In a 1964 public inquiry into whether the film The Lovers should be banned for its adult content, Supreme Court judge Justice Potter Stewart was asked to define pornography. He replied with the ultimate non-definition:
“I know it when I see it”.
High agency is one of those “I know it when I see it” ideas. And once you see it – you can’t unsee it. Before I explain it, let’s see it.
You have agency over your agency.
David Deutsch uses the example of an asteroid about to hit Earth one year from now. If penguins were in charge of the response, you could calculate fixed odds based on the physics of the asteroid what will happen to the earth. With humans in charge, it’s impossible to calculate fixed odds.
There are no adults. ; Kill your gurus.
henry ford insane example
Go to the funerals of the people you care about and the normal rational behaviour is never mentioned. It’s filled with weird and hilarious stories of the individual — the times they broke out of the median distribution of human behaviour and displayed their uniqueness.
If you’re hiding your weird individualism to make the tribe like you, remember: They’ll soon forget everything you did or said.
The past no longer exists — it’s just a memory appearing in the now. The future does not yet exist — it’s a dream of a future now appearing in the now. Life is just a series of nows. [[The Power of Now]]
Oh really? The past exists too? Have you ever been there?
You have a finite number of nows.
Last year, 5.58 billion passenger seats were flown on airplanes.
The person in the vague trap often spends countless hours thinking — without once thinking clearly. The average person has 10-60,000 thoughts per day. Can you remember any specific thoughts from yesterday? Thoughts feel so real in the moment and then disappear into the memory abyss. Most thoughts aren’t even clear sentences.
What does my dream week look like hour by hour? What does my nightmare week look like hour by hour? What’s the gap between my current week and the dream/nightmare week?
What would I do if I had 10x the agency?