Hello fellow Less Wrongians,

My name is Josh and I'm a 16-year-old junior in high school. I live in a Jewish family at the Jersey Shore. I found the site by way of TV Tropes after a friend told me about the Methods of Rationality. Before i started reading Eliezer's posts, i made the mistake of believing I was smart. My goal here is mainly to just be the best that I can be and maybe learn to lead a better life. And by that I mean that I want to be better than everyone else I meet. That includes being a more rational person better able to understand complex issues. I think i have a fair grip on the basic points of rationality as well as philosophy, but i am sorely lacking in terms of math and science (which can't be MY fault obviously, so I'll just go ahead and blame the public school system). I never knew what exactly an logarithm WAS before a few days ago, sadly enough (I knew the term of course, but was never taught what it meant or bothered enough to look it up. I have absolutely no idea what i want to do with my life other than amassing knowledge of whatever i find to be interesting.

I was raised in a conservative household, believing in God but still trying to look at the world rationally. My father never tried to defend the beliefs he taught me with anything but logic. I suppose I'm technically atheist, but i prefer to consider myself agnostic. Believe it or not, I actually became a rationalist after my dad got me to read Atlas Shrugged. While i wasnt taken in very much by the appeal to my sense of superiority, however correct it may be, i did take special notice of a particular statement in which Rand maintains that man is a reasoning animal and that the only evil thought is to not think as to do so is to reject the only tool that mankind has used to survive and instead embrace death. This and her rejection of emotion as a substitute for rationality impressed me more than anything i had read up to that point. i soon became familiar with Aristotle and from then on studied both philosophy and rationality. Of course i hadnt really seen anything before I started reading Eliezer's writing!

Overall, Im just happy to be here and have enjoyed everything i have seen of the site so far. Im still young and relatively ignorant to many of the topics discussed here, but if you will just bare with me, as i know you will, i might, in time, actually learn to add something to the site. Thanks for reading my story, i look forward to devoting many more hours to the site!