- This document's purpose is to capture my beliefs about the universe
- This document's benefits grow in a compound interest kind of way, over time, as beliefs course correct over time, and build on one another
- It's always incomplete and out of date
- Some of these beliefs will be proven wrong; some won't be proven wrong but will be wrong anyway
- I’m open to changing my mind at any time about any belief by evidence, persuasion, or chance
- Making and maintaining this document is useful and fun and increasingly rewarding over time
- Being good/moral increasingly becomes our default state as we learn more about the world and are more connected with others
- Marriage should be legal everywhere, between anyone who might want to be married (the only limit should be an age limit: only adults should marry)
- Abortion should be legal everywhere
- Assisted suicide should be legal everywhere
- Health care should be available and easy-to-obtain and manage to everyone who needs it
- Prisons should be about protecting the public, not about punishment
- Owning a gun should require certification from a firearms officer verifying that they've taken a safety course, are free of criminal record, and pass a psychological mental health check every few years
- People, organizations, and governments will exchange privacy for connection when they trust each other: this can shift over time as trust fluctuates
- Frequently remembering we will die increases the quality of our life
- We don't have a purpose given to us, but it’s totally fine (great, in fact) to make one up
- You can make a lot, or a little, of your life: the choice is yours, as are the consequences
- Other dimensions and universes exist
- Micro and macro evolution happens
- Something like the Big Bang happened, and will probably happen again
- Something existed before the Big Bang (outside of time and space as we know them)
- The human brain (in its current state of evolution) can't comprehend the universe
- We have no cosmic significance
- Non-carbon-based life forms exist
- We can change our behavior and habits but it requires a lot of energy
- Consistently eating well and exercising is the only way to be sustainably healthy
- Vaccinations are good for babies and society
- Technology will eventually disrupt all other human-created institutions (politics, religion, identity, economics)
- Most questions have no answer (asking them anyway is sometimes entertaining, but nothing else)
- Logic is a helpful tool, but has flaws and can't be relied on entirely
- We tell stories in order to create and remember meaning
- Consciousness is the result of a feedback loop between our story-making cortex and our subconscious, so that it can better predict/act on long-term threats
- We are all building an incomplete model of the universe in our heads and usually operate under the assumption that this model is the real universe (again, it's practical)
- We create mental heuristics to reduce the amount of energy to retrieve, sort, and select from lists of likely possibilities
- The by-product of these mental heuristics is that we are biased at all times in proportion to the number of heuristics we use
- We are the sum of our biases (sometimes sadly)
- We tend to favor the beautiful
- We tend to see what we expect to see
- Some biases are dangerous to other humans, in a major or minor way, immediately or over time
- Like behavior and habits, these can be changed but it requires a lot of energy
- It’s crucial to change many biases if society/the world is to advance
- Understanding and communicating your biases (appropriately) leads to better outcomes
- Global warming is real and will continue to cause huge problems
- The number of living languages in the world will drop to under 100
- Coral reefs and the ocean ecosystems are going to break with unknown consequences
- Solar and wind will slowly replace gas and oil