The Timestamp

Share this post

Summer Edition 😎- Making moonshots πŸš€- Life in 2300 πŸ“š- Put your brain in low power mode πŸ”‹- What is defining GenZ βœ…- Why were the Beatles so successful? πŸŽ™

thetimestamp.substack.com

Discover more from The Timestamp

Top insights from key opinion leaders every week
Over 1,000 subscribers
Continue reading
Sign in

Summer Edition 😎- Making moonshots πŸš€- Life in 2300 πŸ“š- Put your brain in low power mode πŸ”‹- What is defining GenZ βœ…- Why were the Beatles so successful? πŸŽ™

Think independently and in exponential cadences, imaginatively and in crystal-clear execution

The Timestamp
Jul 10, 2022
4
Share this post

Summer Edition 😎- Making moonshots πŸš€- Life in 2300 πŸ“š- Put your brain in low power mode πŸ”‹- What is defining GenZ βœ…- Why were the Beatles so successful? πŸŽ™

thetimestamp.substack.com
Share

Episode #70. Hey Sunday reader πŸ‘‹πŸΌ

How was your first part of 2022? Yes, I guess it went incredibly fast for you as well. Lots of unexpected news like the rise of inflation or the war in Ukraine (which I will not cover in this newsletter).

In case you feel you did not have enough time to read much, don’t worry, The Timestamp is here to help you! You are more than 2000 happy (and free) subscribers reading us every week. Why not join them? You will get your weekly insights from the articles, books or podcasts you may have missed in tech, future of work, or philosophy applied to your daily life.

Thanks for reading The Timestamp! Subscribe for free and join more than 2000 curious and smart readers like you.

#1. Making moonshots

TL;DR From this article πŸ‘‰ Making Moonshots written by Rahul Rana on July 7, 2022. Published in the newsletter called Not Boring by Packy McCormick (more than 137,000 subscribers).

This article is actually detailing how and why deeptech has and will continue to change our world to make it better.

Over the past XXth century, innovation breakthrough has been mostly led and funded by governments, academia and military-led authorities up until the 70ies. The author believes now that β€œdeeptech startups are just as important as academia to scientific progress”.

The Manhattan Project, for example, directly created the atomic bomb and indirectly unlocked insights that made nuclear power possible. Today, nuclear is a crucial element of energy abundance and a potent weapon in the fight against climate change. Ironically, the atomic bomb could help save or destroy the planet.

Once WWII was ended, U.S. President Roosevelt said that there was no reason why this kind of experiment could not benefit in times of peace.

Quoting Roosevelt, he wrote that β€œwithout scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world”.

But the private sector would be given more weight to the innovation game following β€œthe 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, which formed patent protection for publicly-funded research, allowed”.

As a consequence, β€œscientific progress is now distributed amongst thousands of venture-backed entrepreneurial scientists that are collectively iterating and advancing their fields in a financially sustainable way.” The important question becomes: can we have more startups change the course of history ?Β 

The term β€˜moonshot’ comes from the Apollo Missions that succeeded in getting the first human being on the moon with Apollo 11 in 1969.

The author tries to define what a β€˜moonshot’ founder looks like:

  • Radically creative

  • Cautiously optimistic and realistically unrealistic

In brief, β€˜moonshot founders’ are able to β€œthink independently and in exponential cadences, imaginatively and in crystal-clear execution”. Are you that kind of person?


#2. Life in 2300

TL;DR From this book πŸ‘‰ Douze AnnΓ©es LumiΓ¨res (Ed. Diateino) written by JB Rudelle. Published in 2022.

I took the time to read this new book from Jean-Baptiste Rudelle and this has really been a good moment of anticipation.

Not being an expert of the Science Fiction (SciFi) genre, I enjoy trying to think what our planet will look like in 300 years from now. Science is so powerful that it is worth asking ourselves what will be possible in the future; that is what the author tried to cover in his book which I would put in the β€˜new’ category : Science Anticipation.

There are a number of questions that this book raises. And like always, questions are oftentimes more interesting than answers:

  • Do we have to develop a more detailed plan to develop/migrate human life on a new planet? Yes if we are convinced that our resources will not cover sustainable life of billions of humans on planet earth.

  • In case we find a very distant planet like Kanuta where humans could live, how can we get there taking into account that travelling faster than the speed of light (like in Star Wars) is scientifically very unlikely if not impossible?

  • How can we mobilize a massive budget for a mission that most of us will NOT witness failure or success since it will take several generations to reach its (potential) goal?

  • What is the real trap? Staying on planet earth with the risk of a declining humanity or looking for life in space where isolation during a long trip and human heritage may vanish before reaching a new planet where we can live?

I let you find and read Douze AnnΓ©es LumiΓ¨res to gather your thoughts about a possible future of humanity. That’s worth it. JB Rudelle might become our national β€˜moonshot’ founder πŸš€.


#3. Put your brain in low power mode

TL;DR From this article πŸ‘‰ The brain has a low power mode that blunts our senses published in Quanta Magazine in June 14, 2022.

Yes, you might think that the summer holidays are the perfect times to switch your brain off and relax. Interestingly, eating (much) less is now a proven method to power down your brain. Be careful, I am not saying it is recommended. Here is what scientists recently found about the impact of eating less on our brain:

"Now, in a paperΒ published inΒ NeuronΒ in January, neuroscientists inΒ Nathalie Rochefort’s lab at the University of Edinburgh have revealed an energy-saving strategy in the visual systems of mice. They found that when mice were deprived of sufficient food for weeks at a time β€” long enough for them to lose 15%-20% of their typical healthy weight β€” neurons in the visual cortex reduced the amount of ATP used at their synapses by a sizable 29%.”

β€œWhat you’re getting in this low-power mode is more of a low-resolution image of the world,” saidΒ Zahid Padamsey, the first author of the new study.

β€œThe results suggest that brains prioritize the functions that are most critical to survival. Being able to see a 10-degree difference in the orientation of bars probably isn’t essential for finding nearby fruit or spotting an approaching predator.”

Practically, if you plan to have an important meeting where you have to perform at your best… make sure you have ingested enough power to shine and succeed.


#4. What is defining GenZ?

TL;DR From this article πŸ‘‰ 10 characteristics that define GenZ published in the newsletter Digital Native by Rex Woodbury in June 23, 2022.

GenZ population (people born between 1999 and 2020) is now the largest in the US population according to the Census Bureau.

  • Inclusion and diversity. Do you know that more >20% of GenZ identify themselves as being part of the LGBTQ community?

  • Stressed and anxious. 43% of young adults between 18 and 34 are worried of the mental health. Reasons for this are multiple and the Pandemic or the rise of new conflicts in the world are highly contributing to this scary trend. However, β€œA reason for optimism is that Gen Z’s know their mental health is poor, and they’re taking action. Talking about depression is no longer stigmatized; more and more people are going to therapy”.

  • Authentic & Private. GenZ are going away from performing as they are exhausted by the constant connectivity and comparison they face on the internet. This is a major difference with the Millenials. In social apps, this can be explained by the move from Instagram users (more millennial) to TikTok or BeReal where authencity is key.

  • Entrepreneurial. β€œLast year, more than 47 million Americans voluntarily left their jobsβ€”an all-time record. What’s interesting is how young people entering the workforce are trying their hand at new paths. Many are earning income as content creators, or starting small businesses, or launching startups. This is facilitated by a new set of companies.”


#5. Why the Beatles were so successful?

TL;DR From this article πŸ‘‰ Can’t buy me luck: The role of serendipity in the Beatles’ Success published in Scientific American in May 4, 2022. Takeaways from Patrick Kervern.

How do you explain the serendipity at work in Beatlemania ?

The right combination of variables is necessary to achieve a blazing successβ€”one explanation for why there was never a β€œKinksmania”.

According to Harvard University professor Cass R. Sunstein β€œif seven or 17 things had gone differently, the Beatles wouldn’t have made it.”

The band almost split up in the beginning. One big compelling factor was that its members were carried along their winding road by an unusually enthusiastic manager (Epstein), a risk-taking producer (George Martin), a big local fan base.

According to Sunstein analysis : The process of Beatlemania involved 4 processes :

  • β€œinformational cascades” (the statements and actions of some affect the statements and actions of others),

  • β€œreputational cascades” (going along with the crowd to be liked),

  • β€œnetwork effects” (the value of a good increases as more people use it) and

  • β€œgroup polarization” (groups make more extreme decisions than individuals do).


This newsletter is 100% free. You can make us super happy just by sharing it with a teammate, a friend, or a family relative. Just click on the button you see below.

Clicking on ❀️ will also make us know you really read it πŸ˜…. Can you do it?

Share The Timestamp

See you next Sunday!

4
Share this post

Summer Edition 😎- Making moonshots πŸš€- Life in 2300 πŸ“š- Put your brain in low power mode πŸ”‹- What is defining GenZ βœ…- Why were the Beatles so successful? πŸŽ™

thetimestamp.substack.com
Share
Comments
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

Β© 2023 Babylone 3L Clind
Privacy βˆ™ Terms βˆ™ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing