Anticynical Recap #1

First Recap

Hey there 👋,

Welcome to the first edition of Anticynical Recap! Last week, I wrote about skepticism as a healthier alternative to modern cynicism.

As a reminder, instead of the regular new idea email, I will send a recap of my previous ideas this week (May 18) and the next (May 25). These recaps might be especially useful for our new readers (welcome!).

After every 10 regular new idea essays, I will write a longer “synthesis” essay, contextualizing the previous ideas. I will send the first such email, Anticynical Synthesis #1, on June 1, 2023.

So here’s a recap of Anticynical #1 through #5.

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Recap: #1 - #5

• Anticynical #1: Being Anticynical. The working definition of being anticynical is having a rationally optimistic mindset, with this mindset having an antifragile quality. This “definition” will likely evolve with time.

• Anticynical #2: Environment Design. Make good things easy to do and bad things hard to do.

• Anticynical #3: Broken Windows. A little disorder can lead to a lot of disorder if kept unchecked.

• Anticynical #4: Vocabulary for Values. A richer vocabulary of values allows for a sharper introspection into and better alignment with what you care about.

• Anticynical #5: Plurality of Values. Selecting a single value as the way you measure your life—no matter how virtuous it may seem and at the expense of other values—is a terrible strategy.

That’s all folks!

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