Konrad

New experiences, freeze time.

I wasn’t speaking for 9 days and my routine was also completely different than what I was used to. In my normal life, a day seems to fly by. The takeaway? Find new experiences. Life will be more interesting and seem longer. You won’t get to the end of life thinking “Where did all that…More

If you make a mistake today, the setup happened days, months maybe even years ago.

Similarly, if you do something exceptionally well today, its because of actions that you took in the past. Sometimes in the very distant past. Don’t beat your self up over mistakes. Identify the habits that you would need to change to make it so that you never make that mistake again. They,…More

Meditation is the ultimate productivity hack.

If you don’t take it to the extreme of cutting off all craving and attachment to goals. If, you target only counter-productive cravings. You will be able to create a version of yourself that only cares about doing things that help you. Disconnect from the sugary food craving, replace it with a…More

Meditation is a virus that would kill humanity if it could.

A virus has the motivation of making sure that it succeeds and thrives, even if it is at the cost of the host. Theres a good argument that ideas are viruses. They infect our brains and then we spread them by telling others. In the case of meditation (vipassana specifically), its especially insidious.…More

10 Days of Silence and Meditation for a Smartphone Addict

10 days is a lot longer than you think. I got stuck in the one room in the basement with no windows and no attached bathroom. I went from constant stimulus of reading and podcasts and emails and audio books and conversations to nearly nothing. 3:59 AM, my roommate’s, alarm goes off. 15…More

I’m doing a 10 day silent meditation retreat.

Its going to be a bit intense. Its hosted in western Massachusetts. When you arrive your phone is put in quarantine. Schedule is 4am wakeup, meditate until 9pm and then sleep. (with some small breaks for food) No talking to fellow attendees. No writing. No reading. No exercising.…More

Theres no proof that lowering tax rates increases economic growth.

The truth is much more complicated than that. In fact, there is a pretty easy argument to make that the opposite is true. If you look at the average economic growth rate in the US its steadily gone down in the years since world war 2, with the largest growth rates being after…More

Reddit bots are a good example for how we could filter the internet.

For those that don’t know, a reddit bot will filter all posts and identify key phrases and then respond with a pre-written response. For example, if someone mentioned the holocaust, there is a bot that will respond with a 1000+ word post explaining the holocaust and controversies around it. This could be a model…More

To create an ideal morning I chained 10 habits together.

I used to have lazy mornings where I would often spend 30 minutes to an hour doing things that I didn’t actually get value from. These included browsing random news sites, browsing Facebook and snoozing my alarm. The way I changed this is by identifying and tracking all the decision points. The points where…More

The internet has led to lower quality information.

In general, it makes it harder to know what is or isn’t correct. Back in the pre-internet dark ages, there was a well organized system for filtering information. You could only get it through established news organizations like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, which existed on either side of…More