Hey there and welcome to ✨ CuratedCuriosity - a bi-weekly newsletter delivering inspiration from all over the internet to the notoriously curious.
This is my yearly wrap up. The content and structure of this newsletter issue is thus a bit different than what you are used to. If you are not interested in this type of content feel free to just skip today - the ‘regular’ newsletter will be back next Sunday.
It rarely happens that I completely change my mind about something. However, some belief updates are bigger, more substantial than others. So, here comes a list of statements that I probably would have very much supported at the beginning at 2023 but would not subscribe to (100%) anymore today.
None of these opinions are final and I expect them to change in the future.
Things I was convinced about in 2023 that I don’t believe anymore
🤖 (Technological) progress is always good
To a large extent I (still) agree with the ‘happiness hypothesis’ - i.e. that the purpose (and also the effect) of technology is ‘to increase the potential for human happiness’. I also still believe that technology has been (and will continue to be) a major driver of improvements in the quality of life all around the world. Nonetheless, I think that we should more deliberately choose which technologies to prioritize, taking into account potential risks but also what things we actually need to live ‘sufficiently’ good. Thus I am more inclined to believe that we should not (completely) let market forces decide the speed and direction of tech progress. Or as Vitalik Buterin puts it in his essay on techno-optimism:
Often, it really is the case that version N of our civilization's technology causes a problem, and version N+1 fixes it. However, this does not happen automatically, and requires intentional human effort. (..)
It is intentional action, coordinated through public discourse and culture shaping the perspectives of governments, scientists, philanthropists and businesses, and not an inexorable "techno-capital machine", that had solved these problems.
💣 War changes everything
Prior to 2022, I always thought that if there was to be a war in Europe, my daily life would be drastically different. Turns out its not. Looking back at 2023 I am almost ashamed to admit how little the war in Ukraine and similarly, the war between Israel and Palestine has affected my day to day life. Don’t get me wrong - of course I am worried about the situation and I think no human being ever should have to live through what the civilians in those countries are currently experiencing. However, while these conflicts were very much on the front of my mind shortly after they started, by now war news have become some kind of a background noise. I read the headline, I spend 15 seconds thinking about how f**ked up the world is and I go back to business as usual. I feel do feel bad about this. But at the same time I also don’t know what else to do. Sorry for the depressive conclusion - but this year truly got me to realize just how little agency the average human has with regards to geopolitical conflicts.
🪸 Climate change will not affect us a lot during our lifetimes
2023 was the first year I actually felt like climate change was coming into action. Sure, there was unusually hot weeks during summer and unusually little snow already the years before. But this year just pushed it a bit further. Also, reading a study that came to the conclusion that “India could become one of the first places in the world to experience heat waves that cross the survivability limit for a healthy human being resting in the shade as early as next decade.” made me realize how much climate change will not only impact future generations but all of us as well (regardless of how well our climate mitigation efforts work out). Nonetheless - to end this on a positive note - there is hope (and from a rational point of view it just seems like the best decision to be optimistic).
🔤 Language models are cool, but so what
I have long been interested in AI. But the release of GPT4 and experimenting with my own small language-model-based applications, really pushed my excitement to a new level. I thine there is a huge potential for completely new and improved software services. And things are just getting started. New models, new fine-tuning methods, new data retrieval methods are published at a crazy speed. Its exciting times we are living in!
🔍 Optimizing your life to do the most good is something everyone should do
I (still) truly believe that we have a moral obligation to strive to do good (whatever good means) in our lives. However, I have somewhat deviated from the idea that we are obligated to structure our lives to optimize for the potential of doing good. There are multiple reasons for this: First of all, it is extremely hard to tell what actions lead to more ‘good things’ in the world. I think we have made some progress here but there is still a lot of uncertainty left. So maximizing for one things doesn’t seem smart. Also, putting ‘all your eggs in one basket’ makes you personally vulnerable - if you only care about one thing and something doesn’t go according to plan, you don’t have much else left to draw meaning from. These days I believe, having a more diversified approach to life and your own definition of success leads to higher life satisfaction while (on average) not significantly decreasing the ‘amount of good’:
The linear approach imagines that if we found a sufficiently noble cause to devote our lives to – one to which our talents were suited and appropriate – we would be free of the kind of suffering that is caused by the knowledge of death (and the possibility that it might strike at any time).
I am not going to tell you that this never works – there are people who have been personally fulfilled from devoting their life to a cause. For many of us, however, it does not work – our noble causes run into moral complexities on the ground, or are mirages based on a distorted vision of the world. They may leave us open to manipulation by careerist sociopaths, who know that we will chase any projected image that offers a shred of meaning, like a cat chasing a laser dot.
The non-linear approach is different – rather than trying to discover a particular arc path and follow it to its conclusion, it recognizes that there will be many different moments and opportunities to create meaning that arise in our life. (…) Rather than the attitude of the saint who is given a mission by God, it takes the attitude of the swashbuckling adventurer who goes out to seek his fortune.
💨 There is not much we can do to prevent future pandemics (other than trying to find vaccines) if we want to keep our current lifestyle
I was truly excited when I found out that if a country installed filters, ventilation and germicidal UV in all indoor spaces, it could more or less end respiratory diseases within the country. I am surprised not more people/legislators have discussed approaches like this, but hopeful that we will see more research and experiments on this in the near future.
What is one thing you changed your mind about in 2023? Let me know
And of course, if you think I am missing some crucial points with respect to some of these opinions - let me know.
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