I wish I had discovered LessWrong earlier in my life. But perhaps I wouldn’t be able to appreciate it back then. This was always my curse: I couldn’t see the wisdom in other people’s words until learned it the hard way.
I always believed intelligence to be the most advantageous trait, and if I failed at something, it was only because I was not smart enough. Or smart enough to avoid strings attached.
Born in Russia and self-educated, I tried to emigrate with no preparations. Without a degree or much money, I could only get tourist visas and had no means to settle anywhere, traveling mainly through Southeast Asia countries.
However, 7 years abroad turned out to be the best thing I could do for personal growth. I’ve met many interesting people from all around the world, immersed myself in local cultures and religious practices. Buddhism helped to improve my introspective skills and Islam explained the importance of priority management. Eventually, immigration authorities tired of such a vagabond tourist, and I had to return to Russia with the hope of one day qualifying for talent visas.
I tried myself in writing but couldn’t even get any feedback from the readers. But improved writing skills helped me to win an InnoCentive challenge. Prize money allowed to dedicate several years to an ambitious software project and, with improved EI, I finally made something cool. Upon reaching a proof-of-concept, I emerged from the coding intending to get funding and dive back into coding. But I’ve faced the same problem of promoting my work.
As it didn’t go viral with the target group of software engineers, I tried to appeal to the vision behind the project, which is essentially an alternative to AI. Trying to promote it in AI-related subreddits, I figured that AI-alignment is a kind of related subject; and in r/ControlProblem, I stumbled upon links to LessWrong.
So, this is how I’ve got here. But despite the mentioned primary goal, I think, maybe I’ll make my first post about a highly speculative subject of healing powers of meditation in the words of correlation between attention and humoral regulation. Basically, to rewrite my old article and see if I got the spirit of LessWrong right :)
I wish I had discovered LessWrong earlier in my life. But perhaps I wouldn’t be able to appreciate it back then. This was always my curse: I couldn’t see the wisdom in other people’s words until learned it the hard way.
I always believed intelligence to be the most advantageous trait, and if I failed at something, it was only because I was not smart enough. Or smart enough to avoid strings attached.
Born in Russia and self-educated, I tried to emigrate with no preparations. Without a degree or much money, I could only get tourist visas and had no means to settle anywhere, traveling mainly through Southeast Asia countries.
However, 7 years abroad turned out to be the best thing I could do for personal growth. I’ve met many interesting people from all around the world, immersed myself in local cultures and religious practices. Buddhism helped to improve my introspective skills and Islam explained the importance of priority management. Eventually, immigration authorities tired of such a vagabond tourist, and I had to return to Russia with the hope of one day qualifying for talent visas.
I tried myself in writing but couldn’t even get any feedback from the readers. But improved writing skills helped me to win an InnoCentive challenge. Prize money allowed to dedicate several years to an ambitious software project and, with improved EI, I finally made something cool. Upon reaching a proof-of-concept, I emerged from the coding intending to get funding and dive back into coding. But I’ve faced the same problem of promoting my work.
As it didn’t go viral with the target group of software engineers, I tried to appeal to the vision behind the project, which is essentially an alternative to AI. Trying to promote it in AI-related subreddits, I figured that AI-alignment is a kind of related subject; and in r/ControlProblem, I stumbled upon links to LessWrong.
So, this is how I’ve got here. But despite the mentioned primary goal, I think, maybe I’ll make my first post about a highly speculative subject of healing powers of meditation in the words of correlation between attention and humoral regulation. Basically, to rewrite my old article and see if I got the spirit of LessWrong right :)