The Secret Power of Unsent Letters - The School of Life

A great approach to stop ruminating. Write out a structured note on the issue and all your thoughts about it.

... and a lot more detail on The Science of Our Inner Voice - Dr Maya Shankar A Slight Change of Plans with Prof Ethan Kross:

Prioritise Emotional Expression and Processing:

• Acknowledge and Address Emotions: Recognise that suppressing emotions is detrimental to mental and physical health.
• Engage in Self-Directed Expression: Understand that emotional catharsis is possible even without the direct involvement of the person who caused the distress. Writing unsent letters is a powerful tool to organise confused feelings, transform pain into understanding, and validate your own experience.

How To Remain Calm With People - The School of Life

1. Distinguish Action from Intention:

• A fundamental way to calm down is to hold onto the distinction between what someone does and what they meant to do.
• The video draws a parallel to legal concepts like murder versus manslaughter, where the outcome (a body is inert) might be the same, but the perpetrator's intentions make a huge difference in how we collectively perceive the act.
• Unfortunately, people are often poor at discerning motives and can be "easily and wildly mistaken," frequently seeing harmful intention where none exists, which leads to unwarranted escalation and confrontation.

Are Violent Video Games Actually That Harmful? Male Status Seeking - Modern Wisdom with Michael Kasumovic

The YouTube video, featuring Michael Kasumovic, delves into the complex motivations and psychological impacts of video games, particularly violent ones, linking them to fundamental human drives such as status-seeking and mate attraction.

1. Motivation Behind Playing Violent Video Games

• Fun and Status Seeking: While video games are inherently fun, Kasumovic and his colleague Tom Denson believe that a deeper motivation for playing violent video games is the search for status. These games provide a platform to test one's "metal" against others, understand one's standing in a hierarchy, and gain a better understanding of oneself relative to others.
• Hierarchy and Aggression: Social hierarchies are prevalent in almost all animal species, including humans, with individuals at the top gaining more benefits. Violence and aggression have historically been ways to maintain or challenge this order. Video games offer a low-cost environment to constantly test and adjust one's position within a hierarchy.

Why You Should Spend All Of Your Money - Modern Wisdom with Bill Perkins

The YouTube video featuring Bill Perkins, author of "Die With Zero," focuses on a philosophy of optimising life for maximum fulfilment by strategically managing one's wealth, health, and time. The core message revolves around not wasting one's life by accumulating money that will never be used and instead, intentionally designing a life rich in experiences.

1. The "Die With Zero" Philosophy: Maximising Net Fulfilment

• Purpose of Life is Fulfilment: Perkins argues that the purpose of life is net fulfilment, not the highest net worth. He proposes running an "algorithm" for one's life that solves for net fulfilment using wealth, health, and time as variables.
• Fear of Wasting Life: His motivation for writing the book stemmed from a deep fear of wasting his own life, a sentiment he believes many share but act against. He suggests people often operate on "autopilot," aiming to survive rather than thrive.
• Money is a Tool, Not the Goal: Money is simply a tool to build happiness, much like a hammer builds a house. Many people mistakenly focus on acquiring more "hammers and saws" (money) without actually "building the house" (experiencing happiness and fulfilment).
• Don't Die with Unused "Chuck E. Cheese Tokens": The analogy of accumulating Skee-Ball tickets or Chuck E. Cheese tokens without ever redeeming them for a prize highlights the folly of working for money one never spends. If you exchange hours of your life for money you never use, you are effectively wasting your life.

The Dangers of Being a Germophobe - Dr Jordan Peterson with Dr Steve Templeton

Dr. Steve Templeton, author of "Fear of a Microbial Planet: How a Germaphobic Safety Culture Makes Us Less Safe," discusses the pandemic response and the underlying cultural issues.

• Motivation for the Book: Dr. Templeton was "floored" by the public's response to the pandemic, particularly the widespread acceptance of lockdowns and controls by politicians and public health experts. He was surprised by behaviours like people wearing masks outdoors, playgrounds being shut down, and hiking trails being closed, despite a lack of evidence of risk in such activities. As an immunologist, he noted that the pandemic was age-stratified in terms of mortality, with children largely unaffected, facts known early on. He was struck by the social, political, and psychological responses rather than just the biological aspects.

• Critique of the Pandemic Response as an "Autoimmune Response": Templeton uses the metaphor of an immune response, suggesting that a healthy response starts non-specifically but becomes more targeted, causing less collateral damage. He argues that the pandemic response became like an autoimmune response, attacking things that "didn't matter," such as schools, and issuing mandates without evidence. He believes the response was driven by the "appearance of safety" rather than real safety.

How To Make A Rude Person Instantly Regret Disrespecting You - Charisma on Command

The YouTube video "How To Silence A Rude Person" from the "Charisma on Command" channel provides guidance on how to respond to insults or rude comments, especially from friends, without escalating the situation into a fight.

Do not retaliate with an insult when genuinely hurt

Firing back with an insult when your feelings are hurt is a common reaction, but it can damage relationships and make you appear rude, even if you didn't start it. While it might feel good in the moment, you'll almost always regret it. Jonah Hill's early public apologies for such reactions serve as an example of what to avoid.

Deny Them What They Want (Attention and an Answer)

• Most people who insult you are seeking something in return, such as attention, a laugh, or an emotional overreaction.
• The strategy is to punish the behaviour by denying them this positive reinforcement. This means ignoring the person and actively shifting the focus to someone else in the group.
• Example: When a paparazzi asked Jonah Hill if he was "the fat guy in Hollywood still," Jonah responded by asking, "Do you have any other questions that are smart?" and then asked, "I have a question because you're in Atlanta," effectively denying the questioner the specific attention and answer they sought.
• Effectiveness: Sometimes, not reacting at all is enough to project confidence, as demonstrated by Kobe Bryant.

Why Do So Many People Not Want To Have Children? - Modern Wisdom with Malcolm Collins

Malcolm Collins highlights a global demographic crisis, its underlying causes, potential future scenarios, and controversial solutions.

The Demographic Crisis: Scale and Impact

• Imminent Population Collapse: Korea faces a potential 94% population collapse over the next century, with only 5.9 great-grandchildren for every 100 Koreans at its current fertility rate. Malcolm Collins argues it's likely already "too late" for Korea to reverse this trend as 60% of its citizens are over 40.
• A Universal Problem (with few exceptions): Not a single society on Earth, except possibly Israel, has managed to achieve prosperity, gender equality, and high levels of education while maintaining a stable population. This suggests a fundamental flaw in the current model of human civilisation.
• Ignoring the Problem: Many, especially in economic sectors like venture capitalism, acknowledge the problem but choose to "pretend like that's not the case" in their investments, as accepting it would cause the economy and society to stop functioning. There is also a tendency, particularly on the progressive side, to dismiss it by saying "the planet's better without humans".
• Threat to Diversity: The core concern is not about increasing the world's population, but preventing a "massive collapse in cultural and ethnic diversity". Without intervention, the future could be dominated by a very small number of cultural/ethnic groups.

What do we owe our friends? - How to Talk to People

The YouTube video, "What Do We Owe Our Friends? How to Talk to People, Episode 3" from The Atlantic, features Julie Beck, Becca Rasheed, Lizzy Post (co-president of the Emily Post Institute), and Marissa Franco (psychologist and author of Platonic). It delves into common conflicts and misunderstandings in friendships, offering insights and advice on fostering deeper connections in a culture that often leaves friendship expectations undefined.

Learning Points:

1. Normalisation of Flaking and its Impact: Flaking, or cancelling plans last minute, has become a "routine part of social life" and is often expected. This trend, where people cancel with "no explanation" or simply because they're "not feeling up to it" or "tired from work," is seen as problematic and frustrating by many. It signifies a lack of reliability in plans.
2. The "Protecting Our Energy" Premium: Society often places a high value on "protecting our energy" and "bandwidth," but this can come "at the cost of our relationships" if it leads to consistent flaking and a feeling that one doesn't "care about this friendship". The idea of needing to be in "optimal Tip-Top shape" to socialise can prevent showing up for friends.
3. Ambiguity of Friendship Expectations: Unlike romantic relationships, where expectations are often more defined, friendships encompass many different kinds of relationships, leading to "clashing expectations" that often go unspoken. The "endless possibility" of friendship can be both a strength and overwhelming.

The Evolutionary Psychology Of Bullying - Modern Wisdom with Tony Volk

Super interesting:

The YouTube video, featuring Tony Volk, a researcher specialising in bullying, delves into the complex nature of bullying from an evolutionary psychology perspective, challenging common misconceptions and offering insights into its causes, dynamics, and potential interventions.

1. Definition and Nature of Bullying

• Definition: Bullying is defined as a deliberate, aggressive attempt against a weaker individual that causes harm. It must be goal-directed and occur in a context where the victim has difficulty defending themselves, establishing a clear power imbalance. This distinguishes it from general aggression.
• Not a Rite of Passage: Bullying is not a minor issue or a "rite of passage"; severe bullying can affect an individual's immune response and gene expression for decades.
• Ubiquitous and Hard to Prevent: Bullying is observed across time and cultures, making it a ubiquitous and challenging behaviour to prevent.