Greetings, fellow thinkers! I'm a 19-year-old undergraduate student at Clemson University, majoring in mathematics (or, as Clemson (unjustifiably) calls it, Mathematical Sciences). I found this blog through Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality about three weeks ago, and I spent those three weeks doing little else in my spare time but reading the Sequences (which I've now finished).
My parents emigrated from the Soviet Union (my father is from Kiev, my mother from Moscow) just months before my birth. They spoke very little English upon their arrival, so they only spoke Russian to me at home, and I picked up English in kindergarten; I consider both to be my native languages, but I'm somewhat more comfortable expressing myself in English. I studied French in high school, and consider myself "conversant", but definitely not fluent, although I intend to study abroad in a Francophone country and become fluent. This last semester I started studying Japanese, and I intend to become fluent in that as well.
My family is Jewish, but none of my relatives practice Judaism. My mother identifies herself as an agnostic, but is strongly opposed to the Abrahamic religions and their conception of God. My father identifies as an atheist. I have never believed in Santa Claus or God, and was very confused as a child about how other people could be so obviously wrong and not notice it. I've never been inclined towards mysticism, and I remember espousing Physicalist Reductionism (although I did not know those words) at an early age, maybe when I was around 9 year old.
I've always been very concerned with being rational, and especially with understanding and improving myself. I think I missed out on a lot of what Americans consider to be classic sci-fi (I didn't see Star Wars until I got to college, for example), but I grew up with a lot of good Russian sci-fi and Orson Scott Card.
I used to be quite a cynical misanthrope, but over the past few years I've grown to be much more open and friendly and optimistic. However, I've been an egoist for as long as I can remember, and I see no reason why this might change in the foreseeable future (this seems to be my primary point of departure from agreement with Eliezer). I sometimes go out of my way to help people (strangers as much as friends) because I enjoy helping people, but I have no illusions about whose benefit my actions are for.
I'm very glad to have found a place where smart people who like to think about things can interact and share their knowledge!
However, I've been an egoist for as long as I can remember,
I'm not entirely sure what this position entails. Wikipedia sent me to 'egotist' and here. I am curious because it seems like quite a statement to use a term so similar to an epithet to describe one's own philosophy.
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