An extended version of this article was given as my keynote speech at the 2025 LessWrong Community Weekend in Berlin.

A couple of years ago, I agreed to give a talk on the topic of psychology. I said yes, which of course meant that I now had a problem.

Namely, I had promised to give a talk, but I did not have one prepared. (You could also more optimistically call this an opportunity, a challenge, a quest, etc.)

So I decided to sit down at my computer, work on my presentation, and then go from the world where I had no talk prepared to a world where I did have a talk prepared.

However, I found that it did not quite work out that way. Whenever I tried moving toward the goal of having a finished talk, I instead found myself moving sideways.

And whenever I did end up [...]

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

---

First published:

Source:

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.