nico λ

Addiction is in all of us. This argument has come to matter a great deal to me. The reason I care about it is that when I truly felt this notion in my bones, reading accounts of addiction and recovery from across history, it was profoundly reassuring and comforting. As I write at more length in the book, I developed a sense of fellowship with all... See more

Both projects adopted a similar approach using biometrics, blockchains, crypto tokens ($WLD and $H, respectively), and Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP). They are both somewhat controversial—in my opinion for misguided reasons, rooted in a lack of understanding of ZKPs or ideological bias against biometrics and crypto. Both can be considered early-stage... See more

Normal behavior is forgotten. Only weird behavior survives.

Nobody tells stories of when you did the expected — they only tell stories when you did the unexpected.

Normal behavior costs nothing in the short term — but it disappears into the abyss.

Unconventional behavior costs a social price in the short term — but the actions live on as story assets... See more

Generation labels are effectively like astrology or MBTI for people who think they’re smarter than that. It turns out that across history, the one commonality that brings people of all ages together is hating young people and their behaviour while ignoring the intertwining social, economic and historical contexts that made them that way - contexts... See more

Arnold Kling, an economist, published a book a decade ago that offered a way to think about the core difference between progressives and conservatives. Progressives, Kling wrote, see the world as a struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed, and they try to help the oppressed. Conservatives see the world as a struggle between civilization and... See more

A SOCKS proxy operates at a lower level compared to a traditional HTTP/HTTPS proxy. Thus, a SOCKS proxy allows you to forward all types of web traffic—including HTTP, HTTPS, but also FTP, POP, IMAP, and other application-level protocols.

I usually think of contrarianism as being wrong most of the time but helping on the margin because it brings light to positions that are underrated due to social conformity factors. I think most meta-contrarians would admit that they’re wrong most of the time. It would be quite silly to take the meta contrarian point and think you are right most of... See more