Balance and meta-balance

I’ve been noticing that a recurring theme in my writing here is balance between opposites. I’ve written about balancing consumption vs. production in your life, and recently about balancing systems vs. goals for achieving what you desire. And I can think of a few more that I haven’t written about yet, that I’d like to touch on. It could become a pain to try to keep so many balances in mind, but I thought if I could arrange most of it hierarchically, that would be much cleaner. Continue reading

Goals vs. Systems

Last year I wrote about setting personal goals. One bit of feedback I got went something like, “Goal setting is a bad mindset, you should use systems instead.” I’ve heard that idea before, with a few different justifications. I do have some thoughts, and experience, on using systems to build skills or manage productivity, and I realized I should write on that too in order to make the goal-setting content more complete. Continue reading

Choosing Battles on the Internet

A couple years ago, I noticed that I’d been holding onto a mindset that was counterproductive, and I’ve often seen this mindset in some of the online communities I spend time in. I like talking with people who believe in the truth-seeking power of good-faith disagreements, but some of these kinds of people have a tendency to overestimate the value of argument, which causes them to engage in conversations they shouldn’t. And I think I have good heuristics for avoiding that without giving up on rational disagreements entirely. Continue reading

AI Historical Figures on Twitter

I’ve just started two Twitter accounts that use artificial intelligence to emulate the thoughts of two long-dead historical figures—apocryphal writing to entertain fellow enthusiasts. Twitter provides a never-ending torrent of content to respond to, and the idea of being able to hear a historical figure’s simulated thoughts about a given present-day event just sounded really fun to me. The model does an impressive job both at copying the vocabulary of the original person, and also often getting historical details right. Continue reading