This is amazing. Thank you, so, so much. I’ll start coding in Hy with Vim. I’ll start doing weekly blogs once my tennis season ends (three weeks from now), and I likely wouldn’t have the guts to start if it wasn’t for your advice. On the general high school advice; it’s invaluable. I look forward to reading the books you’ve recommended. As a sidenote; I love books, and read as many as I can; any books that you’d recommend, on any subjects? I’ve started using Anki on a daily basis; the main bottleneck right now is that I’m making too few cards/day, but that can be addressed with more dedicated time, I think. Starting Strength is what my personal strength training needed. Meditation will be a useful intervention; I thank you for the guidance. I read How to… a year or so ago, and my social skills have improved significantly as a result; definitely a good recommendation. Luckily, I don’t have any especially angry people in my life, but your Anger post serves as an excellent life guide. Do you know of any rationality/recommended programs near [redacted]? I’ve failed to find anyone near my intellect at my school/any other program I’ve done, and there aren’t any rationality meetups nearby other than the [redacted] one, which I plan to go to, whenever possible. Again, thank you so much.
Yours truly,
[redacted]
Dear [redacted],
Don’t worry about having too few cards in your Anki. Reviews pile up fast. Sustainability is more important than intensity. If you need more cards you can go to Ankiweb and download a frequency-based vocabulary deck for the foreign language of your choice.
Finding someone near your intellect…
Young people are sorted by geography. The average IQ at a typical high school is 100. Going to college bumps it up by a standard deviation to 115. An MD gets it a little higher to 120.
Enrolling in the hardest college major brings the IQ distribution a full two standard deviations above average to 130 which equals the average IQ of a science PhD. If you have an IQ of at least 145 (three standard deviations above the mean) then no undergraduate degree is sufficient.
College Undergraduate Major
IQ
Physics & Astronomy
133
Mathematical Sciences
130
Philosophy
129
Materials Engineering
129
Economics
128
Chemical Engineering
128
Other Engineering
128
Mechanical Engineering
126
Engineering
126
Electrical Engineering
126
Physical Sciences
125
Banking & Finance
125
Other Humanities & Art
124
Chemistry
124
Computer & Information Science
124
Civil Engineering
124
Industrial Engineering
123
Religion & Theory
121
Earth, Atmosphere & Marine Science
121
Biological Sciences
121
English Language & Literature
120
Humanities & Arts
120
Art History, Theory, Critical Theory
120
Political Science
120
Foreign languages & Literature
119
Anthropology & Archaeology
119
History
119
Architecture
118
Library & Archival Sciences
117
Other Natural Sciences
117
Social Sciences
115
Agriculture
115
Arts-Performance & Studio
114
Life Sciences
114
Sociology
114
Business
114
Psychology
113
Communications
111
Curriculum & Instruction
111
Health & Medical Sciences
111
Business Admin & Management
111
Other Social Science
110
Education
110
Accounting
110
Evaluation & Research
109
Public Administration
109
Other Education
109
Elementary Education
108
Administration
107
Home Economics
106
Student Counseling
105
Early Childhood Education
104
Social Work
103
An eminent theoretical physicist is at least 160. An IQ of 160 makes you 1 in 32,000. An IQ of 175 makes you 1 in 1.5 million. There are 200 such people in the entire United States—and that includes adults. If you have an IQ of 175 then there might be three equally-smart teenagers your age in the entire country. How do such people find each other?
When I worked at a particle physics laboratory it was the first time I felt like I was interacting with my own species. But the physicists didn’t feel alive. My colleagues weren’t Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman. The first time I felt like I was talking to cognitive equals was at the Y-Combinator interview pool when I met a pair of Nigerians (this is not a joke) who were attempting to monopolize the entire African financial system.
The second time was when I met someone on Less Wrong who runs his own hedge fund.
If you are four or more standard deviations above average then you won’t find equals at your high school. You won’t find them at teenage chess tournaments or teenage music tournaments either because success there is driven by parents—training outweighs innate talent. Maybe try math or debate tournaments?
I don’t live near you so I can’t recommend anything specific to your region. I have never been to an IRL rationality event. Here is general advice for meeting smart people. Try it out to discover what works for you. Discard strategies that don’t work.
Start your own rationality meetup.
Find an existing group of people that does quantitative finance or similar.
Attend public scientific lectures at your local research university.
Create art (blog, YouTube, etc.) and post it online.
Do awesome stuff. For real. Not just reading about it.
The best way to live among the monkeys is to assume a leadership role for yourself. Organize events. Get groups of people to do novel things. Make stuff happen. You may be surprised by how much it is possible to accomplish out of sheer nerve. Especially when your competition is the ordinary high school students who happen to live in [redacted].
The most important thing for you right now is to try all sorts of different things. Don’t wait until you feel ready to live your life. You never will. Just do it. Failure is fine, as long as you recover. Don’t hurt other people. Don’t cause significant financial damage. Don’t injure yourself. Don’t throw away years of your life. Mere embarrassment doesn’t matter. It is best you decondition yourself ASAP.
More Book Recommendations
I have excluded all books mentioned in the previous letter. I have excluded math, science and engineering textbooks too along with drawing manuals. Nothing has prerequisites. Listening instead of reading is fine.
Books with extraordinary claims I have not verified are marked with a dagger †. Books I have not read cover-to-cover at the time of writing this letter are marked with a double dagger ‡.
Autobiographies
Arabian Sands and The Marsh Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger
Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War by William Mangester
Silent Running: My Years on A World War II Attack Submarine James F. Calvert
“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of A Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr by Martin Luther King Jr.
Built, Not Born: A Self-Made Billionaire’s No-Nonsense Guide for Entrepreneurs by Tom Golisano and Mike Wicks
Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life after Which Everything Was Different by Chuck Palahniuk
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
Monster: The Autobiography of An L.A. Gang Member by Sanyika Shakur
Under and Alone: The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America’s Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang by William Queen
Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman and John Shiffman
†Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale
One L: The Turbulent True Story of A First Year at Harvard Law School by Scott Turow
The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World’s Rarest Species by Carlos Magdalena
iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It by Steve Wozniak
Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond
Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny by Holly Madison
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life by Scott Adams
The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide by Jenna Fischer
Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory by David Plouffe
A Promised Land by Barack Obama
Biographies
‡Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
[Letter] Advice for High School #2
Dear [redacted],
Don’t worry about having too few cards in your Anki. Reviews pile up fast. Sustainability is more important than intensity. If you need more cards you can go to Ankiweb and download a frequency-based vocabulary deck for the foreign language of your choice.
Finding someone near your intellect…
Young people are sorted by geography. The average IQ at a typical high school is 100. Going to college bumps it up by a standard deviation to 115. An MD gets it a little higher to 120.
Enrolling in the hardest college major brings the IQ distribution a full two standard deviations above average to 130 which equals the average IQ of a science PhD. If you have an IQ of at least 145 (three standard deviations above the mean) then no undergraduate degree is sufficient.
An eminent theoretical physicist is at least 160. An IQ of 160 makes you 1 in 32,000. An IQ of 175 makes you 1 in 1.5 million. There are 200 such people in the entire United States—and that includes adults. If you have an IQ of 175 then there might be three equally-smart teenagers your age in the entire country. How do such people find each other?
When I worked at a particle physics laboratory it was the first time I felt like I was interacting with my own species. But the physicists didn’t feel alive. My colleagues weren’t Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman. The first time I felt like I was talking to cognitive equals was at the Y-Combinator interview pool when I met a pair of Nigerians (this is not a joke) who were attempting to monopolize the entire African financial system.
The second time was when I met someone on Less Wrong who runs his own hedge fund.
If you are four or more standard deviations above average then you won’t find equals at your high school. You won’t find them at teenage chess tournaments or teenage music tournaments either because success there is driven by parents—training outweighs innate talent. Maybe try math or debate tournaments?
I don’t live near you so I can’t recommend anything specific to your region. I have never been to an IRL rationality event. Here is general advice for meeting smart people. Try it out to discover what works for you. Discard strategies that don’t work.
Start your own rationality meetup.
Find an existing group of people that does quantitative finance or similar.
Attend public scientific lectures at your local research university.
Create art (blog, YouTube, etc.) and post it online.
Do awesome stuff. For real. Not just reading about it.
The best way to live among the monkeys is to assume a leadership role for yourself. Organize events. Get groups of people to do novel things. Make stuff happen. You may be surprised by how much it is possible to accomplish out of sheer nerve. Especially when your competition is the ordinary high school students who happen to live in [redacted].
The most important thing for you right now is to try all sorts of different things. Don’t wait until you feel ready to live your life. You never will. Just do it. Failure is fine, as long as you recover. Don’t hurt other people. Don’t cause significant financial damage. Don’t injure yourself. Don’t throw away years of your life. Mere embarrassment doesn’t matter. It is best you decondition yourself ASAP.
More Book Recommendations
I have excluded all books mentioned in the previous letter. I have excluded math, science and engineering textbooks too along with drawing manuals. Nothing has prerequisites. Listening instead of reading is fine.
Books with extraordinary claims I have not verified are marked with a dagger †. Books I have not read cover-to-cover at the time of writing this letter are marked with a double dagger ‡.
Autobiographies
Arabian Sands and The Marsh Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger
Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War by William Mangester
Silent Running: My Years on A World War II Attack Submarine James F. Calvert
“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of A Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr by Martin Luther King Jr.
Built, Not Born: A Self-Made Billionaire’s No-Nonsense Guide for Entrepreneurs by Tom Golisano and Mike Wicks
Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life after Which Everything Was Different by Chuck Palahniuk
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
Monster: The Autobiography of An L.A. Gang Member by Sanyika Shakur
Under and Alone: The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America’s Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang by William Queen
Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman and John Shiffman
†Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale
One L: The Turbulent True Story of A First Year at Harvard Law School by Scott Turow
The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World’s Rarest Species by Carlos Magdalena
iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It by Steve Wozniak
Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond
Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny by Holly Madison
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life by Scott Adams
The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide by Jenna Fischer
Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory by David Plouffe
A Promised Land by Barack Obama
Biographies
‡Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
‡Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
History
These three books about China
Destiny Disrupted by Tamin Ansary
‡A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman
†1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus and 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann
‡Napoleon’s Wars: An International History, 1803-1815 by Charles J. Esdaile,
The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention by William Rosen
‡The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 by John Toland
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William L. Shirer
Auschwitz: A New History by Laurence Rees
‡Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe by Gerard Prunier
The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014 by Carlotta Gall
Ethnographies
Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman by Marjorie Shostak
†Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle by Daniel L. Everett
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture by Ruth Benedict
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
Cyber
The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy From Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh
Exploding the Phone by Phil Lapsley
The Soul of A New Machine by Tracy Kidder
The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders, & Deceivers by Kevin D. Mitnick
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich
The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It by Scott Patterson
Physics
A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking
Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century by Helge Kragh
Biology
Paleontology: A Brief History of Life by Ian Tattersall
†The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life by Nick Lane
March of the Microbes: Sighting the Unseen John L. Ingraham
The Nature of Plants: An Introduction to How Plants Work by Craig N. Huegel
Botany for Gardeners by Brian Capon
‡Remarkable Plants That Shape Our World by Helen Bynum and William Bynum
Understanding the Brain: From Cells to Behavior to Cognition by John E. Dowling
‡The Variety of Life: A Survey and A Celebration of All the Creatures That Have Ever Lived by Colin Tudge
Sociology & Economics
†Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Roadside MBA: Backroad Lessons for Entrepreneurs, Executives, and Small Business Owners by Michael Mazzeo
The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrnstein
Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class by Charles Murray
Class: A Guide Through the American Status System by Paul Fussell
Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa by Dambisa Moyo
Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo
Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail by Paul Polak
Fooled by Randomness and Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen.
Psychology
Don’t Shoot the Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training and Karen Pryor on Behavior by Karen Pryor
Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages by Guy Deutsch
†Spy the Lie and †Get the Truth by Philip Houston
Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior by Temple Grandin
Altered States of Consciousness
The Art of Happiness by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Dr. Howard Cutler
Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunarantana
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality by Brad Warner
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones by Paul Reps
Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body by Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson
Saints and Psychopaths by William L. Hamilton
A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming: Mastering the Art of Oneironautics by Dylan Tuccillo
Modern Art
Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton
The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art by Donald N. Thompson
The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the World’s Most Expensive Painting by Ben Lewis
Science Fiction
1940s-1950s | Foundation and I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
1954 | I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
1963 | Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle
1966 | The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
1974 | The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
1974 | The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
1979 | The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
1984 | Neuromancer by Willian Gibson
1985 | The Postman by David Brin
1985, 1999 | Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card
1989 | On My Way to Paradise by Dave Wolverton
1989 | Hyperion by Dan Simmons
1992 | Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
1992, 1995, 2015 | Snow Crash, The Diamond Age and Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
1993 | Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
2006 | World War Z by Max Brooks
2008 | The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2008, 2013 | Saturn’s Children and Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross
2011, February | The Martian by Andy Weir
2011, August | Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2013, 2014, 2015 | The Imperial Radch Trilogy by Ann Leckie
2015-2020 | There is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
Fantasy
1943 | The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
1976 | Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
1993 | The Giver by Lois Lowry
1995-2000 | His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
1997-2007 | Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
2001 | The Magicians’ Guild by Trudi Canavan
2009 | Escape from Hell by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
2010 | The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
2010, 2012 | The Magicians and The Magician King by Lev Grossman
2010-2015 | Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky
2020-2021 | Luna Lovegood and the Chamber of Secrets by me
Fiction, Other
‡1813 | Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
1899 | Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
1973 | The Princess Bride by William Goldman
1996-present | any two novels by Chuck Palahniuk
1998 | The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
2012 | The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Classics
Late Spring and Autumn Period (5th Century BC) | Sun Tzu’s Original Art of War: Special Bilingual Edition by Sun Zi and Andrew W. Zieger
Tang Dynasty | 《花非花》 by 白居易
Tang Dynasty | 《静夜思》 by 李白
Edo period | ‡Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan by Kazuaki Tanahashi
Oral
Folktales from Iraq by C. G. Campbell
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
Miscellaneous
Citizenship in a Republic by Theodore Roosevelt
Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara
‡The Amateur Magicians Handbook by Henry Hay
††Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Tahir Shah
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
Fluent in 3 Months: The Radical New Way That Anyone, at Any Age, Can Learn to Speak Any Language From Anywhere in the World by Benny Lewis
The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris
Podcasts
The History of Rome
‡History of Japan
‡The Eastern Border
Writing Excuses
Darknet Diaries
YouTube
Extra History’s series on the Sengoku Jidai, Admiral Yi, the South Sea Bubble, The First Crusade and Theodora
Brandon Sanderson’s creative writing lectures at BYU
Lastly, check out Code Geass.
Yours truly,
Lsusr