“A change of perspective is worth 80 IQ points.”
The restrictions we face on airplanes is what makes the experience so liberating.
Flying is accidentally the best ever environment for DEEP work and reflection.
Writers like @rickygervais do their best work on airplanes.
Here's 6 reasons why.
THREAD...
“A change of perspective is worth 80 IQ points.”
The restrictions we face on airplanes is what makes the experience so liberating.
You can't find any escapes.
If you try to escape, you face death.
Negative incentives are built into the system.
"Incentives are a super power." - Charlie Munger
There's no newsfeeds to refresh. No emails to reply to.
It's like knowing your heroin dealer is in a coma.
Boredom is built into the system.
Your monkey mind can't access dopamine - so it starts creating its own.
1. No socialising - You don't know anyone. No small talk.
2. No sound inputs - The engine acts as white noise.
3. No visual inputs - The seating structure means you see barely anybody.
If you're flying, you're on your way to an experience. (Flying to)
Or you have just had one. (Flying back)
Meaning your mind is racing with ideas.
There's a built-in barbell effect of ZERO stimulation right next to INTENSE stimulation.
There's never 0% stimulation. And here's never 100% intense stimulation.
We are at a constant 50%.
There's no intensity. And there's no reflection.
Over time, life feels num
You know every few hours someone will come round and offer you food.
Your mind doesn't have to make food plans.
And the awful food is a feature rather than a bug - you eat less and keep a clear head.
The awful seating on planes forces you to stay upright
Meditation 101 - It's easier to calm your mind when you have an upright posture
And if you try and decline your seat by 10% - there's negative social incentives built into the system
There are no algorithms powered by years of viewing data that knows what exact content to distract you with.
It's awful Hollywood flops and TV series.
Another feature that people think is a bug - it's easy to not watch em.
1. High exit costs
2. Minimal external inputs
3. Opposite experience before/after to look forward to / reflect on
4. Nutrition taken care of
5. No access to distraction driven algorithms
6. Upright posture
If you enjoyed it - you might enjoy my occasional newsletter where I break down mental models + ideas I'm thinking about 👇
https://t.co/gZLFoqxVV0
Youtube 👉 https://t.co/PP61qWg50y
Apple 👉 - https://t.co/6LFeTHHwjG
More from George Mack
I get DM's from founders with the same specific problems.
Here's a public list of marketing tools I recommend:
↓
1. Twemex
Twitter Advanced search on steroids.
Whenever you visit someone's account, see their most popular Tweets of all time in order.
H/T @Julian for this
https://t.co/8P2YJ3Jrf0
2. Good UI
Historical log of successful and failed A/B tests from the likes of Amazon, Netflix, Google
3. Blisk
See how your website looks across every device.
Got an Android user complaining how your website looks but you only have an iPhone? Use Blisk.
4. Really Good Emails
Struggling with email ideas?
Library of thousands of quality emails to get inspo from.
Here's a public list of marketing tools I recommend:
↓
1. Twemex
Twitter Advanced search on steroids.
Whenever you visit someone's account, see their most popular Tweets of all time in order.
H/T @Julian for this
https://t.co/8P2YJ3Jrf0
2. Good UI
Historical log of successful and failed A/B tests from the likes of Amazon, Netflix, Google
3. Blisk
See how your website looks across every device.
Got an Android user complaining how your website looks but you only have an iPhone? Use Blisk.
4. Really Good Emails
Struggling with email ideas?
Library of thousands of quality emails to get inspo from.
More from Writing
Things we don’t learn in this article: that the author wrote David Cameron’s speeches during the period when they were intentionally underfunding the NHS and other services, directly creating the problem the author is concerned about now.
We also don’t learn that the paper it’s written in stridently supported those measures and attacked junior doctors threatening strike action over NHS cuts and long working hours, accusing them of holding the country to ransom.
We aren’t reminded that NHS funding and the future of health provision was a central part of previous election campaigns, and that attempts to highlight these problems were swiftly stomped on or diverted and then ignored by most of the press, including the Times.
I’d underline here that “corruption” doesn’t just mean money in brown envelopes: it describes a situation where much of an organisation is personally motivated to ignore, downplay or divert from malfeasance for personal reasons - because highlighting them would be bad for careers
Foges was Cameron’s speechwriter at the height of austerity; Forsyth is married to the PM’s spokesman; Danny F is a Tory peer; Parris is a former MP; Gove used to write for them regularly, and that’s before we get to professional mates-with-ministers like Shipman or Montgomerie.
Today we learn health services are brutally underfunded with scant support for hard pressed staff, although it\u2019s left unclear who is responsible for that and it appears to be an exceptional, totally unpredicted phenomenon, like a freak weather event. pic.twitter.com/StwFR7RejE
— Flying_Rodent (@flying_rodent) January 25, 2021
We also don’t learn that the paper it’s written in stridently supported those measures and attacked junior doctors threatening strike action over NHS cuts and long working hours, accusing them of holding the country to ransom.
We aren’t reminded that NHS funding and the future of health provision was a central part of previous election campaigns, and that attempts to highlight these problems were swiftly stomped on or diverted and then ignored by most of the press, including the Times.
I’d underline here that “corruption” doesn’t just mean money in brown envelopes: it describes a situation where much of an organisation is personally motivated to ignore, downplay or divert from malfeasance for personal reasons - because highlighting them would be bad for careers
Foges was Cameron’s speechwriter at the height of austerity; Forsyth is married to the PM’s spokesman; Danny F is a Tory peer; Parris is a former MP; Gove used to write for them regularly, and that’s before we get to professional mates-with-ministers like Shipman or Montgomerie.
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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.
In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
The story doesn\u2019t say you were told not to... it says you did so without approval and they tried to obfuscate what you found. Is that true?
— Sarah Frier (@sarahfrier) November 15, 2018
In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
