Welcome to Issue #78 of ThinkSpace Thursday
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📚 Light Reading
Dying without ever hearing your own voice
Your voice is the single most important thing you have. When you let yourself be governed by the thoughts of others, when you misuse, or worse, deny, your voice, you are committing one minuscule act of sabotage against the world. Understanding your own voice is as crucial for living a meaningful individual life as it is for society as a whole.
The Zoomer question
In a time in which generations struggle to understand each other, everyone, young and old, is nevertheless in agreement that something has happened to the young. Young people are now consistently more distressed than our elders. Youth has been stripped of its natural tendencies toward energy, autonomy, and subversion.
To get more done, do less
They say if you want to get something done, ask a busy person. That may be true, but the problem is that it leads to busy people becoming overwhelmed with work. If you are one of these people, I have a top tip for you: Do less.
🔎 Study of the Week
iGen or shyGen? Generational Differences in Shyness
These researchers found that Gen Z was significantly more shy than Millennials. They concluded that growing up with smartphones and social media during formative childhood and adolescence could lead to increased shyness as Generation Z may have had fewer opportunities to develop social skills, which may lead to greater social anxiety and shyness.
📺 Video of the Week
Saying NO to compromise by Naval Ravikant (3 min.)
🎙 Podcast Episode
In Part 2 of my chat with Peter Arnott, we riffed on a range of different philosophers and how their ideas might help you resist conformity and march to the beat of your own drum. We also discuss what I think is the fourth-best TV show of all time.
🗣 Quote of the Week
“Objectionable, tedious, irritating labour, - this is the condition of genius, which no doubt explains the reason why men so rarely achieve anything. Genius must submit to cultivate an ass within itself - the condition being so humiliating that man will seldom take up the job.”
— Lev Shestov
👀 Perception Watch
😲 WTF
Should you get the delicious chocolate cake or the mouth-watering cheesecake? You can only have one, so you must choose wisely. It’s a hard decision that can make or break your afternoon. It requires careful deliberation and is where Fredkin’s Paradox lurks:
The more equally attractive two alternatives seem, the harder it can be to choose between them — no matter that, to the same degree, the choice can only matter less. — Edward Fredkin, The Society of Mind
Put differently, the least important decisions to make are often the ones we waste time on.
😁 In the Memetime
📖 Book Club
For as long as we've studied the mind, we've believed that information flowing from our senses determines what our mind perceives. But as our understanding has advanced in the last few decades, a hugely powerful new view has flipped this assumption on its head. In this book, the cognitive philosopher Andy Clark explains how prediction, rather than perception, is the mind’s secret weapon.
🤔 Contemplation Corner
🎧 The Song of the Week
AC/DC - If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)
Listen to the ThinkSpace Thursday playlist on Spotify.
🧠 Go Deeper with ThinkSpace
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July Masterclass:
👍 Thanks for Reading
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Live well, and I’ll see you next week.
John