Juan Orbea

These examples seem haphazard, and indeed, to some extent they are so intentionally: the goal is first and foremost to shock the reader out of their existing world model so they can start downloading Balaji's own.

When navigating the question of which high school to attend or — if you don’t have a choice — who to make friends with as a high school student (or which kinds of people to encourage your kids to befriend if you’re a parent, although good luck with getting them to listen), ask yourself the following questions:

Perhaps you are WEIRD: raised in a society that is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic.

I find that the synthesis of psychology and philosophy produces advantages that neither one possesses on its own. It produces a hybridized mode of understanding that is at once intellectually acute and at the same time full of exuberance and human passion, and that can consequently provide a real entry into the greater depth of life.

Our model instincts are just not attuned to that at all, they are not sensitive to the sheer scale of what an individual is able to achieve if he or she is trying to make a really positive difference in the world.

Prepare for a world of compound innovation which blends 3, 5, 10 strands of infotech, greentech, biotech and healthtech to solve the Grand Challenges our world faces-and the more routine ones.

It is not trying to justify network states using some abstract theory (eg. some Dunbar's number or concentrated-incentive argument that the optimal size of a political body is actually in the low tens of thousands). Rather, it is an argument that situates network states as a response to the particular political situation of the world at its current... See more