• 6 Posts
  • 57 Comments
Joined 6 months ago
cake
Cake day: April 27th, 2024

help-circle



















  • The last time I met a person who had done deeply reprehensible, highly publicized tech fraud (FTX executive) he kind of just came off as a dude, and I liked him.

    That kind of makes me feel bad when I think about it.

    I haven’t met a high-profile fraudster lately, but my first impression of bad guys is usually pretty positive. As far as I can tell, people keep their ambient personalities when they break bad, but they compartmentalize and they develop supermassive appetites for praise. This long-run increases their suggestibility because they have to be more and more gullible to not hate themselves. I think this hollows them out – when you live a double life for long enough, you kind of stop observing the reality-fiction boundary at all.

    Not clear how to stop the cycle. There’s just too much money involved for me to dive off the train right now.



  • Last paragraph first: Grudgingly, yeah, that’s a pretty good literal answer to the question. Peter Thiel won’t sell just anyone a cult following, and you’re not paying for it in cash, but he will sell you one if you’re lucky.

    Writing advice: I like your writing. I haven’t tried to emulate you because I haven’t read enough of your writing, and because when I made my first brush with you (which was like a year ago) I was spending a lot less time emulating people in general.

    It’s a little distressing to me because, well, I’m way too anxious to play the game of moral righteousness straight-facedly. It takes a very different personality from mine to say “Those are the bad people, fuck them” and not see the obvious similarities between me and the people I hate.

    Some level of this is actual, real-world hypocrisy: I’m the cofounder of an AI startup and at the same time I deeply dislike AI. I went here because one, there was money, and two, I didn’t want a way worse person than me to take the same job. It has not been what I hoped for – it has been deeply destructive to my personality – it has taught me a lot and made me much more cynical – it has definitely made me stupider.

    I don’t really know how to do a hypocrisy purge. (I hear this is what ayahuasca is for, but Catholicism also works, and I’m considering getting my brain tattooed with a laser gun.) I think until I do one I have to temper all my moral righteousness by saying “I think I know why this person is doing the thing they’re doing, and if you want their (bad) motives, here’s my guess.”