20 Personal Facts

I'm like reaally deep and stuff

Who am I? Why am I here?

—James Stockdale, VP candidate for Ross Perot

Those of you who read this blog know a bunch of things that I think. You know, for instance, that I hate the Lorax, love the self-indication assumption, and think the objections to effective altruism are mostly ridiculous. But you probably don’t know very much about me. It’s not a subject that I talk about very much.

Now, one generally knows more about what authors think than about the authors themselves. I could not tell you much about Mike Huemer from reading his writing. I could only tell you what he thinks. But sometimes it can be interesting and edifying to know something about the person behind the writing. One of the things that made me such a fan of Scott Alexander was that on the rare occasions when he talked about his personal life, I found him quite relatable.

So, in light of that, I thought I’d list 20 facts about myself, in case anyone is interested. I’ll paywall many of them—the more personal ones—but the first several will be free to the public.

1. I have TDS: travelling derangement syndrome. I’ve never enjoyed travelling, regardless of where to. While I like chatting with and meeting people, I find basically everything about travelling to be quite boring. The worst is when you’re not allowed to talk because of something like a museum tour, so you just have to listen to the most mind-numbing drivel about how various places got to be called what they’re called.

2. I’m not great at trivia. I don’t know very many general facts about the world. My grasp of American history, for instance, isn’t very deep. When I learn a lot about a subject, it’s usually because it relates to some subject presently on my mind. However, I have little interest in stockpiling general knowledge. I’ve never been very interested in any subject related to American history—or most subjects of general knowledge. As a result, I remain ignorant of numerous subjects.

3. I think I’m quite a bit less neurotic than is typical. While I do get irritated by blog commenters leaving confused comments, other than that, I’m pretty rarely annoyed. Similarly, I’m not sad very often and I’m angry even less.

4. In general, I don’t think I have any very deep emotional life. I’m usually thinking about some subject, but rarely have any strong emotions. Other people describe constantly being anxious about some upcoming event—I just rarely experience that! I’m vaguely happy most of the time, and when I’m not, it’s because some specific bad thing either is happening or will happen. I rarely have general ennui. Even regarding stuff you’d expect to affect me emotionally, like animal cruelty, I think I’m less emotionally bothered by it than most people.

5. As I’ve mentioned before, I can talk backward. It’s not something I’ve practiced. I’ve always been able to do it—or, at the very least, for as long as I can remember. It’s a nice party trick, and it’s fun to impress people with it, but it’s quite thoroughly useless.

6. I have a really awesome family! My parents and brother are all interesting, kind, thoughtful, knowledgeable, and decent. My grandparents too! My grandfather even regularly reads this blog! My girlfriend is also, by conservative estimates, the best ever!

7. I have the music taste of a 15-year-old girl going through a breakup :). I enjoy various somewhat sappy songs. My favorite songs of all time are Lucky People, Dearly Departed, Angelica’s Room, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, Forever Young, Cleopatra, Be Good, Could Be Good (no relation), and You Know It’s True.

8. Some TV shows I really like: Gilmore Girls, You, Young Sheldon, and Seinfeld—in case you were doubting my true Jewishness! Regarding Young Sheldon, some demonic reprobates like my friend Glenn have very nasty things to say about it, claiming that it’s non-intellectual. But this is like objecting to a workout video on the grounds that it’s not adequately intellectual—that’s not really its purpose. Glenn even admits to not having watched Young Sheldon, preferring to watch other literary masterpieces like Riverdale (and every episode, no less!) Not having watched Young Sheldon is quite common about its critics; those who do watch it are inevitably won over by the humor, charm, and heartwarmingness (oh shut up squiggly line that goes below things that aren’t words).

9. In school, the things I was worst at were foreign languages and musical instruments—albeit my foray into the second was much briefer than my foray into the first. I was generally okay at other subjects, though math was the worst of the other subjects, and I got Bs not infrequently. In calculus, I almost got a C. Oh, and I guess I was never great at PE :).

10. I really like babies! I think they’re extremely cute. Same with toddlers. Around middle elementary school, they take a big dive—neither very cute nor very interesting—but then they recover when they become an adult.

Alright, onto the juicy (mostly) (paywalled) stuff!