milan-cvitkovic-net-aqgldo.txt (23674B)
1 • [1]Writing 2 3 • [2]Science 4 5 • [3]About 6 7 Things you're allowed to do 8 9 December 13, 2020, updated January 9, 2023 10 11 This is a list of things you’re allowed to do that you thought you weren’t, or 12 didn’t even know you could. 13 14 I haven’t tried everything on this list, mainly due to cost. But you’d be 15 surprised how cheap most of the things on this list are (especially the free 16 ones). 17 18 Note that you can replace “hire” or “buy” with “barter for” or “find a DIY 19 guide to” nearly everywhere below. E.g. you can clean the bathroom in exchange 20 for your housemate doing a couple hours’ research for you. 21 22 Learning and decision making 23 24 • Hire a researcher or expert consultant 25 □ I hired a researcher ([4]Elizabeth Van Nostrand, whom you can and 26 should [5]hire too) to help write this very post, which is largely 27 about how to hire people to do things! 28 □ They can: 29 ☆ Help validate whether a crazy idea is possible 30 ☆ Do [6]epistemic spot checks of your work 31 ☆ Map the landscape of opinions on a topic 32 ☆ Write literature surveys 33 ☆ Find people worth talking to about a potential topic and writing 34 briefs about them 35 ☆ Opposition or market research 36 ☆ Find options for big purchases like houses or insurance 37 ☆ Compile datasets 38 ☆ Find un-Googleable things 39 □ To find one: 40 ☆ Look for books or scholarly articles on the topic, and email the 41 author 42 ○ Graduate students are especially good, and often know more than 43 the “experts” 44 ○ If you find someone genuinely interested in what you’re working 45 on, you might be able to collaborate and not pay 46 ☆ Look for interested individuals in the long tail of blogs 47 ○ E.g. by Google searching with "site: medium.com" and finding 48 the authors 49 ☆ Use a matchmaking service (see [7]Appendix) 50 ☆ Search through professional organizations directories (e.g. Bar 51 Association, American Academy of Pediatrics) 52 ☆ Google the topic + 53 ○ “blog” 54 ○ “podcast” 55 ○ “expert witness” 56 ○ “book” 57 ○ “consultant” 58 ○ “reddit” 59 □ What do I pay them? 60 ☆ Some post their prices online 61 ☆ If you’re hiring a grad student you can pay them at or above their 62 school’s graduate student stipend, which you can Google. 63 ☆ [8]Make sure they get something out of the project (and other tips) 64 • [9]Ask obvious questions 65 • Ask questions online 66 □ You know those answers you enjoy reading on Stack Exchange, Reddit, 67 Quora, etc.? Someone had to ask those questions. It can be you. 68 □ If you’re embarrassed by the question, it’s easy to be anonymous 69 • Run surveys 70 □ Twitter 71 ☆ Or ask someone with a larger following to do it 72 □ Google Surveys 73 □ Amazon Mechanical Turk 74 • Buy advertisements, [10]especially in legacy media 75 • Run [11]genuine randomized control trials on yourself 76 • Buy research or data 77 □ See [12]Appendix, [13]here, or [14]here 78 □ Or find it on [15]SciHub or [16]Libgen 79 • Hire someone to pentest/doxx you 80 □ Or put out a bounty for it, like [17]Gwern used to 81 • Hire a graphic designer to turn your appalling sketches into beautiful 82 diagrams or slides 83 • Host small gatherings or conferences on topics you care about 84 □ These are much easier to set up than you’d think, especially in the age 85 of Zoom 86 • Hire a tutor 87 □ [18]Language tutors are surprisingly cheap and better than any app 88 □ [19]Wyzant and many other sites exist for general tutoring 89 □ For niche tutoring you can try general freelance sites like [20]Fiverr 90 or [21]Upwork 91 □ Services like [22]Sharpest Minds exist for professional training 92 • [23]Dissect a cadaver (even as a non-medical student) 93 • Pick a spot on the map that simply seems strange and just go there. (HT 94 Michael Nielsen) 95 • Hire someone just as an excuse to make yourself complete a project 96 □ Sure you could proofread your own document. But if you hire a 97 proofreader, you have to actually deliver them something at some point. 98 99 Interpersonal 100 101 • Say “I don’t know” or “I don’t have an opinion” when you don’t 102 • Not tell white lies 103 □ You can be nice and tell the truth at the same time. 104 □ Especially to kids when they annoy you. 105 • Don’t drink (alcohol), even when you’re expected to 106 • Buy goods/services from your friends 107 □ It’s not weird unless you make it weird 108 □ Everyone knows some starving artists and needs to buy holiday gifts 109 □ Doesn’t apply to every service obviously: don’t take out loans from 110 your friends 111 • Travel to friends just to visit them 112 • Move close to friends 113 • Live in multiple places with multiple people 114 □ Rent spare rooms or couches part-time in multiple homes 115 □ Arrange your own timeshare system with friends 116 ☆ E.g. a group of nine friends can rent three three-bedroom 117 apartments in three cities 118 ☆ This also gives you flexibility over which jurisdiction you’re 119 taxed in 120 • Be a nomad 121 • Ask your acquaintances, “Hey, I want to leave my house more, are there any 122 cool events you’re going to soon?” (HT Sasha Chapin) 123 • Actively try to make yourself a better conversation partner 124 □ Via [24]Sasha Chapin 125 □ Via [25]Chana Messinger 126 □ Via [26]Adam Mastroianni 127 • Start a blog or substack so you can say “I’m a writer” without lying. Then 128 start conversations with strangers by saying “Hi, I’m a writer doing a 129 piece about <location/circumstance you’re in>. Can I ask you a few 130 questions?” 131 □ This is especially handy when traveling or at a restaurant. 132 • Romance 133 □ Ask people out on dates 134 □ Ask your friends to set you up 135 □ Hire a matchmaker 136 □ Buy premium versions of dating apps 137 □ Get couples therapy 138 • Give to charity 139 □ You can, to the best of our knowledge, [27]save someone’s (statistical) 140 life with not that much money. This is a big deal. 141 142 Support and accountability 143 144 • Hire a coach 145 □ For your professional area 146 ☆ [28]An Atul Gawande article on the subject 147 ☆ [29]On clicker training 148 □ Personal trainer 149 □ Nutritionist 150 □ Meditation guide 151 • Visit a physical therapist 152 • Buy task-specific devices that prevent multitasking 153 □ Kindle 154 □ Freewrite Traveller 155 □ Dedicated music players 156 □ Dedicated notebooks for specific purposes (day planner, exercise log, 157 etc.) 158 • Engage a human productivity monitor 159 □ I know two people who have hired people to sit next to them or 160 frequently contact them to keep them on-task 161 □ Examples: [30]focusmate.com and [31]coding-pal.com 162 163 Making the most of your resources 164 165 • First, figure out [32]how much your time is really worth to you, and then 166 act/spend accordingly 167 • Modify your stuff 168 □ Tape over annoying LED lights 169 □ Remove logos ([33]example) 170 □ Write in books 171 □ Rip off tags 172 □ Rotate your monitor to portrait 173 • Repair your stuff, or get it repaired 174 □ Shoes 175 □ Clothes 176 □ Luggage and [34]outdoor gear 177 □ Furniture 178 □ Car 179 ☆ You can buy at-home car care 180 • Grocery delivery 181 • Cleaning services 182 □ Can be regular or just when you need a big spring clean 183 □ Don’t forget carpet cleaning, vent cleaning, and air filter replacement 184 • Laundry service 185 • Nannies over daycare 186 • Write on a post-it note affixed to a greeting card rather than on the 187 greeting card itself, so the recipient can throw away the post-it and reuse 188 your card 189 □ Employ similar logic for any disposable/consumable item 190 • Ask for free upgrades or coupons 191 □ At checkout you can just ask “Do you have any coupons I can apply to 192 this?” 193 • Treat fines like payments 194 □ E.g. park illegally and let yourself think of the (expected value of 195 the) fine as a parking fee 196 □ Obviously don’t break rules that matter like blocking a fire exit 197 • [35]Contest unjust fines 198 □ [36]DoNotPay offers lots of services like this, like unsubscribing you 199 from services or sending faxes digitally 200 • Don’t pay, or renegotiate, bills 201 □ [37]Example with hospital bills 202 • Let the credit cards on recurring bills expire 203 • Call/email executives at company to complain about things 204 □ E.g. using [38]RocketReach 205 • Telemedicine 206 • Surgery for appearance or comfort 207 • At-home vet care 208 • Enroll [39]yourself (or [40]your pet) in a clinical trial or research study 209 • Generate your own audiobooks 210 • Generate your own ebooks 211 □ [41]1dollarscan.com 212 • Get verbal things written down 213 □ [42]transcribeme.com 214 □ [43]otter.ai 215 • Personal assistant services (or a real PA if you can afford it) 216 □ [44]Magic, [45]TaskRabbit, [46]Fancy Hands, and similar services can 217 approximate many of these. There are also more serious services like 218 [47]Double. 219 □ Manage email 220 □ Helping you move 221 □ Getting visas and arranging travel 222 □ Stand in line for you 223 □ Errands 224 □ Filing paperwork 225 • Hire a personal stylist 226 • And if you grew up in a thrifty family, like me: 227 □ Paying for parking in convenient location 228 □ Hotels where you can sleep comfortably 229 □ Non-public transportation, especially when traveling 230 □ Buying comfortable mattress, shoes, etc. 231 □ Buying clothes for appearance or comfort instead of just the lowest 232 price 233 □ Bottled water when you’re thirsty 234 ☆ And in general fulfilling any bodily need for < $5 (restrooms, 235 buying a hat when you forgot yours, etc.) 236 □ Buy your way out of advertising on e.g. Spotify or YouTube 237 □ Actually turn the heat/AC on 238 ☆ And in general, [48]being willing to spend a few minutes to fix 239 small annoyances 240 ○ You could even get someone to observe you to help figure this 241 out 242 ☆ Seriously, just put 3-IN-ONE oil on that squeaky hinge already 243 244 Professional 245 246 • Ignore what’s on the jobs page and directly pitch someone at a company on 247 hiring you 248 □ The jobs page is always out-of-date anyway 249 □ Figure out what their needs are before you make your pitch 250 • Negotiate for better terms in your job offer 251 □ Easier than asking for a raise - you have more leverage 252 □ You can ask for a signing bonus equal to the cost of exercising all 253 your options, which shows commitment to the company 254 □ Propose a longer vesting schedule to demonstrate commitment 255 • Ask for a raise 256 • Ask to waive admission or graduation requirements 257 • Drop out/quit your job 258 □ Or go on leave from your job/school until they kick you out. They often 259 won’t. 260 • Live off your savings while trying something new 261 • If you can’t live off your savings, get a grant 262 □ [49]Emergent Ventures 263 □ [50]ACX Grants 264 □ Kickstarter 265 □ These days there are always new microgrant programs starting, [51] 266 here’s one list 267 • Work for yourself 268 □ Coaching, contracting, etc. 269 • [52]Cold contact people 270 □ Yes, even famous people. Or anyone who wrote something you like. Just 271 make sure you have something to say or a good question. 272 • [53]Write forwardable emails 273 • [54]Follow up many times 274 □ You won’t make people mad if you’re polite. 275 • Approach a person or group you admire and ask whether they want to cofound 276 something with you 277 □ “Here’s my story, my goal is to build a company/nonprofit/whatever in 278 this space, maybe I can help you with X role.” 279 • Propose that a person, group, or company contract-to-hire you 280 □ Even if you want a cofounder role, this can be done well 281 • Learn how professionals email by [55]reading leaked emails. 282 • Use contract-to-hire 283 □ Even for CEO-level roles, this can be done well 284 • As mentioned above, buy [56]research or data, e.g. for compensation 285 • Market-test a mere idea by (1) setting up a landing page with an interest 286 form and (2) buying a cheap social media ad campaign. (HT [57]@daytimeskye) 287 • Merge with your competitors, a la PayPal 288 • Work in public 289 □ Or mostly in public, a la SpaceX who livestreams everything 290 • Sell to unusual markets 291 □ ZetrOZ was building a medical device, but started by selling to olympic 292 horse teams, then olympic human athletes 293 □ Some biotech companies start in pets 294 • Charge more 295 • Write interviews with yourself and send them to journalists (HT Tom Kalil) 296 • Fly to people for in-person meetings/visits to demonstrate seriousness 297 • In general, just ask for things, even if you’ve never heard someone ask for 298 them 299 □ It’s okay if the things are crazy. You can always mollify afterward by 300 saying “I know that’s a crazy thing to ask for, but I have a rule that 301 I always ask.” 302 303 Related, Probably Better Lists 304 305 • Dwarkesh Patel’s [58]list of “barbell strategies” 306 • Katja Grace’s [59]How to trade money and time 307 • Sam Bowman’s [60]Things I Recommend You Buy and Use 308 • Rob Wiblin [61]channeling Sam 309 • Arden Koehler [62]channeling Rob 310 • Arden Koehler [63]channeling herself 311 • Sam Bowman [64]channeling himself 312 • [65]Estimated hourly costs of buying free time (see comments) 313 314 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 315 316 Thanks to [66]Gwern, [67]Stephen Malina, [68]Alexey Guzey, [69]Elliot Jin, [70] 317 iandanforth, [71]Joshua M. Clulow, [72]Kay, [73]zoba, [74]ryandrake, a guy I 318 can’t name who offers “personal assistant concierge services for high-net-worth 319 families,” and [75]Elizabeth Van Nostrand for some of the ideas above. 320 321 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 322 323 Appendix: Sources of experts 324 325 Name Type Comments Target URL 326 Audience 327 Expertise Academics to comment on many Journalists [76] 328 Finder subjects link 329 Women’s Media Women only, focuses on [77] 330 Center current events and politics Journalists link 331 SheSource 332 National 333 Association of Seems like a low [78] 334 Personal Financial only bar to entry Journalists link 335 Financial 336 Advisors 337 Owned by PR firm, 338 ProfNet Wide range of experts presumably works Journalists [79] 339 for experts more link 340 than you 341 Presumably biased 342 Coursera Academics from top schools towards people who Journalists [80] 343 Expert Network only have made Coursera link 344 courses 345 Curated experts from 346 ExpertFile universities, institutions, Journalists [81] 347 think tanks, associations, link 348 companies and other sources 349 Aimed mostly at professional [82] 350 GURU expertise (Sales, Marketing, Businesses link 351 Eng, etc.) 352 Amber Biology Biologists only Science [83] 353 projects? link 354 Help a Requires 355 Reporter Out affiliation with a Journalists [84] 356 (HARO) highly ranked link 357 website 358 Self 359 Improvement Individuals [85] 360 Experts link 361 Directory 362 JurisPro Expert witnesses Lawyers [86] 363 link 364 ForensisGroup Expert witnesses Lawyers [87] 365 link 366 Expert Expert witnesses Lawyers [88] 367 Institute link 368 369 Appendix: Sources of research and data 370 371 • Top choices: 372 □ [89]IBIS 373 □ [90]Profound 374 □ [91]Research Monitor 375 □ [92]EuroMonitor 376 • [93]Inside View 377 • [94]US Census Data 378 • [95]SBA’s Office of Entrepreneurship Education Resources 379 • [96]Pew Research Center 380 • [97]Statista 381 • [98]marketresearch.com 382 • [99]Plunkett Research 383 • [100]The Market Intelligence Co. 384 • [101]Jinfo 385 • [102]IDC 386 • [103]Gartner 387 • [104]Pitchbook 388 • [105]Crunchbase 389 • [106]Option Impact salary information 390 • [107]The Venture Capital Executive Compensation Survey 391 392 393 References: 394 395 [1] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/ 396 [2] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/science/ 397 [3] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/about/ 398 [4] https://acesounderglass.com/ 399 [5] https://acesounderglass.com/hire-me/ 400 [6] https://acesounderglass.com/tag/epistemicspotcheck/ 401 [7] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_do/#appendix-sources-of-experts 402 [8] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/evyBmPw9ZnzmoFmP6/experiment-a-good-researcher-is-hard-to-find 403 [9] http://mindingourway.com/obvious-advice/ 404 [10] https://www.news10.com/news/national/90-year-old-man-spends-10k-on-ads-to-tell-att-ceo-about-his-slow-internet-service/ 405 [11] https://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#blinding-yourself 406 [12] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_do/#appendix-sources-of-research 407 [13] https://blog.alexa.com/sites-for-market-research/ 408 [14] https://web.jinfo.com/go/blog/73431 409 [15] https://twitter.com/Sci_Hub 410 [16] https://twitter.com/libgen_project 411 [17] https://www.gwern.net/Blackmail#pseudonymity-bounty 412 [18] https://www.italki.com/ 413 [19] https://www.wyzant.com/ 414 [20] https://www.fiverr.com/ 415 [21] https://www.upwork.com/ 416 [22] https://www.sharpestminds.com/ 417 [23] https://alok.github.io/2022/11/09/dissection/ 418 [24] https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/making-normal-conversations-better 419 [25] https://twitter.com/ChanaMessinger/status/1463160594941554696 420 [26] https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/good-conversations-have-lots-of-doorknobs 421 [27] https://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-overseas 422 [28] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/03/personal-best 423 [29] https://www.npr.org/2020/02/03/802422904/when-things-click-the-power-of-judgment-free-learning 424 [30] https://www.focusmate.com/ 425 [31] https://coding-pal.com/ 426 [32] https://programs.clearerthinking.org/what_is_your_time_really_worth_to_you.html 427 [33] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVeGDitPqKo 428 [34] https://rainypass.com/ 429 [35] https://donotpay.com/ 430 [36] https://donotpay.com/ 431 [37] https://twitter.com/SievaKozinsky/status/1343664550617305088 432 [38] https://rocketreach.co/ 433 [39] https://www.dummies.com/health/how-to-enroll-in-a-clinical-trial/ 434 [40] https://loyalfordogs.com/ 435 [41] https://1dollarscan.com/ 436 [42] https://transcribeme.com/ 437 [43] https://otter.ai/ 438 [44] https://getmagic.com/ 439 [45] https://www.taskrabbit.com/ 440 [46] https://www.fancyhands.com/ 441 [47] https://withdouble.com/ 442 [48] https://radimentary.wordpress.com/2018/01/29/hammertime-day-1-bug-hunt/ 443 [49] https://www.mercatus.org/emergent-ventures 444 [50] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/apply-for-an-acx-grant 445 [51] https://github.com/nayafia/microgrants 446 [52] https://guzey.com/personal/what-should-you-do-with-your-life/#cold-emails-and-twitter 447 [53] https://www.startuphacks.vc/blog/2015/06/24/how-to-write-a-forwardable-introduction-email 448 [54] https://guzey.com/follow-up/ 449 [55] https://twitter.com/TechEmails 450 [56] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_do/#appendix-sources-of-research 451 [57] https://twitter.com/daytimeskye/status/1608107407678349317 452 [58] https://web.archive.org/web/20220309155302/https://dwarkeshpatel.com/barbell-strategies/ 453 [59] https://meteuphoric.com/2014/03/25/how-to-trade-money-and-time/ 454 [60] https://medium.com/@s8mb/things-i-recommend-you-buy-and-use-second-edition-457a8e7163f6 455 [61] https://medium.com/@robertwiblin/things-i-recommend-you-buy-and-use-rob-edition-1d7b2ce27d68 456 [62] https://www.facebook.com/ardenlk/posts/10156553178262333 457 [63] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZrSzGLuwIEWeQJ_2zL5vpYDyV-LmC-8SBy-Q4WPF318/edit 458 [64] https://sambowman.substack.com/p/things-i-recommend-you-buy-2020-sam-bowman 459 [65] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KuFSkLwhSkEZJYALE/collating-widely-available-time-money-trades 460 [66] https://www.gwern.net/ 461 [67] https://twitter.com/an1lam 462 [68] https://twitter.com/alexeyguzey 463 [69] https://twitter.com/robot__dreams 464 [70] https://twitter.com/iandanforth 465 [71] https://twitter.com/jmclulow 466 [72] https://twitter.com/K4y1s 467 [73] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=zoba 468 [74] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ryandrake 469 [75] https://acesounderglass.com/ 470 [76] https://expertisefinder.com/ 471 [77] https://www.womensmediacenter.com/shesource/ 472 [78] https://www.napfa.org/newsroom 473 [79] https://profnet.prnewswire.com/ProfNetHome/What-is-Profnet.aspx 474 [80] https://experts.coursera.org/ 475 [81] https://expertfile.com/ 476 [82] https://www.guru.com/ 477 [83] https://www.amberbiology.com/ 478 [84] https://www.helpareporter.com/ 479 [85] https://www.selfgrowth.com/experts.html 480 [86] https://www.jurispro.com/ 481 [87] https://www.forensisgroup.com/ 482 [88] https://www.expertinstitute.com/ 483 [89] https://www.ibisworld.com/ 484 [90] https://profound.com/ 485 [91] https://www.eifl.net/e-resources/research-monitor 486 [92] https://www.euromonitor.com/store 487 [93] https://www.insideview.com/ 488 [94] https://www.census.gov/ 489 [95] https://www.sba.gov/offices/headquarters/oee/resources/2836 490 [96] http://www.pewresearch.org/ 491 [97] https://www.statista.com/ 492 [98] https://www.marketresearch.com/ 493 [99] https://www.plunkettresearch.com/how-to-buy/ 494 [100] https://market-intelligence.com.au/ 495 [101] https://www.jinfo.com/ 496 [102] https://www.idc.com/ 497 [103] https://www.gartner.com/en 498 [104] https://pitchbook.com/ 499 [105] https://www.crunchbase.com/ 500 [106] https://www.optionimpact.com/ 501 [107] https://www.advanced-hr.com/VCECS