Hello. I’m Mark. I’m a 24-year-old software engineer in Michigan.
I found LessWrong a little over a year ago via HPMOR. I’m working through the books listed on MIRI’s Research Guide. I finished Bostrom’s Superintelligence earlier this week, and I’m currently working through the Sequences and Naive Set Theory. I’m not quite sure what I want to do after I complete the Research Guide; but AI is challenging and interesting, so I’m excited to learn more.
P.S. I’m a SuperLurker™. I find it very difficult to post in public forums. I only visualize the futures where future!Me looks back at his old posts and cringes. If you suffer similarly, I hope you will follow my lead and introduce yourself. Throw caution to the wind! Or, you know, just send me a private message (a simple “hey” will suffice) and maybe we can help each other.
Fantastic write-up. I am very impressed by your recent productivity, and I'd like to replicate it for myself.
I don't share your distaste for unproductive activities, so I'm going to pursue two alternative routes to habitual productivity. Both entail adding incentives for productive work rather than mindhacking a distaste for "traditional" fun:
Gamification: Closely related to mindhacking. This strategy could range from something as simple as a daily success chain (see Chains.cc, which I am currently using with some success) to a fully customized system where productive tasks are assigned points redeemable for prizes.
Working with friends: Social reinforcement is a really strong motivator for me (I'm not sure how well this generalizes). In this scenario, you can work together on the same problem or work on unrelated productive tasks side-by-side. You celebrate each others' successes and provide pep talk when required. The bonus effect here is that you may fulfill some of your social needs. The downside is that you may find yourself distracted by conversation / general fun / antics / etc.