05: Beyond the Surface January 26 - February 1
When optimisation culture spirals into obsession, staying grounded becomes an act of resistance
This week had me thinking a lot about extremes - not just in fitness culture (more on that below), but in how we approach everything from health to politics to technology. There’s this relentless push toward “bigger, better, faster, more” that’s bleeding into every aspect of life, and I’m not sure it’s serving us.
Maybe it’s because I’m watching young men fall down rabbit holes of pseudoscience and steroids in the name of self-improvement. Maybe it’s the chaos in Australian politics as the Coalition implodes and populism gains ground. Or maybe it’s just the constant algorithmic assault trying to convince us we’re never quite enough as we are.
Either way, our lives are made up of mundane moments that need to be appreciated. Checking in, being present, and turning up for others is extra important now. Not performative aspects of living well, but truly living well.
What does that even look like for you right now?
HEALTH, FITNESS, & LONGEVITY
My mate Adam from Seattle created this app, Do I Need SPF?
Put in your location to see.
Bryan Johnson tells Chris Williamson (Modern Wisdom) that his new sauna protocol includes icing your testes, fellas!!
And another video about hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), and I learned about heart rate variability (HRV) and resonant breathing. Can’t wait for the full episode!
We built an illness system - too reliant on hospitals and specialists, neglecting prevention and primary care, ill-suited to modern health needs - not a health system. And we’re paying for it
We take pride in our life expectancy of 83 years. But 12 of these are spent in poor health. That’s 14% of our lives – a clear outlier (similar to the US).
This is the predictable result of under-investing in prevention. We have a crisis in mental health. People languish on waiting lists for surgeries that shouldn’t be needed with better prevention. Avoidable hospitalisations cost us $7.7B a year. States and the Commonwealth battle over hospital funding instead of addressing what fuels demand in the first place.
We’re more obese and consume more alcohol than other countries. The only bright spot is smoking rates, where effective public health campaigns have cut rates dramatically, generating billions in savings and productivity each year. Investing in prevention pays off.
Here’s what Luke Slawomirski says we need to do:
Put citizens at the centre of health policy - not lobbyists
Broaden the states’ remit beyond public hospitals, from prevention to aged care
Invest more in primary care, community health and social services, especially for vulnerable communities and with interdisciplinary collaboration
Create a private sector that adds value - Insurer–providercollaboration should be encouraged, particularly where it supports prevention and reduces hospitalisation.
Simon Hill from The Proof links to research saying that 88% of people abandon their New Year’s resolutions by February.
He talks about one of my favourite things, values alignment, and how when you link beliefs and values with the right kinds of stress and challenges…
stress activates repair pathways, improves cellular resilience, and builds capacity (as long as we also take time to recover). This is true of both physiological and psychological stressors.
Where many New Year’s and other goals break down is at this intersection.
Either we’re unwilling to experience the discomfort that we need for growth, or our goals themselves are misaligned with our values.
While positive stressors facilitate growth, chronic stress inhibits it. And when our daily actions drift too far from our underlying values, the body experiences that disconnect as a form of chronic stress. This can erode motivation and resilience over time.
Ultimately, living in sync with your values may be the most important health decision you make.
What is Looksmaxxing?
Maximising looks for greater success (with women) and status.
This is an idea that has spread from the involuntary celibate (incels) online community into the mainstream - with the help of social media algorithms - that could be benign “softmaxxing”, including pseudoscientific tongue exercises, “mewing”, grooming, exercise, fashion, and dieting to the more extreme “hardmaxxing” with steroids, surgical enhancements, and disordered eating.
Overall, it’s a great example of How Social Media Pressures Teen Boys to Chase Impossible Standards
Why is this an issue?
A 2025 Movember study found that 63% of young men follow influencers who talk about masculinity. Nearly half of them—43%—say they find these influencers motivating, and 27% also said watching this content makes them feel worthless.
To a teenage boy or young man who’s still figuring out his identity, it can be hard to separate inspiration from pressure. And in online spaces that reward perfection and comparison, even helpful habits can spiral into obsession.
…
Even if your son isn’t copying this behavior, simply being exposed to it can distort his sense of what’s normal—and what’s expected of him as a boy.
Some people take fitness and health too far. You may have heard of looksmaxxing if you have hyper-online young men in your life who are obsessed with working out.
The algorithms are the biggest issue here. They allow impressionable young men to see more and more of this content and the individualistic, positive aspects of this lifestyle, including more opportunities in work, life, and dating that were potentially not open to them before. NO real deep knowledge of values or philosophy or reading books, etc., to be a better member of society, just an individualistic focus on “bigger, better, faster, more”
WARNING: Don’t sign in to YouTube while you watch this to try to save your algorithm from directing more videos like this to you.
Lachie sent me this INTENSE YouTube interview by young podcaster Jack Neel who interviews a NINETEEN year old looksmaxxer, Clavicular (Brandon) whose “ascending natural growth protocol” is OTT: drugs and physical alterations to his face and body related to hormones: testosteron ofc, hair, acne, stimuants (METH!) for lean mass and “hollow cheeks”, leanness, less inhibition/anxiety (alchohol is bad, drugs are fine), etc etc.
This dude self-diagnoses himself as “on the spectrum of autism” and speaks so assuredly about this knowledge while not understanding self-compassion and true confidence from within. I’m so worried about these guys in the world, especially how they interact with women in dating, and where they believe they exist in society.
It’s necessary to understand this, especially if you have young men in your life.
A reminder from the Stoics that exercise for external goals is never better than internal goals:
All practices that are applied to the body by those who are giving it exercise may also be useful here if they’re directed in some way towards desire and aversion; but if they’re directed towards display, that is the sign of someone who has turned towards external things… - Epictetus (Discourses)
Your Life is the Sum Total of 2,000 Mondays by Joan Westenberg
Joan writes about “a sustained capacity to appreciate ordinary existence” as our lives are made up of more working days than leisure, and we should find meaning in the everyday rather than the exceptions.
How? Guard your time and how you spend your time well.
“The concrete physical and social circumstances of ordinary days are what matter.” And these come from four areas:
Environment shapes behavior more powerfully than willpower.
Commitments function as architecture too, but for time rather than space.” Lessen the gap between what you would choose to do with your time and what you have accumulated from others
Most people default to loyalty with their commitments, enduring obligations that no longer serve them because the activation energy for exit feels too high. But the asymmetry is real: the cost of one difficult conversation is finite, while the cost of tolerating an energy-draining commitment is infinite in the sense that it compounds for as long as you carry it.
Body is the substrate everything else runs on, but it’s the lever people most consistently ignore when designing their days... The Monday you experience is manufactured in the preceding twenty-four hours.
Relationships: the quality of human relationships is the single strongest predictor of flourishing… One genuine human connection per Monday and one conversation that goes beyond the transactional changes the texture of the entire day.
and ending with
Building identity through iteration: Virtue is a practice, not a possession. You become what you repeatedly do, which means your Mondays are literally building the person you’re becoming.
MUSIC
Ayra Starr (Live Performance) - Elevator Music @ Selfridges London
(Afrobeats, Soul, Afro R&B)
The Beaches: Live Concert | CBC Music Live
(Rock)
I’m seeing LA-based Blondshell in Brisbane Thursday night, so I’ve been listening to Sabrina’s music on shuffle
Blusher cover Kesha’s ‘Your Love Is My Drug’ for Like A Version
They played this at their live gig the end of 2025 - love these gals and how they show their inspirations on their sleeves. As they say in the Behind the Song video, “choosing joy in a defiant and rebellious way” is their m.o.
(Electro-pop)
HAIM - Headphones On (Addison Rae cover) in the Live Lounge
Cool connection with Janet Jackson’s sample of Joni Mitchell
Snail Mail - Dead End
New album Ricochet out in March
My algorithm this week is giving me a heap of DJ sets, including:
Nina also released a horsegiirL Remix for Delete.
Zack Fox (DJ Set) - Elevator Music - Tariq from Abbott Elementary!!
Tommy Lefroy - Worst Case Kid
I listened to this a heap while driving around - from my MP3 mix in my car and their Rivals EP
Walking around with my head down
I'm a worst case kid
In a plague pit town
Standing at the stake
Say I'm cool by myself
But I'm a liar in the end
I'm gonna need your help
After watching the first four episodes of Bridgerton, I’m re-listening to one of my favourite songs from Paramore, All I Wanted
I could follow you to the beginning
just to relive the start
And maybe then we’d remember to slow down
at all our favourite parts.
All I wanted was you…
An absolutely gorgeous orchestral version of this song by Vitamin String Quartet played at a pivotal moment the end of episode three, when they have to leave their little escape from the world to go back to their roles in society and reality…
💕💔 10x
(Def not ideal after a break up)
POLITICS
A Bluesky thread from historian Andre Brett, who isn’t too worried about the rise of One Nation regarding seats
Why?
They have a poor track record for single-member seats
They cannot retain members (7 out of 43 people have served full terms)
Quality candidates are not picked - they clash with Pauline, are ineligible, deflect, are unknown to locals, etc
Their strategy of spending a heap of money and Pauline’s reputation might work a bit for the upper houses, but not the lower - people might like Pauline, but not the local candidates
Voters are not really giving a firm commitment to One Nation - the 2028 election is a while off, and a lot can change - it’s more like they are parking votes until the LNP work out their mess
To understand what’s happening in the Coalition, you have to understand Queensland
by Amy Remeikis
The Nationals, led by the LNP, have spent the better part of three decades dragging the Liberals to where they are now…
It doesn’t matter who the Liberals choose as leader, the LNP will continue its panic run off the electoral cliff.
Barnson [Barnaby + Hanson] is better at communicating than it is. Better at understanding and collecting grievances. Better at raising money off it. And now One Nation will also get public funding to run campaigns in every electorate.
So to understand what’s happening, you have to understand the Queenslanders. For that, you don’t need common sense, or rationality or even to look at what’s in front of you. It’s base political instinct, honed under the hot sun of Joh’s Moonlight State and passed down to men who won small town battles but never had to expand their political tactics beyond a tantrum.
You can’t reason your way through that. You cannot reconcile with it, and you can’t find common ground – because it’s going to keep shifting every time they get spooked.
The Wall Looks Permanent Until it Falls
The regime dismantling our institutions does not command majority support. It never has. Trump’s approval ratings have remained underwater throughout his presidency. The policies being enacted poll badly, often catastrophically. This is not a popular revolution. It is a minoritarian project exploiting a counter-majoritarian system—and regimes built that way are inherently unstable.
The corruption is no longer hidden. Trump accepts $400 million planes from foreign governments while making billions from crypto schemes. Cabinet positions go to mega-donors. Supreme Court justices vacation with billionaires who have cases before the court. This nakedness is not strength but a vulnerability borne of arrogance. Corruption has been the grievance that unites disparate opposition and sweeps strongmen from power. Hidden corruption persists because it is difficult to mobilize against. Exposed corruption shifts the axis of politics from left versus right to clean versus corrupt, people versus oligarchs. That’s a fight authoritarians lose.
Why is America so obsessed with ICE, immigrant detentions and deportations?
Follow the money, right?
For every $1 that the three largest immigration deportation and prison companies donated to GOP campaigns in 2024, these private contractors stand to reap more than $11,000 in increased annual revenue in 2026, according to damning new research.
…
These companies “stand to receive $5.2 billion in increased revenue and $520 million in estimated profit in [fiscal year] 2026” based on their contract awards, Our Revolution notes — an over 11,000 percent increase on their investment.
There’s also a link to the use of digital surveillance tools in America
… agents leaning heavily on biometric surveillance and vast, interconnected databases — highlighting how a sprawling digital surveillance apparatus has become central to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Civil liberties experts warn the expanding use of those systems risks sweeping up citizens and noncitizens alike, often with little transparency or meaningful oversight.
…
Together with other government surveillance data and systems, federal authorities can now monitor American cities at a scale that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago, advocates say. Agents can identify people on the street through facial recognition, trace their movements through license-plate readers and, in some cases, use commercially available phone-location data to reconstruct daily routines and associations.
TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY
AdamXweb’s Awesome Aussie curated list of Australian-based apps, software, and providers 🦘🇦🇺
Paris Marx linked to this in their Getting off US Tech: a guide
I’m not on Instagram (or anything Meta), but Luke told me that they have added a new feature where you can view the algorithmic topics and update these - very cool
Betting on Boys: Understanding Gambling Among Adolescent Boys
New research from Common Sense Media reveals that gambling has become common among adolescent boys, with more than a third of boys gambling before they turn 18.
we discovered that for boys today, gambling largely doesn’t happen at casinos or card tables. It lives in sports betting and inside boys’ favorite video games—in loot boxes, skin cases, and other reward systems that blur the line between playing and paying—and it’s showing up in their social media feeds through algorithmic recommendations. Nearly half of boys who gamble see online material that promotes gambling, mostly through algorithmic exposure.
Digital Social Norm Enforcement: Online Firestorms in Social Media
Older research looking at introducing “social norm theory to understand online aggression in a social-political online setting, challenging the popular assumption that online anonymity is one of the principle factors that promotes aggression.”
They found that “in the context of online firestorms, non-anonymous individuals are more aggressive compared to anonymous individuals. This effect is reinforced if selective incentives are present and if aggressors are intrinsically motivated.”
Love and the machine
While AI might temporarily cushion feelings of seclusion, a lasting overreliance seems to exacerbate it… The misunderstanding further deepens as AI relationships are portrayed as private and inconsequential. What’s wrong with someone choosing to find comfort in an AI partner if it harms no one? However, this risks framing love as a personal preference rather than ongoing relational interactions that shape our character and community.
TECHNOLOGY & AI
You’re starting your career. So is AI.
You are walking into the biggest economic shift in history: artificial intelligence as your coworker, your competitor, and maybe even your replacement.
This feels scary, because it is. The future you worked hard for is about to look very different. You look for clarity, and leaders are often downplaying the impacts, or just don’t know what to tell you.
But this is your career, and you still have control. The same technology threatening jobs is ushering in new possibilities for you to learn, create, and win on your own terms. That window of opportunity is yours to seize — but it may not be open forever.
The AI economy is here. Time to game plan.
Very cool.
Anthropic-Pentagon Clash Over Limits on AI (whether the technology would be used for autonomous ‘lethal’ operations and surveillance) Puts $200 Million Contract at Risk or Archive
Tensions with the administration began almost immediately after it was awarded, in part because Anthropic’s terms and conditions dictate that Claude can’t be used for any actions related to domestic surveillance. That limits how many law-enforcement agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation could deploy it…
Anthropic’s focus on safe applications of AI—and its objection to having its technology used in autonomous lethal operations—have continued to cause problems
We need more AI companies concerned about what their defence contracts *actually* entail. Another reason to choose Claude.ai over the others
Also see Claude’s new constitution - here’s A brief summary:
In order to be both safe and beneficial, we want all current Claude models to be:
1 Broadly safe: not undermining appropriate human mechanisms to oversee AI during the current phase of development;
2 Broadly ethical: being honest, acting according to good values, and avoiding actions that are inappropriate, dangerous, or harmful;
3 Compliant with Anthropic’s guidelines: acting in accordance with more specific guidelines from Anthropic where relevant;
4 Genuinely helpful: benefiting the operators and users they interact with.
In cases of apparent conflict, Claude should generally prioritize these properties in the order in which they’re listed.
Mozilla Foundation’s 2025/2026 State of Mozilla Report is out
The big tech players [are] racing to lock down AI and control the web— to make sure it works on their terms, not ours.
Mozilla Foundation — and all of the other organisations in the Mozilla Family — have a different future in mind. The choices we need to make to get there are clear:
• We Choose Humanity: We need to build for human agency—tech that fuels creativity and fiercely protects privacy.
• We Choose Collective Power: We need to lean into open source and community, just as we did with Firefox.
• We Choose a Different Economic Model: A ‘double bottom line’ — advancing our mission and shaping markets — continues to guide everything we do.
You don’t have to believe the AI hype to see we’re at a fork in the road. We can let Big AI define how the internet works in the future. Or we can build something that is open and decentralized — and that puts humans first. We choose humanity. - Mark Surman
What is a true *private* Large Language Model (LLM) for AI?
They are not from the major players.
Lumo from the European Proton (e.g., the ProtonMail suite) and Venice, and the new Confer from Signal engineer Moxie Marlinspike.
Why is this important?
AI models are inherent data collectors, they rely on large data collection for training, improvements, operations, and customizations. More often than not, this data is collected without clear and informed consent (from unknowing training subjects or from platform users), and is sent to and accessed by a private company with many incentives to share and monetize this data.”
The lack of user-control is especially problematic given the nature of LLM interactions. Users often treat dialogue as an intimate conversation. Users share their thoughts, fears, transgressions, business dealings, and deepest, darkest secrets as if AI assistants are trusted confidants or personal journals. The interactions are fundamentally different from traditional web search queries, which usually adhere to a transactional model of keywords in and links out.
He likens AI use to confessing into a “data lake.”
In much the way Signal uses encryption to make messages readable only to parties participating in a conversation, Confer protects user prompts, AI responses, and all data included in them. And just like Signal, there’s no way to tie individual users to their real-world identity through their email address, IP address, or other details.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
NRF bets big on driverless cars as Applied EV raises $57 million
The National Reconstruction Fund’s investment in the company will be its first in the transport sector — one of seven priority areas identified as in need of a manufacturing boost.
BIG news here for technology startups and autonomous transport: “Self-driving cars without seats, windows or steering wheels could be manufactured in Australia within the year after a $30.7 million (Series B) funding boost.”
EV total cost of ownership in Australia: The economics have turned
Across both light and heavy vehicles, Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) modelling now shows EVs competing strongly – and increasingly winning – on pure economics, driven by falling vehicle prices, policy reform and better understanding of real-world operating costs.
Tesla: 2024 was bad, 2025 was worse as profit falls 46 percent
More than half its profit came from emissions credits as sales fell 8.6 percent.
The Australian Energy Market Operator has hailed the December quarter as a “landmark moment”, with wholesale electricity prices falling sharply, renewables meeting half of all demand for the first time, battery output surging and coal generation hitting a new low…
In short, the quarter represented much of what the government and market bodies have been arguing for the last few years – more renewables and storage will bring down prices and emissions, and still keep the lights on.
Though the March quarter will be different due to the January heatwaves.
It is interesting to note that, as usual, average wholesale prices were lowest in the those with the biggest share of wind and solar – such as Victoria and South Australia (both $37/Megawatt-hours) – and highest in those most dependent on coal, NSW ($75/MWh) and Queensland ($58/MWh). All states enjoyed falls from year earlier.
TV SERIES
The Beauty
11 episodes
FX/Hulu/Disney & 🏴☠
From Ryan Murphy and based on a comic book series. I watched the first three episodes and won’t watch anymore. I don’t mind the body-horror, The Substance mixed with plastic surgery, and the hardmaxxing-vibe (extreme body modification), but there’s just too much happening re the FBI investigation…
Bridgeton S4
4 episodes out now, and the remaining 4 episodes at the end of February
Netflix & 🏴☠
Bridgerton is back! Beautifully-shot escapism romance with lush costumes and sets. It can feel a bit rushed, and our lead, Benedict, is running around trying to find his Cinderella while she is under his nose/house, which is a bit too much, but it will all end well.
A great salve for the chaos in the world, and the orchestral versions of modern songs are great - especially see Paramore above in the Music section 💕💔
School Spirits S3
8 episodes
Paramount+ & 🏴☠
School Spirits is back, and we join the teens to find out how to fix the portal between the living and dead highschoolers
Under Salt Marsh
6 episodes
Sky & 🏴☠
British crime thriller set in Wales, where the beautifully tragic scenery is just as important to the story as the cast
It’s fictional but inspired by real rural communities in coastal towns across Wales, threatened by climate change and flooding.
“We filmed on location, which added authenticity. The environment is a character in itself - reflecting Jackie’s emotional state and the fragility of the community.
Another bonus is that I’m getting my Harry Lawtey fix while Industry is screening, as he’s no longer in the show
I am grateful for (hot) yoga, time with friends, working on business goals with mentors, and quality time with Lachie at the quarry.