hey i really loved this article! thanks for sharing - definitely relate to the sentiment of struggling to feel like anything is novel anymore after getting into a groove of life. however there's always adventure to be found in the nuances of the boring, and that's what i'm striving towards. anyway, appreciate the thoughts!
fwiw - i have these same thoughts and i live in nyc. i will say the diversity of human you find in new york is crazy. and if you think further, beyond the death exterior, you will find very intriguing and fascinating individuals, with some concerted effort :)
do you not recall the last time you genuinely changed your mind about something? » i was not describing myself in that paragraph (hence the 2nd person usage) :P
how do you not have an endless list of ideas » maybe this wasn't clear enough - there was a specific kind of writing tool i wanted to build and then when i actually sat down to start building it i realized i didn't actually have novel ideas. the idea list is long in other domains
i think the mode collapse analogy fits pretty well here, though it also suggests the problem is not just in choosing diverse sources.
as you know, traditionally in GANs the generator finds a way to cheat reward in the discriminator and is incentivized to produce more and more of the same thing. which means if we want to avoid death spirals what may be more important than injecting noise (via sci fi or bus rides) is what the audience/project/your values ultimately filters for! and this might be even harder to architect because we tend to attract the same features in people (especially writing on the internet), and society rewards us to work on projects we're already good at.
so moving to ny as you said could really help break out of convergence not mainly because of different ideas (i think there's lots of perspectives anywhere you go) but because the people there [worship different metrics from sf](https://paulgraham.com/cities.html)
btw your writing is actually what’s helped increase the variance in my media diet so thanks haha
both bc i used to just consume technical novelty maxxing mainstream content like 3b1b, ged, dwarkesh podcast, textbooks/knzhou handouts, etc
not much self reflections or meta-level life things
ur substack was among the first in introduction to network of these personal corners of internet like andrewwu and nate soares and cj that have unearthed background processes in my behavior i can monitor now! instead of spending years unknowingly enslaved to (ur recent Box metaphor comes to mind)
ig just general better awareness; very helpful :)
EDIT: yay i found it; https://andrewwu.substack.com/p/six-selections-on-self-defense this one's another interesting example. especially the ideas on identity and (math) communities and considering rationality/ea as memes were so fundamental i almost automatically take them as assumptions atp
so true vincent!! i feel the same about ideas. i've found my fiction suffers when i don't have a vibrant reading practice -- i feel like creativity actually springs from difference / disagreement. so exposing yourself to fiction, philosophy, and social theory when you're not writing inside an institution offers more surface area for that disagreement and therefore new ideas. fwiw it's pretty easy to sink into a "death" grove in nyc, as it is anywhere
i fear i can't pass up the chance to prosletyze for nyc a lil -- one of my favorite things about my [very specific] life here is that i feel like i'm letting things in and letting things go at a comfortable, but considerable rate. ofc nyc is not the only place where you can do this though
I agree that it's really easy to fall into closed loops during adult life — I also realized that I was only talking to the same people for weeks at a time. But I think trying new things is a good way to combat that. It doesn't even have to be big things, like you mentioned taking the bus allowed you to enter a more vibrant state. Even just walking a different path home or trying the new cafe that opened a couple blocks down is enough. You never know what could happen :^)
While i share the sentiment of not wanting to stay immersed in one culture / city during my 20s, and it *feels* unhealthy to me, i can’t imagine this is actually the case. There are definitely ways to thrive without ever leaving a city
hey i really loved this article! thanks for sharing - definitely relate to the sentiment of struggling to feel like anything is novel anymore after getting into a groove of life. however there's always adventure to be found in the nuances of the boring, and that's what i'm striving towards. anyway, appreciate the thoughts!
fwiw - i have these same thoughts and i live in nyc. i will say the diversity of human you find in new york is crazy. and if you think further, beyond the death exterior, you will find very intriguing and fascinating individuals, with some concerted effort :)
yep, i agree!
the first section made me feel existential for a sec
receiving genuinely new information » do you not recall the last time you genuinely changed your mind about something? because mine was last weekend
i ran into a blank wall » how… how do you not have an endless list of ideas in your drawer that you are excited to simply pick up and work on
do you not recall the last time you genuinely changed your mind about something? » i was not describing myself in that paragraph (hence the 2nd person usage) :P
how do you not have an endless list of ideas » maybe this wasn't clear enough - there was a specific kind of writing tool i wanted to build and then when i actually sat down to start building it i realized i didn't actually have novel ideas. the idea list is long in other domains
i think the mode collapse analogy fits pretty well here, though it also suggests the problem is not just in choosing diverse sources.
as you know, traditionally in GANs the generator finds a way to cheat reward in the discriminator and is incentivized to produce more and more of the same thing. which means if we want to avoid death spirals what may be more important than injecting noise (via sci fi or bus rides) is what the audience/project/your values ultimately filters for! and this might be even harder to architect because we tend to attract the same features in people (especially writing on the internet), and society rewards us to work on projects we're already good at.
so moving to ny as you said could really help break out of convergence not mainly because of different ideas (i think there's lots of perspectives anywhere you go) but because the people there [worship different metrics from sf](https://paulgraham.com/cities.html)
btw your writing is actually what’s helped increase the variance in my media diet so thanks haha
great post! as usual
makes us think
mm yeah the values point is very interesting
re "helped increase the variance in my media diet": huh do you mostly mean the content on this substack or when i link to external stuff?
both bc i used to just consume technical novelty maxxing mainstream content like 3b1b, ged, dwarkesh podcast, textbooks/knzhou handouts, etc
not much self reflections or meta-level life things
ur substack was among the first in introduction to network of these personal corners of internet like andrewwu and nate soares and cj that have unearthed background processes in my behavior i can monitor now! instead of spending years unknowingly enslaved to (ur recent Box metaphor comes to mind)
ig just general better awareness; very helpful :)
EDIT: yay i found it; https://andrewwu.substack.com/p/six-selections-on-self-defense this one's another interesting example. especially the ideas on identity and (math) communities and considering rationality/ea as memes were so fundamental i almost automatically take them as assumptions atp
so true vincent!! i feel the same about ideas. i've found my fiction suffers when i don't have a vibrant reading practice -- i feel like creativity actually springs from difference / disagreement. so exposing yourself to fiction, philosophy, and social theory when you're not writing inside an institution offers more surface area for that disagreement and therefore new ideas. fwiw it's pretty easy to sink into a "death" grove in nyc, as it is anywhere
i fear i can't pass up the chance to prosletyze for nyc a lil -- one of my favorite things about my [very specific] life here is that i feel like i'm letting things in and letting things go at a comfortable, but considerable rate. ofc nyc is not the only place where you can do this though
(also i am pretty sure you've read this post but i enjoyed specifically the sentiment of "being surrounded by people who are so fundamentally different[ly free] from you gives you permission to go all in on being your idiosyncratic self" https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/11/05/dont-surround-yourself-with-smarter-people/)
HAHA yes i will spend more time in ny moving forward (have been avoiding it for the last 2y for silly reasons)
yesssss wed love to have you
I agree that it's really easy to fall into closed loops during adult life — I also realized that I was only talking to the same people for weeks at a time. But I think trying new things is a good way to combat that. It doesn't even have to be big things, like you mentioned taking the bus allowed you to enter a more vibrant state. Even just walking a different path home or trying the new cafe that opened a couple blocks down is enough. You never know what could happen :^)
While i share the sentiment of not wanting to stay immersed in one culture / city during my 20s, and it *feels* unhealthy to me, i can’t imagine this is actually the case. There are definitely ways to thrive without ever leaving a city
first section hit hard 😱🙏
This makes me wonder if I'm dead? Will you think of death when you meet me? Fuck
SORRY