Welcome to the seventy-fifth edition of '3-2-1 by Story Rules'. (Yay!)

A newsletter recommending good examples of storytelling across:

3 tweets
2 articles, and
1 long-form content piece

Let's dive in.

𝕏 3 Tweets of the week

Big Brother isn't watching you, you are watching Big Brother.

Great use of contrast and framing.

Nothing you do can impress Asian parents!

Good: No one visits the veg counter in a Bengali wedding buffet.

Great: The tweet above!

📄 2 Articles of the week

a. 'Jobs Ahoy? New incentives are clever politics' by Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar

Eye-opening from the unstoppable Swami Aiyar. A lot of pieces were critical of the new incentive-for-hiring policy, but this one made me realise the political reason driving it: "Businesses galore will apply for hiring incentives and the government will chalk up every subsidy payment as additional hiring. Since nobody knows what hiring would have been without incentives, nobody will be able to contradict the statistics. Bottom line: even if additional hiring is zero, the government will still be able to claim success."

The policy may not defeat the unemployment problem, but would help the government win the perception battle.

Read the adjoining interview with Kunal Mangal too - he shares a fascinating point on why people prefer government jobs vs. private ones: "I repeatedly came across candidates who started preparing for (govt) exams because they were disillusioned with the private sector. They had gotten jobs through campus placement, but found the working conditions or the nature of the work to be deeply upsetting. For example, one candidate told me how his boss would come to his house late at night and yell at him in front of his family."

b. Shaan Puri email thread with George Mack

Entrepreneur and content creator Shaan Puri has decided to start a new form of content - email exchanges that are like podcast conversations, but in writing. This first one with essay writer George Mack, has a lot of great lines.

I loved this analogy of 'compression algorithms' to describe good thinking:

The people who get me jealous of their insights have the highest AHA moments per word.

They take a 1,000-page essay and zip the file down to a simple sticky idea. They are compression algorithms.‍

Don't read like you have to complete the book for a school assignment. Great use of contrast in these lines. :

1. “One should not read like a dog obeying its master, but like an eagle hunting its prey” - Dee Hock

This made me realize I had left the education system — but the education system had not left me.‍

George talks about the importance of emotion and simplicity in making something sticky:

Compression artists like Mitch, Paul Graham or Naval — compress words, but maximise emotion and understanding.

E.g. Biden has compressed his slogan into “Finish The Job” — but his compression algorithm has ruined the file. There’s no emotion. I’m just confused. What does he mean?!?! Finish what job?!

I have been fascinated by this concept I call “Sticky Ideas”. The algo for a sticky idea = [Total amount of emotion] x [How simple it is to understand].

Make America Great Again = Sticky Idea. Make Something People Want = Sticky Idea. Hawk Tuah = Sticky idea.

“Finish The Job” = Not a sticky idea.

MAGA has 4 different emotions compressed down to 4 words:

Make = Action

America = Identity

Great = Aspiration

Again = Nostalgia

And to smooth it all it fits into an acronym: MAGA. E.g. Make Brazil Great Again - MGBA, doesn’t have the same mouth sound to it. We’re all just monkeys making mouth sounds at the end of the day.

There's a lot of harmless goofing off by the two tech-bros, but it's all good fun.

🎧 1 long-form listen of the week

a. 'Breathing Is Easy. But We’re Doing It Wrong.' on Plain English with Derek Thompson

For the longest time in my life, I have contributed consistently and valiantly towards the wellbeing of one profession: dentists. Fillings, braces, root canals, crowns, surgeries, implants, you name it, I've done it. I often joke that when a dentist takes a look at my teeth, he or she calls up the spouse and says, "Darling, cancel the Goa tickets. This year, we're going to Maldives."

But enough about my afflictions. This epsisode opened my eyes to the evolutionary reason for why we humans have such bad teeth.

You might put the blame on sugar. But the shocking answer: fire.

In this episode, journalist and writer Derek Thompson speaks with James Nestor, author of 'Breath: The Lost Art and Science of Our Most Misunderstood Function'.

It turns out that humans didn't always have bad teeth. Our ancestors had pretty good teeth - because they had bigger faces.

James: I had heard that the human face has been shrinking over the past several centuries, and I had seen pictures of it and I talked to people who attested to this, but I hadn't seen it myself in real life... So I went out to the University of Pennsylvania, which is the home of the Morton Collection. And the Morton Collection is the largest assemblage of pre-industrial skulls in the world.

So they have hundreds and hundreds of these things from Asia, Africa, US, wherever. And you go into this place and you're amidst all of these rows of skulls and they're all smiling back at you with perfectly straight teeth. And it just makes you wonder what, what has happened? Why did 90% of us have some sort of deformation in our mouths? And why did all of our ancestors have perfectly straight teeth?

Here's James on the evolutionary impact of fire:

...when we learned how to cook food, specifically cook meat (using fire), and we gained a lot more calories, a lot more quickly. And what happened is our brain started growing very, very quickly compared to any other time in human history. And as our brains started growing, they took away real estate from the front of our faces and including our mouths. We didn't need such huge mouths and such huge teeth when we were eating softer, more processed foods.

The impact: Our teeth became squished together into a much smaller mouth cavity. Cue, misaligned teeth requiring braces, wisdom teeth requiring extraction, among many other wonderful dental procedures.

Of course, this also affected our breathing:

...when mouths don't grow wide enough, the roof of the mouth tends to rise up. Instead of out forming what's called a v-shaped or high-arched palate, the upward growth impedes the development of the nasal cavity, shrinking it and disrupting the delicate structures in the nose. The reduced nasal space leads to obstruction and inhibits airflow. Overall, humans have the sad distinction of being the most plugged-up species on earth.

Breathing - something that is so basic to our existence, something that we completely take for granted - is not something we are actually good at:

... creates a situation where 90% of children have some degree of deformity in their mouths and noses. 45% of adults snore occasionally when sleeping. A majority of the population you say suffers from some form of breathing difficulty or resistance.

Over the rest of the conversation, James shares some ideas and techniques with Derek on how to breathe better. If you have been practising pranayama, you might just let out a big yawn in this part of the conversation. I clearly need to work on my breathing though.

As for my teeth, well, I will continue to selflessly support dentists for as long as I live.

That's all from this week's edition.

Ravi

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Ravishankar Iyer

On Breathing Better (3-2-1 by Story Rules #75)

𝕏 3 Tweets of the week

📄 2 Articles of the week

🎧 1 long-form listen of the week

The Fascinating Story of Oil (3-2-1 by Story Rules #90)

India's Centre-State Fiscal Schisms (3-2-1 by Story Rules #89)

How to Build Lasting Memories with your Children (3-2-1 by Story Rules #88)