Podcast Summary: The Grand Redesign | Infinite Loops Podcast
Link to full summary: Sam McRoberts — The Grand Redesign (EP.143) | Infinite Loops
Podcast Summary
Jim O'Shaughnessy and Sam McRoberts discuss Sam's new book, The Grand Redesign, complex systems, the "us versus them" mentality, the future of a new economic system, and much more.
Key Takeaways
Humans need to rapidly develop our outdated "hardware" and "software" to keep pace with technological change - the way to do that is through stories
Change the stories, change the world
We are currently in a transition stage between an economy with scarcity, which is driven by consumption, and an economy with abundance. The transition comes with much unrest and challenges.
Document everything - the brain is designed to make us forget things it doesn't want to remember
Everything happens in the subconscious and then it gives directions to the conscious
"Change the system, change the incentives, and voilà, guess what happens? People change their behavior." - Jim O'Shaughnessy
As long as you understand what makes people tick, it's very easy to determine how incentives are going to play out.
Anything that we can do to raise somebody's baseline on Maslow's hierarchy of needs gives their brain the bandwidth to actually act on some of the things they may already know.
"Worry is an endlessly peeled onion" - Alan Watts
Our system is optimized for growing GDP, not for human flourishing