For today’s Inkhaven post, I built something I’ve wanted for a while: a database of “art with EA vibes”, for artistic content that relates to ideas or themes in effective altruism.

I’ve embedded the database below. You can read more about it here.

I’m writing this from a tax party. Six people sit on couches and force themselves to finish filing — a task that is very boring and should mostly belong to the government. Despite the lo-fi tunes in the background, the mood is not good.

I was going to write about protein bars today, but to honor our wasted time, I’m unsheathing this long-held rant. Here’s to all the people filling out forms on couches across America.

The average American’s life contains around 650,000 hours.¹ They’ll spend a few hundred hours filing taxes.

If the U.S. were like most developed countries, that number could instead be close to zero. Japan, Germany, and many others “pre-populate” tax returns to some degree — estimating what people owe, rather than making them calculate it themselves. Someone with a simple tax situation might spend only a few minutes reviewing and approving the number. California tested a program like this, ReadyReturn, in 2005.² The results led Brookings to estimate that most filers would save around four hours each year (and some would save more).

While ReadyReturn’s test users loved it, the idea never became a federal program. Intuit (TurboTax) and other tax prep firms spent millions of dollars lobbying against it. They found an ally in Grover Norquist, an anti-tax advocate who claimed that pre-populating tax returns would (a) let the IRS overcharge people and (b) make taxes less unpopular.

I haven’t found evidence for (a). From what I’ve seen, pre-population reduces tax evasion but also makes it easier for people to notice and claim deductions. If anything, people who were already paying taxes might save money — even discounting the money and time they’d save on tax prep.

With (b), Norquist holds that Americans’ lives should be worse and more annoying because we’ll hate our taxes more, and then vote to reduce them. Some wonks want us to waste money and time on things that won’t do much good; Norquist wants us to do it on things that hurt us! This argument seems outright silly when I think about all the countries that pre-populate (I’m sure their people still prefer low taxes) and the implication that four hours a year is exactly the right amount of annoyance. To quote Sam Hammond: “Why not require taxes to be filed quarterly, on papyrus, while doing push-ups?”

Norquist’s war on efficiency pairs weak arguments with high costs. If pre-populated returns could save 50 million Americans four hours a year, that’s 200 million hours — roughly 300 American lifetimes. Let’s say Norquist holds 20% of the responsibility for holding back this policy.³ How different is that from killing 60 people each year?

Considerations:

• Is doing taxes as bad as literally being dead? Four hours a year times forty years of taxation is 160 hours, or four workweeks. If I had to lose one week of life, or spend a full month where my job was “filing taxes” and my salary was negative (TurboTax ain’t free), I’d take door #1.
• Is taking four hours from 175,000 people the same as killing two 40-year-olds? Killing one specific person is bad for reasons that don’t apply to stealing hours piecemeal. But stolen hours are still real! People could use that time to play with their kids or watch a movie or go to the park.⁴
• Shouldn’t we also blame the tax preparers? Yes! Intuit and H&R Block are also killing us. But I can punish those companies by refusing their services.⁵ And their actions are at least driven by rational self-interest. Norquist just wants me to suffer, and I can’t do anything to make him suffer back. All I can do is point out that he is complicit in the fractional murder of Americans.
• Don’t we lose even more hours to other stupid regulations and evil schemes? Indeed! This won’t be my last post about the theft of our time.

As part of Inkhaven, I’m publishing something every day.

Today’s post went up on the Effective Altruism Forum. It makes the case for writing about the charities you support. Mostly for an EA audience, but I also think it’s true for anyone who donates.

AI is getting better at scams. This is bad for me, because I’ve been scammed by humans, and AI will exploit the same weaknesses much more effectively.

While I can’t predict a superintelligence, I can at least try to learn from my gullible past.

“Michael Wong Chang”

My sixth-grade class fell for the Bonsai Kitten hoax years after its debunking. Distressed, I sent the website to my mother; I don’t know what I expected her to do. She explained it was fake.

Weakness: I was ignorant of the world. I didn’t know how to do research. I cared too much about most problems.

Would I fall for this again? I was eleven years old. The hoaxer was an MIT student. They were much smarter than me. The AI will also be much smarter than me. I remain vulnerable.

I’ve gotten better at research. If I take a single minute to consult my defensive AI, it will probably steer me well. I should always take that one minute.

I’ve also gotten better at focusing on real problems. The AI can’t distract me with a kitten. But it could still distract me by threatening my family. I should abandon my family.

…no, that won’t work. I should set up a safeword to ward off deepfakes of my wife or mother being kidnapped (or worse, sealed inside glass jars).

Brian Wansink and the Field of Psychology

In high school, I read psychology books and struggled with orthorexia. Wansink, who studied how subconscious cues make us eat too much, was my favorite scientist. He was also a massive fraud.

In college, before the fraud was known, I asked one of his research assistants about her job. She didn’t seem enthusiastic. I chalked it up to “RA work is boring”; maybe she’d been asked to massage some data.

The bad vibes pushed me off applying to Wansink’s lab, but I still loved his research. He inspired me to intern with the Rudd Center, doing random undergrad tasks to fight child obesity.⁶ He never scammed me directly, but I’ll have him represent the replication crisis; I wanted to believe in psychology writ large, and I fell for the same nonsense as most Psych majors circa 2015.

Weakness: I broadly assumed that scientists were honest and peer-reviewed papers were trustworthy. I devoured research that matched my views about the world (like sinister food companies tricking us into overeating — which, to be fair, they are).

Would I fall for this again? Could an AI scammer trick me like Wansink? Play on my assumptions so well that I never think to double-check, because it all seems obvious?

Yes, probably. But I can make it harder by taking strong positions only when I have strong and varied evidence. I shouldn’t rely on any single source.⁷ And I should follow more people who disagree with me; AI will build beautiful echo chambers and I need to hear voices that won’t confirm my every bias.

Gleb Tsipursky

Gleb is a curious figure from the early days of effective altruism — a tireless self-promoter who tried to make his work look popular by creating fake endorsements, fake accounts, and fake social engagement. He got away with it by achieving a few real things, like getting an EA article into TIME (this was a bigger deal back in 2016).

His most toxic practice was tricking earnest young people, including a friend of mine, into taking low-paid contracting roles at his organization (Intentional Insights). He then pressured them to “volunteer” extra hours and “donate” some of their salaries back to him. 

Eventually, some of EA’s top researchers made a list of his sins, and our top polemicist wrote him an informal obituary. He left EA for safer climes.⁸

I never worked for Gleb, but I did invite him to speak to the EA group I ran at Epic Systems. He gave reasonable (if generic) marketing advice, which I’d have taken less seriously had I known he wasn’t good at marketing.

The scam happened after the talk, when he pressured me into paying him (er, “donating to Intentional Insights”). It was like $100, but he hadn’t said anything about a speaker fee beforehand, and the interaction left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I wasn’t surprised to see his org collapse later.

Weakness: I cared more about being charitable than calibrated; I chalked up Gleb’s low-quality work to an entrepreneurial spirit rather than incompetence. I also didn’t think an effective altruist would just… tell lies.

Would I fall for this again? We live in a world of Glebs: today, anyone can buy a squad of volunteers. I should suspect anyone who measures their success by counting free things (likes, clicks, quotes) instead of scarce things (dollars, firsthand endorsements). Online scores were already somewhat fake; they’ll get faker.

Wali Hamidy, DMD

The bonsai kittens toyed with my heart. Brian Wansink exploited my trust in science. Gleb Tsipursky guilted me into a small donation.

Wali Hamidy reached into my mouth, filled it with needless gunk, and charged me several thousand dollars for the privilege. He’s the most effective scammer I’ve ever met.⁹

It was a shady dentist shakedown like any other: Hamidy claimed that I had horrific dental issues and needed work done right away. (Here’s the full story.) I hadn’t seen a dentist since college, and I didn’t brush twice a day; the guilt was building up like plaque on teeth. I was ready to believe him when he spelled out the wages of my sin.By the time I spoke to my parents about the crown and six fillings — and then spoke on their insistence to my previous dentist, who was baffled — the procedure was done and the bill paid.

Weakness: Confirmation bias goes both ways: I tend to agree with people who call me virtuous or sinful, as long as I already believed it. And while I knew not to trust scientists by then, I still put a lot of faith in doctors (and dentists, why is that a whole different thing?). 

Would I fall for this again? This one combines all the other lessons:

• When someone gives you surprising bad news, do your own research before you bite.
• Get a second opinion before you spend 15% of your savings on dental work (or synthesize a virus in your basement for a faceless employer).
• If someone has a good Yelp score, but the good reviews are generic and the bad reviews are detailed individual stories about their evil tricks, don’t trust the average!

Now that I’ve published a complete list of my weaknesses, I feel much safer.

Note: I’m at Inkhaven, so you’ll see a lot of new posts this month.

In 2006, I told my father that I regretted being born (in 1993).

“I could have been a successful Magic player. But by the time I’m old enough to travel and buy cards, I don’t think the game will be around anymore. I wish I were older.”

“You wish you were older… so you could play… professional Magic: the Gathering?”

It seems unfair that he’d be so incredulous; he is a titled chess master.¹⁰ But he had a point: “professional Magic: the Gathering player” is about as reliable a career plan as “professional ice cream taster”.

In 2020, I became a professional Magic: the Gathering player.

I hit rank #1 on the online ladder, won a major tournament, and reached the finals of the world championship. Over 100,000 people watched me play on my stream and Magic’s official channels. I made $55,000.

At the height of my power, I was responsible for the banning of multiple cards¹¹ Magic’s parent company offered me a job testing new cards to make sure they weren’t too good. I stuck with professional effective altruism, which may be the greatest sacrifice I’ll ever make for the sake of impartial utility.

In 2022, I dropped off the pro circuit. In 2024, I stopped streaming. I may never play another big event; it takes time to qualify, and time is more expensive with each passing year.

But I’m glad I got to live those years, and people often ask about them. This post goes out to everyone curious about pro gaming — and to the version of me who will read this in 2046 to recover those memories.

What it was like

These are the highlights. In “Extra Materials”, I talk about my path to the pros and what it takes to be good.

Money

I played in five professional tournaments from February 2020—March 2022, earning $70,000. This amounts to something like $23 an hour — and I was one of the world’s winningest players over that span. It’s almost impossible to live off Magic earnings. But I also had a job, so most of my winnings (after taxes) went to charity.¹²

I also streamed ~20 hours a month for five years. Over that span, people watched me for 150,000 hours, and I made around $5,000. That’s not the usual rate: I wasn’t soliciting subscriptions or donations, and I didn’t run ads. But it’s a tough road even if you pull out all the stops — Magic’s fanbase only supports a few dozen full-time creators.

Preparation

In most esports, you can survive by excelling at one or two specific things: Marth in Smash, Zerg in Starcraft, Thresh in League. But Magic is always moving. New cards come out every few months, and people devise new strategies weekly to beat whatever was winning last week (we call this “metagaming”). At the highest level, choosing the right strategy (“deck”) matters almost as much as playing well.

Before most tournaments, I worked with a team of 10-20 people over multiple weeks. The pressure, long hours, and constant competition were great for bonding — and the occasional schism.¹³ We’d practice in secret, trying to puzzle out which deck would beat the decks we expected other teams to bring (knowing they were doing the same).¹⁴

When I wasn’t prepping for a tournament, I still played several hours a day — devising new strategies, entering small events, and testing decks I might use later. Ahead of the world championship, I learned that I’d played more Arena matches than any other competitor, including many who (through a now-defunct program) received a full-time salary to stream and compete in private tournaments. Looking back, this wasn’t healthy: I cut back on reading, lifting, journaling, and friendship. But I made the finals.

Stress

I sort games by tempo and certainty. Chess demands one decision every few minutes with perfect information. Starcraft, multiple decisions per second in the fog of war.

Magic’s in the middle: one decision every few seconds, just enough guessing to keep things interesting. It’s fun — when you can afford mistakes. Professional opponents punish mistakes.

The bodily experience of Magic:

• After the tenth round of my first serious tournament, I had the worst headache of my life.
• In my first widely-streamed professional match, Twitch chat noticed me hyperventilating.
• Nerves empty my stomach. I used the restroom after most rounds. I knew one player who soiled himself mid-match.
• During matches, my teeth sometimes chatter with tension. I whistle to release it. When you do this at a virtual tournament, and forget your webcam is being streamed, you make a kissy face at 10,000 people for 20 minutes.

I cared a lot about those matches, and my body knew it. But I felt very calm. My insane amounts of practice let me automate most decisions, and I favored unusual decks that broke my opponents’ patterns, forcing them to think — and make mistakes.¹⁵

When you play on stage, in front of a big screen, you get white-noise headphones to keep the audience from spoiling your opponent’s hand. I’d never felt such an intense flow state: total focus, use your training, play to your outs. Peace. (Sponsored by Monster Energy.)

Culture

Magic is old enough to have legends: people I’ve followed since childhood, people I’ve come to know through dozens of strategy articles or YouTube videos. It’s also new enough that its legends are (mostly) still active. In the same tournament, you might see both Seth Manfield (prime LeBron) and Kai Budde (an aging but potent Bill Russell).¹⁶

Professional Magic is roughly the size of the NBA. Several hundred players consistently show up at top events. Every year, a few step away from the game while thousands fight to replace them. Everyone knows everyone — they are your teammates, rivals, fellow gamblers, and roommates in motels across America. They’ve seen your streams and read your posts. They understand your jokes. If you’re ever in Richmond, you can sleep on their couch.

Unlike the NBA, Magic doesn’t pay its players much. Almost everyone has a day job; many pros live with parents or roommates. Cards are so expensive that even the most dedicated players borrow decks from each other.¹⁷

The vibes are good: sportsmanship, camaraderie, everyone bonding over the same weird hobby. You don’t see many assholes at the top; teams are too important, and antisocial people tend to cheer up at Magic tournaments. (Otherwise, why go?) The occasional cheater is reviled to a degree I’ve never seen in professional sports.¹⁸

Finale

The most relaxing match I remember was the world championship final. My opponent, Austin Bursavich, was my teammate; we were playing the same deck. (No schism.) Whatever the outcome, we’d already won. I’d beaten him at Dreamhack; if this were his movie, he’d get revenge.

It turned out to be his movie. When he killed three Edgewall Innkeepers with a single Blazing Volley, I made the Home Alone face for all the fans.¹⁹ Then he took the trophy and the biggest check home to his daughters.

Random anecdotes

• I once played in an invite-only event organized by four-time All-Star Hunter Pence.
• A big Magic website is running a March Madness-style tournament featuring 64 of the most famous decks ever built. One of them is mine.
• Even years later, I sometimes get recognized at local game stores — but not often. Most casual players don’t watch tournaments, and my career was brief.
• After I turned pro, my wife taught herself to play and briefly went viral for getting pretty good ridiculously fast. People accused me of playing on her account; they were wrong.
• My wife sold some textbooks; the buyer brought her boyfriend to pick them up. He recognized my wife’s name from Reddit and wanted to meet me.
• Random people from my past turned out to be Magic fans. The CEO of a company I temped for asked me for a match; it never came together.
• At a conference, I spoke with a leading expert on nuclear weapons policy. After a grim discussion of atomic annihilation, he asked, out of the blue: “Do you know Marshall and Luis?” (Alas, not really.)

Extra materials

My path to professional Magic

I played Magic very badly from 2005 through 2008. I couldn’t afford many cards, I didn’t know good players, and I was still learning to use my brain.

I started again in 2015, after graduating and moving to a city of strangers. I could afford the cards and my fluid intelligence had peaked. I could watch good players online. But my skills remained medium at best. I perceived a massive gulf between myself and the pros on YouTube, and saw no reason to begin the deliberate practice that would bridge it.

In 2019, MTG Arena launched. Unlike the previous online game, it used a ladder system: if you reached the top 1200, you’d see your rank.

The ladder turned me into a maniac. I played six hours a day. I built fifty decks in three months, grasping for any edge that would boost my numbers. I now had a goal I could reach. I knew I wasn’t a pro, but it was still thrilling to imagine that I was one of the top 1000 players.

One of the top 100 players. One of the top 10 players. The top player.

I now had evidence that I was good. I didn’t know what to do with that information.

Coincidentally, a Facebook acquaintance turned out to be a Hearthstone streamer who was… forming a Magic team. We all have that friend, right?

He threw me into a Discord channel where I could, for the first time, practice with strong players. They tried my weird decks and made productive suggestions. They exposed weaknesses that ladder players mostly missed. I built another top deck, then another. My Reddit posts began to get attention; I saw pros use decks I’d built in matches with actual money on the line.

All of this together finally pushed me to enter a serious tournament, alongside my teammates. I won.

How to reach rank #1 on the MTG Arena ladder

Be unusually good at:

• Solving a small puzzle every few seconds.
• Being creative without descending into madness.
• Getting addicted to brief risk-reward cycles with minimal, but positive, expected value.

And then add:

• Ample free time: My natural predators were burning the midnight oil at Jane Street.
• Soft competition: Most pros practice with teammates instead of clobbering random scrubs on the ladder.
• Genetics: Thanks, Dad!

That should buy you at least a month, if you keep playing and don’t let anyone pass you.

Does rank #1 make you the best player in the world?

No.

• There are many ways to play Magic (“formats”), and Arena doesn’t cover all of them.
• The ranks can be gamed. The most consistent rank #1 player boosts his winrate by choosing obscure formats with few serious opponents.²⁰
• There’s no incentive, aside from pride (and YouTube views), to actually reach #1. You don’t win anything extra.²¹

But for all that, being #1 still means winning ~80% of your matches. That’s very hard in a game with Magic’s variance.

And rankings do have predictive power. When I won my first tournament (a field of 100 players), I was rank #1 on Arena, and my last three opponents were rank #2 on Arena and ranks #1 and #2 in live tournaments.

Storybook Brawl

After I left the pro circuit, I took a break from Magic to focus on Storybook Brawl — an indie autobattler designed by Magic players. It was a very different game, but I could still apply what I’d learned about deliberate practice and creative strategy. After nine months, I was one of the game’s best players.

Normally, “best player in a tiny indie game” wouldn’t mean much. But Storybook Brawl had an edge: it was loved by a wealthy celebrity, one of the richest men in the world. He loved the game so much he played it during Zoom meetings. He loved it so much he bought the company! He began to invest his nigh-unlimited resources in new features, better art, and a world championship with serious prizes — to be hosted at his company’s headquarters, in the Bahamas.

Unfortunately, that celebrity was Sam Bankman-Fried, and one day in November 2022, Storybook Brawl met the same fate as the rest of FTX. I’ve still never been to the Bahamas.

I get fancy when I review books and music. Not so for movies.

This is a straight-up list of the films that moved me this year. The first on the list was the best. The ninth was the ninth-best.

Most of these weren’t released in 2015 — that’s just when I found them. Whatever year you live in, I’d recommend them all.

The Best Movies of My 2015 (list)

1. Chronicle
2. Summer Wars
3. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring
4. Three Colors: Blue
5. Ip Man
6. The Tribe
7. Spy
8. Gimme the Loot
9. Nightcrawler
10. The Smash Brothers // “Be Right Back” (Black Mirror)

The Best Movies of My 2015 (reviews)

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