I'm 17 and I'm from Australia.
I've always been interested in science, learning, and philosophy. I've had correct thinking as a goal in my life since reading a book by John Stossel when I was 13.
I first studied philosophy at school in grade 10, when I was 14 and 15. I loved the mind/body problem, and utilitarianism was the coolest thing ever. I had great fun thinking about all these things, and was fairly good at it. I gave a speech about the ethics of abortion last year which I feel really did strike to the heart of the matter, and work as a good use of rationality, albeit untrained.
I came across Less Wrong via Three Worlds Collide, via Tv Tropes, last September. I then read HPMOR. By this point, I was convinced Eliezer Yudkowsky was the awesomest guy ever. He had all the thoughts I wanted to have, but wasn't smart enough to. I read everything on his website, then started trying to read the sequences. They were hard to understand for me, but I got some good points from them. I attended the National Youth Science Forum in January this year, and spent the whole time trying to explain the Singularity to people. Since then I've made my way through most of Eliezer's writings. I agree with most of what he says, except for bits which I might just not understand, like the Zombies sequence, and some of his more out there claims.
But yeah. Since reading his stuff, I've become stronger. Self improvement is now more explicitly one of my goals. I have tried harder to consider my beliefs. I have learnt not to get into pointless arguments. One of the most crucial lessons was the "learning to lose" from HPMOR. This has prevented me from more than a few nasty situations.
What can I contribute here? Nothing much as of yet. If I know anything, it's the small segment of rationality I've learned here. I'm good at intuitively understanding philosophy and math, but not special by Less Wrong standards.
One thing I do believe in strongly is the importance of mentoring people younger than you. I know two kids a bit younger than me. One is a really smart sciency kid, one a really talented musicish kid. I think that by linking them good science and good music, I can increase their rate of improvement. I wish that someone had told me about, for instance, Bayes's Theorem, or FAI, or Taylor series, when I was younger. You need a teacher. Sadly, there's no textbooks on this topic. But random walks through Wikipedia are a slow, frustrating way to learn when you're a curious 14 year old.
And so yeah. Pleased to meet you kids.
He had all the thoughts I wanted to have, but wasn't smart enough to.
You are 17. See Yudkowsky_1998, there is room for improvement at any age.
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