Inkhaven lasts for one month. If you don’t publish 500 words by midnight, you leave the next day.
On the first day, I published at 11:59 pm. On the second day, I published at 11:59 pm and 55 seconds.
I’m a fast writer – the hard part is choosing what to write. I brought a list of 662 ideas with me, collected over thirteen years. After a week of processing, I’ve deleted or archived 170 and tagged 138 for later consideration, with another 354 still in the queue.
Rather than stare at the list of 138 today, I’ll sample from the other 170. These are posts I will not be writing: I think you’ll understand.
Past Aaron missed the boat
Ideas logged between 2015 and 2018:
“How to beat ISIS through advertising”
Based loosely on a set of posts from Scott Adams. Today, ISIS is mostly dead, though it outlived Scott Adams.
“Against bioethics”
This was already stale (albeit correct) in 2016. But I wrote an entire essay. And then left it on read for ten years! I could have been playing Pokemon Go instead!
“On trans bathrooms: Get over it.”
I’m sure this would have been the butterfly that won Hillary the election.
“Responding to Tyler Cowen on effective altruism”
Another finished essay. Would’ve worked on the EA Forum had I known the Forum existed. Two years later, I was running the Forum, but it was too late.
“The internet is not fake!”
Max Read claimed the internet was mostly fake. I disagreed. Time has proven someone right: that person is Max Read.
Past Aaron did not anticipate Donald Trump
“A brief guide to the alt-right”
The idea was to share a few sample Tweets for people who’d never looked under that particular rock. And now the rock is where we live.
“Are Nazis worth our attention?”
The post asked: why focus on small groups of people with extreme views, left or right, when they aren’t likely to end up holding any power?
“Things I appreciate about the right wing”
It was 80% libertarian stuff and 20% principled conservatism. Claude thinks I should put a punchline here, but you know the punchline.
“Is anyone actually doing something about free speech on campus?”
(Whispers to my past self) “Oh! Wait. Oh. Oh no. Oh god no.”
Past Aaron cultivated an air of mystery
“A review of Free Thoughts, by Jamie Whyte”
A review of what? By who?
The good news is that a book I’ve forgotten entirely probably wasn’t a good choice to review (no offense to Jamie, whoever you are).
“Why buy expensive watches? What does ‘expensive’ even mean?”
I might have been cooking with this, but I didn’t leave a single note besides the title, so I have no way of knowing.
“Politicians are not reliable”
This one had a ton of notes. But they were all excerpts from John Boehner’s Wikipedia page with zero commentary. I think I was just… mad at him?
Past Aaron left the mine before he hit diamonds
“A simple explanation of how Bitcoin works.”
I began drafting this in 2015 to make myself learn about Bitcoin. Never finished, never bought Bitcoin. It’s up 28,000%.
“The future paradise view”
This post suggested judging actions by how much they contributed to the chance of reaching a utopian state — with certain boundaries around human rights. It further suggested that the most reliable way to reach utopia would be to sustain economic growth.
If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because Tyler Cowen did it. (He probably had the idea first, too.)
“Shouldn’t there be a way to mass-produce marble statues?”
Past Aaron hated me and wanted me to suffer
“Time and the minimum basic income”
Aaron! You can’t just write down two concepts and expect me to do the rest of the work!
“I read every chart on Our World in Data. Here’s what I found.”
Nope, nope, not doing that.
“Racism is overrated, because almost everyone of every race is bad at almost everything”
From the notes, this had the seeds of a moving essay on the human weakness that unites us all — seeds I will not be planting.