- The purpose of Wait But Why is for the creator to have fun and be excited about his work.
- The content allows him to constantly learn, have great conversations, and be creative.
- He believes that his impact comes from inspiring smart people to focus on important things.
- He sees human history as a thrilling story and wants to shake people to realize the significance of the present moment.
- He believes that technology is a powerful force that can either be good or bad, depending on how it is developed.
- He emphasizes the importance of focusing on the long-term impact of technology and building systems that incentivize positive behavior.
- He believes that culture is a driving force for change and that humans want to be accepted by their society.

- The desire to be accepted by society leads people to strive to be cool and fit in.
- Society's values determine what is considered cool, such as wealth and success.
- If society valued AI safety, people would prioritize it and it would become a noble and admired pursuit.
- Prominent figures like Elon Musk and others advocating for AI safety can help shift societal values.
- The author's childhood aspirations ranged from composing music to becoming the president, but eventually settled on blogging.
- Influential bloggers like Bill Simmons and others who stayed true to their unique styles inspired the author to do the same.
- The internet is a valuable tool for learning and researching topics, and the author aims to become knowledgeable on various subjects rather than focusing on one.
- The author's approach to blogging is to package their learning journey in a fun and enjoyable way for readers.

The speaker discusses their research process for writing blog posts. They start by Googling various topics and opening multiple tabs with different sources. They take notes and gather quotes, facts, and opinions from various articles. They delve deeper into specific topics, reading about related subjects and going down rabbit holes. They explore different perspectives, including those of skeptics, and aim to understand the science behind the topic. They outline and write the post, solidifying their understanding. Sometimes they consult experts or have mock arguments to further explore different viewpoints. They emphasize the importance of reading and researching extensively to gain a comprehensive understanding of the topic.

- The speaker rarely gives up on a post, but sometimes switches topics because they find certain topics more daunting or challenging than others.
- When researching a topic, the speaker usually picks topics they know are worth explaining and that have a lot of information available.
- The speaker sometimes writes posts that challenge popular beliefs or dogmas, but only when they have conviction based on the research they have done.
- The speaker believes that conspiracy theories and confirmation bias are prevalent in society and can lead to false beliefs.
- To avoid falling into confirmation bias, the speaker reads a variety of sources with different perspectives to maintain a healthy degree of skepticism.
- The speaker suggests having guests on a podcast who fundamentally disagree with each other to encourage the clash of ideas and promote a more objective understanding of truth.

- The speaker suggests having guests on a podcast who fundamentally disagree with you to understand different perspectives and improve thinking skills.
- The speaker expresses interest in learning about cryptocurrency and believes it is important to thoroughly explain complex topics like this.
- The speaker compares cryptocurrency to the early stages of the internet and suggests that investing in it is like buying domain names in the hope that it will become valuable in the future.
- The speaker believes that decentralized systems and technologies like AI, cryonics, and brain machine interfaces will bring about significant changes.
- The speaker mentions the need to understand encryption and the blockchain concept to grasp the potential of cryptocurrency.
- The speaker also discusses the potential of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies, highlighting their implications for gaming, communication, empathy, and education.

- In the next 10 years, virtual reality (VR) will become widely popular, with a billion people using it like smartphones.
- This is a good time for young entrepreneurs to start a VR company before it becomes mainstream.
- Genetic technology, such as CRISPR, is advancing rapidly, and the cost of sequencing the human genome has significantly decreased.
- The ability to enhance ourselves and create smarter humans will have significant implications.
- Pregnancy may become obsolete with the development of artificial incubation chambers for embryos.
- Brain-machine interfaces and human colonization of Mars are other significant advancements on the horizon.
- People should not be intimidated to learn about these technologies, as various skills are needed in this field, not just coding or math.
- It is important for individuals to get excited and scared about the future to drive innovation.

- The purpose of Wait But Why is for the creator to have fun and be excited about his work.
- The content allows him to constantly learn, have great conversations, and be creative.
- He believes that his impact comes from inspiring smart people to focus on important things.
- He sees human history as a thrilling story and wants to shake people to realize the significance of the present moment.
- He believes that technology is a powerful force that can either be good or bad, depending on how it is developed.
- He emphasizes the importance of focusing on the long-term impact of technology and building systems that incentivize positive behavior.
- He believes that culture is a driving force for change and that humans want to be accepted by their society.
- The desire to be accepted by society leads people to strive to be cool and fit in.
- Society's values determine what is considered cool, such as wealth and success.
- If society valued AI safety, people would prioritize it and it would become a noble and admired pursuit.
- Prominent figures like Elon Musk and others advocating for AI safety can help shift societal values.
- The author's childhood aspirations ranged from composing music to becoming the president, but eventually settled on blogging.
- Influential bloggers like Bill Simmons and others who stayed true to their unique styles inspired the author to do the same.
- The internet is a valuable tool for learning and researching topics, and the author aims to become knowledgeable on various subjects rather than focusing on one.
- The author's approach to blogging is to package their learning journey in a fun and enjoyable way for readers.
- The speaker discusses their research process for writing blog posts, emphasizing the importance of extensive reading and researching.
- The speaker rarely gives up on a post, but sometimes switches topics based on difficulty or challenge.
- The speaker believes in challenging popular beliefs and avoiding confirmation bias by reading sources with different perspectives.
- The speaker suggests having guests on a podcast who fundamentally disagree to encourage clash of ideas and promote objective understanding of truth.
- The speaker expresses interest in learning about cryptocurrency and believes it is important to thoroughly explain complex topics.
- The speaker discusses the potential of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies, highlighting their implications for gaming, communication, empathy, and education.
- The speaker believes that decentralized systems and technologies like AI, cryonics, and brain machine interfaces will bring about significant changes.
- The speaker mentions advancements in genetic technology, artificial incubation chambers for embryos, brain-machine interfaces, and human colonization of Mars.
- People should not be intimidated to learn about these technologies, as various skills are needed in this field, not just coding or math.
- It is important for individuals to get excited and scared about the future to drive innovation.

Tim Urban - https://twitter.com/waitbutwhy - cofounded the blog Wait But Why - https://waitbutwhy.com/ - with Andrew Finn - https://twitter.com/finnscave - in 2013.

His posts about Artificial Intelligence, Elon Musk, and the Fermi Paradox have been read millions of times.

https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-man.html
https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

We discussed Tim's research strategy, the purpose of Wait But Why, and his thoughts on technologies including cryptocurrencies, A.I., and AR/VR.

The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon - https://twitter.com/craigcannon

Is the purpose of wait, but why to start kind of informing people to get them to care before it's too late Or what is your intent with the whole like all the content you're making?

The purpose in general is for me to do something I'm having fun at doing.

I spent 9 years after college doing something that was kind of objectively a cool thing, but I was not doing what I wanted to be doing.

So honestly, I was like, I wanna be doing, I wanna be excited to wake up, I want to be excited to do my work, I want to feel like I'm playing when I'm doing my work.

I'm very curious, so I get to be a constant learner.

I like having great conversations with interesting people and Wake But Wise connected me to all kinds of great conversations.

I love creating, like just artistically creating, so a post is a piece of art in a way.

And it allows me to kind of just, yeah, continually stay in excitable mode because I can switch topics again and again and again.

And I'm just always very, I feel like I'm in the honeymoon phase with the job all the time because I switch topics and it's a whole new planet for me.

And if I didn't like it, I don't think I'm a good enough person to do it out of obligation for, you know, I think this is going to help.

think I'm more the kind of person that might throw money at something good.

I'm not sure I would dedicate my life to something where I was just, I felt like it wasn't my calling, it wasn't something I really was passionate about, it wasn't something I had fun doing.

So, that said, as Wait But Why has gotten more popular, as I've kind of begun to dive into a lot more kind of intense, deep topics, I've started to appreciate the impact that a viral blog post can have.

I appreciate it when times like when I go to, and I've spoken at a bunch of colleges, and I was at a place like MIT, and afterwards a couple of students came up and they said they're going to work in, 1 of them is working at SpaceX, and 1 of them's going to work in AI next year, both because of my post.

And I was like, you know, so I was like right there, these 2 are probably smarter than me, both of them.

They're 18, and like if they both go work, that's like 120 years of human effort going towards like really good, important things.

And maybe they instead would have gone into finance or something else.

So to me, I was like, that's really awesome.

And if that's 2 of, I don't know, however many, that to me is a massive impact.

If I can convince really smart people to turn their attention or their money or their time towards important things I think that that's about as big an impact as I could have as a human because me going into it myself That's 1 person plus honestly these MIT dudes are probably more capable than I am so I Think I think you know that yeah And and just kind of since it is a battle for kind of awareness right now, awareness of the story that we're a part of, this human colossus story is crazy.

So, if human history is a thousand centuries, about, a hundred thousand years, okay?

Picture every page of a, there's a 500 page book telling the story.

If you're an alien, again, and you pick up this book and you're trying to understand what human history is like, so the first 450 pages, okay, the first 90,000 years gets us to It's just hunter-gatherers.

That's it migrations and hunter-gatherers and very very slight biological changes You're you are bored as an alien reading that book Page 450 of the Agricultural Revolution, and you have cities, and you have the first, you know, kind of wide scale cooperation.

This colossus takes a huge leap forward, right?

Things start to get a little interesting.

That's just the last 50 pages of the book.

And things do develop in a kind of interesting, cool way.

Page 490, you have Jesus, you have AD starts at 10 pages ago, okay?

And you have, you know, Islam starts at page 493, and around page 497 you have imperialism gets rolling, and you have the enlightenment, the next page, and right at the beginning of page 500, the very last page, you have the industrial revolution and you have the entire kind of, the colossus kind of like goes on steroids the colossus grows up very quickly and becomes far more powerful

the population balloons from less than a billion to 7000000000 on page 500 alone We go from every other page before page 500 you know transportation meant walking running sailboats page 500 We're going to the space station.

We're flying around planes and cars yeah Communication on page 499 and earlier meant you know talking to people and writing letters with your hand.

Page 500, we have FaceTime, we have, you know, internet.

So if you're the alien reading this book, suddenly you're on page 500 and you're like, and you just can't believe what you're reading and you're so riveted.

You're saying, oh my God, this is the story.

You turn the page to 501 and you're just like, what is going, something's about to, big's about to happen here.

So I think that part of what I can do is, and the only reason I'm so aware of this right now is because I write about it.

I think my job is to think about this, okay?

And so I think that part of what I can do is,

and the only reason I'm so aware of this right now is because I write about it.

I think I have, my job is to think about this, okay?

And so I think that part of what I can do is just take humans that are every bit as smart as I am, and everybody's curious, but it's not their job to think about this stuff, and kind of shake them and say, hey, like, we're about to turn to page 501.

It's either going to be the coolest story for humans or it's the end.

This is the, that is a 501 page book and that's it.

Or this is the beginning of like the new paradigm.

We have a BC which is like before something that is on page 501 when we all became immortal and all the suffering stopped and whatever that is.

And the BC, this will be the real BC, much more important than any religious thing.

It'll be the thing before humans came into their own.

That's really exciting or it'll be the end and that'll be, there'll be no more books.

So this is the barrier in the Fermi post, right?

I mean, And the thing is, the problem is we're wired to think about, we're wired for a world when nothing changed ever.

So when someone says, this is gonna be the future, everything's gonna be different, it's wise to be naive, to feel that that's naive.

It feels naive and it should feel naive because it used to be naive.

All you have to do is look, just compare.

Just look at the facts of page 500 versus 499 and every page before it.

This is clearly not like every other time.

So people, like the interest in startups and technology kind of ebbs and flows, it seems, and now, for better or worse, it seems to be like people are pushing tech away, like in big quotes, because they think of tech as like just Facebook.

But in reality, it's so, so, so much more.

And whenever, when someone's like down on this stuff and they're like, I don't need an app to like walk my dog or something.

I'm like, change your point of view and look at this other stuff.

Tech is a monster god that is on the horizon running towards us right now.

And when the god gets here, it's either going to be a really good, benevolent, amazing god or a really bad god, depending on what we do right now.

Literally, the people in tech right now are the people who are creating that god and deciding what that god's going to be like when it gets here.

And so, yes, you might object to the lifestyle that some of us have, that many of us have taken on due to early tech kind of, sure, different topic than saying technology in general, you know, I want to...

It's like, no, no, no, if you care about people, if you care about your grandchildren, you should be focusing on this too.

And especially wary that the minds in tech right now, as good people as they may be, they're worried about, they're humans, they're primates.

And what the primate wants is to succeed in its own life.

So they are worried about glory and trying to succeed.

And when everyone in it is doing that, you have this monster being developed in a way that doesn't have a larger kind of thought process here.

Is there like a canon of literature around that specific topic or is this kind of a new idea?

Like developing something that I mean, I guess you could think about it as a religion basically Like how do we get past our short-term monkey mind to care about more people when we're developing technology?

I think, you know, I think as humans, look, the thing that, when you want to really make a change, you have to, you don't try to change humans fundamentally.

What you try to do is you try to build some kind of structure or system that will naturally incentivize shitty, selfish humans to do the right thing.

This is the Elon Musk formula and many others.

And so in this case, the thing that drives humans more than anything, more than absolutely anything is culture.

And because we deeply want to be accepted by our culture and whatever society we're in.

Whatever society says these are the cool kinds of people, everyone will put all their energy to try to be like that.

Whatever, you know, the people around us, whatever will make us fit in and stand out and be admired and be attracted to the opposite sex and all of this.

If society decided that money was unattractive and that working with your hands and living on as little as possible really made you awesome and that's what all the movie characters suddenly were doing, and that's what, again, the opposite sex really started to like.

We'd all be working out and trying to get out in construction fields and be really good.

Money is only a big deal to us because that's currently what society has just told us matters because it's a remnant of a world where resources were so scarce.

Resources aren't scarce anymore, but the values have stuck around.

The value of let's all obsess over resources is still here.

So now you have rich people obsessing their whole life over getting richer.

So if you want people to obsess over AI safety, right now AI development is a big thing because development, entrepreneurship, is getting rich, getting successful is what we value.

If suddenly it became extremely cool in society to be a philosopher thinking about, or someone in tech obsessed with AI safety.

And if we, I think the way this could happen is if people were aware enough of this page 500 situation, suddenly there'd be all this fear around it, right?

And all of this excitement, but all this fear, and if someone could have a breakthrough, not in development.

Development people would kind of almost look at kind of suspiciously like just, you know, are you, okay, that's fine, but if someone comes up with a big breakthrough in AI safety, and they became kind of Nobel Prize, front page of Time Magazine, you know, they were interviewed everywhere and they were the biggest celebrity because we were all scared and they, oh my God, this person might save us.

Kind of like, you know, the people thought, you know, the Manhattan Project might save us back then or anytime there's, you know, fear in humans, that takes over everything.

And if you can kind of assuage that fear somehow.

So I think that if you really wanted this to happen, I think that you need, I mean, someone like Elon Musk, who's really prominent, but also really concerned with AI safety.

I think many people like me trying to make these points helps.

But again, it's not telling people you should want safety to be a good person.

It's saying, This is the big challenge of our time.

This is the great decision moment we're about to be at.

And who's gonna be the hero that can figure this out?

If the development's happening automatically, it's like a wave coming, a tsunami coming towards us.

Who wants to be the person that saved all of us?

Who, you know, everything in the world will be named after them.

They'll be basically a god in the future world if they came up with a solution.

If we can kind of, that will happen if people understand the reality.

And if people, if that happens, then you'll see all kinds of people all thinking about it and forming clubs and it'll be the coolest thing to be going into.

It'll be the people, it'll be the most noble thing you can go into and the raddest, you know, the smartest people.

It's like, oh, you're really smart, you should go into that then, you know.

Like cancer research now might be that, you know, something like that.

And so when you were a kid, who was the person who you're like, man, that person is so cool,

could just be like them, then I'll have made it.

Emil Waldner basically asked this question, like were there bloggers or writers that you looked up to as communicators?

I don't think as a kid writing was on my radar as much.

As a kid I think I wanted to be like, I wanted to compose music in a way.

I wanted to be like Andrew Lloyd Webber or like Billy Joel or like the Beatles.

I think that when I was like 11 would have done it.

At some point I wanted to be the president.

I actually became the class president and that when I was like, done.

I was 18 and I was like, I'm not going to do more of this.

And also, being a class president is a useless job.

You're raising small amounts of money for 1 thing or 2 things that are already going to be funded somehow anyway.

And that's actually, I think, a microcosm of a lot of real politicians' lives.

Not that politicians as a Unit don't together have a lot of power, but each trying to be a senator forever I mean I feel like I can do more actually in a lot of ways and have a lot more fun so that disappeared and then then I that then I was back in creative lame or I want to either music or Writing you know 1 of those And when I first started to think about blogging, I actually was blogging on the side for like 6 years before I started Wait for White.

Well, early on, Bill Simmons, you know, in college, I was 1 of...

In college, right when he was at his peak popularity, big sports fan, Boston.

So I was, you know, a big Bill Simmons reader.

And I wouldn't say I necessarily wanted to mimic his specific style, but it was his kind of personality, integrity, just the fact that he would go on and just be himself and be colloquial and be kind of like fun, like the way he would write an email to his friends is how he would write an article.

I was like that is clearly the way to go if I ever were a writer.

And when I started my blog, it was just, it wasn't even a question.

I wasn't going to try to be a journalist or have any kind of formula.

I was just going to go and just try to be

Well, that just came with the internet, too.

So, it was, he was 1 of the first really famous ones.

But, But, but so, and then I looked at, you know, other successful bloggers who I respected, you know, Ali Brosh at Hyperbole and a Half, and Randall Munroe, and, you know, Jason Kotke, and these, you know, certain, certain blogs that I thought were great.

And the thing I really appreciated about them is they were all very unique, kind of like molded to the person's personality who made them.

Like, they were just clearly a reflection of the person.

The person wasn't trying to be a brand or anything different.

They were just kind of like being their best selves, you know, in writing form, drawing form.

And so, again, it wasn't that I think I was very adamant about trying to actually not look at other styles because I was like, I want to do my exact style because that's what I think is the key actually.

But it was the integrity of these styles that I saw other people use that I think really kind of stuck with me as it made it very clear that like I'm going to double down on my own style versus trying to fit into any other kind of form.

And like integral to, I haven't read your old blog.

It is, it's very few people have read it.

It's it was just me It was much more classic blog style stuff.

I'd rant about something I'd write a list of things.

No, okay, so there was 1 another Twitter question Anish giri asks basically, what styles and techniques do you use to learn things quickly enough to, I think you've talked about it, like getting from basically to like level 5, an ability to communicate, you know, Like, this is AI, this is why it's interesting, this is why you should care.

What do you use to go from like reading AI on Wikipedia to writing a 10,000 or what is it, like 30,000 word post about it?

So, The internet is a real godsend to a curious person or to a blogger trying to

Or to a procrastinator, to a lot of things.

But if you can consider like 1 through 10 knowledge on something, 10 is like the world's leading expert.

You know, PhDs get you to like maybe a 7 or an 8.

My goal is I'm starting at 2 or 3 as a layman, you know.

If I'm really curious layman I'll be at a 3 because I've already known.

And I want to get myself up to like you said a 5, maybe a 6.

I would have to focus in on 1 topic only.

I'd rather become a 6 on 50 topics than an 8 on 3, you know, or a 10 on 1.

Some people, the thing they love is being a 9 or a 10 in knowledge.

It would be great, it's just the lesser of excitement.

So and then my goal as a blogger is to, after I've gotten to level 6, to then package everything I just learned and the road I just went down.

I basically look at the road I went down and said if I could do this road again, how could I do it efficiently now?

How can I, and how can I package this in a way that doesn't just take someone down this road efficiently and Thoroughly to get them to where I am but does it in a way more fun way than I just had let's have I want The reader to have a lot more fun?

Yeah a lot more pictures more some more kind of storytelling and and just funnier and just more enjoyable than what I just did.

It's I just went down a road, now let me take this road and make it awesome, and that's my job.

And I go down a new road, and then I do whatever.

So I think the question is about how do I go down my road to get from myself from that 2 to a 6?

And the, so I start with Wikipedia or general kind of Googling.

I would all do is I'll Google the question I have So if I want to understand cryonics if I you know whatever it is I'll Google What is cryonics cryonics versus cryogenics?

I'll have heard those terms, and I'll Google Cryonics Scam and I'll Google does cryonics work, and I'll Google I've heard Peter Thiel said something so I'll say Peter Thiel cryonics, and I'll Google Alcor cryonics, because I heard there was a company called Alcor, and I'll Google how many cryonics companies are there, cost of cryonics.

I'll Google all these, each in a different tab.

Then in each tab, I'll basically, without even looking, I'll just open every link, you know, you know, 8 links on each tab.

So I'll end up with like 70 or 80 links, okay?

And, you know, among those are, you know, all the, you know, 4 different Wikipedia articles, and then a bunch of just articles written, you know, secondary source kind of articles just written in Gizmodo and other places like that.

So none of those alone is like an awesome source.

It's that on the whole, the group of those articles will give me a foundational understanding.

Wikipedia is good for a foundational understanding.

It'll give me a foundational understanding and it'll also tell me what the big opinions are.

I'll realize where the big disagreements are, where the kind of uncertainties are, and it just kind of like orients me in general.

And I'm like, okay, I now understand what I need to start learning even.

And so are you writing notes to yourself at this point?

Are you trying to communicate this to, you know, like your girlfriend or your friends so you actually know that you're understanding it instead of just reading words?

I am I have a big document open that I'm pulling quotes that's really interesting or fact or stat, or an opinion.

And then when I see a counter opinion, I'll find that opinion, I'll put it underneath it into the document so they're next to each other.

And then I have a lot of thoughts of my own as I'm going.

I'm saying, this is a lot like, you know, or I'll say cryonics is kind of like long-term patient care, or it's like pausing you biologically.

It's not that, and I'll just write it down, right?

I'll write down all my thoughts as I go, because a lot of the best ideas just kind of come out as you're researching.

And then, depending on the topic, first of all, sometimes it's a very different process.

If I'm thinking about procrastination and why we procrastinate, if I'm thinking about why we care what other people think of us or why we get into so many bad marriages, people.

I'm much more likely going to be thinking.

I'm just going to be pacing around thinking, maybe having some conversations with friends and writing stuff down.

So I'm specifically talking about 1 kind of post I do right now, which is the heavy research post, when I need to kind of, an explainer post, right?

And so, at that point, I have a foundation, but there's a lot more I need to learn.

I'll feel very insecure about my knowledge in many different of these areas.

And I'll just have certain things I don't understand at all.

I'll have to go deeper, like I won't understand why freezing your cells is not good, but vitrifying is.

So I'll just first look at why water expands when it freezes.

And I'll go read about that for a half hour.

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Tim Urban of Wait But Why