This is a special post for quick takes by Dennis Akar. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
Denizhan_Akar's Shortform
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Kind of agree. What do you think is the most value you get from this? Was wondering about whether I should post accountability-related stuff here (e.g. by editing the post) but not sure if it makes sense.
My writing usually goes into my personal notebook, or a private chat with a trusted friend, or into an email to a discussion group.
It is very scary to put things up in public because the internet remembers things forever and you can get into trouble if people think something you said was supposed to be a secret, or bad, or stupid.
So, you need to be careful. I am not perfect about being careful, so I decided not to risk it.
After some personal growth I reached a point where I became more confident that I could support myself if anything happened.
Concretely, I still can't handle prosecution or litigation, but I just created a prediction market If I resign or am laid off from Microsoft Canada in 2023, will I financially break-even-or-better for the year? | Manifold Markets.
Here the audience is smaller. And the people are smart. If they like what I write, then they might like me, and if they like me, I might eventually get lots of money, make a close friend, or even make an important contribution to AI Alignment!
It is less scary. But I am still very careful because I want to sound smart. This place has less of that pressure, which is good, and I hope it gives me the courage to share more of what I have written where it can help other people.
I get the same impression. Like Twitter but optimized for insightful conversation, with a community that values good epistemics over name-calling et cetera. It would be nice if I could follow people and it had a broader, more intellectually diverse audience. I enjoy talking with rationalists, but it's a small world, and I don't want to trap myself in an echo chamber.
Testing Out Shortform and Comments
I really appreciate the existence of this functionality, since when it comes to trying to do something I either overdo or don't do at all. Shortforms make it managable and still publicly shared, so I still have enough incentive to create something nice and understandable. A much much better Twitter, and allows everyone to glimpse into the "studio" of very good writers.
Oh wow I can include images like this! Very nice.
Successful Work Analysis
Managed to end up submitting some applications to places I think I would like to work at. I think things that helped me do this (notwithstanding chance/luck) were (in descending order of perceived priority):
- Preventing potentially "oppressive" silence by having an audiobook/chat in the background. Not necessarily white noise chat, which can feel just irritating (not usually) and I don't tend to like music due to it influencing emotions too much. It also sometimes requires too much fiddling about with playlists etc. Examples:
- At the time it was two friends discussing how they're thinking about their lives and video making ideas.
- Next time I did this by listening to Connor chatting about life and AI safety.
- "Positively" working myself out / physically tiring myself. Went out to have long walk with a friend. Though I think physical activity is indeed important, it didn't feel as impactful as the oppressive-silence-breaking.
- The idea of being able to tell a friend, who is not that much invested in what I'm doing, that I did this and this cool thing.
These seem to somewhat lower my sense of anxiety both for applications/rejections and sending a message to people I should send a message to (e.g. job or someone I haven't replied to in a very long time).