Reading this was like having a chocolate milkshake with a little 10W-30 oil in it. Great writing.
It seems more and more that the wrapper of pursuits is portrayed as real. Wondering minds latch to the loudest reasonable shouts on computers that don’t move the needle but make us feel like they did.
This reminded me of the chapter on jealousy in Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. Venting was part of the cure she suggested. Hope you felt better after writing this. And good luck with with the new adventure!!
This is a great post and I particularly commend you for attacking your egotism and jealousy by exposing it. Ego is the enemy, as Ryan Holiday writes and most people (me included) know. You are not alone. I found your candor inspiring. I think you know my EM address from other interaction. If you DM me a way to send you a couple of bucks, I will send you what I am comfortable sending which is much than I can afford because of my own fear. Maybe this confession will help me be more generous. IDK. But thanks anyway.
Amazing work! I am so happy you wrote it, read in one breath. I have a feeling although this discussion about geniuses often focuses on science (not always), there’s the same thing with artistic work, i.e. literature, cinema, whatever - apparently everything is dying and “the grass was greener”, yet having this notion in mind people prefer to write a 10k words article about the state of literature instead of putting this energy into a new great novel or a short story. Same goes for almost anything. Then we have this “writing about X”, where X ∈ {writing, thinking, making art, doing science, not doing science, building fucking audience, 10 hot tips for success, ...} People prefer to write about X to doing the actual thing and when they complain about X it somehow gets more traction because perhaps it excuses the fact that nobody can do X well nowadays and it’s pleasant to hear that the reason is not them but the system, the culture, education, capitalism, politics, the internet, etc etc. So yeah, it’s a kind of procrastination porn indeed, and I am saying it only because I am prone to it too. Stimulating the nostalgia muscle, the nostalgia about the events we never had, is probably like stimulating the G spot. Highly engorging.
Apr 19, 2022·edited Apr 19, 2022Liked by Roger’s Bacon
In my [author of Nintil.com and the 'we don't know how to fix science' article] defense, besides writing on the internet about fixing science, also started a $70M project to work on aging research:
If we instituted a universal basic income and freed everybody up to pursue what they wanted, we would get more miracle years, or just more brilliant insights, but the absolute percentage of people who will have those moments of genius is never going to be more than a tiny fraction of a percent. Most people would play video games, watch reality TV, and follow sports; some people who think they're smarter than the hoi polloi will follow politics (in exactly the same way as the others follow sports), and some people will try to be intellectual influencers whose primary goal isn't to know something deep and true about something for its own sake, but to be *seen* as brilliant.
Being a genius requires being interested in an idea and pursuing it as far as you can. We need more people who have the freedom to do that, and it doesn't really matter how many people cluster around outside the hermit hut of genius, claiming that that's where they live too.
Those people should carefully examine themselves and why they think they want what they think they want, for the sake of their own happiness and fulfillment, though.
I enjoyed this, but I think the most important part of all this was in the footnotes:
"Also, stop meditating and trying to optimize your mental and physical performance. Has anyone who’s ever had a miracle year cared about any of this shit?"
This points to something a bit more profound: Progress studies manages to be both obsessed with the past, with many charts and graphs and data, but at the end of it curiously unempirical.
Hahaha! I feel you in my bones. It's ok, we can start a new "community" of people who "don't fucking have miracle years" ;)
I am loving your increasingly violent contrarianism so much.
Simultaneously: I'm in this post and I don't like it.
Thank you for writing the post I was too nervous to attempt lmao
I think batshit crazy reaction posts on the internet are the only nuggets of truth on the internet.
Reading this was like having a chocolate milkshake with a little 10W-30 oil in it. Great writing.
It seems more and more that the wrapper of pursuits is portrayed as real. Wondering minds latch to the loudest reasonable shouts on computers that don’t move the needle but make us feel like they did.
There you go again.
The life of a genius is much better in the telling than it was in the living.
This reminded me of the chapter on jealousy in Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. Venting was part of the cure she suggested. Hope you felt better after writing this. And good luck with with the new adventure!!
Repeated words
> while his while his ex-wife has donated 18%.
This is a great post and I particularly commend you for attacking your egotism and jealousy by exposing it. Ego is the enemy, as Ryan Holiday writes and most people (me included) know. You are not alone. I found your candor inspiring. I think you know my EM address from other interaction. If you DM me a way to send you a couple of bucks, I will send you what I am comfortable sending which is much than I can afford because of my own fear. Maybe this confession will help me be more generous. IDK. But thanks anyway.
Amazing work! I am so happy you wrote it, read in one breath. I have a feeling although this discussion about geniuses often focuses on science (not always), there’s the same thing with artistic work, i.e. literature, cinema, whatever - apparently everything is dying and “the grass was greener”, yet having this notion in mind people prefer to write a 10k words article about the state of literature instead of putting this energy into a new great novel or a short story. Same goes for almost anything. Then we have this “writing about X”, where X ∈ {writing, thinking, making art, doing science, not doing science, building fucking audience, 10 hot tips for success, ...} People prefer to write about X to doing the actual thing and when they complain about X it somehow gets more traction because perhaps it excuses the fact that nobody can do X well nowadays and it’s pleasant to hear that the reason is not them but the system, the culture, education, capitalism, politics, the internet, etc etc. So yeah, it’s a kind of procrastination porn indeed, and I am saying it only because I am prone to it too. Stimulating the nostalgia muscle, the nostalgia about the events we never had, is probably like stimulating the G spot. Highly engorging.
P.S. Please write that plant short story 🙏
In my [author of Nintil.com and the 'we don't know how to fix science' article] defense, besides writing on the internet about fixing science, also started a $70M project to work on aging research:
https://twitter.com/ArtirKel/status/1422595991195226117?t=Q_aPywO356w2z0bcDxE-_w&s=19
If we instituted a universal basic income and freed everybody up to pursue what they wanted, we would get more miracle years, or just more brilliant insights, but the absolute percentage of people who will have those moments of genius is never going to be more than a tiny fraction of a percent. Most people would play video games, watch reality TV, and follow sports; some people who think they're smarter than the hoi polloi will follow politics (in exactly the same way as the others follow sports), and some people will try to be intellectual influencers whose primary goal isn't to know something deep and true about something for its own sake, but to be *seen* as brilliant.
Being a genius requires being interested in an idea and pursuing it as far as you can. We need more people who have the freedom to do that, and it doesn't really matter how many people cluster around outside the hermit hut of genius, claiming that that's where they live too.
Those people should carefully examine themselves and why they think they want what they think they want, for the sake of their own happiness and fulfillment, though.
Uh is anyone else really into the as-yet-unwritten evil plants short story? Because I sure am! Please don't delete that draft when you write it!
I enjoyed this, but I think the most important part of all this was in the footnotes:
"Also, stop meditating and trying to optimize your mental and physical performance. Has anyone who’s ever had a miracle year cared about any of this shit?"
This points to something a bit more profound: Progress studies manages to be both obsessed with the past, with many charts and graphs and data, but at the end of it curiously unempirical.
no ok thank you, this was hilarious, I loved it