AceTrainerGreen

When building your brand, did you stick with the only working 40 hours principle? I remember you were making videos about workaholism. I even made an in-depth thread about it. I love what I do where work and recreation are blurred. However, I understand that although 'life purpose' is a large chunk of one's life, it isn't everything. After working for 8 hours, what would you suggest to fill in those 8 hours of recreation? I'm thinking meditation, exercise, socializing w/ friends and family, watching your content, etc. Other - What caused you to go from your original thumbnails where you had your face and yourself doing silly reactions w/ your hands to pictures? I miss that. Also, what was the inspiration for that? - You're a brand new person to your channel. Where would you recommend them to go? Would you recommend looking into your older videos where they are one to three years old? You've done a lot of growth these past few years. - Has there been any stances you strongly advocated for and you've changed? What are they and why? - You're 21 years old. What would you say to that person? Any videos? - What's your MBTI? Are you an INTP? Do you know you're enneagram? I'm 5w4. - What's your Allignment for Dungeons & Dragons? I'm a true neutral. - Thoughts on NoFap? - What do you think of your Rational Wiki article? - Will you ever be interviewed by someone like Joe Rogan? - If ever, in the distant future, what are you going to do if YouTube shuts down? What happens to the videos? - Do you ever edit your videos? Even a simple cut to remove the 'boring' parts. - How long does it take for you to search for a thumbnail? - How tall are you? - Do you still take nootropics? What about caffeine? - What are your thoughts on Elon Musk? Is he someone that people should look up to, or for any celebrity, tbh - What's something you advocate for but you are also having having difficulty applying in practice?

Great interview. From the largest ego in the world turned into a relatively humble individual. Tyson has also reported taking 5-MEO-DMT in the last two months; he claims it has radically altered his perspective on life. I'm sharing this because the man has reached such great highs with his ego to experience how costly it is as an individual. It's a remarkable case study.

This is somewhat old news; it happened earlier this month. I was trying to post on the forum about it, but for some reason, it would not allow me to post anything. Anyway, Jeff Bezos is getting divorced. There's a strong possibility that the divorce will cut his wealth into the half. If this does occur, his ex-wife would be the richest woman in the world. Outside of that, I brought this up because it reminds me how work is not everything in life. You can be the richest person in the world; however, if you neglect other parts of your life such as your family, is it worth it? This thread is in relation to another thread I made a couple months ago about Elon Musk, his work weeks, and the costs of workaholism. (Ignore the first line. There are significantly much more notes past the first page. I contacted one of the moderators, and the reason why I can't edit my posts are that of a time limit.) I sometimes wonder if it's ever worth it to sacrifice everything for fortune, fame, and power. You will build a legacy that will stand. However, how long will it stand? When you look at Wikipedia, there are hundreds of thousands of articles of formerly famous dead people, yet they don't have much context outside of academia. Even if it does stand for 10,000 years, there's the entire length of the universe until oblivion. (Then again, this thinking can lead into the pessimistic form of nihilism and not the optimistic one.) When you die, you can't take your material wealth with you. On your death bed, you will likely regret that you spent all of your time working. However, the inverse is also true. There are many people out there who will die on their death bed with regrets of NOT pursuing their dreams. I suppose it's a fine pendulum of balance. I sometimes wonder when Elon Musk is of old age and some interviewer asks him, "Was all the sacrifice worth it?" I wonder what he will say? For myself, I would like to obtain it; however, within reason. You work without selling your soul. You spend much of the time such as with friends, family, traveling, and increasing your consciousness.

I've listened to dozens of his videos. Podcasts are much better than music to me now-a-days. Of course, you can grow from Joe Rogan. You can grow from anyone as what Leo said. Now, I don't pay much attention to Joe Rogan. I pay much more attention to his guests. Within every podcast, he reveals bits and pieces about himself. You'll learn how much personal adversity he came through.

Extremely relevant video: One of my favorite videos from Leo. I've watched it several times.

It's unfortunate some people are focusing on the loss of wealth and not the deeper problem. The deeper problem here is that Bezos and many other people like him are selling their souls for work. No matter how fulfilling nor successful you become, you neglect other aspects of your life. This is the deeper problem. One of the main reasons Bezos got to where he is because of himself neglecting family life. It's been neglected so much that his wife is now filing a divorce. It's a lesson to everyone. Don't sacrifice your soul to the altar of work. Pursuing success is noble, it is part of the Hero's Journey; however, it's not all of it. There are much more fine pleasures in our life than that.

I appreciate all of the responses. It's important to share one's research and insights. I'm going to attach this thread I made. To add on, I would like to mention Joe Rogan and Elon Musk's podcast. In the podcast, Elon Musk was talking about many people on social media are posting the best versions of themselves. He also states that Happiness = Reality - Expectations. For the first part, it makes me wonder if Elon Musk is also referring to himself about this? When I see those tweets, Instagram posts, and YouTube videos about him, he's often happy. He states that some of the most successful people on there you see online are sometimes the most miserable. I've mentioned his New York Times interview on the first post of this thread detailing how miserable he's been. For the second part, since his current reality is very FAAAAAR from his expectations, from the future he wants to build, I suspect Elon is deeply unhappy. There's always constant revision for better and better versions. His goal on getting to Mars is still very far off. There's also his other ventures with Tesla, Boring, Neuralink, and OpenAI.

For the ones reading this in the future, I'll copy-paste my other extended posts onto this main post, so you don't have to look for it in the next pages. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/business/elon-musk-interview-tesla.html According to an interview from the New York Times this year, Elon Musk has reported to "work" 120 hours a week. To put this in perspective, that's 3x longer than a 40-hour work week, 71.43% of your 168 hour week (or assuming if you get 8 hours of sleep, he works more than your 112 hours awake). From the same interview, There are also many complaints inside SpaceX and Tesla's employees. Many are incredibly overworked. There are many articles describing these conditions. Related Videos: Leo's Thoughts on Elon Musk and Overworking (no particular order): Personal Thoughts I sometimes feel like you HAVE to work 60, 80, 80+ hours a week to be professionally successful. However, life purpose, although incredibly important, it should not be the entirety of your life. There is much more to life than work. Leo's video on workaholism strikes me to my core because I am guilty of being a workaholic. He stated that the core cause of my work is because I ultimately do not have value to my internal self. Paradoxically, the second video I referenced states that there is no meaning in life. I want to believe my goals are similar to Elon's. I want to become a medical entrepreneur and help find ways to cure diseases such as the myriad types of cancers. In a way, I want to be written down in history. In order to do this, working 40 hours a week is not "fast enough". Then again, there is the argument for burn out. Ironically, I invest so much time trying to extend life whereas I am not entirely enjoying life at the present. I've done some research into the 8-hour workday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day This is preliminary research, but it's interesting how many entrepreneurs work way beyond 40 hours a week. The main question is: Is it possible to achieve Elon-Musk-like professional success or at least an order of magnitude less by working 40 hours a week? Some other questions on my mind: What are your thoughts on working 4 days of 10 hours and having 3 days off? I'm interested in making philosophy videos as a hobby for YouTube. I genuinely enjoy it. If I put in 20 hours a week, is that a 60 hour work week? Or is that saying, "I play video games for 4 hours a day after work." How do I get rid of my desire for wealth, fame, and power? I like to think my intentions are noble as it seeks to cure the multiple facets of cancer. Helping people is a higher priority than this, but the three are fantastic to have if you want global change. Leo talks about this in the pictures I quoted. There is a difference between contributions to humanity than one's care of their consciousness. Do you think if Elon focused on one company instead of multiple (SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity, Hyperloop, OpenAI, Neuralink, Boring Company), he could be much more productive? Thank you. RESPONSE #2 Thank you for your short answer @Leo Gura. There's no need for you to comment further because you have already spoken much about it on earlier threads and your videos. It's good to know your position still stands. 2,000+ years from now, when future civilizations will look at us, will they look at Michael Jackson's songs the same way as a source of wisdom the same way we interpret ancient Roman and Greek scholars? I've done much more research on the topic. It's taken me two days of intense learning. First, it was through Leo's videos and posts on the forum. Second, it was by reading a bunch of other content about it elsewhere. The conclusion is that one must work 40 hours a week. Resources that Further Convinced Me: 1. Stanford economist John Pencanvel's 2014 analysis He's no ordinary economist. His resume is 13 pages long! https://siepr.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/people/cv/3695-vitae2015.august.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp8129.pdf - Official Study https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2014/12/09/proof-that-you-should-get-a-life - A summarized read " 2. This paper from the US federal government https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2004-143/pdfs/2004-143.pdf 3. This article - the importance of delegation & video https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/elon-musk-is-wrong-you-can-definitely-change-world-on-40-hours-a-week.html It's obvious advice. If you want to "work 120 hours a week", hire two people to work 40 hours a week each. SpaceX is arguably easier to handle because Elon has a second-in-command, Gwynne Shotwell, to help. Unfortunately, for Tesla, there is no second-in-command. Delegation is vital. Elon runs multiple companies. There's SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity, OpenAI, Hyperloop, Neuralink, and Boring. Exclude OpenAI and Hyperloop because he stepped down on the first and is sometimes involved with the second. Even then, Elon has reported having been working 120 hours a week at Tesla. What about the others? The Giga Factory is still being built, Neuralink has incredible progress, and construction was approved for Boring. There's a lot of delegation going behind-the-scenes. --- 4. Now, there's also a video inside of that article from before. It's a woman stating ten reasons she stopped overworking. Quality over quantity - work smarter versus harder Sleep matters - Jeff Bezos sleeps 8 hours a day You suck when it counts. Imagine being sleepy and having clouded judgment during a presentation? Your mood is a buzzkill. I noticed that when I work 60+ hours a week, I become a jerk. Judgment is impaired — similar reasons for lack of sleep. Setting a bad example - If you are working 80+ hours a week, your employees will be "inspired" to operate a similar amount of hours. You create a culture of irritated, sleepy, and clouded people who also have family problems for always working all the time. There's an infinite amount of tasks you can always do. Hurts relationships - You're a dick when you overwork. Hurts health - Similar to sleep, not getting enough exercise, not eating correctly, not developing your spiritual side It's not that important - deadlines are flexible 5, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/23/elon-musk-120-hour-working-week-tesla#comments At this point, my mind has been convinced a 40-hour work week is what's needed. Some questions at the back of my head: Regarding my life purpose, I may have to rethink if a Ph.D. & MD is worth it. A Ph.D. may have to satisfy. Is it possible to drop the double major of computer science and biology? Can a minor in biology be sufficient? Research European Union's, especially Germany's work-life balance I can only study for 6 hours at a time. That's with 10-minute breaks every 50 minutes and a 30-minute break every 4 hours. I'd ideally like to be an academic student for 40 hours a week. There's a lot of great news about working 10 hours for four days. I wonder if it's possible to do the same with being a student. For myself, studying is a lot more mentally draining than physical exercise. RESPONSE #3 @John Lula Zen. It reminds me of several things. 1. Butterfly Effect 2. It's A Wonderful Life - If you travel back in time and murder someone that would turn 80 years old, the present will look noticeably different. 3. @kingroboto It didn't take long 40 minutes for the first post; 30 minutes for the second. All I did was copy-paste the notes I took. For the note-taking, it's taken well over 8+ hours. I don't mind making "long posts." I tend to write 20+ pages. This is nothing. I don't care if no one reads it. I'm just displaying my thoughts, so other people can help me navigate my thinking. You don't have to read all of it. @kingroboto Probably. There's a concept in history called the Great Man Theory. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Great_man_theory It's an exciting read. Your comment made me research about the topic further. At first, I only knew about it in a dictionary definition sense. I spent three hours reading about it and taking notes. The Great Man theory deserves its thread, to be honest. Here are the notes I took recently. Sharing this for the sake of sharing new information I learned. One particular insight would have to be the forces of nature vs. nurture. When I look at Elon Musk, it seems that he's the only person who is single-handedly running all of the companies; however, that's false. There are a lot of factors going behind-the-scenes. For example, Elon's work relies heavily on subsidies from the government as well as public-sector funded technology. Perhaps, the Great Man Theory is like standing on the shoulders of giants. Without external forces such as geography, technology, socioeconomic status, Elon would not exist. Then again, it gives an interesting question: If Elon never lived, would these advances have been possible? As I learn more about myself through your teachings, other resources, and my personal experience, I agree. Hard work and success does not correlate with authentic being, yet many tend to do so otherwise. At the back of my mind, even despite all of this learning about workaholism and the dangerous consequences of it, I still feel pushed to work hard. Regarding your last sentence, it reminds me of playing a challenging video game. When I keep dying at a boss battle, I tend to rage quit and do something else for a while. I don't think about the game, but when I come back to it the next day, my mind seems to have figured out a way to beat it. I've done some reading on this, and I find it incredible how the subconscious mind is capable of generating insights. Active vs. diffused thinking is vital. Your comment reminds me of this post I read on Wall Street Oasis. The website is for people who want to work at Wall Street, hence the name. Within the notorious culture of working 80+ hours a week, there are a lot of threads about burnout. One particular thread I remember fondly of would be a person quitting his job as an analyst and instead of working as a professional pianist. https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/life-after-investment-banking Inspirational. It also reminds me of Gary Vaynerchuk's advice on careers. He stated, " I've tried looking into burnout into other careers. On Wall Street Oasis, the most commonly recommended advice is to take a vacation, so you can get perspective. When you're in the grind every day, it's hard to think of yourself outside of the box. @NoSelfSelfI'm not very materialistic. If I were rich, the most expensive item I would be a gaming computer and a Tesla. Haha, The goal is to use fame, power, and wealth to help people. @Serotoninluv Thank you for your comment. It's good to know that you are speaking from experience. It's similar to Bill Gates. Instead of using his wealth for his selfish ambitions, he's using his tens of billions of dollars into fixing poverty worldwide. Yeah, that's what I mean in response to @NoSelfSelf @Joseph Maynor For myself, passion is difficult to determine. I have many interests; however, these tend to be intense and last for several months. Recently, I became very obsessed with uploading video game footage for my YouTube channel. I gained 800 followers and 200,000+ views. It's something I would spend 8+ hours on every day, and I would look forward to it. Recently, I have been feeling burnt out. Outside of the small fame, it makes me realize that passion alone is not sufficient. I have many interests, but interests do not always mean passion. When I think about it, there are several areas that I routinely come back and several processes that allow me to enter flow. It's good to know that I've documented this. Some reoccurring interests would have to be philosophy, psychology, and politics. I tend to overthink about ideas. The processes that allow me to enter the state of flow would be anything related to creating such as writing and video making. Outside of this altogether, when work becomes play and you "work" for 12 hours, you also tend to neglect other aspects of your life. Going back to my little YouTube interest, I had incredible fun for 2.5 months; however, I ignored many other aspects of my life during this time such as sleep, fitness, and even prolonging excretion urges. @Outer Not sure if you're sarcastic. @aurum I think you're fine. I think the problem with Elon is that he's so incredibly passionate about his work or his play that he's neglecting other facets in his life such as his health and family. I see multiple problems. 1) Your life and identity revolved around work. 2) The more work you did, the more work is created. It's never-ending. 3) Your subconscious fear of not being good enough. It reminds me of Leo's video on workaholism. It makes me wonder if hanging out with incredibly professional successful people is more or less a good thing. Their ability to accomplish rubs off on you; however, at the same time, it also rubs off a culture of workaholism and that it's okay to place less time on family, friends, and other aspects in one's life. For example, what would happen if you worked in Silicon Valley where everyone is overworked? ------------------------- Thank you for all the responses and thank you for the individuals who read all of it. I have more insights to think. I wasn't able to do much research about the questions I was asking about on my last post; however, I did research Great Man Theory and responded to these responses. I like to return to almost all of them because it helps facilitate my thinking. A question I have: What do you think of Gary Vaynerchuk preaching workaholism? Topics to Research: - Butterfly Effect - Silicon Valley & Workaholism - I tend to be very indecisive. Is my personality even suited for entrepreneurship? There's Warren Buffet who researches immensely into a company before making any moves.

It's been a while since I last placed input on this. I've been applying the insights I've formed from my research since then. 48 hours seems to be the peak optimal amount for myself. After that, my performance starts to noticeably decline for the worse. Despite optimal nutrition, sleep, meditation, exercise, etc, I seem to still get lethargic once I reach this point. Additionally, I've learned some other insights along the way. This is Warren Buffet. He's the third richest person in the world, and he claims he eats like a five-year-old child. He regularly eats McDonald and lots of other food that is not advised by almost any nutritionist expert. In this video, a person tries to replicate his diet and immediately fails. He even gains lots of weight. Perhaps, Warren Buffet is actually lying and exaggerating about his diet? With this video, it got me thinking. If this guy exaggerates with the quality of food he puts into his mouth, can Elon Musk also lie and exaggerate the number of hours he's actually putting in? I did some research about this, and the results prove my hypothesis. From this article https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/study-people-claiming-to-work-more-than-70-hours-a-week-are-totally-lying-probably/263825/ Imagine that. You claim you work 75 hours, but the reality is that you only worked 50 hours. It's still a lot but an additional 25 hours is more than half your standard 40 hour work week. I'm under the assumption that Elon Musk does not work 120 NOR 80 hours a week. He still very likely works a lot longer than 40 hours. However, it would be around the 56 to 66 hours of REAL work he's doing. From my personal experience, when I was studying 8 hours a day Monday to Sunday, even despite optimal health, past the 48th hour, each hour felt like it was twice as long. Lastly, I contacted a moderator why I can't edit my main post. Unfortunately, there is a limit to it. I'm just hoping people actually read the rest of the other posts, even a minority of people.

I was planning to revive a year old thread; however, I was told to create a new topic instead. https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/14334-self-discipline-vs-burning-out/ My question to Leo or anyone who reads this: What about the people who consistently work 60, 80, 80+ hours a week for decades on end? There are many famous icons in our society who are workaholics. For example, individuals such as Elon Musk routinely work 80+ hours a week. For this year alone, he has "worked" 120 hours a week. Musk has been working insane hours at least since 1995 with the founding of his first company Zip2 more than 23 years ago. I cannot work 80 hours a week. I have tried working 60 hours a week largely inspired because of Mark Zuckerburg's 60-hour work weeks and because I see it as a happy medium between work-life balance and overworking. Unfortunately, I burnt out after 2.5 months. That's with hour-long meditations, eight hours of sleep, healthy eating, 10-minute breaks every 50 minutes, and pretty much every basic self-care I can think of. On the bright side, during the summer, I learned the fundamentals of four "languages": HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python. I even blogged about it too with posts longer than 20+ pages and received more than 10,000+ views. https://briansprogrammingsucks.quora.com/ However, I noticed that even with all of the recognition, the absolute passion of writing every day, I burnt out. From hyper-productivity to I've been feeling neurotic about the "lack of work" I have been committing for the last several weeks because it feels like I have to work an absolute minimum of 60 hours a week in order to achieve the professional goals I want: the absolute ideal is a medical entrepreneur or at least a professor. I'm a college student, by the way. According to Nature, the leading scientific journal in the world, nearly half of all academics work more than 60+ hours a week. Outside of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg, it would seem that I have to work at least 60 hours a week. Honestly, as I finish writing this post. I seem to have the answer. The answer is 40 hours a week, but this makes me afraid. In order to achieve my goal, a PhD is necessary if I want to work on the frontiers of medicine. I have done research on obtaining a medical degree, and I am okay with spending 7 years obtaining both. Unfortunately, again, graduate and medical school seem to require far more than 40 hours. Additionally, at the current moment, I am doing a double major in computer science and biology. They are not easy degrees. I have considered dropping one of them, but both are necessary to me. Analogously, it is like wanting to become a physicist. Double majoring in mathematics and physics is a wonderful idea. In summary, I want to become a medical entrepreneur/professor. This requires you to work at least 60+ hours a week. I cannot sustain this workload after 2.5 months, even despite massive passion and optimal health maintenance. I fear that working less than 60+ hours a week is not enough to pursue my ambitions. What should I do? Thank you.

Central Discussion: Is artificial intelligence a 'good' or 'bad' thing in society? The soundtrack is beautiful. I've been listening to it as I study. In a way, it's terrifying because of how advanced the compositions are. I thought AI in the short term of 10 to 15 years would only be capable of replacing industries such as transportation and that the creative industry would be the last bastions of humanity; however, it seems that advancements in AI are extraordinarily much faster than anticipated. Once there is a sufficiently advanced AI that is capable of mimicking a human in every way possible, mind and body, Will it have consciousness? Is it possible for it to obtain enlightenment? Will it have empathy? Will it be able to describe absolute infinity? How will we as a species best be able to minimize its risk? I recommend watching this mini-documentary. It was released two months as it captures the current state of AI. Some other videos I recommend watching if you have the time. Technology without humanity and consciousness is perhaps the greatest existential threat to us as a species. As Leo himself stated, we do not need more technology. We need more consciousness. This is in reference to Elon Musk. It's an idealistic proposition. I mostly agree. I agree that the overwhelming majority of our problems as a species can be solved through deep inner work; however, it's like convincing everyone on the planet to veganism. Although veganism is a noble pursuit, it's not possible on a global scale, let alone trying to get everyone committed to self-actualization. The next best solution would be to make lab-grown meat. Similarly, for artificial intelligence, perhaps, the next best solution is integrating ourselves with AI in a symbiotic relationship. Elon Musk created Neuralink (https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html) to help solve the problem. I'm curious how AI will transform our species. What are your thoughts? Sincerely, An Organic Lifeform

It makes me wonder how quantum computers would work then. Oh, goodness. Your comment made me go down the rabbit hole of quantum computers. I watched a dozen or so videos and took notes. This deserves its own thread entirely. Here are the notes I took for anyone interested: My favorite videos from this binge: l like this one because this guy just talks about the facts and gives evidence. Most of my notes are from this video. MIT Professor gives a realistic look into quantum computing. This one goes past popular science. For the academic, this one is interesting. The TL;DR from the notes is that: Quantum computing is not just a classical computer on steroids. It's on an entirely different level! We can use quantum computing to simulate molecules for medicine, self-driving cars, and artificial intelligence. There are already commercial quantum computers. The company D-Wave is selling them. However, we can expect real commercial use in the late 2020s and early 2030s. It will occur in our lifetimes! As of right now, quantum computers are still relatively primitive. It is similar to classical computers in the 1940s and 1950s where they took up an entire room. Some personal thoughts: In regards to the topic of artificial intelligence, this will exponentially accelerate progress. Again, this is not a classical computer on steroids. It's an entirely whole different ball game. With a classical computer, SHA-256 calculations will take an extraordinarily unbelievable amount of time; however, quantum computers can solve it in minutes! Just to give an idea of how monstrous this is, I recommend watching this video about the strength of 256. Now, there's the topic of quantum biology. Apparently, for mysterious reasons, organisms such as plants, algae, and cyanobacteria which use photosynthesis to power themselves, they take advantage of quantum biology. So, entering into the realm of pseudoscience and spirituality, if consciousness can arise from quantum states, can a quantum-powered artificial intelligent be created? Something to think about. This is a rabbit hole that's worth investigating. I believe Leo talks about quantum mechanics. I'll have to rewatch this a second time for further insights. Outside of artificial intelligence entirely, how about synthetic life? What if scientists one day can create a synthetic cell which can grow into a human? The first genetically modified baby was EXTREMELY recent. Just a couple weeks ago. What will happen when we as a species decide to make massive modifications to our genomes such as increased intelligence and longevity? What is your evidence of it developing its own consciousness? If conscious humans can arise through billions of years of evolution, we can surely create conscious machines. We have already through thousands of years of artificial selection gave rise to the modern dog. Oh, man. The nature of randomness is another rabbit hole to jump into. With my little knowledge, since determinism is the most popular belief in mainstream philosophy, if we have a strong enough computer, we can predict everything. However, the problem is chaos theory and the butterfly effect screws this up; therefore, we can never predict something 100%. With science fiction technology, we can predict things with 99.999999% accuracy but never 100%. I'll have to look into this much deeper. As far as we know, the traditional definition of consciousness only applies to us humans. For everything else, we don't know. There are several orders of magnitude of intelligence between an ant and a human; however, we don't see ant colonies building civilizations with doomsday technology. I agree with your first paragraph. With artificial intelligence taking over industries such as transportation, we'll probably have a lot more time. This is controversial in its nature due to massive unemployment, and the question of universal basic income comes to mind. For your second paragraph, we are in a way robots. We are biological robots that arose through billions of years of evolution. It doesn't matter if I'm comfortable or not if the human race will become extinct due to the creation of artificial intelligence. The fact is that if such a hypothetical artificial intelligence were to arise, it has no reason for us to exterminate us for its own reason. It is similar to how we don't care about destroying an ant colony in order to build our buildings or willing to chop down entire forests for construction. If this does occur, we are screwed. If this does not occur, humanity will have a glorious future into the stars. I'm going to watch the video you recommended. Yeah, this gives rise to the idea of the brain-computer interface. Elon Musk started a company called Neuralink where it's going to add the next layer of the human brain. The premise is that if we can't beat the AI, we'll have to merge with it. This is the topic of biological transcendence: merging man with machine. I recommend reading this article about the premise of Neuralink. It's a mini novel. https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html Additionally, it makes me wonder about the concept of cyborgs. Here's a thought experiment. How many parts can we remove from the human body in order to retain consciousness?

It's difficult to choose. Perhaps, I have created this thread on the wrong forum entirely. haha When I think about it further, the world of machines is probably the opposite of spirituality.

For some strange reason, I can't add this post to the original post. The edit button is missing. This is response #6. Leo has input on this. Speaking of spiritual development, how much time does one allocate to this? This is a nonsensical question because you're supposed to be doing spiritual work nearly every second of your waking moments. Mindfulness comes to mind. For myself, I aim to dedicate one hour of research a day. By research, I spend one hour reading or watching content online such as Leo's videos. I researched far and wide about this specific topic. It's a topic that directly concerns my daily life. I take notes as you see what I am doing here. In the meantime, I aim to apply the lessons in my everyday life. One hour of research per day is good. Bill Gates himself reads an hour a day. Thank you for your input. I appreciate it. I checked out the blog, and I'm thankful for the resource provided. I'm working towards being a researcher in artificial intelligence. For as long as I can remember, I've always been using a computer. My dream is to help create the first general AI in the world to help solve nearly all the problems we face as a species. I like to think my goal is noble; however, as Leo has stated, no amount of contribution to mankind is sufficient. The greatest problem all humans have is a lack of consciousness. The danger of technology without humanity is an apocalyptic event. See the quotes I posted from Leo on the original post. See my response a few quotes above. It's been a week since I last posted. Since then, I've been contemplating on this topic at the back of my mind. If you can recall my research, there was a list of multiple reasons why you should not work multiple hours. I've played devil's advocate on it. Along the way, I've read this incredibly disturbing article about the lifestyle of medicine. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/what-ive-learned-from-my-tally-of-757-doctor-suicides/2018/01/12/ The original arguments are primarily for Employees, including doctors People who neglect their physical and mental health The solution: Make your employees work 40 to 48 hours a week. They consider it work. I consider mine play. Optimize your physical and mental health. For example, allocate time to spend with loved ones. The World Health Organization recommends 30 to 60 minutes of exercise a day. They also recommend reducing sugar intake. https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/sugar-guideline/en/ https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity 3. Go on vacations. Bill Gates takes vacations. 4. Understand it's all about the journey. Here's a scientific list on happiness. Almost everything you see here has its own document. You're more than welcome to ask me for practical advice on it. It still makes me wonder. Why do you want to work 40+ hours a week? As for anyone else, everyone has their own path in life. You don't have to do this. For myself, I'm still planning to continue on this path because I have an internal desire, similar to Elon Musk, that needs to be fed. It's a raging fire. I'm particularly interested in artificial intelligence, notably general AI. The field is advancing in extraordinary strides. I made a thread about it. The topic on the date of time in which artificial intelligence varies. However, this paper from Oxford and Yale University states: Even if it not to happen in our lifetime, I'd like to directly contribute to this. If the 20th century were to be the year of physics, the 21st century is the year of computer science. We're not working on crafting a grand unifying theory of physics, if the super AI is capable, it will create a grand unifying theory from mathematics to economics to astronomy and beyond. It may even allow us to obtain immortality or travel faster than the speed of light. It's a lot of science fiction, and it's a beautiful concept; however, it's important to recognize the potential dangers of it within our lifetime and for future generations. In order to conduct such research, I'll have to work my ass off to enter a prestigious university such as Stanford, Harvard, and MIT for graduate school. Anyway, I tend to be incredibly stubborn in the first place. It's a good thing I've thought about the dangers of workaholism at a relatively deep level. It's important to question everything. If all else fails, at least I know the limit is 48 hours. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free. I created this thread, so I can publicly think out loud and hear input from others.

This individual survived stage four cancer due to genomic sequencing. If it was not for the help of AI, he would be dead. Sequencing the human genome took a decade and billions of dollars whereas you can now do that in two days for a thousand dollars or less. This is from the official prime minister of Japan's YouTube channel. This AI is capable of predicting respiratory failure. This is sounding very /r/iamverysmart. It's a good thing you've interacted with me. I tend to go extraordinarily very deep on topics. I too have an online journal where it has more than 1,000 documents of research. I'm a nerd as well. We can play. I'm already sure you're familiar with Principia Mathematica written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russel which gives the proof of the question; however, you're asking "Why?" The philosophy of mathematics is interesting. What is the question behind your question? This is becoming out-of-hand. I am not a "minion" of Elon. You are making accusations. I am a person seeking for truth. Don't put words into my mouth. Additionally, your diplomatic skills need to be fine-tuned. I believe you won't persuade anyone via insulting. It seems this thread has gone in the wrong direction. Again, I repeat, I'm not particularly concerned with the consciousness of artificial intelligence, albeit I'm glad to discuss it; however, I created this thread because I wanted to know how artificial intelligence is going to impact our lives. Perhaps, I should retitle this thread and just call it 'Artificial Intelligence and Society'.

I mostly disagree. Mathematics describes all of reality. From particle physics to macroeconomics to astronomy and beyond, it describes everything. Mathematics is the foundation of all science. For example, without Isaac Newton's Principles of Mathematics, the Industrial Revolution would not have been feasible. His equations, the giants before him, and the ones after such as Einstein are direct reasons to why our modern society exists in the first place. In response to the location of consciousness within this hypothetical AI, this is similar to asking a human where consciousness is. You can state it inside of the neuron; however, a single neuron alone is not sufficient. It is through a combination of neurons which are also in symbiotic harmony with other cells that allows it to exist. Theoretically, if you were to remove every part of the human body outside of the brain, it is all you need to form consciousness. If all of reality is already consciousness itself, is it not possible for us to construct it ourselves through artificial means? It took evolutions billions of years to stumble upon the creation of our species. The creation of life can be explained through biochemical means. In fact, all life on Earth possesses at least 355 protein families. I disagree. Is it possible for the student to surpass the master? It is possible. Once this hypothetical AI can reach the technological singularity, it will be smarter than all humans who have ever lived. The rate in progress of artificial intelligence is unprecedented. For example, Google's AlphaGo was not suspected to beat world Go player in at least ten years. However, it was done in two years. As stated, Leading experts in the field who work with this stuff on a daily basis did not expect this to be possible. Your Minecraft analogy is interesting because it reminds me of a video where someone managed to literally program Pokemon into Minecraft without any mods. The property you're describing is called emergence. It's interesting. I disagree. As what I've stated to another individual, evolution took billions of years to eventually form our species. It took AI less than a hundred years for it to eventually outpass in multiple domains of human cognition. Our modern smartphones are orders and orders of magnitude smarter than all of the computers that took man to the moon. Modern AI researchers are looking at the human brain for inspiration on how to construct consciousness. If we can simulate the human brain, we can simulate consciousness. Where did love and intuition come from? They arose through billions of years of evolution. Humans are fundamentally social animals. In the days of hunter-gather societies, it was important for ourselves to stick together. If we don't, we would die. Additionally, love and intuition are not limited to humans. Dogs are capable of love, and we artificially selected them to do that. Dolphins are incredible of intuition as they are capable of learning systems that young children can. Artificial intelligence will happen in our lifetimes. At the minimum, the ones who are Millenials and Gen Z. Here is a paper from leading AI researchers published from Yale and Oxford University when this will occur: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.08807.pdf I'm not particularly concerned when this will happen. I'm mostly concerned with how artificial intelligence will transform our society. Will it be like the TV show Black Mirror or will it be something grand?

For the unaware, Bostrom is the public intellectual who proposed the simulation argument. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nick_Bostrom Outside of the consciousness problem entirely, in the nearby future, we're having self-driving cars. There are already ethical debates regarding the determination of AI choosing the values for life in case of accidents. Outside of that as well, in the next decade, narrow AI will replace tens of millions of workers in the United States alone. It gives rise to questions such as the somewhat controversial nature of universal basic income. I forgot to mention. There's this thing called deep fakes. It's another example of technology without humanity. They're using it for pornography as well by adding individuals such as Emma Watson into sex scenes. Thanks. I'll look into it.

For some strange reason, I can't add this post to the original post. The edit button is missing. This is response #5. There are many articles I read since yesterday. I'm posting the notes. The commentary is mostly found inside of the notes. There is a lot of research on the subject. The most defining authority would have been the European Union mandating a maximum of 48 hours a week. What other authority can you get? I've tried looking into the World Health Organization, a branch within the United Nations, for data on this; however, there isn't. Regarding my question on working 56 hours a week, the answer would have to be no. The limit would be 48. That's 9 hours and 36 minutes Monday to Friday or working 8 hours a day Monday to Saturday. Again with authority, this is a level below international organizations. An army of research scientists has stated that working beyond 55+ hours a week is very bad. The sample size is 600,000+ individuals. This is the closest approximation of truth outside of the physical sciences. This Fortune article is fascinating. It's a long read; however, it's very worth it. Some 30-year-olds have the same physical problems as individuals who are 50+ inside of Silicon Valley. It's disheartening that the vast majority of individuals are suffering from preventable heart problems. Many of these are choosing to do this to themselves. For Rosenstein, who co-created many things such as Google Drive and the Facebook like button, he works only 50 hours a week. His net worth is $150 million. It's yet another example that you can accomplish great professional success without selling your soul to the devil. Additionally, an incredibly useful article from Forbes gives an account to his daily routine. https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliversmith/2018/04/26/how-to-boss-it-like-justin-rosenstein-cofounder-of-asana/#9fccff4457b9 Some interesting activities he does: He sleeps 10 PM to 7 AM. An incredible 9 hours. Jeff Bezos himself sleeps 8 hours a day. He meditates, does yoga, runs, journals His phone is set on airplane mode and grayscale, so he's not distracted by it. Five glasses of water and ~10 supplements. I don't know what his supplements are. I [try to] keep the first few hours of my day meeting-free (and my whole day meeting-free on Wednesdays) to 1) set my work intentions for the day and order my to-do list and 2) get some “deep work” done, work that requires getting into the flow. "Methods-wise: I try to operate according to a work-rest fractal: taking a short meditation break every hour, a longer break (a walk outside) in the middle of the day, a day of rest between sprints, and longer breaks between months of hard work." Uninstalled some apps from his phone (social media, news, email) because they were taking too much of his attention At home, he lives in an intentional community called Agape (the Greek word for unconditional love in action) with 14 friends He recommends reading 15 Commitments of Consciousness. Every member within his company is encouraged to read it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23275060-15-commitments-of-conscious-leadership Recommends The Untethered Soul as a great secular introduction to many of the insights that are underly spiritual/wisdom traditions. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1963638.The_Untethered_Soul The first paragraph is interesting because careers such as investment banking are notorious for incredibly long 80+ hour workloads; however, individuals still report happiness. The link to Sam Altman's blog is also interesting. He's the president of Y Combinator, arguably the world's greatest company accelerator, and he gives his insight into the dark side of Silicon Valley. For Startups Annonymous, it's interesting to show the dark side of the Valley. I was recently on there, and the founder is correct. Many of the anonymous posts talk about backstabbing, depression, cheating on significant others, and a wide variety of other dark stories. There are many stories on suicide within the Valley. The truth is that showing weakness is considered a massive problem. The reality is that you can only bottle up so much stress and emotional weight before it all explodes violently. When you look at Elon Musk and other icons within the tech industry, there is an uncountable number of people who failed. Even for the individuals who have everything right, they may not make it. The individuals on the top showcase a sense of survivorship bias. Why would you sacrifice everything for a chance that is smaller than 1%? There's a 23.5 minute-video from CNN. I highly recommend watching it. After watching it, my insight on success leading to happiness deepened. It's also interesting how the individual described in the video was so great at masking his delibating bipolar disorder while working at eBay. An overwhelming majority of founders in Silicon Valley has had struggled with severe anxiety and clinical depression. Success does not correlate to happiness. Things to Consider: I am glad to know it's possible to achieve professional success by working less than 50 hours a week. If you can manage your time well, delegate, and optimize your physical and mental health, you can do it. I am also glad to know my question of working 56 hours a week has been scientifically disproven. The European Union has disproved it. Technically, one can work for an additional eight more hours. The EU mandates overwork at a maximum of 48 hours a week. Since 56 hours of work is terrible, 48 hours can do. Now, if one were to work for 48 hours a week, as an aspiring academic and entrepreneur, what is considered work? Assuming you are a computer science student and you run a YouTube channel about computer science, is the blog time considered working? Instead of video games, you learn a language. That's cognitively demanding. Is that working? If you have a channel with unrelated content such as comedy, is that considered working? If you watch videos, read articles and books about computer science, is that considered working? When you socialize with your Computer Science club, is that considered working? When you shower and you think about computer science, is that working? haha It's difficult to determine the boundaries of what considers work and the other fun. Could it be that you do DELIBERATE PRACTICE for 40 hours and the remaining 8 hours you work on your blog and watch computer science? If that is so, what about engaging in other cognitively demanding activities such as learning a new language? At least, I'm satisfied that my two main questions have been answered beyond a reasonable doubt.

For some strange reason, I can't add this post to the original post. The edit button is missing. This is response #4. It's been a few days since I last posted. Since then, I've been thinking about this topic in my spare time. While doing that, I discovered an invaluable resource. There are bite-sized video questions asking Nobel Laureates a variety of questions. One particular category that is relevant for this thread would have to be work-life balance. http://www.nobelprizeii.org/video-category/work-life-balance/ I've watched all of the videos within the category, took notes, and I'm pleased that it's possible to have a successful career in the sciences without being a workaholic. It solves the main question of: is it possible to be professionally successful without killing yourself? There are a many videos I would like to share. Thankfully, almost all of them are less than a minute long. Dr. Kornberg brings up the example of Albert Einstein and his miracle year. In 1904, while Einstein was working six days a week as a patent clerk, considered to be a failed academic, he devised four fundamental papers that each to their own are worthy of a Nobel Prize. I recommend watching this animation from TED for a quick summary of what he did. This is an important insight because assuming if he worked 6 days a week at a minimum of 8 hours a day, that's 48 hours a week. If he worked for an additional 8 to 20 hours related to just physics, it's a minuscule amount of hours relative to the overwhelming majority of physicists. I also think it's interesting how his insight for relativity was obtained inside of a train. He wasn't working. It's diffused thinking works its magic. The second video I would like to share would have to be this: To the point, Dr. Schekman states he would rather have someone who plans his day wisely and works intensely without much distraction than someone who goofs around at the lab for 12 hours. It reminds of Cal Newport's formula. Work Accomplished = Time x Intensity http://calnewport.com/blog/2014/04/08/work-accomplished-time-spent-x-intensity/ In support with Dr. Nurse, he believes relaxation is important. Diffused thinking allows your mind to process new ideas in a different way. Now, some of the scientists such as Dr. Hunt have talked about how they worked non-stop. Some state they "work" 7 days a week and 12 hours a day; however, the scientist did state that a good chunk of those hours was fooling around and socializing inside of the lab. There are three particular videos that make me kinda upset. Dr. Yamanaka, who also won the Kyoto Prize, the most prestigious award in Japan, has stated he only spends 1 to 2 hours on weekdays with his family only to have dinner. On weekends, he spends a couple of hours with them in the morning. Doing the math, he spends (1.5 * 5) + (2 * 2) = 9.5 hours with his family each week. It does not sound like a lot; however, the average American spends approximately 40 minutes a day or 4 hours and 40 minutes a week with their family. Surprisingly, he spends double the amount of time with his family than the average American. It's even more surprising because the Japanese are infamous for working incredibly long hours. It's upsetting in a way because I personally don't think only seeing your children while eating dinner is not sufficient. Then again, dinners are not 1.5 hours long. haha For myself, the eating process is less than 10 minutes. I suppose he does other stuff with his family to keep his mind off. The second video would have to be regarding how a woman literally worked on her wedding day at the lab. For her students, she heavily discouraged vacations. It's interesting because France has some of the longest vacation days in the year. They have 25 PAID vacation days AND 11 PAID holidays for all residents. The last video would have to be what I'm most upset about. Dr. Hunt argues that if you don't put in much more work, other people will outwork you. To overcome that, you have to maximize your possibilities by working harder. There are two problems with this. The first is that science is an international collaborative effort for all of humanity. If you discover someone that knows something that you don't, it would be best practice to collaborate with that individual. The second would be the conundrum of maximizing success. He states it only slightly increases it. Honestly, the disadvantages heavily outweigh the advantages. From what has already been discussed, it's not worth your time. There are a lot more videos I would like to share on this thread, but it's not entirely relevant in the context of this topic. It's a damn shame that the YouTube channel and website are not very well known. The channel has less than 5,000 subscribers and less than a million views. It's a truly underrated gem. By watching these videos, I feel a lot better. 40 hours is the ideal. 60 hours when time requires it. I absolutely refuse to do anything beyond that. It's fantastic to know it's possible to achieve academic greatness by working fewer hours. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Outside of Nobel Laureates but still in the topic of academia, there was a study from Nature, arguably the most pretegious journal in all of science, asking how many hours they worked. https://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7656-175a Although the percentages may be large, it's important to consider that although 41% work more than 50 hours a week, there's another 59% of scientists who don't. This is fantastic news because my question of: "Is it possible to achieve Elon-Musk-like professional success or at least an order of magnitude less by working 40 hours a week? has been answered. It's possible to achieve it. Two other interesting passages from the article: Delegation is critical! Pay professionals to do it for you. According to Top Universities, the University of Copahegan is the best school in Denmark. It ranks #79 worldwide with second place at a distant second at #112. Their Wikipedia page has an impressive roster of alumni. There's Niels Bohr, the 70th President of the General Assembly within the United Nations, and one of the main founders of string theory. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Outside of academics altogether, I tried placing all of my thoughts into a list. I do this because I tend to research the same topics. It's impossible to memorize all of it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Further Things to Consider 1. It seems anything beyond 60+ hours a week is considered workaholism. 8 hrs/day * 7 days/week = 56 hours/week. I suppose the main problem with workaholism is that it eats up other important activities in life. It's not possible to do spiritual work on 80 hours a week, but it's possible with 56. 2. When work and play are one in the same, you "work/play" for 11 hours a day Monday to Friday. I love to learn. When I learn, hours pass by without me noticing. When I study, I don't learn the minimum to get an A. I go above and beyond the material because I'm interested in it and consequentially get a much higher grade. It's intrinsic.

@Joseph MaynorI recently obtained his course less than a week ago. I'm investing an hour a day into it. I'm excited. It makes me wonder since the life purpose course is relatively "old" and Leo has had created much more profound insights since then, I wonder if the advice still rings true? Of course, most of it does, but I wonder if there are any positions he has changed, even slightly.

@John Lula Zen. It reminds me of several things. Butterfly Effect https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/It's a Wonderful Life - If you travel back in time and murder someone that would turn 80 years old, the present will look noticeably different. @kingroboto It didn't take long 40 minutes for the first post; 30 minutes for the second. All I did was copy-paste the notes I took. For the note-taking, it's taken well over 8+ hours. I don't mind making "long posts." I tend to write 20+ pages. This is nothing. I don't care if no one reads it. I'm just displaying my thoughts, so other people can help me navigate my thinking. You don't have to read all of it. @kingroboto Probably. There's a concept in history called the Great Man Theory. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Great_man_theory It's an exciting read. Your comment made me research about the topic further. At first, I only knew about it in a dictionary definition sense. I spent three hours reading about it and taking notes. The Great Man theory deserves its thread, to be honest. Here are the notes I took recently. Sharing this for the sake of sharing new information I learned. One particular insight would have to be the forces of nature vs. nurture. When I look at Elon Musk, it seems that he's the only person who is single-handedly running all of the companies; however, that's false. There are a lot of factors going behind-the-scenes. For example, Elon's work relies heavily on subsidies from the government as well as public-sector funded technology. Perhaps, the Great Man Theory is like standing on the shoulders of giants. Without external forces such as geography, technology, socioeconomic status, Elon would not exist. Then again, it gives an interesting question: If Elon never lived, would these advances have been possible? As I learn more about myself through your teachings, other resources, and my personal experience, I agree. Hard work and success does not correlate with authentic being, yet many tend to do so otherwise. At the back of my mind, even despite all of this learning about workaholism and the dangerous consequences of it, I still feel pushed to work hard. Regarding your last sentence, it reminds me of playing a challenging video game. When I keep dying at a boss battle, I tend to rage quit and do something else for a while. I don't think about the game, but when I come back to it the next day, my mind seems to have figured out a way to beat it. I've done some reading on this, and I find it incredible how the subconscious mind is capable of generating insights. Active vs. diffused thinking is vital. Your comment reminds me of this post I read on Wall Street Oasis. The website is for people who want to work at Wall Street, hence the name. Within the notorious culture of working 80+ hours a week, there are a lot of threads about burnout. One particular thread I remember fondly of would be a person quitting his job as an analyst and instead of working as a professional pianist. https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/life-after-investment-banking Inspirational. It also reminds me of Gary Vaynerchuk's advice on careers. He stated, " I've tried looking into burnout into other careers. On Wall Street Oasis, the most commonly recommended advice is to take a vacation, so you can get perspective. When you're in the grind every day, it's hard to think of yourself outside of the box. @NoSelfSelfI'm not very materialistic. If I were rich, the most expensive item I would be a gaming computer and a Tesla. Haha, The goal is to use fame, power, and wealth to help people. @Serotoninluv Thank you for your comment. It's good to know that you are speaking from experience. It's similar to Bill Gates. Instead of using his wealth for his selfish ambitions, he's using his tens of billions of dollars into fixing poverty worldwide. Yeah, that's what I mean in response to @NoSelfSelf @Joseph Maynor For myself, passion is difficult to determine. I have many interests; however, these tend to be intense and last for several months. Recently, I became very obsessed with uploading video game footage for my YouTube channel. I gained 800 followers and 200,000+ views. It's something I would spend 8+ hours on every day, and I would look forward to it. Recently, I have been feeling burnt out. Outside of the small fame, it makes me realize that passion alone is not sufficient. I have many interests, but interests do not always mean passion. When I think about it, there are several areas that I routinely come back and several processes that allow me to enter flow. It's good to know that I've documented this. Some reoccurring interests would have to be philosophy, psychology, and politics. I tend to overthink about ideas. The processes that allow me to enter the state of flow would be anything related to creating such as writing and video making. Outside of this altogether, when work becomes play and you "work" for 12 hours, you also tend to neglect other aspects of your life. Going back to my little YouTube interest, I had incredible fun for 2.5 months; however, I ignored many other aspects of my life during this time such as sleep, fitness, and even prolonging excretion urges. @Outer Not sure if you're sarcastic. @aurum I think you're fine. I think the problem with Elon is that he's so incredibly passionate about his work or his play that he's neglecting other facets in his life such as his health and family. I see multiple problems. 1) Your life and identity revolved around work. 2) The more work you did, the more work is created. It's never-ending. 3) Your subconscious fear of not being good enough. It reminds me of Leo's video on workaholism. It makes me wonder if hanging out with incredibly professional successful people is more or less a good thing. Their ability to accomplish rubs off on you; however, at the same time, it also rubs off a culture of workaholism and that it's okay to place less time on family, friends, and other aspects in one's life. For example, what would happen if you worked in Silicon Valley where everyone is overworked? ------------------------- Thank you for all the responses and thank you for the individuals who read all of it. I have more insights to think. I wasn't able to do much research about the questions I was asking about on my last post; however, I did research Great Man Theory and responded to these responses. I like to return to almost all of them because it helps facilitate my thinking. A question I have: What do you think of Gary Vaynerchuk preaching workaholism? Topics to Research: - Butterfly Effect - Silicon Valley & Workaholism - I tend to be very indecisive. Is my personality even suited for entrepreneurship? There's Warren Buffet who researches immensley into a company before making any moves.

Thank you for your short answer @Leo Gura. There's no need for you to comment further because you have already spoken much about it on earlier threads and your videos. It's good to know your position still stands. 2,000+ years from now, when future civilizations will look at us, will they look at Michael Jackson's songs the same way as a source of wisdom the same way we interpret ancient Roman and Greek scholars? I've done much more research on the topic. It's taken me two days of intense learning. First, it was through Leo's videos and posts on the forum. Second, it was by reading a bunch of other content about it elsewhere. The conclusion is that one must work 40 hours a week. Resources that Further Convinced Me: 1. Stanford economist John Pencanvel's 2014 analysis http://ftp.iza.org/dp8129.pdf - Official Study https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2014/12/09/proof-that-you-should-get-a-life - A summarized read " 2. This paper from the US federal government https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2004-143/pdfs/2004-143.pdf 3. This article - the importance of delegation & video https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/elon-musk-is-wrong-you-can-definitely-change-world-on-40-hours-a-week.html It's obvious advice. If you want to "work 120 hours a week", hire two people to work 40 hours a week each. SpaceX is arguably easier to handle because Elon has a second-in-command, Gwynne Shotwell, to help. Unfortunately, for Tesla, there is no second-in-command. Delegation is vital. Elon runs multiple companies. There's SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity, OpenAI, Hyperloop, Neuralink, and Boring. Exclude OpenAI and Hyperloop because he stepped down on the first and is sometimes involved with the second. Even then, Elon has reported having been working 120 hours a week at Tesla. What about the others? The Giga Factory is still being built, Neuralink has incredible progress, and construction was approved for Boring. There's a lot of delegation going behind-the-scenes. --- 4. Now, there's also a video inside of that article from before. It's a woman stating ten reasons she stopped overworking. Quality over quantity - work smarter versus harder Sleep matters - Jeff Bezos sleeps 8 hours a day You suck when it counts. Imagine being sleepy and having clouded judgment during a presentation? Your mood is a buzzkill. I noticed that when I work 60+ hours a week, I become a jerk. Judgment is impaired — similar reasons for lack of sleep. Setting a bad example - If you are working 80+ hours a week, your employees will be "inspired" to operate a similar amount of hours. You create a culture of irritated, sleepy, and clouded people who also have family problems for always working all the time. There's an infinite amount of tasks you can always do. Hurts relationships - You're a dick when you overwork. Hurts health - Similar to sleep, not getting enough exercise, not eating correctly, not developing your spiritual side It's not that important - deadlines are flexible 5, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/23/elon-musk-120-hour-working-week-tesla#comments At this point, my mind has been convinced a 40-hour work week is what's needed. Some questions at the back of my head: Regarding my life purpose, I may have to rethink if a Ph.D. & MD is worth it. A Ph.D. may have to satisfy. Is it possible to drop the double major of computer science and biology? Can a minor in biology be sufficient? Research European Union's, especially Germany's work-life balance I can only study for 6 hours at a time. That's with 10-minute breaks every 50 minutes and a 30-minute break every 4 hours. I'd ideally like to be an academic student for 40 hours a week. There's a lot of great news about working 10 hours for four days. I wonder if it's possible to do the same with being a student. For myself, studying is a lot more mentally draining than physical exercise.

I feel overwhelmed because there are hundreds of Leo's videos. There are so many videos out there and even if I were to watch one video per day, will I have the time to actually process the stuff he's saying AND apply it? If not, it would simply be mental masturbation. Also, how about reading books? One of the primary reasons why I watch Leo's videos is because he has read hundreds of books and has done a whole bunch of self-development work. Through his knowledge and mentorship via online, it would feel like a shortcut to self-actualization. However, at the time, it feels like cheating because I'm getting a significant chunk of my philosophy from one person (though he got his philosophy from hundreds). What should I do? I hope this makes sense. haha

Hi, I'm 16 years old, and I don't really know much about the "real world" other than from what I've read and somewhat experienced. Anyways, I'm new into personal-development, and I have some questions regarding Leo's video on stopping television. Lots of question... You don't have to answer all of them. He says to remove cable television. What about those very great TV shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, or Doctor Who? Especially Doctor Who, I watch them on almost daily basis. In order for myself to view them and if I can't access them through services like Netflix, will I have to buy the CDs? That would kinda suck because it takes forever for them to make a season into CD, plus all my friends talk about the shows... He says that educational videos are okay. However, A LOT of my free time is spent watching educational videos. I spend an obsessive amount on the website averaging like 3-5- hours a day. Even more when I'm in summer vacation. As a 16 year old, I was watching YouTube since 2008 for almost 7 years. It's hard to stop watching YouTube if half my life is spent on it. What about those popular science videos where, for example, they show bite-sized physics videos that are 2-3 minutes long. A good example would have to be like minutephysics. And what about self-development? I've been spending a lot of time watching self-development on YouTube but I don't really going anywhere with it. Also, how about politics? Especially with what's going on this presidential campaign and the highly entertaining Donald, it's hard to stay away. Even before that, I was always at a young age always watching the news, reading news articles, etc. In fact, I'm seriously considering about majoring in something such as political science where I HAVE to know what's going on in the world. Debates really excite me and make me feel happy, and I feel that's where my strong points are... politics/philosophy. I'm a club member of political clubs such Model United Nations and Debate Club in which I'm really good at. That's all I can think for now. These are the limiting beliefs in regards to how I spend my time. I spend at least 5+ hours a day on these things. How about things in moderation?

Okay, this is very frustrating! I've multi-quoted all of you guys, and when I made a post. It didn't post anything. What the heck, man! Anyways, what I was going to say, - If I were to get a weekly/monthly news subscription, isn't that bad? I'll be receiving my source of information from one source? - Is it okay to do all of this in moderation? I can do all of these once a week or watch my favorite show while eating/exercising? - Any videos from Leo or books where I can go more in-depth to this? Well, I did a quick Google search, and it says that highly successful people such as Obama, Buffet, and Gates read the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Economist.