How to Suck Less at Youtube Videos

I watch a lot of Youtube, but there are a lot of crummy videos out there. The most annoying mistakes people make in their videos have really obvious solutions. I don't know why people still make them. It's like they're not even looking at their own videos before they post them. This is why the Wadsworth Constant exists.

Most of this boils down to "stop wasting people's time!"

Anyway, here is the list:

1. Don't apologize for not making videos recently, having a sore throat, or being incompetent. This includes pre-apologees ("I'm not sure how this works so sorry in advance if I screw it up"). No one wants to hear it. And if it sucks that much, remake your shitty video instead of posting sub-par content. 
2. Don't talk about how many subscribers you have or don't have. Unless you're making a "Hurray 100,000 subs I'm giving away $1,000,000!" video, no one cares.
3. If you want to ask for likes and subscriptions, do so at the end of a video. If I haven't seen the video yet, how do I know whether I actually like it/you enough to do these things.
4. Don't talk about things people said in the comments or private messages. Youtube comments are notoriously awful. If you're going to respond do so in the text because most viewers haven't read all the comments from your last unpopular video like you just did.
5. If you make a mistake that takes more than 2 seconds to fix, edit it out. There's no reason to make others watch you fixing things, and learning to use a basic movie editor doesn't take long.
6. Know what you're going to do in advance. Running around aimlessly trying to figure stuff out isn't very interesting. Look at how they do things on cooking shows: everything is setup ahead of time and the steps that include waiting for something to finish are cleverly skipped.

Cost Benefit Of Changing Other's Epistemology

Today I got a kindly worded invitation from a member of the church I went to growing up inviting me to return to their Sabbath morning classes.

I doubt I will respond at all, but if I were to do so, it'd go something like this:

Thanks for the invitation. :)

Unfortunately I'm unlikely to come for reasons that have nothing to do with feelings of family (that's the one part I do miss!). You mentioned I have 'out of the box thinking', and that is true. I've become an atheist. I don't think god exists. I'm not angry or afraid and thanks to my upbringing and my own searching I'm better informed on this one topic than many people who debate this topic professionally.

If I came to sabbath school and kept my peace, I'd be miserable in the same way you probably feel when you listen to a political speaker that you completely disagree with go on and on about something that isn't important to you. And that would be the best case scenario.

If I came to sabbath school and shared what I think, I'd end up in an no-where argument with someone every time. We'd argue in circles about the existence of god or the reliability of the bible for any purpose and usually neither of us would budge in our opinions.

Say I did manage to convince someone, what good would it do? Changing your epistemology drastically is *stressful*. I think most of the church goers could handle that stress, but why should I try to make them do it? None of the members are bad people or do bad things. In fact they're better than most. Changing your epistemology means having to *rediscover* a reason for every good thing you do, and giving up some things you enjoy if your new thinking tells you they're harmful. Worse, there's no guarantee that you will discover all the reasons you should, and your behavior in the mean time can be a bit erratic. (I think this is one of the major reasons teens are so ill behaved.)

The people at church are old, and unlikely to have a bigger impact on the world than they've already had. As long as I don't see significant harm coming from wrong beliefs, I have little incentive to work hard to try to change them. Changing epistemology is harder as you get older, and even if I were wildly successful, many would be dead of old age before they became comfortable with their new beliefs.

Even more likely, I'd convince no one in which case, almost *anything* I choose would be more productive. Argument isn't something I do for fun. It's something I do to think, learn and teach. If I'm not learning, and others probably won't either, then I shouldn't do it.

And I'd be arrogant not to consider that you all might convince me. It's completely unimaginable to me that the people at church might have an argument that the internet, years of bible classes, and hours of reading and debates haven't presented. It seems as silly to me as my convincing you that god doesn't exist probably seems to you, and I don't think it would change me for the better.

That's why I think it's much better for me to spend the time during church making sure that I get As in my classes so that I can win the grad school entrance game and start doing research that improves people's health as soon as possible. Making people healthier is at least one thing we can agree is good, so I'll get back to it.

How To Figure Out What You Want To Do When You Grow Up

I recently grew up, and even more recently figure out what I want to do with my life career-wise. Given the recency, hopefully this essay will be a little more helpful than others of its kind in helping you choose a career.

The big secret missing ingredient for me was: have one, involuntary goal.

For relatively smart, relatively lazy folk like me, the world has too many possibilities to get excited about any of them. I imagined being a firefighter and getting paid to work out and play video games in between playing small time hero. I thought about joining the army, programming computers, stripping, doing porn, being an startup entrepreneur, a lawyer, an inventor or a stock trader. I'm mentally and physically capable of any of those things, but none of them were things I felt compelled to do.

All I really wanted was to get laid more often, play video games, look good, and otherwise feel great, and even those things I only wanted in that they were the most frequent whims. School and career were just something annoying on the side that I had to do to buy my way towards those things and/or not get yelled at.

That level of motivation got me through an easy bachelor's degree with crummy grades, and into a job I didn't care about. After a few years I got really bored and bit depressed and my motivation at work completely disappeared to the point that I got fired. I think many if not most people with a similar demographic to me end up like this, but manage to force themselves to do enough to not get fired because they have a family or more fear or something. It sucked. Hopefully you can avoid it.

Having one goal changed all of this because now there is no moment of the day during which I don't know what I should (ideally) be doing. I'm still human, which means I often waste time (writing this essay) or break to have fun, but I know what I should do all the time. I have purpose. I can finally take workaholics and otherwise productive/prolific people as role models without feeling like the whole idea is stupid. I finally understand what big shot celebrities are talking about in motivational speeches when they share the stories of how they earned the careers and companies they built.

The one goal has to be involuntary though. I couldn't just pick something at random because that wouldn't stick. I tried that before and a few months later I'd get bored and then get excited about something else. My goal today isn't something I chose out of a list of possibilities. It's something that, after finding it and learning about it, I must do it. It's so important to me that it's instantly obvious that no other long term goal will compare to it.

The only way I know of to find an involuntary goal, is to learn about different things in hopes of finding it. If there's a faster more systematic way to discovering your goal, I certainly didn't find it. Start reading about new inventions and new ideas. Find out about how the world works, and hopefully, eventually, you'll see something that not enough people are doing, not enough people care about, something so important that its current state is unacceptable and if you want it done you must do it.

That is your one goal. Once you find it, life will still be hard, maybe even a little harder, but suddenly the effort will be worth it.

It's Ok To Think Others Are Crazy (but STFU)

I just read this article on huffpost, and frankly it sucked. He does more than just stretch the term 'gaslighting' to places it doesn't reach, and get pointlessly offended about how the meanings of the term crazy also include mental illness. The article calls crazy "a trend", and at the same time talks about how it's been around for a long time. Worst he offers no alternatives to dealing with "crazy" behavior. This guy, who's apparently a dating coach, writes a long diatribe about how men calling women crazy is evil and manipulative. No. He's right that saying "you're crazy" during a fight isn't going to win you any boyfriend awards, but it's not manipulative--it's just lazy.

He starts off with "crazy meant 'acting in a way I didn't like.'" That's not what a guy is saying when he calls his girlfriend crazy. What he really means is "I don't know or understand the cause(s) of the attitudes/behaviors she's showing. If she stated her reasoning, I didn't follow it and/or still don't understand how it's causally linked. And I've given up trying to figure it out."

The solution is pretty simple, and you don't need all this psychobabble to do it.

First, control your own emotional outbursts and tactfully admit that you don't understand what's up. This isn't a negative on you or on her. It's a byproduct of the different ways men and women communicate. Don't make a big deal out of this fact of life. If you do this step right, she may try to explain (again), but don't expect her to be able to bridge the communication gap for you. She already didn't remember? You likely still won't understand the causal relationship. That's fine. The important thing here is that you actively listen and gently probe for more information until you figure out the cause of her emotions.

It's the emotion that matters. If she's getting good emotions from her world and you, then you won't have to worry much about anything else. Understanding what you're doing is only important to the point where you can get the effect you want. It takes a lot less expertise to have a happy relationship than it does to understand other people, just like it takes less expertise to operate a microwave than it does to build one.

When you've figured out the problem it's simply a matter of fixing it or avoiding it. You should have a lot of motivation to find an answer because if you can't find one, the relationship is over.

To sum up, don't bother reading this blow-hard's rant. Be patient enough to learn what things create what emotions for the woman you're with, and then find ways to bring her more happiness and less sadness. Billions of stupid yet happy couples around the world prove, it doesn't take a psychologist to do it.

The Cosmo of Dating Advice

This article is the Cosmo sex secrets of dating advice: interesting, but women who try it are likely to have a very bad time.

The one golden bit is that there's nothing wrong with waiting longer than 2 dates to start having sex. But it doesn't outline any real solutions to the problem of constantly finding yourself in undefined FWB relationships instead of finding the commitment you're after.

I typically avoid giving relationship advice because there are many older people who've been in a lot more relationships than I have, but this advice was so terrible I had to counter it.

When it comes to commitment, making him pay for dinner or wait to have sex isn't going to make him suddenly decide that he wants to have a committed relationship. All it will communicate is that you're into old fashioned gender roles. Some dudes like that, but many don't. I know because I'm one of the men who's interested in a committed relationship, but not special gender privilege.

Anyway, undefined relationships are a real problem, but mostly they're a problem of not communicating. If your relationship is undefined it's because neither of you has expressed what you think the relationship is or ought to be and gotten a response. If you had communicated and received a clear response, then you'd at least know what your partner thinks about it.

So, if you're looking for a committed relationship, and you're tired of not knowing if you've found someone who can share one with you, here are some basics to think about

He must be looking for, or genuinely open to, a committed relationship. Some people change, but most don't. Trying to change your partner's life goals isn't worth your time. Women who are looking for commitment should ask about it on the first date. If he hems and haws, say directly that you are looking for a serious relationship, a long term relationship, or marriage. If he runs, there's your answer. If he stays, game on.

Don't try to hint or be too clever about this question. It's too important to risk miscommunication. Get the conversation there on the first date with something like "so what are you looking for relationship-wise?" Don't be surprised if he hasn't seriously thought about this before--many men haven't. Just give him some time to stutter out a response. You may not get a clear answer right away. He may think out loud all over the range. But at least now he's thinking about it, which means you can probably get a solid answer later.

It's also helpful to prompt him for an answer that is about what he wants now and is unambiguously about you. If I'm out with a girl I'm only interested in short term, my answers would be completely different if the question is "Do you think you'll get married someday?" vs. "Are you looking for a wife?" The first could mean 15 years from now with someone else. The second prompts for my current goals, which means I'm more likely to give you an answer that's related to you.

Now that you've established that you share similar goals, you can allow the relationships to mature naturally. Start having sex when you want to. Hang out often outside of sex to make sure you don't just tire of each other and fight too much when it comes to topics outside the bedroom and minor outside stress. Finally when you're ready to commit more fully,  it's again time to communicate clearly.

One happy consequence of undefined relationships is that there are no rules preventing you from having exactly the type of relationship that you both want. In the past you had from farthest to closest: strangers, acquaintances, friends, courting/dating, engaged, and married. Each relationship state had its own expectations. Today you can choose your own adventure. Do you want the sexual exclusivity of dating without the emotional commitment? You can do that. Do you want the financial commitment of marriage without the sexual commitment? You can do that instead. If you want a traditional package, you can have one of those too. In this new era, you can have any type of relationship as long as you ask for it.

This is another point where being too clever can hurt communication and stop you from getting what you want. Start the conversation with "What do you think about us being exclusive sexually?" or "I want to call you my girl/boy-friend. How do you feel about that?" Just like before, he may not have thought about this question yet. Ask the question directly, but don't push for an instantaneous response if you want the true answer. That said, if he needs more than a day to think about it, he may be trying to avoid giving a negative response.

On a personal side note, don't ask serious relationship questions in the middle of foreplay or sex. Answers to questions of emotion are difficult enough to process when I'm not under the mind-erasing influence of a sexy woman. This has happened to me several times now, and unfortunately I was never able to give a straight answer. Often I gave an answer that came out completely opposite to what I really wanted because didn't even realize what I was being asked for.

There are certainly challenges to this new culture of dating that were avoided by the constraints of courtships and arranged marriages long ago. But don't pine for the bonds of a system that didn't value love, attraction and personal compatibility just because it had a measure of certainty. You can still have that certainty today without all the problems of the old system. The difference is that instead of your parents communicating with his, it has to be you communicating with him.

Flexibility Is Not Adaptation

Most people hate change. Even the ones we call "flexible". I'm flexible. But I haven't really been embracing change. Not the way one needs to in order to succeed. Change is what empires are made out of, and being flexible just means that you roll with the punches. It doesn't mean that you're out there actively seeking change. I often feel paralyzed by the array of choices, but really there's no reason not to pick one arbitrarily and get started. Any attempt to get started is better than sitting around doing nothing. If it turns out to be the wrong choice, at least you've learned what you don't want. Hopefully you eventually get lucky and make a correct choice, but you have to keep making them. Sitting around gets you nowhere.

Still No Sign of Intelligence

The problem with theorizing about artificial intelligence is that we’re assuming things about the nature of cognition and intelligence that I'm not sure we know yet. So far we have not created an artificial intelligence of any kind–super or even 'stupid'. Watson, Deep Blue and other supercomputer programs simply boil down to being able to do extremely intensive searches through sets of data that we already know. The rules of Chess are very straight forward, and Googling most questions gets you close to the answer. This is a part/form of intelligence, but this may be completely different from how the actual intelligent cognitive creativity that lets us come up with ideas works.

Until we understand how our minds come up with completely new ideas, it may be impossible to purposefully design a computer that is *actually* intelligent as measured by an ability to come up with completely new ideas that show an actual understanding of the real problems that ineptly succinct directives like “prevent human suffering” are intended to convey.

We will know we have a real artificial super-intelligence when we ask it, “What can be done to end human suffering?” and it replies with, “I could give you an answer, but you’re asking the wrong question. What you really want to know how to do is…”