Run Your Own Organic No-Prep City Scavenger Hunt

July 28, 2024

Looking for a fun but unusual and somewhat boundary-pushing activity to do with a small group of friends that requires almost no preparation? I made a little collaborative scavenger hunt designed to be done in any city. I completed it recently with friends, and it went well! Depending on the city, it may be more difficult or less difficult, but we did it in Manhattan. It's designed so that no on-the-ground preparation is needed (i.e., the city itself provides the scavenger hunt for you)! Her...

The benefits and soul-crushing downsides of A.I. progress

April 11, 2024

There are many benefits to A.I., such as being able to generate beautiful art, inspiring music, captivating writing, and mesmerizing videos. It democratizes creation (people can now create what’s in their minds), lowers costs (replacing human labor with algorithms), and enables hyper-personalization (works can be made just for you). The benefits are big and important. But there is also something soul-crushing about it. People spend decades learning a craft and then see an A.I. make something...

How do we predict high levels of success?

September 12, 2021

Below, I outline 13 approaches to predicting high levels of success with differing levels of complexity, including my own mega model at the bottom. Note: here, I use the term "success" merely in terms of achievement, career success, or high levels of expertise, NOT in terms of happiness, living a good life, morality, having strong social bonds, etc. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be successful in the way this post focuses on. But if you DO want "success" in the sense in...

11 Types of Thinkers and Intellectuals (a little framework)

August 23, 2020

1. Ideators: generate novel ideas Ex: Einstein Strengths: creativity, insight 2: Investigators: vigorously investigate a topic in order to understand it Ex: Curie Strengths: truth-seeking, curiosity, systematicness, persistence 3. Provers: demonstrate that the ideas of others are sound, explore their limits, strengthen or work out the implications of existing theories Ex: Singer Strengths: consistency, logic, rigor, bullet-biting 4. Appliers: explo...

Idea-Inducing Questions

August 2, 2020

Struggling to come up with an idea for a blog post? Want to post ideas on social media but can't think of what to write about? Want to come up with interesting topics for an intellectual discussion or meetup? Use my lists of "Idea-Inducing Questions" to generate nearly endless ideas to write about, think about, or discuss! Questions about learning and truth-seeking • Recently learned: what's a powerful idea, concept, or mental model that you've been learning about recently that you...

Contradictory Insight

November 7, 2013

I was recently having a conversation with Geoff A. and Jana G. about how to systematically generate surprising ideas. I then sat down and created this program with them based on our discussion. Take a minute to try it, and generate some insight that you've never considered before! Click here to run Contradictory Insight!