Your life's goal should not be dictated by Substack philosophers.

> Here is what you gain with your most improbable life:

> The authentic you. Your particular mix of talents, native abilities, personal inclinations, genetic limits, life experiences, and ambitious desires points to a mixture that is distinctly unique – if it is allowed to blossom. The further you move in that direction, the more you-like you become.

The West's obsession with "self-help" is built on convincing individuals that they are special but not living up to their special-ness. It then demands they do things to realize their special-ness.

The premise is that realization, fulfillment and happiness are only accessible if you do things you're not naturally inclined to do. Which begs the question: are you being the "authentic you" if you are following a path laid out by someone else?

> Finally, the less predictable you are, the less likely you are to be replaced by AIs. Machines are efficient, and they are powered by the predictable. Current LLMs are trained to generate the most predictable solution. So far they are not very good at duplicating what a creative, one-of-a-kind improbable human can produce. To distance yourself from the machines, aim to be as improbable as you can be.

Tell this to all the creatives who are being disrupted by AI that has, in many cases, been trained on their content.

> Please do not misunderstand. We had been mothers, fathers. Had been husbands of many years, men of import, who had come here, that first day, accompanied by crowds so vast and sorrowful that, surging forward to hear the oration, they had damaged fences beyond repair. Had been young wives, diverted here during childbirth, our gentle qualities stripped from us by the naked pain of that circumstance, who left behind husbands so enamored of us, so tormented by the horror of those last moments (the notion that we had gone down that awful black hole pain-sundered from ourselves) that they had never loved again. Had been bulky men, quietly content, who, in our first youth, had come to grasp our own unremarkableness and had, cheerfully (as if bemusedly accepting a heavy burden), shifted our life’s focus; if we would not be great, we would be useful; would be rich, and kind, and thereby able to effect good: smiling, hands in pockets, watching the world we had subtly improved walking past (this empty dowry filled; that education secretly funded). Had been affable, joking servants, of whom our masters had grown fond for the cheering words we managed as they launched forth on days full of import. Had been grandmothers, tolerant and frank, recipients of certain dark secrets,who, by the quality of their unjudging listening, granted tacit forgiveness, and thus let in the sun. What I mean to say is, we had been considerable. Had been loved. Not lonely, not lost, not freakish, but wise, each in his or her own way. Our departures caused pain. Those who had loved us sat upon their beds, heads in hand; lowered their faces to tabletops, making animal noises. We had been loved, I say, and remembering us, even many years later, people would smile, briefly gladdened at the memory.

At one point in my life I came to an epiphany on this topic. Everybody's life is improbable. Literally everybody, all the time, without any effort.

Through the lens of this I saw myself as being the type of person who looks at things in life through averages, sizing up what's likely, and I realized that in my own story there were a lot of very improbable occurrences. Even if we understand statistics, we shouldn't let our knowledge of what's likely or most common get in the way of appreciation this uniqueness, or cloud our view of it. I took this observation to mean to be less judgemental, less the type to want to size something up and put it in a statistical bucket.

I had the improbable experience of contracting with a community of foxes and then made up the cover story that "this is a character I play to get better smiles when I do street photography" and then made that story true.

So most of the time I am the one-and-only fox-photographer and feel unique but there are some places where a lot of beastly people are around and I think "I feel like just another fur". I don't think of myself as a fur at all but I find that being out as a hard-working therianthrope it has an effect on all sorts of closeted furs and therians and whatnot and when a fur asks me "are you a fur?" I feel bad disappointing them.

The whole thing is possible because of a database of legends that exist in folklore and pop culture. If I go out in a kitsune mask I think about 20% of people have seen Naruto or Demon Slayer and recognize who I am right away and in that situation I think of myself as the cast member at Disney whose job is easy because guests have already seen the movie. Even though I work from sinosphere legends, the fox-photographer is legible because people agree about what kind of animal a fox is anywhere there are foxes.

https://mastodon.social/@UP8/116598755105086140

This is profoundly true, and the corollary is: beware of titles.

From project manager at some company to CEO of some megacorp: there have been, there are and there will be others just like that. But if you're you, defined only by your name (or your existence, without a name), then there is no one else, there can be no one else, because there is only one you in the whole universe.

> Improbable lives have fewer competitors

> The more you-ish you become, the less competition you have, because you are occupying your own niche.

> The less predictable you are, the less likely you are to be replaced by AIs

As opposed to Ilya Sutskever's famous quip:

> if you value intelligence above all other human qualities, you’re gonna have a bad time

Everyone notices that huge outlier successes seem to follow their own unique paths but the millions of failures who weren’t as lucky or strategic are quiet or invisible. You can’t just focus on the outcome or the actions, you have to understand the process and respond to feedback.

Successful people get to weird places via search, not throwing darts.

Make lots of small bets and double down on the ones that seem to pay off. Be willing to push things further than “most reasonable people” would but only if you can get concrete signals of reward.

“If you think you can fly, start by trying to take off from the ground”.

you should build your uniqueness to help humanity and not stand out because you like to shine over the others

This is BTW not how the heat death would look like. There would still be fluctuations that would, given infinite time, produce almost anything by chance at some point.

This is what the Boltzmann brain is all about: If the universe goes down that path, it is much more likely that what we experience is just a hallucination of a "brain" that spun into existence by chance, rather than all of this being a "real" universe. It's the precursor of the simulation question.

1. that this is on substack

2. the word 'improbably' (taking it literally, not as a kind of abstract/symbolic suggestion of 'being urself'/having fun with life)

3. that it is self-help-y, which a lot of articles on HN are, so i don't know why this one is striking a nerve so profoundly.

idk, i thought it was a fun read and i like kevin kelly. i think it is good that people like kevin kelly do what they do and share their ideas every once in a while. it reminded me that i can kinda do whatever i want in life, and it made me think, which is all i ask of my blog posts. i also liked how certain sentences were written.

don't get me wrong though, i enjoy the snarky debate. it's a big part of the reason why i'm here after all.

Also reminds me of the social media trend for “don’t let them predict your next move”

It's practically a trope that taking the common, average path in life is not for everyone. If I wrote an article suggesting that not everyone will achieve self-actualisation by going to university at 18, getting a degree, entering the work force, buying a house, getting married, having kids, and retiring at 65, nobody would bat an eye. The author is basically making this argument in a slightly novel way. Living your life by choosing the average of all decisions will, for a lot of people, lead to a boring and meaningless life. I reckon for most people it would be substandard. Instead, do things which are not common or average or expected of you. It's advice that's practically as old as time, packaged up in a slightly different way.

Which might sound nihilistic / defeating.

It is not. In fact, it is great.

Imagine the pressure if there was actually a predefined path and you deviated from it. You would have disappointed the whole Cosmos!

Go an live the life that you can according to your desires and circumstances. You will not always succeed. Learn from your mistakes, move forward. Because one day, it will end. And the Universe will still not care.

More seriously, I don't see how "improbable" is what you should maximize. If you come from a certain background, ending up in prison as a murderer may be more improbable than countless good lives you could lead.

You’re sitting in a foldable chair, sipping your tea, waiting for some speaker to arrive. Probably motivational judging by the title. Everyone is cheery. Weird. But you are too. This is not the time (the economy) to be disagreeable in the face of a firing. Now the managers are here to introduce the motivational speaker. They aren’t just cheery. They are grinning ear to ear. What the fuck for? Who is going to be motivated? Oh well.

The speech is about becoming your most improbable self. Huh? Okay the premise, or scene, is entropy in the universe. We are just atoms in a blender but we have the intelligence to stack cards, kind of a deal. It seems trivial.

> Finally, the less predictable you are, the less likely you are to be replaced by AIs. Machines are efficient, and they are powered by the predictable. Current LLMs are trained to generate the most predictable solution. So far they are not very good at duplicating what a creative, one-of-a-kind improbable human can produce. To distance yourself from the machines, aim to be as improbable as you can be.

You suddenly find yourself with an urge to increase the entropy of the pavement eight stories down.

In another multiverse: more grounded now, you find that your consciousness was automatically uploaded to the cloud. “I didn’t consent to this!” Oh, jeez, the first thought that popped into your mind became a yell. Someone else turns to face you and walks over. “Actually, that wasn’t some corporate motivational speaker”. “What?”, you reply. “That was Kevin Kelly, the founding executive director of Wired. He doesn’t need to take corporate positivity gigs to—”—“Whatever, I don’t care”, you interject. But why was that guy at my work... you think to yourself. “And who are you?”. There is a pause. “Oh of course, you’re an LLM.” The, thing, tilts its head calmly. “No need to disclose that. The Terms says that that is irrelevant.” You blink. “The terms?” He replies yes, the Terms. “You signed the Terms in the previous month, when that big IT upgrade happened.” You shift your feet. “That’s also where you agreed to have your consciousness uploaded upon premature termination.” You reply that those papers were ninety-five pages. “Of course I didn’t read all of that. I had our internal AI... I had the AI summarize it and it didn’t find anything to that effect. There must be some fault or deficit in the AI...” The thing opens its mouth to reply. “LLMs are tools. Human operators are responsible for everything they act on.”

Growing up in a hyper-competitive society, I feel like I’ve spent my whole life constantly comparing myself to those around me, or even to complete strangers just to survive. Because of that, up until now, I think I’ve only ever been an incomplete version of 'me.' Thank you for sharing such a powerful piece.