“Behind the Power Curve” by Simon Funk
Brandyn Webb (Simon Funk) of After Life fame is an impressively rational person. One of his essays, Behind the Power Curve, resonated with me so much that I need to share it with you. Quotes don’t do it justice, just read the whole thing.
Yup, a restatement of “going into debt for luxuries is bad.” I think I was less impacted by the article because I’ve run into this concept a lot before… I can think of basic economics, conversations with parents, and the book Nickeled and Dimed.
Which makes the question interesting: why did the essay resonate so much with you? Have you not run into the concepts much? Have you been in situations where you could have put this into practice, or have you not really?
I prefer the simple heuristic: keep your standard of living a raise behind you.
I would note that Brandyn also made a name for himself by publishing the details of an impressively simple algorithm on his website that made a ~4-5% improvement in the NetflixPrize, which contributed to hooking\bootstrapping a lot of amateurs into that contest.
I spent an afternoon reading essentially the entirety of his old blog posts after discovering the above, and it was rewarding for me. He could be a centroid in the LW cluster.
It’s intriguing, but I’d like a general principle for what a person needs to give up in order to be more effective.
I don’t mean to rain on cousin_it’s parade at all here, but I have to put in an additional plug for “After Life.” Even if you didn’t really find the blog post especially interesting, if you have any affinity for science fiction I really think “After Life” is worth a look. I recommend it with no reservations.
It’s short, it’s free, and it’s the best exploration I’ve seen of some very LessWrong ideas. The premise of the story is based on recursive self-modification and uploading, and it’s entertaining as well as interesting.
um....if it’s the best you’ve seen dealing with ems you need to read permutation city immediately.
also greg egan’s online short stories (try crystal nights, dark integers, and singleton): http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/BIBLIOGRAPHY/Online.html#Stories
you might also like the five part passages story: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/12/21/17846/757
life artificial: http://lifeartificial.com/
I think this one is great too. Also check this video.