Really interesting point Penelope. In my effort to find the trim tabs or levers that move the world, or in this case the levers that move one towards intellectual development, I was thinking you might be able to predict someone's intellectual development simply by the metric of how many questions they've asked of them themselves and others in their lifetime. I also believe the fearlessness comes from being able to the pursuit of truth above the pursuit of comfort.

Your reasoning of why "single and looking" is worse than being in a relationship from the perspective of free energy to work reminded me of this essay Paul Graham recently wrote on the "top idea in your mind" http://paulgraham.com/top.html

Maybe there is some logic to "monogamy is for dummies, that should apply to your wife/girlfriend as well." What other cultures are advocating is preserving love not fidelity. If men are promiscuous they are not likely to fall in love and find a new significant other. If women are promiscuous, since they are so much more emotional about sex, and craft much more elaborate narratives, it is likely the person they're sleeping with becomes a new significant other.

And culture is one of the slowest things to change. Which is why I'm skeptical about projections of India and China overtaking America as the world's superpower. With entrepreneurship being the primary driver of economic growth in the decades to come, America still has the most fertile culture and a large window of opportunity to maintain dominance. Not that I care that much about nationalistic dominance. Where ever the best culture exists on city-state level, I'll consider moving there.

Great study. I find that article extremely resonant. All 5 things listed have been focus points for me personally. What are your thoughts on the paragraph on Eureka Moments? It's looks to be in conflict with your post here http://ben.casnocha.com/2007/03/the_myth_of_one.html Though, I would say the writer of the post made it appear to be conflicting, but I bet if you asked the execs they interviewed, they would tell you they did have a creative spark where they were alerted to an opportunity but it only became innovative after the ideas was iterated

I really like the views expressed here. Had many similar conversations myself the past few days talking with college students at Berkeley and Stanford interested in entrepreneurship.

This is a difficult issue. I would say one distinction between Tropicana, where the customer is right and, Ford, where the customer didn't know what they wanted, was cultural/emotional vs. technological. I'd bet on an emotional level when cars first came out, horses will still preferred, but the increased utility of cars in other areas of life, such as improved speed, length and comfort of transit overwhelmed the nostalgic and inertial factors that supported mounted transportation. Eventually because cars have all this added utility to life, (in addition to it's high entry cost leading to higher perceived value) owning one becomes the cool thing to do. Revamping and modernizing the design on a juice carton loses nostalgic points and does not gain any utility points. I'd say Henry Ford's quote about the customer not knowing what they want applies mostly in situations when a technological paradigm shift is on the horizon.