Param V

what i think with: concepts, quotes, aphorisms

research concepts

Chesterton’s fence before you disturb a system, watch how it behaves. before you take a fence down, stay long enough to see why it was put up 1929
Keep your identity small Paul Graham 2009
Setting someone up to fail
The right to oblivion
Being yourself in public
Structural self-interest
You are harmed by the harms you caused me the big tobacco settlement, for example
Reasoning backwards simple sequential games can be explored backwards over the decision tree: to maximize utility, draw the tree, then reason from the outcome you prefer back to the chain of decisions that reaches it
Status maxxers presuppose a system of them, and a new ability changes not only your own choices but your opponents’ too
Timeless decision theory act as if your choice determines the output of the algorithm you instantiate. more simply: assume everyone like you will make the choice you make, and choose with that in mind
Moral disgust vs. regular disgust regular disgust answers filth, like the stench of urine on a train, and moves you to keep away and clean up. moral disgust answers betrayal and exploitation, lands as a kind of moral pollution, and moves you to shun and exclude whoever caused it
One web of belief, or many? perfect alignment with every one of your actions and beliefs would make you a god: seeing the interconnectedness of all things and shaping reality accordingly. is it better to hold many loosely connected webs of belief, or one tightly integrated one? and has a fully executed belief update ever set off massive or chaotic change across a web?
Self-labelling amplified by the perception of knowing, of clarity, of coherence

quotes

after Jasmine Sun

“Be yourself, but more loudly than you were.”
Become the good hang. Social skills are practicable.
Announce your plan as if you’re going regardless, because people join people who already have one.
Even the biggest rationality bros decide on vibes, so relationships are the safety net.
“That sounds solvable”: give a problem thirty focused minutes and the solution shows up.
Jobs aren’t skillsets. They’re the ability to unblock outcomes.
Put agentic workflows where they don’t belong.
Keep your identity small and don’t fear starting over: summit, descend, climb the next peak.
Nothing is higher status than excelling joyfully at what you do.
The more out-of-distribution your adventures, the bigger your moat.
Don’t monitor the situation from your phone and your toilet seat.
Do the task a few times, then teach it to the AI.
Where tacit knowledge reigns, can you feel when dough is hydrated?
If you’re not unusually smart or driven, be unusual in some likable way: honest, brave, generous, curious.

aphorisms

Did the tailor take the sewing machine home?
Some things should be sacred.
The exact reverse of “pics or it didn’t happen.”
Same calories may satiate, but it isn’t what you picked.
It should be opt-in, not default-opted-in then intentional opt-out.
AI should be a work tool and task master, that’s it. Don’t let it pick for you. Be the human in the loop.
Do not run your dating partner through a 2x2 matrix.
Interior life deserves to stay in. I decide who gets access to what, when, how.
Private life is private. It’s intimate.
When privacy is the biggest luxury, the biggest lever, the fulcrum, then what?
AI is the great meritocracy. We all got it at the same time. You chose not to make the time.
To be human is to err, to exercise judgment, to have preferences you can’t put into words.
The delta between 99 and 100 is huge.
More = better is an absolute untruth.
Losing taste is losing agency.
Boundaries aren’t a panacea, but they’re the best individual-level intervention.
Intentionality and trusting your own intuition will become a moat.
You know when you’re productive versus operating on the illusion of productivity. You feel it in your body.
Proof of credibility, not proof of authority.
Only speak if you can provide insight, certainty, direction.
Someone who eats junk is not the best person to review a healthy meal kit.
WhatsApp is an advertising engine.
It matters less how we got here, and much more what we can do to move ahead.
Make yourself explain something to see how well you understand it.
Courage is the bottleneck that keeps one from the platform.
I should believe in me believing in me.
Protect now, opt out now, so you don’t lose your brain.
I’m an individual and so are you.
A language that can encapsulate all the nuance of the world is a kind of madness, they say.
Agency is the infusion of patterns with meaning.