In college I participated heavily on cypherpunks and extropians, so it’s possible to benefit from such communities without necessarily going to MIT or Harvard. Of course this depends on whether such online communities exist in the areas that atucker is or will be interested in, and how much he values physical vs. virtual social contact...
This is great advice for other people in the same situation.
I personally greatly prefer physical to virtual contact, at least for friendships. Not so sure about for general intellectual pursuits. Online communities have been great in terms of getting me to read things, but physical communities have so far been much more effective at getting me to actually do things other than read specific books, or write things.
I might be able to change this, maybe not. I haven’t particularly tried to.
In college I participated heavily on cypherpunks and extropians, so it’s possible to benefit from such communities without necessarily going to MIT or Harvard. Of course this depends on whether such online communities exist in the areas that atucker is or will be interested in, and how much he values physical vs. virtual social contact...
This is great advice for other people in the same situation.
I personally greatly prefer physical to virtual contact, at least for friendships. Not so sure about for general intellectual pursuits. Online communities have been great in terms of getting me to read things, but physical communities have so far been much more effective at getting me to actually do things other than read specific books, or write things.
I might be able to change this, maybe not. I haven’t particularly tried to.