Wait But Why
waitbutwhy.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2013
Tim Urban writes illustrated, long-form explainers on topics like AI, procrastination, the Fermi paradox, Elon Musk, and politics.
What HN saysCommenters list it as a favorite for simple but deep explanations, especially the Musk series, though one thinks later posts declined.
797HN people shared it
405linked it in comments
570stories submitted
4.4Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2013people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The Road to Superintelligence (2015)90 people · 236 points · first shared 2015 · 60 comments on HN
- 2The Tail End (2015)59 people · 125 points · first shared 2015 · 3 comments on HN
- 3Why Procrastinators Procrastinate58 people · 73 points · first shared 2013 · 3 comments on HN
- 4Neuralink and the Brain's Magical Future57 people · 190 points · first shared 2017 · 25 comments on HN
- 5Your Life in Weeks55 people · 35 points · first shared 2014 · 1 comments on HN
- 6The Fermi Paradox53 people · 333 points · first shared 2014 · 165 comments on HN
- 7What’s our Problem? A (Wait but Why?) self-help book for societies38 people · 7 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 8The Cook and the Chef: Musk's Secret Sauce36 people · 63 points · first shared 2015 · 2 comments on HN
- 9From 1M to Graham’s Number (2014)33 people · 36 points · first shared 2014 · 2 comments on HN
- 10Why Cryonics Makes Sense (2016)25 people · 136 points · first shared 2016 · 44 comments on HN
- 11The AI Revolution: Our Immortality or Extinction25 people · 51 points · first shared 2015 · 6 comments on HN
- 12How Tesla Will Change the World (2015)21 people · 130 points · first shared 2015 · 15 comments on HN
- 13Elon Musk: The World’s Raddest Man20 people · 71 points · first shared 2015 · 3 comments on HN
- 14How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You)20 people · 62 points · first shared 2018 · 5 comments on HN
- 15Stop Caring What Other People Think (Taming the Mammoth) (2014)20 people · 44 points · first shared 2014 · 1 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
somenameforme · 2025-12-02
It reminds me of WaitButWhy. [1] The guy had some awesome and insightful writings that eventually culminated in a story about SpaceX and Elon Musk that went way beyond viral. Everything after that went sharply downhill and I think the main reason is that the newfound minor celebrity status really impaired his ability to just sit down and casually shit post without worrying so much about what everybody else would think.
It's quite ironic given this. [2] He simply needs to go mammoth hunting.
[1] - https://waitbutwhy.com/
[2] - https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/06/taming-mammoth-let-peoples-opinions-run…
harryquach · 2024-01-31
Tim Urban’s blog is one of my favorites although it’s not update frequently.
https://waitbutwhy.com
doitLP · 2023-08-17
What’s Our Problem by Tim Urban of https://waitbutwhy.com fame.
Excellent breakdown of the problem of politics and the increasing polarization of our times. Plus loads of great illustrations and humor besides. Can’t recommend it enough.
scanny · 2021-05-27
Australia Politics, an independant and thoughtful analysis but an journalist: https://johnmenadue.com/
South East Asian Affairs, a collation of a scholars own writings and compliaiton of others that they find interesting: https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/
and of course WaitbutWhy for the joy of reading about the universe as it relates to ourselves, all through great doodles: https://waitbutwhy.com/
rayalez · 2018-08-18
http://slatestarcodex.com/
Amazing essays on rationality, psychology, science, all sorts of stuff.
https://waitbutwhy.com
Simple but deep explanations of technology(his Elon Musk series is a must read)
at_smith · 2018-04-02
While stretching most definitions of "periodical", Wait But Why https://waitbutwhy.com/ is one of my favorites!
DiThi · 2017-03-20
One of the bloggers I follow is Tim Urban at http://waitbutwhy.com and it has four levels of posts in four distinct categories: Big, long and thorough articles; "minis" for smaller ones; "the shed" for sharing things found on the internet, humor or just whatever that don't fit; and "dinner table" for asking interesting questions frequently and receiving answers from the community.
jgeerts · 2016-07-19
http://waitbutwhy.com/
Gives great insights in various matters for simpletons like myself.
criddell · 2026-08-17
This reminds me of Tim Urban's excellent post The Tail End[1] he wrote a few years ago.
He calculates that when a person reaches age 18, they have spent more than 90% of their in-person parent time. As a parent and a son, that hits pretty hard.
Obviously, YMMV.
[1]:https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
jason_oster · 2026-06-07
Progress happens in a series of S-curves. While your observation is correct that advances occur initially rapidly then taper off, the next step tends to arrive sooner than the previous, and with greater magnitude [1]. Tim Urban's article from 2015 has a great explanation of this phenomenon [2].
[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/technology-long-run
[2]: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.ht…
kyledrake · 2025-10-22
> Even Carl Sagan (a general believer that any civilization advanced enough for interstellar travel would be altruistic, not hostile) called the practice of METI “deeply unwise and immature,” and recommended that “the newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and comparing notes, before shouting into an unknown jungle that we do not understand.
https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
cadamsdotcom · 2025-08-10
Wait But Why says it best: AI is in the "ha ha look at the funny robot that can do monkey tricks" phase.
https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.ht… (it's towards the end of the article)
Take a longer view. Google's AI slip ups are temporary and necessary when getting the product out, to be improved in the open. Tech companies did awkward stuff in the 90s and we loved it! It's cool that fail-in-the-open culture is back in!
Besides, the real search results are still shown. They are right there, below the AI slop.
klik99 · 2025-08-06
Does anybody remember when Elon Musk said he created Neuralink because he was scared of AI and thought brain interfaces was the only way to mitigate that? (Amazing article on brain interfaces here: https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html)
He’s always been a bit crazy but there was a time when he seemed genuinely thoughtful and concerned about the future. Now he’s constantly trying to bait people and intentionally create division for the sake of PR. Maybe he’s bought into accelerationism, but whatever it is is a far cry from his “we should tread carefully” approach
gpjt · 2025-02-25
Thanks! And that's a good counter-example... which made me realise, there's also https://waitbutwhy.com/
christiangenco · 2025-02-16
I love this! I was similarly inspired by the Wait But Why article[1] and made a chrome plugin several years ago that shows this for my life every time I open a new Chrome window[2]. It's also a handy countdown for big events like vacations or The Singularity (which starts in 7,259 days) that I want some time to prepare for.
Life is precious and finite. Memento mori.
1. https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html
2. https://res.cloudinary.com/genco/image/upload/w_1200/v1739678260/c/gbY…
AlanYx · 2024-12-02
That is a great project! I wonder if anyone has created a visualization that uses a "life in weeks" format (like https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html) rather than a linear horizontal timeline.
abyrne10 · 2024-11-12
Made me think of this bit from Tim Urban’s classic blog post, The Tail End[0]:
>It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.
[0] https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
toomuchtodo · 2024-02-24
You do the work for the money, but you don't invest yourself in the work: you care about the people who love you back at home. In the end, the work (caveat edge cases) will be meaningless. You're converting time into fiat you need to pay for life. You can always make more money, time is non renewable.
"Today is your last day." "Meh, whatevs, going home to my family."
https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html
https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/08/putting-time-in-perspective.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Top_Five_Regrets_of_the_Dying
(20+ years in tech, have been laid off twice, fired once, aware none of it really matters, we're all dead eventually, a blip in the cosmic timeline)
hayst4ck · 2024-01-03
This chrome extension that inspired this was probably inspired by this wonderful blog post that is very much worth a read:
https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html
grishka · 2023-07-08
> This notion of freezing ourselves into the future is pretty science-fiction, and it’s naive
Being actually really dead, with your body physically no longer existing, is truly final. You won't be conscious ever again. No exceptions. This, on the other hand, gives you a chance to live again. The chance might be tiny, but it's still non-zero, so it's still worth pursuing.
Tim Urban has a cool article about it: https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html, I agree with most of his points, except "No one ever will ever ever want to live forever". Because everyone actually does want to live forever, they're just afraid to openly acknowledge it.
bobsoap · 2023-05-15
Well written, fun post!
It reminded me of this classic:
https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html
(There's also a TED talk, linked in the article)
ktpsns · 2023-04-10
Readers who liked this also enjoyed this classical visualisation: https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html
This blog has a number of other philosophical reads worth a few dots and pixels in your visualized lifetime.
croo · 2023-03-29
Nitpick: dark forest is one possible explanation for the Fermi paradox and not coined in the book(though the book presented neatly). You can read a great article about fermi paradox here if anyone wants to jump into what the dark forest theory is:
https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
CuriousSkeptic · 2023-02-24
> Nowadays, not so much… The thinking seems much more primitive.
You might enjoy the book just released by https://waitbutwhy.com/
Just started reading it, but its basically a deep dive into that observation.
Maro · 2023-02-21
Multiple format options (ebook, audiobook) here: https://waitbutwhy.com
DavidPiper · 2023-01-15
Tim Urban also wrote a slightly haunting follow-up: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
I read it every January or so.
kick_in_the_dor · 2023-01-06
I haven't yet read the main article at that link, but its opening links to another long blogpost on whatbuywhy.com about the human brain and it's fascinating! Highly recommended: https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html
ynniv · 2022-11-30
There's an insightful Wait But Why on this: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/procrastination-matrix.html
ipnon · 2022-11-23
“Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future” by Tim Urban convinced me that neural laces and their development is feasible, probable and imminently worthwhile. It made it clear that visionaries like Musk seem like total lunatics unless you break problems down into their absolute atomic principles. His drawings are also really funny. He blows the brain up to the size of Madison Square Garden and shows that at this scale each cubic meter has 40,000 neurons in it, a complex system in itself that becomes near incomprehensible once you factor in the rest of the blown up cortex that would take half an hour to walk around. You get a sense for the immense difficulty and yet deterministic physics of the problem.
https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html
czue · 2022-10-20
Reminds me of another excellent read https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html