Reflection on September 11

I was in Manhattan over September 11. I was in London over 7/7, and a beach (Ao Nang) in Thailand about 30 minutes before the tsunami.

I meet many people in their 20s or their teens and 9/11 and 7/7 are pieces of history. The US/UK withdrawal from Afghanistan is one sense a closing of a chapter that started on 9/11, as the US pursues Bin Laden and that involved hunting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. If you’d like to dip into this more I recommend Garrart Graff’s oral history book, Only plane in the sky, and recent podcast, Long Shadow.

 I recall 3 small reflections. 

 The smell and the noise. In particular the smell. The burning hair, acrid burnt plastic stench that moved in the wind direction. The smell hit your senses as a visceral reminder that something had happened, that there had been an attack. 

 The kindness. A distant acquaintance took me out of the city to the New Jersey suburbs. Everywhere I saw kindness. Shock, hurt and all the expected emotions. But I recall a great deal of kindness. 

 A bar at the end of the world. There was a scene that lives in my memory as “ the bar at the end of the world”. I don’t recall clearly, I think it might have been the Library bar at the Hudson Hotel. There were a mass of travellers with no where to go. Everybody was out of joint. Uncertain. Far from home. The vibe was mix of oddly relaxed - because what could one do - with a background current of tension but overwhelmingly with this - well let’s have one more drink as it might be the end of the world but - to my point above - mixed with kindness.

 I was lucky. Maybe I was also lucky to come across this vibe. At least in this version of the Inn at World’s End, it was fair old place to hang out. Not the place, but the people and the kindness of strangers.

I wrote in 2005:

I still believe one must live life 

And I quoted Jeffery Sachs writing:

“...“Yesterday when the bombs went off in London I was about a mile away. I therefore witnessed one of the greatest triumphs and resources of modern life against the backdrop of yet another heinous crime. Londoners reacted to the disaster not with shock, violence, or disarray, but with unfailing professionalism, industriousness, concern, and emphatically, civility. There were no pogroms, attacks on London’s large Muslim population, Rather there were statements of praise for the Muslim community, for its integral role in London life. There was no rush to judgment, no bluster, no jingoism, only the steady voices of British politicians directing a democratic response to this most undemocratic of deeds.

London, in short, showed even in a moment of real peril, uncertainty, and grief, that it is truly, uniquely one of the great centers of a world civilization, a civilization in which all races, religions, and creeds can live together peacefully, creatively, productively. I feel about London what I feel about my own home of New York City. Both are what mathematicians call a “proof by existence,” in this case a proof that globalization can work, that divisions among people according to religion, ethnicity, language, can be overcome through a commitment to common purposes among people living in close proximity…”

One good recommendation in Sewell report

In all the backlash against the recent UK race report led by Tony Sewell (aka Sewell report), it would be a shame if any of the sound recommendations were lost. If a murderer says “don’t murder” - how much less should we weigh the advice, if it has been thought out and reasoned. I’m unsure.

The one recommendation I’d like the UK to explore in particular (with a potential view to decriminalisation of class B drugs) is”...individuals committing the offence of ‘possession of a Class B drug’ will automatically be considered for a drugs referral in lieu of traditional criminal justice routes…”

Even before intellectual philosophical moral arguments for moderate drugs (we should be allowed to do anything to our own bodies that doesn’t harm others) - these offences seem to be a causal driver of many challenges society has and negatively impacts inequity in many of its forms.

I am not hopeful. But maybe. Note the libertarian think tank, Cato Institute is very supportive as are certain leftist think tanks. When right and left can agree - can main stream politics move social and political will? Although perhaps overstated by proponents, the case from Portugal which decriminalised in 2001 seems to be positive.

Ethical Progress, better today than before

Ethical Progress, better today than before

I’ve been thinking how much progress (or not), we as humans have and the challenges around “progress studies” (cf Tyler Cowen, Patrick Collison) and the idea that the rate of progress have slowed down recently (say in the last 10 to 20 years) vs. mid 20th century. These have mostly been in the items of human development that we can more easily measure (life expectancy, science innovations, crop yields, mobility and the like) but I wonder about our social progress via the lens of where people mostly put “common sense morality”. 

200 years ago, womens’ vote was not the norm and the sane with many notions of equality many societies have today. Further back, slavery was the norm and it isn’t today.

From a personal view, I think in particular the ethical progress we have made with autistic people and other differences in cognitive profile. There are still enormous challenges that I don’t want to be little (I was speaking to someone who noted that autistic children in Sierre Leone are considered under spells of witch craft today by many people). But it strikes me it’s better today than say the 1950s both for parents - where for instance the awful “refrigerator mother” theory was common thinking - and for children - while we still face enormous struggles.

If we can continue to make social progress this should hopefully continue to enrich humanity and it’s important we continue to make this progress even if it might not readily show up in GDP (although I actually suspect it might show up there too eg. in access to work).

Interview practice

Offer (Oct 2020): Oxbridge | University interview practice. If you are or know someone who will be interviewing at Oxbridge (or equivalent level interview), and particularly if their school does not offer mock interviews, or you might otherwise consider yourself at an opportunity disadvantage. I am open to a few slots to offer a mock interview.

(I have been to Cambridge and Harvard. I have a science-based degree, but also write plays. I know the UK system and to some extent the US, liberal arts system too).

I can NOT help if you are applying to Harvard this year (as I may interview for Harvard this cycle).

Typically, I will offer 10 mins, basics, 30-40 mins interview, 20-30 mins de-brief and I’ll need basic information sent in advance. My capacity given the interview schedule coming up is 5 or so, in the next 2- 4 weeks. I may not be able to take all enquiries if this proves popular.

Some leftfield life advice blog here.

Explaining Autism to JP

Anoushka made a book:

I made a book about #autism for Spike (aka “Jpike”). We haven’t hidden his autism from him (as if we could!), but we tend to talk descriptively about his strengths and weaknesses. I wanted to make sure that he could connect positively with the word “autism”, too. He LOVED it! pic.twitter.com/FFtpwcguBc

— Anoushka (@Spittingyarn) April 16, 2020

How to eat Chicken Rice, a story of migration and culture

-What does chicken rice tell us about culture today

-What have we lost and what have we gained

-Chicken rice fills my childhood memories and makes new ones

-Why rare food is tasty

-What “common sense” cooking tells us about “cultural appropriation” (or why you can’t find Hainanese Chicken Rice in Hainan). 

Sic Fan Sic Fan (looor)  [Singa-lish]

Kai Fan Kai Fan !

My Mum hollers 

Eat. It’s chicken rice. 

Calling out the dish to be served is superfluous.  A gentle aroma of sweet chicken smells have been wafting for some time.

I’ve already stolen a selection of the best pieces from the kitchen. 

Namely

a small sprinkle of crispy chicken fat crackles

the backbone of the chicken

Gloopy knuckles and scraped jellied bits

Many western friends don’t understand the joy of these edibles. The joy arises from a mix of cultural, texture and flavour. 

The stories I was told in my youth emphasised the value of rare items. In ancient China, meat was relatively rare and reserved for the wealthy and elite. One of the first food stories I was told was how elite Chinese would only eat fish cheeks when presented with a fish and that’s how kidnappers distinguished between valuable kidnapees and less valuable. 

There is only ever a small amount of crispy fat left.  There is little meat on the backbone. That makes them rare and enticing. 

I value texture. Crispy skin, gelatinous cartilage or the smoothness of backbone skin and meat. Many Asian eaters overweight texture vs modern western eaters who’ve not been brought up eating food for the pleasure of texture.

The dish is presented in three essential parts: Rice, Chicken and Soup. 

Condiments and sauces essential accompaniments.

The use of the chicken infuses all three parts.

Today, western cooks speak of “nose-to-tail” eating and throughout history when food was scarce all human cultures minimised food waste.  Fat, proteins, bones and marrow, all sources of high energy and useful minerals. 

This kind of eating speaks to an older, slower time. Not so long ago in human history, only a few decades, but signalling now a richer, wealthier faster time. 

When I eat such complete nose-to-tail food a part of me is sensitive to this cultural history, and to the sustainability implications of limited food waste. Fans of nose-to-tail food instinctively understand this. 

There is an intellectual and visceral satisfaction knowing an important ingredient threads throughout the meal. 

The rice is soft and rich with chicken essence. 

The chicken is delicate and what my Mum would call “waat” - Smooth textured. ["waat" (滑) smooth, moist & slippery, like the belly or collars of freshly steamed fish or steamed chicken's feet.]

The soup is refreshing and cleansing. 

The condiments when required are sweet, salty, ginger-spiced, savoury (umami), garlicky and chili-hot.  All the flavours in any combination you might like. 

A meal in itself - and we don’t really serve desserts.  Maybe a piece of fruit - but no heavy sweet stodge needed to fill you up. The meal is complete in itself. 

While this dish is famous in stalls and restaurants around east Asia, you can find its match or even better at home - well - at least in my Mum’s home. 

This is how she cooks the dish. 

Choose your chicken well. 

In London, this would be a corn fed chicken or this sweet fat Yorkshire chicken we’ve found from our favourite butcher.

In Hainan, China, this would be the specific chicken of the area.  A particular type of breed and bird. The chicken is used in Wen Chang chicken (one of the four traditional dishes of Hainan). Local farmers would let this chicken roam free where the birds typically ate a lot of coconuts - Hainan being famous for its coconut trees - this gave the chickens seemingly two properties: the smooth waat texture when poached properly and the delicate flavour.

My Mum calls this type of chicken a “Kampong” chicken or village chicken, one that gets to roam around (truly ranging free) and eat wild and forage to supplement its meals. 

Wherever you live would change the chicken used depending on what you can find. 

Despite the name of the dish, there is no original “Hainanese chicken rice" in Hainan. The immigrants from Hainan, as they moved to south east Asia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and beyond had to make do with what they had to hand. The dish was brought back to Hainan island from SE Asia. Food travels like that, think of dishes with chili or potatoes both originating in the Americas.

Traditional techniques, local sourcing, and an evolving palette still mindful of food waste - still conscious of serving rich seeming food while keeping a traditional broth as well. 

No wonder Malaysia and Singapore both claim to have invented the dish. The techniques and ideas naturally flow from those immigrants, to the stalls and homes of Malaysia and Singapore and to my Mum and from my Mum to me, in London.

We have no hope of finding a Hainanese chicken either but I remember in my early childhood the discovery of corn fed chicken (about 40 years ago, these first came from France) and how it lifted an already amazing dish to a richer, subtler more savoury version. 

We experiment with other chickens from time to time although it can knock off the well timed poaching, butin our part of the world, corn fed chicken yields the best results. Our high quality chicken is potentially a reason why my Mum’s version can rival the Singapore hawker stall.  

In my Dad’s foodie home town of Ipoh, Malaysia, in my youth, we bought a live chicken at the market. We avoided the premium virgin chicken (more expensive, no difference in flavour). I was shown how to catch, kill, drain the blood, guts, de-feather and hang the bird. I helped. It seemed important to understand how the chicken was reaching my plate and why it was respectful to limit the waste from this process. 

The wet markets are dying out. This is mostly because modern supermarkets are cheaper, more convenient and hygienic. The increasingly intense farming and dense concentration of live animals in a wet market is a breeding ground for virus transmission to humans. The 2019 COVID-19 virus outbreak is a reminder of how humans are susceptible. There is a part of me that will miss these markets. Some of them will transform to tourist bazaars and the live animals will disappear but I will remember the noise and even the smells. Those wet markets reach back to a less industrial time, perhaps to a time when we cared for our animals more than now, as they were more precious for both protein and labour. I will always remember my father’s sister walking through a particularly rank ammonic smelling part of the market without a care. Only much later did I find out she had a diminished sense of smell, which might also have explained a love of chili spice.

We don’t kill chickens in London but for every chicken I buy, I will reach into the chicken’s entire body hoping to pull out some gobbets of chicken fat.

These pieces of fat, my we will slow fry in the pan creating chicken oil to pre-cook the rice in.

The leftover crackles become the rare pre-course snack for me. My Mum would keep the crackles wrapped up and, like a secretive squirrel, hand them to me like a precious code. Now she does the same for my son, who instinctively knows a rare treat when he spies one.

Thus this tiny piece of food culture passes to another generation. We cup it in our hands and value these rare morsels.

Like households all over SE Asia, we discuss where the best food can be bought or eaten. These discussions unpick individual dishes or ingredients or even individual parts of dishes.

The light soy made by a small producer in Ipoh, the barbecue pork from a particular stall in a food court in Kuala Lumpur, where the freshest pomfret can be found and, of course, where you might eat the best chicken rice in Singapore, or the world.

My British born and bred wife never fully understood this obsession until a journey with me back to Malaysia and Singapore. She heard the never ending back and forth between my Mum and I over individual dishes comparing them to dishes in the past and where we might eat them in the future. How our favoured roast duck has waxed and waned with the chefs at various restaurants. In Singapore, and especially in Ipoh, she finally understood that this talk is ingrained into our culture. Our debates on food are one of the saving connections between my Mum and me. Stretching back through time and transcending the banal family arguments which mums and sons have.

Here we may talk about whether a dish has “standard” and compare to all the other master dishes and variants we have eaten. Here too, when a person dislikes the fascinating textures of jellyfish or chicken’s feet or pork knuckle, we don’t say “she doesn’t like jellyfish” we say “she hasn’t learned to eat jelly fish”. It cannot be that jelly fish itself is untasty, it’s simply that a person hasn’t experienced the cultural and taste history to appreciate the jellyfish.

Fuschia Dunlop, one of my favourite food writers, and one of the greatest modern writers on Chinese food has spoken of bringing some of the best Chinese chefs to one of the most lauded modern American restaurants in the world (The French Laundry). They found much of the food difficult to eat. One commented that they could not even tell whether the food was brilliant or not. The dishes were too far outside their taste and food history.

To poach the chicken

There are various methods used. The idea is to poach the chicken gently so that it cooks but the meat doesn’t harden and keeps a waat texture.  The water stays at 70c to 90c and the water becomes stock used to cook the rice. 

This is related to sous-vide techniques today as protein is cooked (and germs killed) at 70c but the hardening caused by 100c+ temperatures are avoided. 

The size and type of your chicken, your pot, whether you left the chicken at room temperature or fridge cold all impact this technique.

The core technique would be:

Boil fresh water in a pot that will easily hold the chicken. As soon as the water boils switch the heat off and lower the entire chicken into the pot so that it is fully covered.  Then cover with a tight lid and let the chicken poach for 30 minutes. 

My Mum will also make sure there are no feathers left on the chicken and it’s been cleaned well. I know some who give it a salt rub exfoliation and add ginger and spring onions to the cavity in the poach. 

After 30 minutes carefully lift the chicken out. My mum uses a wooden spoon in the cavity. You can temperature test the chicken to ensure that it reads >70c and preferably still below 80c. 

Some people use an ice bath to stop the cooking dead. But we tend to let the chicken rest slowly (and thus we have a wider window for the poach as it continues to cook and relax out of the water.)

Two extra points to note. Scummy foam might arise in the initial poach, skim and remove this if it occurs. If you are worried about under cooking the chicken you can have a very gentle heat under the water to keep the temperature up but try not to let the water boil. 

The stock water you will need for the soup and cooking the rice.

Choose the rice

Not American, Japanese, Basmati, Italian or Persian rices. These all fail for various reasons.

We suggest Thai rice, although I’m sure rice from China is fine too.

The condiments will have their own section later, but shallots, ginger, possibly butter and cucumber, spring onion / scallions are the only necessary ingredients. We add tomatoes and coriander as well.

10 small shallots

5 cloves of garlic

3 coin slices of ginger

To fry the rice

Cut peeled shallots and garlic into fine strips and slices.

Slice 3 coins worth of ginger and crush.

Wash the rice in several changes of water (this removes a layer of dust and starch) and drain dry.

Heat wok/pan with the chicken fat oil (made earlier). You will likely need to add more unflavoured oil (ie not olive, or butter)  to reach about half a cup or enough that all the rice can be coated and absorb some of this oil.

Add sliced shallots and garlic and cook to soft and lightly golden. 

Add the slices of ginger.

Add in the rice and fry together. Depending on how rich you want the rice you can add a chicken stock cube and butter. If you happened to have had a large amount of chicken fat earlier, you may not want as much.

This technique has a commonality with the Italian risottos in that the rice partly absorbs the flavour from the frying - that’s why chicken fat emphasises the flavour.

After about 4 to 7 minutes of frying so that the rice is well coated and you can see it has partly absorbed the oils, you can stop and transfer to a rice cooker or pot and use the chicken stock to cook the rice. 

Use your favoured method. We tend to put the rice in a rice cooker and add stock until it’s about 2cm covered over the rice. 

Soup

The soup is the leftover chicken cooking water.  If you feel it’s too thin you can add chicken carcasses, bones and other spare chicken bits then simmer. Chicken bones I’ve collected and frozen previously may get thrown in and the soup gently simmered (any scum removed). Any leftover soup makes an amazing base for a wide range of meals. 

Sliced spring onions / scallions and fried shallots are typically the small garnish added when the soup is served. 

The Condiments 

….(to be continued…)

ThenDoBetter Grant Winner: Mary Penn, Funding for Autism Conference and Awareness

I’ve awarded a grant to Mary for costs needed to go an Autism Conference.

Mary writes:

‘Then Do Better’ grant will ensure that I can attend the Pan-African Congress on Autism conference 2020, share experiences that will help break the ‘stigma’ barrier, make vital networks, and learn new approaches that will add value to the work of SLAS and to the global autism community.

The Sierra Leone Autistic Society (SLAS) is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) in Sierra Leone (SL). It is currently the main organization (and one of only two organizations) providing support for people with autism in SL. In 2017, before the establishment of SLAS, there was nowhere a family impacted by autism could turn to for support. Upon relocation to SL I had no school for my daughter who has severe autism to attend and no services to meet her needs. Realizing that this was the plight of many families, I teamed up with a colleague and we started SLAS. Our aim was to provide access to health, education, psychological and social interventions and strategies for people with disabilities, with a specific focus on those with Autism.

To date, SLAS runs a school for children with autism and other neuro-developmental conditions, and we provide a variety of services: health, social and educational. SLAS provides carer support which ensures vital respite. The biggest barrier for people with autism in SL, like many other low-resourced countries is ‘stigma’. Many people still believe that autism is related to witchcraft, etc.  As such, sensitization is key and SLAS works in the communities to demystify these myths. There are many families needing our support, but SLAS currently operates in only two regions of the country, which means that there is still serious lack of support for families impacted by autism.  Whilst our capacity is growing we need support to expand our services.  www.sierraleoneautisticsociety.org - will be on twitter with @InclusiveFutur2

---

More on the £1K grants for positive impact available here.

Life Advice

I’ve been asked for “Life advice” a few times recently, which has given me pause for thought. I think advice of this type should really be tailored to individual experience, so I’m a little reluctant to espouse generalities but, I have some ideas - most based on personal experience (so take them with the usual caveats on anecdote) of the nurture part. I’d go so far as to say ignore what I say and go read stuff (which is one of my top pieces of advice).

You may not be able to change your genetics but, outside of a few narrow domains, the interaction with the environment and the culture you create, or find yourself in, are still very important.

One other caveat is that I grew up without internet and its arrival has changed life in ways that were hard to comprehend.

These are my thoughts on being successful:

Immerse yourself deeply in at least two domains, preferably a few more if you are inclined. If two of the domains are not closely related, so much the better.

I was average at Art, but engaged productively with it A-level, gaining an A grade and winning prizes with my photography. I was also well-immersed in clay work when younger and with the broad arts in my teenage years. Art was my 5th A-level when most people did 3 to 4 A-Levels (the remainder of my courses being Maths/Physics/Chemistry-focussed). I also started my interest in theatre and began directing plays at a young age. And later, poetry.  Some of those practices stay with me - a notebook journal that has visual elements. An understanding on how to look at art and poetry. The processes of creativity.

The skills and knowledge of a deep domain are very valuable today. For instance, my friend (who is more gifted than I) has deep knowledge of programming C (as well as many other matters) this skill has provided decades of value. But, being able to cross-silo expertise into other areas can create unique and valuable insights. 

Shallow knowledge is not very useful, especially in the internet age.

I wouldn’t worry too much on how “marketable” this domain knowledge is. Certainly, computer coding in C has a bigger market than poetry, but if you are driven to go deep, it will help you.

Evidence: Tim Harford in Messy quotes several studies and case studies on what he calls slow-motion multi-tasking. Essentially successful creatives go deep on a “hobby” outside of their core domain and also have many on-going projects in different areas. Short blog here.

Be (or learn to be) curious. About everything.

While I think there do seem to be aspects of curiosity that more naturally occur in some people (like me). I also think it can be taught or nurtured to a high degree.

A deep curiosity about why something might be can also lead to deep domain knowledge (see above). It also means you are less likely to be idling time on addictive mobile games but seeking out knowledge on areas you are curious about.

You can’t command people easily too simply work hard at matters they are not interested in or curious about. So cultivating curiosity partly solves both work ethic and domain knowledge.

You also seem to learn better when curious (see study above) and it will lead you to better knowledge and judgements about true states of the world.

I remain immensely fascinated by many things still. It makes my story telling better and it makes my investing better too.

Evidence: States of curiosity modulate hippocampus-dependent learning via the dopaminergic circuit (Gruber et al. 2014)  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4252494/

Be (or learn to be) empathetic.

Similar to curiosity, while I think there do seem to be aspects of empathy that more naturally occur in some people, I also think it can be taught or nurtured to a high degree. It’s clear to me that it occurs (and can be taught) to autistic spectrum people - once thought not to be (at least typically) empathetic.

Empathy will help you in relationships of all kinds - romantic, friendship, family, work and even fleeting day-to-day.

Personally, making all types of work and my personal life work has involved understanding and empathy, some times over deep domain experience.

Evidence: Science of Empathy https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5513638/

Read. Read. Read.

I hardly know anyone successful who doesn’t read a huge amount (I think Donald Trump is the only one I know). I suppose podcasts (which I find slow) and other inputs of the modern era would also count. (It goes hand in hand with deep domain knowledge referred to above).

Build and nurture connections.

Social and relationship capital is built in the connections we make with others. Small and fleeting. Long and lasting. (See above on empathy).

But, I think the internet can bring connections to a level I didn’t have while growing up. 

Binding together the ideas of deep domain knowledge, empathy and curiosity will and can lead to building connections with and to friends.

Choosing your friends will be important as the “culture” you surround yourself with is an important factor in your life trajectory. This feels true to me on the micro-culture of your friends as well as the wider culture of your school/work/country.

Evidence: Power of Connections here and Esfahani book.

Learn how to communicate effectively

There are at least two levels to learn this at. First, the art of one-to-one or small group conversation. Here the advent of mobile phones has been a disadvantage, so needs more work. This also comes down to having strong social skills. (And even if not top quartile, a passable level is still useful - look at Bill Gates - who has many of these things, but had to be forced to learn a moderate amount of social skills and then public speaking).

Essentially, you need to be able to cultivate the ability to listen and comprehend well and respond (with empathy).

The next level will be the ability to communicate ideas or persuasions through public speaking. High level rhetoric may be beyond most people, but a decent skill level is within everyone’s grasp and is important.

There is another level in the small-medium group communication class which depending on how your life proceeds you may also want to be skilled in - although with many similarities to the above two categories.

The ability to influence and tell stories is a vital skill in persuading other people. It goes hand in hand with the above, and without it, it can leave your deep domain knowledge as less useful as you can’t communicate it to others.

Less obvious is that it can be taught and learnt to a large degree. (Yes, the ancient Greek had whole important works dedicated to rhetoric and communication).

Evidence: Supposedly, the job survey evidence puts this as the soft skill employers want. I think it’s a little weak, but it seems obvious to me that communication is vital.

A few more personal musings…

Learn how to cook food you and others will love. 

Everyone eats, not everyone knows how to cook. The ability to cook a wide variety of dishes will be: 

• good for your health. Cutting out processed foods, takeaway etc. will be good for you.

• good for forming strong social networks and conversation. If you cook for friends (and more) you engage with one of the most ancient forms of human bonding.

• teach you about other cultures and history, if you decide to be even a little bit curious as to how your recipe and foods came about.

Cooking has been an important part of my life and has created important bonds with many of those close to me, or even only in passing.

Learn how to make physical things or craft in the real world.

I would count cooking as a form of making. I would count many creative arts, like poetry, also as acts of physical creation - drawing, crafting, as well. Ditto gardening, knitting, building - soldering electronic circuit boards, carpentry, sewing and so on.

There are plenty of skills embodied in the learnings of a physical act and it grows brain skills in a different domain to almost whatever you’ve decided to do as your primary domain.

I’ve learnt many ideas on what makes things work by being engaged in physical creation like art, gardening, crafting. These learnings are quite different and thus useful plus there is deep satisfaction in making items by your own hands.

Prioritise experience over objects/consumerism

Buy experiences with your money over throw-away items. Experiences live longer and more positively in the memory and contribute to greater happiness. There’s a fair amount of strong research on this.

Evidence: Atlantic pop science article overview plus key Psych study.

Learn to think for yourself

This seems self evident but I find much of what many people tell me is flat out wrong.

One recent example, in a conversation with someone who was a sustainability investor of soughts, he claimed 5 “facts” and studies, which I knew simply to be wrong and he would have had other around him believe him, if I hadn’t said what I thought was wrong, and why and where you could find information to check yourself. It could have been awkward (but see social skills) I used a lot of humour to deflect (!)

Think that you are running your own race, or playing a game with your own rules. Not another person’s race.

Don’t think about your learning or your life trajectory as a competition with others. 

Sure, work and products and the like will all be about competition. But, many domains won’t be about competition and you might want to think about the route you are taking as your own path.

No one I knew at school was squeezing in Art A-level between double Maths. I don’t know any playwrights who are also successful investors. Often, it may help to think about taking your own path and not worry about everyone else.

Travel.

The last one for me was to travel and live for a time in other cultures. This really exploded many assumptions I had (see my time with the Wana Tribe) and gave me a much larger view point on the world. Maybe  in today’s connected world this is less important, or perhaps, it’s even more important now to go and really find out what things are like.

Finally, also feel free to ignore all advice that doesn’t seem helpful.

Other advice:

General Job/work Advice from 80,000 hours

This is a super summary of work orientated processes and ideas you can use.

Paul Graham (start up founder of Y Combinator) on how to do what you love (2009) but still insightful:  http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html

My Grants programme

If you are interested in a micro-grant for positive impact check out my programme. 

UK Government looking for weirdo with skills

Most of you in the UK will have this, but one of PM Boris Johnson’s most senior advisors, Dominic Cummings, has put a call out on his blog for “weirdos with skills”. It has caused more criticism than praise on twitter and the media from what I can tell. But, I suspect - like quiet Torys and quiet Trump voters - this will have gone down well with a lot of people; and if you are a weirdo with skills it’s likely you will have found ait nd maybe you are applying…  FWIW, I was contemplating prediction markets this very week and it’s one of Cummings’ focus.

I have no idea about this at the top of government. Some thoughtful people I know have been pretty critical (along the lines of this is not what a SPAD should be doing and this disruptor approach won’t work for the civil service). Other critiques include: Tony Yates here in New Statesman in a commentary/defence there’s Henry Oliver in his blog and on being a State Capacity Libertarian H/T Tyler Cowen.

Cummings blog is here. He writes:

“…Now there is a confluence of: a) Brexit requires many large changes in policy and in the structure of decision-making, b) some people in government are prepared to take risks to change things a lot, and c) a new government with a significant majority and little need to worry about short-term unpopularity while trying to make rapid progress with long-term problems.

There is a huge amount of low hanging fruit — trillion dollar bills lying on the street — in the intersection of:

• the selection, education and training of people for high performance

• the frontiers of the science of prediction

• data science, AI and cognitive technologies (e.g Seeing Rooms, ‘authoring tools designed for arguing from evidence’, Tetlock/IARPA prediction tournaments that could easily be extended to consider ‘clusters’ of issues around themes like Brexit to improve policy and project management)

• communication (e.g Cialdini)

• decision-making institutions at the apex of government.

We want to hire an unusual set of people with different skills and backgrounds to work in Downing Street with the best officials, some as spads and perhaps some as officials. If you are already an official and you read this blog and think you fit one of these categories, get in touch.

The categories are roughly:

• Data scientists and software developers

• Economists

• Policy experts

• Project managers

• Communication experts

• Junior researchers one of whom will also be my personal assistant

• Weirdos and misfits with odd skills

We want to improve performance and make me much less important — and within a year largely redundant. At the moment I have to make decisions well outside what Charlie Munger calls my ‘circle of competence’ and we do not have the sort of expertise supporting the PM and ministers that is needed. This must change fast so we can properly serve the public….”

Popular blogs on 2019

Popular Blogs of 2019. These were some of the most popular of last year.

A blog summarising Nassim Taleb on climate change. Taleb argues for the precautionary principle as we only have one planet. He also notes on a risk view outcome is “size of impact” vs probabilty, and as climate models are uncertain this increases the risk of a very bad outcome Blog (3 mins) Nassim Taleb. Climate Change Risk.

A semi-specialised look at the ESG rating agreement arguments. I argue they will likely never agree and that will be a good thing: Why ESG ratings will never agree and some of the problems of ratings

Although having argued that, I am working on standardisation projects.

Short blog on the writing tips that Zadie Smith gave out to the Guardian many moons ago: Zadie Smith. Writing Tips.

A blog on some generalisations between Gen Z and Millenials. Unsure exactly how much is really true but some food for thought on growing up as a digital native. Generation Z. A look at their different qualities versus Millennials

My mini-explanation on my understanding of a performance-lecture  which is mostly the tradition that I have placed Thinking Bigly in. What’s a performance lecture?

I had fun pulling out my old journal to note down the travels I had to the the very remote Wana tribe in Indonesia and it’s one of my favourite 2019 blogs.

Why is happiness like a stock price?

Why is happiness like a stock price?

Maybe, we are asking our questions about happiness wrongly. We don’t separate ideas of short term happiness (a good meal, a good sleep, a funny film) with long term happiness (eudaimonia, fulfilment of having children, higher purpose). We seem to think or be asked about happiness in a way that suggests happiness is finite. It seems we don’t want to maximise for “happiness” in any case (a reason why Danny Kahneman left the happiness field)

As I look to my last decade, I believe we should re-think happiness or life satisfaction more like a growing pie. It may have no end. It will have ups and downs, but it can and should continue to grow through life.

Strangely, the best businesses can also have stock prices which - in theory - don’t have a maximum value.

Happiness - particularly long-term eudaemonia happiness - is hard to tackle directly. You can’t say I am  going to be 23% more happy in a month. You have to work on the matters that give you long term happiness - relationships, meaningful work, creativity - and as a by product on working on these matters, happiness accumulates.

Typically, a CEO can’t say her share price will be 23% higher in a month, or a year, what she can do is work on the matters her business can create value in - her business purpose - her innovation, products, customer service, employees - and by improving the value in those direct matters, as a by product profit and share price will also improve. It’s not a fixed pie. You can’t access it directly. It’s oblique.

As I think back on my last decade, by this definition, I’ve grown my happiness and should expect to keep growing.

Let’s look across the major elements of this. You could think of them of the “capitals of happiness”  as a metaphors which is not the greatest turn of phrase, but I can’t currently think of better (cf my thoughts on Progress Capitals)

• Financial/Work

• Human/Social/Relationships

• Skills/Intellectual

• Health

• Natural

• Purpose

As I think of all these elements, I feel pretty happy that they have all progressed. Physical fitness remains my worse one, which I’m working on.

I’m not going to review all of them here. I have some jottings, but it’s going to take too long to turn them into blog form. Suffice to say working on relationships, family; purpose in work as well as writing plays and now my grants giving scheme are leading to a full and satisfying time. I hope the next decade goes well too despite its challenges.

www.thendobetter.com/grants

Aymara, time backwards; comorant fishing

In the year 2000, I journeyed to the borders of Bolivia and Peru. I spent a short time with the Aymara people. I visited lake Tititaca, where the Uru people - who merged with Aymara a few hundred years ago, before being conquered by the Inca, who were conquered by the Spanish - still live on reed islands in the lake and sail in reed boats, although mostly supported by tourism nowadays.

They have semi-domesticted a few unusual seeming animals. Guinea pigs live semi-wild and are then eaten. I ate quite a lot of guinea pig.  (Tasty). I believe, they also keep fishing birds - Comorants, which they used to do in parts of China as well.

Fishing using comorants in China, source Guardian here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2016/apr/06/dying-art-of-chinese-cormorant-fishing-in-pictures

Andy Beales / Barcroft Media

The Aymara language - still spoken by 2 million odd people - seems to reveal an interesting feature of the Aymara people. That is they view time flowing backwards, whereas most people view time flowing forwards.

“…with staggering monotony, they all resort to the same metaphor: space. If an English speaker says: "We are approaching the deadline," he or she is expressing imminence in terms of nearness, a property of physical space. Anyone listening will understand exactly what he or she means, even though the deadline is not an entity that exists in the physical world. Núñez says: "There is no ultimate truth that you could discover that is outside that metaphor."

So if temporal landmarks don't exist except in our heads, where does our notion of time come from? And why do we feel so strongly a sense of time as motion? In all Indo-European languages including English, but also in languages as diverse as Hebrew, Polynesian, Japanese and Bantu, speakers face the future. Time flows from a point in front of them, through their current position - the present - and back to the past. The Aymara also feel time as motion, but for them, speakers face the past and have their backs to the future.

The Aymara word for past is transcribed as nayra , which literally means eye, sight or front. The word for future is q"ipa , which translates as behind or the back. The Jesuits undoubtedly noticed this oddity in the 16th century, when they ventured up into the mountains to spread the word. More recently, linguistic anthropologists have puzzled over what it means. …”

This seems further emphasised by how they use gestures when speaking of time. Most people think of the future in a forward time flow with forward gestures. The Aymara view this the other way. 

Articles on this here (guardian)  (quotes from the article) and here (science daily).

More on travel? Read about when I visited one of the most remote place on earth, the Wana tribe in Indonesia.

Conference: Find Your Epic

The greatest of meet-ups change you. Then you go on to change the world.

Occasionally, a snowflake falls on the mountainside and an avalanche occurs.

The best meet-ups are an avalanche of ideas and a meeting of minds.

Again, I’ve been challenged by the observation that life is messy. Yet what unites and binds us as humans still remains greater than our divisions.

For all the polarization in the world, there are still places to meet. Respect. Life. Chaos. Arguments. Hugs.

I heard about an  extraordinary range of commitments to long-term social and environmental value. From the country and city level – particularly the cities – but at all levels. And as we argue I hear the importance of discourse of conversation.

I heard reflections on the state of the UK union. There are real chances it might split in the future, but whatever the outcome how do can still heal and come together.

I heard very moving stories of the “Troubles”. A joke on how the people could only underplay the loss and conflict that threads through human lives. To be a “mixed marriage” is to be from two communities from different religious backgrounds. Fathers and sons died. Mothers and daughters died. Families grieved. There was a healing, a tentative wound closure – and that in the hurtling crisis that is Brexit the social cost in Belfast could well be tremendous. Sad on where we’ve arrived. Moved on how we lost and healed. Hopeful slithers as good people continue to try for peace. 

I witnessed an astonishing evening of music. A classical rap fusion, led by Dessa - a female vocalist of sublime word-smith, voice and heart. It’s genre-crossing live music between a rapper and the  BBC National Orchestra of Wales.  Dessa reflected it’s not often you can wear a fancy cape out and about. I think it’s even rarer to bear witness to such an unusual music fusion. Took me to a place musically I’ve never been and like all sublime art, leaves you changed when you emerge. (A track from Dessa below).

A conference is part content. A conference is all people. The greatest meetups have the greatest people. It’s not our individual heights but our collective complexity.

I heard about how to run hospital groups in America and the pros/cons of a Medicare for all.

What it’s like to be a Burner at Burning Man and how not to die.

How to make classic rum. The  freshness of sugar cane. The art of distillery. How to age gin.

What being a First Assistant Film Director is like – the person who runs the set onsite.

What it means to protect your synagogue. How Jews feel under threat.

What filming stories for Instagram Stories is all about. 

What intermittent fasting is like

What it means, and how you can get to adopt in the US. And a picture of adoption and story to make me cry.

What Cities are doing, what power grids and doing, what endowments are doing in the fight in the climate emergency.

I learnt about the neuroscience of poverty, the challenges in protecting children online, what the international development community are attempting to do; the latest advances in dementia and brain research.

I discovered a community theatre practice centered around rural life in America. The hopes, dreams and challenges of farmers and the like.

I heard about book writing and Hollywood film making.

The challenges of UK special education and the ethics of Downs syndrome testing.

I ended up abseiling down the side of a hotel for charity as part of giving back. (See above)

I heard about what can make our brains better (altitude and high intensity training).

I heard about Goalball. A sport geared to those with disabilities.

… and through all of this the music, dance, food, drink, conversation of life.

The constructive clashing of life – when we humans meet in these activities they are the concentrated renewable energy that fuel our discussions - our debates - our loves - our passions - our fights - our peaces.

We argue, but we stand together.

So – it’s messy – there are questions without answers. Lines are crossed. Redrawn. Fudged. Drawn again.  It’s gloriously messy and absolutely worth saving.

I know. We know. In an age where matters may seem divisive. Good people and still meeting, still connecting; listening and exchanging.

As we joke….Let it BAP. There won’t be an answer, so let it BAP.

(Do sign up to my monthly newsletter below, if you’d like to keep in touch).

Fleeting impressions of Miami

Miami is on the front lines of climate change. 

My taxi driver was from Hiati.  My sushi maker was from Honduras. 

I hear almost as much Spanish as English and other languages. 

It’s wealthy.  It has an unofficial segregation in that neighbouring municipalities might be very rich / high life expectancy next to places that are poor. 

Colours are mixed as the immigrant population is high and yet at surface glance the wealth still seems mostly white. I’m guessing it might seem more mixed than it might seem but the trend of inequality is apparent at a surface glance. 

The car still seems king. I’m in the financial district part and I walk out but it’s hard to get far. There are a smattering of e-scooters but it seems dangerous from where I am. 

That said Uber is cheap (the hotel concierge recommends it over taxis) and it seems OK to get around.  Unsure about commuting from the suburbs. My google maps suggests using public transport would take 2x to 3x to get anywhere I was thinking of going.  That doesn’t seem great to me. 

The heat is humid and fierce.  It reminds me of tropical SE Asia more than Boston or San Francisco. 

The four seasons hotel has a particular clientele. I see chi-chi dogs. Very manicured people. Few non-white who aren’t staff. 

I see hardly anything else. My Uber driver wasn’t convinced about climate change.  “What about the rivers…?” I end up talking about the water cycle but am interested in what he thinks. 

I think some of what I see from the plane will be underwater in the coming decades but with all the upfront challenges I could glimpse from some of the poor, I can see why it’s not high on their priority lists. 

Bill Gates Documentary, observations

There’s been media speculation on whether Bill Gates might be (sub-clinical) on the autism spectrum.

One observation out of several on watching the documentary on his life (which is mostly uncritical and simply lays out most of the brightside of his life) is that certainly in his early he had a high degree of social awkwardness. 

The story suggests if it wasn’t for his mother pushing him into many social situations (against his desires) he wouldn’t have learnt the social skills he needed in later life. There were these arranged dinners and social occasions. Certainly, these would be traits of many on the spectrum.

Even so, it was revealing the pushing and “learning” needed here and the major role his mother played.

Another observation was that Bill was (and is) extremely clever and able - not only in coding and maths ability, but from a young age an interest in business acumen. (Seemingly already have picked up enough social skills by mid/late teens, and going on to learn other presenting skills).

There are not so many people I observe, who I think - wow that’s straight up in another league to me - I have the impression Bill Gates is. Certainly, he had what we now seem to call privilege when growing up but he didn’t waste his advantages and already from young a mix of relentlessness and of following his own path was apparent.

The role of luck was a sub-plot. The luck of the advantages he had, but the luck that he didn’t die in an accident like his childhood best friend. I had the sense he appreciated this.

I had childhood friends die. I know enough about chance to know, I’ve had some very decent slugs of my luck my way - or avoiding bad luck.

His knowledge on climate change was strong (to me) - and Vaclav Smil appears as a cameo with Gates having read a fair number (if not all?) his books.

The challenges around the anti-trust cases against Microsoft were handled quite lightly. The emotional and human cost on Bill came through, but I don’t think I came away with many insights. Perhaps a touch of the single-minded perhaps ruthless qualities that are also needed by business creators. But only a very slight look at that.

His friendship with Warren Buffet, although not a large section of the documentary, came across as very genuine and seems quite a unique partnership of smart billionaires.

Certain billionaires come with rather mean seeming characters. Whilst, presumably - like Warren Buffet’s - his public persona is cultivated, at heart Bill genuinely does seem to be putting his heart and mind in the right place - and putting his billions to work in solving humanity’s problems.

Am I worried that the film was uncritical, neither looking at the critics of billionaire philanthropy or taking any views from those who argued for Microsoft’s (and Bill’s) ruthlessness?  I don’t think so. This was obviously not that story and while Bill was hardly pushed in any of the interview questions - I still think it offers a glimpse into the man.

It’s not as insightful as Elon Musk and Joe Rogan. And I doubt we will ever have that level of insight in to one of the richest and most influential people of our time.

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A blog on Vaclav Smil.

A blog on Joe Rogan.