Member-only story
Since it’s not just Scott Alexander doing it.
Sometimes, it feels like my life hasn’t changed much in years, but looking back over the previous decade through a lens of considering how I’ve changed really highlights the progress I’ve made. My changes in intellectual positions during this period have mostly been motivated by direct experience & changes in circumstance (which has made certain ideas more accessible to me while the flaws in others have become more obvious), rather than mere argumentation, but that’s mostly because this decade happened to be when I first engaged in most of the things that constitute ‘the harsh realities of adult life’.
A brief timeline
In 2010, I had been in college already for three years (though, because I was still working through the ramifications of a magnificently flubbed first semester, I would remain in college for another four). I continued the kind of heavy book learning that one can do when one has no major responsibilities (reading thick books on unfamiliar subjects for the hell of it, and finishing them in a few days because there’s nothing better to do for hours at a time) for only another year, at which point I got my first job. In short order, I also got into my first serious adult relationship, lost my virginity, started disposing of all my new disposable income, and got the…
