Comment by wojtekmal on Open Thread Spring 2025 · 2025-03-25T19:31:15.270Z · LW · GW

Hello, I'm Wojtek.

Few things about me:

• Interests:
  • Math, I know a lot of competition math at a high level and I like to learn by reading textbooks and seeing popular math youtube channels.
  • Computer Science, similarly to math I like learning the interesting stuff. I'm more interested/fluent in algorithms at a competitive level, AI, programming in general (so not stuff like Excel or building computers).
  • Various sports (I like being healthy), such as wall climbing, running, going to the gym, orienteering.
  • Getting acquainted with our worlds culture, things like books, movies, places to see/learn about, knowledge in general.
• Goals; Stuff I do and ways I try to be a better person:
  • Learning as much as I can. Currently I'm at high school, so it seems optimal to learn, not work.
  • Behaving like a responsible adult. Unfortunately this isn't a given in my case. Long term I want to move out and get a nice job.
  • Finding a meaning in life. It was kind of foolish to get so far in the journey of life while forgetting to pack a meaning. The obvious options are having an impact, relationships and just being happy.
  • Having an impact. This is related to the previous point. I don't want to be mundane (although I don't have a good reason for this). I want to excel. Might as well be a good impact while I'm at it.
• Why I'm here:
  • I found this site by following links to it from random places. After visiting a few times I started to recognize it. I read the welcome guide and put Rationality A-Z into my to-read list. That was about 1.5 months ago. Today I finished the book (long read), so I thought I might say hi to the community.
  • The A-Z sequences were revelatory for me - they changed my worldview and exposed my flaws. I read the distilled and edited version where every other post or so was thrown out, but that's probably for the best because it was so long and I don't really remember the first half.
  • Recently I've been lurking on sites such as 80000 hours and Effective Altruism and they happen to link to Less Wrong often. These sites seemed linked by a common mentality and goals that I happen to be interested in.

Thank you for reading my comment. Looking forward to getting to know you guys better and learning a lot from you.