current projects
- alethia, a new research institute for independent r&d labs
- homebrew, an experimental college and coliving space for science and tech
- self studying a math degree.. slowlyyy
- physical health!
motivations
i'm motivated by preserving life, progressing humanity, and learning as much as i can about the universe.
from that flows a desire to build a scene where people question how the world works, take truth seriously, and push at the edges of what we know.
formative books
- hunger — knut hamsun
- final exam — pauline chen
- nausea — sartre
- against the grain — james c. scott
- the life you can save — peter singer
- the undercover economist — tim harford
- turing's cathedral — george dyson
inspo list
people:richard feynman, steve wozniak, linus torvalds, alan kay, bret victor, niels bohr, bob taylor, ralph waldo emerson, etc.
places + scenes:royal society, royal institution, homebrew computer club, xerox parc, institute for advanced study, santa fe institute, bell labs
my digital bookshelfhow i try to live
- stay open to other minds, but stay anchored in reason
- beauty is fundamental; treat it as such
- update your beliefs when the world gives you new information
- treat failure as information, not identity
- treat ambition like stewardship, not self-aggrandizement
- take ideas seriously
- don't cling to sunk costs, whether in projects or identities
- learn as an act of devotion
- loyalty to truth matters more than loyalty to tribe
- treat culture as something you are responsible for, not just something you live inside
- money is useful; beyond that, irrelevant
- generosity is a force multiplier
topics of interest
- institutional design
- information theory
- computation (alt)
- complexity (networks)
- philosophy (ethics, metaphysics, epistemology)
- macroeconomics
- physics
- metascience
- poetry & literature
- cringe word, but scenius
Currently Seeking
more time spent staring at the trees
i tend to get along best with people who:
- are disagreeable in a truth-seeking way and not especially interested in social consensus
- care about virtue and integrity, and feel uneasy treating everything as a means to an end
- are anti-memetic
- take pleasure in words
- are a bit unhinged and ambitious
- who have formal training in pure maths and/or physics--idk why, but i keep finding these people
- have high agency and like spending time scheming
- aren't purely motivated by $$
Writers i admire
lit: nabokov, hamsun, sartre (fiction only), proust, annie dillard, fitzgerald, camus, baudelaire, sumana roy
blogs: ben reinhardt, strange loop cannon, freaktakes, experimental history
my poetry