Greetings LWers,

I'm an aspiring Friendliness theorist, currently based at the Australian National University -- home to Marcus Hutter, Rachael Briggs and David Chalmers, amongst others -- where I study formal epistemology through the Ph.B. (Hons) program.

I wasn't always in such a stimulating environment -- indeed I grew up in what can only be deemed intellectual deprivation, from which I narrowly escaped -- and, as a result of my disregard for authority and despise for traditional classroom learning, I am largely self-taught. Unlike most autodidacts, though, I never was a voracious reader, on the contrary I barely opened books at all, instead preferring to think things over in my head; this has left me an ignorant person -- something I'm constantly striving to improve on -- but has also protected me from many diseased ideas and even allowed me to better appreciate certain notions by having to rediscover them myself. (case in fact, throughout my adolescence I took great satisfaction in analysing my mental mechanisms and correcting for what I now know to be biases, yet I never came across the relevant literature, essentially missing out on a wealth of knowledge)

For a long time I've aspired to join a cultural movement modelled on the principles of the Enlightenment and, to my eyes, LW, MIRI, CFAR, FHI and CSER are exactly the kind of community that can impact society through the use of reason. Alas, I was long unaware of their existence and when I first heard about the 'Singularity' I immediately dismissed it as the science fiction it sounds like, but thankfully this is no longer the case and I can now start making my modest contributions to reducing existential risk.

Lastly, I've never had my IQ measured properly -- passing the Mensa admission test places me at least two SDs above the norm, but that's hardly impressive by LW standards -- and, as much as I value such an indicator, I'm too emotionally invested in my intelligence to dare undergo psychometric testing. (for what it's worth, as a child my development was precocious -- e.g. the development of my motor skills was superior to that of the subjects taking part in this well-known longitudinal study)

I've opened up a lot to you, LWers; I hope my only regret will be not having discovered you earlier...