My favourite posts/essays by Scott Alexander on Slater Star Codex/Astral Codex Ten (unordered):
-
Concept-shaped holes can be impossible to notice
- on how you can go your whole life not knowing that you don’t know something, and how you are undoubtedly doing this right now.
- and sometimes you don’t understand something so fundamentally that you don’t even understand that you don’t understand it.
- so be careful dismissing ideas that seem meaningless or obvious - they might contain profound insights you’re not yet equipped to understand.
-
- intelligence is a terrible basis on which to measure your worth. it is by and large a fluke of genetics and it’s largely arbitrary that you find it easier to excel in certain areas than other people.
- the only thing that matters is that you did your best at what you like to do.
- find the talents you have, work hard at them and exploit the law of relative advantage to contribute to society and get paid.