As an excercise in meta-babble, I first babbled for 5 mins to find problems I could solve in my life:
Problems I could think about:
I often go to bed later than I would like
I’m insufficiently coupled with the economy
I don’t have people in my life who both A) I trust to think straight, and B) will have my back in any situation
My eyesight is getting worse
Improving my skills at creativity takes more time than I can often justify spending
I often don’t feel like doing things that I know I need to do
I don’t have enough time in my life to do all the things I want to do
I don’t always know what the negative side effects of all of my actions / inactions will be
I consistently get lower karma scores / engagement on LW than I would like ; I feel like if I was A) as smart as my ego says I am and B) as good of a communicator as my ego says I am, then I would have more status on LW
Of these problems, I chose to think about becoming better coupled with the economy (in other words, have an income stream), due to the importance of the problem, because I think I can come up with some interesting solutions, and because I’ve been thinking about this problem for a while.
50 Ways to Become Sufficiently Coupled with the Economy:
I can sell music on bandcamp
I can call someone who works at Tesla, and ask them if they can hire me
I can use the contact form on Tesla’s website, and ask them to hire me
I can ask people in my *extended* family if they know of any jobs that might suit me well
I can apply to jobs in grocery stores or cafés or bars etc. nearby
I can search for firms that are hiring in another country, and call them / email them, and ask if they can hire me
I can physically visit firms in my current city, and ask them if they need any workers (probably a bad idea during the pandemic)
I can advertise on craigslist (or reddit? or youtube?) that I can tutor people via the internet
I can try to get a tutoring job
I can offer martial arts lessons to people over the internet (I used to teach martial arts as my job)
I can do bounties on Bounty Source
I can do random jobs on Fiver?
I can do freelance music work on Upwork
I can ask my friends if they know of any jobs that would suit me well
I can make little gadgets, and try to sell them on the internet (note: I have no experience with making objects, but I want to learn this skill)
I can do chess hustling somewhere (can a mediocre chess player profitably hustle?)
I can do writing, and people who donate money to my writing can vote on which topics I write about
I can do paid calls with people, where they tell me about things that they’re confused about, then I try to learn about the thing, then help them be less confused
I can contribute to the LW source code, and impress the LW team so much (I have no idea why they would be impressed by my coding) that they offer me a job working on LW
I can edit Wikipedia for money (in ethical ways. There’s many ways selling edits on WP would be very unethical, and I would never want to do anything that would fall in that category)
I can do daily Youtube videos, and set up a patreon for the videos
I could write and then sell a mini-book about habits that I’ve found helpful
I could knock on people’s doors, and ask them if there’s anything that they would be willing to pay me for (Pandemic though!)
I can buy tech that is broken, figure out how to fix it / make it work again, and sell it for a profit
Amazon mechanical turk?
I can become mayor of my city (???)
I could sell drawings
I could sell abstract art / doodles in my style of doodling
I can ask Y combinator give me a job as an assesor (?)
I can write a book of poetry, then sell it
I can sell things I no longer have a use for? (won’t make me sufficiently coupled, but can make me less uncoupled)
I can look on craigslist for random gigs, then do them
I can become an Uber driver (But I don’t want to worry about my car becoming a liability. Is it possible to uber-drive other people’s cars?)
I can sell pieces of paper that I have taken notes on / have doodled on, specifically ones I think may be aesthetically interesting
I can try to find everything I’ve ever written, and compile it into a book (or different volumes), and try to sell it
I can look up companies in Denmark (which I have ties to, but don’t currently live in), and ask them if they are willing to hire me + pay for me to fly to Denmark
I can post this in the comments on a thread on LW, and hope someone gets the message that I’m a smart + creative person who needs a job
Do a “hostage writing” thing, where I write something, but only publish it if I receive a certain amount of money (As Vitalek Buterin has suggested)
Do face paintings (or whatever the equivalent of my abstract art style is… or both) at a festival
Introduce myself to some indie game developers, preferably with enough success that they can pay me, but not so big / established that I’m just some random guy, and offer to write music / code for their game (since I have experience doing both)
Introduce myself to different bands (similar criteria as above), and offer to play for their band (I could probably do a decent enough job on bass, guitar, vocals (maybe), or keyboards given a little bit of practice, and the part not being too hard)
Email researchers at the university in my city (or even other universities), and ask them to pay me to help them with their research
Challenge myself to create a new video game every day for a month, and sell my favorite games from the project
Do a one-on-one call thingy, where people tell me about their problems, and I try to come up with ways to solve their problems (like a therapist or coach, but with a different skill set than a therapist or coach, and not as over-qualified)
Contact different musicians, and offer to write music for them / workshop their musical ideas with them
Chat with my cousin who’s an entrepreneur, and hopefully come up with some cool idea that I can help him with
Create Doordash, but it’s for shopping at stores + interacting with customer service (both IRL and on phone / online) (Probably already exists in the Bay Area, but do it for my locality instead of the Bay)
Do a thing where I chat with people about their Anki decks, and try to figure out ways they can use Anki more effectively
Work as a translator (I used to be good enough with Danish that doing DK → ENG would be feasible, but I’d need to practice to get back to that point… Plus, DK → ENG probably has a good bit more supply than demand)
Become a freelance voice artist
This challenge was a good bit faster for me than my previous babble challenge—it took me 38 mins + 4 seconds to do all 50, and I think it took just over 15 mins to do the first 30. I challenged myself to see how many I could come up with in 5 minute “chunks”, the first 3 chunks I came up with ~10 ideas (plus or minus one) in each 5 minute chunk, the last few chunks were slightly slower, but were still a good pace. For the fourth chunk, I probably would have gotten to 10, but I started laughing quite a bit after writing idea #37 (it was a little too on the nose…), so I only got 7 ideas in that round, and then it took me 2 more chunks (plus a little extra time after the second chunk) to finish it up
As an excercise in meta-babble, I first babbled for 5 mins to find problems I could solve in my life:
Problems I could think about:
I often go to bed later than I would like
I’m insufficiently coupled with the economy
I don’t have people in my life who both A) I trust to think straight, and B) will have my back in any situation
My eyesight is getting worse
Improving my skills at creativity takes more time than I can often justify spending
I often don’t feel like doing things that I know I need to do
I don’t have enough time in my life to do all the things I want to do
I don’t always know what the negative side effects of all of my actions / inactions will be
I consistently get lower karma scores / engagement on LW than I would like ; I feel like if I was A) as smart as my ego says I am and B) as good of a communicator as my ego says I am, then I would have more status on LW
Of these problems, I chose to think about becoming better coupled with the economy (in other words, have an income stream), due to the importance of the problem, because I think I can come up with some interesting solutions, and because I’ve been thinking about this problem for a while.
50 Ways to Become Sufficiently Coupled with the Economy:
I can sell music on bandcamp
I can call someone who works at Tesla, and ask them if they can hire me
I can use the contact form on Tesla’s website, and ask them to hire me
I can ask people in my *extended* family if they know of any jobs that might suit me well
I can apply to jobs in grocery stores or cafés or bars etc. nearby
I can search for firms that are hiring in another country, and call them / email them, and ask if they can hire me
I can physically visit firms in my current city, and ask them if they need any workers (probably a bad idea during the pandemic)
I can advertise on craigslist (or reddit? or youtube?) that I can tutor people via the internet
I can try to get a tutoring job
I can offer martial arts lessons to people over the internet (I used to teach martial arts as my job)
I can do bounties on Bounty Source
I can do random jobs on Fiver?
I can do freelance music work on Upwork
I can ask my friends if they know of any jobs that would suit me well
I can make little gadgets, and try to sell them on the internet (note: I have no experience with making objects, but I want to learn this skill)
I can do chess hustling somewhere (can a mediocre chess player profitably hustle?)
I can do writing, and people who donate money to my writing can vote on which topics I write about
I can do paid calls with people, where they tell me about things that they’re confused about, then I try to learn about the thing, then help them be less confused
I can contribute to the LW source code, and impress the LW team so much (I have no idea why they would be impressed by my coding) that they offer me a job working on LW
I can edit Wikipedia for money (in ethical ways. There’s many ways selling edits on WP would be very unethical, and I would never want to do anything that would fall in that category)
I can do daily Youtube videos, and set up a patreon for the videos
I could write and then sell a mini-book about habits that I’ve found helpful
I could knock on people’s doors, and ask them if there’s anything that they would be willing to pay me for (Pandemic though!)
I can buy tech that is broken, figure out how to fix it / make it work again, and sell it for a profit
Amazon mechanical turk?
I can become mayor of my city (???)
I could sell drawings
I could sell abstract art / doodles in my style of doodling
I can ask Y combinator give me a job as an assesor (?)
I can write a book of poetry, then sell it
I can sell things I no longer have a use for? (won’t make me sufficiently coupled, but can make me less uncoupled)
I can look on craigslist for random gigs, then do them
I can become an Uber driver (But I don’t want to worry about my car becoming a liability. Is it possible to uber-drive other people’s cars?)
I can sell pieces of paper that I have taken notes on / have doodled on, specifically ones I think may be aesthetically interesting
I can try to find everything I’ve ever written, and compile it into a book (or different volumes), and try to sell it
I can look up companies in Denmark (which I have ties to, but don’t currently live in), and ask them if they are willing to hire me + pay for me to fly to Denmark
I can post this in the comments on a thread on LW, and hope someone gets the message that I’m a smart + creative person who needs a job
Do a “hostage writing” thing, where I write something, but only publish it if I receive a certain amount of money (As Vitalek Buterin has suggested)
Do face paintings (or whatever the equivalent of my abstract art style is… or both) at a festival
Introduce myself to some indie game developers, preferably with enough success that they can pay me, but not so big / established that I’m just some random guy, and offer to write music / code for their game (since I have experience doing both)
Introduce myself to different bands (similar criteria as above), and offer to play for their band (I could probably do a decent enough job on bass, guitar, vocals (maybe), or keyboards given a little bit of practice, and the part not being too hard)
Email researchers at the university in my city (or even other universities), and ask them to pay me to help them with their research
Challenge myself to create a new video game every day for a month, and sell my favorite games from the project
Do a one-on-one call thingy, where people tell me about their problems, and I try to come up with ways to solve their problems (like a therapist or coach, but with a different skill set than a therapist or coach, and not as over-qualified)
Contact different musicians, and offer to write music for them / workshop their musical ideas with them
Chat with my cousin who’s an entrepreneur, and hopefully come up with some cool idea that I can help him with
Create Doordash, but it’s for shopping at stores + interacting with customer service (both IRL and on phone / online) (Probably already exists in the Bay Area, but do it for my locality instead of the Bay)
Do a thing where I chat with people about their Anki decks, and try to figure out ways they can use Anki more effectively
Work as a translator (I used to be good enough with Danish that doing DK → ENG would be feasible, but I’d need to practice to get back to that point… Plus, DK → ENG probably has a good bit more supply than demand)
Become a freelance voice artist
This challenge was a good bit faster for me than my previous babble challenge—it took me 38 mins + 4 seconds to do all 50, and I think it took just over 15 mins to do the first 30. I challenged myself to see how many I could come up with in 5 minute “chunks”, the first 3 chunks I came up with ~10 ideas (plus or minus one) in each 5 minute chunk, the last few chunks were slightly slower, but were still a good pace. For the fourth chunk, I probably would have gotten to 10, but I started laughing quite a bit after writing idea #37 (it was a little too on the nose…), so I only got 7 ideas in that round, and then it took me 2 more chunks (plus a little extra time after the second chunk) to finish it up