I used to think that conflicts are bad and hard. Then I realized conflicts are only hard because I have conflict anxiety. Once I unlearned my conflict anxiety, conflicts became fun an interesting.

People who handle conflict well are magnetic. You trust them immediately. You can say anything to them without fear they’ll get triggered, avoidant, or secretly combust from suppressed anger three months later.

It’s wonderful.

When I became conflict-chill, something awesome happened: I got curious.

Instead of feeling “YOU’RE CROSSING MY BOUNDARIES,” I began to wonder: “Wait, what did they actually mean? Did I understand that as they intended?” Most conflicts are mistakes, so the first step should always be to ensure that we’ve understood the other correctly. But conflict anxiety blocks this natural curiosity.

How many dumb fights have you gotten into because of personal anxiety?

For me… a lot.

Many conflicts have little to do with ‘reality’, but mostly our own insecurities. After I unlearned my conflict anxiety, that simply stopped.

Instead, conflict feels like I’m there to investigate, a detective looking for clues, a researcher testing a hypothesis. Other people might still get triggered in my direction, but I don’t feel emotionally threatened anymore.

Conflict anxiety is there for a reason, of course. Locally optimal. Nonetheless, conflict anxiety can be skillfully relaxed.

After you unlearn your conflict anxiety, conflicts become interesting, and even beautiful. They become fun, riveting ways to learn about others. Like exploration: both of you can quickly hone in on your differences, and learn a lot quickly. Conflicts become a great way to make friends—fights become play.

Source: Lion Cubs Play & Fight - CUTE!

Setting boundaries used to feel super aversive. Telling people “No”? Asserting my desires? Eek! Even just thinking about asserting myself raised my heart rate and turned my stomach.

I thought I was bad at boundaries because I lacked skill, but really I feared the consequences. When I set boundaries, people often feel bad, get mad, dislike me, get violent, blame me… and I could feel like a bad person, fear retribution, and fear gossip. “Practicing” setting boundaries wasn’t addressing my bottleneck.

After unlearning these insecurities, boundaries became effortless. I can do boundaries, say No, and let others get triggered easily now. Conflict even became fun. Other people report similar effects.

Now it feels less like I’m “setting” boundaries and more like… I am boundaries. I am autonomous: I do things I want, because I want to, only when I want to. It’s even allowed me to become more empathetic and sensitive—I can get closer to others without fear of manipulation. Boundaries became effortless and my life improved.

For more about boundaries, see Claims #4 and #5 in this post.

Transcript available on Substack.

Subscribe now

This podcast extends a recent post:

Related:

Examples of self-fulfilling prophecies in AI alignment

Transcript: Available via Substack.

Subscribe now

Related:

Emotional numbness:

“Locally optimal”:

The hostile telepaths problem

“Yang” (agency) and “Yin” (manifestation):

Boundaries:

“Zooming in” on suffering:

Chronic pain:

““God””:

Community Feeling is what you feel when you deeply believe “I am beneficial to the world” and “my effortless existence contributes positively to the community”. (Your community could include other people, and also animals, plants, rocks, the universe, and even everything across all time.) It’s feeling part of a greater whole.

People who feel Community Feeling feel connected to others and have a strong sense of self-worth.

How do I know if I’m contributing?

You might think, “I’ll know I’m contributing positively when others tell me I am.” But how do you know they’re correct? How do you actually know if you’re contributing positively?

I’m not sure we can.

Once upon a time I constantly sought external validation, thinking it would confirm my positive impact. Instead, it left me feeling uncertain and dependent on others’ opinions.

Now, I choose to have faith. I’m trying my best to do good and be competent, and I trust that good intentions and attempted competence is intrinsically good (and probably leads to better outcomes).

Common barriers to Community Feeling

Believing others are threats

The more you believe others are threats, the more trouble you will have feeling Community Feeling.

• How comfortable do you feel maintaining your physical autonomy in social situations?

• Are you able to maintain your emotional autonomy when interacting with others?

In my case, after I became more secure, I became much less afraid of cooperating closely with others.

For example, I used to avoid many social situations because I feared being “controlled” by others’ opinions or expectations. But as I worked on unlearning my insecurities, I found that I could maintain my autonomy while still engaging deeply with others.

Doubting others’ efforts or intentions

The more you doubt others’ efforts or intentions, the more you hesitant you will be to form a super-agent with them.

• Do you often assume people are acting out of self-interest rather than genuine care for the community?

• Have you ever misjudged someone’s intentions and later realized they were trying to help?

Personally, I used to often be skeptical that some others’ efforts were good faith attempts to do good things for the world. Essentially, I believed that they were “evil”. But these days, I believe pretty strongly that everyone is trying their best for their ideal of good. Even criminals, etc. I may not agree with their definition of “good”, but I don’t doubt that they have one. 

I’ve seen many people have trouble with this though. They seem to believe that having faith in someone means endorsing their behavior, but it doesn’t.

Doubting the value of others

The more you doubt the value of others, the less you will want to identify with them.

• How often do you find yourself doubting the worth or potential of those around you?

• Can you recall a time when someone surprised you with their capabilities or kindness?

When I’m skeptical of others’ competence, I do not easily feel Community Feeling. But even if I don’t appreciate their competence, I can at least appreciate their intentions to do good.

Where would you like to feel more connected to others?

See also

After I quit my job, I was conflict-avoidant to the point of withdrawal. I did ~nothing for five months and moved in with my parents in the middle of nowhere.

Social conflicts used to rip me up. I would be anxious for days, sometimes months. 

I was so avoidant of feelings I didn’t know they manifested in the body.

Becoming more secure

After my insecurity was unlearned, my depression, social anxiety, and avoidance fell away.

With a secure baseline, I moved cities, pivoted careers, and began building a much more aligned life for myself. Since then I’ve:

• Directed my own human alignment research funded by patrons.

• Produced small AI safety workshops.

• Ran unhinged, sometimes intentionally awkward social events.

Previously, I’d have been too afraid to do these things mostly for fear of getting into conflict with others. And while I still get into many similar situations, they no longer register as “conflicts” to avoid or anxious about.

(NB: I was also fortunate to have some financial security during this time in the form of a consistent ~6 months of runway.)

Boundaries are effortless now. I couldn’t tell you the last time I did something because of guilt or manipulation by others.

If anything, I’m conflict-seeking now. Conflicts are often fun and informative!

Even my cuticles became securely attached! (I used to pick at them when I felt anxious.)

• I’m much more present and flinch away from many fewer aspects of my experience — resulting in more empathy and less chronic pain. 

• I cause fewer bad self-fulfilling prophecies. 

• I’m more intuitive and know more about my body.

• I like friends more.

• Sex is more fun.

• Less Tanha.

• It’s easier to feel part of a greater whole.

• Dating is easy.

1. There would be a feeling in my neck.

Like all feelings, the sensation in my neck represented some piece of information meant to be communicated to the rest of my nervous system. Being aware of the feeling seemed to be equivalent to being aware of that piece of information. 

And I don’t know why, but it happened to manifest spatially within my neck.

2. Some part of me wanted to not feel that feeling.

Some part of my system predicted (locally optimal) that being aware of this feeling/information would be bad.

3. It created muscle tension around the feeling.

In order to avoid the feeling, that part of me created muscle tension around the location of the feeling in my neck.

4. So the feeling grew.

Like all feelings, this one was (and often still is) there in order to be noticed and integrated. Unsurprisingly, the feeling responded to being covered up by tension by making itself more intense.

5. So the tension grew.

To avoid the stronger feeling, the part of me creating the tension tensed my neck even more.

6. A feedback loop!

So the feeling became stronger… and tension became stronger… and the feeling became stronger……

Yeah, there have been some days in the past few years where my neck was so tense I couldn’t turn my head.

What do you mean “I was creating the tension all along”?

While I had my neck tension, it did not feel like I was (consciously) doing the steps above.

However, a few times since the tension resolved, I’ve caught my neck beginning to tense again in the old way. But I notice as this is happening. And then I notice that I’m labeling the feeling as “harmful” and that I’m trying to avoid the feeling inside my own mind.

Because I notice this, I choose to stop labeling the feeling as “harmful”. And instead of avoiding it, I bring my attention into it more.

That last mental motion feels like being warm and dry on a beach, then slowly and deliberately wading into even colder water, feeling each inch of my body as I go deeper.

After I do that, the feeling actually recedes, and so does the tension.

Because of this introspection, I can see that I create the tension — and I must have always been creating it. I’ve become reconnected with the part of me that was afraid of that feeling.

What did the unwanted feeling represent?

In my particular case, I suspect the feeling in my neck represented the information “I have the choice to leave the social situation I’m in right now” and/or “I am disliking/suppressing myself.” 

• I had noticed a year ago that my neck was most commonly tense in social situations I found uncomfortable, so that makes sense now.

• I suspect there was an additional feedback loop like “I dislike something about myself” → *tensing my neck* → “I dislike that my neck is tense” → more tensing → …

What was the avoidance for?

Besides the feedback loop above, I still don’t know what the full incentive structure was. However, I’m aware of one big one: The feeling represented the awareness that I was insecure, and avoiding acknowledging this had a payoff. Explanation of this here:

Fortunately, I’m not insecure like I used to be, so this incentive was easy to dissolve once noticed.

Where was the tension, exactly?

In my neck and upper back. And before it resolved it even started to pinch my vagus nerve. 

Did you also try physical therapy, etc.?

Yes, I tried physical therapy for the first few months. It helped a little, maybe? And I kept doing the PT stretches, but they didn’t solve my tension. Ultimately my tension seems to have been almost entirely emotional.

I also tried non-trivial amounts of exercise, stretching, self-massage, and professional bodywork. None helped significantly.

Details

• My neck still gets tense sometimes, but it never reaches the point of pain anymore. When it does get tense, I'm much more aware of it and can relax it more easily.

• I haven't resolved all bothersome tension in my body yet, so this theory may not be a complete solution for all muscle tension issues. That said, my body has very little muscle tension overall.

UPDATE 2025:

We find a bench and sit not side-by-side, but facing each other. She had seemed shy a moment ago, but now her eyes are locked on mine.

She leans forward and two minutes flow by. She tells me, “You have the intense and playful presence of a cat.”

The distance between us shrinks. She asks me about my controversial diet, how I write, and if I have thoughts on polyamory. 

Finally, our kneecaps clink together. She mentions her boyfriend.

I hold in my surprise. She continues nonchalantly, mentioning that he’s not interested in talking about these kinds of topics.

Half an hour passes in six minutes, and I have to go. My heart feels warm, and my mind didn’t expect to find someone I liked this soon after my last relationship. I stand up for the third and final time in that conversation. Before I go, she says, “I want to talk about love later.”

I find her again at the end of the day and we talk of seagulls, chipmunks, and (finally) unconditional love. After an hour she has to go, but before she does, she leans into my shoulder, and we hug for the first time. I pick her up as we do, and when she’s back on Earth she looks me in the eye. Her final words: “That was a journey.” 

…

Me: I’d like to talk with you more, let me know if you’re around in Boston for long
Her: Yeah, I hope to be back :)
*she sends the photos she took of us*
Her: ^Thanks for making me very happy

…

Me: My housemate keeps killing her plants lol
Her: Do we have the same housemate :0
Me: Yours doesn’t have a cute australian shepherd though
Her: You don’t know that
Her: Visit me and I’ll show you.
Me: k so you want me to visit you so you can show me corpses of murdered plants
Her: so I can show you MY housemate and HER cute australian shepherd 

…

Me: I am traveling from Bos to nyc on Monday, I'd be willing to meet up if you're free.
Her: I’m actually flying into nyc on sunday night and would be back home by monday. Would’ve booked a later flight if I’d known!
Her: Irrelevant: I dreamt of you two nights ago. You’re walking around old campus where I grew up. I run up to you, grab your hand (yeah dramatic I know), and apologize for not having written sooner as promised. Then we stroll down that tree-lined avenue I knew so well as a kid and talk. I guess talking wasn’t so hard after all
Her: Later this is reprised on a frozen lake— I run into you on a wooden boardwalk carrying my camera; we talk again, this time as old friends. The sun is bleeding over the ice, crimson-pink like himalayan salt, trees rising out of the horizon dark as charcoal. THEN dream cam cuts to apocalyptic drama— we are stuck with a panicked crowd on top of a very tall bus and are told to just leap down to safety when I suddenly realize I don’t know where my dog is, etc… Ok, sorry I’ll stop

…

A month after we last saw each other, I visited her for an afternoon. She picks me up at the train station, and we walk to her place. Eventually we gravitate to her bedroom and she introduces me to her stuffed animals. 

We’re sitting on her bed and holding sweaty hands when I tuck her hair behind her ear. She watches me, totally still. I lean in to kiss her for the first time. 

But before we do, a thought crosses my mind— “Are you still exclusive with him?”— I stop. 

She is. 

Sadness flashes across her face, she lets go of my hand, and she changes the topic: “Wanna go for a walk?” 

“Sure.” We leave, though not before hugging for two minutes. 

We wander. Whenever there’s silence, she fills it.

She leads us to a sunny hillside and when we get there she jumps in the grass and invites me to lay with her. Being with her is effortless.

We spend another two hours together until I have to go. But she talks of “next time”, and I like her assumption. 

I take the train home feeling really happy. We’ll date soon enough, that’s certain.

A few months passed. When I got back to the US, the first time we saw each other was at a party.  I was just putting on my shoes to leave when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned. “Hey.” That smile. We go for a midnight stroll.

I had been waiting to see her again for months, and I was expecting our reunion to feel just like before. It would be like— we’re finally together! 

That didn’t happen. We hugged a lot, and that was nice, but the whole interaction felt stilted and wrong. I really wanted to connect with her, but something wasn’t working.

She even told me that I seemed ‘so melancholy’ that night. And she was right, I had been depressed lately.

But I tried not to think too much of the disappointing interaction. The sun had set many hours ago, and we were tired. Surely we could find our spark again soon.

The next day around noon, we bumped into each other again. She smiled and invited me to sit next to her. 

After barely a minute I noticed that, actually, she’s sad. So I joked, “Look who’s melancholy now!” and chuckled. 

She didn’t react much to that. Instead, she stared off into the distance for a moment. Then she asked to be alone. 

Oh?

I wished her the best, we hugged one last time, and I left.

I spent the rest of the day sulking. What am I doing wrong?

It was so easy with her before! What changed? I wanted that back. The next day I sent her a text to meet again.

She didn’t respond. 

In the following month, I texted her a few more times, y’know, for good measure.

She viewed all my Instagram stories though, I always made sure to check. What did it mean?

I ruminated about what happened for months. 

I blamed myself for her ghosting me. I used it as evidence that I should dislike myself. I suffered a lot in that time.

And I couldn’t stop wondering, What had I done to cause her to ghost me? What should I have done instead? What can I do to make her like me again? ……

But these were the wrong questions. 

The reality was I insecure. I needed to unlearn and become secure.

Update: This post has been replaced by multiple posts:

Claim #4 and #5 especially:

I see at least two ways to think about choosing a partner and loving others. There's one way, the one that I think is most common in my circles, and it sounds like "finding the best partner".

Thinking in this mindset this has been my first reaction for a long time, but it no longer makes sense to me:

I think about my mom. I love my mom because she's essential to me, not because of an assessment that she's "better than every other mom I could have". (What could that even mean?)

Similarly, I love my dog as he is, and not because he's "the best dog".

Or, my closest friends. For example, Valerie is by no means the "best friend I could have". Really, by her own admission, she’s not. But I love her regardless.

Moreover, I can't know that the woman I choose to marry/ the dog I watch/ the friends I have are optimal for me. And, probabilistically, I doubt that they are! But I still love them.

To love without comparison.

To love because they're essential to me.

As part of my quest to minimize exposure to pollutants, I wanted to find the safest wool pillow. It took like 8 hours of research and even more time in the trenches, but I've done it. I've found the safest wool pillow.

wait how could a pillow be unsafe

Sooo most pillows, mattresses, and bedding are treated with toxic compounds. Many mattresses, pillows, furniture, clothing, toys, etc. used to have (still have?) flame retardant compounds added. Which I guess seems nice, because fires may be rare but still seem bad. But hahaha actually flame retardant compounds are toxic long-term, and they also expel into the air so now we all spend 30% of our time breathing that in ._.

If you've ever gotten a new mattress and read on the instructions that you must allow the mattress to "off-gas" for several hours with ample ventilation before using it, this is why. (But even without flame retardants most mattresses still off-gas other VOCs.)

And if you're wondering why all of this stuff has flame retardants it's because it was mandated by California in 1975 (and has only recently been repealed). Yeah, spending 30% of your life sleeping on flame retardant-treated mattresses and breathing this stuff in was basically legally mandated. Yeah, I'm mad.

I take this as general evidence that no one is looking out for this kind of stuff and I need to do it myself.

But I also don't think it's enough merely to get a pillow that doesn't have flame retardants. I also don't want to sleep on anything made of polyester, which can, for example, release VOCs into the air. (VOCs := volatile organic compounds, compounds that readily jump into the air, and are often toxic.) And I don't want to be breathing in polyester fibers, either— do polyester fibers (which are microplastic) get digested in the lungs, or do they just stay there permanently? Moreover, I don't want anything that was treated with anything potentially harmful in any step of the production process.

So what I wanted was a pillow where literally, absolutely, completely, the only ingredients were down, wool, cotton, and I guess also water and air if I’m going to be pedantic. Maybe other natural fibers could be okay, but I'd need to consider those thoroughly. But, specifically: no treatments, no additives, no superwashing of the wool.

(In the end I found wool that was washed using only baking soda, which I still give an A+.)

Note that there were other fill materials that I could've searched for, too, but I dunno, I aesthetically prefer the idea of snuggling a sheep. And I had previously tried a pillow with down fill, but it was too hot, and wool isn't like this. (I also didn't consider cotton-filled pillows, I'm not sure why.)

Another cool fact about wool is that it permanently absorbs VOCs from the air! Though I don't know if this process happens quickly enough to significantly filter the air you breathe while sleeping.

intermission — attempt #1: making my own pillow

But before doing all of this research I first tried making my own pillow out of heirloom, probably-untreated-and-safe century-old Sicilian wool:

But I found myself with only one-third of enough fill after 4 hours of carding (fluffing) so I gave up.

attempt #2: via e-commerce

Next I went to Amazon and started looking for wool pillows. Many manufacturers claimed that they used "no chemicals" and "no synthetic materials", but I don't trust almost anything on this topic anymore… And I doubt that those claims are regulated or enforceable, either.

Fortunately, there exists certification relevant to my quest:

• OEKO-TEX Standard 100, which actually tests every component of a textile product for presence of hundreds of common toxic compounds (e.g. formaldehyde, lead, glyphosate, benzene, PFOA, …). It made me so happy to find out that such a certification exists, that someone out there cares about this.

  • Note: OEKO-TEX Standard 100 has two relevant classes of certification for pillows: one for skin-to-skin contact for adults (Product Class II), and one for skin-to-skin contact for babies (Product Class I). Class I is much more stringent and it is my natural preference.

  • (Note: there exist other "OEKO-TEX" certifications that are not the same as OEKO-TEX Standard 100, so seeing an "OEKO-TEX" label isn't enough.)

  • Products with this certification should come with a tag with their OEKO-TEX label number to check for authenticity online.

• (Other certifications also exist, e.g. GOLS, GreenGuard Gold, but I don’t think they’re as good.)

So I definitely wanted something that was OEKO-TEX Class I certified. I'd also like it to be organic in some sense as this would help me believe that the processes that created the pillow hadn't created any new or unknown toxic compounds that hadn't been identified before. (As my prior is that almost all theoretically possible compounds are toxic to the body.) The pillow I found in the end is probably organic, but not all components are certified as such.

Ok, to Amazon now. There are many products on Amazon that claim to have OEKO-TEX certification but few of them list their label number. So I asked every relevant pillow and pillowcase seller on Amazon for their 2022 label number and some responded with their numbers, some didn't, and one even sent me a number that might have been fraudulent.

(I also found a few products that were OEKO-TEX Class II certified, but that simply wasn't good enough. I only wanted baby certification. I kept looking.)

When there weren't enough products on Amazon, I moved to google: "OEKO-TEX" "wool" "pillow".

Soon I exhausted all of the coherent pages of google search results online, and had already contacted every OEKO-claiming manufacturer and asked for their label number.

THE SAFEST WOOL PILLOW IN THE WORLD

The ~one company that met all of my criteria was Berkeley Ergonomics. They gave me two separate OEKO-TEX label numbers for their wool pellet fill and for their organic cotton cover, and both checked out for OEKO-TEX Standard 100 Class I, the strictest certification! This is the pillow! (and a second link)

They even have a page describing their wool production process and it's just beautiful:

…There are zero chemicals used during the wool growing and processing steps. The sheep are not dipped or treated with any pesticides or herbicides.

After shearing, the wool goes through three washing cycles with increasing temperatures (90° - 140°F) followed by a cold rinse in pure water. During the washing cycles pure baking soda and water is used – nothing else. The drying takes place in drum driers and the wool is then cooled down on cooling racks for 24-28 hours before pressing and packaging.…

And because there's no stricter certification than this, that makes this the safest1 wool pillow in the world!

I bought this pillow a few weeks ago and I think it's great. My only hitch was that it was originally too fluffy for me (and I got the softest version) so I took out some of the (precious) wool fill.

OK, all is good, I'm happy now:)

A friend who read this post as a draft suggested that I end with “an epilogue about the existential crisis that led me on this quest”. — I’m not sure what she means though, I think this is totally normal.

What about the pillowcase?

I found an OEKO-TEX Standard 100 Class I-certified silk pillowcase; the link is below.

appendix: all of the OEKO-certified bedding products that I found

Here are all of the OEKO-TEX Standard 100 products that I've found along the way. I've obtained and checked all of the label numbers myself for the products below.

• Pillows

  • The safest wool pillow in the world

  • I also found this natural latex pillow with Class I-certified fill, but the cover is not certified. I haven't considered deeply whether natural latex is respiratory-safe, though.

• Pillowcases and sheets

  • Silk pillowcase with Class I certification: 19 momme silk, 25 momme.

    • Although, I don't know if silk is the safest material, there are some studies claiming that silk nanoparticles are toxic. Ugh. Let me know if you have thoughts on this.

    • I use this currently.

  • Cotton sheet sets with Class I certification.

  • Found another silk pillowcase (Class I) although only available in larger sizes

  • more sheets (Class I)

  • cheap Class II-certified regular-sized cotton pillowcase.

• sleep masks

  • silk sleep mask (Class I)

    • I use this currently, but it didn't come with an OEKO label on the product though which is a little weird.

• Mattresses and comforters

  • I haven't looked into OEKO-TEX mattresses or mattress pads yet, though this is probably even more impactful than pillows for exposure. I think Berkeley Ergonomics also has some, though possibly under one of their different brands. I might just end up sleeping on just a comforter on the floor though.

• Another wool manufacturer?

  • I also found another wool product manufacturer that could be good, but they sent me a Class I OEKO-TEX label number for only the fill of their pillow rather than their entire product (cover, zipper, etc.), which was weird. They might also sell mattresses.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

• Encourage self-reliance. (Don’t be overprotective.)

  • Don’t take responsibility for their emotions. This seems like the root cause of overprotective parenting: the parents feel responsible for their child’s potential mistakes and sadness, and thus feel the urge to step in.

  • Don’t take responsibility for their actions. It also seems to me that over-protective parents that they can control their child’s actions. But this is only thinly true, and it no longer applies once your child is out of your sight.

  • “But what if my child is going to do something harmful!?” — Instead of you coercing them, they should learn to trust what you say. If you say “the stove is hot”, and they reach out to the stove, I might just let them touch it so they can learn the more important lesson of “listen to dad because he might know about dangers I’m not aware of”.

  • “But what if my child is going to run in front of a car!?” — Urgent mistakes are different, and I would certainly yank my child out of the street if there was an urgent danger that they didn’t see. However, for anything that is not so urgent (even if it feels just as dangerous!), such as their health decisions, etc., I wouldn’t coerce them.

  • In general: Don’t do anything for them that they can’t do for themselves. For the purpose of developing their self-reliance, do as little as possible as they mature and allow them to make their own decisions.

  • No reward-and-punishment “education”, no extrinsic motivation structures, no coercion.

  • Intuition is sacred. Don’t incentivize them to distrust it.

  • Resource: https://takingchildrenseriously.com/

  • Resource: Adlerian Psychology: The Courage to be Happy.

• Play with them.

  • Vibe: I really liked the stories in Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen.

    • See Sivers’s notes

    • As far as I can tell, most American parents don’t actually do this.

  • I don’t want to cause my children to lose their natural ability to play

• Emphasize intrinsic motivations. Focus on how things feel, rather than how others may judge them as instrumental to their own value systems. Do this myself, and they will follow. Emphasize feeling, and not playing others’ games, like money, prestige, etc.

  • Resource: Parenting: Who is it really for? ~ Derek Sivers

• Lots of skin-to-skin contact

  

• *Figure out how to have them intuit the way of being that naturally results in Alexander Technique and other forms of meditation.

  • I imagine most of this is innate, so the task for me here is mostly just not causing them to suppress their own natural abilities.

• If my wife and I become ~enlightened, do our kids grow up nearly effortlessly ~enlightened?

Time and activities

• For making the best use of the time of young children, there seems to be few activities that are legitimately productive.

  • Most of what I learned when I was 3-7 wasn’t helpful. But I get it— there doesn’t seem to be much else kids can do except memorize. So why not just teach them useful things to memorize? For example, languages.

  • Developing body-awareness during this time also seems good.

• Exercise with them, make it a natural part of their lives

  • stretch with them, encourage them to intuitively maintain their physical flexibility

  • Pull-up bars are all over the house. All of my children will be doing pull-ups.

• Lots lots lots of outdoors

• Travel with them?

• musical aptitude if they want it?

• Teach them to read young

• Aside about the Polgár sisters:

  • Many discussions about intentional parenting include a mention of the Polgár sisters, but personally I’m doubtful that they’re a good example of parenting worthy of imitation. I haven’t looked far into this or read the book, to be clear, but I’m disappointed that László Polgár chose to focus on chess, a finite game— as opposed to something like “scientific discovery” which would be an infinite game. Art or music could also be infinite. (See my definitions of finite and infinite games here.) The advantage of finite games, of course, is that they tend to be much more measurable. But the disadvantage is that they are much less interesting, and that they have a different structure than the (infinite) games that really matter: what makes someone good at finite games is like “finding good answers to the questions you are given”, meanwhile what makes someone good infinite games is like “figuring out what are the best questions to ask”.

Community

• Raise them in a colocated community of people that we look up to.

  • Where do such communities exist?

    • SF Neighborhood was created precisely for this reason

      • Hm, what I want is like SF, but with more nature.

  • The practice of segregating children to socialize with only other people their age seems bad IMO. I also despised this when I was younger.

• I want 3–6 kids?

  • This seems like it requires a lot of parenting time but, as my friend Naomi tells me, “they can just raise each other”.

• Put them in situations where they naturally become highly socially intelligent. (And avoid the opposite of this.)

  • *Find something better than conventional school

    • E.g. consider private tutoring

      • cf Bloom’s Two Sigma Problem (wiki) (metareview)

    • E.g.: AI tutoring, eg Primer from The Diamond Age.

Health

I have some uncommon views about this.

• Avoid environmental contaminants

  • Avoid all synthetic materials by default, including/especially almost all plastics synthetic fabrics, perfluorinated compounds (PFAS, PFOA, etc.), and synthetic nonstick materials.

  • Avoid fiberglass insulation

  • Run tests on potential homes for contaminants before we live there

  • Resources: Endocrine Society, EWG (1, 2)

• Feed them predominantly animal-based foods.

  • My babies will be eating liver!

• See Scott Alexander’s 2022 review on pregnancy interventions

• Strong water and air filters at home.

• Figure out how to make pregnancy easier— modern pregnancy practices don’t make sense to me in many ways (e.g. no squatting??)

  • birthing centers?

• Research how to reduce the chances that my children develop allergies.

  • Or, if they do develop allergies, get them immunotherapy early on in life. When I was younger I had very severe environmental allergies and asthma, but immunotherapy resolved this entirely. Probably one of the most impactful unusual interventions that my parents did for me.

• Regularly run micronutrient, GI, etc. tests

• My children will not need to have any orthodontics! and they will not need to have any teeth removed! I don’t buy the narrative that malocclusion (teeth crowding) is a natural phenomenon in humans. Orthodontics denies evolution. Going to have to figure this out.

  • Likely interventions: Baby-led weaning, don’t use baby food, hard food, lots of chewing

• Lots of sunlight and outdoor time

• Consider probiotics (eg 1, eg 2)

• Breast milk might sync children to their mother’s circadian rhythm, so pumping milk for use later may cause the child to have a different sleep/wake cycle than her if not careful.

Links

• Humming to soothe crying babies — does this really work?

• Zvi childhood roundups #1, #2, #3

• Childhoods of exceptional people