Play, UltraLearning and Preparing for the End
And we’re back! Welcome to your Saturday. Here are your weekly five things from the mind of Miles.
The Power of Humor and Play. Maybe because I took a break last week, I’m thinking about the power of play. I learned a lot doing improv comedy that carries over to other domains. One of my personal challenges has been to integrate play and humor into work. (I’ve often kept Work Miles and Party Miles separate.) So, I found the book Humor Seriously to be encouraging in my quest. And then I heard about the idea of bringing play into government policy?! (BTW, if you really want to go deep on improv, I recommend Impro.)
Gate’s on Climate. Bill Gate’s new climate book is a quick read and I think offers an important perspective. A business-friendly optimistic and engineering-oriented approach will appeal to some more than reading James Hansen, for example. It is clear that we want to get to net neutral greenhouse gas emissions and that means across all activities. While he doesn’t do much on politics, the focus on the cost difference between GHG emitting status quo and the climate-friendly alternatives is a good one. Although showing how those have improved over time, would be more useful than his point in time estimates. Pairs great with a deep dive into solutions with Project Drawdown. If you’re looking for something to invent or improve, he suggests working on:
Hydrogen produced without emitting carbon
Grid-scale electricity storage that can last a full season
Electrofuels
Advanced biofuels
Zero-carbon cement
Zero-carbon steel
Plant- and cell-based meat and dairy
Zero-carbon fertilizer
Next-generation nuclear fission
Nuclear fusion
Carbon capture (both direct air capture and point capture)
Underground electricity transmission
Zero-carbon plastics
Geothermal energy
Pumped hydro (for energy storage)
Thermal storage
Drought- and flood-tolerant food crops
Zero-carbon alternatives to palm oil
Coolants that don’t contain F-gases
UltraLearner. Thanks to my brother for turning me on to Scott H. Young who is the author of UltraLearner. The book offers great advice for learning things quickly in the spirit of Max Deutsch or Max Hertan. One point from the book that I’ll share now is doing the thing directly. Be careful that you’re not practicing a subsidiary skill and therefore avoiding trying the actual thing you want to learn. You can always back-up and study the sub-skills if needed. Scott’s blog is good, too, on motivation, learning and productivity.
Prepare for the End. You probably don’t like thinking about you or your loved ones dying. But it’s worth discussing. In our family, we benefited from reading Being Mortal and the Art of Dying Well. Alternatively, you could use the Conversation Project or the Five Wishes framework. (Or get all legal with one of my portfolio companies, Free Will.) Just do something.
Racially Motivated Laws. If a law’s roots are racist, should we change the law? How much does the effect matter vs. intention? For example: “When the New Deal Congress passed the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act which mandated minimum wage and overtime pay, agricultural workers were specifically exempted. The statutory exclusion of agricultural workers (and domestic workers) from New Deal legislation was well-known to be a race-neutral cover for maintaining the domination of white supremacy in the South and excluding Black workers from labor law’s protection.” Read more in this legal brief.
As a reminder, my work projects are:
Startup investing with Purpose Built Ventures
A podcast called Startups for Good with associated virtual community and giving circle
My blog Venture Patterns
Until next week,
Miles