It was a conversation that attracted nearly 3 million people, albeit separated by language barriers.
On the evening of February 24, President Shi Yigong and Bridgewater founder Rui Dalio connected by video to discuss "how to cope with the changing world". From the beginning of winter 2020 to the present, uncertainty and unknown seem to have become the main theme of this world. The order of all walks of life needs to be reorganized and integrated, and everyone urgently needs to achieve self-breakthrough and evolution in the cold winter.
More specifically, we all need to find our own positioning and seek a new way of development in the great cycle of history and the great changes of the past century.
Two interlocutors, one from the field of science that he has been deeply involved in for more than 30 years, and the other with the vision of a global macro investor, try to find the eternal and universal law behind these changes.
"How individuals respond to a changing world", "The meaning of innovation for human beings and countries", "How to encourage innovation and exploration", "How to adjust the mentality and realize the value of life"... We have excerpted some of the content, hoping to bring you some insight and inspiration.
Shi Yigong
Shi Yigong is a famous structural biologist, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and president of Westlake University.
Shi Yigong: In the process of innovation, we are actually facing a dilemma. On the one hand, we must learn before we can innovate. Without a certain amount of knowledge, we don't know where to innovate and how to innovate. Learning, on the other hand, can impose constraints on our minds.
Imagine that we are passengers, sitting on a high-speed car or train, and the faster the train, the sooner we can reach our intended destination, but the harder it is for us to get off the train to explore the wild environment. In contrast, it is much easier to explore the unknown world on foot, and of course the odds of being alone in the wild are much greater.
Pursuing innovation often means being in the minority. By choosing innovation, you are out of the mainstream and on a lonely path. As a rare minority, you may be misunderstood, beaten, ridiculed, or even suppressed by the public by your colleagues. This situation is not uncommon in the academic research community. When scientists work tirelessly for decades on attempts that may seem foolish to others, constantly taking detours and eventually making breakthroughs, miracles are often thought to happen overnight.
We only need to look at the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine to know this. But in reality, how do we encourage innovation? Innovation often results from a healthy culture that encourages differentiation and a sincere tolerance for repeated failures.
Innovation often requires critical thinking. More than 30 years ago, the Human Genome Sequencing Project was launched after a heated debate and cost more than $2 billion to complete. But the project sparked a revolution in biotechnology and biomedicine that continues to this day. Collaboration fosters innovation, and people with different expertise from different fields of research, institutions and countries can work together to create miracles.
In addition, diversity fosters innovation. People from different backgrounds, regions, cultures and ethnicities all bring unique power to foster innovation. The successful detection of gravitational waves by humans in September 2015 best illustrates the value of innovation and diversity. We have recorded gravitational waves on Earth that originated from the collision of two black holes about 1.3 billion years ago.
As far as the great challenges facing humanity are concerned, the key to breaking the game lies in our ability to innovate. Our future is in our own hands. Cherish life, seek truth, and innovate with conscience.
Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Asset Management, manages about ONE trillion yuan. U.S. hedge fund companies have survived an average of only four years, and Bridgewater has been standing for nearly 50 years, ranking fifth by Fortune magazine as "America's Most Important Private Company."
Ray Dalio: The occurrence of large cycles usually begins with a new order, either a civil war that leads to the rise of power on one side and a new domestic order, or an international war that leads to changes in the international system and the emergence of a new world order. In 1945, a new world order was established, and the United States, as the dominant power that won World War II, shaped the new world order.
In 1949, a new internal order emerged in China. It's important to see the cycle and where we are in it. Within a country, conflicts arise when there is a serious gap between rich and poor and financial problems. What happens depends entirely on the individual's behavior. But the most important forces are two other obvious forces.
One is a natural phenomenon. I am interested to see that natural phenomena in the form of epidemics, droughts and floods have an incomparably significant impact on the environment, life expectancy and other factors. But all of these factors add up to less important than another factor, which is the gradual development of human creativity.
This chart dates back to 1500 AD. On the left is per capita income and on the right is life expectancy. As you can see, there has been a very strong upward development trend, which is due to people's creativity and adaptability, so that people's living standards have gradually risen sharply. In contrast, what we call fluctuations such as war seem insignificant.
Seeing the above situation, I not only fell into contemplation, we must carefully think about our own position in the cycle, and the whole society also needs to seriously think about how society should operate. I hope that all of us will agree on this and recognize the need for human cooperation.
One of the things that Professor Shi and I agree on most is the importance of pleasant cooperation. We now live in a world where there are abundant resources and people have a strong ability to create a better life. The most important issue at the moment is the risk of conflict, which is real, but if we can work together, we have the opportunity to overcome that risk and create a better tomorrow for all humanity.
Right
Q: How can you stay curious and keep exploring?
Shi Yigong: Scientists enter the field of scientific research from different perspectives, and my interest stems from the pure love and pure curiosity about nature, as well as the imagination of nature and the boundless unknown world. Over the past 30-40 years, it has been this strong desire to learn and explore the unknown that has sustained me along the way.
Born like a summer flower, for each of us, our life on the earth is only fleeting, and the entire human civilization may only be a passing cloud in the history of the universe. Many people ask, what is the purpose of living? What are we supposed to do on Earth? For me personally, living is to explore the unknown, to see how powerful humans can be, to see how far we can explore in the unknown.
Ray Dalio: The secret to staying curious and constantly exploring the world is desire. It's a passion to understand how the world works. In my book Principles: Responding to a Changing World Order, I discuss how the world works. Turning curiosity into action, using an understanding of how the world works, experimenting with reality, and translating it into action that produces results, is the psychology of the innovator.
Curiosity is also an explorer mentality. As Professor Shi Yigong mentioned before, some people will be affected by fear of external criticism or hope to be recognized by the outside world, which will not bother innovators, because innovators do not need to be recognized. Instead, they focus almost exclusively on exploration, finding mistakes that are themselves part of the learning process. Through the journey of exploration, individuals are able to grow, contribute to social progress, and thus generate satisfaction, which I believe should be everyone's goal.
Q: How to cultivate high-quality talents
Ray Dalio: Education is the starting point for everything, it encompasses an understanding of science and art, and it helps people get along with each other and cultivate civilized behaviors toward each other. There are two different types of education. One is the education of acquiring knowledge, that is, the education of skills. The other is an education that fosters original thinking. A well-educated person may have a wealth of knowledge and skills, but another type of quality education teaches people to think creatively, and the difference between the two is very important for innovation. Because learning what has already been learned will not help future innovation, although this is the basis for future innovation.
Looking at education from the big history, we can also see such a model: we can learn from the experience of the Tang, Song and other dynasties, to use the huge population base: to open society to the largest number of people, to create a meritocratic system, in order to identify and promote innovators, so that they can play a supporting role. You don't know where the talent will come from, so it's an education that involves fostering innovation and curiosity, not just acquiring knowledge. It takes people to be different, it takes innovation, it takes a spirit of adventure. It needs to draw talent from the largest percentage of the population and see where innovative talent comes from.
Shi Yigong: Education is necessary for everyone in society. We should teach according to our aptitudes and provide different educational models for different people. For a big country like China, education reform is particularly important. For the sake of China's progress, for China's scientific and technological innovation, and for the cultivation of China's next generation of young talents, China must unremittingly explore educational reform. This is the only way out. Imagine that in a country of 1.4 billion people, having only one rigid form of education, one or two or more rigid forms of examination, would severely limit the types of students who can produce, educate, and provide opportunities.
Therefore, a big country like China should always maintain the momentum of education reform, which is one of the reasons why we have joined forces with people from all walks of life to form the new Westlake University. In order to achieve diversity, educational institutions should be given greater freedom to experiment with different things. This is very beneficial for the younger generation of students.
Q: How can individuals better realize their own and social values?
Ray Dalio: We can summarize life into three stages: the first stage is learning, this stage we rely on others; the second stage is focused on work, we become the reliance of those around us, trying to succeed; and then the last stage of his life, the most important thing he wants to do is to pass on what he thinks is valuable to the next generation, beyond himself.
If a person feels that he is connected to society, then he will naturally use his resources to help people at other stages and improve their abilities. When my son Mai Xiu was 11 years old, he came to Study at Shijia Hutong Primary School in Beijing, and he found that some orphans with special needs did not have the opportunity to undergo surgery, so he participated in the rescue of orphans. I was also influenced by Matthew and started working on philanthropy. Accumulating wealth only for oneself can be said to be a kind of corruption to some extent.
Of course, there is a natural evolutionary process that takes care of yourself first, and then acts when you no longer need to accumulate more abilities for yourself and help others. There are many ways to act, from giving charity to help or by passing on the knowledge and principles you have learned.
Shi Yigong: Cooperation can help people realize value, for example, Westlake University is the crystallization of cooperation between entrepreneurs and scientists. From the beginning, scientists wanted to build a whole new university, but if we wanted to do it alone, there was no chance of success. That's why we sought help working with a group of passionate and motivated entrepreneurs. There are investors, there are entrepreneurs. Working miracles together is a good example of sincere cooperation.
Ray Dalio: The most exciting and fruitful collaboration is to understand the differences, to reconcile the differences, to reconcile the different perspectives. People tend to have two very different attitudes about differences. One attitude is angry because there are differences, but it's clear that innovators and those who seek the truth don't do that. They have a psychological curiosity about the differences.
Shi Yigong: To establish effective cooperation, it is necessary to obtain complementary expertise from collaborators. So ideally, whether in science, business, or otherwise, it's best for people with complementary expertise, experience, and backgrounds to get together and have discussions and brainstorming, critically thinking about their ideas, and ultimately reaching a reasonable consensus.
Q: How do individuals respond to a changing world?
Ray Dalio: It's all a matter of attitude. If you see life as an adventure, you accept the fact that life has ups and downs, and all these ups and downs are just a reflection of reality. Stay curious about reality, think about how to interact with reality, and pursue a better life as much as possible, life itself is an adventure. Maintain curiosity and a sense of adventure in order to cope with a changing world. You will find that your life will be more valuable than someone who does not have this attitude.
Shi Yigong: Staying calm and doing what you are doing is enough to cope with the changing world. Our world is constantly changing, the rate of development is increasing year by year, and knowledge is accumulating at a very fast rate. Scientists flip through journals every day and find a huge amount of knowledge, and they don't have time to read so many papers because they still have to do their own research. This can cause a certain level of anxiety. But in fact, we don't need to be anxious, we need to stay calm and do what we are doing.
I've always believed that as long as you work hard enough in your own profession and in your field of study, take the time to read directly related materials, rather than panic about the rapidly changing environment and the rapid accumulation of knowledge. Stay abreast of the changes in the things around you and really do what you're doing.