the importance of giving credit

If we don't credit people when we share our learnings, we give others the false pretense that somehow we just arrived at these insights. This may silently discourage them from attempting to learn. Instead lets show that anyone can do it! by being transparent on your path to the insight. Science is cumulative and we build off each other.

Dr. Andrew Huberman is a good role model for this. In this Lex Fridman podcast episode, Lex admires how Andrew always credits people. Andrew goes on to explain how there is a culture where researchers give credit, but may not give credit on the profound idea.

if you are wondering whether you should listen to that episode

(and i think you should) then here are my notes from that podcast:

how Andrew prepares for his podcast

• Andrew prepares for his podcast by making sure he will be thinking and speaking at the same rate
  • he makes sure hes not tired so he can articulate well
  • then he reminds himself of the purpose of his podcast. jason: this builds confidence
  • he checks his emotional state. and makes sure hes not mad about anything before going in. he views it as not the place for that
  • oooo… he then starts to feel into the parts of research/papers he really loves bc he says thats the part of him he like the most!
    • jason: this is really cool
    • he wants to “bask in sharing”
    • jason: podcasting becomes a fun place to share :)
    • jason: ive felt this before
  • goal is to make thing clear, interesting, actionable, and if its surprising thats a bonus
  • rick rubin helped him with this process and suggested it
  • his advice: develop that process and don't let anything near it. let people in your personal life know it.
  • lex: processes like this exist for anything you take seriously in life
  • lex funny saying about family getting around dinner table: “cruel world cannot touch u”

podcasts, and how do you really understand someone

• lex: thinks a lot about dictators of the past and puts himself in their mindset with the goal of revealing something about this person to themself
  • a great conversation is when both ppl discover something new
  • sometimes the speakers don't hear it in the moment but the audience still hears it
  • if you are really trying to understand someone that has been in a position of power and used it to abuse others, you can't just be a journalist asking generic questions. you have to understand the evil within you. plug urself in those moments in the past where you have been angry or cruel and magnify them at scale with a person who’s been given the opportunity to do so at scale. also have to plug urself into places in the past where you thought you were doing good but you were actually doing wrong. then you both are in this dark place together and maybe something can be revealed. this only happens when you are truly empathising
• Andrew: in the world of psychology, being neurotic is the goal. the idea that you can feel something and then overcome it. or some defense mechanism thats not destructive. psychotic is truly delusional thinking about reality. and borderline is split between psychotic and neurotic. - melanie klein
  • borderline: “love you love you love you” but they hate you
  • schizophrenics are challenging bc the detachment from reality
  • narcissists are challenging bc theyre often so charming
• talking about Karl Deisseroth
  • a meeting w/ karl, he always asks: “What are you most excited about recently?”
  • jason: ^^im gonna steal that
• difficult conversations
  • lex explaining how its such a heavy burden to really start preparing seriously for a guest for his podcast
• big guests
  • lex admits he gets anxious
  • lex talks about how he feels so lucky to be able to have all these big guests
  • he jokes hes in a simulation
  • podcast - powerful way of connecting with ppl
  • andrew: interrupts but then says (below)
  • andrew: a colleague at stanford says someone interrupting you when talking 75% of time is sign of real interest
  • andrew: before the pandemic you just didnt see any scientists in a public facing way (until lex and david Sinclair on JoeRogan)
  • “how do you spot the pioneers? theyre the ones with arrows in their backs!” - terry sejnowski
• LEX: the reach of a podcast, its not the number of people who listen, its the amount of depth you have in each connection
• jason: this reminds me i need to do more public speaking/teaching

freedom of speech

• andrew huberman
  • you can be any scientist you want. you can have any personality that you want. jason: i used to think they were all one personality, but no. he gives Richard Feynman as an example of a person who really injected their personality into what they did! and says this is not necessarily celebrated anymore. you just have to find the community where you fit in. andrew found stanford
  • jason: i think we get this back with lex, andrew, and me :)
• lex: on the importance of diversity in this academia communities
• lex: elon and how this is what freedom truly looks like. he is not held down just bc hes CEO, he can do and say as he wishes. Lex brings up how he knows so many CEOs who feel like caged birds. talks about how they always say “oh you know sorry i gotta be like this for pr”, which is fine, but the end result is authenticity suffocated. the beautiful weirdness is gone.
• andrew: encourages the questions that other students may have to be more efficient, and discourages the ones where its a 10min monologue
• he also says how when he blocks someone they think its bc andrew cannot handle the info, whereas in reality its bc they may be treating others poorly
  • what he can take and what other people deserve are 2 different things
  • everyone has the right and freedom to moderate their chats. theres a certain etiquette that you can strive for like in a classroom
• lex: when he gets a hateful comment, he just thinks positive thoughts toward them so he never has to think of them again
  • “this is a fascinating human being with a fascinating story. id love to learn about it, but theres not enough time in the world.”
• andrew: evacuative projection
  • one of the most toxic things in the world
  • It occurs when people feel something and they try and evacuate it and project it onto somebody else
• Lex: If by Rudyard Kipling
  • he reads it aloud
• Karl Deisseroth - great writing
  • book: Projections
  • took him 10 years to write
  • karl compliments karl's writing a lot!
• andrew: doesnt want to live past 90
  • just wants to get as much done in this short life as he can, with integrity and heart and accuracy :)
  • read ericksons stages of development
    • you realize every stage of life is a set of neural circuits tryna resolve a problem
    • andrew: i actually look forward to the future, even if it means body is shifting
    • point is hes embracing this whole developmental arc
    • we are not children and then adult
    • life is one long developmental arc
      • if you fail to understand this, then you fail to extract the richness out of being a human being
• public speaking
  • andrew: its about connecting with people in a different way. in a different venue
  • jason: just like how they view podcasts. its not about the number of people who listen, its about the deep impact you make
• famous people
  • are the same as everyone else, human.
• talking about comedy clubs

nsdr

• non sleep deep rest
  • sander pichai likes this OVER meditation
  • nsdr: not meditation per se, but brings brain and body into state of relaxation and focus
  • an example: hypnosis
  • has amazing ability to reset your energy levels and focus whereas with meditation, many ppl find that hard. they find it hard bc it requires focus
  • nsdr, you are just listening to a script and not working too hard
  • meditation, you are cranking up the activity in your prefrontal cortex and trying to see the thoughts as opposed to just thinking them
  • most people don't stick to a meditation practice
  • Reveri app
  • nsdr examples: hypnosis and yoga nidra
    • scripts on youtube
    • this one by Madefor is good
  • Andrew says he stops between deep work and does a 1 min hypnosis one in app. but thats only effective bc he supplements it with 10 and 15 min ones
  • theres a difference between stage hypnosis and self-hypnosis
    • stage - trying to get you to do something
    • self - the reveri app above, you are trying to change your brain state
  • Focus
    • white noise, brown noise, music? it varies.
    • binaural beats of 40 hertz can shift brain into heightened state of focus
      • brainwaves app

(surprisingly not finished yet. have 1 more hour left of this episode)