Other people's ideas that became mine

People and traditions I learn from. For each one: their idea in my own words and what I take from it. They often argue with one another, and I like that: a picture of the world doesn't have to boil down to a single theory.

Between them are the questions that lead me from one idea to the next.

The Buddhist tradition of exploring the mind Tradition

The Nature of Mind

Thoughts are events that arise and pass, not who I am. You can watch them like the weather: notice them, don't argue with them, don't obey them. Over two and a half thousand years the tradition has gathered precise ways to test this in your own experience, without taking anyone's word for it.

What I take

The meta-position: the ability to see my own thought from the outside before acting on it. And compassion as a sober conclusion rather than a moral rule: if we are built alike, someone else's suffering is never entirely someone else's.

On the shelf«The Untethered Soul» «Waking Up»

If thoughts aren't me, can I choose different ones?

Richard and John Bandler and Grinder

The Nature of Mind

People live not in the world but in their map of the world, and the map shows in language: in generalizations, omissions, distortions. A precise question expands the map, and options appear that weren't there before. NLP grew out of this work.

What I take

Attention to words, my own and other people's. And an honest caveat: the scientific basis of NLP is disputed, so I take its tools for observation, not its promises.

On the shelf«The Structure of Magic» «The Brain That Changes Itself»

Where does your mind end and the tool begin?

Ray Kurzweil

Mind and Machine

Technology grows exponentially while intuition expects a straight line, so the future arrives sooner than the forecasts. The next step is the merging of human and machine: external systems become an extension of the mind.

What I take

The habit of calculating rather than guessing. And the image I'm working toward: a system that understands voice and context and helps you think, rather than just carrying out commands.

On the shelf«The Singularity Is Near»

How many years do you need to do everything you want to?

David Sinclair

Extending Youth

Aging is not inevitable wear and tear but a process with its own mechanisms. Sinclair describes it as cells losing information about which genes to switch on, and believes the process can be slowed down and, in experiments, partly reversed.

What I take

Treating aging as a problem to solve, not as fate. My knowledge base on the theory of aging at imhuman.space grew directly out of this.

On the shelf«Lifespan»

If aging is a process, can it be repaired piece by piece?

Aubrey de Grey

Extending Youth

Aging is the accumulation of several types of damage, from cell loss to junk inside and outside cells. To repair the consequences, you don't need to understand all of biology, just as you don't need to understand all the chemistry of metal to keep an old car running for decades.

What I take

The engineering approach: break a huge problem down into a list of specific repairs. That's how I work with any complex system.

On the shelf«Ending Aging»

If life gets longer, will there be enough of everything else to fill it?

Peter Diamandis

Abundance

Technology makes cheap what was scarce for centuries: energy, water, computing, knowledge. Abundance is not a utopia but a direction in which prices and access are already moving.

What I take

Seeing scarcity as an engineering problem. And the question where abundance begins for me: what people will do once survival no longer drains their strength.

On the shelf«Abundance»

What would you do if you didn't have to earn a living?

Elon Musk

Abundance

Musk has said more than once that when AI and robots take over work, we will need not a minimal income but a universal high income: there will be so many goods and services that work becomes a choice rather than a necessity.

What I take

The bar itself: not a survival allowance but a foundation to create from. And sobriety: income is one of the mechanisms of abundance, alongside automation and accessible infrastructure, not a magic button.

On the shelf«Utopia for Realists» «Abundance»

Why does scarcity make us worse than we are?

Peter Kropotkin

Free Society

Evolution is not only a struggle for survival. Observing animals in Siberia, Kropotkin saw that species whose members help one another survive better. Mutual aid is as much a factor of nature as competition.

What I take

Confidence that cooperation is natural. People don't need to be forced to help each other — it's enough not to get in their way.

On the shelf«Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution»

Can people reach agreement without someone forcing them?

Elinor Ostrom

Free Society

The common belief is that a shared resource is doomed: either it gets plundered, or it has to be handed over to the state or a private owner. Ostrom gathered many real cases — pastures, fishing grounds, irrigation canals — where communities have managed the commons themselves for generations. In 2009 she received the Nobel Prize in Economics for this research.

What I take

Self-organization is not the absence of rules but rules written by the participants themselves: clear boundaries, mutual monitoring, proportionate consequences, room for disputes.

On the shelf«Governing the Commons»

Who would you grow faster with than on your own?

Balaji Srinivasan

Free Society

A new society can begin online: with people united by a shared idea who first learn to act together, then gather resources and places in the physical world, and only after that seek recognition.

What I take

The order of steps. Not remaking existing states, but gathering people who think alike and starting small: a shared place and a shared cause.

On the shelf«The Network State»