Three questions to Tom

Before we dive in Tom, tell us a little bit about yourself!

Hi everyone, I'm Tom from France. I'm not sure how to define my job nowadays but I've spent a good chunk of my life exploring the limits of creativity using technology, which led me to the computer games industry, one of the few where you'll find visual artists, writers, engineers, musicians, and designers sitting in the same room for years working on crazy projects. Other pillars of my life include being a parent (less and less so as the kids grow up...), an interest in technology, philosophy, Buddhist meditation, and mind-bending topics in general.

What is something you’ve changed your mind about recently? 

I find it hard to know what I've changed my mind about because I have this habit of flipping sides. Paraphrasing a quote I saw the other day: "I'm baffled by the sheer number of people who believe [thing I believed 2 days ago]". When I'm scrolling by myself, I can do any amount of this unnoticed, it's great.

But OK let's find a recent one. Last week I wrote a post in reaction to the ongoing crisis in mathematics triggered by the recent waves of AI-generated proofs. My claim was that mathematicians had always been doing math because they enjoyed the process, not because they wanted to solve real-life problems. But since math sits on the STEM side at school, they had historically benefited from a more serious reputation than other clearly process-driven disciplines like music or sports, and AI was now changing that. A few days later I stumbled on a tweet listing a bunch of real open problems where math might actually be a bottleneck. These topics are out of my depth so it's hard for me to comment more, but although I stand by the original claim, I might have underestimated the actual usefulness of math in some specific domains. Which would be good news because then because then AI could actually help with these.

Who is someone you admire and why? 

For a wise answer, I'd go with Shinzen Young, an American meditation teacher that I just love listening to. He has such a pragmatic, down-to-earth approach to talking about very abstract concepts. He is so luminous at 80+ years old.

For a more provocative answer, I'd say Nathan Fielder. If you don't know his work, it's... impossible to describe properly. The best way is to watch the first two episodes of The Rehearsal season 1 and see for yourself. Some would say that he's totally nuts, but being nuts doesn't get you this far. Some would call him an asshole, and I get why, but... one thing I'll say is that he makes me feel like I'm not ambitious enough.

What is one idea you think deserves more attention?    

I would go for the Buddhist concept of dukkha.

In the West we've already identified a major problem that we call the hedonic treadmill: the fact that our brains are differential machines and will adjust to pretty much anything. Which can be good or bad. The hedonic treadmill is this thing that we keep remembering from time to time, "oh right, it's true we work like that, geez", and then immediately proceed to live our lives as if we'd never heard of it.

It explains so many of our problems: zero-sum games, status ladders, consumerism, etc. We'll never get anywhere running on a treadmill. And dukkha is the generalized version of this, identified by Buddhists 25 centuries ago. It's the fundamental unsatisfactoriness of existence, caused by the realization (conscious or not) that nothing really lasts as long as we'd like, and nothing really has the substance we're longing for. So we're always craving more, or better. Or we feel aversion to things that remind us of these hard truths. Anyway, I'm convinced we have a lot to gain from collectively taking this more seriously. But Buddhism is so big, it's really hard to get into, and I find that dukkha is so simple and already "there" to be seen, which makes it a good start.

What’s something exciting you are working on?

I started writing publicly on Substack earlier this year. It began with my frustration with the current discourse around AI, or lack thereof. It’s a topic I’ve been following since long before ChatGPT. But it turns out I enjoy writing about other topics even more, most recently music, drugs and work mindsets. Check it out at https://trethaller.substack.com*

*Note from Jeanne (yes I'm allowed to do this!): discovering a new Substack author can be overwhelming, knowing where to start etc.. The first piece I read by Tom was this one (title: Everything is drugs), and I LOVED it! It really gives you a perspective into his mind and gives you such interesting things to think about. So you could start here also :)