<aside> 🙋🏻‍♀️ This page is and will be constantly changing and evolving as I change and evolve and is part of my objective of being an open-source person. Last updated: October 2023
Former editions:
What is it to be human? Is being human superior to being another type of superintelligent being? Why are we here, and where are we going? What are social rules, and how can we hack, cleverly misuse, and rewrite them? Why do humans, as rational creatures, act against their own best interests? How can we stop humans from creating inhuman technology? What is the missing half of scalability in the answers that Buddhism figured out? How can we reduce the error rate of human communication? Why does current technology fail to account for humans being complex systems of fears and incentives? Why does talking about change feel counterproductive to actual change? Why do human decision-making systems feel so broken, and what are the incentives and mechanisms, social and biological, that are guiding faulty decision-making? What dimensions of sensing the world are missing from the human experience, and how can we augment humans, socially and biologically, to make up for it? Are there values that all humans have in common? What is the most scalable way for me to contribute to humanity?
We are destroying our planet, rewiring our brains with addictive technology, and speeding up existential risk on an unprecedented, continuously accelerating scale. Adjacently, we are unable to break out of loops of generational trauma, breaking professional and personal relationships, and our relationships with ourselves. We consider it normal (not okay, but normal) to pollute our physical, mental, social, and online environments.
However, I do believe in the inherent compassion and kindness of all most humans and attribute both the massive systemic blunders and our everyday coldness and negligence to a lack of critical thinking, foresight, reflection, and emotional intelligence. This, in turn, I don’t believe to mean we lack the capacity for such – I believe most simply don’t have the time and space to engage with the mental friction required to make better decisions.
Figuring out how to build scalable frameworks to enhance people’s ability to connect with themselves and each other, engage with mental friction, and break out of loops that keep them in cycles of short-term thinking.