#024: Why We Trust Each Other, Thinking Fast and Slow, Quantum Mechanics

Hi All!

We are pleased to welcome you to this week's edition of Undiscovered, a newsletter with exclusive resources and insights expanding from the material found on our main site - becketu.com.

This edition is helped in part by the support of Boot.dev. Be sure to check them out in the P.S. for a special signup offer and more information. Let's jump into this week's finds:

How and Why We Trust Each Other

Revisiting the Game Theory section on our site, I was drawn to play another game of The Evolution of Trust. Sometimes it's worth a refresher in learning how and why we trust each other, and what actions we can take to understand what motivates others.

Once you see how the mechanics of trust work through the game you'll see it pop up more in your everyday life. Overall, it's one of my favorite resources on the topic and worth regularly revisiting to in order to nail down the basics of game theory.

The Ladder of Quantum Mechanics

I'll be the first to admit: I'm not an expert in the field of quantum mechanics. But, I do follow a lot of smart people that are! Andrew Côté recently posted a diagram of a cat climbing a ladder on Twitter saying the following -

Andrew Côté @Andercot I spent years studying physics and honestly this was the most useful diagram out of anything. After seeing this you just sorta "get" quantum mechanics 7:13 PM • Mar 26, 2024 180 Retweets 2700 Likes Read 114 replies

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For those like myself who aren't as versed and have the extensive background in physics like Côté, @UptownPeeeet replied with an explanation from Grok that broke down why the diagram is so useful. It's a very simple way of starting to understand the process of quantization, quantum leaps, wave functions, and quantum tunneling.

'Most Succinct Blueprint for How to Achieve Greatness'

Pipedream CEO Garrett Scott brought attention to an old Jeff Bezos interview on my feed saying he rewatches it weekly. You can find the tweet below, and the video here​

The whole video is incredible, but the first four minutes are a masterclass in understanding persuasion principles. Bezos talks about advice to young people (that can be applied to anybody) along with how to become 'more right' more often.

It's a video not only on 'achieving greatness', but the practical lessons for being a persuasive leader.

Garrett Scott 🕳 @thegarrettscott Every saturday morning for the last 6 years, I watch this obscure video. It's Jeff Bezos talking about leadership, but really, it's the most succinct blueprint for how to achieve greatness I have ever found. You should watch it often, but I summarized it here: (thread, sry) 4:8 PM • Mar 23, 2024 1596 Retweets 13405 Likes Read 189 replies

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The Best Place to Start for Building Web Apps

Mercury Banking CEO Immad Akhund recently asked:

immad @immad My 12yo wants to make little fun web apps. Should I teach her react or something else? 1:35 PM • Mar 23, 2024 3 Retweets 120 Likes Read 93 replies

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If you look at the replies, the most upvoted response came from Caleb Sirak which said, "vanilla html css and js".

Fortunately, we have some of the best resources for learning each of these parts of web development! To learn HTML and CSS, we recommend this course from Interneting is Hard, for Javascript there is Just JuvaScript, and one of our other comprehensive favorites is The Odin Project. They're all great places to start if you have an interest in learning how to build web apps.

Remembering Daniel Kahneman

On March 27, 2024, we lost one of the great thinkers of our generation in Daniel Kahneman. He was heavily involved in the field of behavioral economics and explored the ways in which psychology and human decision-making were related.

His book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, famously summarized most of his work and was almost immediately recognized as being a seminal text in the field. I personally remember being required to read this going into my first year of university and shrugging it off. It wasn't until later (and many more recommendations) that I realized how important of a book it was.

Thank you Dr. Kahneman for teaching us how to think.

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Always wishing you the best,

J.B.