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​​2024 Predications From Tyler Cowen, Peter Attia, Nial Fergusen and MORE ​​

"As crazy as 2023 seemed, could it actually in retrospect seem like the calm before the storm?" Bari Weiss and Oliver Wiseman call up their favorite industry professionals to get their expectations and predictions for 2024 — because it's here whether we like it or not. There are certainly some doom-and-gloom election predictions and potential geopolitical disaster scenarios in these Premium Podcast Notes, but there are also plenty of light-hearted topics like take-it or leave-it health trends, top slang words to stay hip, the potentially pantsless fashion industry, and so much more.

​How to See and Read People, Communication Master Class​

Blake Eastman dives deep into nonverbal cues, dealing with talkative vs. quiet people, improving partner communication without complaining, watching ourselves on video, and understanding power dynamics at work and the best tip for dating you've never heard. Premium only.

​Mike Posner on How To Struggle and Stay Positive as When You Take a Pill in Ibiza​

Grammy-nominated singer, Mount Everest Climber and Cross America Walker - Mike Posner shares his insights on how to have more moments of being, why pain is the best teacher, how to become a better person and beat depression, and more. Mike is the yin to David Goggin's yang. There is more than one way to success and enlightenment. Premium Only.

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Top Takeaways Of The Week

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​What to Expect in 2024: Predictions from Niall Ferguson, Tyler Cowen, Peter Attia and More ​

​Bringing Or Dropping Key Trends From 2023 Into 2024:​

• Red Light Therapy – Drop it: It does improve skin health, but the scientific data doesn’t suggest any other benefit
• Reverse Osmosis Water Filters– Bring it: Probably the best way to reduce PFAS (small plastic molecules) in your drinking water
• Air Purifiers– Bring it: If your air quality has a high concentration of PM 2.5 – particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (map of PM 2.5 levels), you may want to consider exercising indoors or investing in air purifiers. High exposure to PM 2.5 does increase all-cause mortality.
• Saunas & Cold Plunge – Bring it (with exception): Sauna benefits longevity. Cold Plunge reduces inflammation. But to see the benefits of these activities, the rest of your health has to be in order. Sauna or Cold Plunge alone can’t solve your health problems.
• Avoiding Seed Oils – Bring it or Leave it: There’s a clear association between seed oils and bad health outcomes. However, seed oils are typically embedded in already unhealthy foods, so it’s yet to be determined if seed oils are fully to blame for bad health outcomes. “Because if you eat healthy food, seed oils are not there. So I make zero effort to avoid seed oils.”– Peter Attia

​Slang Words to Be Hip With It:​

• “stan” = to show obsessive fandom over something or someone
• “cap” = to indicate that someone is lying
• “simp” = to approach embarrassing levels of fandom for something or someone, not a compliment
• “snatched” = expression for attractiveness or perfection
• “smol” = rendition of the word small but with extra cuteness
• “pookie” = term of endearment for a friend or significant other
• “menty b” = short for mental breakdown
• “delulu is the solulu” = short for delusion is the solution

​Price Inflation Predictions, 2024:​

• Housing – Up: Prices will continue to go up in attractive living locations. Maybe not so much in rural areas.
• Rent – Stable: It won’t be cheap, but if you can afford it now you’ll baurant will never be cheap again· Gas – Stable: It’s not super cheap currently, but it’s much better than it has beene able to afford it though the next year
• Groceries – Up: Since food is so frequently purchased, Tyler sees this as the main reason Biden is not popular as it relates to the economy
• Restaurant – Up: With staffing shortages and labor costs rising, eating at a rest

​2024 Economic Trends:​

• Crypto – Bullish: It is underrated by the world currently. He won’t be surprised if it’s soon integrated into our financial infrastructure. He wouldn’t recommend being short on crypto. Bitcoin and ETH are still the current leaders in crypto.
• AI (OpenAI) – Bullish: GPT-4 is incredible and only going to get better. It’s already smarter at most tasks than humans. He doesn’t think regulators will restrict innovation either.
• China – Modestly Bearish: He is bearish overall but thinks China is slightly underrated based on how bearish other people are currently. There’s still plenty of talent and good businesses coming out of China.
• TikTok – Bearish: May end up banned in the US or sold to an American company. He thinks it’s a fad that will pass, as many social media platforms have in the past.
• Blue Cities – Bearish (city dependent): San Francisco may be saved by AI. Portland and Seattle are too far gone. New York is complicated. “The problems are real. The governance is terrible. But there is some amount of common sense in human beings. And I think a lot of people are waking up to the fact that blue cities don’t work. – Tyler Cowen
• X – Obviously Bullish: It is the #1 place to follow news and controversies. “It’s simply where you need to be. And people who don’t admit that are fooling themselves. And Elon made a brilliant move buying it. He may not make money from it, but as an investment in changing the world, I think it’s been great.” – Tyler Cowen
• Israel – Bullish: He has always been bullish on Israel. He thinks it’s gone better than expected. But that could change.
• Ivy League Schools – Bullish: It’s still the place where the most talented people go. “They’re not going to kick out the nonsense, but they’ll make enough marginal reforms to stay off the front page. And I think they’ll limp through. And if someday cancer is cured, the chance that it has come out of a top university is pretty high. – Tyler Cowen
• America – Very Bullish: “We have the most and the best talent. We’re still, by and large, the freest nation. We have food. We have water. We have energy. We span two oceans. We don’t have an immediate geopolitical enemy. If you had to take our problems versus the problems of any other country in the world, you’d rather have our problems.” – Tyler Cowen

​Ukraine is Korea, Not WW2: The war in Ukraine could be analogous to the Korean war. “In Korea, you had a year of extraordinary kinetic warfare and then two years of attrition, effective stalemate. And then a kind of armistice that left the country divided with an extremely dangerous border…. But if you just take that analogy as something to work with, I think we’re entering that phase of our version of the Korean war that will be called stalemate.” – Niall Ferguson

• But with waning U.S. financial support, it could be very tough for Ukraine to win the war. This may force Europe to invest more heavily in its military due to Russia’s threatening position that is backed by China.
• However, the Korean War ended when Stalin died. So if Putin were to die, the Ukraine war may not drag through another year.

​Taiwan is A Reverse Cuban Missile Crisis: “Cuba was an island just off the United States. The Soviets tried to effectively turn it into a missile base. And John F. Kennedy imposed a blockade. Called it a quarantine, but it was a blockade. And the Soviets sent a naval force. It was the closest we came to World War III in the whole of the Cold War. If there’s a Taiwan crisis of the sort, I’m imagining it will be like the Cuban Missile Crisis with the roles reversed. The Chinese will be the ones doing the blockading and we will be sending a naval force and risking World War III.” – Niall Ferguson

​Cold War 2: Niall believes historians will look back and say Pax Americana faced a well-coordinated challenge from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea in the early 2020s. The United States is incredibly ignorant and unprepared for the possibility of losing Cold War 2

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​Communications Masterclass​

​Let’s Go to the Videotape: Record yourself having an interaction with your partner

• Watch your interaction and write down the problem you think you have (do you listen to your partner when they talk, are you distracted?)
• “In a world with so many different perspectives and perceptual differences, the video doesn’t lie, it’s just like raw data.” – Blake Eastman

​Become an Expert Presenter in 3 Weeks: 1 hour of day of practice. Focus initially on comfort level and freedom while presenting

• “The most effective version of someone is when they are the most comfortable.” – Blake Eastman
• The world’s best presenter is all about their audience and not about themselves. They are not trying to come across a certain way

​Be Unpredictable: The best communicators often have versatility and unpredictability in their speech and tonality, engaging the listener’s brain by introducing slight chaos or unpredictability

​Dating Secret: The best paradigm for dating is storytelling, never questions

• Storytelling is the single most powerful communication tool
• Avoid performance storytelling, tell stories like you would to your friends

​Think About Others: “The best communicators and the people that are the most well-liked are consciously putting other people first.” – Blake Eastman

​Writing Is For Thinking: “Writing is one of the most powerful self-development mediums over anything.” – Blake Eastman

• Writing helps you to structure your ideas, it makes you a better thinker, it makes you a better communicator, it’s evidence of how you’ve shifted your thoughts and principles over time

​The Way Back Home with Mike Posner​

​Channeling the Divine: The ideas do not come from you but from the infinite. Mike refers to it as God

• When artists are doing their job, they are connecting to the infinite

​What it Means to be Human: We are all vessels for divine energy in some way, and our job is to make it come across purely and not let our minds and preferences sully that transmission

• “Your security is not your job, or your bank account, or your investments, or your spouse or your parents. Your security is your ability to connect with the cosmic power that creates all things.” — Louise Hay

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Dr. Wayne Dyer

​Pain is the Best Teacher: Life will give you pain to nudge you in the right direction when you have limiting beliefs or are doing something that’s not rightIf you don’t listen, life will give you even more pain

• Listen to podcasts, sure, but the real lessons are from life and you tap into yourself and see where that pain is directing you in this moment

​Never Go Full Goggins: When doing hard stuff, Mike goes full Goggins. But, he doesn’t want to be stuck in that 24/7

​The 5 A’s: Acknowledge (see yourself the way the person who loves you the most sees you), accept (accept yourself as a living breathing miracle despite your mistakes), appreciate (be proud of yourself, appreciate your beauty), affection (love yourself), allow (set yourself free)

​Never Become Your Diagnosis: “I love therapy but I hate therapy because we make identities out of our diagnosis and they become harder to change.” – Mike Posner

"Your Life is a Printout of Your Beliefs": A belief is a thought repeated over time.”

• Why not just repeat a new thought?
• “The boundaries of my life end exactly where my imagination ends.” – Mike Posner

​The framework of non-violent communication applied:​

• Observation – Mike has an appointment after the podcast with Danny and is short on time
• Emotion – He feels worried about being late
• Need – He needs to honor his word and stay in integrity
• Request – He would ask Danny: “How would you feel about ending the podcast in 5 or 10 minutes?”
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​Huberman: Preventing and Treating Flu/Colds​

Why You Can't Get Immune to the Common Cold: Each type of cold has a different shape, meaning that even if you develop antibodies to one cold, the next cold you get will likely have a different shape and the antibodies you previously generated are not equipped to combat this new cold

How do you catch a cold: the virus is spread by breathing, sneezing, coughing – or sneezing, coughing, sneezing onto a surface and then touching

• Cold virus is a stable virus – it can survive on non-human surfaces for up to 24 hours
• But don’t worry, skin does provide a barrier of protection so you won’t always get sick if you touch the surface
• Touching eyes is a primary route of infection

Most Contagious Period: when you feel your worst – coughing, sneezing, etc. but you can also be contagious when you start to feel better

How Do You Catch the Flu: most typically passed by human-human contact, walking into a cloud of sneeze or cough that contains the flu virus

• Unlike cold which can live 24 hours on a surface, the flu only lives about 2 hours on non-human surfaces

Andrew Huberman Doesn't Take the Flu Shot: But says it can be useful if you live/work in a high risk area like a hospital

Three Line of Defense: (1) physical barriers like skin and mucosal lining of the body; (2) innate immune system – neurochemical defense designed to combat viruses; (3) adaptive immune system which recognizes something foreign entered the body and antibodies need to be produced

Innate Immune System: “The innate immune system is a very fast, non-specific response to a viral or other type of invader.” – Dr. Andrew Huberman

Adaptive Immune System: the adaptive immune system is to create antibodies to kill the exact intruder that made it into your body

• The adaptive immune system also keeps a memory of the virus so the antibodies can immediately neutralize it in the future

Enhancing Your Immune System: Get enough quality sleep; exercise; adequate nutrition – caloric deficit can compromise the immune system; brief fasts can support the immune system but extended ones can compromise it; mitigate chronic stress

Gut Microbiome/Immune Health: consume 2-4 servings low sugar-fermented foods per day such as yogurt, refrigerated sauerkraut, and pickles, kombucha with low sugar

Heat Defense: Sauna (176-210F) can result in an increase in cortisol (we know this because heat is a stressor) – if you are heat adapted (exercise or sauna regularly) it takes more sauna to get an increase in innate immune response versus someone who is not

• If you want to keep cold and flu at bay, regular sauna use for 3 rounds of 15 minutes (separated by a cool off period) can increase the activity of the innate immune system

Supplements:

• Vitamin C doesn't seem to work in the data
• Supplementing with 1000-2000iu vitamin D (use code PODCASTNOTES at checkout for 15% off) per day is safe and will buffer the system – but some people need higher doses
• Zinc data is strong: Lless than 75mg will not work – take 100mg or more (be mindful of taking on an empty stomach to avoid gastric distress).
• ​NAC: can reduce contraction of cold and flu; increases glutathione. Dose of 1200mg per day divided into two dose. Avoid intake close to sleep because it does cause a lot of mucus production​

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​The Future of Neuroscience - Medtech and Meds​

Rapid-acting Neurostimulation: Can alleviate symptoms of major depression in 2.6 days on average; even faster for bipolar patients. Speed of action and durability of effect make this a very potent treatment

Resting-state functional connectivity MRI: sit in a scanner and scan the brain region; blood flow is a surrogate of electrical activity – it responds to activity; the timing of blood flow is offset between nodes of the brain which tells you the sequence of timing

• For mood in normal people: the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (an area involved in control) precedes the cingulate cortex
• For mood in depressed people: in some, the cingulate cortex precedes the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Psychiatry 1.0: Freud Based. As a result, the solutions were content solutions – psychoanalysis and psychotherapy

Psychiatry 2.0: we found pharmaceutical antipsychotic and antidepressant solutions and deinstitutionalized treatment – you no longer needed to be in inpatient treatment

• This new approach flew in the face of psychiatry 1.0
• The first antipsychotic was serendipitously discovered – it was originally studied for something different

Psychiatry 3.0: this current era is now seeking faster, less invasive, and less pharmacological/chemical exchange treatments; the goal is to reduce the need to stay on exogenous chemicals to stay well

• Usefulness: you incorporate past learnings – drugs & therapy act on circuits; now you can use neuromodulation to directly act on the circuits
• Idea: let’s re-route the circuit misfiring

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS): TMS is based on Faraday’s law. You can generate current through electrically conducting substances if you pulse a magnet

• TMS was first created in the mid-1980s and used as a treatment by the mid-1990s, then approved by the FDA in the early 2000s
• TMS works by selectively turning on cortical neurons without interacting with much of the rest of the head – you ultimately change the excitability of the brain

SAINT TMS Protocol: SAINT reorganized TMS to make it faster, more personal, and highly effective

• Dose: people get the dose equivalent of 7.5 months of TMS in 5 days
• Often, people rate at the same level as those not depressed within 2.6 days
• Outcomes: In a pilot study, 90% achieved remission; in a randomized controlled trial, 79% experienced remission at some point (some slower, some faster)

Ibogaine, The Next Big Psychedelic: an atypical psychedelic – it does not elicit visual perceptual differences in the external world, and it enables you to re-experience memories as a third-party

• Ibogaine is a 24-36 hour experience and very difficult to go through; it’s the most potent and riskiest psychedelic because it has contraindications with cardiac conditions (there’s about a 1 in 300 chance of cardiac arrhythmia)

Special Forces PTSD Study: Single arm study of veterans with traumatic brain injury, depression, some with alcohol use disorder. Results: Consistent improvements in symptoms in over 90% of patients! – read the full study here​

Uniqueness of Ibogaine: People report a life review type of experience where the user experiences a replay of their life, almost like watching a slideshow of their life

• There’s a cathartic reevaluation and insight into past actions, experiences
• You become the observer of your own life a third party
• There is no other drug you can have a neutral perspective and hold a sense of where you were and why you behaved a certain way – and simultaneously understand the other side as well
• “There’s a reason I say this is the most sophisticated drug on the planet.” – Dr. Nolan Williams

Nature > Pharma: “If we gave one of the big pharma companies $100 billion…and said make a drug that works like ibogaine…I think they’d have a hard time doing it because we don’t have the neuroscience to understand what’s going on there and I think it’s because it’s not one receptor.” – Dr. Nolan WilliamsIt’s almost more sophisticated than we want to believe nature can pull off

Ibogaine For Drug Addiction: Role of ibogaine for drug withdrawal symptoms: Ibogaine knocks out opioid withdrawal symptoms, which is very unique to ibogaine vs other psychedelics

Ibogaine + 5MEO DMT/The Toad: There is a place for the use of 5-MeO-DMT following ibogaine to alleviate any sort of hangover effect of ibogaine – the side effects of ibogaine phase out on their own but the 5-MeO-DMT seems to bridge the gap fasterThe problem is we really just don’t know the effects of 5-MeO-DMT alone so hard to say whether it’s having its effect outside or in combination with the ibogaine

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​Marc Andreessen and Rick Rubin​

Why Startups Fail: Internal dissent in a company is one of the primary reasons that a company fails

• Fundamentally, whether or not a startup succeeds depends on whether it is building a product that people want

California is a Dream Factory: California builds the technology of dreams, and then the entertainment industry in Hollywood makes the dreams

Tall Poppy Syndrome: Due to humanity’s tribal inclinations, the Tall Poppy – the person trying to do something new – tends to get cut

Why Media HATES Tech: When something in tech is successful, it tends to change the status structures and hierarchies of society.

Too Big Is the Goal: The goal of every company is to become too big to fail

• The goal of every company is to become so big that the government becomes their overseer and protector
• Receiving protection from the government prevents them from being disrupted by new companies

The Law of Crappy People: The quality of any level in the company will degrade to the worst person at that level

The Babe Ruth Effect: Home run hitters strike out more often. The people who try to do something radically new are going to fail at a much higher rate

Revenge Is a Great Motivator: “I’ll tell you one thing that really gets me out of bed in the morning: the opportunity to really stick it to someone who I feel did something wrong.” – Marc Andreessen

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​Dr. Rhonda Patrick and Dr. Peter Attia​

Peter Attia Lifespan Maxing:

• Sleep hygiene: not look at anything triggering a few hours before bed, brush and floss, sauna
• Sleep supplements: Solgar ashwagandha (600mg); Thorne glycine (2g); Magtein magnesium L-threonate​
• Occasionally for travel: Jarrow phosphatidylserine (100mg capsules or gel caps) – take about 400mg if you’re trying to overcome significant time zone change
• Nutrition: omnivore who is mindful because “when left to my own devices I’m out of control”
• Alcohol: there is no benefit at any dose but there are some social benefits – anywhere from 0-7 drinks a week; alcohol consumption several hours before bed; try not to drink more than 2 drinks any day
• Exercise: 7 days a week; 4 hours of zone 2, 1 VO2 max, 4 strength training sessions per week
• Therapy: 1-2 sessions per week + journaling

2 Classes of Apolipoprotein: (1) a class; (2) b class. A lipoprotein is what wraps around the cholesterol to make it able to move around water

• Apolipoprotein b 100 (ApoB) is the apolipoprotein that sits on low density lipoproteins (LDL), intermediate density lipoproteins (IDL), and very low density lipoproteins (VLDL)
• Apolipoprotein a (ApoA) warps the family of high density lipoproteins

Four factors which elevate ApoB: (1) cholesterol synthesis; (2) cholesterol reabsorption; (3) triglyceride burden; (4) clearance

ApoB population-based reference ranges:

• Below 80 mg/dL is wonderful
• 80-120 mg/dL is intermediate risk
• Above 120 mg/dL is high risk

Statins work by inhibiting cholesterol synthesis primarily in the liver: When cholesterol synthesis is shut down, the liver tries to get more cholesterol so puts LDL receptors everywhere to drive down LDL

• Side effects of statins: muscle aches and soreness (reversible); small subset develop insulin resistance to the point of type 2 diabetes (reversible; it’s worth monitoring with a CGM if you’re on a statin); changes in liver function test

PCSK9 inhibitor: Very effective, very safe, no real side effects, lots of long term data – but it is expensive in the US because it’s not readily approved by insurance because you have to be at high enough risk to justify

Ezetimibe: Not as potent but less expensive, usually needs to be used in conjunction with another drug (unless you have high levels of phytosterols – those people respond well)

Bempedoic acid: Ineffective until metabolized in the liver where it inhibits cholesterol synthesis; but it’s a very expensive drug

Menopause: Before menopause, a woman is aging slower than a man by almost a decade – then menopause hits and it’s like falling off a cliff in terms of aging

• First symptoms: period irregular, hot flashes, night sweats;some get brain fog, sleep disturbances, reduction in libido, pain with intercourse
• Bone loss: density declines gradually until menopause then decreases sharply

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) today

• The only estrogens used today are bioidentical
• Virtually all breast cancer risk probably comes from 4-hydroxy-estrione supplement
• Preferred product: estradiol patch, changed every 3-4 days – gives steady dose
• Can use vaginal cream to ameliorate sexual side effects
• Dose is low relative to pre-menopausal levels – based on day 5 in cycle of FSH and estradiol
• Typically it’s not warranted to treat until perimenopausal or symptomatic
• For Alzheimer’s risk: late initiation may be counterproductive; early initiation may be beneficial in APOE4 women but not otherwise

TRT: Testosterone replacement therapy and prostate cancer: the lower the testosterone, the higher the risk of high grade prostate cancer

• Testosterone therapy does not increase the risk of prostate cancer but it does potentially increase the size of the prostate
• Side effects of testosterone replacement therapy: does drive hair loss in susceptible individuals, increases acne in susceptible individuals – but this is usually when taken at levels above physiologic levels

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ALL THE NOTES:

• ​2023 Huberman Handbook​
• ​What to Expect in 2024: Predictions from Niall Ferguson, Tyler Cowen, Peter Attia, John McWhorter and More | Honestly with Bari Weiss and Oliver Wisemen​​
• ​Blake Eastman: See People, Read People | The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish (#185)​​
• ​Mike Posner: The Journey Back Home | The Danny Miranda Podcast (#441)​​
• ​How To Prevent & Treat Colds & Flu | Huberman Lab​​
• ​714: The New Frontiers Of Mental Health – Dr. Nolan Williams On Brain Stimulation, Ibogaine, Rapid-Acting Tools For Depression, Enhancing Sports Performance, And More | Tim Ferriss Show​
• ​Marc Andreessen | Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin​​
• ​085: Dr. Peter Attia On Mastering Longevity – Insights On Cancer Prevention, Heart Disease, And Aging | Found My Fitness With Dr. Rhonda Patrick​​

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