introducing myself https://twitter.com/acidshill/status/1253720568408338432">https://twitter.com/acidshill...
i’m also going to provide some more useful information. i think @gwern is probably right that psychometrics conveys more information than generic life history/favorites/etc. so, here’s my february 2020 big five results (courtesy open psychometrics):
extroversion: 16th percentile
emotional stability (inverse neuroticism) : 82th percentile
agreeableness: 2nd percentile
conscientiousness: 89th percentile
openness to experience: 84th percentile

(take with a grain of salt, because my conscientiousness seems way lower than that)
myers-briggs seems sus, but here are my results (range from -2 to 2):

introversion-extraversion: -0.75
sensing-intuition: 0.25
feeling-thinking: 0.75
judging-perceiving: -0.875

Overall: INTJ
behold
I scored a 26 on this autism spectrum quotient thing. I’m a lil aspie, but I’ve gotten better at e.g. navigating social situations. I was much more autistic as a child.

https://twitter.com/ollybot_browne/status/1258914568161689602">https://twitter.com/ollybot_b...
100 follower special: AMA!
(if anyone has questions)
200 follower special: also an AMA
(because i haven’t thought of anything else)
300 follower special:

Like this tweet for one opinion about a topic of my choice (soft limit 50 opinions). You may not like them, but you will get them. https://twitter.com/acidshill/status/1273304017850920960">https://twitter.com/acidshill...
1. I dislike most modern porn. I find it vulgar and shallow, and it shames what the erotic can and should be. Banning or restricting porn is not the way to fix this.

(Jacqueline Carrey’s Kushiel books are an example of *good* erotica.)
2. We need better institutions, but need better culture even more. The ‘rationalist’ movement is a good start, but is rather exclusive to intelligent people.

Improving culture starts with cultivating virtue in yourself. It’s difficult, but worth doing, and underemphasized.
3. I meet a lot of people (even rather intelligent people) who don’t bother to think very much about what they think good actually is, or what they think they ought to do, in the general sense.

I mean it in the nicest possible way, but this is fucking crazy.
(not going to count this for the thread but i think it’s a good opinion worth linking) https://twitter.com/acidshill/status/1273363931638018048">https://twitter.com/acidshill...
4. Maturity (in the sense of people being immature, then becoming *mature*) is a dumb concept that deserves to be retired. It’s practically impossible to run out of room to grow, and you should never stop growing and improving. Adults are overrated. Everyone is flawed and...
...foolish and you ought to respect everyone and the level of growth they’ve achieved. To wall certain people off from opportunities or privileges or respect based on their age or cultural signifiers irrespective of demonstrated competence is usually arrogant. By all means...
...update on evidence appropriately to inform your beliefs, but beliefs are probabilities and you shouldn’t blind yourself to the possibility of e.g. a teenager being fully capable of significant leadership roles. And respect everyone by default.
5. In the same vein, children should have the same legal rights as adults. They won’t always use them, but they should have them.

Socially, it would be inappropriate to treat children the *same* as adults, but I think they should have some more dignity.
6. Most people seem to think goat cheese is a topping or ingredient or something but you can just eat it straight.
7. Everything is an op. This is not always a bad thing.
(again, not going to count this but it’s a good opinion) https://twitter.com/acidshill/status/1262208466988363776">https://twitter.com/acidshill...
8. The singularity is coming and too few people know, care, or consider the implications.
(BTW I *am* taking requests for the opinions, but may not always grant them.)
9. Some people legitimately are better off *not* thinking for themselves in most cases, and millennia of evolution have created a culture which helps them (in some ways, evolution is a blind god, etc.). If you *are* smart enough to think for yourself, you can ignore many...
...cultural directives. For example, ‘don’t do drugs without a doctor’s prescription’ is decent advice for some people. But if you’re smart enough to do your own research and weigh the risks of different substances, then you can and should stop being a lawcuck...
...and realize that some substances are safer than others and even that it’s a *good* idea to use certain drugs under certain circumstances.

This is a difficult point for me to articulate, I guess the short version is that...
...if you’re smart enough to think about under what conditions you should or should not think for yourself, think for yourself.

And by this point, COVID should have taught you that the Cathedral is not nearly as wise as it presents itself.
10. I will basically inevitably develop an *opinion* on anything I spend very much time thinking about. Of course, there are plenty of things that aren’t worth your time to think about (petty drama and insignificant culture war happenings come to mind)... https://twitter.com/caesararum/status/1273802382258946049">https://twitter.com/caesararu...
...but I’m not yet ready to fully articulate what makes something worth or not worth thinking about. Most of it is pretty obvious (to me at least) but there are some non-obvious considerations, I think.
11. If you don’t have issues wrt legality, cost, or your own mental health, you *should* own a firearm and learn how to use it.

There may come a time when you’ll need one.
12. Only truth is sacred. The rest is merely commentary.
13. D&D 5e is for the most a better system than Pathfinder 1e, which is pretty clunky. I haven’t gotten a chance to take a close look at Pathfinder 2e yet, but it looks better than 5e.

And the Pathfinder campaign setting is hands down the best fantasy setting I’ve ever seen.
14. If you’re not functioning mentally as well as you should be (i.e. mood/energy/focus worse than it should be) you’ll likely get a lot of mileage (more than you expect) out of the simple, obvious interventions: getting good sleep, eating well, exercising, and time outiside. ...
...80% of the improvements come from 20% of the interventions.

Nota bene I’m talking about mundane problems here, more serious mental illnesses will likely need more done for them.
15. Trust is probably the most important part of any relationship (romantic or otherwise). More than love or connection or anything else. If you and your partner or friend or child don’t trust each other, you’re cut off from 80% of the value of being close to other people.
Visa doing what I’m doing, but faster: https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1274528001779101696">https://twitter.com/visakanv/...
16. I think the framing where *imperialism* is a bad thing is wrong. Oppressive governments are bad, but they don’t need to be empires to do this. Large states in and of themselves aren’t necessarily bad and the idea of national self-determination is, to my mind, absurd.
17. The fact that the US still mostly uses customary units while the rest of the world adopted metric so rapidly seems significant somehow.
At this point, I’m having a lot of trouble coming up with stuff which I haven’t already said elsewhere or which Visa hasn’t already said. Here’s another bonus: https://twitter.com/acidshill/status/1257413923541856269">https://twitter.com/acidshill...
18. Mainstream western men’s fashion is boring, even when done well. Women’s fashion is usually boring, although when done well it’s aesthetic. (And to be fair I can’t blame women for not putting as much effort in as would be required to approach the platonic form.)
19. Necromancy is bad, but the Outer Gods are far worse. Know who your greatest enemies are.
(Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t strausspost, but that was too poetic to resist. What I mean by that basically is that, although the actions of your fellow man may enrage you, they are still your fellow man, and you may need to work together to defeat e.g. xrisk.)
(Although of course there may be other true interpretations of 19 I wasn’t thinking of, such is the beauty of poetry.)
20. Sometimes I feel like the only way most women know how to be sexy is to show skin.

As with most things, only a few have done more than scratch the surface of sexiness.
21. Large parts of the conventional model(s) of the world, i.e. the way most people think, are insane (cf Yudkowsky). When someone is able to detect one of these discrepancies, that can tell you a lot about them. Likewise if someone thinks the conventional model is just fine.
(related) https://twitter.com/acidshill/status/1273086862429577218">https://twitter.com/acidshill...
22. Because of historical reasons, 80% of the software you use on an everyday basis is significantly worse than it could be.
23. If you have the capacity for greatness, *strongly consider* reaching for it. If you don’t have the capacity, or you don’t want it, you still can and should reach for virtue and excellence.

In other words, try to have some ambition, even if it’s a small one.
24. If you’re in an argument with someone and they don’t treat you charitably or really make an effort to understand what you’re saying, just walk away, it’s not worth your time. *I* think this obvious, but many people seem not to get this, especially on the internet.
25. Reading high-quality fiction is fun, but it’s also an underrated form of self-improvement. Really good fiction exposes you to vibes/aesthetics/ideas you wouldn’t otherwise be able to imagine, and in reading it, the space of thoughts you are able to think is expanded.
26. If you’re smart and kind, participating in rat/postrat/visakanv twitter is unexpectedly high ROI. I’ve been here for three months and in that time:
- set up a great D&D group
- had tons of great conversations
- met a few people who could become really good friends
...
...There are *better* ways I could spend my time, but if I’m going to waste a certain amount of time anyways, I’d rather waste it here.
Coming up with opinions is hard when I have to keep all the good stuff secret. https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😜" title="Winking face with tongue" aria-label="Emoji: Winking face with tongue">
27. Okay, I know I was trying to give this up, but seriously, acid is a really good time and you should strongly consider trying it.
28. With regard to self-improvement, you will pretty easily get to a point where you don’t have any obvious steps you can take to overcome your bottleneck(s), or you would have taken those steps already.

A good way to get around this is to experiment with *a lot* of...
...different ideas. If something worked for something else, try it. If you find something that works for you, stick with it. Iterate and you can accumulate a stack of many interventions with small effects which cumulatively make a big difference in your life. (You may also...
...find and intervention which makes a big difference, although this is far less likely.)

It very much seems to me that most people do far less experimentation than they should, just sticking with their mediocre outcomes and believing they can’t do much better.
29. 25 also applies to movies and video games and music and poetry and so on. The difference is that, because of the economics, I think that there are more very good books than very good movies or video games. Music is great, but it evokes feelings more than thought, so it’s...
...mind-expanding in a different way. Poetry is something I should get into, but I never really have (always seems like an awkward hybrid of prose and lyrical music.)
30. I haven’t read very much philosophy (because the original sources are usually so god damn hard to decipher) but I strongly suspect that the history of philosophy is people talking about the same ideas with different terms/language/metaphors/methods of understanding.
...
...I’m pretty sure that if you were able to actually get into the heads of all of these philosophers and understand their ideas the way they understand them, without the communication issues, a lot of things would be cleared up.
31. I passionately hate podcasts. I will not explain this, but have no doubt some of you understand me.
I have now reached 31 opinions for 31 likes. Get your likes in before I reach ~390 followers and I’ll do an opinion after them, after that I have to get started on the 400 follower special.
I’m gaining followers pretty frequently these days, so these specials are coming faster, but I like them so I plan on keeping them coming every 100 followers for the foreseeable future.
Matt Parlmer is also doing a pretty good opinion thread right now. https://twitter.com/mattparlmer/status/1274594137052975104">https://twitter.com/mattparlm...
32. Cities can and should be so, so much better than they are now. Not only can we have the beautiful cities of Europe and Latin America in the US, but we can do even better than that.

This will probably not happen anytime soon because of NIMBYism and lack of ambition.
And here’s another opinion thread. Not as good as the others, but it’s got some nice ones. https://twitter.com/thomasdfish/status/1274792964577992704">https://twitter.com/thomasdfi...
33. Even if mainstream news media were reliably truthful (which they’re not) news just isn’t worth your time. It’s in the name—*new*s—it’s just a bunch of breathless ill-considered information on the latest thing that happened. Most of it isn’t at all important to your life...
...and you can learn the important things by reading a more long-run perspective (i.e. a book).

I’m not being super articulate right now, so I reccomend reading this for a more eloquent perspective:

https://www.gwern.net/docs/economics/2000-west.pdf">https://www.gwern.net/docs/econ...
34. There’s a big difference between what one does to advance a goal as effectively as possible and what one does simply to signal that they care about that goal. The only reason people are able to get away with the latter is that most people don’t know this distinction exists...
...In other words, if more people were able to recognize what effective altruism (or effective anything else) looks like, then social pressures would force those who merely wish to signal to actually become effective. Thus, only with enough common knowledge will those who...
...wish to signal caring about something actually be forced to act as if they do care about that thing.
35. Paradox grand strategy games are a surprisingly good way to learn about very specific periods of history, if, for instance, you wanted to learn a lot about the mid-1400s and have fun doing so.
36. You? Bisexual? It’s more likely than you think.
37. There is a complex relationship between the government, popular opinion, electoral outcomes, legislative politics, the media, etc. Taken as a whole, these elements and their relations form the political system. Politics as we know it is for the most part a consequence...
...of the characteristics of this system and only by changing the system (e.g. electoral reform, new media institutions, etc.) can politics be fixed. I very much doubt this will happen anytime soon, if ever—I expect the US can keep limping along until the singularity.
38. It’s psychologically easier than it should be to buy more and more stuff which isn’t really worth it.

There’s a lot to be said for minimalism—you save money, you don’t need as much space, it’s easier to tidy up. Be mindful about your possessions, don’t go on autopilot.
39. The singularity? In my lifetime? It’s more likely than you think.
40. Owning a dog, unless it’s a very small one, is cruel if you can’t take it outside regularly (i.e. in most urban settings). cf https://dormin.org/2020/03/21/against-dog-ownership/">https://dormin.org/2020/03/2...
Against Dog Ownership

I don’t know if I believe what I’ve written here. This isn’t a manifesto, it’s more like a bunch of random thoughts I can’t get out of my head. I could be convinced they’re all wrong, or that I’m n…

https://dormin.org/2020/03/21/against-dog-ownership/
And that’s 40 opinions. I hope you found some of them interesting. This thread took longer than I thought (and I gained followers faster than I thought) so the 400 follower special will be up tomorrow.
400 follower special: AMA!

(500 and 600 follower specials are gonna be a little different, so this will be the last AMA for a bit)
. @thinkagainer is killing it with the questions

i’m gonna steal some of these and so should you

also tagging @Aella_Girl for obvious reasons
500 follower special: I ask YOU the questions (view thread to see all 5 questions)

1. Why do you follow me?
2. Have you turned off my retweets (i.e. so they don’t show up in your feed)?
3. What is, in your opinion, the *best* account on Twitter?
4. What do you think I should post about that I haven’t posted about? / What kind of content is this account missing?
5. What life-changing book / other work should I read?
seems appropriate to put this in the introduction thread https://twitter.com/acidshill/status/1279625174355070976">https://twitter.com/acidshill...
general advisory: please feel free tell me exactly what you think of me, especially if you don’t like something i’m doing! if you think i’m being especially dumb, abrasive, etc. there’s a decent chance i’ll think about it, agree with you, and change my behavior
(to be clear this isn’t fishing for compliments, i just get really frustrated by the idea of people getting silently mad/annoyed about something i’m doing and not giving me useful feedback because other people would get upset about it)
600 follower special:

comment with a mildly convincing reason why, and I’ll follow your account or any other for at least a few days, longer if i like it
(and for 800 followers, I will recommend some smaller accounts to my followers, so some accounts from this special might show up later)
700 follower special:

comment and i will answer these questions about you https://twitter.com/glitchesbrew/status/1283122139319595008">https://twitter.com/glitchesb...
800 follower special:

In the past few weeks, I followed a bunch of smaller accounts on their request or the reccomendation of someone else. In this thread, I reccomend to you the best accounts I’ve found with <800 followers, and some of their tweets i like. #boostgang
@strangestloop is a *very* small account with some real gems https://twitter.com/strangestloop/status/1286724451237801984">https://twitter.com/strangest...
@devoidofnuance has thoughtful (but not nuanced) commentary sometimes, and did this nice thread https://twitter.com/devoidofnuance/status/1283449706488778752">https://twitter.com/devoidofn...
@sympathetic_opp writes some interesting things, mostly about birth control and pregnancy, apparently https://twitter.com/sympathetic_opp/status/1287373378396004352">https://twitter.com/sympathet...
@lisatomic5 is friendly and does slice-of-life and emotion posting, i think https://twitter.com/lisatomic5/status/1280295729970331648">https://twitter.com/lisatomic...
@chercher_ai seems schizo-adjacent

i love it https://twitter.com/chercher_ai/status/1288325300309262336">https://twitter.com/chercher_...
@PrinceVogel i would describe as trad, but in an unusually healthy and useful way, if that makes sense https://twitter.com/PrinceVogel/status/1286434702321229824">https://twitter.com/PrinceVog...
@thinkagainer is a smart person with an unusual talent for asking good questions https://twitter.com/thinkagainer/status/1287190421962096642">https://twitter.com/thinkagai...
@ozyfrantz has a good blog and their twitter account is good too https://twitter.com/ozyfrantz/status/1281967745718878208">https://twitter.com/ozyfrantz...
@seconds_0 comes highly rated and of course i have to stan this thread https://twitter.com/seconds_0/status/1285102962855960577">https://twitter.com/seconds_0...
@Laserpig_Utopia is a old weird sun and a decent shitposter https://twitter.com/Laserpig_Utopia/status/1276500444492283904">https://twitter.com/Laserpig_...
@ben_r_hoffman is exceptionally well-read and helpful. probably better known for his blog, but his twitter account is very good too (esp. in the replies and DMs) https://twitter.com/ben_r_hoffman/status/1280169379527888896">https://twitter.com/ben_r_hof...
@fvathynevgl seems to log once every two weeks to post a long, thoughtful thread. here’s one relevant to the topic at hand https://twitter.com/fvathynevgl/status/1259415896336076801">https://twitter.com/fvathynev...
@fiddlemath likewise seems to rarely post interesting things https://twitter.com/fiddlemath/status/1262274008080236544">https://twitter.com/fiddlemat...
@__rowboat__ also falls in this class (sorry, i can’t do a good job of describing accounts i see so rarely) https://twitter.com/__rowboat__/status/1279855447676076033">https://twitter.com/__rowboat...
@LinchZhang posts about COVID and other stuff and is, i’m told, a good forecaster on such matters https://twitter.com/LinchZhang/status/1261427045977874432">https://twitter.com/LinchZhan...
@CrisprChild is adorable and maybe the most mysterious person i’ve met in a while. they’re hard to describe and i don’t understand them https://twitter.com/CrisprChild/status/1287106556870500353">https://twitter.com/CrisprChi...
@ollybot_browne is a fun guy who *gets* it in a way most people don’t https://t.co/TJuNHW87zI ">https://t.co/TJuNHW87z...
@maltybegray is an account like no other. praise superconductor. wholesomely sexy. sexily wholesome. idk what else do you want me to say https://twitter.com/maltybegray/status/1287800631965544448">https://twitter.com/maltybegr...
@TameranVacilio is my best friend who tweets interesting things sometimes

also check out our (possibly???) upcoming podcast @vecnasgoonsquad https://twitter.com/TameranVacilio/status/1284693572575322112">https://twitter.com/TameranVa...
well, fellas, that’s the special! i could have put more effort into it, but that would go against my principles
somehow this didn’t end up in the introduction thread earlier, but it seems appropriate https://twitter.com/acidshill/status/1281793924957261824">https://twitter.com/acidshill...
and i will also backlink to my master thread, which contains all of my other good stuff https://twitter.com/acidshill/status/1287205581426528257">https://twitter.com/acidshill...
remember when this was an introduction thread? lmao

might be nice to go back to that, actually https://twitter.com/acidshill/status/1289803713435992064">https://twitter.com/acidshill...
900 follower special:

AMA! (This will most likely be the last AMA in some time.)
1000 follower special:

In order to be maximally on-brand, today I have taken acid and will answer your questions. AMA. https://twitter.com/qorprate/status/1294113343184285697">https://twitter.com/qorprate/...
cc @qorprate @QiaochuYuan
(next special will be at 2000 followers)
You can follow @acidshill.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

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