Becoming a goat to avoid existential dread (with Thomas Thwaites)
1. Cultivate Agency Through Difficult Projects
Choose difficult projects outside your comfort zone and actively pursue them, embracing personal agency and collaborating with experts to overcome challenges and gain new insights.
2. Flex Project Rules for Learning
For self-directed projects, be prepared to bend or break your initial rules if strict adherence hinders progress or detracts from the core learning objectives.
3. Consult Specialized Experts
For complex or unusual projects, reach out to experts in highly specialized fields, as they often appreciate the unique perspective and may provide valuable guidance or resources.
4. Research Deeply, Pivot Early
Conduct thorough research into your initial project ideas, as a deeper understanding might reveal unforeseen complexities or misalignments, prompting you to pivot to a more suitable path.
5. Simplify Overwhelming Projects
When a complex task seems impossible due to too many components or materials, simplify it by identifying and focusing on only the most essential elements to make it achievable.
6. Adapt & Experiment Quickly
If a traditional or initial approach to a complex problem proves too slow or difficult, seek out unconventional and more convenient methods to experiment and iterate faster.
7. Consult Historical Practical Guides
If contemporary scientific explanations are too complex for direct application, look to historical texts or experimental archaeology for simpler, more practical methods and diagrams.
8. Mine Secondary Material Sources
If obtaining raw materials is difficult, consider sourcing them from waste streams or recycled goods, especially when this aligns with the project’s conceptual goals or sustainability.
9. Understand Foundational Complexity
To gain a profound understanding of your profession and the world’s interconnectedness, try to create a product or service entirely from its raw, fundamental components, similar to a chef growing their own ingredients.
10. Viscerally Understand Civilization’s Scale
Undertake projects that force you to confront the immense, interconnected complexity and collective human effort behind everyday objects, leading to a deeper, emotional understanding of civilization.
11. Appreciate Hidden Product Complexity
Understand that even inexpensive, common products contain hundreds of individual parts from diverse global sources, revealing an “impossibly complex” manufacturing and supply chain.
12. Embrace Distributed Knowledge
Recognize that complex societal functions and products rely on distributed knowledge across many individuals and institutions, rather than complete understanding by any single person.
13. Understand Capitalism’s Optimization Bias
Recognize that capitalism, while efficient, primarily optimizes for low cost and convenience, and requires external regulation to align with broader societal and environmental goals.
14. Re-evaluate Disposable Consumption
Question the sustainability of manufacturing practices that produce cheap, easily discarded goods, and consider the long-term environmental impact of such a trajectory.
15. Confront Inevitable Harms in Design
When designing or creating, acknowledge that true harmlessness is often impossible; instead, explicitly consider and choose who or what will bear the inevitable harms, making it a political and ethical decision.
16. Widen Tech’s Purpose Conversation
Actively engage in and broaden the public conversation about technology’s purpose, its interaction with the economy, and its impact on lives, especially as decision-making power consolidates.
17. Seek “Human Holiday” Experiences
If feeling overwhelmed by human worries and the complexities of life, seek experiences that allow you to temporarily step away from human concerns and embrace a simpler, more present state of being.
18. Question Linear Progress Narratives
Critically examine and question the ingrained societal narrative of linear human progress, recognizing it as a story rather than an absolute truth, and consider alternative philosophies of existence.
19. Challenge Anthropocentric Hierarchies
Recognize that all species are equally evolved and specialized for their environments, challenging the anthropocentric view of humans being at the top of an evolutionary pyramid.
20. Acknowledge Limits of Understanding
When exploring complex questions about consciousness or experience, acknowledge the inherent “problem of other minds” and the limitations in truly knowing another being’s internal state.
21. Understand Neuroscience’s Current Limits
Acknowledge that current neuroscience is far from being able to fundamentally alter or replicate complex mental states, such as experiencing the world as a different animal.
22. Respect Physical Limitations
When attempting to mimic animal behaviors or push physical boundaries, understand and respect your body’s anatomical limitations to prevent serious injury.
23. Embrace Discomfort for Insight
When seeking deep, authentic insights into alternative ways of living, be prepared to endure significant physical discomfort, as it can be a powerful teacher.
24. Learn Through Embodied Immersion
To gain a deep understanding of a different perspective, immerse yourself physically and adapt your behaviors, learning through direct embodiment and observation, rather than just intellectual study.
25. Experience Social Hierarchies Viscerally
To fully understand the practical implications of social hierarchies, seek experiences that allow you to feel their effects physically and emotionally, rather than just intellectually.