good impact on others now that’s a purpose right so I think that’s kind an answer a lot of people would say that you need that middle of the ven diagram between imp passionate impact and that’s purpose I don’t particularly think that I think that to me I think what you’re really passionate about is a good enough purpose for you right there hey everybody I hope you’re enjoying this episode want to tell you about something I’ve been doing for years every quarter or so having a FLOTUS come to my home to draw Bloods to understand what’s going on inside my body and it was a challenge to get all the right blood draws and all the right tests done so I ended up co-founding a
[00:39:01] company that sends a fonus to my home to measure 40 different biomarkers every quarter put them up on a dashboard so I can see what’s in range what’s out of range and then get the right supplements medicines peptides hormones to optimize my health it’s something that I want for all my friends and family and I’d love it for you if you’re interested go to myli force.com back/ Peter to learn more let’s get back to the episode would you then describe wait but why and your writing career as a passion or a purpose or both for you I think it’s a it was started as a passion and it has become both a passion and a purpose I think okay um and maybe if it hadn’t felt like a purpose if it just felt you know maybe I would have gotten bored of it and in a way that I know that now I won’t because I know that it you know knowing that it impacts others is a huge part of what fuels and continues to make it a passion I want to dig a little bit deeper here if I were ask you I ask you this question do you know your purpose in life there a there’s a great quote that
[00:40:01] I love uh Mark Twain Mark Twain says uh you know there are two important days in your life the day that you’re born and the day that you found out that you find out why that is a good quote um yeah so I think purpose is a story that that we tell about ourselves in our lives and it helps us feel like there’s meaning and it helps us feel like um you know it’s almost it’s almost tied to some concept that there’s some higher Force right and we were put on this Earth for a reason and all I’m not sure I quite see it that way I see I I do like do do does everyone have a purp because a purpose you know for for what it’s almost like there has to be some kind of higher thing for there to be a purpose it’s like otherwise like is there a purpose for every monkey right like you know if we’re just kind of animals surviving and getting by I think human
[00:41:00] civilization is so cool because you can actually feel like you have a purpose and you can but to this is part of why I go back to Passion where I’m like passion is real because that’s how you feel and if you’re loving what you’re doing I think that you’re en a enjoying your one life right that’s important if you’re doing something that’s good for the world but you hate it you I don’t think you succeeded I think you died and you you didn’t have fun and enjoy your one life so I think it enjoying your one life and secondly I believe that when people are people who are doing what they’re passionate about are almost always having a positive impact on others right unless you’re making you know super weapons or something um but so but but like so so I I I think that you know if you’re passionate about it and you’re at a workplace that you’re people are going to feed off that you’re going to impact the people around you you’re GNA make good things you’re gonna you’re G to create good stuff you’re going to if you’re working or you’re not creating stuff you’re working again you’re working as a As a caretaker but you’re passionate about it you’re going to be so good at that right you’re gonna um so what people what people say is that you know yes I completely agree passion is emotional energy that allows
[00:42:02] you to have a great time and it fuels you and you’re in your unique ability in many times but uh when you connect passion and purpose um I guess what conventional wisdom says is that gives you not only happiness but fulfillment uh in life that you’ve done something meaningful by whatever stretch of measure um uh there is however what would you say purpose is uh I would say purpose is uh is rooted in passion but it is doing something that you feel is is uh going to make a a positive lasting impact on the on the things that you care about it could be raising your kids it could be you know cleaning up your community um but I think one of the most important things is a a a purpose Purpose Driven Life um gives fulfillment and also fuels
[00:43:01] you uh to do as as well as you can in the things that you that you value um so I’m really looking to explore that that connection between passion purpose and I see uh sort of what you’ve been doing as as passion driven you’ve enjoyed writing you’ve enjoyed that Curiosity journey and I think I would you know tell me if it’s if it’s correct or not but purpose uh you know I I heard you speak about a visit you did to MIT in which uh you were speaking to a group of students there and you felt like your the work that you’ve been doing helped inspired them to uh explore different areas um is that potentially a purpose to help people uh uh you know go beyond their
[00:44:00] comfort zones and explore areas uh through your writing it’s certainly an extremely positive impact that I feel immensely gratified about right so that that’s for sure like when someone tells me I you know you know I moved closer to my parents because of an article I read from you you know it’s like man the the the that is a huge impact and it like I love to hear that right it’s incredible um and so this yeah an MIT student saying I I went into you know this industry or that industry because of your article like man if they really stick with that that’s 50 years of human effort just got went from the arrow got turned to a different direction potentially um by something I did like you know so I I I I think it’s I guess part of my discomfort with saying it’s my purpose is it feels like it’s it’s tying that to your identity in a way that I don’t like because what if in 10 years I’m I you know before wait but why I was writing musicals what if I’m going back and I’m writing musicals again
[00:45:01] right now am I abandoning my purpose right like but I feel like I I think you can have multiple purposes over time right my purpose early on was space and then I got focused on exponential Technologies and now in this decade I’m focused on adding 30 healthy years on people’s lives right so uh I don’t think just like I mean you could have multiple passions in life right I think I think purpose uh is a a focusing force uh to maximize the impact that you have uh but I do think it’s I do think uh a purpose-driven life uh has a bigger impact and and bigger sense of fulfillment I’m just curious if you agree more than just passion you know and I agree with you distinction I guess per purpose gives a a real why behind what you’re doing you know passion kind of is just can can is just has a feeling and purpose is um is kind of it connects to the result
[00:46:02] of what you’re doing right and and you want to feel um you know I I I think I think you know probably we’re we’re it’s it’s so we’re saying something similar maybe in different words like where if I if I wrote um something or or or made something right and I just do and I leave it on my computer it it wouldn’t nothing would it would not feel the same right it’s not it’s it’s it’s the the passion for me for it is specifically connected to the the the fact that it what I make can Delight someone else or Fascinate someone else or make someone else laugh or whatever you know uh or or make someone else really think uh in a way that and and and I consider you know I I I I I consider my readers to be very similar to me me uh that’s just how I think about them is you know we think similarly or we’re somewhat similar
[00:47:00] which is why I think they connect and so I’m thinking I’ve had these great experiences being fascinated by something or laughing at something or um having something just change the way I think and I W to I want to you know capture those moments in my life and then give them to others and and and and Stoke them in other people and have and kind of share share those things um and so to me like it is specifically the the con on the other side and and the impact it has on on other people that makes it gratifying that makes it fulfilling right let me try a different Distinction on you and and see if this if this holds true for you um some of the things I’ve taken on uh and have been like I like to joke overnight successes after 11 years of hard work um and if they were just a passion I think I would have let go of them a lot quicker uh I think because it was a purpose right so opening up the space Frontier during my first 20 years
[00:48:00] of my entrepreneurial career was space was a passion you know Star Trek and curiosity and all of that but like opening up space a purpose and so when it became really hard and failure after failure after failure occurred um because it was a purpose and not a passion there was this when the smoke or the fog cleared there was this bright guiding star still there for me uh and I almost I would say purpose is that it’s long-term uh uh guiding star long-term uh you know energy versus passion can be could be fleeting um is that feel right maybe it’s like um yeah I I feel like what the the vision that just popped into my head as you were saying that is like passion is an engine like behind you that’s pushing you mhm um and
[00:49:03] purpose is like when you said a guiding star and picturing something out there that’s pulling you and that that that’s like a that you’re you’re you have this like desire to go towards and that the the the passion can get you into it and can fuel a lot of the energy but that that that when especially when things are failing or hard that that’s going to go away you’re not going to feel very passionate about it and that engine’s going to turn off and it’s that second force that thing pulling you a constant pull of that thing um Can can be a constant where the maybe that the the passion engine is not yeah I I think absolutely there’s a a quote I don’t have it offand where uh it’s like uh you know passion is your ship your uh purpose is the rudder so to speak like uh it’s and that that uh that’s steering you um do you have a long-term purpose I mean do you have something that is uh you know let’s take
[00:50:02] it into the realm of of a moonshot is there a moonshot there for you something that in the back of your mind you’re thinking about like wow if I could do that over the next decade or two that would be amazing there it’s look we’re going into such an uncertain time um you know we already live in such for for Humanity you’re saying yeah with with where humanity is going and what’s going to happen with all this exploding technology and also all this political division right and all of these new environmental changes that spring upon us like social media and then we’re caught off guard and we’re all acting badly and we we haven’t adjusted to it and there’s going to be more and more you know we’re going to be having to decide you know is it okay if we’re choosing um you know looking at embryos and choosing the highest IQ embryo of the group is it okay if we’re tweaking embryos like is it okay um what are we doing when brain machine interface is coming around what should the rules be and I guess if when I think about that
[00:51:00] um I I think that I I guess maybe you know maybe I could say a purpose I feel at this moment um because I have built up a platform of of a lot of very smart people who trust me or at least will listen and and and consider what I say um and um and so if I can kind of keep my head straight and continue to be curious and and really think deeply about these things and have you know a lot of what I say comes out of great conversations so keep having conversations with some of the smartest people I know and then try to add that as a voice into the mix in a way that um you know adding a voice over an extended period of time on a pretty big platform um that can change things like you know that that can actually affect and and and some of the people listening are you know like youve mentioned some of these very power powerful people are you know occasionally will listen to something I say and so um I I do feel like that is a
[00:52:01] responsibility to try to um to to to I would love to say in 20 years that I think I have done a little part in helping kind of get I I I feel like the way I think about it is we’re our technology is exploding you know exponential Tech I learned a lot of this from you I mean you’re one of the the greatest thinkers in this kind of thing about how you know the future is just going to be crazy right the the more you talk to people who really know I was talking to a friend the other day who really knows you know he’s invest he he funds a lot of future Tech and he he just looked at me and he said the future’s gonna be weird you know no it’s it’s it’s like like soon soon right and so the way I look at it is a a a a species with this much power which is you know comes from Tech can can build themselves a Utopia something that would seem like a Utopia to us the same way that our world would seem like a Utopia to Thomas Jefferson if he were here he’d be blown away by the Comforts and the the magic that we
[00:53:00] live inside of you know and the health you know uh advances and you know half of theid his kids half of the kids died before five when he was I mean imagine how amazing this would see so we have a Utopia in our future potentially we also have all this power to potentially screw it up for ourselves and really really really have a bad time in the future and so I’d see it as I don’t see there much in between I don’t think we’d go to 20 60 in a time machine and get out and say it’s okay here it’s either going to be absolutely mind-blowingly awesome or like perhaps like really awful and you’d say oh my God we didn’t know how good we had it in 2022 I that’s how I see it so given that if if if if you ask me in 10 20 years and I can say I think I’ve done what I can um to try to just nudge that in the right direction and that and that maybe that’s actually had an impact that’s about as good a thing as I can put myself towards so I I I think that’s I think that’s a great purpose in in life right I mean it’s you you actually said something once I think it was on
[00:54:01] Tim Ferris is podcast that I never forgot I thought it was a great quote I’ve actually quoted you a bunch of times you said something like if you want to figure out what you should do in the world don’t ask yourself the common question is what would what would you do if someone gave you a billion dollars but ask yourself what would you do if someone allowed you to deploy a billion dollars and you know and and I would add to that you know and you can’t tell anyone no one can know because then you take out all the virtue signaling and all the social approval and enough no one will ever know that you had this opportunity the billion will end up there but no one will know you had anything to do with it um what would you so it just take it isolates everything of like where do I want a billion dollars to go affect something where do I want to push something in the world and I just thought that was really great and I and and and uh so it’s just kind of a side topic but it just seems relevant to bring up here because I’m talking to you and it’s just such a good way to like figure out what what do you really deep down actually wish was was Chang in you know it’s a good way to maybe Point yourself agreed and and you know I talk
[00:55:00] about my purpose as inspiring and guiding entrepreneurs to create a hopeful compelling and abundant future for Humanity and I I say that 10 times a day right and I think the ability for you to guide and inspire people through your writing um is an extraordinary uh extraordinary platform for doing that and I think you’re absolutely right uh we have two Divergent Futures ahead um and uh uh you know I’m out there talking about an abundant future as much as possible uh because I think an abundant future is a more peaceful uh future for Humanity as well um but it’s by no means guaranteed so uh you know for me helping people find their purpose is is is critically important and within that uh moonshot um you one of the things that uh you’ve talked about before that I don’t think everybody really understands
[00:56:01] is how much of our of our mindset and thinking is Wired from the early days in the savannah you know hundreds of thousands of years ago and I’m I’m talking about the topic of cognitive cognitive biases what are your favorite cognitive biases to find a cognitive bias for folks first so a a cognitive bias is a I would say it’s a glitch it’s a thinking glitch that is yes that is buil that is wired into humans or taught to humans um and if you ask like why why is your hand look the way it does why does your foot and your your your bones the way they are because they were built for the specific gravity on Earth for the specific materials for the for the for the things you’re gonna you know it was it was it was uh you know you know Evolution shaped these things to be perfect tools or very close to perfect tools for something very specific right um the brain is another one of these tools right why would the
[00:57:00] brain be some magical different thing so then that’s this crazy thought which is the thing we’re all using to think which is who we all really are in there that thing was shaped by Evolution and optimized for a very different kind of life to to to to to drive uh to drive the ship in a very different un than the one we actually live in right and so we we for example we have confirmation bias right which is you know when we uh I agree with you already beli yeah yeah sorry when we well this is this is the problem is you know it doesn’t matter how smart you are and how aware you are of cognitive biases I mean that of course it helps to be to be self-aware and and humility is the most important thing here because humility is when when you say I have a flawed tool in here don’t forget that flawed tool so
[00:58:00] it can be a great tool but it’s always going to be flawed and it’s G to it’s going to trick me into things because it doesn’t understand that I am in this world and I want it to to understand the truth it thinks I want to other things so humility goes a long way but even if you’re really humble and you understand these biases you will do them yourself and I it’s amazing how often I will be I’ll be writing about cognitive biases I’ll be writing these and I find myself doing it I find myself oh I’m do I’m I’m totally like avoiding read you know in my research I’m avoiding the articles that seem like they disagree with me wow why am I you know because oh man if I read the articles disagree with me it feels so good right now to feel like I’m so right if I if I read those two too too closely I’m GNA have to change things and so there’s this motivation not necessarily out of like sometimes it’s because I want to I want to I’m right and I better be no I I often I I’m fine say being wrong it’s more that I don’t want to it’s laziness I don’t want to have to go and like redo this whole section because I read the so I’m just like ah let me just and I’m I’m totally
[00:59:00] doing confirmation bias I’m I’m acting in a way I’m driving my research in a way that will that is intended to not have me find the truth but intended to have me confirm that this is how I do you know so there’s a lot of it and and talk through a few of here confirmation biases just makes your life a lot easier and you feel a lot better about ‘s another what’s another cognitive bias that you’re you’re dealing with now I’m going to ask you what’s your advice for avoiding those cognitive biases I mean I ad homon and fallacy is a big one like the the the we will um um ad homon and fallacy is when well in that hominum argument is is a a [ __ ] argument where you basically someone who you don’t like says an argument that you don’t like and instead of saying here’s why the argument is wrong you say you know this person is of course they would say that because they’re uh you know this politics or they or or or you know yeah they don’t
[01:00:01] even have a degree in this and blah blah blah you know whatever it is they they will attack the person and discredit the argument based on who said it instead of just approaching the argument right which is you know if you if you have an if you have an ironclad argu counter to a certain argument you wouldn’t need to do that you would just say here’s it’s clearly wrong but so when you go there it to me it seems like it’s it’s someone who is taking a shortcut to not have to actually address the argument they don’t like and they’re disqualifying it from the beginning based on the mouth that came out of so the ad but that’s the argument right the adhominim like fallacy to me that the cognitive bias is that we just do this in our thinking that we what the way a certain person is talking or or who they are you know you know in the world we will just have this just either trust or distrust to you know look obviously if someone has proven themselves to be trustworthy it’s rational to actually lower your skepticism when they’re talking and trust them more and likewise
[01:01:01] when someone’s proven to be a snake oil salesman I mean it it it it does make sense so it’s not that you can never judge based on who the person is but I think I find that we we take that shortcut a little too much you know on Twitter you’re looking down you’re scrolling down and you’re just going to assume they’re right they’re wrong they’re right they’re wrong because of who they are before you before anything else and let’s do a rapid fire uh round of of cognitive biases and we’ll go back and forth how’s that okay so a re a recency bias right where you’re going to give more value to more recent information than older information what do you got what’s what what’s the definition of the availability heuristic it’s you know availability bias which is when you when you when you when you see something when something is um accessible yeah findable right you’re going to grab you’re going to grab for that information and a weigh it have more than stuff that’s harder to find in research right so like stuff that’s being bloviated on Twitter constantly you’re going to start to just assume it
[01:02:01] must be a there’s um uh there’s a negativity bias of course right which which uh is from our early days of Evolution stuff that might kill you or is dangerous is more viable because uh you want to stay away from it so uh hence the crisis News Network CNN uh all the negative news there um what else I would say the uh the bandwagon effect which is when everyone is saying it it you think you assume it must be true so this is how you get group Madness where you have it becomes fashionable it becomes fashionable to believe a certain thing so therefore a lot of people are doing it you know saying it because it’s it makes them look like a good person or looks the cool or whatever and then everyone starts so other people start to assume well everyone thinks this around me so it must be true yeah uh there’s a I think a familiarity bias that you tend to believe something
[01:03:00] that someone who looks like you said more than someone who doesn’t so uh which is a subset of the ad homonym yes yes for sure um let’s see I mean uh anybody who wants to uh go deep on this uh just just you know Google there’s a whole Wikipedia page on on these uh cognitive biases it’s interesting right there’s these St istics these shortcuts that we are biased on they’re huge number I I I would say that like a lot of what what I think of as cognitive biases um I I I think there’s a whole realm of what I would what I what I think of as fallacies um nested under kind of confirmation bias so like correlation causation right it’s statistics 101 that correlation does not imply causation right you see um oh you know gun deaths are up during co uh must be it must be co gun deaths
[01:04:01] are up you know after defund the police it must be that right we just you see it in politics all the time right like we see one Trend and we see another and we just and and but what the but the the reason this is confirmation bias is what you’re going to see is something happens and uh and and what people will do was they will attribute the cause to that thing in a way that always helps confirm their political views um and likewise when there is a when there is a cause of something that that conflicts with your political views you will separate and say you know there nothing to do with each other you know and so it’s it’s like a you know um I I I see I see a lot of that Trends and anecdotes when something is um uh a news story helps your political story you’ll frame it as a trend uh see here we go again with the this whole thing this is this is what they do this is what they do this this is why we need you know and when you see a news story that conflicts with your
[01:05:00] thing you’ll say it’s a one-off thing it’s a freak thing you know you’re Sensational you’re you’re cherry-picking you’re sensationalizing so um yeah it’s it’s you know and the challenge is we don’t actually we’re not we’re not conscious of this as it’s happening in the moment and everybody is uh is has have these biases you know one of my favorite uses for AI uh Tim in the future is going to be I want to turn on my ai’s cognitive bias alert and and have it listen to my conversations it won’t be you you’ll hate it you’ll hate it because it’s going to be constantly saying and you’re gonna be like shut up okay I just you know we’ll all realize how full of of cognitive biases we are at all times and I think I think we’ll say if I’m doing something more than like 30% bad then do it the little ones let me do it because otherwise I won’t be able to function in the world because uh because we are because again our brain think about it the brain was it
[01:06:00] built to be a truth finding machine not really sometimes right sometimes like it was helpful to be able to know the truth of where you know where that bear is or where that Buffalo is going to be in five seconds when you’re you know so it wants to know the truth in some ways but in other ways what it really wants is for you to believe what the people around you believe about the world and and about ethics and about right and wrong it want you to conform with the with the because that’s how you stayed alive right don’t don’t be an individual too hard in this tribe of people because you will be killed or cut out or whatever F fasc just the no the notion that that wanting to be accepted in the tribe is such a such a powerful force also you know what else is powerful like zealous belief so there’s you know two tribes and one of them says well you know we’re not so sure we The Humble tribe right so there’s the humility tribe and they’re they’re not sure what they think and they they have some strong views but they call them theories and they they they they know
[01:07:01] they can always be disproven and they they like to play Devil’s app and then there’s the other tribe and they zealously believe what they believe and they believe that their God is the good God and they believe that they are the Righteous people and they are the this is their land and no one else you know and that when they and and that they they’re all destined for heaven or whatever it is like and they’re not going to question well do we have evidence for that they don’t need evidence because they’re the zealous people right which tribe is g to would you bet on to pass on their genes more right and it’s not that I would much rather hang out with the humble tribe but back on the savannah yes when all that matters if we’re in a we’re in a a rough you know state of nature I am so we so we have the Instinct today because we are The Descendants unfortunately the humble tribe didn’t pass on their genes those awesome people they’re not here we’re all the zealous tribe people and so and and so we have the instinct to you know so yeah ah amazing I love this conversation could keep it going uh Tim uh xise so uh our job is uh get the
[01:08:04] world smartest people uh to bring their cognitive Surplus their Treasures their talent to solving the world’s biggest problems we’ve launched about $300 million in X prises so here’s my chance to ask you uh if you had a chance to direct where we did our ex prizes what would you want us to do I know this is out of the blue but it’s my question for you what are some problems or challenges or capabilities you want solved or you wish people would be going after where should we launch our next Express I have a I have a very clear answer I think which is I I I wish that you would get people working on cryic capabilities and I’ll tell you why please so CICS for people who don’t know is the the concept not of freezing yourself after you die because that wouldn’t work because your liquid and your cells would expand and you they would you don’t freeze it’s vitrifying it’s a very specific technology and it
[01:09:01] sounds creepy right you’re gonna a frozen dead person you’re gonna bring them back it’s not what all it is is right before you’re actually you know when when when uh when you’re clinically dead which means that we don’t have the um or you’re legally dead we don’t have the medical technology to save you today right 50 years ago if someone Keels over on the curb and they their heart stops beating and they’re they’re not breathing they’re dead because they don’t have the technology to save you in 1950 right so they they were As Dead As as you could be back then but today that person is not dead there’s defibrillators there’s going to they’re they’re going to do all kinds of um you know drone drone delivered drone delivered defibrillators that will come to you right exactly like like they they they we can save you today so so so guess what that dead person genuinely dead back then is not dead today whoa what does that mean that death is a process and that what’s happening is uh
[01:10:00] when you get to a certain level we call you dead when we can’t save you today and then what happens is we give up on you you’re then you actually Decay and Decay until eventually the arrangement of atoms in your brain is now lost forever now you’re officially gone right no one can see but there’s a big window between when you are unable to be saved today and when and when you’re actually no longer preserved and when so so if if there were a hospital across the street that we could send you to that had a a machine that could save you but we didn’t have it here of course everyone would say get them over to this across the street to the hospital cryx is an attempt to get you to a hospital in the future that can save you and what it is is it pauses your biology it doesn’t freeze you it just gets you to a temp they use antifreeze so you don’t actually nothing freezes but they slow down your they use cold temperatures to slow down all the atoms in your body from to the point where they can’t move anymore so everything is just stopped paused right where it was nothing is
[01:11:01] going to change now you’re not going to Decay they put they put a human on pause and they say we’re going to store them here medical technology will get better and better and one day when there will be that hospital in some future time they can absolutely the hospitals in the future it’ll be Child’s Play they’ll say yeah of course we can save them we we you know there’s no problem for us now we will probably also have the technology to safely un vitrify the person and save them we’ve all seen Star Trek so you know absolutely it’s coming so here’s how I think about it there’s all kinds of things I I would love if you worked on that that involve life extension you know Alzheimer’s and and you know heart disease and all this right but people are working on those and and it’s happening over time we’re getting better and better at these things um a and um and maybe even down the road uploading our Consciousness and freeing ourselves from the dying mammal that we’re stuck in right now so that’s great that’s all going to happen in the future but for all the people alive today we’re probably going to miss out we’re probably a little bit early maybe 20 50 years I don’t know maybe not but but I I don’t feel confident I’m I’m
[01:12:01] working on as hard as I can I know you are so but the point is it’s much chill if we just get this one technology to be really really good cryic now none of us have to worry so much we say well I hope it’s here in my lifetime but if it’s not um I will pause myself and then the future will you know I I’ll I’ll I’ll wait till it is that’s awesome so this this basically is a bridge to that future for everyone alive today who won’t be here to take that bridge I like that uh I actually like that idea for next prise and I’ve had some conversations in the past around the first increment is can you store organs uh for future transplantation right because uh a number of organs today have a lifetime and if you don’t transplant them within a certain period of time they’re thrown away but imagine if you could store organs um so that might be an incremental step towards full body the brain is just another organ and if we can do that then we can store the brain and now we’re good you know it’s
[01:13:00] tossing your brain to the Future and saying you know better than rotting in a grave for me send it to the Future see what they can do with it see if they can bring me back um so yes that’s where I would that’s where I would have you do it are you an alcore client yes you are okay fantastic yes I I am not yet I’ve like held off at Alcor is one of these companies that you sign a contract with you pay a fee and they’ll come and grab you and so let me ask you the other question that people may or may not know you should ask which is are you wholebody or just the head just the head and the reason is um the head of Alcor Max Moore who’s an awesome guy um I just talked to him and I said you know he said look we’re right now and this is just because it’s early it’s primitive we are so focused on preserving your brain that that’s what we’re worried about and like it’s almost I I think honestly I should switch it anyway just cuz you never know right and maybe the body’s helpful but I I I I suspect in 10 or 20 years it’ll it’ll be whole body for everyone but I
[01:14:00] think right now it’s that the tech is just not there where they can preserve everything they’re so focused on just the getting this person’s brain with their memories and their personality and who they really are safely into the future um all right Tim I’m gonna I’m gonna ping you on this one uh as we uh as we get uh forward because I do think that’s a a great ex prise just to get more people thinking on it focusing on it yeah working on the technology yeah why not just inspiring people and guiding them that direction Tim thank you for joining me on on mindsets and moonshots and uh super fun conversation uh and and grateful for the work that you do thank you for inspiring people likewise and and and thanks for having me on you’re welcome [Music] pal