Thinking Is Cool

What would the world look like if we lived forever? Or even just lived a little bit longer? As scientists, technologists, and anyone who’s experienced chronic lower back pain at the ripe old age of 25 will tell you…the world would look significantly different.

It’s a conversation we started having back in October, when I released an episode of Thinking Is Cool all about the basics of extending human life well beyond what we’d consider long & healthy today. I juuuuust started toeing the line of the ethical, social, scientific, and psychological side effects of living forever.

Today, I’m sprinting over that line. 

Because no other episode that I’ve released has caused as much uproar in my circle, not even the episode about porn. Family members and friends and many of you reached out to me with stunning ideas structured by the concept of dramatically extending human life, ideas like what changes about marriage and lifelong commitment, ideas about the expectations of the role work plays in your life if you don’t retire ‘til you’re 160, ideas about who might profit from the very human exercise of avoiding death at all costs for as long as possible.

I fielded so many “wait what” text messages that week that I knew pretty immediately that this episode would need a follow-up. And that’s what we’re doing today. We’re continuing the conversation with someone whom I have long admired for her thoughtfulness, consideration, curiosity, and honesty…journalist, producer, and incredible thinker, Cleo Abram.

This conversation is a little about the science behind our efforts to live forever and a lot about the motivations behind our efforts to live forever. Technology is a seismic force driven by humans and our emotions, wants, needs, and fears.

So today, we’re doing our best to consider all of the above in the pursuit of the answer to one very big question: What does it mean to live…and to live forever?

Listen to my conversation with Cleo now to get thinking. 

And if you haven’t listened to the original episode of Thinking Is Cool about extending human life, do that here.

Thinking is cool and so are you! See you soon.

Who’s DAO is it anyway? What’s so wrong with the internet we know and love/hate today? Will those NFTs be worth something in a decade?

You’ve got questions and we’ve got answers. In this edition of Thinking Is Cool’s Continuing the Conversation series, I speak with TCG investor and general innovation expert Gaby Goldberg in an effort to truly understand what Web3 means for everyone (not just the crypto-pilled on the blue birdie app).

Covered in this episode:

• What is Web3 and how might it permanently change the ways we use the internet?
• What makes Web3 so much better than Web1 and Web2 (and yes those iterations of the web will also be defined)?
• What are the biggest risks of putting all of our proverbial eggs in the Web3 basket?
• And a whole lot more.

Listen, learn, and continue the conversation.

Resources for listening:

1. This episode is a continuation of my bitcoin episode from Season 1 of Thinking Is Cool. Listen to that one here.
2. I allude in the episode to Gaby’s list of Web3 resources—find that list here.
3. Follow Gaby on Twitter here.

Remember to take it anywhere, brainiacs. Thinking is cool and so are you.

How to keep them. What does it mean to create and maintain close personal relationships in this world—this world that gives us connection, for better or worse, around every corner?

Online friends. Friends whose relationship changed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Peripheral friends. The closest of friends. Friends who disagree. We need them all, but today it’s sometimes difficult to ensure each and every one of those groups gets priority.

But doing so is integral, and this episode will explain why.

This episode and all of Season 2 have been brought to you by Thinking Is Cool’s presenting sponsor, Fundrise. So thank you, Fundrise! And thank you, you! For listening! And hopefully for sharing! You’re the best. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram and hey while you’re here might as well sign up for my newsletter.

For generations, young people have been expected—nay, counted on—to buy a home by a certain age. Owning a house meant joining the ranks of real adults and laying claim to something with as much financial value as it boasted emotional value.

But then...reality kicked in. 

Today, buying a house is more complicated and, at times, more impossible, than it ever was for our parents or grandparents. Younger generations are stuck in a tricky spot—culturally, owning a house is really important but financially, it feels out of reach.

So what are we to do? How are we to reframe our understanding of homeownership to better fit the world we live in and not just the one our parents lived in?

Today, let’s explore and deconstruct the idea that owning a home of your own (mortgage included, white picket fence optional) is the ultimate marker of success. We’ll take a journey through the concept of real estate ownership in the modern era for our generation—and eventually answer the larger question...should I buy a home?

This episode was produced with our partners at Fundrise, Thinking Is Cool’s Season 2 presenting sponsor. As you know, I’ve spent all season telling you about how Fundrise really is changing the idea of real estate investing for everyday people. Today, we’re talking about why that matters so much—why real estate is something you can’t ignore—with the help and support of the Fundrise team.

I’m a Fundrise user and you can believe me when I tell you this: Complicated as real estate might be, there’s nothing complicated about using Fundrise. Fundrise is a platform on which you can invest as little as $10 in private real estate. No major costs, no major complications—just a quick and easy way to, oh I don’t know, put your money toward something more useful than just a rent check.

You might not be able to own a home, but that doesn’t mean you can’t invest in private real estate. And with Fundrise as my partner, I’m about to tell you why. Let’s take it anywhere.

Thank you! For listening! And hopefully for sharing! You’re the best. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram and hey while you’re here might as well sign up for my newsletter.

A wise teenage girl in the Pacific Northwest who made the world fall in love with a family of vampires once said, “I’ve never given much thought to how I would die.”

She’s the only one. In truth, we humans are deeply preoccupied with how we might die...and even more, preoccupied with the efforts we can take to put it off. Sanitation protocols, germ theory, vaccines, exercise—for centuries, we’ve taken small steps each day to prolong our healthy, functional lives.

But what if we stopped taking small steps and started taking giant ones? What if we could solve ourselves out of aging? What might the world look like if we lived to 100 years, 200 years, or forever?

Today on Thinking Is Cool, we’re exploring just that—how (and more importantly, why) we’re doing our darndest to cheat death...forever.

Thanks as always to Fundrise, Thinking Is Cool’s Season 2 presenting sponsor. And to you! For listening! And hopefully for sharing! You’re the best.

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We know a few things to be certain about the freedom of speech here in the United States: It’s written in the Constitution, it’s fiercely defended by lawyers and laypeople alike, and we’ve got it better than a lot of other countries.

From my vantage point (this laptop), free speech is a complicated, deeply nuanced ideal.

It is that freedom, the freedom of speech, that allows us to disagree, to learn and share, to voice once unspoken thoughts, to engineer a more verbally and intellectually diverse world. But it’s also in no small part to blame for our unbelievable penchant for “well, actually…”

And for that reason, it has limits. Freedom of speech is not an absolute freedom, nor should it be. But most of the lines drawn in the sand were drawn centuries ago, long before Facebook was just a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye.

And now...Pandora’s Box has been opened, and we have the receipts to show how wildly impactful free online speech can be. You were online this last year, right?

So how do we, citizens of a country famous for how much it loves freedom, interpret freedom of speech in a changing and increasingly online world? Who gets to speak freely on the internet? Well buckle up, because we’re about to start thinking it through.

Sometimes the most complicated problems require the simplest solutions. If we want to help the nearly 600,000 Americans who will go to sleep homeless tonight, all we need to do is give them homes, right?

Honestly...yes. Homelessness is a massive, unfathomably tragic problem, but it’s one we designed ourselves (more on that in the episode). And if we designed the problem, we can design the solution (definitely more on that in the episode).

Today on Thinking Is Cool, I’m taking 40 minutes to begin better understanding the nuanced labyrinth of homelessness in America—how we got here, what we’re doing, and when this can become a problem of the past. I hope you’ll join me.

Because chances are, there’s a lot we’re all getting wrong about homelessness. Now’s the time to make it right.

Listen to today’s episode to start—together.

Some very important thank yous:

1. To Adina Lichtman, founder of Knock Knock Give a Sock, for being the kind of person who’s quick to answer any call, both literal and metaphorical.
2. To J.R., a neighbor and hopefully someday a friend, for being so forthcoming with his story of homelessness in New York City.
3. To Fundrise, which is Thinking Is Cool’s Season 2 presenting sponsor.

And to you! For listening! And hopefully for sharing! You’re the best.

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram and hey while you’re here might as well sign up for my newsletter.

Investing isn’t the old rich dudes’ game anymore. It’s yours, it’s mine, it’s everyone’s. But what are the ramifications of this rapid democratization of investing, this revolutionary tide change in the stock market?

What happens in the post-meme stonk world, one in which the definition of “investor” looks nothing like it did a decade ago? What might our investing habits and goals mean for platforms and their responsibility?

And most importantly...is it better to have meme-stocked and lost than to never have stocked at all?

On this episode of Thinking Is Cool created in partnership with Public.com, we’re finding out.

Public.com is a free investing social network app that allows you to both own parts of the companies you believe in and share ideas about your investing strategy with your community. I’m a fan and an active user (follow me here).

Download the app today or sign up online at Public.com with the code STAYCOOL to receive $10 in free stock. Just remember: This offer is valid for U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to join. Visit Public.com/disclosures/ for more information.

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Alternate episode titles: One Bad Apple Ruins the Whole of Humankind? Our iPhones, Our Selves? Hard to pick just one when the company in question has changed so much about the ways we interact with technology and with each other.

Today, we’re raising the mythical curtain on Apple, a company that needs no introduction...but also lays claim to a history that most certainly might surprise you. In four storied decades, Apple has transformed the world and its inhabitants. But how? And has it all been for better? Or for worse?

Listen to today’s episode to figure it all out together.

Some very important thank yous:

1. To Christopher Mims, the Wall Street Journal technology journalist and author of the forthcoming (reallllly forthcoming like coming out September 14) book Arriving Today.
2. To Fundrise, which is Thinking Is Cool’s Season 2 presenting sponsor.

And to you! For listening! And hopefully for sharing! You’re the best.

People do drugs. They do drugs for tons of reasons. They also don’t do drugs for tons of reasons. Some people do drugs to feel better or to feel smarter or to feel more focused in a chaotic world. Some people do drugs to get outside their own mind. Some people do drugs to treat ailments traditional medicine ignores.

We all have different reasons and different highs. But the truth of the matter is this: Today, you’re hard-pressed to find anyone wearing one of those DARE “just say no” t-shirts without being drenched in irony. We’re not a society of “just say no” anymore.

We’re a society that’s becoming increasingly comfortable talking about (and even legalizing) drug use. There’s an opportunity there—if we can do this right.

So how do we use this moment—and our increasingly chill attitudes toward appropriate and safe drug use—to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself? Let’s think about it.

Who you'll hear from this episode:

Many of them preferred to keep their full names private, which...respect, seeing as this was all about doing drugs. So you’ll hear from several friends—Ben, Shardul, and Kelly. Additionally, I had the privilege of speaking with justice reform advocate Ashish Prashar. I also drew a lot of inspiration from Michael Pollan, whose work you can check out here.

We have some astonishingly good partners this season: Learn more about our presenting sponsor, Fundrise, here. And learn more about Massican here.

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