the world is big
“Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
greatness is deviance
“Nations, like families, have great men only in spite of themselves. They do everything in their power not to have any.
it’s just math
when I was at 50 or 500 followers if I said I was going to have 50,000, people wouldve said I’m arrogant. (I didn’t say ex
when “women are people” doesn’t work
(original thread, Mar2023) Sometimes guys say “idk how to talk to girls” and the ladies respond (understandably, but unhel
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 20s. And
take baby steps
this is section 2.5 of introspect. “I always love it when people say ‘baby steps!’ to imply they’re be
the Losev problem
Born in 1903, Oleg Vladimirovich Losev invented LEDs decades before everybody else (in the 1920s). “Unknown and uncelebr
culture
Nov 2024: what is culture? There are lots of ways to approach talking about it, but I particularly want to focus on what I thi
Mint 100 Erasmuses
I’m shocked at how recently I learned about Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (1466-1536), who according to Wikipedia is co
civilization is potty training
Civilization is a kind of recursive, iterated potty training. See, the great thing about being an uncivilised barbarian is tha
encourage your friends to ship their ideas
(original thread) friendly subtweet: sometimes when someone has an idea to do something, the best thing you can do is not to s
status quo soldiers lose in the long run
Here’s a tiresome thing when some bad shit happens: when people unaffected by it actually spend their precious time and
seek excellent peers
Whenever people ask things like “your best advice in 3-4 words” etc, I always go with “seek excellent peers&
accumulating social capital
(1) the creative life is lonely but freeing when nobody cares about your work (2) it gets good when discerning folks like your
Pericles
Pericles (495–429 BCE) was a prominent Athenian general and statesman. He died aged 66, of plague. I find him to be a fascin
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
the death and life of great scenius
The Death And Life Of Great American Cities is a book by 1961 by Jane Jacobs. It’s criminally underrated. Scenius is a p
coordination does not require conspiracy
Coordination does not require conspiracy. I think it’s great that the word “conspire” literally means “
dominoes
I reference and revisit and reuse this tweet a lot so I figured I might as well do a blogpost about it. It’s been surpri
👑 you are already the monarch of your life
— 1. talismans — A talisman is simply an object that is meaningful to you. Wedding rings are the most widely appreciated t
play long games
This is an “aggregate” blogpost where I dump stuff from my tweets and notes. — What do I mean by long game? One
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 reproduce some
⚔️ optimize for survival
The big lesson of survivor bias is that you should optimize for being a survivor. You can’t win if you lose – so learn
❌ 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’
🏛 the prestige trap
I’ve had several conversations with friends who’ve been incapacitated by the burdensome bullshit obligation to Hav
masculinity
I’m not sure when I first started really thinking about what it even means to be a man, what masculinity is. I think it&
💬 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 at it. The imp
⚔️ twitter_rpg_strategy_guide.txt
twitter_rpg_strategy_guide.txt Twitter is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, primarily text-based with limited multimedia
👩🏾🚀 representation matters
a recurring point I find myself making in private conversations is that I believe that representation might possibly be the #1
🤡 the world is not kind to those who are tacky
Late night thought: “Don’t be tacky (unless you know why you’re doing it)” is a surprisingly powerful heuristic for me
✋🏾 we need to get better at dealing with assholes if we are to progress as a species
— 1 — As I get older I feel this subtle-but-strong pressure to become more “professional” – more “civil”, mo
🗣 mansplaining is sometimes (but not always) innocuous
If I had to do a “the difference between men and women” type of standup set, I think I would focus on the phenomenon of ma
👘 cultural cosplay: a broader framework for thinking about cultural appropriation
I’ve never quite been satisfied with the overuse of the phrase “cultural appropriation” in all sorts of cont
💋 Narcissist PR works because we can’t shut up about it
WIP I tweeted a more cautious version of this blogpost in July, and it’s been on my mind so I wanted to take some time t
👀 when arguing, strive to understand context
— 1. When arguing, seek to understand context — [Published 2016] Roughly between ages 13 and 23 I was thoroughly convinced
🤝 how to build and maintain communities
This blogpost started out as a bunch of notes and links, and I found myself sharing it with people over and over again so much