The product (marketing) decision to focus on AR passthrough does seem really strange. If I was going to use a VR device for work, then, maybe if the resolution was high enough it could be nice to have much more space, but, I'd really only care that I'm not bumping into things. I'm not exactly sure why this AR route is being pushed before it's ready -- living in the world through cameras seems like a much harder problem to be solved after getting the base VR case to work.
IMO the more interesting business cases would be around simulated environments even as simple as viewing 360 videos for places where workers would be expected to know what's going on when they enter.
Actually now I’m confused because I don’t understand Latin. Psyche definitely gets at the mind idea, but also soul or spirit. Ick sounds like what I do before I vomit but I guess “delic” is really what we’d be concerned about, but then this seems like it’s just talking about an experience of the first thing, an arrow pointing back to an amorphous blob of language. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse that I brought my own preconceptions to the word at this point, or how my preconceptions are different from the thing itself. I’m seeing other interpretations talking about dissolution. It’s certainly something big happening, that’s for sure! In a way, I’m also confused about mindfulness. Is my mind full or is the fullness of mind different from that? Does it mean something that there’s only one “L?”
Absolutely I think the next interesting discussions could either be about the word, or what to do.
Again, thanks to the author for properly choosing A New Brand, with existing baggage which perfectly typifies where discussions like this tend to go, see comments below.
I had a thought that this is even beyond the word psychedelia and extends more broadly to all modern health. But then, I think the word is just right, since psychedelia has as much to do with LSD as vitamins have to do with vitamin water. If you disagree with the analogy that’s no issue, it’s simply A Catchy Hook.
Psychedelic simply means expansion of the mind and is independent of any particular practice or substance.
Mindfulness seems to be another, or even, “the,” new culmination word for “safe” psychedelia in the west (as contrast with the “unsafe” roll-your-own a.la burning man). We can tell it’s the current culmination word because it’s polarized, the one word with a significant amount of scientific research, but then at the same time oddly clinical and paradoxically overall too LuLu lemon & vitamin water. It just doesn’t seem to have that same oomph as eating acid and stealing fire in the desert, but it’s receiving medical approvals that pave the way for economics to benefit people at scale. Mindfulness seems to encourage passivity, but then it’s practiced by navy seals. At the core, it’s all wrong by placing too much focus on the mind, just like we’ve always done in Latin-based languages.
Whatever the word is, developing a perspective that we individually believe is worth cultivating is the root of a connection between well-being and performance.
It doesn’t sound like a SASS app because it isn’t. It doesn’t seem like a good business idea because business is a dirty word, like mindfulness, people think there’s a way to do it.
Two quotes stood out to me:
“But what we really need are psychedelic models for business - business that defines new standards for integrity, equity and ethics; business reimagined with a technicolor glow.”
“What would I have done if I had known that this would happen?”
The second seems like exactly the right question. If you have an answer I’d love to chat, even just for fun.
Wow this is actually scratching an itch of mine now. I love the kindle feature of saving / sharing quotes and have been wanting something for offline. Awesome work Tanner!
I don’t think this is a humblebrag. It’s a success story, and we should celebrate those. There’s nothing wrong with being excited about something turning into more of a success than expected, and there are a lot of general values in the post that may be broadly encouraging to folks here.
Interestingly, in his book outlining the technique he teaches, Andy doesn’t directly recommend people do any sort of guided meditation. Rather, he talks about it like a sort of skill people can learn.
There are probably diminishing returns once you are able to focus through the technique, however, even in monasteries with experienced meditators simple cues like bells are used because everyone gets distracted once in a while!
I thought this was strange too. I was just watching Gary open a few $500 football card boxes today (5 cards in each). Upon opening a box without any rare players he said: "That's what you get sometimes gambling!" So I think people know that's what's going on.
Yea the TCEC is one. I also think the chess.com computer chess championship (CCC) is interesting (Stockfish is winning here as well). The CCC uses more advanced hardware. Both are live now and interesting to watch, I mentioned the link for CCC but the TCEC is here: https://tcec.chessdom.com/
A server-based championship would also be interesting but pretty degenerate. I guess that's why computers playing more complex real-time games is becoming the bleeding edge.
I would love to use Alpha Zero. The article makes it sound like Komodo (which uses similar techniques to Alpha Zero) could also beat Stockfish (since Alpha Zero beat Stockfish). Stockfish still beat Komodo and all other engines according to the computer chess championship which uses equal-and-limited compute requirements.
Nothing similar about private personalization was definitively mentioned for the recommendations inside the AppleTV app, however. From what I can tell Apple will be collecting viewing information, not only for content on iTunes but now, content viewed via cable subscriptions and streaming subscriptions like Hulu and Prime Video. The value proposition of this new app is "all of your content in one place, regardless of subscription." The only commitment from Apple was that they wouldn't share personal information with anyone (not that Apple won't have access to this information).
It's no wonder there wasn't a partnership that worked with Netflix here since Netflix uses information about viewing to guide licensing deals and inform what the studio should produce.
I assume it works like Pocket personalized recommendations in Firefox. 1/ The reading history is stored on-device, 2/ encrypted on-device, and then 3/ kept in sync with other authenticated devices that are able to decrypt the reading history (which is stored on the server but not readable by the server because it's encrypted).
One highlight is that there's a heavy emphasis on private recommendations inside the news app, including magazines (the app downloads a set of articles and manages recommendations on-device). There was a slide "Apple doesn't know what you read." Apple is doubling down on not giving data to advertisers.
There's also an interesting aspect to a realtor that fills a guiding role. They're the person who helps turn seemingly intangible preferences into tangible search criteria (which can be executed by either party on mostly-public databases).
In fact, in the long-term, as jobs are automated, I'd expect people to spend more time, not less, on taste clarification. Then the pattern is to think about how all guiding roles in society will form to tools that automate the simple bits and let humans spend time doing what they do best. Imagine how much better it would be as a realtor to spend time in conversations inside virtual homes rather than sitting in traffic, navigating database searches, or fiddling calendars.
IMO the more interesting business cases would be around simulated environments even as simple as viewing 360 videos for places where workers would be expected to know what's going on when they enter.
Thanks for the detailed analysis!