Effective Philanthropy at Scale

Maybe I take myself too seriously as a self-styled philanthropist ... but really I am not very serious. You see, it only takes about 10 seconds to make a huge impact in someone's life : you just usually won't know when that opportunity is available. So in order to maximise the impact that you have, per unit of energy, to apply a rule of laziness, you should always speak incisively, such as to have maximum effect when given small amounts of time. Advice should therefore be crushing or liberating. Sure, sometimes we are given the luxury of time to manipulate a needy person ... but one should not assume that is the case unless time is explicitly given.

Pivots : 2005, 2025?

I committed most of 2005-2025 to studying poor people. 

I am wondering if it is now a suitable time in life to focus on studying the rich.

Metaphysics of Intelligence

Funny rant I read yesterday, about a smart person not realising how dumb the average person is. ( Mathematician, said to have been unimpressed with AI progress, because IMO problems solved by AI celebrity were not deemed to be hard. )

"Smart" is a funny concept. This cuts to the root of the question about the metaphysics of intelligence. Everyone deems as smart, only the factors of products which they value.

- Folks who value things that can be bought with money, generally find financially wealthy people to be smart.

- Folks who value economy of thought, think shortcuts are smart.

- Folks who value spirituality and sentiment, think morality and emotional expressions are smart.

et cetera.

Hence, 

- A financier may not think an academician is smart, merely pedantic.

- A happy person may not think a capitalist is smart, merely greedy.

- A stoic may not think an artist is smart, merely impressionable.

Such is the folly of men.