Take as many AP tests as you can. (in the U.S., at least. I’m not sure what the international equivalent is).
Take AP tests even in subjects you haven’t taken in school. You get credits towards college, it looks impressive on a college resume, and you get to go at your own pace. Specifically, microeconomics is very easy to teach yourself and very useful.
Take as many science and math classes as you possibly can. If your school limits you to one or two science classes simultaneously, go and talk to your counselor. If you make enough of a nuisance of yourself, you can usually get what you want—and no matter what you want to major in, foundations in science and math are important. If you do poorly in math/science classes, try doing all your homework three times—the day before the material is covered in class, the day after the material is covered in class, and again before the test.
Join clubs/sports teams. Even if you’re introverted (especially if you’re introverted), you need regular IRL social interaction to be happy. If you’re at all athletic, sports are an automatic boost in social status in addition to being relaxing and sometimes fun. If you don’t think you’re at all athletic, you probably haven’t found your sport yet—I have no hand-eye coordination, so I run cross country. Debate teams are also a great place to find people with the ‘taking ideas seriously’ gene, though their effect on rationality is mixed at best.
To make time for the above: figure out which classes you care about. Do your homework for those classes during your other classes. Shakespeare isn’t really my thing, so I usually finish Physics during English. Gamify things: assign yourself challenges (get through ten math problems in History without making the teacher suspicious) with rewards for finishing them (no math homework tonight!).
Figure out what skills you are learning that you will want in real life, and actively optimize them. The ability to write coherently (and quickly) is important even if you plan to be an engineer, as is the ability to read and absorb stuff quickly. The ability to solve math problems without making stupid sloppy errors is equally important, though I haven’t figured out how to optimize this yet. Also, school is a built in opportunity to practice explaining singulatarianism/transhumanism/cryonics to other people. It doesn’t matter if people think you’re weird, you won’t see any of them again anyway after you graduate. Practice different approaches to explaining ideas you are passionate about and see which one gets the best response.
Apply for scholarships. There’s tons of them out there, and many of them don’t get enough applicants. It’s free money, which you will need if you intend to attend a good college (especially in the United States.) And you should plan to attend a good college, unless you have an absolutely brilliant idea: graduates from expensive big name schools earn lots more than from cheaper schools.
I’m trying to get out of AP econ to self-study. What sources are did you use to study it? I am also getting out of being babysat for a year by taking the AP English exam. The head of the english department wasn’t too happy about it “We are required by law to let you do this”.
I quit playing sports because they took up too much time in my pursuit of knowledge. I have so little time for actually learning because I’m so busy jumping through hoops during the day. I thought about doing debate team, but I enjoy sleeping in on saturdays.
I think I will try explaining transhumanism to my peers now that you mention it, but I don’t know what to say without saying “if WBE happens, we could live in a Matrix and change it however we like”. They’re like “cool. matrix. gotcha.”
If I get the Thiel Fellowship I’m taking it. If not, I’m going to college.
I studied from my school’s textbook (it was free); the textbook recommendations might be better. If you just want a 5 on the AP test, buy the Princeton Review AP Macro/Micro book and memorize it. (Same goes for AP U.S. and AP World History).
Since you quit sports, do you actually spend more time pursuing knowledge? I find I spend more time procrastinating.
For transhumanism, I usually say, “Hey did you see that study? They might have figured out how to cure aging in mice.”
“Wow. Cool. Hopefully they figure it out for peop—actually, if they cure aging, we’re screwed. Overpopulation - ”
“Yeah, definitely. The thing is, all the people who should be figuring out how to deal with that stuff aren’t, because it sounds like sci-fi. So instead of thinking of solutions, they’re all just, like, ‘not going to happen’. Me, I hope they cure aging. Aging sucks.”
“You want to live forever?”
“I don’t want to die anytime soon, do you? And I think most people only want to die at 80 because being old isn’t much fun. If we were getting stronger, smarter, doing interesting stuff… Well, imagine being born in 1700. Wouldn’t you still want to be alive today? So much awesome stuff has happened since then...”
“That’d be pretty cool, actually. But if everyone lives forever...”
“That’s why we’ve got to figure this stuff out now, instead of just waiting to see what happens.”
(Of the methods I’ve tested, this seems to be the only conversation track that mostly avoids “But death is good....” conversations).
I usually try to strongly emphasise that curing ageing =/= living forever. I’ve found it much easier to convince people that curing ageing is a good idea, than living “forever”.
Agreed. But if you tell people you want to cure aging, a lot of them jump to ‘live forever’ - you have to consciously direct the conversation back to aging, if that’s what you want to discuss.
“That’d be pretty cool, actually. But if everyone lives forever...”
“That’s why we’ve got to figure this stuff out now, instead of just waiting to see what happens.”
Well, to be fair, everyone living forever while staying on Earth has some predictably bad consequences. But we’ve brought up Earth’s carrying capacity plenty of times before, and there are plausible ways that we could do it again. It’s an issue we’re probably going to have to address regardless.
It’s easier to get people to agree that we need to be thinking ahead and actively planning for transformative technologies, than it is to get them to agree that immortality is possible or desirable. But once they’ve agreed it is important to take these ideas seriously, then they will listen to much crazier sounding ideas, since they’ve starting thinking of themselves as people who Take Crazy-Sounding Ideas Seriously.
At first I didn’t spend more time studying, but at this point, I can definitely say that I do. However, I realized that I still have to exercise regularly in order to maintain my sanity/IQ so I cut my exercise time in half, but did not eliminate it.
And I’ll have to give that transhumanism discussion another go with my parents/friends. My basic argument is that if you don’t take it and it’s there, that’s suicide.
Which is true, but rarely persuasive. And it’s not really an argument for supporting organizations that are working to develop the technology, which is more important. (I imagine once a cure for aging actually exists, it will be relatively easy to persuade people to take it.)
And focusing on the potential good future has (at least for me) proven more effective than focusing on the utter stupidity of letting people die.
I think the general counter argument there is that people would become bored if they lived forever because they would do everything there is to do. These people aren’t very creative IMO. Or maybe they have just been brainwashed.
Studying languages usually gives better return than high school science courses which usually range from mediocre to sucky. Science is something you can read about on your own (the labs are usually the least useful part of high school science), languages you gain a lot more from working in a class.
Note that I went to Eleanor Roosevelt Center for Science and Technology several decades ago, the shop classes I took (Construction Technology and Technical Illustration) were fairly good and useful, the science classes were pretty mediocre.
I was also thinking of Heinlein’s advice to learn Math, Languages, and History, math and languages are really helped by having a teacher and working with others.
I’d agree that it makes sense to take subjects you can’t learn on your own, and avoid subjects that are poorly taught, but I imagine that varies a fair bit by school. My school’s language classes were pretty terrible; I learned Spanish from spaced repetition and watching movies, which is probably not optimal. In contrast, our science classes are decent, and I personally benefited a lot from talking things over with classmates (for a recent example, no one in my class understood thermodynamics, so we spent a couple hours talking it over together before someone figured it out.)
At risk of other-optimizing:
How To Get The Most Out of High School
Take as many AP tests as you can. (in the U.S., at least. I’m not sure what the international equivalent is). Take AP tests even in subjects you haven’t taken in school. You get credits towards college, it looks impressive on a college resume, and you get to go at your own pace. Specifically, microeconomics is very easy to teach yourself and very useful.
Take as many science and math classes as you possibly can. If your school limits you to one or two science classes simultaneously, go and talk to your counselor. If you make enough of a nuisance of yourself, you can usually get what you want—and no matter what you want to major in, foundations in science and math are important. If you do poorly in math/science classes, try doing all your homework three times—the day before the material is covered in class, the day after the material is covered in class, and again before the test.
Join clubs/sports teams. Even if you’re introverted (especially if you’re introverted), you need regular IRL social interaction to be happy. If you’re at all athletic, sports are an automatic boost in social status in addition to being relaxing and sometimes fun. If you don’t think you’re at all athletic, you probably haven’t found your sport yet—I have no hand-eye coordination, so I run cross country. Debate teams are also a great place to find people with the ‘taking ideas seriously’ gene, though their effect on rationality is mixed at best.
To make time for the above: figure out which classes you care about. Do your homework for those classes during your other classes. Shakespeare isn’t really my thing, so I usually finish Physics during English. Gamify things: assign yourself challenges (get through ten math problems in History without making the teacher suspicious) with rewards for finishing them (no math homework tonight!).
Figure out what skills you are learning that you will want in real life, and actively optimize them. The ability to write coherently (and quickly) is important even if you plan to be an engineer, as is the ability to read and absorb stuff quickly. The ability to solve math problems without making stupid sloppy errors is equally important, though I haven’t figured out how to optimize this yet. Also, school is a built in opportunity to practice explaining singulatarianism/transhumanism/cryonics to other people. It doesn’t matter if people think you’re weird, you won’t see any of them again anyway after you graduate. Practice different approaches to explaining ideas you are passionate about and see which one gets the best response.
Apply for scholarships. There’s tons of them out there, and many of them don’t get enough applicants. It’s free money, which you will need if you intend to attend a good college (especially in the United States.) And you should plan to attend a good college, unless you have an absolutely brilliant idea: graduates from expensive big name schools earn lots more than from cheaper schools.
I’m trying to get out of AP econ to self-study. What sources are did you use to study it? I am also getting out of being babysat for a year by taking the AP English exam. The head of the english department wasn’t too happy about it “We are required by law to let you do this”.
I quit playing sports because they took up too much time in my pursuit of knowledge. I have so little time for actually learning because I’m so busy jumping through hoops during the day. I thought about doing debate team, but I enjoy sleeping in on saturdays.
I think I will try explaining transhumanism to my peers now that you mention it, but I don’t know what to say without saying “if WBE happens, we could live in a Matrix and change it however we like”. They’re like “cool. matrix. gotcha.”
If I get the Thiel Fellowship I’m taking it. If not, I’m going to college.
I studied from my school’s textbook (it was free); the textbook recommendations might be better. If you just want a 5 on the AP test, buy the Princeton Review AP Macro/Micro book and memorize it. (Same goes for AP U.S. and AP World History).
Since you quit sports, do you actually spend more time pursuing knowledge? I find I spend more time procrastinating.
For transhumanism, I usually say, “Hey did you see that study? They might have figured out how to cure aging in mice.”
“Wow. Cool. Hopefully they figure it out for peop—actually, if they cure aging, we’re screwed. Overpopulation - ”
“Yeah, definitely. The thing is, all the people who should be figuring out how to deal with that stuff aren’t, because it sounds like sci-fi. So instead of thinking of solutions, they’re all just, like, ‘not going to happen’. Me, I hope they cure aging. Aging sucks.”
“You want to live forever?”
“I don’t want to die anytime soon, do you? And I think most people only want to die at 80 because being old isn’t much fun. If we were getting stronger, smarter, doing interesting stuff… Well, imagine being born in 1700. Wouldn’t you still want to be alive today? So much awesome stuff has happened since then...”
“That’d be pretty cool, actually. But if everyone lives forever...”
“That’s why we’ve got to figure this stuff out now, instead of just waiting to see what happens.”
(Of the methods I’ve tested, this seems to be the only conversation track that mostly avoids “But death is good....” conversations).
I usually try to strongly emphasise that curing ageing =/= living forever. I’ve found it much easier to convince people that curing ageing is a good idea, than living “forever”.
Agreed. But if you tell people you want to cure aging, a lot of them jump to ‘live forever’ - you have to consciously direct the conversation back to aging, if that’s what you want to discuss.
Well, to be fair, everyone living forever while staying on Earth has some predictably bad consequences. But we’ve brought up Earth’s carrying capacity plenty of times before, and there are plausible ways that we could do it again. It’s an issue we’re probably going to have to address regardless.
That’s my point.
It’s easier to get people to agree that we need to be thinking ahead and actively planning for transformative technologies, than it is to get them to agree that immortality is possible or desirable. But once they’ve agreed it is important to take these ideas seriously, then they will listen to much crazier sounding ideas, since they’ve starting thinking of themselves as people who Take Crazy-Sounding Ideas Seriously.
At first I didn’t spend more time studying, but at this point, I can definitely say that I do. However, I realized that I still have to exercise regularly in order to maintain my sanity/IQ so I cut my exercise time in half, but did not eliminate it.
And I’ll have to give that transhumanism discussion another go with my parents/friends. My basic argument is that if you don’t take it and it’s there, that’s suicide.
Which is true, but rarely persuasive. And it’s not really an argument for supporting organizations that are working to develop the technology, which is more important. (I imagine once a cure for aging actually exists, it will be relatively easy to persuade people to take it.)
And focusing on the potential good future has (at least for me) proven more effective than focusing on the utter stupidity of letting people die.
I think the general counter argument there is that people would become bored if they lived forever because they would do everything there is to do. These people aren’t very creative IMO. Or maybe they have just been brainwashed.
Studying languages usually gives better return than high school science courses which usually range from mediocre to sucky. Science is something you can read about on your own (the labs are usually the least useful part of high school science), languages you gain a lot more from working in a class.
Note that I went to Eleanor Roosevelt Center for Science and Technology several decades ago, the shop classes I took (Construction Technology and Technical Illustration) were fairly good and useful, the science classes were pretty mediocre.
I was also thinking of Heinlein’s advice to learn Math, Languages, and History, math and languages are really helped by having a teacher and working with others.
I’d agree that it makes sense to take subjects you can’t learn on your own, and avoid subjects that are poorly taught, but I imagine that varies a fair bit by school. My school’s language classes were pretty terrible; I learned Spanish from spaced repetition and watching movies, which is probably not optimal. In contrast, our science classes are decent, and I personally benefited a lot from talking things over with classmates (for a recent example, no one in my class understood thermodynamics, so we spent a couple hours talking it over together before someone figured it out.)