Joe Rogan Is a Bad Human Being (but Science Is Good)

Science saved my life, 2017 version.

Science has made our lives better, cancer edition.

Steven Pinker pointed out a crazy stat: about 100 years ago, being pregnant had about the same mortality rate as a breast cancer diagnosis today.  😮

On the other side, from Losing My Religions:

[W]e all have our psychological quirks and blind spots, even people who make a living railing against unreason. For example, in early 2022, author (The End of Faith) and podcaster Sam Harris took a break from maligning misinformation to defend his friend Joe Rogan.

At first glance, this seems at the very least unnecessary if not absurd. But to me, it makes perfect sense. Even though he is one of the worst sources of misinformation, Joe Rogan is much more famous than Sam Harris, and Rogan has repeatedly been deferential to and promotional of Harris.

Even though Rogan is a significant net negative for the world, our minds are simply not built to do utilitarian calculations when it comes to interpersonal dynamics. The human brain evolved dealing with small groups of people who we see every day. So if someone with more social power praises us, our brains simply can't help but view them as "friend."

For a fuller discussion, this Revisionist History podcast by Malcolm Gladwell goes into detail as to how Rogan uses his platform to spread dangerous, deadly misinformation. Only listen when you can fast forward - the ads are many and obnoxious. 

People Hate Vegans & Regenerative Ag Is a Joke

"Hot enough for you?"

From our pal Kenny Torrella at Vox:

The false climate solution that just won’t die

(A drum I've beaten for many years.)

Many years ago, I stopped collecting "people hate vegan" stories, but then this one came via Kenny: Why Vegans Make Everyone So Angry, According to Science

Bonus AI Tips

I don't use AI as much as I could / should, but I follow the field a bit, mostly here. (E.g., ChatGPT cures jaw clicking; ChatGPT says why it was released to the world.) (One Step for Animals has tried AI video tools, but so far, nothing has performed better than our "classic" videos.)

Three bits:

1. If you want a very basic starting point, , here is a summary of the three main Large Language Models / chatbotsfrom The Neuron (see also this from 80,000 Hours):

• ChatGPT: The famous all-rounder. Great for creative tasks, coding help, and general questions. Try it.

• Claude: The thoughtful writer. Excels at nuanced tasks, analyzing long docs, and sounding human. Try it.

• Gemini: Google's speedy researcher. Best for up-to-date info and integrating with Google apps. Try it.

All have free tiers, so you can experiment without paying a dime.

How to Use Them (It's Simple!):

1. Go to one of the sites above.

2. Sign up (usually free & quick).

3. Type what you want into the chat box (this is your "prompt").

4. Hit enter and get your answer!

Yep, that's basically it. And remember: it's a conversation.

Pro tip: Chat with it about something you know well—make it something fun. Whether you know the ins and outs of yacht rock, crochet, or the D&D Monster Manual, it’s very well-versed.

The #1 Tip for Better Results: Be Specific!

The key to getting good answers is asking good questions. Don't just say “write an email.” Instead, try: “Draft a short, friendly email to my team updating them that Project X is delayed by one week. Keep the tone positive.” See the difference? Giving context and details makes the AI much more helpful.

Quick Ideas to Try Today:

• Summarize: Paste a long article and ask for bullet points.

• Brainstorm: “Give me 10 catchy headlines for a presentation on AI.”

• Draft: “Write a thank-you note to a client after a meeting. [Details here]”

• Explain: “Explain cloud computing like I'm 5.”

Why Bother? Because AI is quickly becoming a standard workplace tool*. Learning the basics helps you automate tedious tasks, generate ideas faster, and simply work more efficiently. 

Spend literally 5 minutes trying one simple task on ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini today. You’ve got nothing to lose and potentially a lot of productivity to gain. Once you’ve played around a bit, check out this list of awesome resources to dive deeper in.

2. Here is a good discussion of AI as a "co-intelligence." Good stuff at the link and in the discussion; highlights:

• *Treat AI as a teammate, not a tool. An eager, hyperactive, indefatigable, mistake-making assistant. 
• Let AI ask you questions. E.g., this prompt: "Before answering my questions directly, please ask me 1-3 targeted questions that will help you understand my context, goals, and constraints better."
• Push beyond “good enough” ideas. E.g., "For this [project/task/conversation], my objective is [brief description]. Please help me think beyond my first ideas to discover more creative possibilities." 
• "For complex problems, please suggest multiple approaches with meaningful variation rather than just refining a single solution."

3. Of the uses for AI listed in the graphic below, #3, #5, and #2 (in that order) are the most useful to me so far. 
 

A Polygraph for Climate Doomers

You should really read https://www.smbc-comics.com/ 

If you know someone who thinks climate change is The Worst Thing Ever*, and is going to exterminate humanity, please tell them we could fix it cheaply and relatively quickly.  

I doubt many of them are going to get behind that. In this sense, the Right is right; many of us complain about "doom" rather than seek solutions.

More: The Worst Thing About the “Climate Crisis” Is What It Does To Your Brain. When I first saw that headline, I thought it was about how climate doom destroys mental health. But it is actually about the proposal to use the U.S. military to enforce global poverty, along the lines of The Cruelty of Climate Fanatics.

* From "Extinction Is No Big Deal" here:

"If global warming truly is The Worst Thing Ever, why is geoengineering a topic we can’t even discuss? Ocean seeding and enhanced weathering – these aren’t even part of the discussion. Increasing albedo is verboten because the sky would look different? A slightly-less-blue sky overrides The Worst Thing Ever?"

The Emancipation Proclamation was (probably) not what you thought it was

As Doris Kearns Goodwin makes clear, the Emancipation Proclamation was a military decision to help the war. It only applied to slaves in the Confederacy, not to border states still in the Union. 

Lincoln: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.” 

Doubt it? From Team of Rivals:

On August 14, Lincoln invited a delegation of freed slaves to a conference at the White House, hoping to inspire their cooperation in educating fellow blacks on the benefits of colonization. “You and we are different races,” he began. “We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races.” Lincoln acknowledged that with slavery, the black race had endured “the greatest wrong inflicted on any people.” Still, he continued, “when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. You are cut off from many of the advantages which the other race enjoy. The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent, not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours.” Meanwhile, the evil consequences of slavery upon the white race were manifest in a calamitous civil war that found them “cutting one another’s throats.” Far “better for us both, therefore, to be separated,” Lincoln reasoned.

It took a pragmatist, not an abolitionist, to actually free the slaves in the United States. 

AI Tip and 4/4 of New Zealand South Island

Summary of this too-long post: 

• Role: Define what the AI is (“You are a helpful research assistant”).
• Instructions: Set behavior and tone (“Respond concisely, avoid speculation”).
• Sub-Instructions: Add focused control sections (prohibited topics, phrases).
• Reasoning: Encourage structured thinking (“Think step-by-step”).
• Format: Specify response structure (“Summary: [1-2 lines], Key Points: [bullets]”).
• Examples: Show sample inputs/outputs.
• Final: Reinforce key points at the end.

And now, finishing our #1 bucket-list trip to Oceania, here is a list of places New Zealand seemed like: San Diego (Auckland), San Francisco (Wellington), Hawaii, Alaska, Colorado, the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Also like Lord of the Rings and what we've seen on TV of Ireland and Scotland (rolling green hills with sheep). The last pictures:

Taking the trail less traveled at Mt. Cook / Aoraki National Park.
We heard (but didn't see) three avalanches! It was quite startling the first time. 

Mt. Cook

Glacier.

The payoff of staying in the Dark Sky Reserve!

Hundreds of flower pictures from these two days.

Not a flower!

Finally flew on an A380, the world's largest commercial plane.
Best trip in economy ever.

Sunset over Sydney. The wing was like an ocean. Just huge.

Thanks for indulging me!

Incredible

I saw this graphic before, but then couldn't find it. Just amazing. Breakdown by state indicates some (but not a lot) effect of the electoral college - swing states show somewhat of a trend toward higher voter turnout. It is so unfortunate that everyone's vote doesn't count equally. 

But still, more eligible people don't vote than vote for any one candidate. 

 

Lincoln, Stevens, and Going Beyond Our Self

We finally watched the movie Lincoln, and found it amazingly relevant. The hero is clearly Thaddeus Stevens (played by Tommy Lee Jones, shown here). More than anyone, he had reason to preach no compromise on equality, demand full abolition of any and all discrimination, and insist on nothing less than full and total rights immediately. He clearly would have been justified in raging with hatred at the venomous racists in congress (even a century-and-a-half later, knowing history vindicates Thaddeus, it is difficult not to be outraged when watching a re-enactment of this long-past debate).

Yet Rep. Stevens didn’t give in to his understandable anger. Instead of being “true to himself” – justified and righteous, and on the losing side – he chose possible progress over personal purity, incremental advance over impotent anger.

This – progress over purity – is my hard-won mantra. I wish one of us had summarized it as well as Jonathan Safran Foer, who, in his interview with Vegan.com’s Erik Marcus, explained the two motivations for his book Eating Animals: 1. To be useful, not thorough; 2. To get new people to consider taking the first step, rather than demanding the last.

I was reminded of this on Facebook recently. Our friends at Compassion Over Killing have VegWeek, a positive, inviting / non-intimidating way to get new people interested in taking the first step. But in a FB post promoting VegWeek, all the self-centered fanatics came out of the woodwork: “Why just a week?? Be vegan forever!” “When you say ‘veg,’ you had better mean Vegan!!” Etc.

Of course, we all want our views and convictions to be validated, especially when in the minority. But the question is: Do we seek to justify our views / demand our position, or do we want to get as many people as possible to take a step that helps animals? We may, like Thaddeus Stevens, burn with righteous anger, but we can also recognize that to make real progress in reducing the suffering of others, we need to get past our fury and embrace effective, thoughtful, focused advocacy.

If we really care about the animals first and foremost, we can abolish our personal desires and demands. We can see past our rationalizations and focus instead on making real, practical progress for the animals who are suffering to death every day. To do so requires opening the hearts and minds of others – there is no way around it. And helping new people open their hearts and minds isn’t done by preaching and anger and "facts," but by compassion and understanding.

You and I have each other for support. Animals need us to be unwavering in our dedication to actually helping them as best we can.

From 2014. 

Writing Advice + More NZ South Island (3/4)

Have you received an email and thought, "This is too short to read"? Or, "Gee, I wish this was longer"? 

IOW: You should take your draft and shorten it. And then shorten it again. Email, web page, report, etc.

Also:

• No one cares about you except as you benefit them.
• Use bullet points.
• Read it out loud.
• Run it through an AI to summarize.

I don't mean you must use AI to write. Rather, use AI as an objective reader to see how well you are communicating. Ask what the AI takes away from your piece. Ask for harsh feedback.

Absolutely ignoring the first bullet point above, let's continue our trip through New Zealand's South Island (as always, click to see bigger):

Above Queenstown

We probably got over 1,000 flower pictures on this trip.
I'll save a few of those for other posts.

Lake Wakatipu (from Queenstown Botanic Gardens)

Link to two bonus Queenstown pictures of the most intensely fun two minutes of the trip.

A brutally beautiful landscape (cold and windy, too) between Queenstown and Wānaka.

Just an amazing landscape, and we had it all to ourselves.

Along a river near Wānaka.

The Wānaka tree.

A teaser for next week.