[APPRENTICE]

Hi I'm Uli and I care about two things: Solving alignment and becoming stronger (not necessarily in that order).

My background: I was unschooled, I've never been to school or had a real teacher. I taught myself everything I wanted to know. I didn't really have friends till 17 when I started getting involved with rationalist-adjacent camps.

I did seri mats 3.0 under Alex Turner, doing some interpretability on mazes. Now I'm working half-time doing interpretability/etc with Alex's team as well as studying.

In rough order of priority, the kinds of mentorship I'm looking for:

1. Drill Sergeant: I want to improve my general capabilities, there are many obvious things I'm not doing enough, and my general discipline could be improved a lot too.  Akrasia is just a problem to be solved, and one I'll be embarrassed if I haven't ~fully solved by 20. There is much more that I could put here. Instead I'll list a few related thoughts
   1. Meditation is mind-training why isn't everyone doing it, is the world that inadequate?^[1]
   2. Introspection tells me the rationalist community has been bad for my thinking in some ways, Lots of groupthink, overconfident cached thoughts about alignment, etc.
   3. I'm pretty bad at deliberating once and focusing medium-term. Too many things started and not enough finished. Working on fixing.
   4. (The list goes on...)
2. Skills I've neglected: I know relatively little of the sciences, haven't written much outside of math, and know essentially zero history & other subjects.
3. Skills I'm better in: I want to get really good at machine learning, programming, and applied math. Think 10x ML Engineer/Researcher.
4. Alignment Theory. I have this pretty well covered, and think the potential costs from groupthink and priming outweigh additional depth here. I've already read too much LessWrong.

[MENTOR]

I am very good at learning when I want to be^[2]. If you would like someone to yell at you for using obviously inefficient learning strategies (which you probably are), I can do that.

I can also introduce bored high-schoolers with interesting people their age, and give advice related to the stuff I'm good at.

Too busy for intensive mentorship, but async messaging plus maybe a call every week or so could work.

1. ^{^}

   Semiconsistently meditating an hour a day + walking meditation when traveling. Currently around stage 3-4 in mind illuminated terms (for those not familiar, this is dogshit.)

2. ^{^}

   Which sadly hasn't been the past year as much as it used to. I've been getting distracted by doing research and random small projects over absorbing fountains of knowledge. In the process of fixing this now.

[MENTOR]

I am best known around here for doing short science write-ups (plurality but not majority medical) and occasional broader epistemic or social stuff. I make my living with the research work, some of which looks like my blog but some of which is things like "help entrepreneurs evaluate start-up ideas".  I'm also the other half of hath's apprenticeship Dialogue.

I am interested in:

• providing mentorship on research or writing blogs like mine, for people who are already doing something in that vein.  It doesn’t have to be a lot, but I’ve been through too many cycles of people enthusiastic about doing my job until they realize it takes skill and effort, so I only want to work with people who have tried at least a little. If you’re interested in this, please include a sample of existing work in your first contact. "I want to discuss this blog post [mine or yours]" is a really good first contact.
• Experimenting with exobraining/body doubling while I work. I expect this to be an excellent way to learn what I actually do, and depending on the balance of labor am willing to pay in money as well. 

[APPRENTICE]:

For a bunch of these, the minimum viable product for mentoring me is a combination of pointing me to books/textbooks and checking in on me to make sure I actually do it.

Some things I'd like mentorship on:

• People willing to review my writing, and accountability on spewing out a bunch of blog posts. (and maybe on starting an actual novel!)
• Operations. I've run a couple large projects in the past, including a group house, and there's a lot I can do better. Would love to hear from people who have run group houses or organizations in the past.
• Economics: I have most of the 101-level stuff, but could use some more specific knowledge on labor econ. Especially curious about (banking) regulation.
• Math: Besides teaching myself calculus and linear algebra, I haven't really gotten into much complicated math; someone able to point me at more advanced stuff, ideally alignment-relevant, would be much appreciated.
• Programming. Ideally, I'd go through a bunch of projects you suggest in Python, with you available for occasional debugging/querying, with the goal of eventually being able to do more technical alignment work.

[APPRENTICE]

Not a narrow or specific kind of apprenticeship (training or a project), rather very broad and focusing on learning and academics in STEM areas (advice dispenser, and in cases tutor/trainer). 

Fields of Study:
Computer Science: I am planning to major in this at college. So it is kind of important. I am interested in ML, AI, algorithms, Low Level or precise programming, Website Development, and Application Programming. All at a surface level, I am not sure what I want to do after college but I think it would to have an idea of how all of these work in case I find my self especially interested in one or another. I will be taking an introductory programming and problem solving class in the fall.

Psychology: Specifically rationality and learning which according to a textbook I picked up fit in this category. I have a great drive to improve and optimize my ability to learn. Similarly I want to be able to reason accurately consciously and clearly, out loud, in writing, and in my head. Also Philosophy of Logic, I am taking that as a class in the fall.

Math: I love math and plan to learn and practice it no matter what for the rest of my life. It doesn’t matter what math I like to experience the release of endorphins that coincide with the grasping of a new concept and the solving of a difficult problem.  The best part is the practice of the process of reasoning. I struggle with math but hope to improve a lot over the summer and have been revisiting algebra, and geometry as I am not taking a math class currently. I will be taking a calculus class in the fall.

Physics: I haven’t taken any physics classes yet so don’t have any rigorous understanding of it but I like the idea of having math that you can use to predict what will happen in the real world. I will be taking a physics course next fall. 

Interests: (Less important and only really a bonus)
All the stuff above
Chess: I am learning chess and having a lot of fun I am currently 580 elo and spend a lot of time playing. 
Drawing: I am currently taking my first art class (required to graduate) and find my self really enjoying it. 
Climbing: I like going bouldering, the problem solving aspect of it is fun, usually it technique over strength and really enjoyable to learn.
Teaching: I really like sharing what I learn, things I made and how I made them.

I am a high school senior I don’t know a lot about anything and currently my only desire in life is to learn stuff. The kind of mentorship I am thinking of is more loose than others described here, I would like to have a contact who has been through college and has experience and or interest in similar things. I would describe it more as a counselor. Someone I could go to for guidance about whatever I am interested in learning, someone who could give me advice on general academics. If I am really struggling to grasp a specific concept or idea, they could help walk me through it. If I don’t know what to do next they could help describe, what is applicable and really worth focusing on. Traditionally an apprentice would work for their mentor, however this is more of a charity project :). Although I would be happy to help if there is anything an extra hand/head would be useful for.
Motivation/Goal: To gain a broad base of knowledge in order to be effective at what ever I decide to do.
For contacting just direct message me.