Are you getting ZIPF’d?: The era of logarithmic irrelevance

What do how we speak, where we live, evolution, and your favorite jelly bean have in common? All these things follow ZIPF’s law – A discovery by George Zipf, a scientist whom in the early 1900s discovered that every language spoken follows a simple rule. The most common word in that language (i.e “THE” in the english language) occurs twice as often as the 2nd most common word, occurs 3 times as often as the 3rd most common word – and so on. Now if you want more of a detailed breakdown, that’s why Google was created. If you are super lazy, here is a graph:

Our own choices even follow this rule. The least popular jelly bean (obviously the black one) is twice as disliked as the next. Some of you may be saying, “Wait the black one is actually my favorite!” If that is the case, you are definitely going to get ZIPF’d in the future, and you might as well just close out of this browser please.

Now fortunately for all you normal jelly bean eaters, science and math has a funny way of making things connected and simple. You may have heard of the 80/20 that was discovered by another scientist who liked to name obscure rules after themselves. The Pareto Principle showed that in most systems – 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. So the top 20% have an amplified effect on the outcome in most cases. This is why we see that 80% of wealth in the United States is in the hands of only the top 20%. Or that 80% of all a companies profits come from just 20% of the customers. Have you ever wondered why 80% of population on earth clusters in roughly 20% of the land. You get the point.

But sadly, 80% of the readers are going to be doomed in the future.

That’s right 80% of you guys, are essentially going to become worthless cogs in the machine – and as technology progresses exponentially – that bottom 80% pretty much becomes utterly useless. Likely the bottom 80% won’t even understand how the top 20% operate, they won’t comprehend AI, genetics, and exponential growth. “SO HOW DO I STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING?” You are hopefully asking yourself.

Step 1: Read this blog. – Duh. In the future knowledge will literally become power. Staying on top of what is happening will be the difference between being assigned everything in your life by a machine (where to live based on optimal distribution of energy use, whom to marry as predicted by complex match-making databases, etc.) OR being the one who gets to decide how we actually assign these things. You will not need to be a programmer, but you will have to be able to constantly evolve to stay useful – there will be enormous opportunities.

Step 2: KEEP ADAPTING. You think to yourself – “OH GEE I’m Mr. or Miss or uhm non-binary Smarty Pants… I’ll learn about coding and computers so I can safely … wait what’s that? An AI has learned how to code 100x faster without your shitty typos? You see, you have to be willing to accept the fact that there is going to be a system, just like today. Your goal is to “game” that system. Find the optimal strategy that leads to the life you want. Today that would be creating a tech startup or becoming a doctor/lawyer/coder if the life you want is about money. It’s about saving a bunch of money if the life you want today is about being “Financially Independent”. It’s about being nice to others always if what you want is to not be called a dick. There are simple steps you could take today to game the system and have the things you want. The future will be no different, just exponentially magnified.

Step 3: Build close relationships. No matter what happens, it’s a safe bet that having awesome relationships with friends, loved ones, and family is going to be a great strategy. Your network will be better – you’ll be able to cope with changes better, and hopefully even get these people in your life to follow the first 2 steps with you.

So again – don’t become a black jelly bean eater. Thinking about how to stay in the top 20% of knowledge and adaptability is key. Do this and the future will be one to enjoy.