NonTrivial

We all want our voices to be heard. But the reality is most of us will never live to see much of an audience. We need to realize we’re not really speaking to today’s generation, as much as we are to future people who will encounter our work. There are countless examples throughout history of people who died never seeing their true impact. As long we make our thoughts tangible, our audience will al...

We are told by society to chase happiness; that the "pursuit of happiness" is the most sensible goal in life.  But I argue that happiness has much in common with misery when it comes to pursuing goals. Both happiness and misery are emotional extremes, and both things we cannot control. Making that which we cannot control a goal in life is untenable. I argue that we need to see the pursui...

Our best ideas come unannounced. We might be walking, taking a shower, playing with our children, etc. But this means when we sit down to do our actual work we are missing so much of the original inspiration and energy. We’re missing the quality insight we had in the moment. I argue that we need to capture our ideas the moment they arrive if we are to deliver truly authentic and in-context work. I...

Life is full of narratives. They're how we make sense of the world.  But narratives exist somewhere between truth and nonsense. The challenge is to see past the narratives, aligning our lives with that which is true. I discuss the technique needed to see past the narratives in our lives. Support the show Become a Member at dekyon.io/seanmcclure/nontrivial Premium members get access to the ful...

Temptations are things we desire to do, but are also things we deem wrong or unwise. Temptations take us away from who we want to be in life. Temptations start off harmless, but have a tendency to grow without notice, until we are living an incorrect life. I argue that we must learn to stop problematic distractions early, by replacing our damaging preoccupations with more productive and authentic...

Collaboration is good, but friction is needed to solve tough problems as a group. The quality of information depends on stark individualism, rather than some engineered collaboration based on excess politeness and etiquette. In this episode I argue that  collaboration should not be equated to "being nice", and that the energy and authenticity we need to work well in groups depends on a g...

When we think about the things we want to accomplish, we often frame them in terms of the barriers we need to pass. But this isn't the case for things that comprise our lifestyle. When something is part of our lifestyle we just do it, and often do it well. Exercise, writing, whatever; our goals become far more obtainable when we stop putting them on pedestals and instead just move. I discuss...

We are often told that if we want to be good at something we should focus more. But a single (real world) task has multiple facets that must be honed, and you cannot learn those facets from the task itself; they must come from other areas of life. In this episode I argue that to be good at any one thing we should do many things.  Support the show Become a Member at dekyon.io/seanmcclure/nontrivial...

In 2014 there was a debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham regarding whether or not Creationism is a viable explanation for earth's origin. Regardless of which side you agree with, there was what I consider a problematic response from some of the scientific community, which was that the debate never should have happened, because it gave a voice to something counter to the scientific consensus. I...

Human society has always applied filters, to select who should be in a particular group. This is both evolutionary and required for good social dynamics. But we also apply filters institutionally, using systems of meritocracy to vet candidates both in academia and industry. I argue that these institutional filters are far too narrowly-defined to account for the complexity and high-dimensionality o...

As we go through life we notice things about our ability to perform, like when things work and when they don't. But most people tend to leave at that, hoping they'll gravitate towards the better parts over time. But what really transforms our ability to perform is when we convert the things that work into specific techniques we employ. I'll give an example of just how powerful this...

In this episode I challenge the idea that discipline is what's needed to achieve successful outcomes. Discipline requires we act against our instincts and willpower. Anything so opposed to our natural evolution can't be right. I believe that what looks like discipline in successful individuals is really just the behaviour people take-on when they put themselves in the right environment....

Many of us are avid readers, because reading helps us learn about important topics, and more importantly compels us to create things ourselves.  But today's nonfiction is loaded with so many references and footnotes that their isn't much room left for the author's authentic opinion. I argue that many creators are researching themselves out of their opinion, leaving us with dry comme...

AI is getting impressive. But being impressed is not an objective measure of progress. For a technology to truly bear the mark of innovation it must enable us to create new things. I argue that few people are creating anything new with AI, rather they're just showcasing what it can do out of the box. I'll look at ChatGPT as an example, and put forward how I think AI should be used as a s...

In this episode I argue that true creativity demands that we have less options available in our attempt to build something new. I first acknowledge that creativity requires freedom, and freedom includes having a number of options, but then also discuss the problems that arise by having too many options. I will argue that creativity works better when we are constrained by good structures, and that...

In this episode we look at how neuroscience tries to explain human behaviour by identifying specific regions in the brain. I'll discuss how such targeted approaches are problematic in science, and how Neuroscience is just another example of a complex science acting as though it's far more simple and deterministic than it really is. We'll look at the myth of root causes, why nature d...

We need to contribute to society in order to survive, and that means having a job. But many people hate their job, and find it difficult to feel fulfilled while earning a living. I believe there is a solution that exits at the interface between what we expect from the world and what the world expects from us. There is a way to remain focused on what we love, while still delivering on tasks we don&...

In this episode I argue that intuition is more rigorous than precisely defined arguments, such as those constructed using mathematics. I talk about the cost of precision in real-world situations, offer an approach to formalize intuition, and suggest that when it comes to establishing the connection between our ideas and reality we should always let intuition lead. Support the show Become a Member...

In this episode I discuss deadlines, and the critical difference between the artificial ones we create to manage our lives, and the real ones dictated by nature. I discuss how our manufactured deadlines run counter to the natural rhythm humans use to create, and how we need to somehow reconcile our modern use of manufactured deadlines with the realization that good solutions only exist at nature&a...

In this episode I take a look at the notion of quality. How to define it and how to assess it in real world situations, and I’ll discuss what I think is a useful heuristic for sizing up both things and people that make their way into our lives. Support the show Become a Member at dekyon.io/seanmcclure/nontrivial Premium members get access to the full member app. This includes data visualizations o...

There are 2 main approaches to AI (symbolic vs connectionism), and they are very different in how they think about producing intelligence in the machine.  One approach believes in programming what we know about the world into the machine, and the other ignores any pre-existing knowledge by relying on large datasets and correlation. There is a long-standing debate between which approach is best, de...

The modern narrative frames structure and systems as oppressive. As though we should never be held back by systems that interfere with our ability to express our unique selves. But being ourselves at all times with no system to govern our behavior is its own trap. The unfiltered and unstructured life is an unproductive and unfulfilled one.  I argue that there is a difference between the real you a...

Hey everyone, Sean here from NonTrivial. Just a quick announcement for the upcoming season 4. In season 3, I used a book to anchor our conversations. I did this so that I could show how many of the core patterns we encountered in seasons 1 and 2 appear universally in many different contexts. In season 4 I will be returning to the original format of discussing the patterns themselves, without speci...

We all depend on our environment to survive. We need food, water, friends, family, coworkers. We participate in the economy, pay for entertainment, post on social media. But all these things bear the seeds of our destruction. We need things to grow, but past a point these same things can destroy us. The real challenge in life is finding the right dosage for the things we depend on. Analytical appr...

In this episode I take a look at the nature of time, try to figure out what it is, what today’s physics can and cannot tell us, whether or not it’s an illusion, and how memory and consciousness might play a fundamental role in the realization of time.  I discuss Einstein's Relativity, review some thought experiments related to time, and describe what I think is wrong with the current physics...