"Why Is Everyone Talking About Independent Thinking, and What Is Independent Thinking?"

This article is Lu Canwei's 55th original piece.

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A term that has been increasingly heard lately is independent thinking. If you ask everyone, no one would say they do not think independently, unless they are a small X smart speaker.

Nipple Strategy

From September 27 to October 1, 1995, a conference was held in San Francisco, USA, gathering over 500 political and economic elites from around the world, including wealthy figures like Thatcher and George H.W. Bush.

These elites discussed how to respond to globalization. They believed that if globalization continued, it would inevitably lead to severe wealth disparity, with global wealth ultimately concentrated in the hands of 20% of the population.

They pondered how to avoid conflict with the remaining 80% and what to do if they banded together against the wealthy, as well as how to prevent the 80% from feeling marginalized.

At that time, someone proposed giving the 80% a "nipple" to let them vent their excess energy, leading to the emergence of industries like pornography and gaming, as well as the development of satisfaction-oriented industries, such as celebrity gossip and family dramas, allowing them to be content and lose their ambition.

This way, they would lose the ability for deep thinking, with any conclusions being provided by the media to help them think and make judgments. This strategy is famously known as the nipple strategy (Tittytainment). Tittytainment is a combination of Titty (nipple) and Entertainment, translated into Chinese as "奶头乐."

Looking back now, this strategy has been remarkably successful. We are now inundated with various information, but 99% of it may have nothing to do with us and provides us with no value.

But… is it really like this?

Cognitive Boundaries

We often see people scrolling through Douyin on the subway, thinking they are indulging in nipple entertainment. However, when we return home and play a couple of rounds of Honor of Kings, we don’t feel like we are engaging in nipple entertainment.

This is not to say we are being hypocritical, but rather that we are making judgments based on our own cognitive boundaries. For example, if you are exhausted from work every day and just want to lie down or play a couple of games when you get home, this is a conclusion drawn from your judgment of the situation, where playing games helps you relax and relieve the tension from the day. You judge that this activity provides the greatest benefit for you.

When your teammate can go AFK, it is also based on their judgment, such as if they don’t pay attention to their girlfriend, they might face a breakup. Of course, there are also teammates who prioritize the game over relationships, firmly insisting on pushing forward with the game based on their own judgment.

So, are we the 80% who are on the edge of nipple entertainment?

For instance, Hu Shi's card-playing notes are shared from time to time, or people gossip about certain elites playing in the letter circle, and some big shots enjoying Texas Hold'em, as well as various powerful elites involved in the Epstein case.

Our cognitive understanding at each stage changes with the people we interact with and the new knowledge we acquire. When our cognition changes, the benefits we perceive from things also change, and so does our nipple entertainment. For example, I haven’t played Honor of Kings for a long time because I found that the benefits of writing articles outweigh the frustrations of encountering AFK teammates. Even if I occasionally face some trolls, I also meet many people who say they learned something after reading, and such feedback is more beneficial for me. So if I can truly help everyone, feel free to comment and like.

So how do we expand our cognitive boundaries? As Cao Da recently mentioned in an article that went viral on social media, a person's value lies in understanding both A and B simultaneously. At this point, your cognition is no longer just A or B, but encompasses A and B, plus the area formed by the combination of both, C.

This is also what we often hear about breaking the circle; you need to continuously absorb knowledge from other disciplines to expand your cognitive boundaries.

Even if you understand this… many times you will still be caught in constant internal competition.

Stanford Prison Experiment

We often mention the importance of perspective-taking, considering things from others' viewpoints.

Many people have heard of this experiment, where volunteers played the roles of prisoners and guards, and they began to adapt to their roles. However, the experiment was terminated after just six days due to the inability to continue, as some individuals began to inflict harm on others while immersed in their roles.

Did they not realize they were merely subjects of an experiment?

Often, it is not that we are unaware, but rather that we are immersed in our current roles. For example, when you are a player, you are unlikely to view the game from the coach's perspective. This is a phenomenon I have seen in many companies, where they hope employees can execute tasks to perfection while also managing teams and viewing issues from a company-wide perspective.

Another example is that early computers had single-core CPUs. So why could we surf the internet, watch movies, and write simultaneously? It was because the operating system allowed each task to alternate, for instance, A executes for 0.01 seconds, then B for 0.01 seconds, and then C… repeating this process. Because the CPU's execution speed is incredibly fast, it gives us the illusion that tasks are being executed simultaneously.

The development of computers is now trending towards multi-core systems, and people often talk about dual-core, quad-core, and octa-core CPUs. This is because single-core CPUs are inefficient during task switching and incur additional overhead.

It feels like we are going off-topic, but many times we are like single-core CPUs, trapped in a 100% utilization scenario, preventing us from breaking out of cognitive boundaries and leading to constant internal competition.

Therefore, we need to avoid getting stuck in a 100% situation under current survival pressures. When we can keep our load below 80%, we have over 20% of our energy to learn, break the circle, and expand our cognitive boundaries. This way, we can gain new insights, allowing us to update what we are currently doing to focus on the 80% that yields higher returns.

So why can’t we become multi-core CPUs? Humans inherently possess multitasking abilities; for example, we can watch a TV show with our eyes while listening to the dialogue with our ears. However, we cannot read a book while watching a movie simultaneously; if we must do so, we can only switch back and forth.

Thus, we need to discern what type of tasks we are engaged in. If a task can only be done at one time, then we should focus all our efforts on it during that period. If it does not require concentrated effort, then we can do it simultaneously with other tasks.

For a more relatable example, if you want to have a child, you need to carry the pregnancy for 10 months. At this point, you cannot compress those 10 months into 1 month, as that would fill your single-core capacity. However, if you want to have 10 children in 10 months, you should seek to have ten at the same time… leveraging your multi-core (playboy) advantage.

When we find that the tasks we have at hand have filled our single-core capacity and it is not what we desire, we should end that task and not continue to engage in internal competition. For example, if you are in a 996 or 007 company without a personal life, living in fear of sudden death every day…

Rather than saying we need to think independently, it is better to say we need to manage ourselves better.

Finally

To borrow from the interview between Cook and He Tongxue (and let’s not continue to sell anxiety, comparing someone’s 22 years to your own), Cook responded to how He Tongxue maintains his enthusiasm:

Recommendations:

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A little insight.

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I hope you don’t always think about getting rich quickly; gradually becoming wealthy is what we can achieve.

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