This is a linkpost for https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/multi-armed-bandit

Almost everyone I’ve ever met would be well-served by spending more time thinking about what to focus on. —Sam Altman

In May 2020, we parked two moving trucks in the harbor and carried everything we owned from one to the other. Johanna, Maud, and I were leaving Sweden, and Covid restrictions meant we were forbidden from returning once we boarded the ferry. Hence the second truck, which we had gotten a stranger to ferry from the island to us: the Swedish truck had to stay in Sweden.

The motivation to leave was that we wanted to homeschool Maud, who was 3. In Sweden, this is illegal, so most Swedish homeschoolers end up on one of two islands in the Baltic Sea. On our island, we knew no one. We had no jobs awaiting. We were leaving something, more than going somewhere. The life we [...]

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Outline:

(01:15) Life is a multi-armed bandit

(03:50) Explore: doggedly looking for what makes you feel alive

(06:58) Exploit: trimming everything but your top 1-3 priorities makes life richer

(13:17) The explore/exploit trade-off

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First published:
January 5th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Z55vXvngZxkPdKger/almost-everyone-i-ve-met-would-be-well-served-thinking-more

Linkpost URL:
https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/multi-armed-bandit

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Almost everyone I’ve met would be well-served thinking more about what to focus on” by Henrik Karlsson

LessWrong (30+ Karma)