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Invisibility starts at 25

Rahul R

Age anxiety

I turn 25 on Monday (30th November). It’s been a stressful year, the pandemic notwithstanding. My biggest concern? Myself. I’ve been shouldering the weight of my own expectations, grappling against the passage of time, turning 25. I don’t think I’m alone.

An interesting phenomenon I’ve been cataloging over the past few months is that of age anxiety. You will see teens and young adults prominently showcase their ages on social media. Why? Signaling precociousness.

Aamna had the same question last week.

Aditya concurs.

This tendency declines sharply with age. You will see lesser people showcase this as you move upwards and once you reach 25, you’ll notice it disappears entirely from public facing profiles. In fact, as people get older, many will go one step further, removing birthdays and even the years they attended university from their profile to avoid being found out. Why?

A few answers in the thread, although written in jest, tell us why.

Most people between the ages 20-30 will have to come to terms with expectations they’d set for themselves as kids. Or worse, cultural expectations, often anchored at exceptional outcomes. Here are a few examples as seen in the wild of how this affects people.

Even though I’ve personally never displayed my age explicitly on social media, I’m aware of it subconsciously, and get reminded every time I see someone who mentions it. Discourse about gifted kids, exceptional achievements at a young age, and age gatekeeping is pervasive these days and difficult to avoid. The fetishization of youth and unrealistic expectations most kids grow up with has made this a ubiquitous phenomenon, especially in circles that place high value on achievement and image, e.g. middle class, upper middle class, elite universities, etc.

Age in pop culture

Depictions in pop culture reinforce these ideas. This image is from FRIENDS, a show which inspired essays like “How a TV sitcom triggered the downfall of western civilization“

It shows Joey, one of the main characters of the show lamenting his fate and cursing God as he turns 30. Mind you, this episode of FRIENDS, arguably one of the most popular TV shows in history, aired in Feb 2001. We’ve been at this for a long time. Narratives crystallize, peak and then fade away. We might be close to the peak, however.

8 years later, Forbes makes this concept even more legible with the introduction of the Forbes 40 under 40 list. A mere 2 years later, in 2011, Forbes introduces their 30 under 30 list. Guess which one’s more popular? https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=30%20under%2030,40%20under%2040

Lists like the Forbes list may be close to or past peaking in their relevance and prestige but the meme will persist. The 30 under 30 list is three to five times as popular as the 40 under 40 list. This is not an aberration. Notice how quickly they moved to 30? There is downward pressure on this absolute number, and in my estimate this is currently trending below 25, perhaps at 22/23.

The quarter life crisis is shifting downward

Quarter life crisis. I’ve invented the quarter life crisis. Yes, and no.

The quarter life crisis phenomenon has gained considerable attention over the past two decades. It is now a feature of most people’s lives. However, there’s more to this phenomenon.

This is my estimate of how age is distributed in bios on social media based on a quick 10 min exercise. Look at the precipitous drop at 25.

Side project idea: Parse a random, large sample of Twitter/IG profiles and extract ages from bios. Plot the frequency distribution of ages mentioned. The mode is where the quarter life crisis exists culturally.

I looked at articles written on QLC over the last 10-15 years. A few examples:

  1. From a 2008 article, ‘Quarter-life crisis’ grips Young India, examples include people ages 26-30.
  2. A 2011 article, ‘Quarter-life’ crisis hits three in four of those aged 26 to 30 puts the range at 26-30
  3. “Me and my quarter-life crisis: a millennial asks what went wrong” – The author was 25 at the time of writing in 2018.
  4. This Is When You’ll Likely Have A Quarter-Life Crisis The last recorded mode from a survey conducted in 2017 that studied quarter life crises was 26.

The quarter life crisis is going to end up at 20 sooner or later and the kids are not going to like it.

Navigating the void

The nature of this crisis is described well by Visa.

This is an expectation crisis. The gap between expectations you’ve accepted and your reality needs “managing”. Everyone deals with this differently but what’s common is the time people spend in a liminal phase, a void. A period of time which can extend anywhere from a few weeks to a few years where beliefs, needs, image are re-evaluated.

Nick has a good tweet here about the void, a phase after the quarter life crisis (his estimate ~24) where people search for love, meaning and identity beyond their precociousness and abilities.

A former X under Y agrees.

@kipperrii has a couple of good tweets on this

Immortality begins at 40, Invisibility begins at 25

For those that missed the title’s reference, it’s a callback to vgr’s brilliant article titled Immortality begins at 40. It theorizes various life stages across eras and explains the significance of the number 40.

A few excerpts:

“A very general life-stage map across civilizations and eras looks like this:

0 to α: Achieve launch velocity

α to 40: Play culture!

40 to Ω: Ah crap, I have to make shit up for others now?

Ω to ∅: Let them eat cake”

“In the scheme above, 40 is the only roughly stable number. It exists as an approximately fixed point because it is an emergent outcome of history. It is reflected in the nature of humanity’s collective cultural archives, religions, sitcoms, ideologies, self-improvement plans, justifiably ageist 40-under-40 award schemes, weight-loss plans, and dating advice.”

“Once society stops doing culture to you, and you’re on your own, immortality begins. The morning after your fortieth birthday, you experience the first day of the rest of time.”

“Forty is also the age at which point it stops being worth anyone’s while to manufacture and invest meaning in you. It is this drying up of supply — meaning, by virtue of its transience is a consumable — more than any maturation into nihilism, that triggers the shift into an immortal frame of mind.”

I posit that α is when invisibility begins. The limelight stays fixated, on teens and young adults who have achieved exceptional outcomes. People start leaving you be, you start moving towards invisibility and are forced to come to terms with expectations you’ve assumed.

You can exert agency and choose the games you want to play.

Anushk noticed the same trend of people becoming invisible.

What comes next? I don’t know. Still in the void. I’ll see you next year.

And before you take this too seriously, here’s my disclaimer

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The Universal Language of Memes

Rahul R

Meme culture has given rise to a language that transcends boundaries, both real and imaginary. Memes are part of a globally shared pool of memory we dip into when we want to convey an idea with nuances beyond text. They call upon a sense of familiarity and shared meaning that exists despite our many differences. 

A meme entails within it, a complex relationship between objects that make the meme, one that can be applied to explain a wide variety of phenomena and evoke appropriate reactions. Perhaps there is a deeper theory here of humor as a universal language that acts as firmware for humans.

Since memes allow for easy explanations and higher information density even for complex issues, I wanted to experiment with creating a memeified version of an article that dealt with a complex idea to see if the format was appealing and useful to a broad audience.

I recently finished reading this masterpiece called The Uruk Series by Lou Keep. It is a 12-part series that talks about a number of important big-picture themes. Read the introduction here. You should read it, if you find yourself interested in any of the following questions:

Why do state-backed schemes tend to fail? 
Why do we have discontent despite growing economic prosperity?
What do we mean when we say capitalism?
Why do mass movements become popular? What ends do they serve?
Why do we see the rise of narcissism in the modern world?

Of these articles, Part 2, titled “The Meridian of Her Greatness”, talks about the in vogue questions surrounding capitalism and its discontents. This is an important question and most of us seem to be missing the point entirely, falling squarely under the category of not-even-wrong. The article is a first step in creating the right scaffolding so we can have productive conversations around the topic. 

A memeified version of this article can be found here. 

You can find a tweetstorm style summary of this article here. I used some of the memes in conjunction with text to make explanations easier. 

Let me know if you have any thoughts on the format! Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

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Lambda School: A Case Study on How to Scale Effective Learning

Rahul R

“Can we devise teaching-learning conditions that will enable the majority of students under group instruction to attain levels of achievement that can at present be reached only under good tutoring conditions?”

This is the 2 sigma problem as defined by Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist who pioneered mastery learning.

This article is inspired from a Tweetstorm I did six months ago. You can find the original thread here.

One year ago, I found Lambda School on Twitter. While researching them online, I came across a thread from Austen talking about introducing Mastery Based Progression to their cohorts. This led me to look into Bloom’s two sigma problem, why it wasn’t solved yet and how technology can help scale effective learning.

Bloom’s 2 sigma Problem

Benjamin Bloom’s research found that one on one tutoring could help achieve 2 sigma improvement over conventional teaching. His objective was to find practical, yet scalable methods of attaining two sigma improvement since tutoring wasn’t scalable in its present form as defined by physical constraints.

A brief overview of the problem.

bloom

Why is Bloom’s 2 sigma problem important?

Effectiveness of one on one tutoring indicates that aptitude achievement correlation can be reduced from 0.6 to 0.25, i.e. effective learning levels the playing field for all those who wish to learn irrespective of skill level. It would represent an order of magnitude higher impact as compared to traditional methods.

This is how the achievement distribution looks like for the three cases mentioned in the overview.

Do0_JrrXUAADvsY

Finding Solutions for Bloom’s 2 sigma problem

Looking for solutions to the 2 sigma problem is a four step process.

  1. Look at the entire teaching/learning process
  2. Break down into mutually independent pieces
  3. Find intervention variables and their effect sizes
  4. Combine variables to achieve intended two sigma improvement

Bloom used this approach to look for viable solutions.

bloom2.PNG

The most important variables with high effect sizes were: Feedback and corrective measures, Cooperative learning, Classroom participation, Tutorial instruction Reinforcement and Graded homework. A combination of these variables enabled by the introduction of suitable tech seemed like a viable solution.

The Evolution of Ed Tech

Education is one of the toughest markets to crack for startups. Regulation, long sales cycles, fragmented markets and illegibility to technology (until now) make ed tech startups difficult to scale and largely outside the purview of venture funding. Until now.

Traditional education was ripe for disruption by MOOCs but this failed miserably. Only the most motivated students could finish courses and completion rates were less than 5%. Asynchronous, do it yourself modes of learning are not effective in their current form. This quote describes why: “The big MOOCs mostly employed smooth-functioning but basic video recording of lectures, multiple-choice quizzes, and unruly discussion forums. They were big, but they did not break new ground in pedagogy.” A richer discussion on the topic can be found here.

Given the advances in tech enabled solutions for various aspects of the learning process such as lesson delivery, feedback mechanisms, ability to replay videos, instant communication, TA support via Zoom/Slack, many people predicted the end of the search for a solution to the 2 sigma problem. They were proven incorrect. Instead of the predicted need of fewer teachers, we require more to achieve 2 sigma improvement with the following caveat: teachers should utilized in an effective manner using tech as leverage.

It takes a few iterations before people find a way to execute correctly. The same pattern can be seen here. The most common startups in ed tech focused on getting scale and distribution with little consideration for summative achievement. Getting courses online wasn’t enough. This article looks at the bastardization of the 2 sigma problem. The following quote summarizes the mistake succinctly:

“So here’s where the bastardization comes in to play.  I think that there has been so much focus on the tutoring part, that we’ve lost sight of the learning part.  “Will it scale?” is arguably the most important question that an ed tech investor will ask.  That’s great, and that’s an absolutely justifiable question.  But if you read through Bloom’s paper, there are two parts to the question.  Will it scale, AND, will it improve learning levels over the conventional baseline.  Like with many “shiny object” technologies, we tend to focus on the scale part and gloss over the improvement part (or worse yet, just “assume” the learning will happen).”

Lambda School’s Foray into Ed Tech

A brief description of Lambda School for the uninitiated: A live, fully online school that trains people to become software engineers, data scientists and designers which is free until you get a job. Instead, students pay a percentage of their income each year after they’re employed, the maximum of which is capped at $30k.

A combination of multiple factors enabled Lambda school’s success at finding a product-market fit: rising  student debt and default rates, reliable communication tools like Slack and Zoom and an innovative business model based on Income Share Agreements to name a few.

Lambda managed to crack the problem by innovating on pedagogy and identifying an arbitrage opportunity in the labor market (supply demand gap for CS grads to start with). The latter is important because it allows lambda to do what they do. Traditional education has no skin in the game and perverse incentives. Lambda is forced to act in the students best interests because it has aligned incentives. It earns only when students get high paying jobs.

A few reasons why lambda school works so well:
1. Small class sizes – each cohort is divided into sections with 8-10 students.
2. World class teachers – practitioners who devised OG curricula at places like Apple
3. Cooperative learning – group learning, capstone projects and build weeks
4. Hungry students – gritty students who will do the work (full time for 9 months)
5. Mastery learning – repeat parts of the course until students demonstrate mastery
6. Extensive TA support – feedback and corrective measures

These variables have high effect sizes as indicated by Bloom’s research. This innovation on the pedagogy front is the moat and is scalable across verticals. More from Caleb, VP of Learning at Lambda here and here. By reverse engineering the job market requirements and using their pedagogical infrastructure Lambda can provide effective education in almost any domain legible to online learning.

Lambda School works. The outcomes and demand are proof. The Series B they raised is going to help them scale. On a recent podcast, Austen mentioned their plans to have 3000 students in 2019 and a few cohorts in the EU. Scaling to millions will be an operational challenge and it will be interesting to see how Lambda tackles this.

Thanks to Anisha, Leon, Vidy and Vijay for helping out!
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Thoughts on Information Dissemination and Attention Spans in Today’s World

Rahul R

Whether it is Donald Trump being elected as the Republican nominee, Brexit, or any other serious topic in today’s world, there is a common link that I feel exists behind such instances. In this blog post I’ll try to explain what it has got to do with psychology, biases, and more importantly, thinking.

(Critical?)Thinking

Forget about critical thinking, even thinking in today’s world is underrated. It is too easy to make some believe in a notion, given that you have the apparatus for it. People fall for all kinds of bullshit, all the time. How many of us think before making decisions, whether it is choosing a school, a major, a political party or even a referendum to leave the EU or not? In my opinion, very few of us do that. Even when few actually think, it’s not good enough. That in itself is not surprising since the law of averages works everywhere, meaning most people are average at best when it comes to thinking. Combine this with the fact that people only listen to what they like, add a pinch of ignorance, and use this with short attention spans that we have today, and you can probably explain these occurrences which appear baffling to at least a section of society.

Information Dissemination and Thinking

Here’s a rough infographic I made to highlight what I think is a major issue when it comes to thinking in today’s world. Information penetrates at different levels within the population thereby making the judgement process skewed and in most cases driven by superficial evidence which might be misleading to say the least.

Information Penetration

I might be overestimating the number of people who actually think or I might just be wrong (in which case I would be happy to correct myself), but what I feel is clear is that thinking is a dwindling phenomenon. I discuss this further under Attention Spans.

There is just too much information and not enough time or interest among people to think about everything before taking a decision. I feel this can explain why masses are easily swayed by slogans and why politicians, celebrities, etc feel necessary to pander to the public every once in a while.

The Confirmation Bias

The essence of the confirmation bias is that you see what you want to see. Even when presented with evidence contrary to your beliefs or alternative to your thinking you choose to ignore those, sticking to what you think is correct.

Consider the ramifications this has over the events that I’ve mentioned at the start. Donald Trump supporters cannot see why he’s wrong, they can only hear sentences they want to.

While I’m no expert on the US elections or their mentality, the political polarization is there for everyone to see. Here’s an infographic on Political Polarization from Pew Research Center.

Political Polarization

This polarization I believe is in part created by the media. My dissatisfaction with the media in general is probably worth a blog post and something I might work on later. But just to connect the dots between the confirmation bias, not thinking and the effect of media on public sentiment here’s another infographic from Pew Research Center on Political Polarization and Media Habits.

Political Polarization and Media Habits

Some other interesting finds from this study (I’m summarizing them):

  • Consistent conservatives are tightly clustered around one news channel, meaning they receive most of their information from a single source thereby increasing the chance of bias creeping in. Also, they are more distrustful of news outlets in general. They are also more likely than other ideological groups to hear political opinions in line with their own views. They are also more likely to have friends who share the same views. See anything that strikes you ?
  • Consistent liberals rely on a greater number of sources for information and are in general more trusting of news outlets. They are more likely to unfriend or block people on social media because of political reasons, meaning they don’t want to hear the other side of the story?

It is clear that both sides of the political spectrum have biases which have now led to the creation of the biggest ideological gap in decades.

This article is not meant to discuss political ideologies, nor am I commenting on or comparing the two. I just happened to take this up as an example to explain my views on why these things could have happened.

Attention Spans

With the world becoming more and more “social” and the constant and unending flow of information, our attention spans have reduced to those of gnats. There is not enough time to put in the effort to understand and process information, but only enough to consume.

Here are some statistics from National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine and The Associated Press on Attention Spans and how they’ve reduced over time.

Attention Spans

Here’s a very click-baity article on the same: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/humans-have-shorter-attention-span-than-goldfish-thanks-to-smart/

There’s even a rebuttal saying Millennials are accused of having shorter attention spans and that is just because they have much better stuff to do. While that is very subjective and may be true to an extent, I disagree and find that a convenient excuse to ditch critical thinking.

Just to summarize this piece: Humans are prone to biases; not many people are up for thinking; the media has a role to play in this; shorter attention spans are making the problem worse; all of this can lead to instances that are high impact and may even be disastrous.

Just jotting down a list of topics that we considered important and now are as good as forgotten:

  • NSA spying scandal
  • Panama Papers
  • Every other mass shooting that is happening
  • Russia’s annexation of Crimea

The list is probably bigger and even I might have missed many but you get the gist. Issues, even important ones that don’t stay in the limelight are easily forgotten, gone, poof.

Bonus Trivia: The newest and fastest growing social media platform Snapchat allows you to post snaps or video stories with an upper cap of, well as you might have guessed, 10 seconds. Coincidence much? I think not.

Also, if on Snapchat, you can follow me on rrahul30. 😛

Disclaimer: All views expressed are personal. As is with humans, I might also have certain biases or pieces of information that I might have missed; although I have tried to present a very fact-based opinion piece, any comments to ensure correctness are appreciated.

References:

  1. Infogr.am used to create infographics.
  2. Pew Research Center
  3. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
  4. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

P.S. If you liked this, please give this article a heart (recommend) so that it can reach more people! Thanks ☺