The reason why I got “Everything’s a Scam” in a neon sign in my apartment is because I think that’s the most optimistic message you can think of everyday. So I wanted to remind myself of that every morning when I woke up.
The reason why I think it’s optimistic is that you see all these different problems, right all these things in the world and you’re like “Well I don’t understand that thing, I don’t understand, in my case you know longevity research and science and hardware.” I don’t understand any of these things in a deeply technical way. I wanna effect them. One of the reasons why people don’t go into different, like, fields is they think well there’s expert status around this field which means I can’t ever infiltrate it. And the thing that I wanna remember everyday is that like Expertise is a scam. It’s like a power hierarchy that’s been created in an industry to prevent other people from being able to go and get into it.
Everything’s a scam.
Academia is a scam,
Venture capital is a scam
Everything’s a fucking scam.
Right?
But!
If you realize this, you can do anything.
Why I think remembering everything’s a scam is important is that it boosts your self-efficacy to remind yourself that if everything’s a scam and you have high integrity and you wanna go solve a problem it’s probably the case that it’ll take you pretty far. Like, more far than trying to play the traditional game, which is a scam.
So, to me, everything’s a scam is not a negative thing it’s a reminder to just play the game. Any game you wanna play, just go play it. It’s just a fucking game.
Everything’s a scam.
You can do anything.