341–350 of 460 posts
What I want to do is spend more time with my kids, play games, or go on vacations with my wife. The problems I choose to solve though are real problems that are barriers to my productivity or broken processes. I invest time to solve for these problems so that I can free up the time for the things I want. That is how I know what to work on without regret.
I want to be careful with this decision, to avoid any future regrets Don't forget to consider that you may regret whatever you do - by human nature, the grass is proverbially always greener on the other side. People who have kids may wish they hadn't, but if they hadn't, they may have regretted that - in both cases thinking they'd made the wrong choice. Socrates and Kierkegaard, among others, discussed this as a basi…
This is also (arguably) the point of "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken
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> Hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way How does one regret hanging himself?
By failing to do so successfully, or by being saved before the damage is irreversible.
Paul Graham wrote an essay on this topic, aimed towards high-school students. His advice: stay upwind http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html > Instead of working back from a goal, work forward from promising situations. This is what most successful people actually do anyway. > Suppose you're a college freshman deciding whether to major in math or economics. Well, math will give you more options: you can go into almost any…
I want to be careful with this decision, to avoid any future regrets Don't forget to consider that you may regret whatever you do - by human nature, the grass is proverbially always greener on the other side. People who have kids may wish they hadn't, but if they hadn't, they may have regretted that - in both cases thinking they'd made the wrong choice. Socrates and Kierkegaard, among others, discussed this as a basi…
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> Anyone can probably reach the top 5% in most non-athletic areas given enough time. At any given time, only the 5% of the population can reach the top 5% in any area. If anybody could do it and e.g. just 10% did it, then there would be a new 5% (the top 50% of that 10%), and the rest 50% wouldn't be in. > Thus, I'm a big fan of Peter Theils advice to work on things that satisfy the property that: "if you weren't wor…
The ratio between goals and people is not 1:1. With enough specialization, everybody can become the best in one specific topic. That's the game most phd students play.
Given the rapid devaluation of Phds (never mind the big debts), it doesn't serve them very well in most areas of science...
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I've only had a quick look. I really like the idea of the site, almost desperately so. But the lists of top things to work on that I found seemed a bit disappointing. AI safety policy made the top of one list. My undergrad AI lecturer told us that it was widely "known" AI was soon going to be generally smarter than humans when he was an undergrad. He wasn't convinced evolutionary changes were going to get us there. I…
Is that not talking about general A.I. tho? And sure, many people argue that might never happen ... But we already have many specific A.I.s, and those specific A.I.s are already making lots of big decisions that affect people's lifes. Sounds like some safety policy there could be worth thinking about.
1. Completing education (getting a degree from a good University) 2. Becoming financially independent.
I did both well. I write down a lot of thought daily in notebooks. It helps me understand what I am thinking most about daily. If its very important and valuable, I make it a problem I need to solve.
Nowadays I am interested to make my millions from tech. I can't focus because I still don't understand my deep why for making the millions. Apart from being able to be financially independent, its not very attractive.
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Is that not talking about general A.I. tho? And sure, many people argue that might never happen ... But we already have many specific A.I.s, and those specific A.I.s are already making lots of big decisions that affect people's lifes. Sounds like some safety policy there could be worth thinking about.
Yes. But then specific AI safety is an even smaller problem.