Ideas for YouTube videos

Talk about how society divides up not only labor, but also fear. The division of fear is why jobs are often not as pleasant as when you interact with friends. (eg john's LI profile)
Talk about how history education is broken because it doesn't focus on why a person should learn about the past. Without keeping the goal of studying history in mind, you may end up wasting a lot of time learning about stuff that doesn't matter.
Talk about how the current system of relying on clothing and physical appearance (being in good shape) to judge strangers needs to get replaced with a system that would rely instead on knowing a lot about the other person. You'll have a Google-Glass-type thing.
Talk about the apparent difference between the perceived value of network effected games and network effect web apps (Instagram).
- I suppose games tend not to get to 100 million users very often.
Talk about the trend of individuals getting more and more powerful as new technology is developed, and that this trend will lead to individuals being as powerful as entire nations were in the past (arguably we're already there with some of these billionaires).
- And this will require surveillance of these people as if they were nation-states.
Talk about how, in the future, it may become the case that all potential alternative methods for getting wealthy will have been explored, so that there will just be a market rate for the trade of time for money.
Talk about how people should try to act in a way such that other people wouldn't be too surprised by any embarrassing outburst or revelation.
- Explanation
  - It's like building a house on a weak foundation or not building it strong enough to withstand the typical storms of the region it's in (eg Florida).
- Examples of people who did not follow this advice
  - Closeted gay people who get a high rank in some anti-gay movement.
Talk about how a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck in money-making mode and when they end up cashing out, they just keep trying to make money because that's what they've gotten used to.
- What they should do instead is take 1-4 years off to get used to a more relaxed lifestyle.
- They should also plan for the types of activities they'd want to do once they have money.
- Remember: money is a means to an end! It's useless by itself.
Make a series of awkward topic videos on stuff like acne, molestation, rape, etc, whatever is in the news (rape) and/or would be relevant to people (acne).
- The rationale is that I've noticed that people seem to appreciate it when someone takes the initiative to discuss something that everyone is thinking but no one wants to be the one to say it.
- That's actually one of the things I think people like about comedians: they are willing to talk about things that everyone is dealing with and everyone is thinking about, but that most people are too nervous to talk about because of the potential repercussions.
Make a series of Elon Musk challenges:
- Staying in the motel room for a week
- See if you can just have food
Talk about how humans pass on culture from generation to generation (give words as an incredible example).
- Use that to explain what you're learning about feminism.
- Their aggression is what is making people take notice.
  - I've noticed that some feminists criticize the use of aggressive behavior, and yet some feminists (different ones? the same ones?) use aggression themselves to get results. I should think about that.
    - Maybe the solution is to just set down rules for what's OK, like they do in sports.
Talk about how scripts could include not just dialogue, but also what is going through each person's mind, which would then reflect itself in the performance through facial gestures, physical gestures (where the character looks, the expression on his face).
- Actors often ask for more direction, which I think reflects the fact that the script often doesn't make it explicit what the writer envisions is going through a character's mind, and how that character is behaving (what they're looking at, etc.)
- Also talk about how it seems random that there's this idea in film that actors shouldn't mess too much with the script as it's written, but they have free reign over the performance of those lines, which basically means they have total free reign over the implied-but-unwritten script of what's going on in the character's mind.
Talk about how people should write down the things they like and don't like that the people in charge of them are doing, because otherwise, once you are the one in charge, you'll have forgotten a lot of that and you'll end up making the same mistakes.
- If you're still living with your parents, write down the things they're doing that you disagree with.
- If you work at a company and have people above you making decisions, write down the things they're doing that you like and don't like.
- If you're helping to make a movie, write down the things the director does that you like and don't like.
Talk about spending holidays without doing anything special.
- People who are not happy with their lives should resist peer pressure to continue in that lifestyle.
  - I see a lot of people who are unhappy with their lives but they don't make changes. They're locked into their group of friends, their way of life.
- Not doing anything special for the holidays should be seen as an exercise in resisting the majority opinion on things.
  - It's good to get practice doing things differently from everyone else.
Talk about how prose may be better presented like code is presented, and that the only reason prose is currently written serially is that it started that way to save space, to make maximum use of the writing space (paper, stone wall, etc.). But now we don't have that same space restriction.
- Main idea: The invention of computer displays may make it appropriate to show nonfiction in a more structure way than it has been shown in the past.
- Analogy: Programming.
- Explanation: Prose
Talk about how who you work for and where you work are going to become decoupled.
Talk about your analogy of the bar owner who sells the bar and then starts a new one.
- Examples:
  - Bridgewater
    - loading up on employees to create the illusion that the success is the result of a system that can be passed on to others instead of Ray Dalio's unique personality...
    - ....and then selling itself to pension funds
Talk about how your surprise at the continuation of things like Star Wars and TMNT is connected to what Ellen Pao was talking about with these habits from the past that are still getting passed on from one generation to the next.
Talk about how friendship is like two mice running in a maze together, and once either of them finds the way to the exit he can help the other get there.
Go to a grocery store and talk about how the stock market is a lot like trying to find the shortest register at the stock market. The market is mostly efficient, but not totally efficient.

Use simple props, like Lindybeige does.

Talk about how to come up with a good idea for a new business. Use the analogy of a Lord of the Flies-type situation: you and a bunch of other people get stranded on a big island. You discover a grove of fruit trees. What should you do? Tell everyone? They may just take the fruit if you don't have a way of stopping them. If the grove is in defensible territory, you may be able to fend them off and keep all the fruit for yourself, or get compensated by the others for the fruit.

I think promoting yourself online is really important, but when I have free time I often can't think of anything off the top of my head that I should create. It'd be better for me to note down ideas here as they come to me, and to work on those ideas as I have free time.
Hmm...I have a lot of ideas...it might be good to look into paying someone to edit them for me.

Many of our social attitudes are no longer as appropriate, but they persist because of the way habits are passed down through generations.
Talk about how the speed with which we move into the future is held back by social norms that spread from generation to generation. We could travel into the future if we got rid of this limitation. For example, Amazon tribes are still living in the past.

Sell your soul to the devil (an exercise in rhetoric)

Simple prop in the "Sell your soul to the devil" video: red contacts that you have under sunglasses and reveal at the very end.
Tell a story of a many being abused by his company and leaving
Reveal that the man was the person commonly known as "the devil"
first give analogies of how people only experienced some of the universe's creatures in the past (eg whales), and then there was a period where some people had experienced those creatures and there were some inaccurate depictions of them in stories and books, and now everyone knows what whales look like and are. And that pattern can still hold true because the universe is very large. And what's weird to humans (insects) is only weird to us because that isn't the plane of existence we occupy. So just because something sounds weird doesn't mean it isn't perfectly normal.
- Then reveal that the man in the story was an angel, and the "boss" was god.

I should make a series of five-minute videos explaining how driving in a car is like investing in the stock market.
I should record a video of me just sitting at a desk, reading, recorded from the back, and play it on a big flat screen tv in the motel room. There should be videos of other top entrepreneurs reading. This could also be a good idea for a project to get to know those people (although many of them didn't become successful by knowing successful people).

Have a video where you talk about how people seem to respect those who speak with authority / without hedging their statements.

A video introducing the channel and explaining how to get the most from it

Tell people to use the playlists! You want to make videos on a variety of subjects.

Playlist: Dating Advice for My Kids

Approaching
- Video: Slowly get closer
  - Show the clip from Amarcord
  - Show yourself doing the same thing
  - Not sure how this jives with the 5-second rule
- Video: 5-second rule
  - I agree with Mystery that this is useful, but I think it's a bit advanced to expect inexperienced guys to master this. I see it more as a target to aim for, a destination to head towards.
- Video: Exercise: Ask a question of an employee / street vendor
- Video: Exercise: Walk close to the person but don't say anything
- Video: Exercise: Sit on a bench and practice getting up when you see someone attractive
  - The idea here is that you want to be able to stand up and start walking over to them.
- Video: "Pinging".
  - Use the clip of the Combat Mission guy talking about making contact with the enemy with the minimum possible portion of your force, so you have the maximum ability to maneuver.
Conversation
- One way to get good at this is to watch videos of other people doing it. In the old days, people probably got good just by watching their older siblings. But now everyone is so separated from each other, people don't see what the generation ahead of them is doing.
Tracking your progress
- Video: Keeping a journal / log
  - Use the analogy of using a journal / log when lifting weights.
Analyzing your performance
- Video: Recording your approaches
  - Use clips of Bas Rutten talking about how useful it was to analyze his fights afterwards.
  - Use the analogy of analyzing your mistakes on the LSAT.

I think promoting yourself online is really important, but when I have free time I often can't think of anything off the top of my head that I should create. It'd be better for me to note down ideas here as they come to me, and to work on those ideas as I have free time.

Playlist: Dating Advice for My Kids

Approaching

Video: Slowly get closer
- Show the clip from Amarcord
- Show yourself doing the same thing
- Not sure how this jives with the 5-second rule

Video: 5-second rule

Conversation

- One way to get good at this is to watch videos of other people doing it. In the old days, people probably got good just by watching their older siblings. But now everyone is so separated from each other, people don't see what the generation ahead of them is doing.