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About Post:
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| Submission | How would you Optimize your Life if you Woke up Back at 14, Knowing Everything you Knew Today? | |
| Comments | How would you Optimize your Life if you Woke up Back at 14, Knowing Everything you Knew Today? | |
| Author | Veqq | |
| Subreddit | /r/slatestarcodex | |
| Posted On | Wed Apr 01 02:07:58 UTC 2020 | |
| Score | 22 | as of Wed Apr 01 05:38:07 UTC 2020 |
| Total Comments | 49 |
Post Body:
I.e how could you better reach and change your current goals, network, learn, pick/avoid college, get a job/start a company etc. etc.
Would you start paraphrasing/rewriting interesting ideas, academic papers etc. asap? Post about future events to gain a forecaster reputation? Avoid some mistake with your first love? Start selling candy in school, then drop out at 16 to work at McDonald to invest in real estate, short the 2008 market, then invest in bitcoin? Then what?
What would your telos be?
Let's keep any boring gotchas out of the way:
1) A wizard did it, you can trust the dates of big events, time the 2008 crash (as accurately as you know the exact dates right now)
2) Everyone and everything else are the same at the start. You can avoid people who betrayed you the first time around, but as you influence your social circles, things will start changing. (Presumably not impacting major events)
Related Comments (3):
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| Author | Extra_Negotiation | |
| Posted On | Wed Apr 01 05:32:01 UTC 2020 | |
| Score | 1 | as of Wed Apr 01 05:38:07 UTC 2020 |
| Conversation Size | 0 | |
| Body | link |
yooooo r/exmormon, r/exjw over here!
Totally agree on the friends forged in the fires of hell, I have one good friend from that unholy experience. I also have one good frenemy (who decided to go way hard on the 'not a jw' route and just basically steal and lie and blame a whole lot of people - myself included).
I'd still take the frenemy to have the friend, but god-damn, I'd probably sit through all those meetings and all that crap all over again, I guess...
jeez, the things we value and what we're willing to go through!
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| Author | Extra_Negotiation | |
| Posted On | Wed Apr 01 02:46:30 UTC 2020 | |
| Score | 1 | as of Wed Apr 01 05:38:07 UTC 2020 |
| Conversation Size | 7 | |
| Body | link |
To keep it simple, and not make for some kind of God-mode version of myself here (which is too easy, just on crypto alone you could get any material desire, with the right timing):
- I spent too much time trying to impress/fit in with groups of people who ultimately more or less rejected me, or who I grew bored with. When I was this age, I had met a few people who still had all their high school friends, who were in their late 20's - and I thought that was *what the cool/popular* people were able to do. I have acquaintances who still have this, and it does make me jealous, but it's just not happening for me. It's not my life.
- I wish I had tried harder in school - not in the teacher-pleaser way, but in the way that could have substantially saved me a great deal of trouble in my early 20s.
- I wish I had left the cult I was in (r/
exjw) quite a bit earlier, right off the bat ideally. This group really fucked with my mind, and I had to spend years deprogramming, unfucking, and rebuilding/discovering myself. I may never finish. - Somewhere along the way, perhaps earlier than 14, I learned this whole mental model of "you're good at x, you're so smart!" which made me want to rely on the things I picked up easily, rather than develop a strong work ethic "look at how hard you worked on this! how far you've come!". For any of you parents out there, please look into a growth mindset, and how to encourage your kids to discover things for themselves (asking questions instead of telling! etc.). I wish I could of had more than this, but who am I kidding - I was being raise by people who think
JW'sare the cats meow. - I would have spent more time working on my body, and doing more disciplined exercises. I'm not in terrible shape now, but it's a huge hill to climb to the kind of fitness I see some of my friends pulling off (hiking big mountains and stuff). I wish I could do that stuff.
- I would have taken more chances with girls and with things in general. I've always been super underconfident, and always *shocked faced* whenever an attractive, smart, driven woman wanted to spend time with me. I've been with my current partner for five years and I still feel like there must be some trick or misunderstanding - she's just way too beautiful and 'generally good human' for me.
- There were a few times I wish I said no, full stop, but a lot more times I wish I made a request, or asked for more of the same.
- I would have doubled down on computers - I was really good at it at 7,8,9,10 ish - then it wasn't cool, so I got into consoles and other crap, and never really full came back around. Even though I enjoyed it and have spent a significant amount of my life on machines, I've never really felt like I understood what was going on, never mind being in a position to contribute positively.
The reason I'm playing isn't to indulge in some fantasy (which is super fun and I encourage it), but rather to use this prompt as a sort of generative system to make better choices in the next ~20 years of my life.
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| Author | Veqq | |
| Posted On | Wed Apr 01 03:11:26 UTC 2020 | |
| Score | 1 | as of Wed Apr 01 05:38:07 UTC 2020 |
| Conversation Size | 2 | |
| Body | link |
I wish I could of had more than this, but who am I kidding - I was being raise by people who think
JW'sare the cats meow.
What's your relationship with your family like? At risk of putting it really badly, I feel like my family are pets I have to take care of but can't really interact with - like a bitey turtle. I recently bought my mom a house and she's still not used to not paying rent. For the past few days she's been crying about money, scared that she won't be able to pay her bills on time... At the same time, I had to fight with her to not drop her whole paycheck on a boat. (The snow has melted, but we're in a damned quarantine!) She can't even prioritize rent before... a boat.
to use this prompt as a sort of generative system to make better choices in the next ~20 years of my life.
Same. I've been struggling with direction for a while. I really enjoyed working on this question when I thought about it (optimizing for money, for relationships, for influence etc.) but actually... I'm not sure what to optimize my life for , what criteria to use.
Eliminating all evil (a la Harry Potter and his rational instruments or... My favorite character in Unsong was Mr. Ziggarat, so...) seems a bit too difficult.
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