Before seeing this I was just thinking about why I didn’t have any close friends of the sort I wanted, and I figured the reason is that I need someone who is mostly like me, and such people are extraordinarily rare — one in a million, I guessed. No typical mind fallacy for me! I know I’m different, but I don’t know what to do with this information: the differences in other people are mysterious and so non-actionable.
Maybe I’m only 1-in-10,000 or so, but regardless, I can’t figure out how to find the others. I already frequent sites filled with vaguely similar people (LW, EA forums, ACX) but by design, these sites don’t bring the closeness and intimacy I want. Plus, I live in Calgary — I know the Bay Area and NY will have more me-like people, but I failed last time I tried to get a job in the Bay.
Anyway, I may as well put down what I’m looking for:
Close friendship, preferably sharing a house
Rationalist-appeciating epistemology; a love of accuracy and precision to the extent it is useful or important (but not excessively pedantic)
Geeky, curious, and interested in improving the world
Liberal/humanist values, such as a dislike of extreme inequality based on minor or irrelevant differences in starting points, and a like for ideas that may lead to solving such problems. (OTOH, minor inequalities are certainly necessary and acceptable, and a high floor is clearly better than a low ceiling: an “equality” in which all are impoverished would be very bad)
Before seeing this I was just thinking about why I didn’t have any close friends of the sort I wanted, and I figured the reason is that I need someone who is mostly like me, and such people are extraordinarily rare — one in a million, I guessed. No typical mind fallacy for me! I know I’m different, but I don’t know what to do with this information: the differences in other people are mysterious and so non-actionable.
Maybe I’m only 1-in-10,000 or so, but regardless, I can’t figure out how to find the others. I already frequent sites filled with vaguely similar people (LW, EA forums, ACX) but by design, these sites don’t bring the closeness and intimacy I want. Plus, I live in Calgary — I know the Bay Area and NY will have more me-like people, but I failed last time I tried to get a job in the Bay.
Anyway, I may as well put down what I’m looking for:
Close friendship, preferably sharing a house
Rationalist-appeciating epistemology; a love of accuracy and precision to the extent it is useful or important (but not excessively pedantic)
Geeky, curious, and interested in improving the world
Liberal/humanist values, such as a dislike of extreme inequality based on minor or irrelevant differences in starting points, and a like for ideas that may lead to solving such problems. (OTOH, minor inequalities are certainly necessary and acceptable, and a high floor is clearly better than a low ceiling: an “equality” in which all are impoverished would be very bad)
Utilitarian/consequentialist-leaning; preferably negative utilitarian
High openness to experience: tolerance of ambiguity, low dogmatism, unconventionality, and again, intellectual curiosity
I’m a nudist and would like someone who can participate at least sometimes
Agnostic, atheist, or at least feeling doubts