In a World Without Market Research

Let's start this one with a little imaginary exercise.

Imagine that I sold you a car. And when I did, I also told you that this is the one true car — it is the absolute best there ever was — and you could never find a better one out there. And just so you’d know, if you have any problems with the car, it’s your fault. It’s probably because you’re bad! …at driving… or something.

It’s a far fetch, I know. But, for the sake of the example, let’s try to assume that this is all true though. Let’s assume that you’re still young and that this is the first car you’ve ever had. Perhaps even the first car you’ve ever seen. Let’s imaging that back when I gave you this car, you were still a child and didn’t yet know anything about cars and couldn’t really judge things for yourself. So, as far as you could tell, it all made perfect sense. …

After decades of disagreement between religion and science, a scientist’s worst nightmare has materialized.

A group of scientists has gathered an incomprehensible amount of human knowledge and fed it to the smartest machine ever built. Then, the machine said: “God exists”

A new AI has recently emerged from the dark cellars of OpenAI. The creature’s name is Generative Pretrained Transformer the 3rd, but you can call it GPT-3 for short.

This new version is significantly better than its predecessor, GPT-2, not only by the sheer X100 more knowledge it was fed with, but mostly in its ability to understand the basics of context and maintain a consistent notion of self and other. …

You are not a power ranger… you are a Megazord!

You know what a Megazord is, right?!

Each little power ranger has this animal looking super badass robot vehicle thing they get in to. That’s called a Zord and it’s how they the really big enemies.

But when thing get really crazy, all these Zords crudely connect together and create this huge human-looking robot that’s made of all the other Zords, unsurprisingly, called a Mega-Zord.

What does this have to do with me?!

You, as well as I, and the rest of us as well, are made of a handful of basic instincts that drive us. Each encapsulated in its own super capable shell. …

Anxiety is a HUGE issue

Let me kick this off with a baseline.

1. Anxiety is an epidemic.
   Anxiety disorders are the most common of all mental health issues. Statistics show that every year almost 1 in every 5 adults in the United States suffers from some form of anxiety, so even if you haven’t experienced it yet, it’s coming! Seriously, if anxiety was a Chinese virus, we’d all be going nuts right about now (pun intended).
2. The smarter you are, the worse it gets.
   Another alarming trend we can see with anxiety is its correlation with IQ.
   Which means that the more we think the more anxiety we’re going to experience. …

Worried? Anxious? Afraid of Things to Come?

Believe it or not, in our modern life, the most common fear is the fear of the future. Fear of things that might happen, but yet, might not. Fear which, at times, can become so intense that it may even completely paralyze people and keep them trapped in their routine patterns.

However, as frightening as future events may sometimes seem. It’s imperative to remember that we never really know for sure what the future may bring. All of our worries are based on nothing more than our assumptions, thoughts, and beliefs, and these are very rarely accurate.

The good news is, that since our worry is only a product of our own perception, it is also under our control. And when used right, worry can become our dearest advisor and help us make better decisions than ever before. …

Shooting the Messenger

Back in the 1st century BC, the king of Armenia, Tigranes the 2nd, aka King of Kings, refused a direct demand made by the Roman Empire. Due to that, as usual, a Roman commander was sent to conquer the kingdom of Armenia, and remove Tigranes from his throne.

The legend has it, that when the great king of kings first received the message about Rome invading his kingdom he lost control and had the messenger killed. Consequently, as rumors began to spread, no other messenger dared to deliver him with bad news ever again.

Needless to say that this wasn’t the best decision. While the king of kings remained completely unaware, the Roman army took the entire kingdom (which back then included Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan and East Turkey) without any resistance. [Plutarch’s Life of Lucullus, paragraph…

Define Consciousness

Coming up with a definition for the word ‘consciousness’ has been incredibly challenging, but maybe it’s time to do it justice.

For some reason, even though we all use this word quite frequently and we have no problem understanding each other, when it comes to defining it we’re in a bit of a pickle. From scientists to philosophers and religious characters, all claim that they know what it is, but none seem able to agree.

Even though, let me suggest that the reason we’ve been struggling with defining consciousness is not because it’s a complicated term, but that this entire confusion is actually the result of a simple communication mix-up. …