Infinite Loops

Key Takeaways

Viewing life as a video game can help you increase your agency
Don’t look for meaning; look for use
Resourcefulness is the defining characteristic of a high-agency person
“Pessimists sound smart, but optimists make money.” – Jim O’Shaughnessy
The Luck Razor: If you are between two opportunities, choose the one that will give you the potential to experience the greater amount of luck
The alpha is in all the things that the media ignores, but historians will study
If a person can extract all of your opinions based on just one of your opinions, then you might be a non-player character (NPC)
No matter how smart a person is, they cannot create a list of things that will never occur to them
Thinking that you are the genius in the midwit meme is the most midwit behavior possible

Writer, marketer, entrepreneur, and master of mental models, George Mack, returns to discuss the top 0.1% of ideas he’s ever come across, from treating life as a video game to spotting high-agency individuals.

Important Links:

Show Notes:

Treating Life as a Video Game
Finding the Important Metrics
Embrace Momentum; Embrace Constraints
How to Spot High Agency People
How to Increase Your Agency
The Mack Meditation & Silence as Alpha
Why Pessimism vs Optimism is the Wrong Debate
The Future of Media
What is Ignored by the Media but will be Studied by Historians?
The Reddit to Facebook Continuum
George’s Most Midwit Opinion
Randomness & Feeding the Algorithm
How to Retain Curiosity
George as Emperor of the World

Books Mentioned:

The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (a Little) Craziness and (a Lot Of) Success in America; by John Gartner
Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine; by Derren Brown
What Works on Wall Street; by Jim O’Shaughnessy
The Secret; by Rhonda Byrne
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid; by Douglas Hofstadter
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World; by David Deutsch

George Mack — The Game of Life (EP.195)

Podcast Notes Playlist: Latest Episodes