Permissions

A friend recently highlighted how Lex Fridman was doing this series of interviews to learn and discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict. I can’t pretend to know very much more than the surface level details that have been told to me through various videos and explainers.

The easier path to building a brand, running a corporation, or continuing to produce a podcast is to avoid talking about highly sensitive topics. The sage advice that older people often give to younger people is to avoid discussing politics or religion when interacting with strangers. It tends to be a powder keg for unwanted outcomes. Of course what people realize is that many of these people whom you’re not supposed to talk about politics and religion with, want to almost exclusively talk about politics and religion.

The challenge with these discussions is the context that surrounds any particular moment in a discussion. When you’re tuned in to the context, you receive permission to do and say what the context calls for. In the world of podcasting, very few people could do what Lex has done over the past few episodes discussing both sides and getting interpretations of beliefs and thoughts while offering some resistance and asking questions that the audience is genuinely curious about.

Over the many conversations Lex has had in public, he has earned the permission of his audience to broach the most sensitive topics in the name of love and optimism.

Also I found out about this today: The first room temperature super conductor. The jury is still out if this can be replicated, but from my limited understanding this is huge if true. Enabling quantum computers, major improvements in transmission of electricity, an abundance first world.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008