The brightness that comes before

Since I was a teen, I realised:

that books are large
that large parts of society are arbitrary
that language is arbitrary
that confidence in the young is either unthinking or a trick
that nihilism is arbitrary
that pure logic cannot tell us how the world is (but can say what it cannot be)
that bad is worse than good is good
that left and right is a small part of political space
that radicalism does very little
that conflict theory is self-fulfilling
that there is more to life than avoiding error
that much of what we call intelligence is mere legal intelligence, winning arguments
that art is tiny by comparison with the world
that most creativity is found outside art
that most acclaimed books are not very good
that principal components analysis works and is holy. that not everything reflects the subject’s ideology
that machines can spot patterns, socially critical and philosophically rich patterns
that bureaucracy serves itself first, wastes 90% of what it is given, and that government is bureaucracy
that you cannot be happy or productive unless you accept that you are not The Protagonist, above discomfort and boredom, more important than others
that corporations are not efficient at their own goal
that large parts of society are not arbitrary
that careers can be good, capital-g Good.
that work can be amazing, that work is the basis of most other goods
that efficiency is constructive laziness
that good on one axis is very often worth bad on another
that economic science is not objective
that economic science is not completely subjective
that most people’s goals lack one or more of importance, neglectedness, or tractability
that philosophy is a cage
that I need to become technical to do great things
that I need to become technical to do real philosophy
that most fields are quite methodologically shallow and this is how people can be polymaths
that AI is coming and all that is solid shall melt into air
that most science is not real science
that PhDs are not that hard cognitively
that running your own business is freedom
that tasks and goals are not metaphysical, can be quantised
that rationality is not about rationality
that most ideas have not been had, most projects have never been done

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