Nadia Asparouhova

Recommendation: https://nadia.xyz

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That clears things up, thanks! Here the website of the author: https://nadia.xyz/

It's worth noting that Nadia Asparouhova is married to Delian Asparouhov ( https://foundersfund.com/team/delian-asparouhov/ ), a partner at Peter Thiel's Founder's Fund. She previously wrote https://nadia.xyz/climate-tribes last year and there were critiques of her essay such as https://twitter.com/cognazor/status/1607509056499101696

For context, do a quick check of the attitudes of the past concerning society in North America versus Europe. It doesn't require you to go read Democracy in America. Here's a passage from Benjamin Franklin's "Information to Those Who Would Remove to America" (which is itself very short on its own—only five or six pages—but here's a few slices): > The Truth is, that tho' there are in that Country few People so miserable as the Poor of Europe, there are also very few that in Europe would be called rich: it is rather a general happy Mediocrity that prevails[...] It is true that Letters and mathematical Knowledge are in Esteem there, but they are at the same time more common than is apprehended; there being already existing nine Colleges or Universities, viz. four in New-England, and one in each of the Provinces of New-York, New-Jersey, Pensilvania, Maryland and Virginia, all furnish'd with learned Professors; besides a number of smaller Academies: These educate many of their Youth in the Languages and those Sciences that qualify Men for the Professions of Divinity, Law or Physick. Strangers indeed are by no means excluded from exercising those Professions[...] Much less is it adviseable for a Person to go thither who has no other Quality to recommend him but his Birth. In Europe it has indeed its Value, but it is a Commodity that cannot be carried to a worse Market than to that of America, where People do not enquire concerning a Stranger, What IS he? but What can he…

Made me think of "How to do the jhanas" by Nadia Asparouhova: https://nadia.xyz/jhanas Cessation is impressive and the rest too.

Reminds me of https://nadia.xyz/jhanas I can get psychdelic vision at will being sober (OEVs), mainly looking at grass (with other images it's more difficult). It's produced by sustained attention. It doesn't come with any other psychdelic effect, so it doesn't seem too valuable.

I remember reading interesting things recently about Arizona State University and the "New American University" model - https://nadia.xyz/asu is a nice summary

I've always liked Nadia's notes page: https://nadia.xyz/notes/ Seems like a low friction way to collect scraps of thoughts and ideas, put them out there without pretension, and then not worry about how many people are engaging or sharing. It's like your own Twitter-style page where you can riff without all the nonsense that comes from doing so on Twitter.

Complementary, the author also has an article about ideas: https://nadia.xyz/ideas *edit: > If we see more idea machines appear over the next few years, it can be good for everyone – which is why we need more options besides just effective altruism. Apart from crytpo DAOs, are there any communities that create idea machines?

This blog post, and the one it references, on the jhanas[1], belong to this weird genre which is basically in the vein of Buddhist writing, but without more than a passing reference to Buddhism, its scholarly tradition, its terminology, or its taxonomy. Here's Nadia: > The word jhana comes from Buddhist scriptures, where they were first described. However, as many meditators like to point out, jhanas predate Buddhism. ... I am not a Buddhist, nor would I describe myself as a meditator. She seems to be taking pains to extract Buddhist techniques from Buddhism, and discuss them independently. Even if these practices predate Buddhism, Buddhism is the system of thought that contextualizes them, and has been developed and enriched over thousands of years, to provide a systematic framework for understanding them. This is especially true of Zen Buddhism—the word "Zen" is even derived from "jhana." It'd be like if you tried to describe the properties of sulfur dioxide or something, without acknowledging that an entire academic discipline—chemistry—has been doing that for centuries. You don't have to "be a Buddhist" to study Buddhism, any more than you have to be a chemist to study chemistry. [1]: https://nadia.xyz/jhanas