Notes on energy and intelligence becoming cheaper
In 2015, I amused myself by training a neural network to generate poems in the style of various poets I knew and submitted the results to a fanzine.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
In 2015, I amused myself by training a neural network to generate poems in the style of various poets I knew and submitted the results to a fanzine.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
When people talk about the value of paying attention and slowing down, they often make it sound prudish and monk-like. But we shouldn’t forget how interesting and overpoweringly pleasurable sustained attention can be.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
You are always internalizing the culture around you. Even when you wish you didn’t. So you better surround yourself with something you want inside—curate a culture.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
I don’t think I would have become a writer if it wasn’t for the internet forums of the early 2000s.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
A common phenomenon in the history of literature is couples writing together.| Escaping Flatland
On problem solving and form-context-fit| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Of all the ways this blog have changed my life, the most exciting was in December 2021 when I wrote a post about Ivan Illich that ended up, to my utter astonishment, to get read by almost a hundred people.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Growing up on the Swedish seaside, I had a five-minute walk to four open learning facilities – not counting the library and the youth center. It was very Christopher Alexander.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have that privilege?| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Or, how to handle being sentenced to freedom, and handle it effectively, and authentically, and responsibly| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Nick Cave, the cosmetics of identity, and introspection through doing.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
At Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen, I see a passport fall out of the back pocket of a man and immediately (at least) three strangers call out.| Escaping Flatland
One reason I like this genre is that people censor themselves less when they are writing in private.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
9 reflections| Escaping Flatland
How to filter problems worth solving from problems worth quitting?| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Right now it is April 18 and I am walking along the steep coast at the peninsula on the Northeastern corner of our island.| Escaping Flatland
Sometimes two people will stand next to each other for fifteen years, both feeling out of place and alone, like no one gets them, and then one day, they look up at each other and say, “Oh, there you are.”| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Intensely Human, No 4: The Envoy of Mr Cogito| Escaping Flatland
Edward Weston, Armco Steel, Ohio, 1922| Escaping Flatland
(This might be a distressing read, so let me just say at the start that it ends ok and we are fine now.)| Escaping Flatland
“Little Sister”, Agnes Martin, 1962| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
The short version is that my friend, in my opinion, thinks about what he wants in a too constrained way.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Highlights from the cutting room floor, pt. 3| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
What’s odd about you is what’s interesting.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Following your curiosity, you can bring something new and beautiful into the world as a gift to others. But to go there you have to do things that others will think stupid and embarrassing.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
1. It is possible to turn a mediocre job into a great one| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
John Stuart Mill, notetaking, rationality, and emotion| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Highlights from the cutting room floor, pt. 2| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Solitary work, creativity and larval ideas| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
This is the second part of an essay series that began with “Everything that turned out well in my life followed the same design process.” There is also a third part. It can be read on its own.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
The context is smarter than you.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Gustav Klimt, Beech Grove I, 1902| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Part 1: The thought behind the thought| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
I was looking through my diary from the summer of 2020 and found this entry about Maud, then three years old, in late toddlerhood. 25th of July 2020. I was doing the dishes. Maud came in. “I have looked a little in books,” she said.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
For many decades, it seemed professional Go players had reached a hard limit on how well it is possible to play. Then AI beat them.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Looking for Alice, part 3| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
When writing in public, there is a common idea that you should make it accessible. This is a left over from mass media.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Let's do more of those| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
Problems are typically richer than our preconceived notions about how to solve them.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
When I started writing online, the advice I got was to publish frequently and not overthink any single piece. The logic was this: the outcome for blog posts is a heavy-tailed statistical distribution—most pieces will be read by barely anyone, but a small subset of outliers will do hundreds if not thousands of times better than average. Ben Kuhn has| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
In self-selected communities with clear norms, AI models can automate some of the work that community moderators do. This could allow us to grow moderated communities larger than we’ve been able to before.| www.henrikkarlsson.xyz
