My book What's Our Problem? is now available. The book introduces a new framework for thinking about our chaotic political environment. With 303 drawings, it's a toolbox for understanding our societies, our group dynamics, and our own minds. Get it here: waitbutwhy.com/whatsourprobl…

Graphic designers now just open a blank document, make the font size 80, type the company name, and that’s the logo.

Daily reminder to be thankful there's no one above us in the food chain

In case Twitter is making you anxious, here’s a man making a traditional teapot. [tiktok: zishacraftsman]

Population density thread because you and I both know you have nothing better to do. Let's start with this cool way to visualize population density, by @undertheraedar. The height of each spike displays the population density in that location.

Good day to remember just how big that green tree is

We think a lot about those black lines, forgetting that it’s all still in our hands.

Everything we call civilization was invented in the last 500 generations—way too short a time for our bodies and brains to re-optimize. We're a bunch of primates in a totally unnatural environment, trying our best. Good thing to keep in mind!

Imagine what ancient people thought when something like this happened

I still cannot believe that I can: - look at a world map and tap anywhere to zoom in at street level - instantly access any song, book, movie, tv show, or podcast ever made - have any conceivable question and get an immediate answer or video explanation - take a photo or video wherever I am and add it to my massive, searchable, always accessible personal archive - video call anyone in my life, at anytime, no matter where they are - watch live sports on a little wireless glass rectangle - type out these thoughts and have them read by thousands of people, all over the world, a few seconds later

“If you only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.” Montesquieu said this 300 years ago. We’re still working on this one.

21 thoughts from 2021 I'd like to take into 2022:

Pro tip: When you wake up in the middle of the night, the worst way to fall back asleep is to open Twitter

It's super important to support marginalized people in places where it's popular to do so

New year, new you

Good job everyone

If Andromeda were brighter, this is how big it would be in our night sky.

I keep thinking about this today

What’s the craziest conspiracy theory you think might be true?

Feed a man a fish, feed him for a night. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to make AI, the AI does all the fishing and everyone is fed forever. Then the AI accidentally kills all the people and the fish win.

Relationship tip: when your partner makes an awful but innocent mistake (leaves their phone in the cab, forgets their passport when heading to the airport for an international flight, drops and shatters a beloved item, gets in a fender bender, etc.), don't get mad at them. It makes no sense (it was accidental) and it accomplishes nothing except supplementing an already bad situation with an unnecessary fight. Instead, think about it like this: as a couple, you will commit like 20 of these hideous mistakes a year and who knew that one of them was gonna happen today, but it did, so that sucks, but it's also a little bit funny, and let's just make the best of it. This turns those moments from relationship-damaging to relationship-building. And of course, what goes around comes around—you do dumb things too, and you'd much rather your partner be a laughing teammate than an angry parent in those situations. I didn't used to do this, I learned it from my wife. I am a frequent committer of hideous mistakes, and it surprised me that she never got mad about it, and then I started being like that too.

At the center of our planet is a solid sphere of iron & nickel the size of India (1,500mi across) that's as hot as the surface of the sun, and its interaction w the molten iron surrounding it generates the magnetic field that keeps our atmosphere from blowing away. pic: phys-org

Five cities, then and now. Somewhere today there's a quiet fishing village that will be a 2100 megalopolis. Hong Kong: 1964 | 2016

Hidreley Diao uses AI to capture what historical figures would look like if they were modern people. George Washington:

In 2017, I did something dumb. There was a total solar eclipse passing through the US, but I was in NY, far from the path. Was I really gonna get on a plane to see a cool thing for two minutes? Nah. I had shit to do. The day came. I put my stupid glasses on and saw the sun become a little less big and then back to being full size again. It was mildly interesting. Then the reports started coming in from the people who had seen it from the totality zone. People were like "it was an indescribably profound, perspective-shifting, life-altering experience." They were like "I'm a different person now, someone who can only be understood by other people who saw the total solar eclipse." It was massively fomo-y and upsetting. Solar eclipses happen when the moon passes directly through the invisible line connecting the sun and Earth, something that doesn't happen very often because space is big and the invisible line is skinny. Earthlings are very lucky, eclipse-wise. Most planets don't have a big enough moon to create a total solar eclipse. Not only is our moon big enough, it's about exactly the size of the sun in our night sky because, by sheer coincidence, the sun is about 400 times farther from us than the moon and also about 400 times bigger than the moon in diameter—making our eclipses especially breathtaking. There are about 70 total solar eclipses every century, each resulting in a thin path of total sun blockage. For most of history, there was no way to know when or where they would happen. Only the very lucky few who happened to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right weather, got to experience a total solar eclipse. Today you can ensure that you see one—and I had passed up the opportunity. I would not make the mistake again. I went online and learned that there would be another total solar eclipse passing through the US in 2024, and then that would be it until 2045. It went on my calendar that day. As fortune would have it, the 2024 eclipse's path of magical totality would be passing right over my new hometown of Austin, Texas. It was perfect. Then came the weather reports. Austin was going to be cloudy on eclipse day. Nope. Not okay. It wasn't an option to not see this eclipse. My friend @Liv_Boeree was equally psychotic about this, so we decided on Sunday night that Monday morning we'd get on a flight to somewhere in the eclipse's path that was forecast to have clear skies. We settled on Arkansas. Early the next morning we flew to Little Rock, got in a car, and drove northwest to get to the dead center of the totality path, where the total eclipse would last for more than three minutes. We ended up in a big open rural field that may or may not have been part of someone's farm. It was us and some cows. The sky was perfectly clear. 30 minutes until totality. I looked through my glasses at a crescent sun. It seemed a little dimmer out than usual, but only a little. 20 minutes. Thinner crescent, a tad dim, maybe a tad cooler than it was before? 10 minutes. Razor thin crescent now, definitely weird lighting. Because all of the light is coming from one small area, shadows are very sharp. You can see the shadow of individual hairs on your head. 1 minute. It's very dim, like early evening, but still feels like daytime generally. Waves of light and dark ripple across the ground, like the way light moves at the bottom of a swimming pool. 5 seconds. Diamond ring! I take off my glasses and the diamond ring looks strikingly beautiful and strange (google "eclipse diamond ring" to see what I'm talking about). 4 seconds to 1 second. The Earth's dimmer switch suddenly goes downnnnn as dim daylight drops into night. Totality. Imagine a world where there was always cloud cover, and one day every few years, in certain places, the sky cleared at night, and you could see stars for the first time in your life. It would be a totally surreal experience, something that reminded you that you don't live in a big world but on the edge of a tiny rock in vast outer space. It would show you the truth about reality. We see stars all the time, so we're well-acquainted with our reality living in outer space (even if it's easy to forget during the day). But when I looked up at the sky during the total eclipse, it was the first time I had experienced another, totally different way to see with my eyes that I lived in outer space. I saw one sphere positioned in front of another sphere, with two other spheres—Venus and Jupiter—floating nearby. More than ever before, it felt obvious that I was standing on the edge of a fifth sphere. For the first time in my life, I was looking at the Solar System. I looked around. There was a dim 360° sunset along the entire horizon—another first. It was dark. At 2pm. By a minute in, there was a chorus of chirping crickets that hadn't been there before. Birds were flying around overhead that hadn't been there before. The cows continued being cows but I assume they were super confused. I looked back up at the Solar System and noticed a little imperfection on the edge of the black moon circle, which I realized must be a solar flare. A solar flare I could see with my naked eye. Only half of my brain was focused on the eclipse because the other half was frantically trying to figure out how to best use the precious three minutes. I told myself I wouldn't spend more than 30 seconds of the three minutes doing stuff with my camera, but I was not gonna not take pics. I got things all focused and snapped this gem: Just kidding that's @AJamesMcCarthy's photo. But mine was pretty good too. Okay fine that one was taken by @NASA. Here's mine. Whatever. Anyway, eventually it ended. The glorious diamond ring reappeared, followed by me being blinded before remembering to not look at the sun anymore. Earth's dimmer switch swooped back up, as night turned to day in a few surreal seconds. It was over. Thoughts were processed. Emotions were felt. It was very very VERY worth the last second trip. For any of you who pulled a 2017 Tim and decided not to see this one, I hope I've sufficiently fomo'd you into making sure you see this for yourself, sometime soon, in some part of the world. 🌻

Nintendo (founded 1889) and the Ottoman Empire coexisted (fell in 1922) for 33 years.

Some mantras for political thinking: Truth is hard. Humility is hard. Independent thinking is hard. Resisting tribalism is hard. Over and over, you will forget that these things are hard, and that's probably when you'll fail at them. 1/5

The cumulative solar arrays that would power the world. Kinda weird that we haven't just done this yet. Image credit: @poweredbyart

Enough is enough with early riser privilege

I made the mistake of putting a CO2 meter in my office where I am all day and now I'm aware that I'm sitting in a cloud of CO2 all day losing IQ points. Even with the window open, the level is often 1300+. Anyone know of a way beyond ventilation to reduce a room's CO2?

It's crazy that with an iPhone, a little Starlink antenna, and a solar power unit, you could live in an isolated cave in the mountains (or on a raft in the middle of the Pacific) and get a world-class education, start a business or art career, & make friends all around the world.

One of the most incredible examples of a country changing its mind on an issue. Without free speech, the incredibly unpopular 1958 viewpoint that said "there's nothing wrong with interracial marriage" would never have seen the light of day.

We're such an insanely impressive species of primates that we can capture this shot

I graduated high school thinking I hated history, only to later realize it was my favorite thing. Good teaching should ignite curiosity.

Today, Elon tweeted this diagram by @SwipeWright, which sums up how a lot of people (including me) feel. Then a bunch of ppl responded w/ graphs showing that Republican politicians have moved farther right in that time than Dems have moved left. Here's what I think is happening:

We should probably start having more kids

Went to the mall today and in typical form failed to note where I parked. Instead of looking for it, I tried something crazy and summoned the car from the Tesla app. 30 seconds later, the empty car emerged from one of the lanes and pulled up in front of me. We live in the future.

New year, new you

Monthly reminder about that big green tree

You’d have to compress Earth to this size (9 mm) to form a black hole. You’d have to compress the sun to 3 km and the moon to 0.1 mm (width of a human hair) to turn them into black holes. For every black hole out there, something THAT intense has happened. Image: @lpfproject

22 tweets from 2022 that might blow your mind: Let's start with what a water droplet looks like at 6,000fps. [nac Image Technology]

I hope Japan actually does this

Email from Steve Jobs to himself, September 2010.

Monthly reminder to go hug someone

Very few of us know the people at the tip of the spear. We can make the biggest impact by uniting against the handle, making that behavior far more taboo than it is now.

My friend concisely sums up the last two months

Needle and thread under a microscope

Presidential pardons have always confused me. We just decided that at the end of a president's term, they're allowed to singlehandedly overrule the judicial system and nullify the sentences of their friends and family members? How did that end up in the constitution?

A 5 megabyte hard drive in 1956 vs. 1 terabyte today. A terabyte hard drive in 1956 would be the size of a 40-story building.

Incredible display of zealot's corner

30 years ago everyone left home without a phone every day. Just their wallet, keys, and thoughts. So weird.

Bezos is like “I think maybe my journalism company should try to do journalism in a professional not unprofessional way” and the rest of the media is like “wow look at how corrupt and cowardly he is.”

22 thoughts from 2022 I'd like to take into 2023:

Kinda weird how Apple can’t figure out how to make an LLM and all these other companies with way fewer resources managed to pull it off

Nana's 100th birthday. Crazy to be born on 9/20/25 and then have it get to 9/20/25 AGAIN.

Once you die you no longer experience the passage of time, so it’s as if eternity passes in an instant. As far as you’re concerned, the moment you die the universe reaches its final heat death state. So make the very most of this little window of consciousness—it’s all there is!

1) If all humans stood in a circle, it would be way bigger than the moon's orbit. 2) If we all stood together as a crowd, we'd fit in NYC. 3) If we all stood stacked, we'd fit in a 1km cube. 4) If you removed the empty space in human atoms, we'd all fit in an M&M.

Whales evolved from a bizarre, vaguely whale-looking land animal called the Pakicetus that lived in Pakistan 50 million years ago.

If you ever fantasize about having been an 1880s engineer working in Edison’s lab, apply to work at @neuralink.

Pangaea gets the last laugh.

No one “builds a house.” They lay one brick again and again and again and the end result is a house. A remarkable, glorious achievement is just what a long series of unremarkable, unglorious tasks looks like from far away. Procrastinators are bad at remembering this.

A little breakdown of the situation:

People in the early 1900s thought soda was healthy. People in the 1950s thought white bread was healthy. People in the 1990s thought margarine was healthy. What's something most of us think is healthy today that future people will shake their heads at?

It's finally here: the full story on Neuralink. I knew the future would be nuts but this is a whole other level. waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neura…

How people got around in 190 BC: horseback, horse-drawn carriage, sailboat 2,000 years later... How people got around in 1810: horseback, horse-drawn carriage, sailboat 160 years later... How people got around in 1970: bike, train, subway, car, bus, airplane, spaceship

If I aired a highlight reel of your most selfish life moments and most shameful thoughts, you'd seem like an awful person. If I aired a reel of your best, kindest moments, you'd seem like a saint. But people aren't highlight reels, and the unedited cut is always a messy mix!

Go hug someone

Will never be able to unsee it

Sine is blue, cosine is red. It's such bullshit that today's students get to have the internet explain stuff instead of having to figure it out yourself using incredibly awful textbooks.

The James Webb mirror is a 6.5m/21ft beast. It can also see infrared light way better than Hubble, which will reveal galaxies so far away they’re redshifted beyond the visible spectrum. It’ll show us the first stars and formation of the first galaxies - our best time machine yet.

I get sad once a week that I wasn't alive during the moon landing

Important lesson for young people: After childhood, there's no one to protect you from your own decisions. No one will stop you from getting yourself into a bad marriage, a job you hate, a mountain of debt, trouble with the law. You are the sole architect of your life path.

I'm just gonna start posting this during every major wave of current events.

What's up with boys and school? Source: tinyurl.com/43znempd

Linguists estimate that it takes about 1,000 years for a language to change enough that people at the beginning and end of the 1,000-year period can't at all understand each other. This holds with English—if you went back to the year 1024 AD and walked around England, you wouldn't understand what the hell anyone was saying because they'd be speaking Old English, which is really a very old version of German. What's weird is that it also holds for the future. If you time machined to 3024 AD and (if somehow humans and countries are still around) walked around New York or London, you probably wouldn't be able to understand anything people said. This process happens slowly enough that in any one lifetime, we don't really see it happening. But if you look closely, you see it. Think how confused a 1990 person would be if you asked them to help you find that lit meme about crypto podcasts everyone was posting on their insta stories. Or think about the terms and phrases your grandparents use that have gone out of style and no young person would ever use. Or even the slightly different ways old people and young people pronounce words. Now multiply this little bucket of differences by 20 and you have a totally different language.

Seems like a good time for an update on a graph from my 2015 post on AI.

Your family is weird [credit: evoboek.nl]

What country has the best candy?

We're far more interested in a chess match between grandmasters than between AIs, even though the AIs are way better. I'm noticing the same thing with video and art. Once I realize it's made by AI I lose interest, no matter how good it is. Maybe a good sign for human creators?

2100s people will think it’s so weird that humans used to get pregnant like other mammals.

It seems impossible at the beginning of this video that the person filming might be in danger

Everything we call civilization was invented in the last 500 generations—way too short a time for our bodies and brains to re-optimize. We're a bunch of forest primates in a totally unnatural environment, trying our little best. Someone needs to give our species a hug.

When you’re the boss of the ideas in your head, you’re always willing to revise them. When there’s no amount of evidence that will change your mind about something, it means that idea is your boss. Humility is the awareness that no idea is worthy of being your boss.

It sucks jumping in a cold pool but once you’re in it’s fine. Same pattern applies to: -Getting started with work each day -Having a hard conversation with a friend -Singing in front of people -Breaking up with someone Most of the time, jumping in is the hardest part.

The trademark merry-go-round of human societies. Kinda worried we're somewhere on the right side...

When the Aztec Empire was founded, the University of Oxford was already an ancient, centuries old institution.

Out of curiosity I scrolled Blue Sky for like an hour the other day and did not see a single post that even slightly contradicted the far left worldview. Impressively airtight echo chamber.

Phones are an unusual example of societal equality. Incredibly rich people have cars, houses, planes, vacations, jewelry, clothing, furniture, food, wine, stadium seats, and services that other people couldn't dream of having. But they have the same smartphone everyone else has.

What’s something you’ve changed your mind about?

There are people alive today who were around when we still thought the Milky Way was the entire universe

A tiny section of our galactic center. 10 million stars. Where is everybody?

The thing I understand least is how there are incredibly thorough Wikipedia pages for literally everything.

A tribe of 100 people gained 100 years of life experience every year. A city of 10,000 gained the same in 3 days. Today, our species lives 15,000 years every minute and almost a million years every hour. Tiny improvements in how we communicate can pay massive wisdom dividends.

Oh god please. BUT keep it permanently on the one where it gets dark later not earlier.

My body hates watching this [@trevorjacob93]

Earth was born 4.5 billion years ago and has roughly one billion years of habitability left (at which point the expanding sun's increasing luminosity will evaporate our oceans). We evolved more than 80% of the way through the window, just in the nick of time.

So even though the left hasn't moved that far left (as is shown by voting results), the left is in a sense being held hostage by their extreme wing, making a lot of people who enthusiastically voted for Obama feel politically homeless today.

Just trying to do my part

Came across an hour-long talk on YouTube that I wanted to watch. Rather than spend an hour watching it, I pasted the URL into a site that generates transcripts of YouTube videos and then pasted the transcript into Grok and asked for a summary. Got the gist in three minutes.

Recent survey of Harvard students, by @TheFIREorg