Hi all, my name is Claus. I'm a third year (23 year old) BA philosophy student from the Netherlands. I am unsure how exactly I got here, but I sure do know why I kept coming back. Throughout my study I have become increasingly frustrated with the state of philosophy in general and my own University's approach to philosophy. Being only interested in finding truth (and thus; knowledge) I mainly grew tired of what can be called 'continental philosophy' (specifically 'Hegelianism') because of it's lack of clarity. I found my views on this matter are much the same as the views presented in the 'Philosophy: A Diseased Discipline' post, and I'm so happy to have found such a large and confident group of like minded people.

As for my own goals and personality. I am heavily interested in transhumanism (Life-Extension, human enhancement), gadgets, psychology (some PUA and social engineering as well) and quantified-self. I try to live as healthy as possible, I meditate and I am planning to try Soylent (I'm sure you have heard of it) in the near future. I am (and have been for a couple of years) obsessive about improving myself to the point of consciously trying to develop some sort of 'succes' algorithm for my life (think of Robin Hanson's 'Betterness Explosion'). As you will understand, sequences like 'The Science of Winning at Life' have been very useful to me. Central to this whole project of mine is to learn from every experience. To help me with this effort I have, since a year and a half, been documenting my own beliefs (in the form of lists of short propositions). This way I have an ever-growing, external, database of my own beliefs (and if true: knowledge) which changes and improves as evidence accumulates.

Currently I am involved with two start-up companies, am trying to finish my Bachelors degree and plan to write some essays on Science and evidence based politics. I'm sure I will enjoy my stay here!