work

What is my typical work process? How can I perceive it accurately? How can I improve it? Why don’t I […]

cycles

Everything seems to happen in cycles, or seasons. How can someone learn to appreciate and flow with cycles better? (2026mar8)

filters

2026mar8: the trippy thing about filters is that we’re ~never not using them, and every filter has pros and cons.

describe

the act of describing things in detail is often surprisingly bountiful. we typically assume that we have more-or-less all the

how I give talks

People at events often tell me that my speech was their favorite of the lot. This happens even though I

notesprawl

I believe that a sufficiently well-described mess will begin to organize itself, in the presence of any thoughtful person. (2026mar8)

you can look it up

The idea for this post came up mid-conversation with @neuranne when I was telling her about how inspired I was

copes

(2026apr24) /copes/ is emerging as an important central node on my blog. Relevant blogs include… These aren’t all the posts,

do less

we’re often so anxious to Do Something that we Do Too Much, which then makes it harder for us to

rugpulls

Sooner or later, the world that you thought you knew gets ripped out from under your feet, and you find

discourse cycles

everything old becomes new again. fresh interest attracts rehashing. there’s a limited amount of conversation space that most people operate

again

Sometimes repetition is a sign that you’re returning to something important. Sometimes it’s a sign that you’re failing to learn

sigh

I met an old friend for lunch a while ago. He observed that I was initially tense and weary, but

emotional knottedness

you’re unlikely to be less tired tomorrow if your tiredness is actually emotional knottedness, which requires dynamic action rather than

things are knowable

Life can be confusing, full of mysteries and unknowns. And yet, many things are knowable. Here are some posts about

make yourself comfortable

“When we truly feel comfortable, the desire to improve is natural— no antagonism required, no debt incurred.” (deleted source) you

journalling

I am always recommending to people that they ought to journal. Keep a diary, write your memoirs, it doesn’t really

quotes

Here are a list of quotes that have been lively for me. “it’s unfortunate that so many players don’t realize

my creative process

“social mistake i used to make a lot was, always engaging with everyone the way I wanted to be engaged

intuition

(2023jun7 thread) I try to be generally helpful to people on Twitter and I think I do a decent job

why were you late?

Here’s a story that I often tell people, and it’s useful enough that it’s worth writing up to share with

attention metrics

I usually bring up this thread/idea when talking with people about things like optimizing for views or follower counts. The

the world is big

“Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

deviants

(original 2018 thread) it’s funny to consider how much of the conversation around things like “what makes you unique, what

greatness is deviance

“Nations, like families, have great men only in spite of themselves. They do everything in their power not to have

it’s just math

this post is a collection of tweets and notes I’ve accumulated about thinking through the numbers, doing the math. ✱

people-shaped

This post is a quick sketch / copy-over of some tweets where I use the phrase “people-shaped”, which I think

most shared

Here’s a list of my blogposts that have been most shared on Twitter. ✱ Here’s a list of my blogposts

advice for people in their 20s

Transcript: “I asked people a while ago what content I should make on YouTube and somebody said talk about your

safety rituals

the meta thing is, this sort of conversation itself will become a safety ritual if you don’t then take some

joke about outcomes you want

one of my riffs on Twitter that’s taken off and embedded in other people’s minds is the idea of “joke

psychofauna

@BenRatkaj said he wanted a psychofauna bestiary. Etienne Preamble to a Psychofauna Bestiary Khalil Durkheim on the Nature of Psychic

Advanced Stupid

I have a lot to say about this, have been sketching drafts of this over and over, never quite satisfied,

so you’ve been main character’d

the hardest thing about dealing with being main character’d is managing your psychology, your emotional / physiological response to the

take baby steps

this is section 2.5 of introspect. “I always love it when people say ‘baby steps!’ to imply they’re being tentative,

the Losev problem

✱ Oleg Vladimirovich Losev invented LEDs decades before everybody else (in the 1920s). “Unknown and uncelebrated, this should’ve been the

culture

Nov 2024: what is culture? There are lots of ways to approach talking about it, but I particularly want to

self-worth

this is one of those things where someone is trying to make you feel good with comforting noises, which is

happiness

The following is a transcript of the above video, edited for readability. I think there’s a sort of mainstream understanding

Mint 100 Erasmuses

I’m shocked at how recently I learned about Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (1466-1536), who according to Wikipedia is considered one of

write your memoirs

(2024nov update/comment: while doing some recategorizing, it struck me that this post fit in almost every single category I have

civilization is potty training

Civilization is a kind of recursive, iterated potty training. See, the great thing about being an uncivilised barbarian is that

how to DM your heroes

How to DM your heroes when they follow you 1. specific proof-of-work: “I’ve been a fan of your work and

ayy lmao

a lot of paradoxes might be best resolved with a sense of humor. (eg: dicking around can be productive, but

2,000 copies of F.A.N sold!

2023 update: crossed 3,000 in June of this year! ✱ Today is October 16, 2021, and I just sold my

comms is lossy

It’s amazing that any of us are able to understand each other at all. Communication is lossy. (“Lossy” is a

Aug29: AGI fire alarm drill day

In October 2017, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote a post on intelligence.org titled There’s No Fire Alarm for Artificial General Intelligence. It

seek excellent peers

Whenever people ask things like “your best advice in 3-4 words” etc, I always go with “seek excellent peers”. Because

Pericles

Pericles (495–429 BCE) was a prominent Athenian general and statesman. He died aged 66, of plague. I find him to

“i’m such a failure”

This is a collection of posts and videos about failure and mistakes. learning to be ok with mistakes: It’s the

narrow utilitarianism

just as it takes the lows to define the highs, and the dark to define the light, if you want

memed into existence

This page is a collection of instances of the phrase “memed into existence”. I’m collecting them out of nerdy academic

exhaustion funnels: why tired?

2024-03-17: I find myself wondering, maybe this post should be retitled “why are you tired?”, in comparison to “why were

👶 a theory of pissbabies

The following post is meant to be fun, silly and tongue-in-cheek rather than serious, and yet at the same time

feral free agents

I’m not a fan of the word “unemployed”. First of all, it’s come to imply that the default state is

🎨 everything is a remix

Everything Is A Remix [37:30] is a video by Kirby Ferguson. It’s one of the most powerful videos I’ve ever

🗽iconography

I think about iconography a lot, I have multiple twitter threads about them. I’ll eventually expand this into a blogpost

don’t be gullible

Seen two separate things recently on the TL about how substack is a scam and how NFTs are a scam

aesthetics

A loose set of notes about aesthetics. What are aesthetics? Why don’t you just say beautiful, or pretty? Why use

vision

1 ✱ We seem to be having a sort of crisis of vision, where hardly anybody seems to have interesting

small talk

1jul2024: I have more to say about small talk. people who say they don’t like it, seem to misunderstand it…

systems thinking

To me, “systems thinking” is just “thinking”. If one’s thinking does not naturally lead them to identifying, observing, questioning and

🧵hyperthreading

Do you have a single document that links to every single thing that’s important to you on the web? Why

jinky, janky, junky

I think it’s cute how three different words – jinky, janky and junky – all have this venn diagram overlap

hostage

WIP / buncha notes There’s a 2018 video game called Detroit: Become Human. It has its pros and cons, I’m

dealing with losers

(2020nov5 thread) I’m not a fan of divvying people up arbitrarily into winners and losers – one should never be

influences

Sometimes people wanna know who my influences are. It’s tough to assemble a perfect or exhaustive list, but here’s an

talking points

This is a slightly edited repost of a twitter thread I once did at 520am in the morning to try

fumbling the bag

There’s an exchange on Tinder(?) that I once saw on Twitter that I think about a lot. Read this really

“Wrong.”

This is more of my personal approach to things rather than some kind of claim about how the world works,

shame

I’ve been thinking about shame lately. Here are some riffs, and maybe I’ll flesh this out into something more substantial

persuasion

— 1 — One of the most powerful skills you can learn is persuasion. Persuasion is how you convince people

pave the desire paths

(2025jul28) I’m pleased to revisit and update this post. It’s still a long way from what I’d like it to

word magic

— 1 — (2025mar22) I’m revisiting this document with the thought that people are typically more interested in problems than

dominoes

I reference and revisit and reuse this tweet a lot so I figured I might as well do a blogpost

fuckability

fucking is labor, fuckability is capital many (most?) people wanna be fuckable more than they wanna fuck having good sex

constructive ADHD

this is a placeholder blogpost that will be updated with all my ADHD content I’m a fan of the phrase

troubleshooting arrogance

When I was a teenager, the dominant criticism my closest friends had of me was that I was too arrogant,

books

Books I’ve written: The first book that I published is called FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD. The second book that I’m currently

⏱ 4 hours

Realistically, I can only ever be *truly* productive for 4 hours a day. Most days, I’m lucky to even have

play long games

This is an “aggregate” blogpost where I dump stuff from my tweets and notes. — What do I mean by

Most People

I’ve been sharing this set of notes more and more as time goes by. I suppose you could say most

do 100 things

“Do 100 Thing” is a phrase I came up with when riffing around the idea of being prolific, making lots

🎸 let’s jam!

dec2023 update: I should talk about wooten, werner, mayer, the beatles, paramore, guns n roses… In my cornerstone post The

📚 the library ethos

John Locke: “Books seem to me to be pestilent things, and infect all that trade in them… with something very

iterating Introspect

I came up with the idea for INTROSPECT sometime in 2018 or so, even before I thought of writing FRIENDLY

after gifted

AFTER GIFTED is an ebook that I’m working on to help formerly gifted kids find success and happiness in life.

kids in shitty social graphs

The following is a riff from a twitter thread I once wrote that I reference fairly often. I’m choosing to

🗣 hecklers

I’ve been thinking a lot about hecklers lately. There are a bunch of related-ish words, with varying connotations: (I realize

narcissism

Usually, if you ask someone to imagine a narcissist, the first image that comes to mind is someone enjoying how

magic junkyard

just doing the thing where I coin a phrase and then track how it spreads “We’ve been called everything from”the

👑 earn self-respect

(see also: self-loathing, self-worth) I think it’s important to earn one’s own self-respect. What does that mean? Well, you have

☢️ the apocalypse test

A thing I do that brings me great clarity is to focus on individual people over everything else. I don’t

⚔️ optimize for survival

The big lesson of survivor bias is that you should optimize for being a survivor. You can’t win if you

unlearning coercion

It took me a long time (maybe 10-15 years?) to properly realize that I was in an abusive relationship with

cold emails

If you get really good at cold emails, comms and positioning, you can run circles around people who rely on

🙏🏾 how to ask for help

One of my new personal rules for myself is, if something annoys me, I’m going to funnel that into content

🗿 don’t pedestalize people

I use the term Pedestalization to describe the act of putting someone on a pedestal. Hero worship is pedestalization. Some

status and status regulation

2024oct15: there was a period of time where this seemed like one of the most important concepts I’d ever heard

elitism

It’s interesting how often the phrase “elitism” comes up when I solicit feedback from others. I’m aware that this will

❌ when and why I block people

(I’m thinking about this mainly in the context of Twitter, but there are some general principles here too.) I don’t

🍀 the 4 kinds of luck

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” – apocryphal quote typically attributed to Seneca I’ve been thinking long and

🏛 the prestige trap

I’ve had several conversations with friends who’ve been incapacitated by the burdensome bullshit obligation to Have A Meaningful Life /

learned catastrophizing

I get young people in my DMs all the time. A common thing I notice about their despair is that

listen to kids

About once or twice a week I get some long DMs, usually from a younger person, who’s all stressed out

depression

I’m keeping this post on standby because from time to time people ask me what to do if one is

take deep breaths

The following post is an ongoing-work-in-progress. The goal is for me to make sense of my learnings about breath and

project management

Nietzsche: The talent of some men appears slighter than it is because they have always set themselves tasks that are

thinking

Hey, friends. So for today’s adlib, I’m gonna try and do 2 separate videos back to back or maybe I’ll

masculinity

I’m not sure when I first started really thinking about what it even means to be a man, what masculinity

friendly ambitious nerd

My first book, FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD, is now available for sale! gum.co/FANbook You may also be interested in reading about

➡️ pay it forward

When I was a broke teenager, my older friends often insisted on paying for drinks or meals. I used to

🔥 bestof 2010–2019

These are things that I’ve read or watched that stuck with me in the 2010s. 2010 Ugh Fields [lesswrong.com] Solitude

💬 practice good reply game

There is an art to replying and commenting, and probably like 60-70% of people I’ve seen on the internet fail

⚔️ twitter_rpg_strategy_guide.txt

twitter_rpg_strategy_guide.txt Twitter is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, primarily text-based with limited multimedia support. It combines elements of role-playing games,

😂 learn to laugh at yourself

One of my private beliefs that doesn’t translate very well is that true comedy is sacred. And not sacred as

🔟 @visakanv’s top 10 lifehacks

(Originally posted on Twitter) 10. Do 1,000 of something. Anything, it doesn’t matter what. Really. When was the last time

🌉 friends I met in SF

I was going through my photos and I wanted to keep track of all the people I met. Unfortunately sometimes

⏩ ages 17 to 29

Dear Visa-17, Visa-29 here. So I recently got on a Singapore Airlines plane (I know, finally!) and flew across the

🇺🇸 San Francisco [2019]

Dear Visa-17, Visa-29 here. So I recently got on a Singapore Airlines plane (I know, finally!) and flew across the

📱 screentime

I had a large amount of screentime as a child. And if I could go back in time and have

👯‍♀️ make friends

I’ve kind of developed a name for myself as “the friendly guy”. My book is titled FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD. I

📷 my life in pictures

This post exists to help me, at a glance, get a sense of my own life over the years. 1990

🍱 I used to be a picky eater

I saw somebody make fun of picky eaters on Twitter, and I felt compelled to write about my own experiences.

🍳 Breakfast AMAs

Every so often I have breakfast alone, and I ask Twitter to ask me questions. I enjoy it a lot

🤔 do you know what you want?

dec2024: I wrote this blogpost years before I wrote the book Introspect… vaguely feel like this post should become a

a list of some of my twitter threads

🚨 UPDATE: My book FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD is out! Buy it now: gum.co/friendlynerdbook Hello! I’m @visakanv, my friends call me

🚦 constraints

I’ve written a lot about constraints over the years, and this blogpost strikes me as the best “master switchboard” to

a sitemap of my memoirs

I have always been a somewhat scatter-brained person, and I’ve also always felt this sort of compulsion to catalog everything.

🤯 ideas that expanded my mind

Disorganized notes. (Revisiting this again in 2023… I remember doing a twitter thread in maybe eigen’s replies… this could be

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