Juan David's Newsletter - July 12, 2020

The Era Of Unlimited Everything, Blacks Enslaving Whites, DO NOT be yourself.

Hi there,

What’s the latest in your world? Anything exciting?

I finished the course I took about the history of technology and started a computer science program at Google. This week, I learned p5.js and a little javascript.

I have some project ideas, and coding is necessary to build those. I’ll keep you guys updated on my experience and learning!

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This week’s essay is about The Era Of Unlimited Everything: Unlimited Materials & Unlimited Money where I explore how two human imagination inventions gave rise to our modern world. Specifically, I explore plastic & credit!

Welcome to the ones of you who have joined us since last Sunday! If you’re reading this but haven’t subscribed, join hundreds of curious and fascinating people by subscribing here!

Don’t forget to check out the Curiosities 🙀🧨🤩 section below!

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The Era Of Unlimited Everything: Unlimited Materials & Unlimited Money

If you prefer, you can read this essay on my website.

Ask yourself these questions: 

1. Sitting in your home, looking around, what do you see?? 

2. How did you buy those things?

Many of the things you’re surrounded by are probably made of plastic. 

Many of those things were probably bought with credit. 

Could you have bought them without credit? What if those things were not made out of plastic? Would have you been able to buy them?

Overview:

• Before & After Plastic

  • Invention

• Before & After Credit

  • Invention

• A World without Credit & Plastic

• Credit & Plastic: Economic Growth

• A Product of Imagination

• Unlimited Everything

Imagine a world without credit and a world without plastic. 

Thanks so much to Adam, Praveen, Scott, Hal, Nick, George, Dipan, Charlie, Lev, Sher, Reddy2Go, and Jason for reading drafts of this essay and providing your insightful thoughts.

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Curiosities 🙀🧨🤩

• Curiosity #1

I started this program at Google. On Friday, I asked my instructor (or how they call themselves “Googlers”) about what programming languages I should learn.

He suggested three languages: Python, Java, and Javascript.

Why? Because these are the most used and once you learned these three, you’ll be able to pick up any other language.

I already know some Python, now I’ll be learning the other two. And possibly, Mathematica (Wolfram Language) soon.

Let me know if you need some resources, I’ve found cool ones that I can share with you.

What are your thoughts on this?

• Curiosity #2

The most interesting and valuable technologies aren't buzzwords like A.I, robotics, or cryptocurrencies.

The most valuable technologies of the next several decades are only known to a few specialists today.

Here is the good news. These people might have invented or discovered them. But they probably won't commercialize them. That's the challenge for us.

How can we make X useful and commercially viable? That's the real opportunity.

• Curiosity #3

To commercialize and make these opportunities useful, we need to be early in these technologies. How?

- Do not pay attention to the mainstream

- Hang out with those highly specialized people

And of course, you need to believe in yourself when most people will not. Let’s get it!

• Curiosity #4

Have you ever asked yourself why weren't whites enslaved by blacks? Why are whites somehow so powerful?

Joel Mokyr, a Northwestern economics professor, gave a presentation about this topic. He explained that the Europeans had a culture and way to think that allowed them to thrive like any other culture before.

Dr. Mokyr shared 3 Important Attitudes:

1. Skepticism

   1. By 1450 Europe had rediscovered the learnings of ancient Greece and Rome. They realized there was wisdom but a lot of mistakes.

2. Open-ness

   1. Europeans from early times were willing to learn from other civilizations, they adopted (stole) and then went to improve them. Europeans started to travel and learned to make Indian Cotton, Chinese Silks and porcelains, and many crops from the Western Hemisphere.

      1. They wanted to learn and then copy and adopt new forms of technology and medicine. 

3. Neophilia: European developed a taste for the new and intellectual. 

   1. Scientists like Newton became celebrities.

I couldn’t believe this. A different perspective that compounded over the years and that made a difference between countries and continents and history.

If you’d like to watch the entire presentation, check it out here.

• Curiosity #5

I discovered the guy who predicted and had the idea of creating a mouse, hyperlinks, word processing, video chat, and more.

I made this video talking more about this guy who unfortunately was born ahead of his time. Truly a visionary!

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I was talking with my friend Pranav about being yourself and what that means.

I realized we should never be ourselves. You should never want to be yourself.

We should instead create ourselves. "Being yourself" is limiting and complacent.

Creating yourself is about being who you want to be. Period.

Take a moment to think about when you think you can’t do something! We’re our only limit.

Thanks for reading,

Juan David Campolargo

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Juan David Campolargo 🚀

Twitter: @jdcampolargo 🧠

Blogging at JuanDavidCampolargo.com ✍️

Weekly Memos & Updates: HERE 🙀

Watch my TEDx Talk, 'Inspiring the Next Generations to be More Optimistic,' HERE