The Mental Pivot Newsletter: No.8
In this issue: Common humanity vs. common enemy thinking, podcast newsletters for podcast discovery, and loads of curated links for the curious.
When possible, I prefer “common humanity” politics over “common enemy” politics. Common humanity politics emphasizes shared values, good-faith, common ground, and forging a path through compromise and mutual understanding. Common enemy politics splits us into opposing tribes, emphasizes divisions, and encourages vilification of the “other.” The former sees the world as a positive-sum game, the latter as a zero-sum game. It’s an idea well articulated by social psychologist Jonathan in this 2018 interview with the Royal Society of Arts and in his book “The Coddling of the American Mind” (link to my book notes). It’s also an idea worth exploring if you’re exhausted by divisive rhetoric from all ends the political spectrum.
Now onto the updates...
What’s New on the Blog:
1. The Ultimate List of Podcast Newsletters for Podcast Recommendations
Sometimes finding podcasts is a chore. Most podcast apps offer discovery features such as popular episodes lists and featured programs, but there’s another great way to get recommendations that I’ve increasingly enjoyed: podcast newsletters. Unable to find a decent, up-to-date listing of the best podcast newsletters, I decided to round them all up in one convenient blog post.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Earbuds Collective (subscribe | read the archive)
Find that Pod (subscribe | read the archive)
This Week in Podcasts (subscribe | read the archive)
Read the full list to explore more podcast newsletters.
Related: Entrepreneur Sam Harris reached out to me recently about his forthcoming podcast app, Syncify.fm. The app aims to improve podcast discovery and encourage social listening. Curious podcast listeners can sign up for the beta waitlist.
2. Articles and Podcasts of Note (Week of 10/26/2020)
This is my weekly roundup of interesting links and internet finds. You can read the complete post on the blog, but here are the highlights:
Articles:
The Building Blocks of Tech: Interesting look at the “no code” movement and the rise of creator platforms like Roblox and Airtable—powerful tools for non-programmers.
Education, First Class Flights, Chauffeurs and Bribery: The Secret Life of a Private Tutor: Feature article from the Economist. “Education is now a global battle: far more people in a wider range of countries are competing for slots in the same, few elite institutions.” Truly a new kind of arms race to the top of the meritocracy.
How Apple Is Organized for Innovation: A look at Apple’s invisible innovation: its functional organizational structure and leadership model—a single, aligned P&L model implemented in 1997 that persists today.
Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method: Writer Sascha Fast, a longtime Zettelkasten practitioner and creator of the software program The Archive, offers an excellent introduction to the powerful note-taking system.
Knowledge Building Blocks: The New Meaning of Notes: Note-taking guru Tiago Forte ponders the question “what is a note?”
The Last Days of Stan Lee: A quartet of bad actors (including his daughter) allegedly exploited and abused the Marvel legend in his final years. A sad tale of elder abuse.
The Need to Touch: “The language of touch binds our minds and bodies to the broader social world. What happens when touch becomes taboo?”
The Taboo of Admitting Some Kids Just Aren’t Good at School: Fredrik deBoer’s new book “The Cult of Smart” argues against the idea of equality of opportunity (he instead advocates for equality of dignity, rights and political equality). At the very least, it gets you thinking about the many dimensions of “equality” and the different ideas society has for achieving it.
Podcasts:
Heavyweight: Bobby: Bobby Lord was an aspiring punk musician when he got recruited to record a cheesy jingle that became one of the most reviled McDonald’s television commercials of all time.
Infinite Loops: James Clear—Constructing Habits & Systems: (infiniteloopspodcast.com): James Clear offers fantastic insights on asking effective questions, writing as an antidote to confusion, habit formation, and more. This was an info dense episode and worth listening to even if you’ve read his book “Atomic Habits.”
This American Life: The Walls Close In: Three stories about feeling trapped: a college professor is trapped in an elevator with his kids, married Nicaraguan political dissidents seek amnesty in the USA, and a Broadway pit orchestra that performs together for nearly 3 decades.
The rest of this week’s link roundup can be read here.
Odds & Ends:
The Luminary Labs consultancy recently crowdsourced a list of 200 “must read” newsletters covering a variety of domains and topics. Excellent grist for your RSS reader or newsletter collection.
Speaking of reading material, Standard eBooks has a wonderful collection of classic literature formatted for eBook readers (Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Dumas, etc.). If you’re wondering how this project differs from Project Gutenberg, Standard eBooks claims they stricter typographic and stylistic standards which yields a superior reading experience.
If you want some serious bookstore envy, check out the interior design of this recently opened bookstore in China (it’s awesome). Per Architectural Digest: “The two-story space appears cathedral-like, thanks to the mirrored ceilings and gleaming black tile floors which reflect the bookcases, creating a visual effect that feels akin to an M.C. Escher drawing.”
File under “jobs I didn’t know existed”: Fjodor van den Broek is the new “horological conservator” at Windsor Castle. This month he’ll be tasked with manually updating over 400 timepieces. This article from the BBC offers more details and includes some gorgeous photographs of the Royal timepieces.
If you ever need high-quality, free stock photography, check out Pexels.com. I’ve been using Pexels images on my blog and newsletter periodically, and they’ve got a great library of photos that can be used freely and legally per their generous Terms of Use.
An entirely different type of photography can be observed as the website This Person Does Not Exist. It’s been up for a while, but I still find it cool. Every time you load the page, a unique and original photograph is created by a machine learning model. As the website name clearly states, the person displayed—no matter how convincing the appearance—is 100% computer generated.
Popular YouTube channel “minutephysics” creates informative videos on a variety of scientific concepts. “The Astounding Physics of N95 Masks” was illuminating and showed me that the filter-as-strainer mental model I held was completely wrong (the mask functions more like a spider-web with layers of sticky fibers).
My kids and I have played with marble runs in the past, but the German toy company Ravensberger has taken things to the next level with their GraviTrax marble system. Here’s a recent video of a jaw-dropping 1000-marble run that showcases how cool this toy is.
In honor of Halloween, Twitter user @entymology_nerd posted a fun infographic highlighting the origins behind two dozen popular candy bars titled “How candies got their names.”
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