You're Just Moments Away from Success

Are you the type of person to analyze every second of the interaction you just had with someone for hours on end, or are you normal? Either way, you probably don't think all that hard about every single detail of the decisions you make in social situations. But believe it or not, there's an entire scientific field that applies to social situations and decision-making. We're talking about Game Theory.

Game Theory can be used to analyze both economic and social situations. It's essentially the science of strategy, and just like the reality it is trying to model, Game Theory can get really complicated. And yes, although Game Theory is relevant to games as we typically understand them, such as poker, most research in Game Theory focuses on how groups of people interact.

Let's first define what a game is. So what exactly is a game? It sounds like a stupid question, like who doesn't know what a game is? But games in the field of Game Theory are a slightly different concept from what you might expect. When it comes to game theoretic analysis, a game constitutes any interaction between multiple people where each person's payoff is affected by the decision made by others.

Let's apply this definition of a game to a couple of examples. Is Sudoku a game? Well, in the traditional sense, sure, but in Game Theory, no. Sudoku is not a game because how you decide to complete the puzzle doesn’t affect any other player; there is, after all, only one player in the game, you. What about Tic Tac Toe? Is that a game? Two players can play the game, and each box that is filled by one of the players affects the other player. Winning requires both players to respond optimally to what the other player is doing. So yes, it is a game.

You could also have a situation where two shop owners choose from a finite number of positions where to strategically place their shops for maximum profit. They are each affected by what the other person does, since they may be opting for the same market, and there's certainly a win-lose situation here. So even though placing your shop may not sound like much of a game in the eyes of game theorists, it certainly is. Game Theory is the study of games like these, and game theorists try to model games in a way that makes them easy to understand and analyze.

I say easy, but a lot of games can end up having pretty similar properties or reoccurring patterns, and more often than not, things can get pretty complicated. Game Theory has two main focuses: Cooperative games and non-cooperative games. Most Game Theory models involve five conditions. They'd go something like this:

First, each player has two or more choices or sequences of choices. Think of these like typical moves in a game, like moving a chess piece.

Second, all possible combinations of decisions or plays result in a clear outcome; basically, you can win or lose.

Third, it's clear how you can win or lose, and participants will gain or lose something depending on the outcome.

Fourth, the players know the rules of the game, as well as the payoffs of other players, meaning everyone is aware of what is desirable to the other players as well.

And fifth, the players are rational and sensible people. Rational here means strictly that when they're faced with two alternatives, they'll choose the option that provides the greatest benefits.

While players know the rules and their opponent's options, they don't know their opponent's actual decisions in advance, so players must choose options based on assumptions of what their opponents might choose.

Some Game Theory scenarios are zero-sum games, meaning one player's win is another's loss and vice versa. Others, however, allow mutual gains and losses. These games can involve multiple strategies; you can try to minimize the maximum losses another player can cause and make decisions based on probable outcomes.

This all really just sounds a bit confusing, so here just let me show you. If life is indeed a game, then the first rule is to be skeptical of other people's suggestions. As we said, if it's a game, someone else is going to be competing, so there's definitely going to be competition and sabotage.

Perhaps a straightforward and well-known example is the prisoners' dilemma. The game goes like this: two criminals are caught red-handed and are arrested. Each has two choices; they can either stay quiet or testify against their friend. Upon arrest, they are each separated and offered a deal: testify against your friend, and we’ll let you off the hook easy with one year in prison, and give the other person 10 years. If both stay quiet, the cops can't really prove the more serious charges, and both criminals would spend only 2 years behind bars. If they both testify against each other, however, then both would get 5-year prison sentences.

At first glance, keeping quiet seems like the best strategy. If they both did this, they would both be out after just 2 years. But right before they're about to testify, one of the two thinks to himself, "What if I stay quiet and the other guy rats me out?" Without knowing what the other person is actually going to decide, it's a reasonable worry to have.

The smartest solution to this would be to react in a way that is beneficial regardless of what the other person does. A Nash equilibrium is actually a state in which no one person can improve, given what the others are doing. This means you're picking the best response to a particular strategy from your opponent. A quick analysis of the prisoners' dilemma reveals they would both most likely testify, which is the Nash equilibrium for this problem.

This is because regardless of what the other person does, testifying will lead to a maximum sentence of 5 years, with the potential for a 1-year sentence. Meanwhile, if you don't testify, you could end up with a 10-year term. It's easily the safest thing to do considering neither party knows what the other is going to do. Even though both criminals are better off if they just stayed quiet, here the individual incentive wins over group interest.

Testifying is a better option because you know that you'll be in trouble if you stay quiet but your friend testifies. But if you can think of that, your friend can too, so he knows you're likely going to testify given that it's the safer option for you, and you know he's likely going to testify too for the same reason. And you know that he knows that you're likely going to testify. You see the loop that's forming.

These types of problems are examples of non-cooperative games, which means the two prisoners can't convey their intentions to each other. If they were able to talk to each other, however, we would be in a Cooperative setting, and that would affect the likelihood of certain outcomes. As you can imagine, for example, it would become much easier for them to agree beforehand that they’re both just going to stay quiet.

On the contrary, a coordination game is one in which everyone benefits from working together; there's no incentive for either party to cheat since it will result in a worse outcome than if they just cooperated. A good example is driving on the correct side of the road. You win nothing by driving on the wrong side of the road, but sometimes you lose without even playing.

The principal-agent problem is when one person is allowed to make decisions on behalf of another person. In this situation, the first person is likely to prioritize their own interests and pursue their own goals. And well, yeah, that's the basis of modern politics.

Game Theory can also be applied to biology, though. In fact, its application in the field of biology has allowed biologists to answer a lot of questions about evolution, which is remarkable since Game Theory was never designed for this. For example, it's helped scientists explain biological altruism, where an organism acts in a way that is most favorable for the overall species even if that action is harmful to itself. A bird might warn the rest of the group about the arrival of a predator, doing so risks its own life since it essentially announces itself to the predator. But this trait can later help that bird, assuming it survives, of course, when other birds return the favor and warn it.

These concepts might help you anticipate some of the strategies others might be using to get one over on you, but who really knows what they're thinking? The concept of guessing others' moves is what makes the game so tricky. While each player is likely to be certain about only their own move, they still have to speculate about other players' decisions. And more importantly, other players’ conception of every other player's decisions. Essentially, you are no longer making a decision based on what you think is right; rather, you're anticipating what your opponent thinks is right and simply reacting to it.

But then again, your opponent is doing the same exact thing, so who's really making the decision here? Whose mind is the actual decision being made in? Let's put it another way; each player must know their own chance of coming out on top, guess everyone else's chance, and also guess what everyone else is guessing about their own chances of winning.

Not only this, but you also really need to be able to guess what other players are guessing about your guesses about them. And now look, we're confused again. Another problem is that although Game Theory has many benefits, it would be impossible to properly apply it in all situations.

There will be times where rationality might not offer the right solutions, or mutual benefit might not be the most ideal outcome. When you come up against these, you have to not only recognize them but then also decide whether using Game Theory would be the most helpful way to deal with the situation. By then, the moment could already be gone.

The assumption that everyone is going to be rational—a basic premise of Game Theory—is also a really risky one. Humans can be extremely unpredictable and emotional, and this makes the guessing work near impossible. There's a ton of real-life examples that illustrate the basic concepts of Game Theory. Apple and Samsung are involved in an endless game of advertising. It's not like either company needs to advertise. Besides, advertising can get extremely expensive.

So why not just forego this task altogether and use the money for research and development? If both companies did this, then we'd probably have better phones by now. But sure enough, Apple banks on the possibility of Samsung advertising and gaining an edge over the market, and Samsung does the same. That possibility soon turns into a certainty you and I have all come to accept.

Now, this is an extremely simplistic example that bypasses many other variables, but you see the basic concept. Another good everyday example can be found in the treatment of public goods and property. If everyone decides to be good citizens and not litter, society benefits as a whole. But you're inevitably going to come up against one or more people who choose to essentially go rogue and behave selfishly by littering.

This leads to society as a whole bearing the cost of cleaning up, all the while making not littering a less worthwhile decision. After all, if the road's already littered, the work to not litter is that much less meaningful. You can probably now see how applicable this is to other situations in life, like every big important decision we're supposed to be fixing. But more on that later.

As interesting as it is, Game Theory can still only analyze simple situations with well-defined constraints, and you must remember that any model is a subset of reality. No matter how good it is, it's essentially intellectual guesswork. The bottom line: we're all constantly in the game. It's pretty impossible not to be. Our lives are endlessly and unavoidably impacted by the actions and decisions made by others, so you might as well play the game the best you can.

And that interaction you spent hours analyzing, after the other person has already long forgotten it? Maybe it's not such a bad thing after all. We're just trying to win the game of life, and the reason to win is so that you can be free of it.

To apply Game Theory in your everyday life, you need to have a strong understanding of concepts like probability, logic, and computer science, all of which you can learn on Brilliant.org, the sponsor of today's episode. If you've watched my channel for any length of time, you'll know how much I love Brilliant, and it's because they make learning fun and interactive. Every course is designed by a team of award-winning teachers, researchers, and industry experts, so you know you're getting the most up-to-date and relevant information.

Each course is also divided into bite-sized pieces. Plus, they also have a mobile app so you can learn wherever and whenever you get the time, whether it's 15 minutes waiting in line for coffee or an hour on your daily commute. From probability and logic to social media algorithms and AI, Brilliant has thousands of lessons on many different topics, so there's something for everyone.

I just completed their "How Large Language Models Work" course, and that taught me everything there is to know about how Chat GPT and tools like it work. If you're interested in trying out this course or any other course Brilliant has to offer, you can do so completely for free for 30 days by going to Brilliant.org/aperture or by clicking the link at the top of the description, which will also give you a 20% discount on an annual premium subscription.

Back to our story: I made my first video on this channel in July 2017 after months of going back and forth on whether or not I actually wanted to create a YouTube channel. What would people think? What if people hate the videos and tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about? Who am I to talk about these topics? These were the thoughts that flooded my head.

If you've ever been in a situation where you have to start something or give a presentation in front of a group of people, then I'm sure you've had a similar emotion. It's the fear of being judged—the fear that keeps us in chains and holds us bound from achieving our true potential. To understand why we care so much about what others think about us, we have to go back to the beginning of human history.

Man, like many other animals, evolved to be social. Our survival was dependent on close-knit communities, tribes, and clans. We would hunt together, make shelter, and protect one another from predators, should they dare strike. Being together made us thrive. So at the time, being cast out of the clan almost always meant death. Without the technologies we have today, making shelter, hunting, and protecting yourself from wildlife was almost impossible for one person to do alone.

Sadly, even now that our society has evolved to a point where we no longer have to worry about predators, and we have the tools and resources to provide food, clothing, and shelter for ourselves, the need to be part of a group still has been maladapted to our current reality.

Then we were scared of being left out in the cold; today, we're scared of getting canceled on Twitter because of something we said or getting insulted for repeating clothes on Instagram, or getting hate comments on your YouTube video from people telling you your voice is becoming redundant and boring. You see, this feeling of being ostracized has worsened woefully because of social media. By creating likes and dislikes, we brought to light this need to feel validated and seen.

In an instant, you can see just how many people support you, and that number can be addicting. It gets to the point where we stop saying what we really want to say, and instead start saying the things we know will get us the most likes. Before you know it, you're posting certain thoughts, photos, and writing specific statements to get that attention and validation from others.

How many times have you seen your favorite influencers and creators online suddenly sell out, where it feels like they're no longer authentic, only doing or saying the things they know will please the algorithm? I made a video about Unit 731 and the despicable things the Japanese government did in the Second World War. However, because it was not advertiser-friendly content according to YouTube, the video didn't perform extremely well, and that's fine.

This is the kind of social conditioning that makes people fall in line and stop saying anything that might offend the people with money. It's like they tell you there's freedom of speech, but only when your microphone is turned off.

Growing up, I always felt different. Of course, I had friends and wanted to be part of the social group, but I had questions about the universe that people just didn't like to discuss. Who wants to talk about death and the afterlife on the school playground, after all? Because of that, I felt different from everyone else—like a piece of a puzzle, but from another set. And so, I grew up worried that everyone would look at me as weird and different.

So I tried my best to hide my existential dread to fit in like everyone else. If you're watching this video right now, there's a high chance that you were also once a kid like me, who was so worried about being disliked that you shielded the real you just so you wouldn't be thought of as different. If you're still in that position, listen. Stop caring so much about what other people think and start living your life authentically.

Yes, caring what others think is healthy; however, it becomes harmful when we try to change ourselves just to be liked by others. You would enjoy your time on this floating rock far more if you choose to live your authentic self. And if someone rejects you because of it, you'll know that they were never meant for you in the first place.

Now, if that sounds like a lofty dream and not really grounded in reality, I understand. Because the sad truth of this entire thing is that we do need to be judged fairly by others. At its core, that's what makes our society work. We agree that something is law, and whoever breaks it gets judged. We agree on certain moral principles, and whoever breaks them gets socially ostracized.

We're judged at our places of work, in school, and in our society as a whole. As sad as it sounds, gossip and ostracism helped the greater good of the group. In 2014, Stanford Professor Rob Willer led a study that explored the relation of gossip and ostracism to the harmony and functionality of experimental groups. In this study, Rob found out that groups that allowed their members to gossip and out out-performing members were able to sustain cooperation and prevent selfishness much better than groups that weren't allowed to do so.

When we think of ostracism, we almost always see it in a bad light. However, this study proved that it does have a much more important role in preventing the weak and vulnerable from being bullied and ridden upon.

Have you ever been in a group for a school project, only to quickly realize that there's one person who just wouldn't do anything because they know the group will pick up their slack? How does that make you feel? Now imagine you could remove these people from the group and then gossip to other groups about how bad of a team player they are.

It might seem harsh at first, but because of our innate fear of being ostracized, more often than not, these people would see the reality of what they're doing and actually act better when reinvited into the group. It also prevents these selfish people from exploiting the more vulnerable people in the group and allows them to reach their full potential without fear of being taken advantage of.

The researchers concluded that exclusion compelled participants to conform to the more cooperative behavior of the rest of the group. So yes, we need to be good team players for the proper functioning of society. However, being part of a group should never be at the expense of our own individuality. We should never get so scared of being ostracized that we do not say the things that matter to us for the fear of being judged.

We need to realize that we will get to a point in our lives where we'll begin to assess everything that we've been taught as children. When you start to outgrow old beliefs and walk into new ones, do not be held back by the fear of what everyone who you grew up with would think. Caring about what other people think is necessary for the proper functioning of society, but when caring what other people think affects our abilities to make decisions for ourselves, that's when you need to pause and reconsider.

You're a person with their own thoughts, ideas, dreams, and goals. Don't let the fear of being disliked hold you back from expressing that you want to drop out of school to become a comedian. What would people think? You want to start a YouTube channel? What would people think? You want to be with someone from a different culture or religion? What would people think?

This one question holds so many people back from doing what they love. It's like a chain that binds our neck and leaves us no room to breathe. We're like circus elephants held back by a rope that might only exist in our imagination.

Ultimate freedom is having the courage to be disliked—the boldness to stand firm in what you believe in, even when the crowd is saying something else. The courage to stand when everyone else is sitting, and run when everyone else is standing. The courage to be your authentic self, regardless of what everyone around you tells you to be.

Instead, developing the courage to be disliked is not easy. Remember that it's in our nature to care what other people think. So to stray from that even minutely would mean going against our very own biology, and that's never very easy. But the good news is that we can actually do it.

The first and most important thing to realize is that everyone, just like you, is worried about their own insecurities. When we go out into the world, we're often so consumed with our own insecurities that we feel like everyone else is thinking about us and condemning us. But the reality is, more often than not, just like you, people are so worried about themselves that they aren't really thinking about anyone else.

And when they do speak out against us, they're often projecting their insecurities on us, trying to bring us down to feel better about themselves. Don't let them do that. The difference between ostracism in early humans and what we have today is that with early humans, it was only your closest relatives and members of your clan that could cast you out.

However, today, because of social media, anyone and everyone can have an opinion about us, share that opinion, and we're forced to take notice of it. The problem with this is that we're taking criticism from people we wouldn't take advice from. Think about it: if you wouldn't let this stranger into your house for fear of invading your privacy, why would you let them into your head—the most private place of all?

Sometimes the people judging you and not letting you live your true potential aren't strangers; they're childhood friends and relatives. When that's the case, we need to remind ourselves that the consequences of living outside the group are not as sinister as it used to be. You have the tools and resources to thrive away from your primary group, and in fact, you can find another group to join—one that would accept you for who you are and not try to force you into being something you're not.

I know I've said some negative things about social media in this video and many others, but there are some positives as well. In this scenario, where you no longer feel part of the group you were born into or grew up in, the internet offers you a community of people who are willing to accept you from all over the world. You just have to take the time to find them.

Lao Tzu wrote in "Tao Te Ching," "Care about people's approval, and you will be their prisoner." The courage to be disliked is the key that opens the prison doors and sets you free to be the person you've always wanted to be.

I remember feeling completely aimless in high school. None of my classes felt particularly meaningful to me. I would sit in class, stare straight ahead, and my mind would often just wander. At home, I would try to avoid thinking too much by playing video games or watching TV. At a time in my life when I should have been growing, I was stagnating. I just really didn't care, and that's kind of when I started getting interested in philosophy.

I took a philosophy class with a teacher who was very passionate about it, and that passion affected me deeply. He read philosophical books to the class and would show us inspiring movies. I started reading some of those books on my own, and I was inspired to live my life differently. I can't say I adhere to a specific philosophy or religion, but I definitely live what I feel is a more meaningful existence, and I look at the world in a more clear-eyed way.

After reading over 100 philosophy books, I definitely have my favorites. For this video, I picked the books that had the biggest impact on how I think. They've stayed with me, and my mind frequently returns to them when I think about life's bigger questions.

The book "Ishmael" follows a nameless protagonist who responds to an ad in the newspaper. It's from a teacher of sorts looking for a student who is genuinely interested in saving the world. When the narrator arrives for his first lesson, his teacher turns out to be a gorilla who can speak to him telepathically. The gorilla's name is Ishmael. The gorilla's goal is legitimately to save the world. He believes that human civilization is instructed by a myth that will lead to its own destruction and that of the natural world.

The myth is that nature is an evil to be conquered; that life is humans versus nature rather than humans living in harmony with it. Only by rejecting this deeply embedded myth can humans avoid annihilation. It's a beautiful book that asks us to question the narratives in our lives that support a destructive way of life, and it's a myth that we still largely live. Even if we're willing to acknowledge our destructive ways, we still resign to them almost by default. We look for ways to control the natural world.

Aristotle likened all things, including humans, to an acorn. Everything has a purpose, or a Telos, and just as the acorn's Telos is to become a tree, the Telos for humanity is to use reason. It's what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. From this point of privileging human reasoning, Aristotle developed his virtue ethics. It's a different way of thinking about morality than we're used to.

It's not about establishing a code for right and wrong, but adjusting your behavior to become virtuous. To act with virtuous behavior is to exercise reason. In the "Nicomachean Ethics," Aristotle defines virtue as a mean between two extreme states of excess and deficiency. He referred to it as the golden mean. When considering courage, a virtuous person for Aristotle finds a middle ground between recklessness and cowardice. One is a deficiency, and the other is an excess.

The golden mean wasn't intended to be the same for everyone. Aristotle acknowledged that we're all different in what is virtuous for one might not be virtuous for another. For example, a middle ground between recklessness and cowardice is likely different for someone with a serious medical condition. The "Nicomachean Ethics" is an exciting philosophical text because you can immediately incorporate its virtue ethics into your daily life. It's something you can take to work.

When considering how much space to take up in a meeting or how much to drink at a party, you find the golden mean using reason. Trying to understand Buddhism can be overwhelming. In the 2,000 years plus since the Buddha first sat under the Bodhi tree, a lot of very different schools of thought have grown out of his teachings.

What the Buddha taught brings it all back to the basic teachings of the Buddha, and you get a foundational understanding of the core concepts of suffering, no self, and the path to enlightenment. The Buddhist teachings can be a great way to think about our daily existence and how endless craving impacts our well-being. We get hooked on buying things to make us happy, and we cling to all the stuff we own.

We cling to the people in our lives and to our own sense of self, only for these attachments to hurt us deeply over and over again. But as the Buddha says, there is a path out of the cycle, and it's definitely worth reading about. In the teachings of the Buddha, you learn to unlearn your ingrained notion of the self as something permanent.

In Zen Buddhism, you're trying to uproot thinking in terms of a self and no self at all. You're also letting go of the Buddha himself. We commonly think of Zen as being in the moment, and this isn't actually too far off. In a way, Zen Buddhism is a very deep dive into what it actually means to exist purely in the moment, which entails letting go of the idea of the moment itself.

The goal of Zen Buddhism is to grasp the real nature of your own mind. You need to go beyond logic, words, and concepts. Everyday language fails to convey it. It's the ultimate peace of mind, and it comes from your inner being. In this introduction to Zen Buddhism, you get an understanding of what Zen is and what it is not, and also how Zen is also what it is not.

Like other existentialists, Simone de Beauvoir insisted that existence precedes essence. We create our own essence through our choices and actions. In "The Ethics of Ambiguity," she expands on this core idea to create a moral obligation for how we treat others. Whereas we usually consider ourselves free to make the choices that change who we are, we often don't consider other people the same way. We tend to treat them as something fixed based on their past, and even worse, humans literally treat others as material things—things that exist for another.

The moral obligation here is to treat others as ambiguous. We start to think of them as free to create their own essence rather than exist for another as a material thing in the world. It's this ethics of ambiguity that supports both feminism; women are more likely to be thought of as existing for another, and their ambiguity is more likely ignored.

Based on the teachings of Adlerian psychology and philosophy, Ichiro Kishimi guides you through living a more fulfilling life on your own terms. A dialogue between a young student and a philosopher frames a number of lessons about how to develop yourself into a well-rounded person. The book starts by rejecting the idea that the past shapes your identity. According to Adler, your choices in the moment are what shape you.

He moves on to discuss the most important areas for developing a well-rounded and purposeful life. These include a meaningful work life, routine, healthy relationships, deep intimacy, and trust, and a rigorous self-development routine. But most importantly, you need the courage to be disliked. You have to let go of the approval of others to embrace a well-rounded life in an authentic way.

In "Crime and Punishment," the protagonist Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov does something you rarely see the hero of a story do: he murders someone in cold blood and then another to cover his tracks. It's a brutal scene that leaves Raskolnikov tortured by his actions. Before the murder, he rationalizes his plan to kill the woman. He thinks of her as a nasty old pawnbroker who exploits people. He needs the pawnbroker's money and just feels justified by his belief that all great people should be exempt from laws in their pursuit of the greater good.

He envisions himself to be extraordinary, like Napoleon or Alexander the Great. But justifying an action in your own mind is much different than dealing with the emotions and persecution afterward. Raskolnikov suffers greatly, existing in a feverish state until the novel's resolution. Raskolnikov is also living through a time of political upheaval. Russia is transitioning from medieval traditions to westernization. And like with all political transitions, many get left behind for the greater good.

It's a philosophical novel that has a wide range of interpretations, from existentialists to a complex psychological and political drama. It's definitely worth pondering when you have the time and are in a good place emotionally. Human life is absurd. We desperately search for meaning in a world that has none. To discover this constant, futile struggle is what Albert Camus refers to as the absurd.

In his novel "The Stranger," the main character Meursault has abandoned any attempt to find meaning in his life. He experiences a sequence of absurd events and is indifferent to them. When his mother dies at the beginning of the novel, he is just unmoved. This lack of any belief system alienates the protagonist from others. His disposition ultimately becomes his downfall, as he's eventually judged for his inability to find meaning in anything. "The Stranger" is a great way to experience the feeling of the absurdity in life and is a good comparison to Camus's essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus."

The existentialist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed that after the death of the belief in God, humanity needed something to fill the void; otherwise, we would sink into a state of nihilism, ultimately leading to a preoccupation with distractions. He referred to this state of being as "the last man." His answer to this problem of nihilism was the concept of the Übermensch. He believed humanity should strive to continually overcome itself by affirming all of existence. Where religion and philosophy shame many aspects of life with morality, the Übermensch would say yes to it all.

They would affirm all the pain, suffering, and joy of the world and be free to determine their own values. Ultimately, the Übermensch is the best a human can be when relieved of religion and dated moralities. In his literary work "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," Nietzsche presents us with a prophet to guide humanity to the Übermensch. In the book, Zarathustra struggles to get his followers to embrace this ultimate affirmation, as he too struggles to affirm things such as the God he declares to be dead.

It's a great guide for radical self-making and self-affirmation. When we're constantly confronted with morality and shame at every turn, despite these pressures, we can affirm our own existence and be carefree. We certainly don't need to attempt to become this Übermensch, but maybe we can find a healthier attitude to life by rejecting shame and being able to embrace some of the pain in our life, along with the joy.

In this sci-fi classic, a scientist in the field of psychohistory predicts that his galactic civilization will collapse in a 30,000-year period of chaos and destruction. But the same psychohistorian, Hari Seldon, believes he can shorten this period of turmoil to a thousand years by creating two foundations. Within these foundations are the catalyst for a new galactic empire. The book addresses several philosophical themes throughout, including one central ethical dilemma: Is it justifiable to manipulate large populations in order to bring about a more desirable future?

There's also the question of whether science can master the full complexity of life. Can large populations really be predicted with certainty, or will complexity always undermine such an attempt? And if free will exists, will it make such predictions impossible? As with any good philosophical literature, we're left with plenty of questions to contemplate.

These were the best philosophy books I read, or at least they're the ones that had the biggest impact on me. Like no other genre, philosophy will shake your core beliefs and challenge your outlook on life. Even if it sounds like a painful thought, I promise you it’s worthwhile.

What if I told you that you're an addict and you don't even know it? Don't worry, you're not alone; we all are, or most of us at least. And here's a little experiment to prove it: Once this video ends, turn off your phone and leave it in a drawer for the next 24 hours. Do you think you can survive without it? If you're willing to give it a try, you're already among the few people courageous enough to do so.

That sadly doesn't mean it'll be easy. In the first few hours, you might experience a feeling of emptiness or anxiety. You might feel your phone vibrating in your empty pocket. You might involuntarily reach for it while you're waiting on the bus or for an elevator. As your day progresses, though, a sense of freedom should wash over you. You'll suddenly be witnessing the world through new lenses, so to speak. You'll start noticing things you haven't in a while, and your brain will be more active than it ever can be while mindlessly scrolling through social media.

When the 24 hours are over, you would have gained a new perspective on your relationship with your phone, and you might even become more aware of how much time you spend using it. But if we're being completely honest, chances are you'll be back to your old habits before you know it because, like I said, you're an addict. We all are.

But our phones aren't the problem; our brains are. There's a thin line between pleasure and pain, and you've probably heard this before. But even if you haven't, your brain knows this very well. At our core, we're hardwired to seek pleasure and avoid pain, which makes the two linked so much that the part of the brain that controls these two very contrasting emotions is one and the same.

In our early days as a species, differentiating between the two was often the difference between life and death. With scarce resources, our survival depended on being able to distinguish between the pleasure of having a full stomach and warm shelter from the pain of starvation and the elements. Fortunately, times have drastically changed since then. We're now living in an era of overabundance; instead of scarcity, ideally speaking, this should make us happier, right?

Sadly, the data shows that we're actually less and less happy. Depression levels have spiked in the last 30 years, and people in high-income countries have become less satisfied with their lives in the past decade, even though we're arguably living in humanity's golden age. It turns out that the reason we're unhappy is because of this very overabundance. We become addicted to the feel-good drug that our brain naturally releases.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter released in our brain whenever we're anticipating a reward. You can say it's arguably the most important neurotransmitter because it's responsible for our experience of motivation, pleasure, and reward. Going back to the thin line between pleasure and pain that we talked about earlier, the truth is it's more of a seesaw and not a line. Your brain is constantly working to remain in a state of equilibrium called homeostasis—the balance between pleasure and pain.

So let's say you're scrolling through social media, and you experience something pleasurable, like a cute cat video on your feed. Your brain will immediately recognize that as a pleasurable experience and release dopamine, which will tilt the seesaw toward the pleasure side. Then the balancing act begins, and your brain immediately tilts the seesaw back in equal and opposite amount to the pain side in order to restore homeostasis.

This is when you start feeling restless, anxious, and unhappy. Instead of sitting with this emotion until that balance is restored, you decide to indulge in more cat videos to get another dose of dopamine. This is where dopamine can become a double-edged sword because just like any drug, the more your brain releases it, the less its effect, and the more you're craving.

Today, we have endless ways of getting that quick fix of pleasure. Almost every second of our day offers an opportunity to be stimulated, whether it's sugar and junk food, social media, or porn. The response in our brain is the same: a dopamine hit that brings about pleasure, only to be quickly followed by a balancing dose of pain, or the comedown.

This is when our brain and its constant effort to maintain our chemical balance counters the massive surge of dopamine with massive drops that can lead to a lack of motivation, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and even depression. And just like drug addiction, when we're repeatedly exposed to pleasure-producing stimuli, our brains develop tolerance, and then we need more and more of the drug just to tip the seesaw back and feel normal again.

So we spend more and more time on our phones or indulging in junk food just to end the craving, even though it's not bringing us the same amount of pleasure anymore. The truth is, our brains aren't equipped to deal with this overwhelming dopamine that is so easily accessible today. Our brains really haven't evolved much through the centuries, but our access to pleasurable experiences has skyrocketed, which has caused us to build somewhat of an obsession with instant gratification.

According to Dr. Anna Lembke, the Chief of Stanford University's Dual Diagnosis Addiction Clinic, the problem is that we're losing our ability to delay gratification, solve problems, and deal with frustration. Our obsession with receiving constant pleasure stimuli means we now have less tolerance to pain stimuli, like anxiety, stress, and restlessness. Our brains are literally becoming less equipped to deal with negative emotions.

This is why when you can't reach for your phone, you feel anxious, or why going for a walk feels like a waste of time when you could be playing video games on the couch instead. Instead of processing our negative emotions and dealing with them in a healthy way, we've resorted to simply taking another hit of our naturally released feel-good drug.

But as dark as this may seem, there is a silver lining. Natural dopamine release in our brains is about 10 times less than the surge of dopamine triggered by the use of most hard drugs. Having sex, for example, releases about 200 units of dopamine, while meth can release more than six times that amount. This is why a natural dopamine addiction is much easier to fix than an addiction to alcohol or drugs, even though the process is fairly similar.

So how do you cure your dopamine addiction? Well, the first thing you should do is stop. Stop scrolling through social media or watching porn or eating junk food or seeking any form of instant gratification. Set a target for yourself, like a 30-day break from your crutch. Don't worry; unlike with any drug addiction, you won't be abstaining forever, but this initial period is essential to rewire your brain and balance your pleasure-pain seesaw.

This is what they call a dopamine detox, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy that was developed by Dr. Cameron Sepah. Its name could be misleading because you can't actually stop your brain from releasing dopamine, but abstaining from the constant blast of pleasure stimuli can help you identify unhealthy patterns and replace them with healthy ones.

Once you achieve this, you may then introduce those activities back into your life, but this time in moderation. A warning, though: during your time of absence, you might feel anxious, irritable, or even empty. But you should embrace it. The idea is to delay gratification for as long as possible and get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

As paradoxical as it may seem, you may actually seek out pain instead of pleasure. It's a stoic approach meant to make us appreciate all that we are blessed with in life. So go for a long run, take a cold shower, or maybe even read about stoic philosophy and how challenging yourself can lead to a more disciplined and satisfied life.

When we do challenging things, it has the opposite effect that instant gratification has on our brains. Instead of getting a dopamine boost beforehand, our brain releases it after we've successfully completed our challenge, and this earned high is sweeter, more satisfying, and more long-lasting than instant gratification.

This may seem like a lot of hard work that requires a lot of conscious effort, but that's the whole point: conscious effort. A big reason for our dopamine addiction is that we unconsciously seek out pleasure-seeking stimuli because they're so easily available. How many times have you grabbed your phone without even realizing it and found yourself scrolling through social media? How many hours have you spent scouring through Netflix late at night when all you really wanted to do was just go to bed?

If we're going to reset our brain's dopamine levels, we have to actively work to make that happen. At the end of the day, it's only natural to pursue enjoyment, but the kind of world we're living in today has created an expectation that we can always be happy. But the truth is that we can't, and that should be fine.

Seeking out pleasurable stimuli is good; it's the obsessive and elusive pursuit of happiness that is the real problem. So let's go back to our phone experiment from the beginning. Whether you've decided to do it or not, its purpose wasn't really to show you that you're a dopamine addict, but to help you gain some perspective on how your phone is affecting your life. This little device is a gateway to countless amounts of fun that you could enjoy with just a swipe or two, and it almost feels silly not to.

But as with all things in life, there are consequences. We've forgotten how to be alone with our thoughts, how to concentrate on the flow of our lives without any interruptions, and how to focus on what's really important. The truth is this overabundant world we live in today means that almost all of us are addicted to something. So whatever dopamine addiction you think you have, do you think you can cut it off for long periods of time—like a day or even a month?

Can you deny your natural programming, delay gratification, and seek pain instead of pleasure? You can find out the answer to this question in a couple of seconds when this video ends, and you're left with a simple choice: watch another video, eat another cookie, or play another video game. Give in to the dopamine craving that you know no longer satisfies you, or you can fight the urge and go for a walk, take a cold shower, or maybe even just be for a minute or two without any sort of stimulation.

You now know that it's crucial for your mental seesaw, your peace of mind, and ultimately your happiness. Money—how does that word make you feel? Is it a rush of adrenaline, dollar signs running through your head like a slot machine? Perhaps you feel motivated, ready to send those work emails you've been putting off, or spend an extra hour writing that movie script that you're certain will be a hit.

But maybe you don't feel so good when you hear that word. Maybe the mere mention of money causes your hands to go clammy, your heart rate to rise, and your brain to start doing somersaults around all the ways in which you don’t have, need more, or want more money. Whatever your response is, we all have one because, as they say, money makes the world go around.

Whether it's your $5 coffee every morning to start your day, or the $3,000 loan payment you just made, not a day goes by for most of us that we don't consume, spend, study, or merely think about money. You could be the driver of a sports car wearing a diamond necklace, or the homeless person who watches that car drive by. On one level or another, money matters to us all. Yet for as much as money matters, it's surprising that there's so much we don't know about it, and a lot of things that we think we do that are just plain wrong.

This is a crash course on how your world and the world of high finances intertwine in hopes that in the end, we know that much more about this illusion that keeps the economic world spinning. Contrary to what you might think, money, as we know it today, at least in its physical form, has remained largely unchanged for millennia. The first sign of what we might think of as a bank note took the form of a piece of leather in China in 118 BCE, and 900 years later, paper currency came to fruition.

It would be another several hundred years before this kind of currency would make its way to Europe and then the rest of the world. Centuries have now passed, yet the basic concepts invented by the Chinese aren't that distinguishable from what we have today. In fact, the only real difference is what these notes and coins represent. The first real global system of valuing currency was the gold standard, which began in England in the early 1800s.

It tied a currency's value directly to the established value of gold. So in a country like the United States, $1 was pegged at exactly 1/50th of an ounce of gold. This system was set up in such a way that ideally, it would provide a stable monetary environment around the world, and it did for a while. But as with all natural resources, the supply of gold was not as fixed as we originally thought.

As a result, countries began dropping it as a means to measure the value of money. In 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon officially severed the convertibility between dollars and gold. "I have directed Secretary Connally to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets." By that time, the U.S. dollar was seen as the global standard currency. So once the dollar was no longer dictated by the value of gold, pretty much nothing else was.

If the value of the dollar is no longer determined by the value of gold, what exactly makes $1 worth $1? Well, instead of a commodity-backed system like the gold standard, we now have something called fiat currency, which has no intrinsic value and is instead backed by a government. What gives today's dollar its value is the economic supply and demand in the United States.

And who controls that? Governmental financial systems. In the case of the United States, it has the Treasury and the U.S. Mint in charge of printing its money. But as we can see in the growing number of digital businesses and iPads in place of cash registers, money printing is a dying business. So if a government isn't literally printing money, how exactly does cash come into circulation?

The vast majority of money exists only as numbers on a computer—incredible amounts of money digitally credited to commercial banks by a country's central bank. This central bank controls how much money it deposits into the commercial banks based on the economic situation of the country. During the early stages of the pandemic in the U.S., some of that money was sent directly to bank accounts in the form of stimulus checks. But that's an extreme case, and most of the time, that's not how the money ends up with us.

Here's how it usually works: a central bank sends money to banks and credit unions nationwide, and they in turn distribute that money into the economy by lending it to their customers. This brings us to the topic of debt. Around 80% of Americans are in some kind of debt, yet many people don't know what exactly debt is and how its moving parts work.

What they do know, and what is backed by several studies, is that even the idea of paying off debt can be a severe emotional strain. No one wants to owe anyone anything, but with the cost of living vastly outpacing the money we earn for a living, loans are the necessity everyone hates, yet most can't live without. You get a loan to purchase your car, start your small business, go to college, or buy a house.

Very few people can afford a house with the money in their bank accounts, yet all of us need a roof over our heads. So some people choose to rent, while others decide to take out a loan from the bank in the form of a mortgage. But banks aren't charity organizations; they're built to make a profit, and the way they do that is through interest.

Interest is the amount you, the borrower, pay to use the money a bank or financial institution has loaned you. Think of it like the rent you pay on your apartment every month. You don't own the apartment, but you get to use it for a fee. In the same way, you don't own the money you use to purchase your house, but you get to use it for a fee.

This buy now, pay later model does not only exist for big purchases like a house and college; it has permeated our entire society so much that most things we purchase now exist on this model, especially since the creation of the credit card. Don't have enough cash for that new couch? Put it on your credit card. Want to get that new iPhone? Pay a monthly fee to your internet service provider. Heck, even consoles like the Xbox follow the same model.

We now use credit to pay for even small things like a sandwich, a new pair of pants, or food for our dogs. If we pay our balances on time for those purchases, we can avoid the interest rates that credit card companies charge, and we'll be fine. But for a lot of us, especially in hard times, we tend to build interest on our cards, which can quickly lead to a pretty bad spot financially.

Credit cards can help provide a financial buffer in a bind if needed, but they also come with an element of risk. So are they worth it? There are some mixed feelings about this. Some people think that using credit cards is a surefire way to send yourself straight into sinking debt, but others see frequent credit card use as a way to build good credit, which, if you've ever leased an apartment or bought a car, is an important part of daily life these days.

Whichever side of the fence you're on, one thing we can all agree on is that you need to be careful when using credit cards so that you don't overspend and dig yourself into much deeper debt than is necessary. By being wise with your credit, savings, and increasing your income, you can have enough disposable income to finally do with your money what every financially stable person suggests: invest.

Investing basically means committing your money to something to earn a financial return. It's making your money work for you. One mantra in the investing world is "the greater the risk, the greater the reward." Investments like bonds are safer but offer lower returns, while investing in individual stocks can provide incredibly high returns but are also extremely risky. And let's not even get started on cryptocurrency; we'll need an entire video to go over investing properly.

But in the end, if we get the opportunity to do so, our goal is to build our wealth to increase how much we're worth. And that's the entire point of money: to show how much something or someone is worth. How much is a carefree retirement to you? That will inform how much money you put away in your retirement account. What about a car? We might splurge on a luxury vehicle because it's worth it to us to enjoy the extra comfort and social status.

The byproduct of this is that as a society, we become obsessed with the idea of worth. From material goods and worldly possessions to personal worth and even that of others, publications like Forbes and Bloomberg publish wealthy individuals' net worths, assigning a number to someone's success. To create these lists, dozens of reporters track down millionaires and billionaires all across the world, collect their personal information, add up all of the presumed assets, and subtract their liabilities.

So if Jeff Bezos owns approximately 10% of Amazon and we subtract his jet, his yacht, and any other creature comforts that he enjoys from that 10%, we should be able to identify his net worth. That simple addition and subtraction seems deceptively easy, doesn’t it? That's because it is. It's hard to get reliable data, and it's hard to figure out exactly where wealthy people store their money. Many of the wealthiest people in the world are investment bankers, but on a day-to-day basis, there's no way to know the composition of their firms' portfolios, which directly dictates the wealth of those who run it.

There's also discrepancies when it comes to celebrities' wealth—perhaps where most of our obsession lies. Kylie Jenner was said to be the youngest self-made billionaire at one point. But her business isn't just valuable because of how much money it makes; it's valuable because she is involved with it. The business's worth is reliant on her involvement; her wealth is wrapped up in her business and vice versa. So the equation becomes even more complicated.

I hate to break it to you, but most celebrities' net worths are basically guesses and not really an accurate portrayal of how much they control. So why are we glued to these lists? Are we ultimately comparing ourselves to the world's richest people, allowing ourselves to be fascinated by financial wealth at our own expense? The truth is, while learning about money and understanding how our economic system works will not guarantee you a spot on Forbes billionaire list, it can give you peace of mind.

Knowing a thing or two about money can help us see the world a little more clearly and not feel so overwhelmed by economic news. Because although having money isn't everything, not having it is.