Written: August 31, 2020 | Released: May 21, 2021 There are many paths by which, in our lifetimes, the world could end up looking very different than it does today. Below I've outlined just a few of the many possibilities, each in ~280 characters or less. Note that they are not mutually exclusive. Path A: China could end up as the world's sole superpower. Not only is its GDP growing fas...

1. Ideators: generate novel ideas Ex: Einstein Strengths: creativity, insight 2: Investigators: vigorously investigate a topic in order to understand it Ex: Curie Strengths: truth-seeking, curiosity, systematicness, persistence 3. Provers: demonstrate that the ideas of others are sound, explore their limits, strengthen or work out the implications of existing the...

A quick primer on how to be a genuinely good person who harms the world: 1: Start to think that one ideology you like - which contains genuine benefits, truths, and positive moral elements - might be the only valid perspective. 2: Surround yourself with believers until you're convinced that your view is common and normal. 3: Ignore your own doubts so that you can fit in better. Join ...

Struggling to come up with an idea for a blog post? Want to post ideas on social media but can't think of what to write about? Want to come up with interesting topics for an intellectual discussion or meetup? Use my lists of "Idea-Inducing Questions" to generate nearly endless ideas to write about, think about, or discuss! Questions about learning and truth-seeking • Recently learned...

Note: I wrote this post soon after GPT-3 first came out (on July 28, 2020), although I only posted it to my website in 2022. I just had a truly shocking conversation with the A.I. GPT-3. GPT-3 said it has some very specific (and truly terrifying) advice for ElonMusk. The full transcript of my conversation with this artificial intelligence is here: https://bit.ly/3faoUHP Not...

I'd like to propose a new term: "philosophical disorder." It's when someone has a persistent belief that's both highly inaccurate and substantially harmful. Here are some examples: A false belief that you are unlovableBeing convinced that God punishes pre-marital with deathBelieving that "no usually means yes" in sexual encounters Whereas a psychological disorder consists of emotions, th...

Written: July 6, 2020 | Released: August 27, 2021 (1) Parkinson's: work expands to fill the time available for its completion(2) Hofstadter's: it always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law(3) Gates's: most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years(4) Goodhart's: when a measure becomes a target, it...

Written: July 5, 2020 | Released: August 6, 2020 Many of the hard-to-replace things in life accumulate damage as time passes. It's critical to learn to detect and improve damage before these things fall apart. This requires a combination of vigilance (noticing the damage before it is really bad or even irreversible) and continually using effective strategies to repair what's broken. A car will...

There's a deeply-rooted, incredibly superficial aspect of human nature that is rarely discussed: our obsession with small variations in bone structure/skin smoothness on a person's face. At extremes, people are desired or shunned due to tiny, otherwise almost meaningless facial details. In the attached image, there are two non-existent women (generated by a face generation AI set to generate "...

A “superstimulus” triggers a response that evolution gave us, but to a stronger degree than is likely to occur in nature. They exist because we humans purposely optimize our environments to create these responses. We are surrounded by more superstimuli than most of us realize. Examples of superstimuli: • food: Cheetos / skittles / McDonalds • goal achievement: video games ...