George Mack Profile picture
May 4, 2019 26 tweets 7 min read Read on X
DOUBLETHINK - The most important idea you've probably never heard of.

When you look deep enough at reality, it is EVERYWHERE.

I'm a white belt at this, but let's go down the RABBIT HOLE...

THREAD...
DOUBLETHINK is the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct.

In other words, being a hypocrite can be a SUPERPOWER.
1. We're told by society that idiots think in black OR white (This is partially true)

2. We're told that smart people think in shades of grey

DOUBLETHINK is the ability to think in black AND white at the same time

The shades of grey are often where smart people go to die.
Einstein, Jobs, Bezos, Musk, Thiel, Kanye etc all paradoxically exist with two opposing personality traits:

1. Very disagreeable
2. Very open to new ideas

"Strong Opinions, Weakly Held".

Doublethink is Antifragile.

You get the upside of both stubbornness and humility.
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” - Fitzgerald
@John_Kavanagh says the best fighters exist in a state of Doublethink.

During training, they are completely egoless. They seek out their weaknesses.

As a result of this, when fight week comes - they believe they are unstoppable.

Their ego goes from 0 to 100.
@matthewsyed says that before Tiger Woods takes a swing - he has to exist in a state of EXTREME self doubt about what club and stroke he should use.

HOWEVER...

Once he's made that decision, he needs to switch to a state of extreme self-confidence to perform his swing.
@Benaskren says that his students need to be able to switch between "Beginners Mind" in training but "Know-it-all Mind" in competition.

They have to exist in a state of Doublethink.
@wolfejosh's investment approach is called "100-0-100".

- 100% certainty he will be investing in the cutting edge.

- 0% certainty what the cutting edge idea will be, leading to perpetual paranoia.

- 100% certain he will find it in his cutting edge professional circles.
What is fascinating about @wolfejosh's "100-0-100" is that if you took away the 0% certainty part - Josh would lose all his humility and paranoia that drives his success.

His extreme self doubt creates his extreme confidence.

The 0 gives birth to the 100's.
Charles Darwin used to follow a golden rule:

Whenever a new piece of evidence contradicted his beliefs, he would make a note of it.

His extreme self doubt lead to a man without that much natural ability to discover one of the most fundamental scientific theories of all time.
@NickSzabo4 has a beautiful fork on this idea for dealing with complex arguments called QUANTUM THOUGHT:

"Run down the arguments as if each one of the would be true, even if they and their sub arguments contradict each other. You have to keep both of them in your mind at once".
“This isn't how we are socially taught to think... We are taught that you have to have a point of view or an answer, you have to pick a side, pick your tribe, fit in, then defend it, and be consistent. But the reality is really complicated.“ - @naval on Quantum Thought
@joerogan's charisma is that he is simultaneously:

50% - Shredded jock that loves fighting, running hills and discipline.

50% - DMT smoking, free loving hippie that loves profound conversations with public intellectuals. (And isn't afraid to cry).

What a quantum mind!
Doublethink can be useful for issues of IDENTITY.

Identity can be a super power ("I'm a non-smoker" - @JamesClear)

Or it can blind you ("I'm a republican/democrat so all my ideas have to line up neatly")

Turning identity ON and OFF is where the magic is.
Another Doublethink identity hack:

Identify as someone who has no identity.

You have to constantly maintain having no identity, because it is your identity.

State it publicly to friends.

Your brand is hypocrisy.

You're free to view reality objectively in the moment.
Taleb has a doublethink investment strategy he calls "The Barbell".

All in at EXTREMELY SAFE and EXTREMELY RISKY investments.

Avoid the shades of grey in between like the plague.

Most people end up in the shades of grey. Image
I've found the optimum work strategy via Doublethink:

- 4-5 hours of intense solo focused deep work (BLACK)

- Followed by hours of intense socialisation and feedback loops with the most intelligent people I know (WHITE).

NOTHING in between.

I call this "The Manic Ambivert".
The WORST working strategy I've found is the opposite...

16 hour days working on shallow tasks with no breaks but constant gossip and push notifications. (SHADES OF GREY)

You're left exhausted with nothing completed.

It's the worst of both worlds.
Doublethink for friendship:

1. 80% of your time spent with a handful of friends you admire that can compound for years.

2. 20% of your time seeking out new friends to add to that handful.
The majority of people exist in the opposite of this - the shades of grey.

90% of their time is spent having shallow conversations about the weather or gossip with people they've known for years and still don't click with.
@rabois encourages Doublethink via "Pairing Indicators".

If a customer service team is only measured by a reduction of fraud rate, they start treating every customer like a potential con artist.

So he measures both effect (Fraud Rate) and countereffect (Service quality).
Josh Waitzkin trains Doublethink through HIIT training.

He practices turning it ON - heart rate up to 180 beats per minute. Extreme focus.

He then turns it OFF - heart rate down to 120 beats per minute. Extreme relaxation.

He can then create those states at will.
Final thought:

I find it fascinating that what feels like a disaster at the time can often become the best thing that ever happens to you.

1st law of Thermodynamics - Emotion cannot be created or destroyed. It just changes form.

Now that's true DOUBLETHINK.
SUMMARY:

1. Be like water

2. Invest time and energy in polar opposite extremes

3. Have pairing indicators

4. Be disagreeable but more open to new ideas than anyone you know

5. Turn your mind into a quantum computer

6. If in doubt, be a hypocrite.
I talk about this idea and many more in depth on the Modern Wisdom podcast with @ChrisWillx

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/mod…

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More from @george__mack

Mar 28
Underrated rule of thumb: Don't put another human on a pedestal.

Even the greats had human flaws:

1. ‍‍Steve Jobs delayed nine months of medical treatment of pancreatic cancer for a carrot juice diet and acupuncture. Image
2. Mozart overspent his income, lived miserably in mountains of debt and regularly wrote letters to friends begging for money. Image
3. Isaac Newton spent thirty years of his life writing 1 million words on alchemy.

Hidden for years by his heirs because they were too embarrassed to publish it. Image
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After 7 months of writing, I finished my essay!

I think agency might be the most important idea of the 21st century

highagency.com
High agency in a meme: Image
High agency in a moment: Image
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Mar 23
After 7 months, I finished my essay on high agency.

So I asked myself: "What's the most high agency way of promoting it?"

Last night, I took over the iconic Times Square in New York for $0.

Hilarious story... Image
I spent 7 months trying to simplify high agency in the essay:

Optimism = Glass is half full

Pessimism = Glass is half empty

High agency = You're a tap Image
When it came time to promote it, I used the high agency tricycle:

1. Clear thinking
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Like a tricycle, if you take away any of the wheels -- it stops working. Image
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Aug 12, 2024
"Most people die at 25 and aren't buried until they're 75" - Benjamin Franklin

Why?

4 reasons and solutions: Image
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0-25 is a well-designed video game.

You level up each year.

There are regular milestones as you go from infancy to school to entering the workforce.

You constantly feel like you're making progress -- and have reflective milestones.
After 25, it's a terribly designed video game.

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If you don't have the agency to design your own 25+ video game, the only milestones life will give you are the funerals of your loved ones -- followed by your own funeral.
Read 23 tweets
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What idea do you think is true AND underpriced?

Here's mine: The most productive people turn life into a video game.

Let's go deep into this...Image
I had this red pill moment when I saw the following:

The laziest person I’ve ever met play a video game for 16 hours straight, 7 days per week.

My brain began to hurt: The laziest person I knew just did more focused work than I’d seen anyone ever achieve.
I’d hit level 100 of cognitive dissonance:

The laziest person in my life is also the hardest working person in my life?!

I needed a software update for my broken worldview:
I realised this person wasn’t lazy…

Instead, their reality was just a poorly designed video game.
Read 23 tweets
May 30, 2024
How to choose where to live and what locations to visit:

12 non-obvious thoughts:
1. The 3 big decisions: Where you live, what you do, and who you're with.

Location might be the most important one because the other 2 are often downstream of location.
2. Good rule of thumb for locations to avoid: What places has the most amount of sofa people? (People that drain your energy you need to lie down on a sofa to recharge)
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