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  • 17. What are good ways to solve the world’s problems?

    17. What are good ways to solve the world’s problems?

    The Government Organization

    How did we put a man on the moon? We created a government organization that employed extremely talented people that worked together in teams solving small problem after small problem until they figured out how to do it.

    The Open-Source Crowd

    How did we get a general, somewhat reliable source of information about just about anything on the internet? Someone decided that if there was an open encyclopedia that anyone could edit, eventually there would be quality articles written by professionals and experts. And so Wikipedia exists, and while it’s not reliable, it is still about the best place to go for background information on just about any topic. Writers and editors don’t get paid; people just put their heads together try to create something accurate and useful.

    The Academics

    How do we figure out how to execute monetary policy? There were a bunch of intellectual people who started to think and publish papers and books and in all that discussion, came up with some macroeconomic models that are used to determine how to set interest rates and control money supply.

    The Nonprofit

    How do we make sure that everyone can eat? People created food banks that give out free food to people who need it. Backed by donations and supported by volunteers, food banks use the kindness of others in order to help.

    The Corporation

    How do we communicate better with each other? Tech companies, working for a profit, created and improved email, online chats, video conference social networks, and more.

    There are lots of ways to solve problems, and one way is not necessarily better than another. It depends on the problem, and many different organizations and systems can work together in order to create a better world.

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  • 16. How do I make life easier?

    • Pace myself. Don’t try to do everything all at once. Limit myself on what I do in a day. Realize things may take longer than I realize.
    • Do what I enjoy doing. Sometimes instead of doing what I half to do, it’s okay to do something that I really want to do.
    • Create and follow routines.
    • Simplify. Can I do something in an easier way?
    • Remember why I am doing something.
    • Focus on relationships instead of getting stuff done.
    • Call it good enough. Very few things in life need to be perfect.
    • Be okay with being sort of bad at something. Sometimes a pathetic effort is all that is required.
    • Let go of things that don’t matter. I need to eliminate things regularly.
    • Ask for help and let others do their part. I don’t need to be solely responsible to clean my house, for example.
    • Make things fun.

  • 15. What was my first Amazon purchase?

    My very first Amazon purchase was a book (because Amazon used to be a book store). I bought in on February 10, 2007.

    I bought the mass-market paperback edition, and I still think I have it, but it has been well-loved and is falling apart.

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  • 14. How do I know God?

    14. How do I know God?

  • 13. How do I want to spend time with my kids?

    13. How do I want to spend time with my kids?
    • Quality time is important
    • Quantity time is more important
    • Listen
    • Watch and notice
    • Work together
    • Go on an adventure
    • Share what I love
    • Read books
    • Play
    • Laugh
    • Be silly
    • Roughhouse
    • Sing and dance
    • Go outside
    • Teach

  • 12. What are good meals for camping?

    12. What are good meals for camping?

    I don’t really want to cook that much when I’m camping: all I want to bring is a camp stove, a skillet, and a small pot, and it better be ready in around 20 minutes or less. I more want to assemble things together and still have something nice to eat. The food also had to be able to be cooked if there is a fire ban and fires aren’t allowed, and it’s preferable to not use a cooler as much as possible.

    • Breakfast:
      • Pancakes
      • Scrambled eggs
      • French toast
      • Precooked sausage and bacon
      • Hash browns
      • Breakfast burritos
      • Instant oatmeal
      • Cereal
      • Bagels
    • Lunch:
      • Pack lunch meat, cheese, veggies, fruit, crackers, chips, bread, tortillas, peanut butter & jelly, etc., and then assemble them together in different ways to eat lunch. So you can have salad, sandwiches, wraps, lunchables, etc.
    • Dinner:
      • Hot dogs and beans
      • Asian chicken salad (cabbage, canned chicken, mandarin oranges, crunch noodles)
      • Nachos (with canned cheese sauce)
      • Chili and chips
      • Soup from a can (beef stew, whatever)
      • Tacos and taco salad (meat made ahead or just use canned chili)
      • Chili in a bag of chips with toppings
      • Spaghetti
      • Macaroni and cheese
      • Ramen noodles and frozen veggies (with eggs if you would like)
      • Tuna sandwiches/tuna salad
      • Pasta salad
      • Black bean salad
    • Dessert:
      • S’mores (cook marshmallow on stove if fire isn’t available)
      • Baked goods and snake cakes made in advance

    What other ideas do you have?

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  • 11. Can there be more than one infinity?

    Simple answer: yes.

    This video basically describes how:

    I’ve been diving a bit into infinity with this online class. Part of trying to understand this is realizing that I’ve held certain concepts in my head there were wrong.

    I had this idea that infinity is the biggest you can get to. But that’s not really what infinity is. If I have an infinite amount of natural number (1,2,3,4,5 . . . ), I still have constraints of what that infinity means. There is an infinite amount of natural numbers, yes. But I’m still just dealing with natural numbers.

    There are also an infinite amount of rational numbers (think fractions/decimals) between 0 and 1.

    Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. You can compare infinities by doing a bijection of one set to another. If you can connect each entry in one set to a corresponding entry in another set and vice versa, then the sets are the same size. To prove whether infinities are the same or different size, you just have to create a rule or process to form a bijection.

    If I have infinite rational numbers, then this is bigger than infinite natural numbers. I can count infinite natural numbers. But infinities do not have to be countable.

    There is a diagonal proof that basically says this: try to write a list of all the rational numbers in decimal form. Now take the first digit of the first number and change that digit. Then take the second digit of the second number and change that. The third number, change the third digit. And if you keep changing the digits on for infinity, then the number you end up with will not be on your list. Thus, the rational numbers are not countable and are bigger than the set of natural numbers.

    There are also an infinite amount of infinities that are larger and larger than another.

    I had a concept of infinity that was incorrect. But it was useful to me, until I wanted to learn more and I had to change what I thought.

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  • 10. How do I become more decisive?

    10. How do I become more decisive?
    1. Instead of trying to determine the decision with the best results, view life more as an experiment, where the results are unknown and you just have to go for it.
    2. You will choose food that doesn’t taste good and activities that aren’t worth the time and money. You will waste time and effort and energy in choosing something that is not optimal. This will happen no matter how much you try to make the right decision, because you simple don’t have all the options available to you right away.
    3. View decisions as an ability to learn: choose a good option, and then learn if it’s right or wrong for you while you are doing it.
    4. Be patient. Large decisions can take time, and that’s okay. Don’t force yourself to make important decisions you aren’t ready for.
    5. Stop trying to maximize the value you get for your money, and instead just call something good enough.
    6. Set limits, like only looking at the first page of search results when shopping online or only looking in a single store. Purposefully narrow your options so that the decision becomes easier.
    7. Let someone else make unimportant decisions, or decide by default.
    8. Make decisions ahead of time instead of making them in the moment.
    9. Have a fallback that you go to when you can’t decide.
    10. Pretend you are making a decision for someone else.

    Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

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  • 9. Why are the important things in life fleeting and the unimportant things so time consuming?

    9. Why are the important things in life fleeting and the unimportant things so time consuming?

    I’ve been attempting to track my time lately, and in this attempt, I’ve noticed that moments that matter can take a very small portion of my life.

    In 10 minutes, I can do something significant: help my children, connect with my spouse, or complete a project that has been on my to-do list for ages. I can say hi to a neighbor, read scriptures, and pick up the house. I can meditate, pray, or exercise.

    But then I get stuck trying to buy home insurance or I sort through emails or go shopping or try to find the answer to a simple question on the internet. I can get lost for hours, and at the end of it, I’m not happy with how I spend my time.

    There is something named the Pareto Principle that says that 80% of the consequences come from 20% of of the causes.

    If I apply that to my life, 20% of what I do has meaningful results, and 80% of what I do doesn’t really matter. And that seems sort of accurate to me.

    Is there a way around this? To have more of my actions be meaningful? Or do I just try to keep working the best I can, and try to savor the meaningful moments when they come?

    (Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash)

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  • 8. What is cryptocurrency?

    8. What is cryptocurrency?

    I don’t really know what cryptocurrency is, and you probably don’t either. So here’s what I’m discovering:

    • It’s digital.
    • It’s not backed by the government, like fiat currency is, but you can use fiat currency to buy cryptocurrency.
    • It has no real value.
    • It is used more to invest and make a profit than to actually pay for things, but it can still be used to pay for things.
    • Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency, but there are lots of them.
    • Blockchain makes cryptocurrency work. A blockchain is a chain of records on a network, and it exists for everyone who owns a cryptocurrency. Blockchain makes it impossible to just create numbers and engage in fraud.
    • There has to be some sort of scarcity to make cryptocurrency work–if new cryptocurrency can be made, then it has to be some sort of regulated process.
    • There has to be a way to verify and prove that you actually own and use cryptocurrency–this is related to cryptography, so there has to be strong security involved.
    • You can mine bitcoin. Mining bitcoins is getting new bitcoins as a reward for auditing/verifying bitcoin transactions using computers doing intense computer things.

    So could I start my own cryptocurrency? If I spent enough time and energy learning about computers and coding and blockchain, I could. But starting a new cryptocurrency doesn’t mean that it is worth anything.

    Am I going to get cryptocurrency anytime soon? I’m not planning on it. But while I haven’t really trusted cryptocurrency, I still do trust the numbers in my bank and Venmo and Amazon and PayPal and the stock market–and cryptocurrency doesn’t seem that much crazier.

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