Episode Details

TL;DR: The efficient market hypothesis is a lie, there are no adults, you don't have to be as cool as the Very Cool People to contribute something, your comparative advantage tends to feel like just doing the obvious thing, and low hanging fruit is everywhere if you pay attention. The Very Cool People are anyways not so impossible to become; and perhaps most coolness is gated behind a self belief of having nothing to add.. So put more out into the world, worry less about whether people already know or find it boring. At worst you'll be slightly annoying. How can you know, if you haven't even tried?

Recently I've been commenting more on LessWrong[1]. This place is somehow the best[2] forum for sane reasoned discussion on the internet besides small academic-gated communities. A lot of posts and comments seem impressive, the product of minds greater than my own, the same way that even if I tried for years I probably wouldn't write a novel better than my own favorites[3] or beat Terrence Tao at his own game.

But... even taking for granted the (false) conclusion that all good posters here are unattainably beyond yourself, you just... don't [...]

The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
April 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ydxKmH7fjK9sGdsqs/the-bar-is-lower-than-you-think

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.