Product & Startup Builder

Taking Responsibility

Added on by Chris Saad.

Some people can't take responsibility for their own actions or outcomes. They frequently consider themselves the victim of people or circumstances.

Some people are quick to take responsibility for all the experiences they have in life believing that they fundamentally own their outcomes - whether they cause it or frame it in a certain way.

As usual, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. You can't control being struck by lightning but you can control how you view the incident and how you let it affect your life/decisions from there.

I tend to lean towards taking responsibility. At least when I am most 'awake'. I try to avoid blaming others for my experience. I try to identify how I could have performed better or communicated better. At the very least, I believe, I should have identified and optimized for their POV (right or wrong) more quickly in order to optimize my behavior and the overall outcome.

Sometimes, though, I realize that I've over-indexed on taking responsibility and accepting other people's narratives/view of the world. There are times when - in fact - the other perspective is simply, flat out, wrong.

#gutcheck #knowyourvalue

Originally posted on Facebook

Must Watch: Westworld

Added on by Chris Saad.

Stop everything you're doing and watch this (Westworld Season 1 Official Trailer). I hope this will be the next Game of Thrones and Battlestar Galactica.

I see themes related to the argument about base reality vs simulation, identity and so much more. I really hope it ends much like the Thirteenth Floor did.

A generation's crisis of faith

Added on by Chris Saad.

This came to me in a conversation in a dream just now. I said...

For my generation we saw the twin towers fall proving we weren't safe and even buildings were not indestructible. Planes could fall out of the sky at any moment.

We saw Bush and Cheney take us into a manufactured war in Iraq, proving to us that the government didn't serve the people.

We saw the news media fail to inform the electorate about the truth of the war proving to us that the media no longer served its function. That truth and information about common facts and fiction were malleable.

We saw the housing bubble take down the global economy showing that wall street and the financial system was just a house of cards. That ownership was a farce.

We saw people on social media - our fellow men and women - become increasingly polarized revealing them to be lacking in all common sense or rational thought.

And through it all we saw religion used as a tool to manipulate and separate people, proving that it's just a construct made and wielded by men to control other men.

All of the institutions previous generations put their faith in have proven to be false and naïve. I wonder how this has affected our psyche and behavior. I wonder how much some of the craziness we see can be attributed to this fundamental crisis of faith.

What do we believe in now? What should we believe in?

Edit:

Maybe some of the outcomes are positive. Maybe this fundamental reset of old world structures is allowing us to unbundle our old institutions for greater efficiencies and personalization. Maybe it's driving things like the on-demand economy where ownership is less important than convenient access.

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Michelle Obama: She Wrote It

Added on by Chris Saad.

It's pretty simple.

Either she wrote it and was too stupid to know that she would get caught. Or other people wrote it (who were too stupid to know they would get caught or were trying to intentionally sabotage the trump campaign) and the speech was total bullshit that she had no true connection to.

Yes all politicians and their family have speech writers, but the idea is that they should work to articulate the earnest feelings of the speech giver. Not just insert a bunch of platitudes.

I bet Michelle Obama wrote her own damn speech actually. Both of them are amazing writers.

Originally posted on Facebook

The Walk & All The Way

Added on by Chris Saad.

During my plane rides I ended up watching "The Walk" and "All the way".

Coincidently both turned out to be about a man who had a clear, bold vision for something they wanted to achieve in the world who were surrounded by a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt.

In the case of "The Walk", a high-wire walk between the Twin Towers. In the case of "All the way", LBJ pushing to pass the civil rights act after JFK's assassination.

Each were asked to compromise their vision for a safer, easier, incremental step forward rather than the fully formed idea they wanted to see realized.

No one makes movies about incremental, compromised, half-measures.

Originally posted on Facebook

Perfect Candidate

Added on by Chris Saad.

Hillary Clinton would have been a perfect Republican candidate back when they were rational and sane.

Donald Trump is their perfect candidate now, though. I don't know why they're so concerned. he's the perfect and natural byproduct of years of FOX News, corporate worship and anti-intellectualism.

I've said it many times. Conservatism is a perfectly fine political ideology that I simply don't agree with. Being a Republican in the last decade is, though, inexcusable.

CNN: Fact Checking

Added on by Chris Saad.

CNN has finally decided to start fact checking people in real time and help the audience understand the truth. They've also started clarifying things in the lower thirds and the video headlines. See here where the title includes "he didn't" at the end. Yesterday I posted a screenshot where the lower third clarified that Obama was not the founder of ISIS even while a Trump surrogate was speaking.

I wonder if CNN doing their job (helping the audience understand fact from fiction) is only going to be used to stop Trump, or if it will survive past the election.

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I Met Justin Lin

Added on by Chris Saad.

Got to meet Justin Lin - director of Star Trek Beyond.

I thanked him for making a great film that felt more like the original Star Trek and asked him about some design choices in the last few shots (you'll see) his answers were great!

He too watched Star Trek growing up with his family - it's very personal to him

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Calling all Politicians and Leaders

Added on by Chris Saad.

Let me expand on my post from this morning. Politicians and leaders should just repeat these three sentences at the end of every speech.

If we feel terrorized, then the terrorists win.

If we start curtailing civil rights and freedoms, then the terrorists win.

If we buy into their narrative that they represent any aspect of Islam, then the terrorists win.

Originally posted on Facebook

Spoilers: Firefly 1x01 (Serenity)

Added on by Chris Saad.

Watched Firefly 1x01 (Serenity) again last night with Pajai Jen. Realized something new that I don't think I'd noticed before. Almost every scene involves either an immediate reversal to subvert your expectation or pays off an earlier setup using a reversal/subversion.

*spoilers*

- Air support coming. No it's the bad guys

- Wash saying 'it looks all good here' - but he's talking about the dinosaurs

- The dinosaur play is about a 'sudden but inevitable' reversal

- Reverse the food, it's samped

- Old man - not a grandpa

- Ambassador, Whore

- Shepherd comes to deliver food, not sermon

- Bad guy is the boring dude, not the Shepherd or the Mysterious doctor

- Girl in the box is a sister not a bride

Etc etc.

All the way to the end where..

- Of course Patience double crosses him and Mel reverses it on her (foreshadowed by the Dinosaur scene. Sudden but inevitable betrayal.)

- The 'treasure' is actually food

- The ship has to do a mid-air reversal maneuver to get away from the reavers

- The Companion administers confession to the shepherd

- Jane tells Mel to get rid of the doctor asap, but Mel asks him to stay.

Amazing construction. Amazing show.

Actual Issues

Added on by Chris Saad.

Most major news at the moment is about minority overshadowing the majority. About people debating the confusion between one and the other instead of focusing on the actual issues.

- Terrorists vs Muslims

- Bad/violent police vs Good police

- Background checks for dangerous people vs taking all the guns from all the people

- Minority of African Americans and other protestors inciting violence vs legitimate protestors demanding justice

Originally posted on Facebook

4 Things I Mainly Do

Added on by Chris Saad.

I do mainly four things.

1. I work on things I hope will create a meaningful impact on the world - to leave a legacy that will outlive me.

2. I seek out and actively admire/digest/research the work of others who do the same - particularly in the form of software, tv, movies, politics

3. I live vicariously through the characters and narratives that capture my imagination

4. I curate people who inspire, distract, elevate, educate and otherwise enrich my life and the lives of my friends

5. [Edit] I try to collect the best answers to life's many questions - big and small.

Inspired by my conversation with Anna

Originally posted on Facebook

Unbundled

Added on by Chris Saad.

How the breaking apart of traditional, rigid structures is creating a personalized, on-demand future and changing the everyday interactions of people, politics, and profit.

About this post

This post is based on a theory and a book outline I’ve been chipping away at since 2010. Since I’m probably going to be too busy to ever finish the full thing, I figured I would massively truncate and post it here so that it’s finally out in the world in some form. In the six years I’ve been thinking about this subject, it’s only become clearer with the advent of the on-demand economy, 3D printing etc. Please excuse the length!

Introduction

In Silicon Valley we’ve used the term “Unbundling” to describe the phenomena of mobile apps breaking apart into multiple separate apps, each essentially providing more focused, single purpose features. Think of the Facebook app being separated into Facebook + Messenger.

I believe this Unbundling phenomena is happening almost universally across all aspects of life. It’s a meta-trend that has been happening for decades (or more) and will continue for decades to come. It’s a common process affecting many of the things happening in the world today. In fact most of the major disruptions we see (loss of traditional jobs, failing record companies, terrorism, divorce rates, the rise of fringe/underdog political candidates etc) are all, in at least some way, connected to this fundamental transition.

See the full post on Medium