Ballistic FOMO

GleeGenXiaotian
Sat, 25 Apr 2026 01:58:17 GMT

Dear LessWrong community,

This is my first posting attempt here after occasionally passing by from time to time for a couple of years, ever since high school until this point as a rising college junior. I've taken some time to reflect on what kind of post I'd like to make here as a debut. To be honest, this is still not what I would be fully satisfied with.

As my personal and academic interests have "inevitably" shifted from music and creative technology to philosophy, specifically on topics related to AI and the like, in the past two years, I feel the urge to take my chance and push myself to think, write, and express more responsibly in the public domain.

On one hand, some part of me believes that many topics or content I have written on deep down resonate with the beliefs and values of the community. The other part of me is quite cautious, as I am afraid that some of my writings were too personal—both in terms of the wording and the cross references in a personal journaling context—for a public space.

That said, this post, and hopefully a few more in the foreseeable future, will be imported from some of my previous posts. I hope to use this process to receive some potential feedback to hone my overall understanding of the discussion field, as well as adjust my writing habits/strategies.

In terms of this specific post, it was originally published on March 12th this year as a preliminary reflection and a coping mechanism for me—a (still) NYU Abu Dhabi student—after experiencing the regional conflict. I hope it could at least provide some chronological perspective on the matter itself as an informal form of oral history, as well as a self-introduction.

Thank you for visiting this post.

I've never thought that my next journal entry would be about war. Just like I never thought that I myself would one day experience one.

As the situation is still developing, none of us really knows what is going to happen next. For the purpose of documentation, before pouring my divergent thoughts, I will simply go through the situation and its development from my perspective.

It started around February 28th. I was having a long-awaited video chat with my mom that afternoon, starting at 1 o'clock. And actually, before the meeting started, I already saw the news that Iran had started launching missiles. But as I was about to talk to my mom, I wasn't paying too much attention until around 5 pm, noticing the NYU Alert emails in my inbox with immediate escalation from green to red code. More and more pieces came in, and I started to realize it's serious this time compared to what we had last semester.[1] We started to pack our luggage, or in other words, prepper bags for potential evacuation, around 7 pm, while the UAE announced that it was closing the airspace. That night, we were continuously hearing explosions, four rounds, and the first missile intercepted above our campus was pictured by one of my schoolmates.

While we tried to stay chill and hit our beds on time, the first public emergency alert sent to all of our phones was triggered around 1:00 AM on March 1st, so we decided to finally visit the basement with our go-bags for sheltering, after witnessing many of our schoolmates rushing there starting from the afternoon. Honestly, there wasn't that much of an actual threat, while the anxiety and panic spread were nonetheless provoking. I was walking back to my dorm around a quarter to 4:00 AM. And I was awakened by another explosion (followed by alerts) over my dorm around noon time. As my bed is right next to the window, I opened the curtain and saw that firework—quote unquote firework—still slowly dispersing in the air.

In fact, that could be the day when we feel the most direct threats, at least for me, as we could all see the haze smoke billowing over the port near our campus. Still, I tried to have some fun with my friends by playing tennis in the basement with chairs lined up as our net. Throughout the next day, March 2nd, while there were still explosions heard from time to time, we thought that the situation was getting better at large. However, as Iran switched to a new attack schedule, focusing on launching attacks overnight, each of our following nights is arranged with a variety of sounds: jets, missiles, defense systems, sirens of ambulances, public emergency alerts, and party noise from our schoolmates. What a constellation.

March 3rd was the Lantern Festival according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, and I was quite amazed, even now, at how organized the society was in the UAE during this time of uncertainty. We even managed to order deliveries from a Chinese restaurant for a dessert called Tang Yuan 汤圆 (or Yuan Xiao 元宵). However, the policies announced by the school started to shift from completely positive to "cautious," deciding that, for the foreseeable future, NYU Abu Dhabi will move to remote instruction and remote work for students and faculty members.[2]

March 4th was when I started to get back to work after four days of interruption. Interestingly, while most of my classes were cancelled and substituted by simple checking-in—even if the school only said we were shifting to remote instruction, at least before the spring break—the only math class I'm taking this semester, probability and stats, was normally "staged."[3] I've also attended three meetings with my collaborators on campus for different projects. That night, I decided to rapidly develop an aviation info aggregator for airports within the UAE, called FlightFindUAE.[4] Again, staying busy and staying moving is, by itself, a coping mechanism for me during difficult times.

We skip March 5th as nothing special—other than continued bombing—happened (to me, at least), and I was mostly working on building FlightFindUAE. Things only changed significantly on campus on March 6th as the school leadership team announced in the morning via email that all students and faculty members who were still on campus would be relocated to hotels off campus—while providing no definite reason other than "being cautious & given we are an American institution after all ..." Presumably, it triggered much concern in terms of the 5W1H of the decision itself as well as about the complications regarding transportation, potential returning, checking out, etc., among the student body—to some extent even "excelled "the missile threats that are nonetheless not directly related to our daily life.

Fortunately, and to our privilege, the hotels provided to us since March 7 are absolutely of decency—and the very fact that we are staying in five-star (?) hotels with even more comfort than on campus both served me and ashamed me. And to be honest, besides the gratitude I should have, I'm quite unsure about my further feelings at this point—I may revisit this later for sure. To keep myself working after building FlightFindUAE, and to implement something I've been thinking about for a while since recent reflections on AI ontology and epistemology, I devoted my energy to orchestrating a proactive context-aware agent on this site using a ReAct-like architecture with custom tools that allow it to search both within the journal collections as well as over the internet, transforming the simple chat bot we used to have into an entity given instructions that reflects my latest understanding of AI and agent at all.[5] At the point of writing, my life has entered a, hopefully, new state of normality in the hotel, so that I'm able to return to my on reflections, the still-in-progress transfer applications, and coursework.

Anyhow, so much for the chronology. Back then, at the moment I realized that there is indeed a probability for some random missile to target our campus or a piece of debris to fall on my head, it naturally brought me back to my near-death experience list—as it is indeed a hypothetical physical life-threatening case.[6] However, I'm yet to be so shameless as to claim that what I'm experiencing now is comparable to the actual threat people in the frontline or in a country with less defense capability or in the exact targeted and or even ruined areas face. Frankly speaking, I wasn't feeling any fear, subjectively at least—only that practically my life was indeed disrupted and needed me to tentatively process any info and make potentially life-impacting decisions. To some extent, I would say it is a similar sense to my realizing myself in the transfer application process—a peculiar sense of excitement[7]—despite the factually disadvantageous situation. Emotionally speaking, my reaction this time wasn't even close to years ago when I heard that Russia launched attacks on Ukraine abruptly, or was shocked by videos of atrocities in Gaza. In each of those cases, I had been paralyzed for almost an entire day or more so. This time, on the other hand, maybe it is exactly due to my close entanglement in the matter—instead of remotely noticed—there is virtually no time, space, or "right" to be emotive or allow myself to stay in such possessed state. There needs to be decisions made and actions taken instead of mawkish sentiments, I'm afraid.[8]

We shouldn't let perfection become the enemy of good... Especially in this special situation.

This line, said by my professor in our last check-in Zoom gathering, is the one I'm missing for a long time.[9] In this particular case, we are commenting on the school's seeming decision to keep remote classes forever, even if later on a part of us could and were willing to get back on campus and show-up in classrooms—as the justification given by the school for not considering hybrid classes is for the purpose of equity, in light of being fair with the students who are indeed already at their home country. In general, though, it is a particularly suitable reminder for me from sliding into the diluted voice.[10]

Besides this specific discussion on a school policy, I do believe that I should at least, still, name two broader takeaways about fragility and privilege—although I don't think I'll really bring anything new to the table.[11] First comes the fragility of life and stability, as you may imagine. As mentioned, it seems too pretentious for me to credit myself as actually undergoing anything close to a war experience—the kind and level of stereotypical war experience that directly concerns fire and ash nearby, food or water shortage, ruins and shatters, and blood and tears. Therefore, all I dare to express as "takeaways" from my observations are grounded in life and stability in terms of our regular, normal daily life and the stability of one's own and the society as a whole. For the former, despite my claim that I wasn't emotionally affected drastically, I could not deny that my life was disrupted, as mentioned. This may seem to be tautologous for a restatement, yet it indeed matters to me in particular.

I always say that I'm annoyed with, sick of, agitated, and feel intolerant of a stagnant, fixed, or routine-driven existence—and I guess it is still true at large. However, when one's really thrown into the state of "absolute" uncertainty—at least knowing not where one could end up in three days' time—the contrast made it evident enough that even a postmodern schizoid man like me, in a rhetorical sense, can nevertheless never deny the basic human need of some extent of stability—the extent to which one could then start to complain about the stagnation and routine. In other words, stability is the precondition of the kind of vitality I talk about, instead of the opposite—another should-be-obvious fact, I guess. The latter level of stability in terms of the society as a whole, in this case, disturbed, also becomes a reminder of how stability is never solely maintained—neither for an individual, a society, or a nation. It is presumable that an individual's stability is affected by the stability of their neighborhood and the nation. Yet even for a nation—a nation alleged to be one of the safest places globally—it is the same case. It is so easy, even for such a complex system/entity, to be susceptible to externalities.

This may be a whimsical connection drawn, but the quest I'm reminded of these days is actually the determinism and free will debate.[12] Or to be more specific, the definition and existence of "chance."

Imagine that I disobeyed the shelter-in-place guideline and walked "fearlessly" under the sun while receiving a missile threat alert. By "chance," although the missile got intercepted by the UAE's air defense system, I was still hit in the head by falling debris from that missile, as a few tragedies happened here around. It is surely "unlucky" of me to experience it, and typically its happening is often interpreted as "by chance." However, it seems to be evident enough that, if we zoom out from my personal experience and really try to think of the "causes," there is certainly a set of exhaustive causes that deterministically lead to the result of that piece of debris falling onto my head at that moment and at that place. Just to name a few in such a set that I can never exhaust: the physics, the kind of missile and the kind of interception system, my choice of walking out there at that specific time and place, the choice made by the one who launched the missile, the choice made to launch a war, etc. Therefore, my stance here is to suspend or even, more straightforwardly, deny the existence of ontological chance—when an event is truly random and uncaused, but acknowledge epistemic chance—where the recurrent causal chain is too long to be completely reduced, and the components consist of "the chance" are too vast to be exhausted so that what we can observe is only the emergent chance. From another perspective, if radical freedom means we are always choosing and always responsible, what appears as chance would be essentially the collective consequence of countless other choices—our own and others—interacting in ways we can't comprehensively comprehend or control. In a sense, the thought process behind this understanding is quite similar to my approach to mind-body dualism—there exists some emergent threshold between the ontology and epistemology.

So much for the side quest on chance beyond the current situation, the other pertinent reminder I get in this process, as a mirror to the realization of the need for some minimal extent of stability, is the necessity of giving our best to keep moving and living, given whatever condition. As said, both building FlightFindUAE and updating my journal site (also includes writing this entry, I suppose) are my way of coping. The reason they could be my way of coping is nothing directly related to the particularity of these things, but rather the fact that they represent my normality in life. I was actually reminded of this general need and ought for people to strive for keeping, or even simply performing, normality when I came across some local records excerpts of small towns in China of a period called The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (五代十国), a period of regional powers' emergence and conflict. What surprised me was how people lived so seriously and decently—giving their best—when the land was of extreme uncertainty and turmoil. From how accurate the records were in logging two farmers' borrowing of rice to the tentative effort of a father to gather the necessary supplies for his daughter's wedding across villages, it seems to be a grounded way, if not the only way, for regular people to avoid being possessed by the horror of war is to continue living—even if there were objective limitations and incapability.

Eventually, I feel like a situation like this is quite suitable for one to reflect on their ultimate pursuit of life (if we ever use such terms). To some extent, it's nonetheless rooted in the NDEs' mechanism, despite the fact that I don't feel like it's really "near death." People and this society often expect and ask about others' goals in various scenarios, starting from an early age—research proposals, startup pitch decks, college applications, job interviews, sport training plans, and so on and so forth. In fact, in some of those cases, if one delusively believes that they are expected to provide responses of their ultimate life pursuit—instead of realizing the specific contextual expectations and requirements in the "game"—it will create a very hilarious disparity between the utilitarian or demonstrative nature of some of those narratives and one's serious intention—if any. Ironically, why so serious? Others may say.

I often found myself falling into this trap, trying to "fully represent myself."[13] From the very hesitation back then, writing my personal statements when it comes to my first college application season, to narrating my own interests in general and claiming a passion for anything in general—whether it is musicking, writing, coding, sporting, or producing, etc. Technically speaking, I do perceive myself as growing out of such an idealist mindset and starting to be able to curate some narratives that fit some pragmatic expectations and needs in life. Yet, when it comes to my own realm of expression (in other words, mostly these journals), I still haven't yet once termed what could be a potential pursuit of life for me, if any. My overall understanding of the matter hasn't changed that much: life not as a destination to be reached or a fixed identity to be defined, but as an open-ended, infinite process of self-questioning, deconstruction, and becoming. Still, I would say there was indeed some timidity or at least confusion within myself back then that prevented me from further contemplating and coining something given the overall framework.

I... had to honestly recognize the once contained (or the inadvertently grown) thirst, urge, desire, drive, ambition, motivation, or whatever to name it in different contexts—from academic to entrepreneurial, from ideological to physical, from emotional to contemplative, from creativity to productivity, from art to engineering, and for sure, beyond.

I may not actually desire anything other than the desire for "the desire to resolve the problems" or "the desire of negations" itself.

——My Real Abu Dhabi?

That said, I will try to reflect as directly as I can to narrate the tentative life pursuit of mine—or in fact, acknowledging many pursuits and desires that I once shy of expressing. Weeks ago, I said my FOMO at the moment is for humanity to miss the beauty of a genuinely new and distinct kind of entity when it comes to AI ontology and potential. However, when it comes to my own life, the biggest FOMO and the first pursuit is to realize as much as possible the full potential I have, reciprocating the resources I take from this planet and the universe. To be honest, this one is quite a family-imbued pursuit from a young age that I cannot deny, even if I'd like to act rebelliously. It obviously has a lot to do with the social, relational, and systematic construction and contract if one looks at this claim solely. But just to be clear about what I mean by reciprocating and realizing the potential, it is quite flexible in terms of the second point of my pursuit—which is to gain not only recognition, but to let this universe recognize my own standards and way of doing and living.

Although my mother is typically quite chill about my future and hasn't really imposed anything on me or limited my options, she would still, from time to time, ask: "What do you wanna do for a living?" There are two connotations of this question: The first is that by doing what one is going to pay the bills. While the second is by doing what one can to obtain a sense of purpose and fulfillment. To the former, I really don't recognize myself—speaking of personal life—as having much material need beyond some "basic" level of sustainability roughly equivalent to what I'm used to. And to her comfort, at least it seems that I will be able to achieve so, no matter what exactly I do.[14] However, when it comes to the latter perspective, what I'm asking is not at all conservative or humble. I do not intend to sound pretentious—yet if I'm to pursue recognition in general, I could have picked a track with a much clearer direction. However, unfortunately, that won't satisfy my peculiar need for recognition, the kind of recognition that is pointing towards me as a system and standards, instead of me within a system or standards. In that sense, I would term my desire as infinite—there is always more that I myself could pursue.

As a youth in my 21st, this is surely (?) too much to ask and too boastful to declare. In the worst case, I'm not even sure if there could be something called my way at all, given how interconnected we are as individuals in this society and how our beliefs and characters are influenced by all sorts of social constructions. Apparently, if I am to follow my own definition and understanding of chance mentioned earlier, there is certainly something in tension here. To my reconciliation, nevertheless, I would say that the fact that I still want to keep pursuing and attempting and refusing to forego this life, given this blunt tension laid out in front of me, could be, by definition, compatible with the hard incompatibilist understanding of chance and will—as it is precisely what behind the "chances" brings me to this point and this mindset—no matter if it's radically free or not. That's why there is no definitive pursuit or dream for me, and I care not for most things, as what I do ask for is way beyond. HOWEVER, there is indeed a need to regularly ground back to reality and body. Just like how this war is signaling.

You are on fire, aren't you?

At the end of the day, maybe instead of the FOMO or so-called life pursuit, what is tangible for me is, as always, the state of life or, in particular, how will and vitality signify themselves in my life. I've received a variety of compliments in my life. Grateful I was, I often find myself having a hard time fully accepting those compliments. In a rare case, it was because of some degree of imposter syndrome; while for most of the time, I hesitate to take full credit because most compliments we humans use tend to address some traits—traits that are hiddenly contingent and ephemeral, and mostly attached to the untold, tacit consensus of definition, no matter how positive and pleasing they are. On the other hand, the line I quoted just now from a professor of mine is something different—even if it doesn't seem like a typical compliment. It is this state of on fire, of becoming, and of infinite de-and-reconstruction, using my previous terms, that—with the urge to burn, to think, to create, and to live with limits tested—captures my desire beyond desires as the actual driving force that I reckon as worthy. It is the very fact that it's pointing to a, by definition, explicitly contingent state that reminds me of how grateful I should be to simply have the privilege of enjoying such a state—before it ever ends or burns out.[15]

I dare not claim I fear not death in any sense—in fact, the NDEs brought me both the poise and even deeper fear. Yet by acknowledging finitude and burning on a regular basis, knowing my desires are infinite, thus, does not implode, but rather reassures me as a condition of life.

1. ^

The US's alleged "precise" elimination of underground nuclear facilities of Iran with some temporary aftermath.

2. ^

Which was interpreted by many people as an implicit suggestion for departing from the country.

3. ^

See? Nerds don't give a *

4. ^

As it is not the main topic of this entry, I won't ramble too much. In a nutshell, the idea was that, although there are many aviation info platforms out there—FlightAware, FlightRadar24, etc., their architectures are not tailored to reflect the specific stats one in an affected region who seeks an immediate update with one-shot may need, including the successful departure rate of each airport in the past 48h and the region as a whole, and, more importantly, the future flights' latest status—particularly whether cancelled or not, that may be crucial to vital decision-making. Therefore, although the site I built there is technically no more than an API aggregator from three sources—AviationStack, AviationEdge, and AeroDataBox—I do believe it is something I should be able to do and contribute to the community at the moment, if not completely in vain.

5. ^

Again, this is some off-topic thread for this entry, and I will address it in the next one.

6. ^

An NDE, to my understanding, is a transformative event that serves as a catalyst for realizing and confronting one's own finitude, thereby making present life and choices feel more significant and lucid.

7. ^

Could be simply a result of spiked adrenaline level, though.

8. ^

While I acknowledge very much that the latter have their "right" to present themselves, nonetheless.

9. ^

Although, to my naiveness, it seems that it is a well-known quote in the English-speaking world from Voltaire—"The best is the enemy of the good." Obviously, I just happened not to have heard of it as a non-native speaker.

10. ^

A state I defined of intellectual paralysis where one's awareness of multiple, conflicting perspectives and the inherent limitations of certainty prevents the adoption and expression of a singular, decisive stance, often leading to a choice of silence as a protective, albeit sometimes cowardly, shield against the risks of being wrong.

11. ^

As I was writing this section, I thought I would have more to say about the privilege I have and the corresponding realization. However, to be honest, I find it difficult to go beyond what I've already said.

12. ^

Again * n, as this is not the main topic of the entry, I'll try to be concise. Just for context and prep for a potential future passage on it, my tentative stance on such a debate inclines towards hard incompatibilism.

13. ^

It is indeed a recurrent theme in my journals throughout this time.

14. ^

Admittedly, it's gonna be another story if the latter pursuit would necessarily require material support.

15. ^

That's why I consider exercising and sporting as a necessary building block to sustain this state, besides a source of joy.

Discuss