1% Smarter Newsletter No. 005
What I'm reading, listening to, and learning from the week ending 12/18/21
When was the last time you changed your mind?
One of my earliest memories of doing so comes from the 3rd grade. It was the month of December, so naturally Christmas was on the minds of many classmates. As we lined up in our classroom before recess, a few of them made a passing remark that (spoiler alert!) Santa Claus was not real.
Indignant, I defended Old St. Nick’s honor. Of course he was real! Every Christmas Eve, we put out milk and cookies for him and carrots for his reindeer. In the morning, the food and drink were gone, replaced with presents under the tree. How else could you explain that!?
The conversation spread to other classmates, until it dawned on me that I was the only student in my class who still believed in Santa. (Side note: kudos to my parents for keeping the act up for so long!) It was then that I began to question Santa’s legitimacy. Shortly thereafter, I confirmed with my parents that it was all a charade. Painful but inevitable, I had changed my mind.
This week, I listened to a conversation with Nicholas Christakis, the Yale physician and sociologist who has emerged as a COVID-19 expert. In the discussion, Christakis explains how “science” should not be used as a metonym, or alluded to as holding a particular point of view. Rather, science is a process through which we test falsifiable hypotheses to seek out the truth.
In November 2019, the scientific community knew relatively little about coronaviruses and virtually nothing about a new, worrying strain known as SARS-CoV-2. In the intervening two years, through the scientific method, we have learned an immense amount about it: how it spreads, how it infects, how to treat it, what non-pharmaceutical interventions are most effective, and how to vaccinate against it.
But the path has not been linear. The scientific process is messy. Along the way, there have been contradictory messages about mask-wearing, gathering indoors and out-, the need for booster shots, and a few false dawns wherein we thought we were finally approaching the “end of COVID.”
As scientists have groped for the truth and scientific consensus has evolved, the public has naturally grown weary of the changing restrictions and heterogeneous rules that vary by jurisdiction. In defense of these changes, Christakis invokes John Maynard Keynes, who allegedly quipped, “When the facts change, I change my mind—what do you do, sir?”
After listening to the conversation, I reflected on topics [besides the (non-)existence of Santa Claus] where I have changed my mind. Is my mind open to change in the presence of new facts that are incompatible with my previous beliefs? I list a few below.
“Wikipedia is an unreliable source of information, since anyone can edit it.” This was drilled into my head by librarians in high school. That anyone can edit Wikipedia was seen only as a negative. However, Wikipedia’s community is also highly self-corrective, making it more robust, not less. Today, I would argue there are few more trustworthy sources than Wikipedia.
“Meta (née Facebook) is a net negative to society’s welfare.” Meta connects billions of people around the globe, empowers thousands of businesses and entrepreneurs, provides internet access on an unparalleled scale, and is building the most exciting extension of the internet (the Metaverse) since, well, social media. Do these facts offset how it causes rising suicide rates in teenage girls, facilitates genocide against the Rohingya, encourages narcissistic behavior, or exacerbates political polarization? Honestly, I don’t know. Previously, I judged the company more harshly. Lately, I’m open to the idea that there are immense costs and benefits on the social ledger, so the net impact is not so clear-cut.
“Don’t use your credit card on the internet.” OK, I confess, this was a little before my time. But in the 90s, one needed to be extremely risk tolerant to send credit cards details to an online retailer. Today, the majority of charges to my credit card are from online transactions.
“God exists.” This one is impossible to prove, since the very definition of faith is something that must be believed without being seen. But my spiritual journey has taken many twists and turns—and I reserve the right to change my mind again (and again, and again)!
If you listen to the conversation between Christakis and Sam Harris this week, I encourage you to go through a similar exercise. Remember, changing one’s mind in the face of new evidence is a feature, not a bug.
💡 Featured Content
My top pick this week
🖥 Web3
📄 Her Instagram Handle Was ‘Metaverse.’ Last Month, It Vanished by Maddison Connaughton
📄 Introducing Fractal by Justin Kan
📄 Twitter thread on NFTs by Chris Dixon
📄 Apes, Rocks & the Future of Finance: Value vs. Utility in NFTs by Dave Nadig
🧪 Science
📄 A Penny For Your Thoughts (PDF) by W. Walker Hanlon, et al.
🏛 Government and Policy
📄 Great Protocol Politics by Parag Khanna and Balaji Srinivasan
📄 The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan
💰 Money & Investing
📄 Nature Shows How This All Works by Morgan Housel
📄 The Many Worlds of Enough by Lawrence Yeo