“I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches.

I feel, therefore I am is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that's alive...
.. My self does not differ substantially from yours in terms of its thought. Many people, few ideas: we all think more or less the same, and we exchange, borrow, steal thoughts from one another. However, when someone steps on my foot, only I feel the pain...
.. The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings. While it suffers, not even a cat can doubt its unique and uninterchangeable self ...
.. In intense suffering the world disappears and each of us is alone with his self.

Suffering is the university of egocentrism."

― Milan Kundera, Immortality (1988)

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More from @paraschopra

26 Jul
Use all your unfair advantages.

(a 🧵)
1/ Capitalism rewards rare and valuable.

Making something that customers value is important, but so is making something rare.

invertedpassion.com/capitalism-rew…
2/ Markets are competitive and initial success usually leads to other companies or new startups trying to copy and replicate such success for themselves.

invertedpassion.com/steal-successf…
Read 20 tweets
25 Jul
Just finished this beautiful #book by @MerlinSheldrake on fungi.

Highly recommended!

A short thread on things that struck me from the book.
1/ The first obvious but surprising thing is that fungi is neither animal, nor plant.

For a long time it was clubbed into plants, but evolutionary history suggests that’s it’s a domain of its own.
2/ Though, surprisingly, it’s closer to animals than plants.

I did not know that.
Read 12 tweets
21 Jul
To reduce suffering in the world, you need to first prioritize its causes

I'm trying to come up with a measure for the intensity of suffering for different conditions (starting with depression)

Want to help me with the project? Take this 2 min survey docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

🙏
I'm doing this is because when I wrote my moral code, reducing suffering in the world came out as a clear direction:

Given limited time and money, I need to compare suffering that different conditions cause.

Hence the need for a standardized measure.
The difficulty is in standardizing this across wildly different suffering types and beings who suffer.

There are many happiness surveys, but not enough measures of suffering.
Read 4 tweets
13 Jul
Our “self-identity” doesn’t exist.

(a mini thread)
1/ Let’s take bodies.

Maybe collection of “our” cells define who we’re?

Well, we contain more bacterial cells in our bodies than “our” own cells. And these bacterial cells are essential for survival.
2/ What about DNA? Surely, that describes us.

Mitochondria that lives within each of “our” cells was once another organism that ended up in symbiosis with “our” cells. It contains its own DNA.

Also, about 8% of our DNA came from viruses.
Read 9 tweets
12 Jul
Your competitors are just like you: smart and hard-working.

(a tiny 🧵)
1/ Entrepreneurs have to be confident in their abilities, otherwise, they’d never take the risk of starting a business.

However, this confidence can backfire if it’s adopted as a company strategy.
2/ If you think you’re smarter or more hard-working than your competitors, your competitors are also thinking the same.
Read 8 tweets
7 Jul
Butter v/s Margarine war has an important lesson to teach for the emerging plant-based food industry.

(a mini thread)
1/ The plant-based meat alternatives industry currently is exploding.

Funding is exploding for the sector. (via @GoodFoodInst)
2/ So is sales.

For example, see @BeyondMeat's sales.
Read 17 tweets

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