Sharing from my personal blog: https://spiralprogress.com/2024/11/16/the-grass-is-always-greener-in-the-environment-that-shaped-your-values/ As a college student, I spent a few wonderful months living in New York. It was a remarkable summer, the first time I had lived on my own, and the first summer I had a bit of my own money to live like an...
Cross posting from my personal blog: https://spiralprogress.com/2024/10/28/the-shallow-bench/ Spoilers for "Project Hail Mary", stop reading here if you don't want to be spoiled. Project Hail Mary follows Ryland Grace, a disgraced academic turned high school biology teacher who gets selected as part of a crew of three tasked with saving all...
I am often tempted to give advice, and find it difficult to say nothing while friends and colleagues make decisions that seem (to me) obviously wrong. But advice is by nature bad, and it is not hard to see why. We are different people living under different circumstances. Giving advice...
Sharing from my personal blog: https://spiralprogress.com/2024/11/16/the-grass-is-always-greener-in-the-environment-that-shaped-your-values/
As a college student, I spent a few wonderful months living in New York. It was a remarkable summer, the first time I had lived on my own, and the first summer I had a bit of my own money to live like an adult and get out into the world. My existence felt marked by serendipity, delirium, and opportunity.
After graduating, I moved to San Francisco for work, and felt for that first year, endlessly disappointed. BART is worse than the MTA. Golden Gate Park is worse than Central Park. SF MoMA is much worse than the original MoMA.
During this time, I incessantly fantasized about packing up... (read 661 more words →)
Thanks! Sorry about that.
Cross posting from my personal blog: https://spiralprogress.com/2024/10/28/the-shallow-bench/
Spoilers for "Project Hail Mary", stop reading here if you don't want to be spoiled.
Project Hail Mary follows Ryland Grace, a disgraced academic turned high school biology teacher who gets selected as part of a crew of three tasked with saving all of humanity from an impending alien threat.
Not even in sci-fi does a premise this absurd get presented without explanation. What does PHM offer?
“They found a collection of genes that give a human ‘coma resistance.”
“The main problem is this: On average, only one in every seven thousand humans has that genetic sequence.”
... (read 768 more words →)“We wouldn’t be able to send the most qualified people. We’d be sending
I am often tempted to give advice, and find it difficult to say nothing while friends and colleagues make decisions that seem (to me) obviously wrong.
But advice is by nature bad, and it is not hard to see why. We are different people living under different circumstances. Giving advice is not only unhelpful, it is often harmful. You may give a friend bad advice and have them come back to blame you (“I thought stocks only go up!”), you may come off out-of-touch or privileged (“oh sure I’ll just strap on my job helmet”), or just alienate your friend by sounding patronizing.
Yet the temptation remains. A friend comes to you with a... (read 251 more words →)