Noah Feldman, Haptic Glove, and Avoiding Stupidity
In this edition, we have a podcast from Noah Feldman on the Tim Ferriss Show. Worth reading is an introduction to the Reality Lab at Meta (Facebook) and research into the haptic glove to better interface virtual reality. Then, as always, a few more ideas worth your time.
Worth Listening
Noah Feldman — Deep Focus for Hyper-Productivity, Learning 10+ Languages, Predicting the Future with History, and much more! | The Tim Ferriss Show
Noah Feldman is a Harvard professor, ethical philosopher and advisor, public intellectual, religious scholar and historian, and author of 10 books, including his latest, The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America.
This podcast was fascinating! Throughout the conversation, I had to keep referencing the show notes to find the books and other ideas mentioned for furtherer digging. The podcast starts with languages, and it may seem esoteric to start there, but as someone who finally committed to trying to learn a language the last two years, I found myself resonating at a high level. Overall the languages you speak shape the way you think and also how others think as well. So if you share a language with someone, you can intuit their thought process more effectively.
Another idea in this conversation was Abraham Lincoln and compromise. I'll paraphrase here, but Lincoln was a famous compromiser. Even as the Civil War ramped up, he tried to compromise with the South. It wasn't until he realized that there was no comprising left that he pivoted and made a moral change. As Noah says, constitutions aren't moral documents, but they are informed by the people's moral standards who support them. So even though the US constitution was written with an idea of people that is archaic and wrong to us today, it took someone to break and reform the constitution in a better way to encompass the moral sentiment of the people.
These two briefs summarize barely scratch the surface of the breadth of content covered in this conversation.
Worth Reading
Inside Reality Labs Research: Meet the team that's working to bring touch to the digital world.
I know the metaverse is a hot topic right now. I like to consider myself a futurist and not get lost in names. Being interested in wearables means thinking about how you can better interface with the digital world. The haptic glove of Reality Lab at Facebook (now Meta) is one of these exciting projects. This glove gives feedback to the wearer in digital space. Even in the short video, you see two people playing Jenga and even a thumb war! To me, this feels like the next logical step in getting digital spaces to feel more connected to our natural senses. For the longest time, the best inputs we've had were mouse and keyboard. Touchscreens only had broad appeal after the launch of the iPhone in 2007. So the question is, what's the next evolution?
Avoiding Stupidity is Easier than Seeking Brilliance | Farnam Street
"This is a problem because we're often playing the game of the professionals. What we should do in this case, when we're the amateur, is to invert the problem. Rather than trying to win, we should avoid losing."
As always, Farnam Street comes in with great bite-sized wisdom to think differently. Yes, we can learn a lot from the professional, see their example and then invert it to be used by you as an amateur. As an example from my own life, I don't aim to train like an athlete when working out. But I adapt their tactics so that it works for me. The goal is to make this sustainable for the long term and make consistent progress over the years.
Worth Watching
Chernobyl - A Masterclass in Perspective | Thomas Flight
If you haven't watched this short Docu-Drama Chernobyl, then before you watch this, watch it now! The show is incredibly well done, mainly since Chernobyl is known enough for most audiences to focus on how emotional response helps connect to events from the past.