A grouped commonplace of favorite quotes, kept as quotes rather than converted into essay material.
Loneliness, Interiority, And Recognition
“We’re all lonely for something we don’t know we’re lonely for. How else to explain the curious feeling that goes around feeling like missing somebody we’ve never even met?”
“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”
“Whatever you get paid attention for is never what you think is most important about yourself.”
“Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.”
“Lonely people tend, rather, to be lonely because they decline to bear the psychic costs of being around other humans. They are allergic to people. People affect them too strongly.”
the free react to the non-free by experiencing a stab of loneliness: the recognition of the fact that the other is not likely to ever recognize you
Solitude is connection turned inward, not a rejection of others.
Art, Beauty, And Making
“What the really great artists do is they’re entirely themselves. They’re entirely themselves, they’ve got their own vision, they have their own way of fracturing reality”
I’ve spent a lot of time over the years desperately trying to think of a “thing” to change the world. I now know why the search was fruitless – things don’t change the world. People change the world by using things. - Bret Victor
The real goal of visual thinking is to make the complex understandable by making it visible – not by making it simple. - Bret Victor
When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create - Bret Victor
Nothing is worse than seeing your own imitation and your own striving mirrored back at you.
You could say, without losing a great deal, that the purpose of music is to make emotional textures clear and understandable enough to serve as a narrative canvas. To be young is to feel with more intensity than your capacity for making emotions legible can handle. So you seek external scaffolding.
The true artist is one who lives completely, harmoniously, who does not divide his art from living
The truth can take care of itself better than you might think, but without imagination, it cannot take care of you.
Childhood boredom is a special kind of boredom. It is a boredom of dreams, a bridge into another reality. in adulthood boredom is made of repetition, it is the continuation of something from which we are no longer expecting any surprise.
Any real sketchbook is full of misfires, false starts and stumbles, with a few successes sprinkled here and there. If you were capable of doing a perfect drawing every time, you wouldn’t need to carry a sketchbook!
The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.
Courage, Hope, And Action
If you attempt something new and innovative, do not think people will remove obstacles from your path. Expect them to add a great many more.
If you never test your courage and strength, how can you measure the validity of your fears?
A meaningful life cannot be made from denial. It must be made from affirmation.
Every mistake is a bargain if you learn the lesson it contains and remember it well.
You can’t reason your way to hope. You can’t logically arrive at hope. You can’t beg, borrow, buy or steal hope. You either hope or you do not.
Delaying what we must do eventually does nothing but lengthen the time and distance we must carry the burden.
Those who will not venture before taking everything into account, never venture at all.
“He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.” - Jean-Luc Godard
Faith is the ability to fully live rather than prepare to live, under conditions of limited knowledge.
God will not allow his greatness to be made manifest by cowards.
The weight worth carrying is the one the frees the soul, not the one that binds it.
It seems like most people ask: “How can I throw my life away in the least unhappy way?”
Education, Experience, And Children
Educational systems are giant abstractions in which people forego experience, humanity, and wisdom in favor of symbolism, rationalization, and indoctrination.
An academic education too easily prepares one to make a living at the expense of life, to be narrowly expert while broadly ignorant, to know much and understand little.
That which fails to fiercely protect and enhance the spontaneous lust to learn inherent in all children cannot be education.
If one knows how to formulate penetrating questions and assiduously seeks answers, education with or without schools is inevitable.
“I once heard a former Public-School pupil remark: ‘the purpose of a Public School is to cause distinctive scars, by which its inmates will be recognisable for the rest of their lives’.”
– David Deutsch
Teachers should prepare the student for the student’s future, not for the teacher’s past.
Studying mathematics one rule at a time is like studying a language by first memorizing the vocabulary and the detailed linguistic rules, then building phrases and sentences, and only afterwards learning to read, write, and converse.
Knowledge, Science, And Perception
When a significant theorem is proved, it often (but not always) happens that the solution can be communicated in a matter of minutes from one person to another within the subfield. The same proof would be communicated and generally understood in an hour talk to members of the subfield. It would be the subject of 15- or 20-page paper, which could be read and understood in a few hours or perhaps days by members of the subfield. Why is there such a big expansion from the informal discussion to the talk to the paper? One-on-one, people use wide channels of communication that go far beyond formal mathematical language. They use gestures, they draw pictures and diagrams, they make sound effects and use body language. Communication is more likely to be two-way, so that people can concentrate on what needs the most attention. With these channels of communication, they are in a much better position to convey what’s going on, not just in their logical and linguistic facilities, but in their other mental facilities as well.
Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the explorers often get lost. Rigor should be a signal to the historian that the maps have been made, and the real explorers have gone elsewhere.
As a duplicating machine, the printing press not only made texts cheaper and more accessible; its real power was to make them stable… All forms of knowledge achieved stability and permanence, not because paper was more durable than papyrus but simply because there were many copies.
Living organisms are shaped by evolution to survive, not necessarily to get a clear picture of the universe. For example, frogs’ brains are set up to recognize food as moving objects that are oblong in shape. So if we take a frog’s normal food – flies – paralyze them with a little chloroform and put them in front of the frog, it will not notice them or try to eat them.
It is the difference between knowing the names of all the streets in a city and being able to get from any place, by any desired route, to any other place.
Here’s an example that shows how p-values can be misleading. Suppose you have 1,000 totally ineffective drugs to test. About 1 out of every 20 trials will produce a p-value of 0.05 or smaller by chance, so about 50 trials out of the 1,000 will have a “significant” result, and only those studies will publish their results. The error rate in the lab was indeed 5%, but the error rate in the literature coming out of the lab is 100 percent!
Geniuses do not deliberately set off with the goal of concocting a wild-sounding analogy between some brand-new phenomenon, shimmering and mysterious, and some old phenomenon, conceptually distant and seemingly unrelated; rather, they concentrate intensely on some puzzling situation that they think merits deep attention, carefully circling around it, looking at it from all sorts of angles, and finally, if they are lucky, finding a viewpoint that reminds them of some previously known phenomenon that the mysterious new one resembles in a subtle but suggestive manner. Through such a process of convergence, a genius comes to see a surprising new essence of the phenomenon. This is high-level perception; this is discovery by analogy.
My religion can never be science. This is the difference between navigating the world and explaining it.
Work, Ambition, And Becoming
Human beings are odd assets: they acquire the value the moment somebody believes in them.
The point is not that innovation attracts groups but that innovation is found in groups: that it tends to arise out of social interaction – conversation, validation, the intimacy of proximity, and the look in your listener’s eye that tells you you’re onto something. …
When there is no true north, no physical landmarks growing smaller behind you, and no fresh sights constantly appearing over the horizon, you need abstract markers of movement: degrees, money, a sequence of more expensive cars, a series of increasingly successful books, a growing readership for a blog, increasingly prestigious speaking gigs.
Work to become, not to acquire.
The only people who will remember that you worked late are your children.
When you lead your real job is to create more leaders not more followers
Don’t bother fighting the old just build the new.
The most common mistake we make is to do a great job on an unimportant task.
Do not cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
When you try to accomplish something difficult, surround yourself with friends.
The same traits needed for outlier success are the same traits that increase the odds of failure… So be careful blindly praising successes or criticizing failures, as they often made similar decisions with slightly different levels of luck.
When you understand that nobody wants to read your shit, your mind becomes powerfully concentrated. You begin to understand that writing/reading is, above all, a transaction.
In a good system, just doing what you normally would do to help yourself helps everybody
An odd facet of this ideology is that no one really cares much whether you’re contributing to the greater good so long as you’re performing some kind of labor!
giving a reward for an activity sends a strong social signal that you don’t consider the activity worth doing for its own sake.
The point is if you just look at successful business people, they will probably be confident, decisive, risk takers, aggressive at seizing opportunities, aggressive about growing the business quickly, etc. That doesn’t mean that those are the right things to do. ^^It just means that those are variance-increasing traits
It was such a shock to me to see that a committee of men could present a whole lot of ideas, each one thinking of a new facet, while remembering what the other fella said, so that, at the end, the decision is made as to which idea was the best – summing it all up – without having to say it three times. These were very great men indeed.
Technology, Institutions, And Abstraction
“It did what all ads are supposed to do: create an anxiety relievable by purchase.”
While it is somewhat important that everybody drink some kool-aid, it is absolutely crucial that the leaders drink a lot of their own kool-aid. The movers and shakers of the new economy believe sincerely and strongly in their theories of how the world they are creating works. They have to, otherwise they’d be too demotivated to continue building it
You just have to laugh while you eat your salad alone. Except you’re not alone. You’re being watched by people who sincerely want you to enjoy your salad so their work feels more meaningful
Many modern devices (and apps) really excel at squishing tradeoffs into weird shapes. They are better thought of as little imps that sneak into homes and ask for more and more of your attention.
- “Technology” is often frustratingly careless, they don’t improve on all axis and often make trade-offs with weird shapes. What is called technology is often just fashion.
- E.g. the Keurig is worse at maintenance, quality, health, aesthetics, etc.. and only better at speed.
I think of this state as a decision brownout, as in an electronic device shutting down, getting unreliable, or slipping into a failed reboot loop, due to insufficient or unstable supply voltage. While you’re in a brownout, you procrastinate on all decisions to conserve energy because you have no sense of what’s important.
Do not believe that it is very much of an advance to do the unnecessary 3 times as fast.
They’re not elite because the knowledge that defines these jobs is not knowledge that liberates. It is knowledge that confines. We enjoy freedom only to the extent we master the limited leeway that exists around these automated systems
Premature Aestheticization: the root of all evil. you shouldn’t try to make things beautiful by abstracting away the underlying details unless you really understand the problem. AI might turn everyone into Stockton Rushes (oceangate submersible). visible ugliness virtuously reveals the factor of ignorance.
At first I hoped that such a technically unsound project would collapse, but I soon realized it was doomed to success. Almost anything in software can be implemented, sold, and even used given enough determination. There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars.
A twentieth century problem is that technology has become too “easy”. When it was hard to do anything whether good or bad, enough time was taken so that the result was usually good. Now we can make things almost trivially, especially in software, but most of the designs are trivial as well. ^^This is inverse vandalism: the making of things because you can.^^
“If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple.”
Community, Love, And Home
If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go further, go together
The cult is the place where, cut off from your peers, you become crazy. The club is the place where, surrounded by your peers, you become boring
you must allow yourself to get lost in order to find the thing you didn’t know you were looking for.
The natural state of all possessions is to need repair and maintenance. What you own will eventually own you.
Whenever you have a choice between being right or being kind be kind
Whenever you can’t decide which path to take pick the one that produces change
Forgiveness is accepting the apology you will never get
You need teachers, parents customers, fans, and friends because they will see who you are becoming before you will
Fear is fueled by a lack of imagination. The antidote to fear is not bravery; it looks more like imagination.
When you see someone angry you are seeing their pain. Compassion is the proper response.
Your ideal partner is not someone you never disagree with but someone you are glad to disagree with.
The patience you need for big things, is developed by your patience with the little things.
Always be radically honest, but use your honesty as a gift not as a weapon. Your honesty should benefit others.
maybe the problem isn’t so much that young people can’t buy a home—it’s that they can’t build one; they don’t know what it’s like to belong to one
It does not matter what comfort and convenience we have if we think love is dead.
Who cares what cool technologies we have, if the closest thing we’ve got to community is an online forum? It’s an insult to children to sever them from all ties and bonds, and then insist they have it better than any generation before, and if they falter there must be something wrong with them, or they just need more stuff.
Seinfeld said “Pain is knowledge rushing in to fill a gap. When you stub your toe on the foot of the bed, that was a gap in knowledge. And the pain is a lot of information really quick.”
They don’t need another form of love that comes with strings attached. The world’s love comes with enough conditions.
maybe the problem isn’t so much that young people can’t buy a home—it’s that they can’t build one; they don’t know what it’s like to belong to one
It does not matter what comfort and convenience we have if we think love is dead.
Who cares what cool technologies we have, if the closest thing we’ve got to community is an online forum? It’s an insult to children to sever them from all ties and bonds, and then insist they have it better than any generation before, and if they falter there must be something wrong with them, or they just need more stuff.
Seinfeld said “Pain is knowledge rushing in to fill a gap. When you stub your toe on the foot of the bed, that was a gap in knowledge. And the pain is a lot of information really quick.”
They don’t need another form of love that comes with strings attached. The world’s love comes with enough conditions.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I go on a date, and I bring a thermometer so I can measure their skin temperature. I bring calipers so I can measure their pupil, to see when it’s expanding and contracting…” The point is, it doesn’t even matter if these are the correct things to measure to predict someone’s sexual arousal. If you bring a thermometer and calipers with you on a date, you’re not going to be having sex…
a life well-lived is not going to be a life in which every moment is scrutinized.
Morality, Politics, And Commons
Life is never indifferent and never in balance. We are steadily overcoming our problems or they are steadily overcoming us.
It is not the poor and humble who are desecrating the earth, waging wars, and demeaning people. It is the rich, the educated, the honored and acclaimed.
We should always keep in mind that the world is replete with those who preach like angels and behave like beasts.
talking is much more cognitively demanding for the bad people than for the good. It’s hard to maintain a consistent lie over the course of the whole game. This means that the best strategy for those on the good team is to consistently share their own thoughts and solicit those of all others (Avalon game). there’s an additional benefit to playing regularly: you learn what it looks like when a person is trying to sabotage the commons rather than nourish it.
Politics and governance involve constructing cathedrals of arbitrariness to deal with mountains of incomprehension
Reversed Stupidity is not Intelligence: A car with a broken engine cannot drive backward at 200 mph, even if the engine is really really broken
“If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you.”
“Our moral thinking is much more like a politician searching for votes than a scientist searching for truth.”
moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog. ^^A dog’s tail wags to communicate. You can’t make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail. And you can’t change people’s minds by utterly refuting their arguments
Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.
Spirit, Religion, And Lightness
God looks by all accounts to be pro-death. I’m not seeing how we can get together on this issue, he and I…”
Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.
No one wants to worship a guy. They want to worship a guy that is sacrificing himself for something bigger
it is easy to be heavy. Hard to be light. Angels fly because they take themselves lightly. Satan fell by the force of gravity.
It is not Spirituality if it does not perform its function for you. A blanket is no longer a blanket if it does not keep you warm. What generally goes under the name of Spirituality is merely the record of past methods.”
A hero is just someone who moves the story forward, a protagonist
Virtue is the prioritization of meaning over money
It’s a unique form of poverty: rather than needing to work for money, you are indebted to needing to think a certain way.
Living like a #cat means wanting nothing beyond the life you lead. This means living without consolations, and that might be too much for you to bear
Personal experience is often what pushes you from “I get it” to “I get it so well that I’m going to do something about it.
Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you… Worship power – you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the Fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart – you will end up feeling Stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.