The Long Game 31: Insulin Resistance, How Will You Measure Your Life, Information Diets, Uploading Your Mind
š½ Alien Worlds, China's New Vision of Globalization, The Three-Body Problem, Venture Deals, and Much More!
Hi there! Itās Mehdi Yacoubi, co-founder at lifetizr, and this is The Long Game Newsletter.
Greetings from Montenegro š²šŖ
If you missed the past episodes, you could catch upĀ here.
In this episode, we explore:
Insulin resistance
How will you measure your life?
A different take on information diets
Venture deals
Letās dive in!
City of the future ā Cyberpunk 2077
š„ Health
š Insulin Resistance
This week, I listened to this episode of The Drive: Gerald Shulman, M.D., Ph.D.: A masterclass on insulin resistanceāmolecular mechanisms and clinical implications. Itās a greatāalthough technicalāmasterclass on insulin resistance.
Iām particularly interested in the topic because I discovered I had insulin resistance, which led me to build lifetizr and work to fix the metabolic crisis of our time.
Why is it so important to understand insulin resistance?
āIf we can understand insulin resistance, then that's going to be the best way to fix diabetes, heart disease,. . .fatty liver disease, and slow down cancers.āĀ ā Gerald Shulman.
Hereās how Dr. Peter Attia described insulin resistance to his patients:
Insulin resistance is āthe foundation upon which the major three chronic diseases sit.ā
In addition to the direct complications of diabetes, Peter believes that most diabetes-related mortality comes through amplification ofĀ atherosclerotic disease, cancer, and dementiaĀ ā all of which are āa force multiplied in spades by type 2 diabetes.ā
Peter also describes insulin resistance as a continuum starting with hyperinsulinemia and leading to impaired glucose disposal,Ā non-alcoholic fatty liver diseaseĀ (NAFLD),Ā non-alcoholic steatohepatitisĀ (NASH), and eventually type 2 diabetes.
āThat continuum makes up a plane upon which all chronic disease get worse. If weāre going to be serious about the business of delaying the onset of death, we have to be serious about the business of delaying the onset of chronic disease. If we want to do that, we must fix our metabolisms, and thatās my thesis.ā āPeter Attia
How big is this problem of insulin resistance? Gerald estimates up to half the people in the U.S. actually have insulin resistance but are asymptomatic.
Then, the conversation explains in detail the difference between a person with a healthy metabolism and a person who is insulin resistant.
The good news is that even with a damaged metabolism, we can still do a lot. Exercising and finding the optimal nutrition for your individual metabolism are potent tools to improve your health and even reverse insulin resistance.
One thing to always keep in mind is that live a long and healthy life is equivalent (for now!) to delay the onset of chronic diseases, and to do so, having an optimal metabolism is the most important pillar.
If you want to make sure your metabolism stays optimal, request lifetizr early access, and weāll work with you to achieve this goal.
š± Wellness
āļø How will you measure your life?
When I was younger, I thought getting some achievements done (school, etc.) would automatically make me happy. Itās obviously a clichĆ© at this point, but I realized that these things that most people chase (fame, money, statusā¦) donāt make you automatically happy when you get them.
Iāve been watching the show Billions lately, and itās fascinating to see these billionaires having such a miserable life, playing status games, seeking revenge⦠No one would argue that itās a particularly happy life, yet they are on top of the status game.
After failing to enter Ecole Polytechnique (the first French engineering school) and getting Ecole Centrale Paris instead (the second one), I quickly understood how much it didnāt matter and how much Iāve been obsessing over the wrong thing for so many years. I think this āfailureā (itās always a subjective matter) is the best thing that happened to me. At this point, I started asking myself the question, āHow will I measure my life?ā to avoid wasting my existence seeking validation from things that wonāt make me happy.
Of course, this question doesnāt have a clear and straightforward answer. It takes a long process of self-reflection to find your answer. One thing is certain, though, not asking yourself this question will only delay the moment youāre truly going to understand how to live.
Clayton M. Christensen wrote a great book about it, and hereās a short introductory article.
On the last day of class, I ask my students to turn those theoretical lenses on themselves, to find cogent answers to three questions: First, how can I be sure that Iāll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure Iāll stay out of jail?
For those who like the metrics, this is a good article to give some ideas of the parameters to consider when assessing how you want to live. I do like using metrics, but I think theyāre only one part of the answer; some things canāt be translated in metrics, and even more, trying to translate them into metrics would kill them.
Hereās a goodāand opposedāway to view metrics from Thomas J Bevan:
Like a vampire, metrics can only drain the life from you if you first invite them in to your life. Taking numbers for what they are, extracting the good from them and otherwise keeping them in their place is merely a decision.
And once you do this, once you are no longer tyrannised by numbers you will find that intuition, discernment and the appreciation of the intangible, the ephemeral and the beautiful will grow in their place.
Things like work-life balance are hard to figure out for most people; asking yourself, āhow will I measure my lifeā could help resolve some of these dilemmas.

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š§ Better Thinking
š A Different Take on Information Diets
We already talked a lot about information diets on The Long Game (episodes 22, and 28 for example), and this week I read a very interesting attempt by Venkatesh Rao to reconcile the āalways plugged inā with the āmonk living in a cabin in the woods.ā
Hereās how the article starts:
For several years now, I've been developing a growing discomfort with a philosophy of relating to technology I callĀ WaldenpondingĀ (after Thoreau's Walden Pond experiment on whichĀ WaldenĀ is based). The crude caricature is "smash your smart phone and go live in a log cabin to reclaim your attention and your life from being hacked by evil social media platforms."
Then, the author gives his ideas on the optimal attention management system.
The way to manage your attention is not to "unplug" or do some sort of bullshit Classical Liberal virtue signaling crap of "I only read Ancient Greek authors" but to be sensitive to your current mind size (small to great) and consciously target the zone you want to be in, moving fluidly between small/great mind.
There are dangers both on the snobāI only read philosophyāside and on theāI never read booksāside.
There are THREE ways to fail at this: a) Thinking you can be Great Minded all the time. b) Trying to be Great Minded purely on a low-latency information diet (upper-left red box) c) Trying to consume a high-latency information diet without aspiring to more than small-minded thoughts (lower-right red box)
As often, it seems that the best approach is to do a bit less of what feels comfortable for you, a bit more of whatās uncomfortable. As Matthew McConaughey eloquently said, ātake the dirt road,ā but if youāre used to actual dirt roads, then the ādirt roadā for you might be the highway.
You can and should go the other way as well. If you can only read big philosophy books by dead people and processing the chaotic churn of a Toxic Day on Twitter is too much for you, try handling it for 15 minutes, then an hour. Try posting instead of just reading. This is like low-weights/high-volume endurance training. Harder than it looks.
ā”ļø Startup Stuff
š¤ Venture Deals
When youāre building a company, there are necessarily going to be many things you love doing and many things (hopefully less!) you donāt. The point is that you still need to do them and get good at them.
One of the things a founder must understand quickly is how the VC (Venture Capital) world works. To that end, the book Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist is a great starting point.
Hereās a tweet from Nik Sharma I found particularly true š

Related to this topic, I enjoyed re-reading Airbnb co-founder Brian Cheskyās 7 rejections article. Always good to keep in mind!
š What I Read
āļø The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
I didnāt grow up reading science fiction, and I think I missed out on great and mind-expanding books. Of course, itās never too late. I asked for sci-fi recommendations, and The Three-Body Problem was the top recommendation, so I decided to begin my sci-fi journey with it.
I just started the book; Iāll give more details in next weekās episode!
šØš³ Chinaās Radical New Vision of Globalization
We didnāt talk about China for a while here! I read this great article this week about Chinaās radical new vision of globalization by James Crabtree explaining why President Xiās vision of ādual circulationā is a darkly pessimistic economic strategy and fits for a new Cold War.
After years of expecting political liberalization in Beijing (the way Fukuyama predicted in The End of History), experts now agree that liberalization isnāt coming anytime soon in China:
Many experts have noted a changing Western consensus on China, as leaders in Washington abandoned the idea that economic modernization would inevitably lead to political liberalization in Beijing.
In this context, a Chinese block and a Western block seems very likely:
āChina expects the U.S. and its allies to act ever more aggressively to deny China the technology it needs.ā
āBeginning with semiconductors but potentially expanding to all manner of other technologies, China now expects it will have to develop economically on its own.ā
āThis gradual decoupling between China and the West will be far more significant than the divisions of the Cold War.ā
To go further on this topic:
The world China wants ā Scholar Stage
Rather than reactive, defensive, and besieged,Ā the Partyās pursuit of modernity, power, and international status for China has been strategic, active, and purposeful.
š Podcast Episode of the Week
Iām preparing new episodes of The Long Game Podcast for next week; in the meantime, here are some episodes from the archive and some episodes I enjoyed from other shows:
On The Long Game Podcast:
On other shows:
š Brain Food
š§ Uploading Your Mind
The game Cyperpunk 2077 was released recently (hereās Lex Fridman discovering the game). In the wake of the release of the long-awaited game, Kurzgesagt published an excellent video exploring the potential of uploading your brain and living forever.
Itās both fascinating and scary; Iāll let you decide on which side you want to lean on!
In the meantimeābefore we can actually upload our brainsāit seems weāre getting closer and closer to designer babies:
The twins, called Lulu and Nana, reportedlyĀ had their genes modified before birthĀ by a Chinese scientific team using the new editing tool CRISPR. The goal was to make the girls immune to infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Now, new research shows that the same alteration introduced into the girlsā DNA, deletion of a gene called CCR5, not only makes mice smarter but also improves human brain recovery after stroke, and could be linked to greater success in school.
š„ What Iām Watching
š½ Alien Worlds
I started this show recently, and itās fantastic. I was tired of pessimistic sci-fi, and with Alien Worlds, I find it beautiful and fascinating to imagine how life on other planets could be.
Netflix finally listened to what the people want (and need!).

š§ The tool of the Week
š Nord VPN
You always think youāre safe until youāre not. I had a conversation with a cybersecurity expert a few days ago, and I understood it was time to step up my online security. In short, here is her advice: use long and complex passwords, never reuse the same one, use a password manager, connect to the internet through a VPN.
I already use Dashlane as a password manager; it was time to complement it with a VPN (I donāt like Dashlaneās VPN service.)
AĀ VPN, orĀ Virtual Private Network, allows you to create a secure connection to another network over the Internet.Ā VPNsĀ can be used to access region-restricted websites, shield your browsing activity from prying eyes on public Wi-Fi, and more.
Iāve been getting many ads for VPN services, and I decided to start using a VPN before experiencing any bad experience online. I took a great deal from Nord VPN during Cyber Monday, and I love it. It connects automatically, you can use it on all your devices, and the design is great.
šŖ Quote I'm Pondering
"One of the bittersweet rewards of success is, in fact, that as companies become large, they literally lose the capability to enter small emerging markets. This disability is not because of a change in the resources within the companiesātheir resources typically are vast. Rather, it is because their values change."
ā Clayton M. Christensen
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I will see you next week. As always, if you're finding this newsletter interesting, give me your feedback; you can respond to this email orĀ tweet at me!
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