3 MINUTE MONDAYHi friend, There are few feelings worse in this life than being right but early. You correctly predict a future catastrophe, trend, opportunity for growth or important area of focus, only to be castigated for how short-sighted, xenophobic, judgemental, out of touch, Left Wing, Right Wing or alarmist you are. The Cassandra Complex is when someone accurately predicts a negative future event or truth, but no one believes them, and they’re often dismissed, ignored, or even ridiculed. It’s named after Cassandra, a figure in Greek mythology. The god Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy, but after she rejected his advances, he cursed her so that no one would ever believe her warnings. She foresaw the fall of Troy, warned everyone, and was met with scorn. The city burned anyway. Rachel Carson, in her 1962 book Silent Spring, warned about the environmental damage caused by pesticides. She was mocked by chemical companies and even some scientists. But her work eventually led to the environmental movement and the banning of DDT. Ignaz Semmelweis, in the 1840s, realised that doctors were transmitting childbed fever from autopsies to mothers by not washing their hands. He begged his colleagues to adopt handwashing. They laughed at him. He died in an asylum. Decades later, germ theory proved him right. Edward Snowden warned about government surveillance. Some saw him as a hero; many called him a traitor. His warnings were initially dismissed, until proof emerged that governments were indeed spying on civilians. Being right but early happens on much more personal scales too. Someone sees clear warning signs in a work environment and warns others: “This is toxic. It’s going to implode.” They’re brushed off as negative or paranoid, until it does implode. In a relationship, one person sees the correct course of action that their partner should take but is labelled controlling for trying to convince them of it. Eventually the other partner does come around to it, only after the price of bruised faith and wasted time has been paid. In short, history doesn’t reward the first person to see clearly, it often punishes them. Cassandras bleed first so the rest of us don’t have to. Why do we resist? Because every new truth asks the existing world to die a little. It happens because people don’t want to believe uncomfortable truths; Cognitive Dissonance. Because we trust stability and get suspicious of those who challenge it; Status Quo Bias. And because if the person warning us isn’t seen as “credible,” they’re ignored, no matter how right they are; Messenger Effect. The main issue here, beyond progress being held back, is that it disincentivises people from speaking up when they have insight that could benefit others. Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei are a perfect example of this. In the early 1500s, Copernicus quietly proposed something radical: the Earth orbits the sun. Humans, once the unmoving centre of God’s design, were now spinning through space on a planet among many. But Copernicus hesitated. He delayed publishing his heliocentric model for decades. His great work, De revolutionibus, came out only as he lay on his deathbed, likely to avoid the wrath of Church and academia. His truth was too disruptive. And so, for most of his life, it went unheard. Galileo, a century later, took that same Copernican spark and shouted it from the rooftops. He saw the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, the imperfections on the Moon’s surface, all evidence that the heavens were not as fixed or divine as taught. The Church responded with fear. Galileo was dragged before the Inquisition, forced to recant under threat of torture, and sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. In retrospect, it’s not surprising that Copernicus kept his mouth shut, given how Galileo was treated. This is a core truth of the Cassandra Complex; being right often isn’t enough and being early can feel like being wrong. Anyway, I might as well put some skin in the game. Here’s some stuff I think I'm right but early about:
(totally open to being wrong, and/or late about all of these) Feel free to give me some of your “right but early” predictions, I’m interested. MODERN WISDOMI do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent. This week’s upcoming episodes: Monday. Thursday. Saturday. THINGS I'VE LEARNED1. Recent research suggests that body fat percentage is a better predictor of attractiveness than BMI or shoulder-to-waist ratio. Ratings of physical attractiveness using a series of 15 DXA images were rated by both females and males, in three countries (China, Lithuania, and UK). The BMI which maximises male attractiveness should be around 23.2 and 24.8 kg/m2. Shoulder to waist ratio should be around 1.57. The most attractive male bodies have a body fat percentage of 13-14%. This makes good evolutionary sense, as all these ranges are closely linked to metabolic health. — h/t Steve Stewart-Williams 2. “The stressor that had the biggest effect on women’s disordered eating—the strongest predictor of developing an eating disorder—wasn’t men or attention from men. It was the presence of attractive women; of perceived romantic rivals. Results indicated that for heterosexuals, intrasexual competition cues led to greater body image dissatisfaction and more restrictive eating attitudes for women, but not for men. These findings support the idea that the ultimate explanation for eating disorders is related to intrasexual competition.” — Rob Henderson 3. “Hinge users are 11.3 percent more likely to match with someone who shares their initials.” — Seth Stephens-Davidowitz LIFE HACKLMNT Lemonade Salt is back in stock. This stuff is phenomenal and was sold out for ages. They had a $1.6M truckload of it stolen recently (no joke). But it’s available now, so go get it. I keep harping on about LMNT because it really works - try it and feel the difference that proper, tasty hydration makes. And if you don’t like it for any reason, they offer an unlimited duration money-back guarantee where you don’t even need to return the box - so you can buy it 100% risk-free. Try LMNT Risk-Free with a free sample pack. Big love, Try my productivity drink Neutonic. PS |