#473: Naval Ravikant on Happiness, Reducing Anxiety, Crypto Stablecoins, and Crypto Strategy

Social science does kind of lead you down the road to ignorance because it is about social. And anything social is about groupthink and group behavior and individuals can search for truth but groups search for consensus. The last place you’re going to find truth is in large group.

The nature of what science is is being corrupted and that started the day we let the so-called social sciences masquerade as sciences. Physics, molecular biology, chemistry, mathematics, the theory of computation, etc. is real science.

The important piece of advice in the thread is You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity – a piece of a business – to gain your financial freedom.

You can own other businesses (private or public stock) or you can create your own business, but either way, you need to own equity to become wealthy. E.g: Tim Ferriss created his own podcast and books and turned himself into a brand, and as a result, Tim is set for life. 

A lot of the greatest inventors of our time just sit around reading and thinking just to make a few decisions a year

Meditation had the biggest impact on Naval to reduce anxiety. Meditation for him is sitting there with yourself and letting your mind run crazy and then seeing what’s actually in your mind that your mind wants to tell you and having you listen to and resolve what is unresolved.

It should cause you to leave relationships. It should cause you to re-establish boundaries with family members and colleagues. It should cause you to quit your job. It should cause you to change your eating patterns. It should cause you to spend more time with yourself. It should cause you to change what books you read.

3 Things that help

1. Reading philosophy - Some of Naval’s favorite philosophers: Arthur Schopenhauer, Osho, Kapil Gupta, Anthony de Mello
2. Being aware of your thoughts- Where is this coming from? Who is this person? What is this person saying? Is this true? Is this correct?
3. Sitting down and meditating- First thing in the morning, sit up with your back straight for 60 minutes every day for 60 days. Whatever your mind wants to do, you just let it do. If it wants to talk, let it talk. If it wants to fight, let it fight. He says it’s the single most important thing that he does.

Cryptocurrencies are decentralized, you don’t need the violent power of a state to enforce the value of the currency, and you don’t need any middleman to complete a transaction

Crypto is like a Swiss bank account that no government can break into.

The pros of Bitcoin:

It’s easy to send across the globe

It’s easy to divide  

It’s easy to verify

The cons of Bitcoin:

It’s new and many people still don’t trust it

It’s extremely volatile 

It’s a speculative asset

Crypto stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that attempt to peg their market value to some external reference (like the US dollar).

There are 3 main risks with crypto stablecoins:

• Fraud risk: It’s said that each stablecoin is backed by a hard currency but there’s a chance that isn’t true
• Censorship risk: If your stablecoins are held by a third-party, the government or company could freeze your assets
• Blowup risk: If the underlying asset goes to zero, so will your stablecoin

All effective self-help books can be boiled down to one lesson: play long-term games

“If you can adopt a long term mindset, you’re just going to have a much easier life”

Compound interest applies everywhere: Relationships, Money and Health

You want to find things in life that feel like play instead of work, that will help you play long term games

Find healthy foods that you enjoy eating

Find a job or career that you enjoy doing

Find books you enjoy reading

Life is filled with games: Get good grades game, Get a good job game, Get a good partner game.

These games are multiplayer and you’re competing with other people 

There are also single-player games such as meditation

If there’s a game you’re winning at, but it’s making you miserable, then you should probably quit that game

In life, you want to choose your games very carefully so you aren’t playing games you don’t care about. The reason to win the game is to be free of it.

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant complied by Eric Jorgenson
• “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”: by Richard P. Feynman
• “What Do You Care What Other People Think?” by Richard P. Feynman
• The Way to Love by Anthony de Mello
• Awareness by Anthony de Mello
• Siddhartha: A Novel by Hermann Hesse
• Vasistha’s Yoga by Swami Venkatesananda
• Bhagavad Gita by Stephen Mitchell
• Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu and Stephen Mitchell
• The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer
• Think on These Things by Jiddu Krishnamurti
• The Book of Life by Jiddu Krishnamurti
• The Great Challenge by Osho
• Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer