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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 8th, 2023

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  • There are very different kinds of “smartness”. The currently favored (by most modern societies) kind weighs logical and structured thinking very heavily, that doesnt mean someone “isnt smart” if they dont possess those qualities. Also, chess does not even rely on the commonly referred to “smartness” that much. The most important aspects are long term memory ( for remembering situations from games and acting accordingly)and thousands of hours of practice.






  • Im doing pretty well. Living in Germany, educated parents. Did okay in school, never studied much though. Went to university, got my Masters in Mathematics (needed to study a lot for that, but its my passion anyway). Started working at an IT company in the same city.

    3 years later, I have around 50k in savings now. We live in a small apartment, are in the middle of buying a house.

    Capitalism is really fckd up, especially in the US. I try not to take advantage of it too much, up my monthly donations with every raise, vote left-ish, dont support big corporations.

    I think the biggest factor for success is luck for being born under the right circumstances. Thats like 99%, the rest is having some self control.



  • For some time now I noticed a shift in how things are handled in the company I work at (small local company, when I joined we were 10 employees, now 3 years later were at 40). We used to be proud that our company is employee-friendly and not like big corporations, but recently it started to turn into ‘company vs employees’. I needed to express my concerns and set up a meeting with my boss who is also the owner of the company. The days before I was really anxious and constantly kept thinking about how the conversation might turn out and what would happen after that. In the end it was not that bad but I was really nervous at the time and came off as insecure, which makes me anxious remembering it.










  • I started donating last year, 2 years into my first job. I was unsure then because my impression of charities was that the money probably doesnt go where they are saying, or just a small portion does.

    Then I stumbled upon the GiveWell( https://givewell.org ) foundation. Their goal is to identify the most efficient charities using a range of criteria. I decided to start with 100€/month distributed 50/50 to fighting poverty and climate change respectively. I also decided that for every raise I get at my job Id raise the amount by 100€ and have done so once by now. I read that its easier to part with future money than with what you already own and it makes a lot of sense.