Talking about these issues is unusual. It’s often counter-productive. People interpret it as desperation, as an admission of weakness and failure.
I think good people would increase their opinion of you if you post something you know will be viewed as low status by almost everyone. I think the people who are turned away by this article aren’t good candidates for making rapid progress.
I appreciate Elliot being explicit about this sort of stuff. I think it helps me interact more rationally with the forum.
it still will be interpreted by some people (including some who deny it in their own minds) as low status,
I hope I’m not lying to myself. I do think I appreciate this article.
it’s people who lie that they care more than they do, and then take actions in conflict with their words, who are problematic.
have I been lying about how much of a fan I am? I praised Elliot a lot in my introduction and spoke about high ambitions. I think I should’ve done more since then. Now is critical period for me to integrate CF with my life, I’ll be more active from now on.
They also are unwilling to say they don’t want criticism and thereby appear irrational.
at least I said I don’t think I can handle unbounded criticism. I want to get there eventually though.
Other people feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of trying to act like they value stuff (many people are bad at valuing anything and are unsuited to being early adopters or active members of a specialized community, but don’t admit that to themselves).
I don’t think I’m a particularly high initiative person. I think it’s really important to be high initiative and high agency. it’s not something I thought much about before I found Elliot. I thought about being productive. but high initiative is different. you could be productive in certain settings like doing a bunch of homework, but that’s stuff your teacher told you to do, it’s not like starting a project on your own and having to find all the learning material and create practice activities for yourself.
One of the reasons people don’t post much at my forums is they don’t know what they can say without a risk of receiving criticism.
I should post more. I’ve posted some stuff that I expect to get some criticism for, I’ve gotten a little better. but I think I’m still stopping some posting because of fear of criticism. It might not be that much fear of criticism, but more fear of seeming dumb, which doesn’t come without criticism, but is different from criticism on a difficult topic which I wouldn’t be expected to be good at.
, and I actually want to receive more criticism not less, so both parts of the arrangement are bad for me.
I don’t have a reserve of criticisms of Elliot that I’m holding back. I think I should try to get in a more critical mindset to think of things. at the same time he’s so much more knowledgeable and skilled than me, so it seems hard to find criticisms. maybe that’s just an excuse though? If my criticisms failed (there was no error) then I would be the one who got corrected and gaining something.
Fans in a small niche have to do stuff at much higher rates like:
- share, promote
They could also share stuff (basically everyone has friends and/or could figure out how join some relevant online communities that enable sharing like on Reddit, Facebook or Discord
I have one friend who could care. I’ve already shared a bunch of Elliots stuff and tried to discuss it with him. he didn’t care that much. sad. I still hope that in the future when I’m higher skill I could be more persuasive and explain the importance of philosophy. I actually have one more friend who could be interested.
would it be helpful to join online communities now when I’m a beginner? I kinda want to power-up first and be more persuasive when I’m trying to promote and debate for CF.
how can there not be people demanding Elliots attention all the time. I find this fact about the world baffling. how can it be so easy to get his attention? why isn’t there already a bunch of proven people who have done a bunch of learning who would be more interesting to talk to than some newbies.
there are people who are successful at different things. really productive people with high initiative in their field. but where are the people who are generally rational, truly independent thinkers, honest and generally high initiative? somehow there seems to almost not exist any. if they do exist why haven’t they recognized Elliot yet? is Elliot just too unknown?
I think the biggest factor is what kind of world we live in. For example, here’s what Elon Musk’s oldest living child says about him (my bold):
You are not “saving the planet”, you do not give a fuck about climate change and you’re lying about multi-planetary civilization as both an excuse, and because you want to seem like the CEO from Ready Player One. I would mention the birth rate stuff, but I am not touching that weird 14-words breeder shit with a ten foot pole. You single-handedly disillusioned me with how gullible we are as a species because somehow people keep believing you for reasons that continue to evade me.
Or in Ayn Rand’s words from The “Inexplicable Personal Alchemy” in Return of the Primitive:
Where are America’s young fighters for ideas, the rebels against conformity to the gutter—the young men of “inexplicable personal alchemy,” the independent minds dedicated to the supremacy of truth?
With very rare exceptions, they are perishing in silence, unknown and unnoticed. Consciously or subconsciously, philosophically and psychologically, it is against them that the cult of irrationality—i.e., our entire academic and cultural Establishment—is directed.
They perish gradually, giving up, extinguishing their minds before they have a chance to grasp the nature of the evil they are facing. In lonely agony, they go from confident eagerness to bewilderment to indignation to resignation—to obscurity. And while their elders putter about, conserving redwood forests and building sanctuaries for mallard ducks, nobody notices those youths as they drop out of sight one by one, like sparks vanishing in limitless black space; nobody builds sanctuaries for the best of the human species.
Tellingly, this quote is so unpopular that if you do a web search for it, I show up repeatedly in the results.
Consider the prestigious people, the non-self-published authors, the academics with journal publications and tenure, the scientists who receive grants, the CEOs, the billionaires, the people who are popular on social media, the people who receive venture capital money, the politicians, the journalists writing at major publications, the news people on TV. They, often contrary to superficial appearances, have a strong tendency towards social conformity and towards having above average but not spectacular intelligence. If they weren’t social climbers, they’d have significantly less chance to be in their position. They systematically alienate the smart, rational, diligent and honest people who make the world work. There are many, many halfway decent people who have worked at SpaceX, Google, etc., whose bosses have kept, over and over, making their jobs harder – until perhaps they finally give up over a return to office mandate. Or they got fired for criticizing DEI 10 years ago or are getting fired now for liking DEI too much or being a “diversity hire” who has, at this point, already done their job successfully for years
They’re not perfect people but they would do better living in a better society, where they weren’t so isolated, beaten down, surrounded by misinformation, and told by everyone (including often their friends and family) that it’s the prestigious people with high social status who have the most merit and intelligence. What really breaks people, perhaps, is how sure everyone seems to be that success is mostly merit-based.
What keeps people isolated in the age of the internet? The use of bad leaders/intellectuals as focal points, social media algorithms, divisive politics, bad news organizations, and, perhaps worst of all, a Google search algorithm that makes it hard to find much on the internet and often gives results so bad that asking ChatGPT or searching Reddit is better. Many people are even using TikTok search over Google.
And there are many, many other factors. Like the cost of housing in the US is so high that it’s hard for people to have time to think. And there are laws and rules prohibiting ~everything, so the only people who can have much success are the ones with the privilege of being allowed to break rules (which has been discussed by Ayn Rand and many others).
I’ll tell you a story which was told to me, without shame, in 2005. You decide if it’s true or just an allegory or what.
Once upon a time a homeless man (I wasn’t told his name so I’ll call him “Man”) walked 85 miles and showed up at the door of a prestigious scientist and author, Gavid German. Man was lucky and for some reason German was in a good mood and let Man come in for tea. Man said he wanted to talk about time travel and that he’d developed a theory. German was deeply skeptical but polite. Man started talking about toruses. German quickly realized that Man was actually a real scientist and colleague with a theory about time travel that merited a hearing.
It turned out that Man had been a graduate student studying time travel, but then had been imprisoned in a mental hospital. Man got out after 18 months but his university refused to take him back. So Man did scientific research by himself, and developed a new theory, but then found that no one would talk with him.
So German told Man that he (German) was the wrong type of scientist to evaluate the time travel theory. Man asked if German would present the theory to any colleagues. German said no but gave some names and locations of scientists who Man could walk to. German wouldn’t provide any introductions. Man asked if he could sleep there for one night. German said sorry but no. Man left. The end.
Imagine walking around to the workplaces and homes of a dozen scientists. Each walk takes days but provides a slim chance that an intelligent mind with relevant scientific training might hear you out. Each man you meet represents your chance, your hope, your dream to contribute to human knowledge and to have a better life. One by one, each man refuses to listen before you can explain your theory. You lack social status and there are no Paths Forward. You’re hungry and broke, and it’s hard to walk so far. Finally, one day, you’re let in for tea. It’s a minor miracle. And then, even better, a scientist seems to be listening to you. He acknowledges you as a real scientist who did reasonable work and developed a reasonable theory. Finally! Except it makes no difference. You thought if only you could get a hearing, everything would change; then you got one, and it went better than you hoped … yet still nothing changed.
I’ll let Rand tell you a similar story (with a different ending):
from The Fountainhead
“Why did you pick me?”
“Because you’re a good sculptor.”
“That’s not true.”
“That you’re good?”
“No. That it’s your reason. Who asked you to hire me?”
“Nobody.”
“Some woman I laid?”
“I don’t know any women you laid.”
“Stuck on your building budget?”
“No. The budget’s unlimited.”
“Feel sorry for me?”
“No. Why should I?”
“Want to get publicity out of that shooting-Toohey business?”
“Good God, no!”
“Well, what then?”
“Why do you fish for all that nonsense instead of the simplest reason?”
“Which?”
“That I like your work.”
“Sure. That’s what they all say. That’s what we’re all supposed to say and to believe. Imagine what would happen if somebody blew the lid off that one! So, all right, you like my work. What’s the real reason?”
“I like your work.”
Mallory spoke earnestly, his voice sober.
“You mean you saw the things I’ve done, and you liked them—you—yourself—alone—without anyone telling you that you should like them or why you should like them—and you decided that you wanted me, for that reason—only for that reason—without knowing anything about me or giving a damn—only because of the things I’ve done and … and what you saw in them—only because of that, you decided to hire me, and you went to the bother of finding me, and coming here, and being insulted—only because you saw—and what you saw made me important to you, made you want me? Is that what you mean?”
“Just that,” said Roark.
The things that pulled Mallory’s eyes wide were frightening to see. Then he shook his head, and said very simply, in the tone of soothing himself:
“No.”
He leaned forward. His voice sounded dead and pleading.
“Listen, Mr. Roark. I won’t be mad at you. I just want to know. All right, I see that you’re set on having me work for you, and you know you can get me, for anything you say, you don’t have to sign any million-dollar contract, look at this room, you know you’ve got me, so why shouldn’t you tell me the truth? It won’t make any difference to you-and it’s very important to me.”
“What’s very important to you?”
“Not to … not to … Look. I didn’t think anybody’d ever want me again. But you do. All right. I’ll go through it again. Only I don’t want to think again that I’m working for somebody who … who likes my work. That, I couldn’t go through any more. I’ll feel better if you tell me. I’ll … I’ll feel calmer. Why should you put on an act for me? I’m nothing. I won’t think less of you, if that’s what you’re afraid of. Don’t you see? It’s much more decent to tell me the truth. Then it will be simple and honest. I’ll respect you more. Really, I will.”
“What’s the matter with you, kid? What have they done to you? Why do you want to say things like that?”
“Because …” Mallory roared suddenly, and then his voice broke, and his head dropped, and he finished in a flat whisper: “because I’ve spent two years”—his hand circled limply indicating the room—“that’s how I’ve spent them—trying to get used to the fact that what you’re trying to tell me doesn’t exist…”
[…]
“Lie down now,” said Roark. “Lie still for a while.”
“How did they ever let you survive?” [said Mallory]
[…]
Then he lay without moving, straight and limp, like a man long past the stage of suffering. Roark stood at the window, looking at the wretched room and at the boy on the bed. He wondered why he felt as if he were waiting. He was waiting for an explosion over their heads. It seemed senseless. Then he understood. He thought, This is how men feel, trapped in a shell hole; this room is not an accident of poverty, it’s the footprint of a war; it’s the devastation torn by explosives more vicious than any stored in the arsenals of the world. A war … against? … The enemy had no name and no face. But this boy was a comrade-in-arms, hurt in battle, and Roark stood over him, feeling a strange new thing, a desire to lift him in his arms and carry him to safety … Only the hell and the safety had no known designations … […]
[…]
Then he sat for hours, listening, while Mallory spoke of his work, of the thoughts behind his work, of the thoughts that shaped his life, spoke gluttonously, like a drowning man flung out to shore, getting drunk on huge, clean snatches of air.
I haven’t looked into Musk engineering/business fraud stuff but I saw his gaming fraud. That was pathetic and stupid, how did he think he could get away with it? And it tells me it’s likely he’s also taking the credit of others in engineering and business.
Lots of big tech used to be progressive and has now shifted to be anti-woke. Musk was one of the earlier ones to make the shift. He might be genuine about it, but I think it’s likely he felt that a shift would occur. I think it’s more likely he cares more about being on the winning side than of truth. If you’re earlier in the shift, but not too early, you’ll get more social points. It’s more risky, but if you can be contrarian for a short time you’ll get lots more credit because people think you’re more genuine and think you were brave for standing up against the establishment. If you compare Musk against Zuckerberg you’ll see Zuckerberg is getting more questioned on his genuineness, they say he’s changing just because Trump got in power (look at the comments.) It seems like that’s what Musk is good at: feeling and manipulating the zeitgeist. I’m also thinking of how he keeps Tesla so overpriced by hyping it up without much to back it up (or so stock people say, I don’t know much.)
As small, early audiences should have high rates of positive behaviors, they should also have have unusually low rates of negative behaviors. Negative behaviors include saying things that make the creator or his fans lose social status, being adversarial/hostile with the creator or with other fans, breaking rules, being toxic, being passive-aggressive, pushing discussion topics away from the creator’s niche, quitting/leaving, and breaking promises (e.g. implying you’ll follow up on a discussion topic, but then not doing it).
Hmm. I don’t have much familiarity/experience with small, early audiences to something. Whats considered small? The community around CF seems obviously small but at what point would this community be considered medium, or large? I assume it would vary by context. I can imagine a community for a game to be considered small if its only around 1k players or something.
I think I’ve seen a fair amount of negative stuff on here and on curi. Though I don’t know if those people are part of the “audience”. Is audience here anyone, including people who explicitly say they like it, or specifically people who claim to like someones stuff.
If an article or video gets 100k views, then if 99% of people do nothing that’s fine. 1% of people commenting or donating is 1k people. However, if it gets 100 views, it needs an engagement rate far above 1% or else the creator is simply being charitable. Small early-adopter audiences for specialist creators have to do things like share, donate, discuss, praise, help, etc., at much higher rates than audiences of popular creators do. If they don’t, they are signaling there’s no viable niche there, and that they shouldn’t be served.
Hmm. Why don’t I do this with CF?
- Share - I don’t have social media that I post on (I just browse reddit) and I don’t share with friends, Hmm, Why don’t I? I think its because I expect them to be hostile? Maybe? But then again I used to be in peoples face about Ayn Rand in the past and my friends stayed friends. Even now people know my views roughly on things and I’ve had no issues. Hmm. I could probably share more. There are definitely things that I think some people I think would find interesting. I just don’t have a habit of sharing period.
- Donate - I do a little every month. I do want to donate a lot more in the future. Hmm, then again its a vague kind of supporting Elliot in my head. I guess in my head I don’t see what donating does. It was easy for me to decide to do tutoring because I knew what i was getting out of it. With donating I don’t know. Like what does my support do for somebody? Like I give 5 a month right now, I could give a little more but what help is it? Now that I think about it, even if I had the income in the future to donate hundreds of dollars a month I don’t think I’d do it because I’m unsure whats the point. I do this with many creators I follow. There is one podcast I’ve followed since the beginning that has brought me lots of value called trash taste. Long story short, I never gave money to the patreon until I got benefits I liked. I bought merchandise and stuff at high prices to support them but I never donated (even now I don’t do it for donations I do it for the benefits).
- Praise - ? Like comment on why somethings good? Now that I think about it, I don’t think I ever mentioned that I don’t comment on stuff online. I think I have some bad ideas around commenting and it feels awkward to me to comment on something.
- Help - What could I help with? I know Elliot was just listing examples but also helping is helpful to a small community. What could people help with at CF?
Some audience members make excuses to themselves. One excuse is that they are busy – that almost always just means they are prioritizing other things, and don’t care all that much. If they don’t follow any other creators, don’t use social media, don’t play video games, and don’t read the news, maybe they really are busy. That’s rare. Broadly, everyone is pretty busy (even if they are busy watching YouTube rather than doing obligations), and creators have to compete for the attention of busy people. Every creator has audience members who are busy but choose to spend time on his stuff anyway.
That makes sense. I say I’m busy but I do spend a lot of time watching random YouTube videosand stuff. I’d say a lot of that stuff I watch in the background but I could do that with some CF stuff (though it may not be optimal, its still an option).
Another excuse is people think they don’t know how to help with anything or they aren’t in a position to do anything. That’s not true. Anyone who appreciates stuff could leave positive comments regularly. They could also share stuff (basically everyone has friends and/or could figure out how join some relevant online communities that enable sharing like on Reddit, Facebook or Discord).
I think thats true if people already do that stuff.
People also make excuses about barriers to entry. But if you highly value specialized stuff, then you would find ways to overcome barriers – happily, on your own initiative. If you don’t have initiative for anything then you just aren’t capable of highly valuing things. (Many people who are generally low-initiative suddenly do have some initiative when it’s actually very important to them – e.g. trying to get a spouse or job, or trying to fix some problem in their life that they regard as urgent.)
~yeah thats fair. I still remember mid pandemic how I realized if I saved up and did a few things I could go to Japan, one of the few times I was very locked in for a long period of time (roughly a year). I saved, did a bunch of tasks, etc. happily (well, kinda).
In general, if people highly value stuff, they will act that way naturally, without being asked/prompted. If you’re trying to explain to people what leaving positive comments on articles and videos is, and why to do it, then they just aren’t that into you (but those same people somtimes won’t admit to not being that into you). Having to ask (or bring it up without asking) is a bad sign and asking mostly doesn’t increase how much people genuinely value stuff.
Am I in the minority here when it comes to not commenting and doing typical high value stuff for things I like? Like the podcast I mentioned before, I’ve listened to probably more then 1,000 hours (probably way more than that tbh). Besides consuming the content I don’t do any typical stuff a high value fan would do. Am I a high value fan or would I be lying to myself here?
They also are unwilling to say they don’t want criticism and thereby appear irrational. Some people want me to sacrifice my integrity for them – pretend to do unbounded criticism while actually holding back most criticism, so they can appear highly rational. That’s a common mutual arrangement among “intellectuals”, but it’s bad, and I actually want to receive more criticism not less, so both parts of the arrangement are bad for me.
I wonder if part of the success of certain small communities is the sacrificing of integrity of the main person, just so they can have a community. I’m sure some may not do big sacrifices but people get accustomed to making “small” sacrifices of their integrity.
I think community dynamics is an interesting topic and that these concepts are worth understanding like small early adopter audiences, rates of positive behaviors, and specialized niche content. It’s unintuitive to some people that specialized content require more demand (higher prices and other more positive reactions) to be viable. It doesn’t have to exist and be available at all (if it does exist, either some people value it highly and treat it as special, or its existence is charity).
Yeah. I think since most, if not all, of the content I’ve consumed has always been from big content creators I just kind of expect it to be there. I don’t really get why I should donate. This is also partially reinforced to me with some of the stuff I’ve joined at when small like Trash Taste worked out without my support and became big. In my head I don’t have an understanding that they needed donations to keep things going. They did it “somehow”.
To summarize/conclude, you can be pretty passive when you’re a fan of mass-market stuff and it’s fine. But when you’re a fan of a new/unpopular creator serving a small/specialized niche, you need to do more positive behaviors (and fewer negative behaviors) or else you’re relying on other fans to do that and/or relying on the creator’s charity
Yes. I am used to other fans doing that for me. Other fans have always done that for me in everything I’ve consumed.
Thats true, though I do think its kind of wack that Elliot has to make that caveat that he knows people will view it as low social status for it to get viewed properly, even by good people. Or would you think good people would still be fine with this article of Elliot’s?
Nothing in particular you’ve had high initiative for? Personally I’d be lying if I said I had high initiative for intellectual stuff (for long periods of time) but other interests I’ve been in a state where I could consider myself high-initiative. Video games and stuff count too.
This is something that I think has somewhat broken me at work. Its crazy to me how my managers will talk about the social dynamic stuff they need to do at work to get a certain position or whatever yet will tell me they got their by merit.
I was thinking more about people losing interest and not joining or leaving the forum. But that’s kind of only thinking of the extreme. Some good people might still interact with CF but less so because they now view Elliot as lower status because of this article. Perhaps that could be crossing a breakpoint to where they would have been making rapid progress and isn’t because they view it as lower status. That could be, but the standard for being a person able to make rapid progress seems so high that this wouldn’t stop them. If they were going to make rapid progress I don’t think this article would change that for the worse. Still there are other possible negatives like getting more negative interaction from other people and getting less than 20 rational debate advocates. So I think it was correct for Elliot to put in the caveat.
Actually yes. I was very high initiative for sports and exercise. l looked up how to do stuff and exercises on YouTube, and then I practiced that on my own. I also created training sessions of my own. I did lots of self-practice. At 12 y/o I had a period where I woke up early in order to practice an hour before school by myself.
I guess in an absolute sense I’m not that high initiative for intellectual stuff and learning, but comparatively I think I’m in a quite high percentile for people with some intellectual interest. Just reading a bunch of philosophy books, like almost all of Rand, some histories of philosophy and some other philosophy is more than most. Now I’ve also commented on some articles and also done 3 (mini-)projects here. There has probably been a lot of lurkers on Elliot’s stuff, so I’m higher initiative than them. I do regret waiting for so long to join and not already having done more though.
Perhaps it’s better to already think of myself as a pretty high initiative person who has been suppressed by school?
Capitalists mostly think the world is already merit-based. Objectivists ought to think otherwise. I don’t consume that much other Oism content, but I don’t really get the sense that many of them talk about how the world is unfair and based on social status. They seem to care way more about how government makes the market unfair. I think someone like Charles Tew would care more about general unfairness. I haven’t watched enough of his content to remember him saying anything specifically, but I remember him identifying with Dominique, I always thought of him more as Mallory though. I certainly don’t get that sense from ARI people, which makes sense given your criticism of them.
Am I being tribalist here?
It could let Elliot focus more on philosophy and less on programming.
Same.
I think the criticism part is quite unique to Elliot. Most community leaders don’t want criticism from their fans. But most of them sacrifice lots of their integrity in order to pander to their audience, like Wynand.
If you had spare money and wanted to buy more help, you could say so and then we could discuss what that could be.
That’s reasonable because you don’t have a lot of money now.
Basically, it’s too much work for me to deal with people like that and try to get money out of them. I don’t have a big enough audience to e.g. sell merch and I probably wouldn’t want to sell that anyway.
I’m only selling async tutoring because I wanted it to exist in the world and I’m in a position to underprice it enough to make it accessible. It’s charity along the same lines as giving away free articles. If I was aiming at money/profit I’d do something else.
I have enough skill, resources, privilege, etc., to juggle my actual paid work (software) and my charitable passion project even with very little external help or rewards (including hardly any feedback, criticism, peer discussion, debate, etc.) and also deal with a harassment campaign and deal with some IRL issues I haven’t talked about. Is this a stable thing everyone should expect to continue indefinitely? Maybe, maybe not.
Would I share more stuff that helped you if I was actually being rewarded and supported? Definitely. I would put out far more essays and videos if the situation were different. So even if you aren’t concerned that I’ll shrug, you could be concerned about matters of degree: e.g. that I’m not sharing the majority of the essays I write and the proportion is trending down.
People’s bottleneck is often mental energy, not time.
No, you’re in the large majority. That’s why creators need very large audiences (or very atypical audiences) to quit their day job.
Why would you be a high value fan? Just because you listened to a lot and liked it a lot? Listening and liking isn’t giving any value back to the creator.
It’s so hard to get paid by most audience members that a lot of popular creators have resorted to crypto scams to get paid. Ads are another common approach: if the audience won’t pay, you can sell access to them to companies that will pay (because the company, like e.g. Nestle, is good at getting people to pay it), but the companies only pay a tiny amount per audience member for ads.
Why didn’t you perish? How did you keep going?
I think it could be true, it fits with what the world is like. What do you mean about “without shame”? That the person who told you it didn’t think it was that bad? Or that they had just accepted that this was how the world was like?
It’s sad the world is like this. But the world has gotten better, we had the industrial revolution and now we have computers. There have been great thinkers like Rand and Popper. We can learn from them and improve our lives with that thinking. So I would say it’s inspiring to think the world could be way better if it was actually rational, and that we could get that world by pushing Paths Forward and rational debate.
I’m rereading FH and just read this part. I love this part, in a sad way.
she did not cry easily. There were other times that I knew that she cried were in the early years when she was writing We the Living, had no money, had a full time job and could only write at night. She quite frequently, I understand, in the evening, would cry a bit, just because it was such an awful situation. She was[n’t(?)] established. She didn’t have time to write. She had to write. She had this job, but I never saw her cry in 31 years.
I think this in itself was heroic by Rand. But we can’t expect there to be many others like her.
(Also it seems like it’s almost just as hard for waitress and such to earn a livelihood as it was 100 years ago (I think people leave their parents homes earlier than then though, I haven’t checked statistics.) That’s pathetic, it should be way easier with all the technology we have gotten since then.)
Most can’t do like Rand, and most wouldn’t spend much of the extra time to think. But we don’t need most. We need a few who could be exceptional. I think there are many who could’ve been push over the breakpoint to become exceptional if the world wasn’t so irrational.
I think it’s hard to see how the world is unfair and irrational. It’s not that obvious. I don’t think I would’ve believed it if I hadn’t found Elliot. It requires some confidence in your own independent judgment.
I don’t know.
Please make sure that internal quotes have the right quote level. That’s not my text.
Sorry, I forgot that happens when you only quote from a quoted part.
I felt some urgency to join the forum because I was afraid you would disappear one day. I didn’t want to miss out on the diamond almost no one else was seeing. I’ve thought about it less since I joined. But:
So I should think about it again, if only in degrees.
I don’t expect to entirely disappear, but other drastic changes are more plausible like stopping talking with anyone and just posting essays rarely.
I better improve fast then.
That is concerning to me. I want to be part of helping spread the philosophy or helping in some way, but Im just skeptical of myself wanting things in general. Like I want to work on wanting things before making big changes.