Hi,

Welcome to the Procrastilearning Newsletter, where you’re free to procrastinate on something healthy before getting back to work. The current format:

• 💡 3 ideas worth procrastilearning over

• 🗣️ 2 quotes to help you refocus

• 🪄 1 tip to keep you on track

If you have an interesting link worth including in a future issue, just reply to this email.

3 things worth procrastilearning over

1. Science says video games are good for you

Some people find video games juvenile, while others (like me) simply don't have the time to get into them. But a recent scientific study has shown that they are worth investing a bit of your time in: they are great at helping people recover from the stresses of work and at replenishing their energy.

How come? It's because mastery, even in a virtual world, is energising.

If you still think they're immature, maybe try replacing social media for a single day with games, since social media has been repeatedly shown to make you more stressed and depressed.

2. There are other language apps than Duolingo

That’s probably obvious, but in the last Procrastilearning issue, I mentioned Duolingo and their push to make their app addictive.

Although they're the biggest language learning app, they're not necessarily the best. If you're looking for a breakdown of what other options there are, especially according to what skills you’re looking to zone in on, this is the perfect video.

3. Startup cities are now a thing

The tech futurist Balaji Srinivasan wrote a popular open-source book two years ago all about the future of civilisation. In The Network State, one of the ideas he puts forth is for startup cities, namely places where mass innovation is done in a concentrated fashion for the advancement of human technology. Which sounds nice enough.

Now people have started to run with the idea. Last year, crypto overlord Vitalik Buterin organised a pop-up startup city in Montenegro called Zuzalu (well, he rented out the Luštica Bay Resort).

Right now there is another startup city called Vitalia which is all about investigating life extension. It’s on for a few months in Prospera, a Honduran city built with a no-red-tape policy. It’s all a bit confusing when you first look at it, especially since you can buy an invite to Vitalia online.

You could argue these are just conferences that have gotten out of hand. But they do seem more exciting than conferences.

For example, yesterday 200 Vitalia “residents” took part in gene therapy testing and had nanobots injected into them. Yep, nanobots.

But to make these events/places work, especially when unlicensed science experiments require towns that put up with that sort of thing. Deutsche Welle did an audio report last year about the problems with Prospera, the place where Vitalia is happening (from 20:52 here). How many more places around the world will want to do the same?

2 quotes to keep in mind

1 tip to motivate you

There’s a simple question that might just inspire you to change your approach to any number of tasks and projects you weren't particularly looking forward to.

What would this look like if it were fun?

One of the best examples is in an early episode of The Simpsons when Principal Skinner goes missing. It turns out he was in his basement trapped under a load of newspapers after a big pile fell on him. Stuck there for weeks, he maintained his sanity by bouncing a basketball and seeing how many times he could bounce it in a day before trying to beat that record.

I wouldn’t recommend lying under a giant pile of newspapers. Maybe just listen to music while you do something you usually find boring. That's probably a more relatable example.

But yes, how could you make that thing you’re about to have to go do more fun?

That's all for this edition. Many thanks to you all for reading. Here’s a picture of a pony.

Adam

Adam Zulawski
Procrastilearning on Beehiiv / More stuff

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