Blake Dee

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on the atlas · 447

highlights · 401

make sure that you’re always periodically trying to help someone else out.
happiness - @visakanv's blog
I think if you’re living alone in your own head with yourself, that can make things very bleak. I think we are social creatures very fundamentally
happiness - @visakanv's blog
. The more certainty you have about life, I find, past a certain threshold, then it just gets depressing again.
happiness - @visakanv's blog
Happiness is what happens when you remove all of those elements, and you reduce the muscular tension in your body from having all these competing ideas and stress and and back pain and whatnot.
happiness - @visakanv's blog
that practice of carving out a little bit of time for yourself and doing what you think is beautiful
happiness - @visakanv's blog
You have to enjoy the work.
happiness - @visakanv's blog
You can’t just be forcing yourself into training that you find unpleasant because you’re pinning all your hopes and dreams on winning a trophy that you might not get.
happiness - @visakanv's blog
if you can’t laugh, if you can’t enjoy laughter then you’re gonna get anxious and neurotic and that will lead to a kind of unhappiness
happiness - @visakanv's blog
you have to keep finding something new to fight for.
happiness - @visakanv's blog
Once you’ve done a bunch of work to improve your life situation, it’s easier to be happy.
happiness - @visakanv's blog
Hey, if you’re a smart person, then despite what everybody says this whole ‘make big plans’ thing might actually work for you.”
Book Review: Zero To One | Slate Star Codex
Of course we do ask them to exercise good judgment and act on their own initiative all the time. But the incentives for that are largely imaginary unless you’re self-employed.
Why is there only one Elon Musk? Why is there so much low-hanging fruit? - Alexey Guzey
People have strong incentives to never be responsible for anything, and we’ve told them exactly how they can do that: by never, ever making judgment calls or otherwise acting on their own initiative.
Why is there only one Elon Musk? Why is there so much low-hanging fruit? - Alexey Guzey
certainly they were responsive to evidence that they should change tactics on specific points.
Why is there only one Elon Musk? Why is there so much low-hanging fruit? - Alexey Guzey
But Thiel says the most successful visionaries of the past did the opposite of this. They knew what they wanted, planned a strategy, and achieved it. The Apollo Program wasn’t run by vague optimism and “keeping your options open”. It was run by some people who wanted to land on the moon, planned out how to make that happen, and followed the plan.
Why is there only one Elon Musk? Why is there so much low-hanging fruit? - Alexey Guzey
Ambition comes in two forms, one that precedes interest in the subject and one that grows out of it. Most people who do great work have a mix, and the more you have of the former, the harder it will be to decide what to do.
How to Do Great Work
Let's talk a little more about the complicated business of figuring out what to work on. The main reason it's hard is that you can't tell what most kinds of work are like except by doing them. Which means the four steps overlap: you may have to work at something for years before you know how much you like it or how good you are at it. And in the meantime you're not doing, and thus not learning about, most other kinds of work. So in the worst case you choose late based on very incomplete information.
How to Do Great Work
you don't know what makes you happy, what the various kinds of work are really like, o
When To Do What You Love
people who are honestly fascinated with business and intrinsically motivated to pursue it
The Lottery of Fascinations | Slate Star Codex
Not only is he never going to beat LeBron James, but he’s going to get upset and frustrated trying, and it’s not his comparative advantage anyway.
The Lottery of Fascinations | Slate Star Codex
Owning 0.01% of Google far outperforms owning 100% of your own mid startup.
Book Summary: Zero to One — LessWrong
Every individual is an investor; they are making a bet that what they choose to work will be valuable to the world.
Book Summary: Zero to One — LessWrong
Instead of gritting your teeth and diligently pursuing what all your peers agree is the most promising line of research, maybe you should try doing something just for fun. And if you're stuck, that may be the vector along which to break out.
The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
If you forgo working on what you like in order to follow some more conventionally ambitious path, you might miss something wonderful that you'd otherwise have discovered.
The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
What can one do in the face of such uncertainty? One solution is to hedge your bets, which in this case means to follow the obviously promising paths instead of your own private obsessions.
The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
expend a lot of effort on things that turn out to be every bit as unpromising as they seem.
The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
to have a disinterested obsession with something that matters
The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
atural ability and determination
The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
(1) Indefinite Pessimism ~ Europe. (2) Definite Pessimism ~ China. (3) Definite Optimism ~ Historic U.S. (4) Indefinite Optimism ~ U.S. today. Thiel argues that indefinite optimism
Book Summary: Zero to One — LessWrong
Start small, monopolise a niche market, and then scale to a larger market
Book Summary: Zero to One — LessWrong
good timing, clear context, and a low-effort ask.
How to Ask for Referrals From Your Clients & Network
Some referrals come with a strong, direct recommendation. Others are closer to a warm version of cold outreach.
How to Ask for Referrals From Your Clients & Network
Current and past clients are your best source of referrals because they are familiar with your work and the results it produces.
How to Ask for Referrals From Your Clients & Network
Referrals work because trust transfers faster than any pitch ever could
How to Ask for Referrals From Your Clients & Network
"Don’t shoot for something that somebody else has already done. Shoot for something that no one has done yet." Sam Altman Chairman of Y Combinator. Co-founder of OpenAI.
The production functions of smart and successful people
"[Ask yourself], what problems are around me that are really calling me? And then, one, is it a big problem? You got to fall in love with a big problem because if you have some human capital, you might as well go for the big problem. Two, is it a problem your life history has made you uniquely qualified to serve? ... [Find] something you intrinsically love doing and match it with some deep problem that’s out there."
The production functions of smart and successful people
Technology did not make us worse at, say, hand-carving stone ornament, but it made us much better at other things, including virtually all kinds of manufacturing and many kinds of services. So the opportunity cost of hand-carving ornament rose. This effect was famously described by the economist William J Baumol in the 1960s, and in economics it is known as Baumol’s cost disease.
Why Did We Stop Building Beautiful? The Economics and Ideology Behind an Aesthetic Revolution - Marginal REVOLUTION
‘it’s not even about happiness, it’s about keeping yourself in a clear relationship to the force that feeds you’. I think that’s important in work, in relationships, to keep yourself close to what fuels the aliveness, what feels purposeful, and maybe even more simply: what you find interesting.
carry yourself lightly - by Nix 🕊 - starting from nix
sheer stubbornness and self-driven motion
momentum - starting from nix
“When you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that makes it good or bad.”
momentum - starting from nix
The good news is I’m writing more silly things and having a bit more fun with it.
momentum - starting from nix
Years later, I’d look back and regret not sticking with the idea I was chipping away at.
momentum - starting from nix
We crave the perceived notion of momentum, or a sense that things are moving forward. When you do lose speed, it’s difficult to re-generate it.
momentum - starting from nix
We crave the perceived notion of momentum, or a sense that things are moving forward. When you do lose speed, it’s difficult to re-generate it.
making yourself proud - starting from nix
The willingness to say you’ll try again even when you badly want to stop. But truly, this is the only way you earn self-trust. You show up to the base, and you keep the promises you’ve made. You don’t flinch.
making yourself proud - starting from nix
ethos anthropoi daimon. Character is fate
making yourself proud - starting from nix
Focus is the crucible of becoming.
You're shaped by what you pay attention to - Sherry Ning
The point of exercising focus is not perfection, what matters is the daily return and the refusal to let attention scatter.
You're shaped by what you pay attention to - Sherry Ning
We’re not here to look left and right, we’re here to look up.
You're shaped by what you pay attention to - Sherry Ning
It all begins with an eyeball and an arrow: to look at something—to focus—is the unit of measurement for reality.
You're shaped by what you pay attention to - Sherry Ning