Pinned
i'll be at jesscamp! hope to see moots 😃
Spread the word: JessCamp5 will be:
Thursday 14th May -
Monday 18th May
2026
At Udyana, outside Porto, PT
Imp
14.5K posts
Imp
@imperialauditor
"enthusiastic and thoughtful with a sea salt sprinkle of crazy" - @learning_sprite
epistemic hit-and-runner
- I actually find it quite icky that American colleges expect you to be “emotionally honest” in your admissions essays under normal circumstances, if you’re writing an extremely personal essay, it’s because you *want* to but here you have no choice
- I still think about that hotel concierge essay all the time tumblr.com/hotelconcierge…
- the top 3 Canadian universities (UofT, McGill, UBC) together have more undergrads than all 8 Ivies + MIT + Stanford + Caltech + UChicago combined useful to think about in the context of bitter fights over zero sum US elite college admissions
- it's common now to hear people say "I was feeling terrible/depressed and then I took a walk/ate for the first time in 12 hrs/slept and felt normal again" yet I've not seen anything like this in old books just me not noticing or a change? if so, why?
- if you think you know what a proof is try this puzzle from Timothy Gowers
- Replying to @mechanical_monk> specs geeky > prices poor >don't understand disagreeable 😛
- i find really smart people scary there's a threshold at which, if you understand enough about the world and yourself... you can do anything... you aren't constrained by rules, because (like Neo in the Matrix) you can see that they aren't really there you become unpredictable
- more knowledge work jobs should be done by two person teams one person to do the stuff and the other person to motivate them and smooth out all the frictions so they can do the stuff as easily as possible
- Replying to @imperialauditorI do think the reflection I went through while writing these essays was good for me but it’s also kinda demeaning to be doing it for evaluation
- the sad part is that there is no opposite of impostor syndrome feeling competent doesn't really feel like anything it feels like "huh they're hitting the ball at me fairly slowly" or "why can't these people do basic things right?"
- Replying to @imperialauditorthreading good replies x.com/beaker406/stat…
Replying to @imperialauditorElijah, I Kings 19:4-8. Starts with, “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Has a nap and a snack, then is fine and goes about his business. - still can't believe Daniel Kahneman said "disbelief is not an option" "You have no choice but to accept that the major conclusions of these studies are true. " about fucking priming studies minus infinity bayes points. game over. go to jail. do not come back.
I wrote a (for me) brief explanation of why I think the placebo effect, priming, nudge, ego depletion, social contagion, most "cognitive biases," and "behavioral" anything are fake carcinisation.com/2023/08/22/aga…
