A Brief Note on the Commons
NOTE: Tola’s note is a journal about some activities I engaged in during the week. Let's dive in!
Coding
This week's been tough.
I realized I was lagging in my 100devs assignments and classes were piling up because last week, I had to dedicate most of my time to my side activities like school, so I went easy on code. Although I Practiced every day, it wasn't enough to complete my tasks. So this week, I had seven projects to complete and 9 hours long video classes to go through. On top of that, I needed to complete another assignment my friend gave me last week (he started a mentoring program so I joined).
If I felt anything close to the pressure I felt in medical school, it happened this week. I'm glad I didn't give up and started binge watching videos on YouTube. That's a nasty habit I developed when tasks got too much that I felt I couldn't handle. This week, I faced them and gave my best.
All I've just said is a roundabout way of saying, I've got no project to show this week because they are half completed and looking very ugly on my computer. I'll polish them up and show all seven of them by next week. Fingers crossed.
Books.
I tried to sneak in a little reading time to read some pages of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I don't think I'm going to finish this book this month because it's quite big. I checked how many hours I had left to go, and my eyes popped when I saw I had 12hours worth of pages to read. If I manage to put in 4hours reading time per week, it should take three more weeks to finish it. Notwithstanding, I learned something about the ape test from the book so I went on YouTube for more research.
It was a simple experiment to show the evolutionary basis for why humans protest inequality or unfairness. Two monkeys were rewarded with a piece of cucumber anytime they completed a task. They took the cucumbers with great content until the researchers switched the reward of one of the monkeys to a sweet strawberry while the other kept receiving a piece of cucumber anytime he completed the task. The monkey receiving the cucumber revolted and threw the cucumber back at the researchers because his mate was receiving strawberries. Here's a video for you :
There's a lot to unpack here but I think every government known for clamping down on descent can learn from this experiment. Imagine if the researchers pointed a gun at the monkey's head and forced it to take the cucumber, what do you think of that? If a monkey would protest unfairness, how much more humans, who are much more intelligent than monkeys? Addressing the concerns of people who are agitated should rank higher than forcing them to silence because protesting unfairness is a behavior that humans have evolved over time.
Ads.
In the last newsletter, I asked if I should add an ads section. Timonwa gave a go ahead so here it is. I like this Pringles ad because, if you've ever picked up the last piece of Pringles from the bottle, you'll relate. Watch.
Thoughts.
I came across an idea that was relevant to how people treat things. It's called tragedy of the commons. The idea is, when something belongs to everybody, no one takes care of it. But it belongs to someone, there's a higher chance it's going to be cared for. For example, if you bought a car that belongs to everyone, no one is going to take care of it till it gets wrecked. But, if you bought a car for someone, there's a higher chance they'll wash it once in a while, service it and so on. Same thing when people use spaces that belong to everyone. When people visit public spaces, they litter the floor compared to when they visit a space that belongs to someone, they act more responsibly. If you ever thought of why this happens, think of the tragedy of the commons.
To do next week.
Complete my pending projects.
A Brief Note on the Commons
Nice👌.
Learnt something new 😊