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Your Most Improbable Life

kevinkelly.substack.com

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Re: Your Most Improbable Life

#81

Post by senrex »

slopinthebag wrote: post #15

I don't find it surprising that people here are reading this completely literally (eg. I'll be hit by a car with erratic movement), or approaching it as if the author is suggesting we have a god complex (eg. painting a big picture of how you're going to be Neo). But it is a bit disappointing. Have LLMs ruined our ability to think abstractly? It's practically a trope that taking the common, average path in life is not…

No, internet bullshit has ruined your ability to think that you think this is anything more than internet bullshit.

Re: Your Most Improbable Life

#82

Post by helloplanets »

This seems to be anchored around optimizing your intelligence to be a competitive advantage. Life as a competition of minds. For example:

> Improbable lives have fewer competitors

> The more you-ish you become, the less competition you have, because you are occupying your own niche.

> The less predictable you are, the less likely you are to be replaced by AIs

As opposed to Ilya Sutskever's famous quip:

> if you value intelligence above all other human qualities, you’re gonna have a bad time

Re: Your Most Improbable Life

#83

Post by denismenace »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #57
CuriouslyC wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next level of realization is that every path you've been following your entire life has been laid out by someone else, or chosen due to the value system imparted by someone else, so there's not really an authentic "you" in the way that people like to believe.

I was born with heart defects and surgeries and the constant threat of death and also intelligent parents who grew up in very weird multi cultural backgrounds. Not all of us were believed we had to be a specific thing handed to us, some of us were born natural absurdists and figured it out as we went along.

The fact that there's surgeries available for your heart defects means its a path already well trodden.

Re: Your Most Improbable Life

#84

Post by akoboldfrying »

willtemperley wrote: post #80
code_biologist wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it’s another nonconformist who doesn’t conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity." - Bill Vaughan

This aphorism isn't as smart as it sounds. Sure, it rings true for those who follow non-conformity trends, but the opposite is true for real non-conformists.

I think the point is that there aren't many real nonconformists, but many pretend ones.

I think it's as smart as it sounds.

Re: Your Most Improbable Life

#85

Post by helloplanets »

rozap wrote: post #41
asveikau wrote: post #28

I found this hard to read. At one point in my life I came to an epiphany on this topic. Everybody's life is improbable. Literally everybody, all the time, without any effort. Through the lens of this I saw myself as being the type of person who looks at things in life through averages, sizing up what's likely, and I realized that in my own story there were a lot of very improbable occurrences. Even if we understand s…

I was recently talking to a friend about this, the concept of a normie. A normie is kind of a mirage, it only exists in the realm of statistics, but when you look at any one individual who could fit that label, they are unlikely, so, can they really be a normie? Once internalized, the only real way out is to be less judgemental. Sure, you won't be friends with everyone, but the buckets are just not super useful when…

The usual way of measuring a trait would basically be measuring N amount of people on a specific thing, and the distribution based on that. But if you take 1 person, and N amount of specific things/traits, just about everyone would probably make their own sort of distribution with a bunch of "normal" traits and a long tail of "unusual" traits.

Still a simplification, but has made the "illusion of a normie" clearer to me.

Re: Your Most Improbable Life

#86

Post by verzali »

OutOfHere wrote: post #58
zephen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The post in effect is about a choice of one's career... You do a huge disservice to the author. He mentions much more than that, just in that one sentence. Again: > Your path, your character, your life, should be the most unlikely, the most unexpected, the least predictable version you can make. Why, if you're a nice guy, you should become a serial killer! > I came across a bus driver today that told me he owned a…

You need to immediately familiarize yourself with the rules for comments on this site at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html especially: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. And as for your comment: > you should become a serial killer! Please not preach violence on this site, whether intended or no…

This comment is the very definition of Irony.

Re: Your Most Improbable Life

#87

Post by willtemperley »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #84
willtemperley wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This aphorism isn't as smart as it sounds. Sure, it rings true for those who follow non-conformity trends, but the opposite is true for real non-conformists.

I think the point is that there aren't many real nonconformists, but many pretend ones. I think it's as smart as it sounds.

That's the problem with the quote: it denies the existence of non-conformism. This is derogatory toward true radicals and the brave souls who have effected change through non-conformism.

Re: Your Most Improbable Life

#88

Post by demorro »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #14
ElProlactin wrote: post #5

> Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be. Your life's goal should not be dictated by Substack philosophers. > Here is what you gain with your most improbable life: > The authentic you. Your particular mix of talents, native abilities, personal inclinations, genetic limits, life experiences, and ambitious desires points to a mixture that is distinctly unique – if it is allowed to bl…

The next level of realization is that every path you've been following your entire life has been laid out by someone else, or chosen due to the value system imparted by someone else, so there's not really an authentic "you" in the way that people like to believe.

This is a distinction without a difference. We can conceptualize ourselves as fully deterministic individuals, or transcendentally connected nodes in a greater consciousness, or innumerable interpretations in-between. It's completely possible to be a deterministic materialist without being a nihilist.

In fact, I'd argue it's inevitable. A deterministic metaphysic dictates that you must come to the conclusion that it simply doesn't matter how you interpret things, and therefore you will eventually, accidentally, trivially choose to interpret yourself in a non-nihilistic way, thus breaking the trap and allowing yourself a compatible sense of self-determination, despite being capable of understanding the untruth of it.

Re: Your Most Improbable Life

#89

Post by mrmarket »

i feel like people are over emphasizing

1. that this is on substack

2. the word 'improbably' (taking it literally, not as a kind of abstract/symbolic suggestion of 'being urself'/having fun with life)

3. that it is self-help-y, which a lot of articles on HN are, so i don't know why this one is striking a nerve so profoundly.

idk, i thought it was a fun read and i like kevin kelly. i think it is good that people like kevin kelly do what they do and share their ideas every once in a while. it reminded me that i can kinda do whatever i want in life, and it made me think, which is all i ask of my blog posts. i also liked how certain sentences were written.

don't get me wrong though, i enjoy the snarky debate. it's a big part of the reason why i'm here after all.

Re: Your Most Improbable Life

#90

Post by criddell »

phs318u wrote: post #34
Nevermark wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your life's goal should not be dictated by Substack philosophers. Dictate? The only expectation is readers consider ideas. You made some good points about "self-help". I don't fully agree, but you gave me something to think about. The essay struck me very directly. I have made unusual career choices, and beyond or because of that, life has changed in unimagined ways every five years of my adult life. Improbable pat…

“Improbable paths to improbable destinations.” As someone that’s recently turned 60, your last paragraph resonates intensely. I am so, so far from the life I predicted for myself at age 25.

I'm a couple years behind you. My 25 year old self was also entirely wrong about my future and thank god for that.
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