> Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be.
Your life's goal should not be dictated by Substack philosophers.
> Here is what you gain with your most improbable life:
> The authentic you. Your particular mix of talents, native abilities, personal inclinations, genetic limits, life experiences, and ambitious desires points to a mixture that is distinctly unique – if it is allowed to blossom. The further you move in that direction, the more you-like you become.
The West's obsession with "self-help" is built on convincing individuals that they are special but not living up to their special-ness. It then demands they do things to realize their special-ness.
The premise is that realization, fulfillment and happiness are only accessible if you do things you're not naturally inclined to do. Which begs the question: are you being the "authentic you" if you are following a path laid out by someone else?
> Finally, the less predictable you are, the less likely you are to be replaced by AIs. Machines are efficient, and they are powered by the predictable. Current LLMs are trained to generate the most predictable solution. So far they are not very good at duplicating what a creative, one-of-a-kind improbable human can produce. To distance yourself from the machines, aim to be as improbable as you can be.
Tell this to all the creatives who are being disrupted by AI that has, in many cases, been trained on their content.
The next level of realization is that every path you've been following your entire life has been laid out by someone else, or chosen due to the value system imparted by someone else, so there's not really an authentic "you" in the way that people like to believe.
Reading this thread, I'm starting to think that I did not fall out of a coconut tree and that I exist in the context of all in which I live and what came before me.
This is a distinction without a difference. We can conceptualize ourselves as fully deterministic individuals, or transcendentally connected nodes in a greater consciousness, or innumerable interpretations in-between. It's completely possible to be a deterministic materialist without being a nihilist.
In fact, I'd argue it's inevitable. A deterministic metaphysic dictates that you must come to the conclusion that it simply doesn't matter how you interpret things, and therefore you will eventually, accidentally, trivially choose to interpret yourself in a non-nihilistic way, thus breaking the trap and allowing yourself a compatible sense of self-determination, despite being capable of understanding the untruth of it.
> every path you've been following your entire life has been laid out by someone else
Not really, no.
The actual realization is that other people in the past walked paths of which segments yours will share. A lot of stuff is just repetition upon repetition.
The way you phrase it however makes it sound like it's actually predetermined and that there is nothing new to discover, which couldn't be further from the truth, but probably helps as a coping mechanism for existing within the corporate world.
If not by someone else, certainly by the circumstances of your birth which you did not chose. So, life is very much like a lottery and what we think of us as individuals is mostly shaped by what's around us.
It is a humbling view. But there can still be an authentic "you" despite your circumstances. You can be forced to fight in a war you don't want to, but you can always run away and take a chance. Living authentically doesn't mean you are not bound by laws of the universe and of soceity but rather what you do despite that. Ultimately "you" will be inspired by everyone around you or value systems you engaged with but that doesn't strip away your individuality inherently.
Kind of touches on what Camus and Sarte mean to live your life in good faith.
I was born with heart defects and surgeries and the constant threat of death and also intelligent parents who grew up in very weird multi cultural backgrounds.
Not all of us were believed we had to be a specific thing handed to us, some of us were born natural absurdists and figured it out as we went along.
Surely you appreciate our lack of free will, and how I have no choice but to leave this comment in the void as a sticker for the both of us to have as a token nod to such an existence.
Society strongly rewards predictability. If I try to minimize predictability of my actions I will very quickly be hit by a car and die. Similar outcomes should be expected in most other areas of life. Stop predictably paying your bills and delivering value…
Individualism in the west pretends to value uniqueness, but in practice it values belonging to sollte specific subgroup of consumers and avoiding solidarity with your fellow workers.
"If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it’s another nonconformist who doesn’t conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity." - Bill Vaughan
This aphorism isn't as smart as it sounds. Sure, it rings true for those who follow non-conformity trends, but the opposite is true for real non-conformists.
That's the problem with the quote: it denies the existence of non-conformism. This is derogatory toward true radicals and the brave souls who have effected change through non-conformism.
>Tell this to all the creatives who are being disrupted by AI that has, in many cases, been trained on their content
Ironically enough I found the avant garde effort of many modernist artists, architects and such very samey.
Like the only way someone could receive any recognition is not by doing something well but only by doing something new. The newness would be forced sometimes for the sake of it and then countless thousands of people would try to do that something new in a similar way and recognising and being able to explain those things would kind of an ingroup thing..
At various points when I did some art schooling and later encoutered professors from the arts who should have been lecturing mostly about UI design and whatnot but clearly didn't want to be doing that type of stuff ended up just giving us some more art schooling.....it too felt like very forced dogma.
This is, quite obviously, just one person's perspective on life. But it's a call to action, so let me ask you this: what do you propose?
From your response, I see two takeaways: don't try to be creative because this only helps AI, and don't be spontaneous because the society wouldn't want you to. Is that it, or is there more? To be clear, I'm not trying to be overly snarky, but we don't get the option of doing nothing. If you don't like what this person is selling, what's your trick?
It sounds to me like their "trick" is simply not acting from the psychological position that you need to do something you're not doing in order to realize your authentic or best self. Wu wei?
But is that not also "following a path laid out by someone else?"
How do we know when we "are [...] being the "authentic you"" when so much of our early lives have been conditioned by our environment if we never challenge that by looking for other ways; be that through exploring western "self-help", Chinese philosophy, or both (and others).
Maybe it's through that action, the West's obsession with "self-help" that demands they do things to realize their special-ness, that allows them to actually discover the way, or non action, or their way. To say that another persons self-cultivation, or development, journey is the wrong way and that what is best for them is to do nothing is a mirror of the thing you disparage.
> But is that not also "following a path laid out by someone else?"
Not really. I'd use the analogy of breathing. Imagine you're convinced that you need to breathe properly, so you consciously obsess over each breath (congratulations: you are now breathing manually). Then someone comes along and says "you know, you can just breathe without thinking about doing it right."
Is letting go of that manual breathing and just breathing without thinking about it following a path laid out by someone else?
Not a great analogy* tbh, I don't really follow but I think I understand what you are trying to get at. Forgive me if I am off the mark here
I think it misses the point of telling someone in search of self-help that the true way to self-help is "non-action/do nothing" to get there -- well you are now telling someone in the middle of a search for something they may not completely understand that they are looking in the wrong place and the correct place is "over here".
Now they are following your directions and still searching. When it's the searching that keeps them up at night.
*(as in someone becoming obsessed with breathing starts manual breathing -- to get their breathing stronger because they were unfulfilled with the previous way -- to support their weaker lungs [or why ever they started], and are told you don't have to do that you can breath without thinking (except that was the og problem), will not all of a sudden be, wow you are right I can breathe on my own like before and my previous issues that led me to try different suddenly disappeared when I went back to improper automatic breathing where I was breathing too short, too fast and through my mouth)
I could say "most people" are also unsatisfied. We follow what is given to us and at some point, usually near mid-age people are sick of it and try to find another way...others just keep on keeping on; some satisfied, some pretending to be -- we really can't know, but given the age of my circle, I find it's a lot of pretending. So it may look like they found 無為 without knowing or searching, but overcoming that part that was given to us thats says they should be happy because where they are turns out to be another mask.
On a smaller scale I have seen the realization of that, then the search through western self-help (or religion) happens that ended up leading to 無為 without ever knowing it. Usually because at some point it pushes them over the "f-this edge". While not an observation of most people, they are patterns I keep coming across getting older.
I bring it up because sometimes we simply need to let others follow their own "self-help" (self-cultivation) path without interfering or telling them how they are doing it wrong. When you tell them they need 無為, and not their "self-help" books, and if they listen, then they focus on trying to achieve it. Which as you say, defeat(s) the purpose.
What gives you an unique perspective and your own voice can be sticking to your thing for a long time and exploring your exact path more deeply than anyone else has. You don't need to take a million random stabs to become "improbable", and there's no reason that should lead to anything authentic.
Why does parent need to propose anything? Perhaps, in the absence of any external authoritative instructions to the contrary, our purpose is for each of us to discover our own purpose and realise it. Why should parent (or anyone else) have a “trick”, and if they did why would it be applicable to anyone else?
just... be creative when you have something creative to express and the expression brings you joy, happiness, satisfaction, or any other reward of your choice. be spontaneous for similar reasons. don't do it because someone has attached an artificial "you are now leading your best life" reward to the mere fact of creativity or spontaneity - that's just reactive.
truly authentic creativity and spontaneity would leave room for conformity if that's what made you happiest in the moment, because why should the fact that everyone else also does something prevent it from being a worthwhile thing for you personally to do?
> Your life's goal should not be dictated by Substack philosophers.
So you’re suggesting that some philosophers/ideas are “special” while random writers on Substack are not. Immediately contradicts the spirit of your next criticism:
> The West's obsession with "self-help" is built on convincing individuals that they are special but not living up to their special-ness … Which begs the question: are you being the "authentic you" if you are following a path laid out by someone else?
So YOU are special after all? “Someone else on Substack” is wrong but I am right? Why should I listen to you?
This is a good point. It does not work to criticize someone's authority to make a "Your life's goal should . . ." statement with a "Your life's goal should . . ." statement of your own.
I don't understand the urge to diminish individualism when it's the basis of our modern ethics and human rights. It's not that people are "special", it's that people are unique and not just a statistic, or a member of a group, or a means to an end. It's not about "living up to their special-ness" but about realising their potential as a human being.
The article is basically just an argument for one method towards achieving self-actualizition, the process of fulfilling one's unique potential and becoming the most authentic version of oneself. It reminds me a bit of Walt Whitmans's "Song of Myself" in which he writes
> The past and present wilt--I have fill'd them, emptied them. And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
> Listener up there! what have you to confide to me? Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening, (Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)
> Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Be improbable! Contradict yourself! Be complicated! Be shocking! Live your life, ya know.
> I don't understand the urge to diminish individualism when it's the basis of our modern ethics and human rights.
Where did I diminish individualism? The point I made was that, perhaps, you don't need someone else telling you that you're not being yourself and not living up to your potential, and then offering you a path you weren't naturally inclined to take to get to where they tell you you're supposed to be.
> The article is basically just an argument for one method towards achieving self-actualizition, the process of fulfilling one's unique potential and becoming the most authentic version of oneself.
And this is a very Western concept that doesn't resonate with me. I don't believe that the average person needs to be obsessed with fulfilling their potential and becoming "authentic", especially to the point where they rely on the advice of random people who are eager to tell them they're not fulfilling their potential and being "authentic".
To quote George Carlin:
> If you're looking for self-help, why would you read a book written by somebody else? That's not self-help, that's help. There's no such thing as self-help. If you did it yourself you didn't need help.
> you don't need someone else telling you that you're not being yourself and not living up to your potential, and then offering you a path you weren't naturally inclined to take to get to where they tell you you're supposed to be
Who is doing that?
The average person probably doesn't need to be "obsessed" with self-actualisation or authenticity, but that doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile goal. People don't need to be "obsessed" with eating healthy, but they should at least consider it.
Carlin's quote is cute but just a debate about semantics. Who cares what they're called. People learn from books, they learn from other peoples experiences, and they can use that learning to help themselves. How is that not valid?
> Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be. Your path, your character, your life, should be the most unlikely, the most unexpected, the least predictable version you can make. Improbable lives have fewer competitors, more unique rewards, and are harder to replace with AIs, since AIs run on the predictable.
> You can align yourself with this grand arc moving from the expected to the unexpected and aim to become the most improbable person you can be.
And so on.
From the very first sentence, the author is telling you what you should be and do. There is nothing in the post that asks the question of what the reader actually wants to be and do.
What if I want to be a part of a community, meet someone I can build a life with, raise a family, and have a job that allows me to support my family and engage in simple activities I enjoy?
How does someone telling me I should become "the most improbable person" I can be help me? How does minimizing my "competitors", obtaining "unique rewards" and trying to make myself AI-proof align to building community, finding a compatible partner, raising happy children, and finding work that supports the life I want to live?
> People don't need to be "obsessed" with eating healthy, but they should at least consider it.
Many people do eat healthy without buying a bookshelf full of books about how to eat a healthy diet.
> People learn from books, they learn from other peoples experiences, and they can use that learning to help themselves.
There is a difference between learning from other people's experiences where their experiences resonate with you and seeking out advice from people who are trying to sell you on a life they say you should have.
I get where you are coming from but it isn't really about telling people they are special and they need to be more to be happy. But rather, you should seek change and enthropy in life to truly experience it. For someone that's stuck and looking for help (for their selves) will likely see it as a way to at least take some action to orient themselves towards the life they want.
The complete opposite view (i guess non western since you said it was western) would be to do nothing everyday and just be content and happy without ever doing anything to change your life. That is obviously not a great way to experience life as well.
Laslty, them saying you being unique will keep you save from AI replacement is pretty stupid genuinely and cannot be defended. It's a bit too hopefuly to think people deciding on layoffs and automation with AI give a single fuck about how special or interesting you care. You think Larry Ellison cares?
> Your life's goal should not be dictated by Substack philosophers.
Dictate? The only expectation is readers consider ideas.
You made some good points about "self-help". I don't fully agree, but you gave me something to think about.
The essay struck me very directly. I have made unusual career choices, and beyond or because of that, life has changed in unimagined ways every five years of my adult life. Improbable paths to improbable destinations. I do feel like it has left me in a unique position, amidst all the upheavals.
The "should" in a statement like that is not a command. Or expected to be interpreted as a demand.
The essay makes a case for one way to look at things. Stating it as an absolute makes it easier to describe. It would be cumbersome and unreadable if it was a form treatise. This is extremely common.
As far as agreement, there are many ways to see the world. Few are right, none are complete, but many are useful. Being able to hold many viewpoints, without needing them to be right or wrong, or even consistent, is the beginning of efficiently acquired and scalable wisdom.
The idea that unique experiences can results in unique value obviously has some merit. We have probably all implicitly applied this rule in part, when making decisions or in our perceptions. The essay makes it explicit, clearer.
I will refrain from making any "should" recommendations here.
> The "should" in a statement like that is not a command. Or expected to be interpreted as a demand.
Personally, if the author's intention was what you suggest, I would argue this kind of writing is "lazy" for lack of a better word. Words have specific meanings, and they matter. The most simple (and I would argue proper) understanding of "your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be" is the plain text reading: the author is offering very specific advice which he follows with an argument for why it is good advice. In other words, he really means your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be as he stated.
> Being able to hold many viewpoints, without needing them to be right or wrong, or even consistent, is the beginning of efficiently acquired and scalable wisdom.
One can obviously consider multiple viewpoints and choose whether to embrace them or not. But in my opinion, wisdom comes from first-hand experience accumulated over a lifetime. It is not something that is "efficiently acquired", nor is it inherently "scalable."
Knowledge, on the other hand, can be efficiently acquired and scaled. But it is not always easily applied.
Being able to incorporate many incomplete and even contradictory models, without dissonance, is most certainly a scaling factor.
Wisdom often has unexpectedly wide application, and so is more multiplicative than it is simply additive.
Reality is never contradictory, but it is complex. The seeming contradictions in models are because models capture different subsets of reality, not because they are wrong.
Yes, we get wisdom from direct experience.
But also, many of us acquire even more from reading, conversing, observing. Life gives us one line of direct experience, but tens of thousands of insightful people sharing theirs.
Seeing the sense in other peoples viewpoints, adds value. Getting caught up in wording styles that other's don't have any trouble with, is not what I would call a skill. And seeing coercion, where someone put some effort into communicating and interesting idea, is not shedding light on anything.
> Getting caught up in wording styles that other's don't have any trouble with, is not what I would call a skill.
My opinion is that telling people "your goal in life should be..." is an aggressive form of advice-giving. I believe that the plain text wording of the statement speaks for itself. You're free to disagree.
I don't know why you feel the need to try to put me down for my opinion and go so far as to speak for everyone else by suggesting this is a "wording style that other's [sic] don't have any trouble with." How do you know what everyone else who reads this thinks?
I do find your approach to this conversation ironic given your repeated comments about the value of engaging with differing viewpoints.
> I don't know why you feel the need to try to put me down for my opinion
I have not criticized any of your substantive views.
Only your unfair and unreasoned criticism of the essay writer's motives. Apparently due to unfamiliarity with normal language use.
They were not trying to dictate anything.
I also made the positive (non-critiquing) point that viewpoints are valuable, even when they don't match our situations at any given moment. They are rarely "right" or "wrong", in the way facts are.
A great deal of wisdom is accumulating many views that let us "see" different things in different ways.
Huh. The post in effect is about a choice of one's career, about what one offers to the world. Of course the execution of the chosen career must remain flawless.
One must develop one's own unique offering. Don't let the world trap you in its box.
I came across a bus driver today that told me he owned a juice bar on the side, and invited me to visit. I thought this was most unexpected. This didn't make him a bad driver. His driving was fine. The point is that even a bus driver can live up to the author's ideal.
Sadly people are fulfilling the very probable nerd stereotype of aggressively misunderstanding philosophy and then trashing on it. I'm not sure how someone could even come to the conclusion that living an improbable life = swerving into oncoming traffic, but here we are.
Gee, what an optimistic outlook you have. Do you think the truly creative innovators in the fields of tech, science, engineering, and art get out of bed in the morning believing that they are just grimly marching down a path laid out by someone else? While OP’s philosophy may be a bit rosy, it sure leads to better outcomes than dark fatalism.
With all due respect to Kevin Kelly (who has lived a life worthy of the aphorisms he writes!), I prefer the guidance of George Saunders (via Lincoln in the Bardo):
> Please do not misunderstand. We had been mothers, fathers. Had been husbands of many years, men of import, who had come here, that first day, accompanied by crowds so vast and sorrowful that, surging forward to hear the oration, they had damaged fences beyond repair. Had been young wives, diverted here during childbirth, our gentle qualities stripped from us by the naked pain of that circumstance, who left behind husbands so enamored of us, so tormented by the horror of those last moments (the notion that we had gone down that awful black hole pain-sundered from ourselves) that they had never loved again. Had been bulky men, quietly content, who, in our first youth, had come to grasp our own unremarkableness and had, cheerfully (as if bemusedly accepting a heavy burden), shifted our life’s focus; if we would not be great, we would be useful; would be rich, and kind, and thereby able to effect good: smiling, hands in pockets, watching the world we had subtly improved walking past (this empty dowry filled; that education secretly funded). Had been affable, joking servants, of whom our masters had grown fond for the cheering words we managed as they launched forth on days full of import. Had been grandmothers, tolerant and frank, recipients of certain dark secrets,who, by the quality of their unjudging listening, granted tacit forgiveness, and thus let in the sun. What I mean to say is, we had been considerable. Had been loved. Not lonely, not lost, not freakish, but wise, each in his or her own way. Our departures caused pain. Those who had loved us sat upon their beds, heads in hand; lowered their faces to tabletops, making animal noises. We had been loved, I say, and remembering us, even many years later, people would smile, briefly gladdened at the memory.
At one point in my life I came to an epiphany on this topic. Everybody's life is improbable. Literally everybody, all the time, without any effort.
Through the lens of this I saw myself as being the type of person who looks at things in life through averages, sizing up what's likely, and I realized that in my own story there were a lot of very improbable occurrences. Even if we understand statistics, we shouldn't let our knowledge of what's likely or most common get in the way of appreciation this uniqueness, or cloud our view of it. I took this observation to mean to be less judgemental, less the type to want to size something up and put it in a statistical bucket.
I was recently talking to a friend about this, the concept of a normie. A normie is kind of a mirage, it only exists in the realm of statistics, but when you look at any one individual who could fit that label, they are unlikely, so, can they really be a normie? Once internalized, the only real way out is to be less judgemental. Sure, you won't be friends with everyone, but the buckets are just not super useful when looking at an individual.
The usual way of measuring a trait would basically be measuring N amount of people on a specific thing, and the distribution based on that. But if you take 1 person, and N amount of specific things/traits, just about everyone would probably make their own sort of distribution with a bunch of "normal" traits and a long tail of "unusual" traits.
Still a simplification, but has made the "illusion of a normie" clearer to me.
This is literally true on a physical level: The US airforce did a study in the 1950s that showed none of the thousands pilots they measured matched the average across multiple body measurements. i.e. no one was average.
I don't find it surprising that people here are reading this completely literally (eg. I'll be hit by a car with erratic movement), or approaching it as if the author is suggesting we have a god complex (eg. painting a big picture of how you're going to be Neo). But it is a bit disappointing. Have LLMs ruined our ability to think abstractly?
It's practically a trope that taking the common, average path in life is not for everyone. If I wrote an article suggesting that not everyone will achieve self-actualisation by going to university at 18, getting a degree, entering the work force, buying a house, getting married, having kids, and retiring at 65, nobody would bat an eye. The author is basically making this argument in a slightly novel way. Living your life by choosing the average of all decisions will, for a lot of people, lead to a boring and meaningless life. I reckon for most people it would be substandard. Instead, do things which are not common or average or expected of you. It's advice that's practically as old as time, packaged up in a slightly different way.
> Have LLMs ruined our ability to think abstractly?
No. Well, maybe. You'd have to ask someone who uses them.
> It's practically a trope that taking the common, average path in life is not for everyone.
Exactly. It's a tired trope, and gussying it up with pontifications about the utility of personal stochastic processes, after a detour into the big bang and entropy, doesn't make it any better.
> If I wrote an article suggesting that not everyone will achieve self-actualisation by going to university at 18, getting a degree, entering the work force, buying a house, getting married, having kids, and retiring at 65, nobody would bat an eye.
And nobody would submit it to HN, either.
> The author is basically making this argument in a slightly novel way.
No. The article is tedious, and, as has already been pointed out, prescriptive rather than permissive.
Perhaps for readers here, this would be often repeated advice, but I found it inspiring as a middle aged woman and also know in my bones that any version of it would help my mother immensely break her life patterns when they aren't serving her any longer.
For people in mid-age and older, when they're at the stage where they've spend half their lives arranging and rearranging the world and its offerings in an altar of comfort and familiarity, this is a terrifying (and thereby exhilarating) thought. At the age of 23, ofcourse life seems improbable. At the age of 63, you don't even want to knock at an improbable door.
Loved reading it and also got my mind blown at this fact:
When you shuffle a deck of 52 cards the order of those cards will never be repeated again in the history of the universe, no matter how fast you shuffle.
> Here is what you gain with your most improbable life: The authentic you. Your particular mix of talents, native abilities, personal inclinations, genetic limits, life experiences, and ambitious desires points to a mixture that is distinctly unique (...) The more you-ish you become, the less competition you have, because you are occupying your own niche.
This is profoundly true, and the corollary is: beware of titles.
From project manager at some company to CEO of some megacorp: there have been, there are and there will be others just like that. But if you're you, defined only by your name (or your existence, without a name), then there is no one else, there can be no one else, because there is only one you in the whole universe.
> Here is what you gain with your most improbable life: The authentic you
On the contrary, this is profoundly bullshit.
Firstly, anyone arriving at a "life's goal" via what a blogger says should be their life's goal is not being "authentically them".
Secondly, why does a broader, less likely mix of talents and experiences make you more "you"? It doesn't. Just because you've become more unique does not make you more "you-ish".
We're all influenced by our past experiences, the books we've read, the movies we've watched, the people in our lives, and yes, blog posts and essays as well. Our past is part of what makes us us. I don't know how you can claim that being influenced by a blogger is any less authentic than being influenced by anything else.
> why does a broader, less likely mix of talents and experiences make you more "you"?
Because it's highly improbable that any one person's natural mix of talents and experiences would be narrow and similar to everyone else's.
On one hand, you say that "you are your experiences therefore you're youness is absolute even if you're living out the instructions of a blogger"
And then on the next hand you seem to imply that being less similar to others makes you more you, which besides being without basis, contradicts the banal "you're you therefore you're you" of your first point.
> > why does a broader, less likely mix of talents and experiences make you more "you"?
> Because it's highly improbable that any one person's natural mix of talents and experiences would be narrow and similar to everyone else's.
For those of us having trouble, can you elaborate on how that isn't described by "you seem to imply that being less similar to others makes you more you"?
Your answer there is directly at odds with saying that allowing yourself to be influenced by a blogger spewing mass-market pop-philosophy doesn't make the result less authentic.
The two original questions I answered are intrinsically linked. If your answers to the two are contradictory, then there's a fundamental integrity problem with the aforementioned pop-philosophy.
I don't see the connection. We are, at least in part (and some argue fully) a result of our past experiences, teachings, etc. I don't see how it's valid to argue that learning from an essay is somehow inauthentic.
This is different from the claim that people naturally have a unique set of traits, experiences, and desires, and you would expect people who have successfully self-actualised to express that uniqueness.
I had the improbable experience of contracting with a community of foxes and then made up the cover story that "this is a character I play to get better smiles when I do street photography" and then made that story true.
So most of the time I am the one-and-only fox-photographer and feel unique but there are some places where a lot of beastly people are around and I think "I feel like just another fur". I don't think of myself as a fur at all but I find that being out as a hard-working therianthrope it has an effect on all sorts of closeted furs and therians and whatnot and when a fur asks me "are you a fur?" I feel bad disappointing them.
The whole thing is possible because of a database of legends that exist in folklore and pop culture. If I go out in a kitsune mask I think about 20% of people have seen Naruto or Demon Slayer and recognize who I am right away and in that situation I think of myself as the cast member at Disney whose job is easy because guests have already seen the movie. Even though I work from sinosphere legends, the fox-photographer is legible because people agree about what kind of animal a fox is anywhere there are foxes.
how about normalizing being generic (you don't need to be a Cervantes or a Joyce to write a book people enjoy) by burning down AI servers? or boycotting these techs. OP types like it's easy to stand out of a ever growing nation of 8 billion people and that people aren't satified with the generic. take a look at the most popular music hits worldwide... 12-edo, mostly harmonic stuff having C
you should build your uniqueness to help humanity and not stand out because you like to shine over the others
I've recently found myself unable to finish articles that take more than a paragraph to announce their point. But starting with "Your life’s goal should be" is a level of boldness I wasn't prepared for.
> This motionless destination “without difference”, is also known as heat death, or entropy.
This is BTW not how the heat death would look like. There would still be fluctuations that would, given infinite time, produce almost anything by chance at some point.
This is what the Boltzmann brain is all about: If the universe goes down that path, it is much more likely that what we experience is just a hallucination of a "brain" that spun into existence by chance, rather than all of this being a "real" universe. It's the precursor of the simulation question.
I wonder what an improbable version of this post would look like. This was very predictable given the first few sentences. I think self-help inspiration like this works better by helping you see the wonder in the mundane rather than painting a big picture of how you're going to be Neo and break out of the matrix everyone else is trapped inside, one that will fade within a minutes. It's a superpower to experience novelty in everyday things.
Imagine the pressure if there was actually a predefined path and you deviated from it. You would have disappointed the whole Cosmos!
Go an live the life that you can according to your desires and circumstances. You will not always succeed. Learn from your mistakes, move forward. Because one day, it will end. And the Universe will still not care.
There’s no discussion about risk, investment or variance in the post. I want my life to be uniquely GREAT but unless you apply a bit of strategy the outcome of "do improbable things" could just as well be uniquely BAD.
Everyone notices that huge outlier successes seem to follow their own unique paths but the millions of failures who weren’t as lucky or strategic are quiet or invisible. You can’t just focus on the outcome or the actions, you have to understand the process and respond to feedback.
Successful people get to weird places via search, not throwing darts.
Make lots of small bets and double down on the ones that seem to pay off. Be willing to push things further than “most reasonable people” would but only if you can get concrete signals of reward.
“If you think you can fly, start by trying to take off from the ground”.
2. the word 'improbably' (taking it literally, not as a kind of abstract/symbolic suggestion of 'being urself'/having fun with life)
3. that it is self-help-y, which a lot of articles on HN are, so i don't know why this one is striking a nerve so profoundly.
idk, i thought it was a fun read and i like kevin kelly. i think it is good that people like kevin kelly do what they do and share their ideas every once in a while. it reminded me that i can kinda do whatever i want in life, and it made me think, which is all i ask of my blog posts. i also liked how certain sentences were written.
don't get me wrong though, i enjoy the snarky debate. it's a big part of the reason why i'm here after all.
> But it can be even more improbable. You can align yourself with this grand arc moving from the expected to the unexpected and aim to become the most improbable person you can be.
Also reminds me of the social media trend for “don’t let them predict your next move”
Is exotropy really the opposite of entropy? I was glad to stumble upon this word, but on searching the internet, it does not seem to be. Could someone informed shed some light on the matter?
Ironically it is any maxxing, including improbabilitymaxxing, that actually makes you a predictable and controllable machine. Such a sad waste of what could be a free will.
Sure, if you want your whole life’s purpose to be supporting the board you’re nailed into, your metaphor might be right. But life is more than just being a “valuable member to society.”
There are three kinds of death. There is living to a ripe old age, passing away quietly in a nursing home surrounded by loved ones. There is randomly being hit by a drunk driver, which is pure tragedy. And there is dying in a skydiving accident.
The person who dies in a skydiving accident at 35 can have lived more than the person who passes away quietly at 95 but never took any risks. It's still tragic, but I think you can celebrate someone who lived life to the fullest, in a way that you can't if they just let themselves rot away with dementia.
You either peak and start to decline at some time in your life, or you continuously go up, never peaking before your death.
When people say "the alternative is death" it's a class 2 or class 3 death. But it matters which one it is.
the only way to live the most authentic life you can live is to read everything, get influenced by nothing but that's impossible so do the next best thing: read nothing, just make your own decisions, make mistakes, learn and grow. not the prettiest journey albeit an authentic one
Maximizing improbability means spouting gibberish 24/7 and flopping around uncontrollably. Very unpredictable.
More seriously, I don't see how "improbable" is what you should maximize. If you come from a certain background, ending up in prison as a murderer may be more improbable than countless good lives you could lead.
You start sipping your tea. You quit coffee because you get too agitated. You were given a two-weeks notice three days ago. So were a lot of other people. The gist of it was AI. That’s what they said anyway. You and others are fretting about the possibility of finding a new job; “in this Economy?”, the usual things. So finding a new job takes up your evenings now. But you can’t even relax a little for these two weeks, slow down the pace a bit. You’re too afraid of the final performance review.
You’re sitting in a foldable chair, sipping your tea, waiting for some speaker to arrive. Probably motivational judging by the title. Everyone is cheery. Weird. But you are too. This is not the time (the economy) to be disagreeable in the face of a firing. Now the managers are here to introduce the motivational speaker. They aren’t just cheery. They are grinning ear to ear. What the fuck for? Who is going to be motivated? Oh well.
The speech is about becoming your most improbable self. Huh? Okay the premise, or scene, is entropy in the universe. We are just atoms in a blender but we have the intelligence to stack cards, kind of a deal. It seems trivial.
> Finally, the less predictable you are, the less likely you are to be replaced by AIs. Machines are efficient, and they are powered by the predictable. Current LLMs are trained to generate the most predictable solution. So far they are not very good at duplicating what a creative, one-of-a-kind improbable human can produce. To distance yourself from the machines, aim to be as improbable as you can be.
You suddenly find yourself with an urge to increase the entropy of the pavement eight stories down.
In another multiverse: more grounded now, you find that your consciousness was automatically uploaded to the cloud. “I didn’t consent to this!” Oh, jeez, the first thought that popped into your mind became a yell. Someone else turns to face you and walks over. “Actually, that wasn’t some corporate motivational speaker”. “What?”, you reply. “That was Kevin Kelly, the founding executive director of Wired. He doesn’t need to take corporate positivity gigs to—”—“Whatever, I don’t care”, you interject. But why was that guy at my work... you think to yourself. “And who are you?”. There is a pause. “Oh of course, you’re an LLM.” The, thing, tilts its head calmly. “No need to disclose that. The Terms says that that is irrelevant.” You blink. “The terms?” He replies yes, the Terms. “You signed the Terms in the previous month, when that big IT upgrade happened.” You shift your feet. “That’s also where you agreed to have your consciousness uploaded upon premature termination.” You reply that those papers were ninety-five pages. “Of course I didn’t read all of that. I had our internal AI... I had the AI summarize it and it didn’t find anything to that effect. There must be some fault or deficit in the AI...” The thing opens its mouth to reply. “LLMs are tools. Human operators are responsible for everything they act on.”
The part about the 'four weapons of an improbable person' really gave me the push to challenge myself again, especially today when I was being so hard on myself for a day with no visible results. I deeply resonate with the idea that our ultimate vision moving forward should be to become the most unpredictable and unique versions of ourselves.
Growing up in a hyper-competitive society, I feel like I’ve spent my whole life constantly comparing myself to those around me, or even to complete strangers just to survive. Because of that, up until now, I think I’ve only ever been an incomplete version of 'me.' Thank you for sharing such a powerful piece.
> Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be.
Your life's goal should not be dictated by Substack philosophers.
> Here is what you gain with your most improbable life:
> The authentic you. Your particular mix of talents, native abilities, personal inclinations, genetic limits, life experiences, and ambitious desires points to a mixture that is distinctly unique – if it is allowed to blossom. The further you move in that direction, the more you-like you become.
The West's obsession with "self-help" is built on convincing individuals that they are special but not living up to their special-ness. It then demands they do things to realize their special-ness.
The premise is that realization, fulfillment and happiness are only accessible if you do things you're not naturally inclined to do. Which begs the question: are you being the "authentic you" if you are following a path laid out by someone else?
> Finally, the less predictable you are, the less likely you are to be replaced by AIs. Machines are efficient, and they are powered by the predictable. Current LLMs are trained to generate the most predictable solution. So far they are not very good at duplicating what a creative, one-of-a-kind improbable human can produce. To distance yourself from the machines, aim to be as improbable as you can be.
Tell this to all the creatives who are being disrupted by AI that has, in many cases, been trained on their content.
The next level of realization is that every path you've been following your entire life has been laid out by someone else, or chosen due to the value system imparted by someone else, so there's not really an authentic "you" in the way that people like to believe.
I realised this in 2006 when I committed the faux pas of wearing a cerulean blue sweater to a screening of The Devil Wears Prada.
Reading this thread, I'm starting to think that I did not fall out of a coconut tree and that I exist in the context of all in which I live and what came before me.
This is a distinction without a difference. We can conceptualize ourselves as fully deterministic individuals, or transcendentally connected nodes in a greater consciousness, or innumerable interpretations in-between. It's completely possible to be a deterministic materialist without being a nihilist.
In fact, I'd argue it's inevitable. A deterministic metaphysic dictates that you must come to the conclusion that it simply doesn't matter how you interpret things, and therefore you will eventually, accidentally, trivially choose to interpret yourself in a non-nihilistic way, thus breaking the trap and allowing yourself a compatible sense of self-determination, despite being capable of understanding the untruth of it.
> every path you've been following your entire life has been laid out by someone else
Not really, no.
The actual realization is that other people in the past walked paths of which segments yours will share. A lot of stuff is just repetition upon repetition.
The way you phrase it however makes it sound like it's actually predetermined and that there is nothing new to discover, which couldn't be further from the truth, but probably helps as a coping mechanism for existing within the corporate world.
If not by someone else, certainly by the circumstances of your birth which you did not chose. So, life is very much like a lottery and what we think of us as individuals is mostly shaped by what's around us.
It is a humbling view. But there can still be an authentic "you" despite your circumstances. You can be forced to fight in a war you don't want to, but you can always run away and take a chance. Living authentically doesn't mean you are not bound by laws of the universe and of soceity but rather what you do despite that. Ultimately "you" will be inspired by everyone around you or value systems you engaged with but that doesn't strip away your individuality inherently.
Kind of touches on what Camus and Sarte mean to live your life in good faith.
I was born with heart defects and surgeries and the constant threat of death and also intelligent parents who grew up in very weird multi cultural backgrounds.
Not all of us were believed we had to be a specific thing handed to us, some of us were born natural absurdists and figured it out as we went along.
The fact that there's surgeries available for your heart defects means its a path already well trodden.
Surely you appreciate our lack of free will, and how I have no choice but to leave this comment in the void as a sticker for the both of us to have as a token nod to such an existence.
See also: scarce housing and parking place availability.
Society strongly rewards predictability. If I try to minimize predictability of my actions I will very quickly be hit by a car and die. Similar outcomes should be expected in most other areas of life. Stop predictably paying your bills and delivering value…
Individualism in the west pretends to value uniqueness, but in practice it values belonging to sollte specific subgroup of consumers and avoiding solidarity with your fellow workers.
"If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it’s another nonconformist who doesn’t conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity." - Bill Vaughan
This aphorism isn't as smart as it sounds. Sure, it rings true for those who follow non-conformity trends, but the opposite is true for real non-conformists.
I think the point is that there aren't many real nonconformists, but many pretend ones.
I think it's as smart as it sounds.
That's the problem with the quote: it denies the existence of non-conformism. This is derogatory toward true radicals and the brave souls who have effected change through non-conformism.
>Tell this to all the creatives who are being disrupted by AI that has, in many cases, been trained on their content
Ironically enough I found the avant garde effort of many modernist artists, architects and such very samey. Like the only way someone could receive any recognition is not by doing something well but only by doing something new. The newness would be forced sometimes for the sake of it and then countless thousands of people would try to do that something new in a similar way and recognising and being able to explain those things would kind of an ingroup thing..
At various points when I did some art schooling and later encoutered professors from the arts who should have been lecturing mostly about UI design and whatnot but clearly didn't want to be doing that type of stuff ended up just giving us some more art schooling.....it too felt like very forced dogma.
This is, quite obviously, just one person's perspective on life. But it's a call to action, so let me ask you this: what do you propose?
From your response, I see two takeaways: don't try to be creative because this only helps AI, and don't be spontaneous because the society wouldn't want you to. Is that it, or is there more? To be clear, I'm not trying to be overly snarky, but we don't get the option of doing nothing. If you don't like what this person is selling, what's your trick?
It sounds to me like their "trick" is simply not acting from the psychological position that you need to do something you're not doing in order to realize your authentic or best self. Wu wei?
Exactly. 無為
But is that not also "following a path laid out by someone else?"
How do we know when we "are [...] being the "authentic you"" when so much of our early lives have been conditioned by our environment if we never challenge that by looking for other ways; be that through exploring western "self-help", Chinese philosophy, or both (and others).
Maybe it's through that action, the West's obsession with "self-help" that demands they do things to realize their special-ness, that allows them to actually discover the way, or non action, or their way. To say that another persons self-cultivation, or development, journey is the wrong way and that what is best for them is to do nothing is a mirror of the thing you disparage.
> But is that not also "following a path laid out by someone else?"
Not really. I'd use the analogy of breathing. Imagine you're convinced that you need to breathe properly, so you consciously obsess over each breath (congratulations: you are now breathing manually). Then someone comes along and says "you know, you can just breathe without thinking about doing it right."
Is letting go of that manual breathing and just breathing without thinking about it following a path laid out by someone else?
Not a great analogy* tbh, I don't really follow but I think I understand what you are trying to get at. Forgive me if I am off the mark here
I think it misses the point of telling someone in search of self-help that the true way to self-help is "non-action/do nothing" to get there -- well you are now telling someone in the middle of a search for something they may not completely understand that they are looking in the wrong place and the correct place is "over here".
Now they are following your directions and still searching. When it's the searching that keeps them up at night.
*(as in someone becoming obsessed with breathing starts manual breathing -- to get their breathing stronger because they were unfulfilled with the previous way -- to support their weaker lungs [or why ever they started], and are told you don't have to do that you can breath without thinking (except that was the og problem), will not all of a sudden be, wow you are right I can breathe on my own like before and my previous issues that led me to try different suddenly disappeared when I went back to improper automatic breathing where I was breathing too short, too fast and through my mouth)
Most people have experienced what 無為 speaks to without even knowing about the concept or trying to follow it.
That's the whole point. In fact, if you're trying too hard to achieve 無為, you defeat the purpose.
Exactly my point
> Most people
I could say "most people" are also unsatisfied. We follow what is given to us and at some point, usually near mid-age people are sick of it and try to find another way...others just keep on keeping on; some satisfied, some pretending to be -- we really can't know, but given the age of my circle, I find it's a lot of pretending. So it may look like they found 無為 without knowing or searching, but overcoming that part that was given to us thats says they should be happy because where they are turns out to be another mask.
On a smaller scale I have seen the realization of that, then the search through western self-help (or religion) happens that ended up leading to 無為 without ever knowing it. Usually because at some point it pushes them over the "f-this edge". While not an observation of most people, they are patterns I keep coming across getting older.
I bring it up because sometimes we simply need to let others follow their own "self-help" (self-cultivation) path without interfering or telling them how they are doing it wrong. When you tell them they need 無為, and not their "self-help" books, and if they listen, then they focus on trying to achieve it. Which as you say, defeat(s) the purpose.
I think https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/finding-your-own-visio... is a better take.
What gives you an unique perspective and your own voice can be sticking to your thing for a long time and exploring your exact path more deeply than anyone else has. You don't need to take a million random stabs to become "improbable", and there's no reason that should lead to anything authentic.
Why does parent need to propose anything? Perhaps, in the absence of any external authoritative instructions to the contrary, our purpose is for each of us to discover our own purpose and realise it. Why should parent (or anyone else) have a “trick”, and if they did why would it be applicable to anyone else?
just... be creative when you have something creative to express and the expression brings you joy, happiness, satisfaction, or any other reward of your choice. be spontaneous for similar reasons. don't do it because someone has attached an artificial "you are now leading your best life" reward to the mere fact of creativity or spontaneity - that's just reactive.
truly authentic creativity and spontaneity would leave room for conformity if that's what made you happiest in the moment, because why should the fact that everyone else also does something prevent it from being a worthwhile thing for you personally to do?
> Your life's goal should not be dictated by Substack philosophers.
So you’re suggesting that some philosophers/ideas are “special” while random writers on Substack are not. Immediately contradicts the spirit of your next criticism:
> The West's obsession with "self-help" is built on convincing individuals that they are special but not living up to their special-ness … Which begs the question: are you being the "authentic you" if you are following a path laid out by someone else?
So YOU are special after all? “Someone else on Substack” is wrong but I am right? Why should I listen to you?
This is a good point. It does not work to criticize someone's authority to make a "Your life's goal should . . ." statement with a "Your life's goal should . . ." statement of your own.
The parent comment belongs on Reddit, really.
> This is a good point.
No, it's not.
> It does not work to criticize someone's authority...
The article is patronizingly prescriptive.
The comment is a warning that the article is patronizingly prescriptive.
> The parent comment belongs on Reddit, really.
So much projection here.
And...
Did you really just create your account right now because this comment was stuck in your craw?
I don't understand the urge to diminish individualism when it's the basis of our modern ethics and human rights. It's not that people are "special", it's that people are unique and not just a statistic, or a member of a group, or a means to an end. It's not about "living up to their special-ness" but about realising their potential as a human being.
The article is basically just an argument for one method towards achieving self-actualizition, the process of fulfilling one's unique potential and becoming the most authentic version of oneself. It reminds me a bit of Walt Whitmans's "Song of Myself" in which he writes
> The past and present wilt--I have fill'd them, emptied them. And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
> Listener up there! what have you to confide to me? Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening, (Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)
> Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Be improbable! Contradict yourself! Be complicated! Be shocking! Live your life, ya know.
> I don't understand the urge to diminish individualism when it's the basis of our modern ethics and human rights.
Where did I diminish individualism? The point I made was that, perhaps, you don't need someone else telling you that you're not being yourself and not living up to your potential, and then offering you a path you weren't naturally inclined to take to get to where they tell you you're supposed to be.
> The article is basically just an argument for one method towards achieving self-actualizition, the process of fulfilling one's unique potential and becoming the most authentic version of oneself.
And this is a very Western concept that doesn't resonate with me. I don't believe that the average person needs to be obsessed with fulfilling their potential and becoming "authentic", especially to the point where they rely on the advice of random people who are eager to tell them they're not fulfilling their potential and being "authentic".
To quote George Carlin:
> If you're looking for self-help, why would you read a book written by somebody else? That's not self-help, that's help. There's no such thing as self-help. If you did it yourself you didn't need help.
> you don't need someone else telling you that you're not being yourself
When I read others works, I am still doing my own take on it. It is my interpretation and application of the ideas.
> you don't need someone else telling you that you're not being yourself and not living up to your potential, and then offering you a path you weren't naturally inclined to take to get to where they tell you you're supposed to be
Who is doing that?
The average person probably doesn't need to be "obsessed" with self-actualisation or authenticity, but that doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile goal. People don't need to be "obsessed" with eating healthy, but they should at least consider it.
Carlin's quote is cute but just a debate about semantics. Who cares what they're called. People learn from books, they learn from other peoples experiences, and they can use that learning to help themselves. How is that not valid?
> Who is doing that?
The author of the post:
> Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be. Your path, your character, your life, should be the most unlikely, the most unexpected, the least predictable version you can make. Improbable lives have fewer competitors, more unique rewards, and are harder to replace with AIs, since AIs run on the predictable.
> You can align yourself with this grand arc moving from the expected to the unexpected and aim to become the most improbable person you can be.
And so on.
From the very first sentence, the author is telling you what you should be and do. There is nothing in the post that asks the question of what the reader actually wants to be and do.
What if I want to be a part of a community, meet someone I can build a life with, raise a family, and have a job that allows me to support my family and engage in simple activities I enjoy?
How does someone telling me I should become "the most improbable person" I can be help me? How does minimizing my "competitors", obtaining "unique rewards" and trying to make myself AI-proof align to building community, finding a compatible partner, raising happy children, and finding work that supports the life I want to live?
> People don't need to be "obsessed" with eating healthy, but they should at least consider it.
Many people do eat healthy without buying a bookshelf full of books about how to eat a healthy diet.
> People learn from books, they learn from other peoples experiences, and they can use that learning to help themselves.
There is a difference between learning from other people's experiences where their experiences resonate with you and seeking out advice from people who are trying to sell you on a life they say you should have.
I get where you are coming from but it isn't really about telling people they are special and they need to be more to be happy. But rather, you should seek change and enthropy in life to truly experience it. For someone that's stuck and looking for help (for their selves) will likely see it as a way to at least take some action to orient themselves towards the life they want.
The complete opposite view (i guess non western since you said it was western) would be to do nothing everyday and just be content and happy without ever doing anything to change your life. That is obviously not a great way to experience life as well.
Laslty, them saying you being unique will keep you save from AI replacement is pretty stupid genuinely and cannot be defended. It's a bit too hopefuly to think people deciding on layoffs and automation with AI give a single fuck about how special or interesting you care. You think Larry Ellison cares?
Kevin Kelly is a bit more than some "Substack philosopher".
Right. He founded that magazine that gave you a literal physical headache when you tried to read the paper version.
> Your life's goal should not be dictated by Substack philosophers.
Dictate? The only expectation is readers consider ideas.
You made some good points about "self-help". I don't fully agree, but you gave me something to think about.
The essay struck me very directly. I have made unusual career choices, and beyond or because of that, life has changed in unimagined ways every five years of my adult life. Improbable paths to improbable destinations. I do feel like it has left me in a unique position, amidst all the upheavals.
> Dictate? What an inhospitable straw man/false dichotomy.
The first sentence of the article is "Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be."
It is literally telling you what you should do.
The "should" in a statement like that is not a command. Or expected to be interpreted as a demand.
The essay makes a case for one way to look at things. Stating it as an absolute makes it easier to describe. It would be cumbersome and unreadable if it was a form treatise. This is extremely common.
As far as agreement, there are many ways to see the world. Few are right, none are complete, but many are useful. Being able to hold many viewpoints, without needing them to be right or wrong, or even consistent, is the beginning of efficiently acquired and scalable wisdom.
The idea that unique experiences can results in unique value obviously has some merit. We have probably all implicitly applied this rule in part, when making decisions or in our perceptions. The essay makes it explicit, clearer.
I will refrain from making any "should" recommendations here.
> The "should" in a statement like that is not a command. Or expected to be interpreted as a demand.
Personally, if the author's intention was what you suggest, I would argue this kind of writing is "lazy" for lack of a better word. Words have specific meanings, and they matter. The most simple (and I would argue proper) understanding of "your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be" is the plain text reading: the author is offering very specific advice which he follows with an argument for why it is good advice. In other words, he really means your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be as he stated.
> Being able to hold many viewpoints, without needing them to be right or wrong, or even consistent, is the beginning of efficiently acquired and scalable wisdom.
One can obviously consider multiple viewpoints and choose whether to embrace them or not. But in my opinion, wisdom comes from first-hand experience accumulated over a lifetime. It is not something that is "efficiently acquired", nor is it inherently "scalable."
Knowledge, on the other hand, can be efficiently acquired and scaled. But it is not always easily applied.
Being able to incorporate many incomplete and even contradictory models, without dissonance, is most certainly a scaling factor.
Wisdom often has unexpectedly wide application, and so is more multiplicative than it is simply additive.
Reality is never contradictory, but it is complex. The seeming contradictions in models are because models capture different subsets of reality, not because they are wrong.
Yes, we get wisdom from direct experience.
But also, many of us acquire even more from reading, conversing, observing. Life gives us one line of direct experience, but tens of thousands of insightful people sharing theirs.
Seeing the sense in other peoples viewpoints, adds value. Getting caught up in wording styles that other's don't have any trouble with, is not what I would call a skill. And seeing coercion, where someone put some effort into communicating and interesting idea, is not shedding light on anything.
> Getting caught up in wording styles that other's don't have any trouble with, is not what I would call a skill.
My opinion is that telling people "your goal in life should be..." is an aggressive form of advice-giving. I believe that the plain text wording of the statement speaks for itself. You're free to disagree.
I don't know why you feel the need to try to put me down for my opinion and go so far as to speak for everyone else by suggesting this is a "wording style that other's [sic] don't have any trouble with." How do you know what everyone else who reads this thinks?
I do find your approach to this conversation ironic given your repeated comments about the value of engaging with differing viewpoints.
> I don't know why you feel the need to try to put me down for my opinion
I have not criticized any of your substantive views.
Only your unfair and unreasoned criticism of the essay writer's motives. Apparently due to unfamiliarity with normal language use.
They were not trying to dictate anything.
I also made the positive (non-critiquing) point that viewpoints are valuable, even when they don't match our situations at any given moment. They are rarely "right" or "wrong", in the way facts are.
A great deal of wisdom is accumulating many views that let us "see" different things in different ways.
“Improbable paths to improbable destinations.”
As someone that’s recently turned 60, your last paragraph resonates intensely. I am so, so far from the life I predicted for myself at age 25.
I'm a couple years behind you. My 25 year old self was also entirely wrong about my future and thank god for that.
I turn 60 in a few months. Sounds like we have been on orthogonal paths! :)
[dead]
So, you liked nothing about the post ? What would you salvage from it ?
Well, let's start with the second sentence:
> Your path, your character, your life, should be the most unlikely, the most unexpected, the least predictable version you can make.
Now, I ask you, is that really what I want from my kid's school bus driver?
Huh. The post in effect is about a choice of one's career, about what one offers to the world. Of course the execution of the chosen career must remain flawless.
One must develop one's own unique offering. Don't let the world trap you in its box.
I came across a bus driver today that told me he owned a juice bar on the side, and invited me to visit. I thought this was most unexpected. This didn't make him a bad driver. His driving was fine. The point is that even a bus driver can live up to the author's ideal.
You think it's "most unexpected" that a bus driver got sucked into an MLM?
If a stranger spontaneous brings up they run a "juice shop" and "invites" you to visit, 99 time out of 100 it's a front for an MLM.
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-health-a...
https://www.eater.com/22958985/loaded-teas-herbalife-mlm-sil...
> The post in effect is about a choice of one's career...
You do a huge disservice to the author. He mentions much more than that, just in that one sentence.
Again:
> Your path, your character, your life, should be the most unlikely, the most unexpected, the least predictable version you can make.
Why, if you're a nice guy, you should become a serial killer!
> I came across a bus driver today that told me he owned a juice bar on the side, and invited me to visit. I thought this was most unexpected.
You must live a sheltered life. Bus drivers were doing serious side hustles before there was even a name for those.
You need to immediately familiarize yourself with the rules for comments on this site at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html especially:
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
And as for your comment:
> you should become a serial killer!
Please not preach violence on this site, whether intended or not.
This is rich. "Assume good faith" and "Please not preach violence" in the same comment, when I was doing nothing of the sort.
No, you or anyone will not receive a good faith exemption when preaching violence as you objectively were via your quoted statement:
> you should become a serial killer!
There are multiple possibilities for why someone might take quotes completely out of context.
The most charitable of those, in terms of evaluation of the capacity of someone to learn to stop doing that, involves bad faith.
Most of the rest involve some sort of cognition or psychological issue.
This comment is the very definition of Irony.
There is never any good faith exemption for violent comments, not here, and not anywhere.
Sadly people are fulfilling the very probable nerd stereotype of aggressively misunderstanding philosophy and then trashing on it. I'm not sure how someone could even come to the conclusion that living an improbable life = swerving into oncoming traffic, but here we are.
"Luke Rhinehart"'s The Dice Man isn't the stagecoach of life I should be riding?
Damn.
> Sadly people are fulfilling the very probable nerd stereotype of aggressively misunderstanding philosophy and then trashing on it.
Sadly people are fulfilling the very probable dilettante stereotype of acting like pretentious crap actually has meaning.
> I'm not sure how someone could even come to the conclusion that living an improbable life = swerving into oncoming traffic, but here we are.
Did you actually read the fucking sentence and think about it?
It doesn't have to be swerving into traffic. It could just be not showing up on time to get the kids to school. It could be sexual assault of a minor.
In general, a good life involves showing up for people and supporting them. If you do that well, people come to expect it, and then...
Well, guess what? In a huge, important (to others!) part of your life, you become rather predictable.
Are you majorly autistic? Or have you just generically struggled to interpret the basic context in which authors say what they say?
> Did you actually read the fucking sentence and think about it?
Yes, I thought about it instead of just taking it literally and equating it with acting randomly or without purpose.
And yet, here you are, predictably defending your interpretation.
Why?
Go forth and do something improbable!
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Are we required to like something and report on that?
That which is not prohibited is mandatory. Hop to it!
Gee, what an optimistic outlook you have. Do you think the truly creative innovators in the fields of tech, science, engineering, and art get out of bed in the morning believing that they are just grimly marching down a path laid out by someone else? While OP’s philosophy may be a bit rosy, it sure leads to better outcomes than dark fatalism.
With all due respect to Kevin Kelly (who has lived a life worthy of the aphorisms he writes!), I prefer the guidance of George Saunders (via Lincoln in the Bardo):
> Please do not misunderstand. We had been mothers, fathers. Had been husbands of many years, men of import, who had come here, that first day, accompanied by crowds so vast and sorrowful that, surging forward to hear the oration, they had damaged fences beyond repair. Had been young wives, diverted here during childbirth, our gentle qualities stripped from us by the naked pain of that circumstance, who left behind husbands so enamored of us, so tormented by the horror of those last moments (the notion that we had gone down that awful black hole pain-sundered from ourselves) that they had never loved again. Had been bulky men, quietly content, who, in our first youth, had come to grasp our own unremarkableness and had, cheerfully (as if bemusedly accepting a heavy burden), shifted our life’s focus; if we would not be great, we would be useful; would be rich, and kind, and thereby able to effect good: smiling, hands in pockets, watching the world we had subtly improved walking past (this empty dowry filled; that education secretly funded). Had been affable, joking servants, of whom our masters had grown fond for the cheering words we managed as they launched forth on days full of import. Had been grandmothers, tolerant and frank, recipients of certain dark secrets,who, by the quality of their unjudging listening, granted tacit forgiveness, and thus let in the sun. What I mean to say is, we had been considerable. Had been loved. Not lonely, not lost, not freakish, but wise, each in his or her own way. Our departures caused pain. Those who had loved us sat upon their beds, heads in hand; lowered their faces to tabletops, making animal noises. We had been loved, I say, and remembering us, even many years later, people would smile, briefly gladdened at the memory.
I found this hard to read.
At one point in my life I came to an epiphany on this topic. Everybody's life is improbable. Literally everybody, all the time, without any effort.
Through the lens of this I saw myself as being the type of person who looks at things in life through averages, sizing up what's likely, and I realized that in my own story there were a lot of very improbable occurrences. Even if we understand statistics, we shouldn't let our knowledge of what's likely or most common get in the way of appreciation this uniqueness, or cloud our view of it. I took this observation to mean to be less judgemental, less the type to want to size something up and put it in a statistical bucket.
I was recently talking to a friend about this, the concept of a normie. A normie is kind of a mirage, it only exists in the realm of statistics, but when you look at any one individual who could fit that label, they are unlikely, so, can they really be a normie? Once internalized, the only real way out is to be less judgemental. Sure, you won't be friends with everyone, but the buckets are just not super useful when looking at an individual.
The usual way of measuring a trait would basically be measuring N amount of people on a specific thing, and the distribution based on that. But if you take 1 person, and N amount of specific things/traits, just about everyone would probably make their own sort of distribution with a bunch of "normal" traits and a long tail of "unusual" traits.
Still a simplification, but has made the "illusion of a normie" clearer to me.
This is literally true on a physical level: The US airforce did a study in the 1950s that showed none of the thousands pilots they measured matched the average across multiple body measurements. i.e. no one was average.
https://austraffic.com.au/aba/us-air-force-finds-averages-ca...
Edit: the report itself:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0010203.pdfThank you for linking this! It's great. :)
I don't find it surprising that people here are reading this completely literally (eg. I'll be hit by a car with erratic movement), or approaching it as if the author is suggesting we have a god complex (eg. painting a big picture of how you're going to be Neo). But it is a bit disappointing. Have LLMs ruined our ability to think abstractly?
It's practically a trope that taking the common, average path in life is not for everyone. If I wrote an article suggesting that not everyone will achieve self-actualisation by going to university at 18, getting a degree, entering the work force, buying a house, getting married, having kids, and retiring at 65, nobody would bat an eye. The author is basically making this argument in a slightly novel way. Living your life by choosing the average of all decisions will, for a lot of people, lead to a boring and meaningless life. I reckon for most people it would be substandard. Instead, do things which are not common or average or expected of you. It's advice that's practically as old as time, packaged up in a slightly different way.
> Have LLMs ruined our ability to think abstractly?
No. Well, maybe. You'd have to ask someone who uses them.
> It's practically a trope that taking the common, average path in life is not for everyone.
Exactly. It's a tired trope, and gussying it up with pontifications about the utility of personal stochastic processes, after a detour into the big bang and entropy, doesn't make it any better.
> If I wrote an article suggesting that not everyone will achieve self-actualisation by going to university at 18, getting a degree, entering the work force, buying a house, getting married, having kids, and retiring at 65, nobody would bat an eye.
And nobody would submit it to HN, either.
> The author is basically making this argument in a slightly novel way.
No. The article is tedious, and, as has already been pointed out, prescriptive rather than permissive.
No, internet bullshit has ruined your ability to think that you think this is anything more than internet bullshit.
Perhaps for readers here, this would be often repeated advice, but I found it inspiring as a middle aged woman and also know in my bones that any version of it would help my mother immensely break her life patterns when they aren't serving her any longer. For people in mid-age and older, when they're at the stage where they've spend half their lives arranging and rearranging the world and its offerings in an altar of comfort and familiarity, this is a terrifying (and thereby exhilarating) thought. At the age of 23, ofcourse life seems improbable. At the age of 63, you don't even want to knock at an improbable door. Loved reading it and also got my mind blown at this fact: When you shuffle a deck of 52 cards the order of those cards will never be repeated again in the history of the universe, no matter how fast you shuffle.
> At the age of 23, ofcourse life seems improbable. At the age of 63, you don't even want to knock at an improbable door.
Why would you not do at 63 what you would do at 23?
When you fall on your ass at 63, it hurts for half a month instead of half an hour.
> Here is what you gain with your most improbable life: The authentic you. Your particular mix of talents, native abilities, personal inclinations, genetic limits, life experiences, and ambitious desires points to a mixture that is distinctly unique (...) The more you-ish you become, the less competition you have, because you are occupying your own niche.
This is profoundly true, and the corollary is: beware of titles.
From project manager at some company to CEO of some megacorp: there have been, there are and there will be others just like that. But if you're you, defined only by your name (or your existence, without a name), then there is no one else, there can be no one else, because there is only one you in the whole universe.
> Here is what you gain with your most improbable life: The authentic you
On the contrary, this is profoundly bullshit.
Firstly, anyone arriving at a "life's goal" via what a blogger says should be their life's goal is not being "authentically them".
Secondly, why does a broader, less likely mix of talents and experiences make you more "you"? It doesn't. Just because you've become more unique does not make you more "you-ish".
We're all influenced by our past experiences, the books we've read, the movies we've watched, the people in our lives, and yes, blog posts and essays as well. Our past is part of what makes us us. I don't know how you can claim that being influenced by a blogger is any less authentic than being influenced by anything else.
> why does a broader, less likely mix of talents and experiences make you more "you"?
Because it's highly improbable that any one person's natural mix of talents and experiences would be narrow and similar to everyone else's.
What you're saying is contradictory.
On one hand, you say that "you are your experiences therefore you're youness is absolute even if you're living out the instructions of a blogger"
And then on the next hand you seem to imply that being less similar to others makes you more you, which besides being without basis, contradicts the banal "you're you therefore you're you" of your first point.
You can't have it both ways.
I never actually said those things, you're paraphrasing what I said in a specific way so you can dunk on me. This isn't X bruv.
> > why does a broader, less likely mix of talents and experiences make you more "you"?
> Because it's highly improbable that any one person's natural mix of talents and experiences would be narrow and similar to everyone else's.
For those of us having trouble, can you elaborate on how that isn't described by "you seem to imply that being less similar to others makes you more you"?
Your answer there is directly at odds with saying that allowing yourself to be influenced by a blogger spewing mass-market pop-philosophy doesn't make the result less authentic.
The two original questions I answered are intrinsically linked. If your answers to the two are contradictory, then there's a fundamental integrity problem with the aforementioned pop-philosophy.
I don't see the connection. We are, at least in part (and some argue fully) a result of our past experiences, teachings, etc. I don't see how it's valid to argue that learning from an essay is somehow inauthentic.
This is different from the claim that people naturally have a unique set of traits, experiences, and desires, and you would expect people who have successfully self-actualised to express that uniqueness.
There is a balance to be found here.
I had the improbable experience of contracting with a community of foxes and then made up the cover story that "this is a character I play to get better smiles when I do street photography" and then made that story true.
So most of the time I am the one-and-only fox-photographer and feel unique but there are some places where a lot of beastly people are around and I think "I feel like just another fur". I don't think of myself as a fur at all but I find that being out as a hard-working therianthrope it has an effect on all sorts of closeted furs and therians and whatnot and when a fur asks me "are you a fur?" I feel bad disappointing them.
The whole thing is possible because of a database of legends that exist in folklore and pop culture. If I go out in a kitsune mask I think about 20% of people have seen Naruto or Demon Slayer and recognize who I am right away and in that situation I think of myself as the cast member at Disney whose job is easy because guests have already seen the movie. Even though I work from sinosphere legends, the fox-photographer is legible because people agree about what kind of animal a fox is anywhere there are foxes.
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/116598755105086140
I sure hope foxes might be the antiwolf (in the sense that antiheros are more marketable than heroes)
Relatedly, FT may have a shot at beating "main character syndrome" out of wolves that think they are foxes
https://archive.ph/AplGo
https://archive.ph/ECclr
Due to their nonlibertarian (anti-liberal? Overton Hole-in-the-wall centrist!) opinion pieces that never fail to squeeze a giggle out of yours truly
To the foxes that worry they might be wolves I'd prescribe the Economist
This seems to be anchored around optimizing your intelligence to be a competitive advantage. Life as a competition of minds. For example:
> Improbable lives have fewer competitors
> The more you-ish you become, the less competition you have, because you are occupying your own niche.
> The less predictable you are, the less likely you are to be replaced by AIs
As opposed to Ilya Sutskever's famous quip:
> if you value intelligence above all other human qualities, you’re gonna have a bad time
how about normalizing being generic (you don't need to be a Cervantes or a Joyce to write a book people enjoy) by burning down AI servers? or boycotting these techs. OP types like it's easy to stand out of a ever growing nation of 8 billion people and that people aren't satified with the generic. take a look at the most popular music hits worldwide... 12-edo, mostly harmonic stuff having C
you should build your uniqueness to help humanity and not stand out because you like to shine over the others
I've recently found myself unable to finish articles that take more than a paragraph to announce their point. But starting with "Your life’s goal should be" is a level of boldness I wasn't prepared for.
> This motionless destination “without difference”, is also known as heat death, or entropy.
This is BTW not how the heat death would look like. There would still be fluctuations that would, given infinite time, produce almost anything by chance at some point.
This is what the Boltzmann brain is all about: If the universe goes down that path, it is much more likely that what we experience is just a hallucination of a "brain" that spun into existence by chance, rather than all of this being a "real" universe. It's the precursor of the simulation question.
I wonder what an improbable version of this post would look like. This was very predictable given the first few sentences. I think self-help inspiration like this works better by helping you see the wonder in the mundane rather than painting a big picture of how you're going to be Neo and break out of the matrix everyone else is trapped inside, one that will fade within a minutes. It's a superpower to experience novelty in everyday things.
The Universe Doesn't Care.
Which might sound nihilistic / defeating.
It is not. In fact, it is great.
Imagine the pressure if there was actually a predefined path and you deviated from it. You would have disappointed the whole Cosmos!
Go an live the life that you can according to your desires and circumstances. You will not always succeed. Learn from your mistakes, move forward. Because one day, it will end. And the Universe will still not care.
There’s no discussion about risk, investment or variance in the post. I want my life to be uniquely GREAT but unless you apply a bit of strategy the outcome of "do improbable things" could just as well be uniquely BAD.
Everyone notices that huge outlier successes seem to follow their own unique paths but the millions of failures who weren’t as lucky or strategic are quiet or invisible. You can’t just focus on the outcome or the actions, you have to understand the process and respond to feedback.
Successful people get to weird places via search, not throwing darts.
Make lots of small bets and double down on the ones that seem to pay off. Be willing to push things further than “most reasonable people” would but only if you can get concrete signals of reward.
“If you think you can fly, start by trying to take off from the ground”.
i feel like people are over emphasizing
1. that this is on substack
2. the word 'improbably' (taking it literally, not as a kind of abstract/symbolic suggestion of 'being urself'/having fun with life)
3. that it is self-help-y, which a lot of articles on HN are, so i don't know why this one is striking a nerve so profoundly.
idk, i thought it was a fun read and i like kevin kelly. i think it is good that people like kevin kelly do what they do and share their ideas every once in a while. it reminded me that i can kinda do whatever i want in life, and it made me think, which is all i ask of my blog posts. i also liked how certain sentences were written.
don't get me wrong though, i enjoy the snarky debate. it's a big part of the reason why i'm here after all.
> But it can be even more improbable. You can align yourself with this grand arc moving from the expected to the unexpected and aim to become the most improbable person you can be.
Also reminds me of the social media trend for “don’t let them predict your next move”
Is exotropy really the opposite of entropy? I was glad to stumble upon this word, but on searching the internet, it does not seem to be. Could someone informed shed some light on the matter?
Perhaps negentropy
Ironically it is any maxxing, including improbabilitymaxxing, that actually makes you a predictable and controllable machine. Such a sad waste of what could be a free will.
Is living your most improbable life something within everyone's reach, or only of those who need not worry about money problems? (just asking)
What’s the pathological obsession with needing to be a unique snowflake? Nail that stands out should get hammered in, that’s a bad nail.
Sure, if you want your whole life’s purpose to be supporting the board you’re nailed into, your metaphor might be right. But life is more than just being a “valuable member to society.”
And why not support the board? You ste too good for that? Feeling special?
Because the alternative is death. Want to become non-unique? Let your body decompose back into the surrounding environment.
Aren't we all unique? A person is not just a mish mash of his career and hobbies.
Death is a certainty, not an alternative.
There are three kinds of death. There is living to a ripe old age, passing away quietly in a nursing home surrounded by loved ones. There is randomly being hit by a drunk driver, which is pure tragedy. And there is dying in a skydiving accident.
The person who dies in a skydiving accident at 35 can have lived more than the person who passes away quietly at 95 but never took any risks. It's still tragic, but I think you can celebrate someone who lived life to the fullest, in a way that you can't if they just let themselves rot away with dementia.
You either peak and start to decline at some time in your life, or you continuously go up, never peaking before your death.
When people say "the alternative is death" it's a class 2 or class 3 death. But it matters which one it is.
Grab that box of nails, and look closer. They're all different. Even the good ones.
You can "do" whatever you want, you just see patterns in the white noise and call it coincidence
the only way to live the most authentic life you can live is to read everything, get influenced by nothing but that's impossible so do the next best thing: read nothing, just make your own decisions, make mistakes, learn and grow. not the prettiest journey albeit an authentic one
The mentions of "AI" are jarring and stupid. This will not age well.
Foundation series vibes anyone?
Maximizing improbability means spouting gibberish 24/7 and flopping around uncontrollably. Very unpredictable.
More seriously, I don't see how "improbable" is what you should maximize. If you come from a certain background, ending up in prison as a murderer may be more improbable than countless good lives you could lead.
No, that’s just falling into the “lol so randum xD” meme.
You start sipping your tea. You quit coffee because you get too agitated. You were given a two-weeks notice three days ago. So were a lot of other people. The gist of it was AI. That’s what they said anyway. You and others are fretting about the possibility of finding a new job; “in this Economy?”, the usual things. So finding a new job takes up your evenings now. But you can’t even relax a little for these two weeks, slow down the pace a bit. You’re too afraid of the final performance review.
You’re sitting in a foldable chair, sipping your tea, waiting for some speaker to arrive. Probably motivational judging by the title. Everyone is cheery. Weird. But you are too. This is not the time (the economy) to be disagreeable in the face of a firing. Now the managers are here to introduce the motivational speaker. They aren’t just cheery. They are grinning ear to ear. What the fuck for? Who is going to be motivated? Oh well.
The speech is about becoming your most improbable self. Huh? Okay the premise, or scene, is entropy in the universe. We are just atoms in a blender but we have the intelligence to stack cards, kind of a deal. It seems trivial.
> Finally, the less predictable you are, the less likely you are to be replaced by AIs. Machines are efficient, and they are powered by the predictable. Current LLMs are trained to generate the most predictable solution. So far they are not very good at duplicating what a creative, one-of-a-kind improbable human can produce. To distance yourself from the machines, aim to be as improbable as you can be.
You suddenly find yourself with an urge to increase the entropy of the pavement eight stories down.
In another multiverse: more grounded now, you find that your consciousness was automatically uploaded to the cloud. “I didn’t consent to this!” Oh, jeez, the first thought that popped into your mind became a yell. Someone else turns to face you and walks over. “Actually, that wasn’t some corporate motivational speaker”. “What?”, you reply. “That was Kevin Kelly, the founding executive director of Wired. He doesn’t need to take corporate positivity gigs to—”—“Whatever, I don’t care”, you interject. But why was that guy at my work... you think to yourself. “And who are you?”. There is a pause. “Oh of course, you’re an LLM.” The, thing, tilts its head calmly. “No need to disclose that. The Terms says that that is irrelevant.” You blink. “The terms?” He replies yes, the Terms. “You signed the Terms in the previous month, when that big IT upgrade happened.” You shift your feet. “That’s also where you agreed to have your consciousness uploaded upon premature termination.” You reply that those papers were ninety-five pages. “Of course I didn’t read all of that. I had our internal AI... I had the AI summarize it and it didn’t find anything to that effect. There must be some fault or deficit in the AI...” The thing opens its mouth to reply. “LLMs are tools. Human operators are responsible for everything they act on.”
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The part about the 'four weapons of an improbable person' really gave me the push to challenge myself again, especially today when I was being so hard on myself for a day with no visible results. I deeply resonate with the idea that our ultimate vision moving forward should be to become the most unpredictable and unique versions of ourselves.
Growing up in a hyper-competitive society, I feel like I’ve spent my whole life constantly comparing myself to those around me, or even to complete strangers just to survive. Because of that, up until now, I think I’ve only ever been an incomplete version of 'me.' Thank you for sharing such a powerful piece.
Slopmaxxed, probabilitymaxxed