How I lost 62 lbs, cured my depression, fixed my high blood pressure, & became a better human by living a #YearOfTheOpposite. I'll share what I learned, how I did it, & the science behind it. A Newsletter for people that don't subscribe to Newsletters. <br/><br/><a href="https://www.yearoftheopposite.com?utm_medium=podcast">www.yearoftheopposite.com</a>
Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack Podcast
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How I lost 62 lbs, cured my depression, fixed my high blood pressure, & became a better human by living a #YearOfTheOpposite. I'll share what I learned, how I did it, & the science behind it. A Newsletter for people that don't subscribe to Newsletters. <br/><br/><a href="https://www.yearoftheopposite.com?utm_medium=podcast">www.yearoftheopposite.com</a>
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3/21/2023
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Recent Episodes
March 10, 2026
ai2 - Expansion. Not Replacement.
<p>I think I was unclear in my last post about AI. Many people thought that I had went full doomer on AI and that I was fearful that ai was going to destroy us all. I want to be more clear.</p><p>This is the most fun that I have had in years. </p><p>And as I use these ai tools more and read history more the more I realize that: </p><p><strong>Ai isn’t replacement. It’s expansion.</strong> </p><p>Let’s go back to the example I used of my fathers job. He was a skill trades tool and die marker at General Motors. Yes, his job did change and get automated. Tasks that used to take hours, could now be done in minutes or seconds. It meant that my dad’s job had to change. </p><p>The workers now would be focused on programming, designing, inventing the cars. And this allowed the car to be made much more affordably which meant that more people were able to afford them. The total market for cars expanded and simultaneously, the technology in the car got better and better. </p><p>The car got safer with inventions like lane assistance sensors, intelligent airbags, automatic emergency braking, blind spot monitoring, and adaptive cruise control. </p><p>Those inventions and advancements all required humans to make them. They just weren’t on the line doing back breaking dangerous work, they were in offices using their brains to invent new technologies that made all our lives better. </p><p>I have to remind myself that jobs are created and destroyed every minute. And that many of the jobs that I am nostalgic about were not that great. </p><p>Does anyone really miss working in a mine shaft far from their family with a real fear of death at any moment? I don’t think so. Similarly, with grinding metal in an auto factory. </p><p>My post last week wasn’t to say that I am fearful of ai. I was hoping to convey that I understand why people are fearful. That I too am fearful. And as my business coach, <a target="_blank" href="https://edwardlowe.org/second-stage-sensei/">Dino</a> likes to say. “It’s not change that people fear. It’s loss.” </p><p>I was fearful that I was losing my purpose. My profession. My “edge”. I try to remind myself that we have seen this before. In the 2000’s I was working at a desktop software company and when mobile technology exploded, many of us software people feared that desktop software was dead. But we were dead wrong (Punny?). </p><p>In reality, desktop usage has stayed steady and slightly increased since then. While mobile usage also surged from 1 hour a day usage to now an average of 4 hours. Again, it wasn’t replacement. It was expansion. And TechSmith still sells Snagit and Camtasia desktop software today! </p><p>It was natural for a desktop software maker to fear that mobile was going to steal all their jobs and revenue. But that’s usually not what happens. It is just hard to see the future. It was hard to see that we would be able to hail a cab, identify stars, fly a drone, and identify skin cancer with mobile phones. </p><p>Technology enables so many things that have never existed before that it makes them hard to imagine. Around the time of WW2, electricity was far less common in German homes. German prisoners of war that came to America would write <a target="_blank" href="https://www.academia.edu/143706910/German_POWs_Were_Shocked_By_Americas_Industrial_Might_and_Much_More_After_Arriving_In_The_United_States">letters</a> <a target="_blank" href="https://libraries.uark.edu/SpecialCollections/POW/POW_Becker.pdf">amazed</a> by the technology that they saw in America. </p><p>They would go through cities fascinated by the lights, because at this time about 80% of American homes had electricity. Lights to read by, washing machines, refrigerators, electric stoves, and vacuum cleaners.</p><p>So in closing. I’m sorry that my last post made people think I was fearful of ai. </p><p>The truth is that I’ve been staying up late and waking up early to play with these tools. </p><p>It has NEVER been more fun to build. I am designing websites, applications… I’m creating more than I ever have. Even my 7 year old now has his own <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lanestoliker.com/#piano">website</a> and 2 video games that he created. </p><p><strong>ai didn’t replace software developers, it means that we are now ALL software developers!</strong> </p><p>These tools make what was a skill only a few were able to use to now anyone can use them. </p><p>It reminds me of the <strong>Computer</strong>. There used to be rooms full of people that would spend their entire day computing equations like artillery firing tables during WWII or plotting rocket trajectories for NASA space missions. Computer was a job title. </p><p>But then the computer machine came along. Those people still existed but they now were able to use a computer machine to process even more data. Computing didn’t go away, we got way more computing that we ever had before. </p><p>This is all to say, I’m sorry that my post last week scared some. That wasn’t my intent. I would say that 90% of the time I am absolutely in love with ai and the opportunities and possibilities that it presents. But I did want to be honest and confess that I too sometimes wake up with a fear that I am being replaced. And that is totally natural and human. </p><p><strong>What do you think? Am I off base? How are you feeling about ai?</strong></p><p></p><p><p>Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></p><p></p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at <a href="https://www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe</a>
March 4, 2026
ai
<p>My job has changed more in the past month than it has in the past 10 years. </p><p><p>To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a FREE or paid subscriber.</p></p><p>My dad always described his work at GM as “a tool maker”. He’d say he made the tools that helped repair the tools that made the cars. I don’t know if I have any of that right since I was a kid when he said it. </p><p>My understanding is that the big General Motors plants would have a few guys that were on the “tool maker” team and they would be skilled techs that would make the tools for that plant. </p><p>As GM scaled and consolidated their operations, my dads job changed. Instead of making the tools for just one plant, they centralized them all to Grand Blanc. Now my dad would have to travel from Lansing to Grand Blanc</p><p>But the bigger change for my dad was that instead of his day to day job being different and variable based on what was going on at that plant. </p><p>He now described his job as boring. </p><p>He would just wait for a robot to finish making a part. </p><p>Then he would take it off. </p><p>Then he would load the next part. </p><p>Did that just happen to my job? </p><p>Because, that’s what I do now. </p><p>I don’t make the Google Ads myself anymore. I have robots that make them. I just feed the input material and monitor the output. </p><p>Did my job just go through the same transition that my fathers did two decades ago? </p><p><strong>Is my job now just managing a robot that does my work and thinking for me?</strong> </p><p>Is my job is just to tell it what to do, hit “allow” a bunch of times, tell the robot when they made mistake and then wait for the robot to fix it. </p><p>But how long will the robot even need me to do that? </p><p>The robot will be able to check it’s work better than I can. It will be able to feed it more inputs faster than I can. </p><p>I’m generally a Techno Optimist as they call it. I think technology has been amazing for humanity. </p><p>But every once in awhile I wake up with a little fear. And today was one of those days…</p><p>What are you feeling about AI? Has it impacted your job yet? </p><p><p>Thanks for reading Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack! This post is public so feel free to share it.</p></p><p></p><p><p>Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at <a href="https://www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe</a>
January 22, 2026
Curing Ulcers - Damn the Experts
<p>Remember when we were growing up and we’d hear things like “Better calm down, you’re gonna give yourself an ulcer!” It was thought back then that stress and spicy food caused ulcers.</p><p>Around 1979, Dr. Robin Warren and Barry Marshall started noticing these spiral-shaped bacteria while doing stomach biopsies of patients with gastritis.</p><p>Then a crazy thing happened: The Easter Breakthrough.</p><p>In 1982, a lab technician accidentally left their samples in the incubator for five days over the Easter holiday instead of the two-day standard at the time. This mistake allowed enough time for the H. pylori colonies to grow and appear.</p><p>By 1983, Marshall had isolated the bacteria and found that it was present in 100% of the patients they tested who had ulcers. </p><p>They had discovered the cause of ulcers.</p><p>They presented their findings at a conference in Brussels. Their hope was that they had discovered a cure for an extremely painful disease that sentenced patients to a lifetime of eating bland foods and antacid pills.</p><p>Marshall presented his findings at the conference in Brussels and the crowd celebrated his massive accomplishment. He received a standing ovation, he was Time’s Person of the Year, millions of patients around the globe were cured, and Marshall was celebrated as a hero.</p><p><strong>Wait, I’m sorry, I got that wrong.</strong></p><p><strong>The medical community viciously attacked him, saying that he was a “young nobody from Perth” who had no reputation, and senior doctors even called his theory “reckless and preposterous.” They said the stomach is a sterile environment and that no bacteria could survive in that acidic environment.</strong></p><p>Another group within the medical establishment believed that almost all diseases were “repressed emotional responses.” They said: “The critical factor in the development of ulcers is the frustration associated with the wish to receive love.”</p><p>They literally thought ulcers were caused by people not getting enough love.</p><p>Marshall was devastated, frustrated, and a bit angry that no one was listening to him, looking at the evidence, or—more importantly—helping the patients.</p><p>Marshall attempted to perform studies to prove his theory, but the medical establishment kept throwing up roadblocks. In order to run a human test, he had to reproduce the results in animals first, but that didn’t work in this case.</p><p>So what did he do? He tested it on the “only ethical subject”: himself.</p><p>In 1984, Marshall took the bacteria from an infected patient and drank it himself!</p><p>After three days, he developed nausea and halitosis (extreme bad breath) because the bacteria neutralized his stomach acid. By day eight, an endoscopy showed massive stomach inflammation and colonies of the bacteria H. pylori.</p><p>By day 10, the endoscopy found a raw, red, inflamed stomach lining. By day 14, Marshall began to fear for his health and started a therapy of antibiotics and bismuth.</p><p>Marshall had just proven that H. pylori caused gastritis, and gastritis eventually causes ulcers.</p><p>But even after the experiment, the medical establishment wouldn’t surrender or change course!</p><p>In 1985, he successfully published his self-experiment in the Medical Journal of Australia. But it was largely ignored.</p><p>For a decade, ulcer victims had started talking about an “underground cure” called “the Marshall Treatment.” This was basically antibiotics.</p><p>It wasn’t for another full decade (1994) until the National Institutes of Health officially stated that most ulcers were caused by H. pylori and should be treated with antibiotics.</p><p>This change effectively killed the billion-dollar market for long-term antacid maintenance, which Marshall later called “the ultimate satisfaction.”</p><p>And it wasn’t for another decade until Marshall received the Nobel Prize in 2005.</p><p><strong>Today, about half of the decline in stomach cancer is attributed to Marshall’s discovery.</strong></p><p>Marshall’s discovery was ignored for a decade. <strong>What was the impact of that? Let’s look at some numbers.</strong></p><p>At that time, about 700,000 people died from stomach cancer per year. Let’s say just a modest 25% of those could be saved by Marshall’s solution of “Screen and Treat” with antibiotics.</p><p>That means that at least 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 people may have been saved if Marshall’s discovery had been recognized earlier.</p><p><strong>Thankfully, in 2005, Marshall and his colleague Robin Warren were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.</strong></p><p>Because of Marshall and Warren’s work, the World Health Organization (WHO) now classifies H. pylori as a carcinogen. This discovery also sparked the first “antibiotic cure” for a cancer. A rare type of stomach tumor called MALT lymphoma can often be completely cured just by taking antibiotics to kill the bacteria.</p><p>I love this story because it’s a perfect case study in how the “experts” can be dead wrong for decades. It’s a classic case of “appeal to authority,” where “experts” dismissed the correct answer, not because of fundamental truth, but only because Marshall was not a part of their Tribe. He wasn’t an “expert”. It’s a reminder that people that change the world and make massive discoveries are often considered heretics, stupid, evil, or worse. </p><p>The establishment chose to believe ulcers were caused by a “lack of love” rather than a bacteria because their dogma was profitable and comfortable. </p><p>It is another reminder that the system isn’t built to find the truth. It is built to protect itself and if you want to do something great or different, it could take you decades of being called a monster before anyone ever believes you. Just ask Alan Turing or Galileo. </p><p>I’m very sorry for the lack of updates lately. Santa brought our 7 year old a ATV 4-wheeler for Christmas and I flipped it and broke 3 ribs. I’m recovering now but it was a rough patch there. Thank you for your patience! </p><p><p>Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at <a href="https://www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe</a>
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