Releasing Potential

We like, and think in, stories. When things get complicated, it is useful to understand them in terms of things we already know. These models and stories are useful because they give us the courage to act when we are most likely wrong. Money is one of those interesting stories and is actually quite an abstract idea. The reason 'money' can be made up of 1s and 0s or gold is that it isn't actually a thing. Money is an attempt to get things moving. It is a way of trying to co-ordinate activity. It is a measure of potential.

We are getting better at co-ordination problems. Information flows freely. All this should enable us to get better forms of money which basically means better forms of releasing potential. Knowing I was going to be in Christchurch, an artist buddy of mine from Wimbledon Art Studios suggested I meet her sister in law, Ceci, who has a home and studio in Christchurch. She is very much into the 'Sharing Economy' that I have been thinking about recently. She opens her studio up to the community regularly providing a creative space for people. She mentioned how lots of adults get time warped back to their childhood when they come in touch with clay.

Ceci's Christchurch flowers growing from the rubble of the Quake

She also talk about the idea of time banking. The idea of selling time sends shivers down my spine. I have always avoided jobs with billable hours like the plague. I would rather be able to have a cup of tea without worrying whether it will reduce my income by a 6 minute time slot of moola. Time banking is a different concept though. It relates more to the areas that don't get priced well by the market (child care, respite care, language lessons, tutoring, odd jobs etc.).

I am a fan of the disruption being caused by companies like ZipCar and Uber. They aren't really 'sharing companies' though. They are just better at co-ordination of unused stuff. The reason efforts like Time Banking have struggled in the past is that they tend to require someone to do the coordination effort. It requires dedicated staff and this starts creating real costs. This is similar to other charity work where a much of a donation may get chowed by admin. Technology is coming to the party with charities like GiveDirectly allowing you to transfer cash straight to the extremely poor without any fingers in the pie.

Normally altruism works better in small, closed communities. Ceci pointed to the great community work being done in Sumner and Lyttelton. Both are fairly cut off as a beach and port town respectively. I think this is just a case of us growing up and of removing anonymity. We used to only care about people that looked like us. Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Washington, Shaka and Rhodes were not nice men if you didn't look right. It wasn't just our leaders. We weren't nice either. But we are nicer now and we know that where we born and what we look like is a lottery. Technology can help build trust networks.

Old school money is good at releasing old school potential. That is a fraction of the good stuff. We can do better. I think technology is going to help us really get the party started.

Lucy and The Myth

I really enjoyed Limitless so was looking forward to Lucy. This despite the use of the ten percent myth. Never let the truth get it the way of a good story. Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed with the story. Once limits are removed, it was almost like character got removed too. In  Philosophy by Nicholas Fearn, he talks about the problem with the modern remorse over us being 'at the mercy' of our particular drives or inclinations. If you take away our desires and personal characteristics, there is nothing left to be at the mercy of. There are some passes where Lucy hints at philosophical questions like self-identity, but it missed the mark for me. The question of how much of our potential we use is interesting though, and while 10% is a nice but unsubstantiated sound bite, I do think we can better use the time given us.

Wikipedia gives many refutations for the ten percent myth, this is one:

The brain is enormously costly to the rest of the body, in terms of oxygen and nutrient consumption. It can require up to 20% of the body's energy—more than any other organ—despite making up only 2% of the human body by weight.^[14][15] If 90% of it were unnecessary, there would be a large survival advantage to humans with smaller, more efficient brains. If this were true, the process of natural selection would have eliminated the inefficient brains. It is also highly unlikely that a brain with so much redundant matter would have evolved in the 

first place.

 

Inertia

Here are a few things I would like to do or do more of but don't.

1) floss my teeth every night.
2) wash dishes after every meal.
3) eat fruit.
4) stretch.
5) read.
6) write.
7) call family members.
8) write emails/call friends that I can't get to see.
9) paint.
10) sketch.

Why don't I? I don't buy the idea of revealed preference. I don't not do those things because I don't want to... or because they necessarily take a huge effort. I am also not a lazy person by nature... but there are things I just don't do, even if the desire is there.

I think it is because we have a natural inertia. It is the people who are able to get over that inertia that manage to do the most.

But it is remarkably difficult to do.

I am feeling more and more convinced that we should however avoid the excuse... `I just didn't have the time'. It is a bit of a cliche that might end me up (not for the first time) on Stuart list of things that people say that should result in a death penalty, but... it is amazing how the busiest people always seem to be able to fit things in.

I reckon, not matter how busy you are, you always have 5 minutes. And it is amazing what you can do in 5 minutes.

Read a blogpost?
Send an email to a friend?
Call someone just to say hello?
Allow someone to bounce an idea off you?

No matter, how busy you are... I reckon you have 5 minutes. BUT, I don't think this means you don't want to do the thing that takes 5 minutes... I think we get beaten by inertia.

Brain Rules

John Medina has a book, a blog and a website based on his research into the human brain, understanding it and working it to your advantage.

Maybe I have been watching too much Heroes, and reading too much about evolution but I do find it exciting how people are learning more and more every day about how we think and what we are capable of.

I started trying to learn to touch type at the begining of the year. For years I have done the two finger thing. I have spent many hours on a computer program (in a game style) trying to get it right, and I have gone from 12 words a minute (40 in 2 finger style) to about 60 words a minute.

I found the process fascinating. Simply because your fingers struggle in the begining and then it just becomes automatic. How much other stuff is there that we can do that we just don't know about?

I have heard figures bandied about like that we only use 10% of our brain capacity... What are we really capable of?

The blog mentiones some cases of autistic children with IQs of less than 50 who can do things like telling the time without a watch, doubling huge numbers multiple times in only a few seconds, giving correct estimates of the dimensions of objects over 20 metres away. Perhaps autisic children are just focusing in on things we are all capable of doing.... but just don't know.

Who wants to be Peter Petrelli? :-)