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Tim Urban

@waitbutwhy

12 Jun

Politics is like chess. Being in the center of the board, with mainstream positions, is a strong strategic position.

People, politicians, factions, and movements whose pieces are out on the corner of the board have three options:

1/4

1) Stand firm on your positions, and try to change enough minds that the chess board moves towards you, until your pieces are in the center

2) Compromise on your positions and move your pieces closer to the center of the board

2/4

3) Start moving your pawns like knights and your bishops like queens and see if you can get away with it

When a person or group is doing #3, the particulars of their stances are irrelevant. Everyone abiding by basic liberal rules should unite against the cheater.

3/4

Read 4 tweets

Tim Urban

@waitbutwhy

29 Apr

Which arm of the yearning octopus do you most yearn for these days?

(If you’d rather answer anonymously, there’s a poll in the replies.)

Which arm of the yearning octopus do you most yearn for these days? (Only four options max so combined lifestyle and practical.)

Full discussion: waitbutwhy.com/2018/04/pickin…

Read 4 tweets

Tim Urban

@waitbutwhy

20 Feb

The human psyche has weather. When we feel bad about the present and future, it’s cloudy in our psyche. When our psyche is cloudy, it colors everything. Things feel gloomier, angrier, scarier, and more depressing. This of course has all kinds of negative effects on behavior.

/1

Likewise, gratitude and optimism open up a bright blue sky in the psyche. This feels blissful and energizing and fosters kindness.

These behaviors generate more of the weather that produced them. So psyche weather is contagious, and it can spread like an epidemic.

/2

People know something is wrong in society right now but it can be hard to articulate.

I think what sucks right now is that a massive epidemic, maybe pandemic, of dark cloudy psyche skies has spread.

(Covid doesn’t help, but this has been going on a lot longer than Covid.)

/3

Read 6 tweets

Tim Urban

@waitbutwhy

11 Feb

We think of the 1950s as a time of relative political unity. But that’s not quite right. The 50s were a time of what I think of as “scattered tribalism.” There were Us vs Them battles taking place on multiple “tiers” simultaneously.

/1

@JonHaidt

.@JonHaidt often quotes the proverb “Me against my brothers; my brothers and me against my cousins; my cousins, my brothers, and me against strangers.”

In the 50s all 3 tribalism tiers were hot:

Intra-party warfare (brothers)
Reps v Dems (cousins)
US v Sov Union (strangers)

/2

Over the decades since, the threat of an external enemy has waned, and ideological purification of the parties has diminished infra-party warfare. American tribal instincts are no longer scattered—they’re heavily concentrated on the “cousins” battle: US right vs US left.

/3

Read 6 tweets

Tim Urban

@waitbutwhy

6 Jan

My dog has these little crumbly treats I put into her food and she thinks they're just okay. Sometimes she doesn't even finish them all. But when I present one as a special treat she has to do a trick for, she devours it.

It seems silly—but I think people are the same way:

/1

Things you take for granted taste like blah. Adding gratitude makes them delicious.

If you're eating handfuls of nuts out of a bag & it kind of sucks, imagine finding one in the forest & spending 10 min cracking it open. Then eat them one by one and savor the nourishment.

/2

When about to have a mediocre sandwich, imagine it's a long time ago and you just traveled around all day painstakingly collecting and preparing every ingredient.

When you drink a glass of water, imagine you're stranded in the desert and just found an oasis.

/3

Read 7 tweets

Tim Urban

@waitbutwhy

17 Dec 20

If you create art/content—songs, YouTube videos, articles, podcasts—think about people who come across your work as 4 categories of reactions:

1) Didn't like it
2) Thought it was solid / fine
3) Really liked it
4) Absolutely loved it

(1/3)

1s and 2s are gone forever. 3s might come back. 4s will subscribe and evangelize your work to everyone they know.

4s are what make your work take off, not 3s. A piece of work that yields 4s at a 20% vs 5% rate probably ends up with probably 10X (or 1,000X) the spread.

(2/3)

The thing is, content that yields a lot of 4s also usually yields a lot of 1s—more 1s is the cost of going for more 4s. Likewise, creators trying to minimize 1s also usually minimize 4s. So it's really two choices: the 1-4 strategy or the 2-3 strategy. 1-4 beats 2-3!

(3/3)

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