Reflections on Inkhaven
Now what?
Yesterday I wrote about unbounded transhumanist ethics.
The more I write, the more I realize that this concept of “unbounded” directional ethics is the keystone that unites everything I’ve been writing about. MAiD, GLP-1s, disability rights, transhumanism, polyamory, slice of life. Meaning, loss, love. Health. Death.
I don’t even particularly like talking about dying or MAiD. But somebody had to, and no one would. Who else on the internet was going to point out that dying of a terminal illness isn’t particularly rare? That sometimes court cases aren’t what they seem?
Or that I spent so much of my life dealing with a seemingly intractable problem, and then a mean little lizard’s venom was the key to fixing it? And it made all my wildest aesthetic dreams come true?
Or how, six years ago, I was facing down the possibility of getting more and more stupid, and losing the ability to look up? And how modern medicine gave me my life back, with almost no long-term side effects? I would be in a nursing home—or dead—by now if it wasn’t for modern technology.
Life is good. Life is precious, and beautiful, and wonderful. With all its ups and downs. The Progress Studies people fill me with optimism—for education, for YIMBY, for technology. If we could just get through the next few years, the future is bright.
I arrived at Lighthaven with a plan for November. But we all know the survival rate of plans after contact with the enemy.
Still, I showed up with a plan and a draft folder. 30 posts later, I’ve managed to take it from 15 drafts drafts down to... 20. Whoops.
I had planned to write two book reviews this month. I even brought both books with me, intending to re-read them first.
Lol. Best laid plans.
I am a relative newcomer in this community. An outsider.
When I talk to other Inkhaven residents who’ve been around the rat-sphere since the 2010s—or even the 2000s—I feel like I’ve missed so much. Like I have to make up for lost time.
I wasn’t involved in the rationalist community in the early days. I spent the 2010s being objectivist.1 But at the time, I still read whatever SSC posts got passed around by my objectivist friends on Facebook. Then I gradually quit Facebook around 2016, and switched to upvoting cute animal pictures on reddit instead. I basically missed all the later SSC posts from 2017-2019.
One of the Inkhaven-ers, Jenn, put up a “10-year retrospective” poll about the SSC posts from 2015. She printed out a list of every post that Scott wrote that year and taped it up on one of the whiteboard walls. We each put a tally mark next to the posts that we remembered, the ones that stuck in our heads the most.
I scanned the list and took a walk down memory lane. I remember the day I read my first SSC post. I was in college, and doing a summer internship in 2015. I was reading my laptop one afternoon, lounging on the cheap Slumlord Special Ikea bed in the bedroom that I sub-let for the summer. When I think back on that afternoon, I’d never been too sure about exactly which post it was. Mostly a toss-up between two posts, while leaning towards It Was You Who Made My Blue Eyes Blue.
However, checking Jenn’s list, that post didn’t come out until the fall of 2015. So it must have been ...And I Show You How Deep The Rabbit Hole Goes. That one came out in July.
I thought at the time, holy shit, this guy can write.
This was the height of tumblr. When Scott introduced the “motte-and-bailey” fallacy, everything fell into place. Suddenly all the social justice nonsense I was seeing all over the internet made sense. The subtle manipulation, the subtle switching of definitions halfway through a short meme passage.
The rest is history.
I first met Scott Alexander in 2022 when he came to an Austin ACX meetup. My SO (now husband) and I drove all the way out for it. (Although we lived in Texas, we were not anywhere near Austin.)
A lot of people there were awkward and nervous about going up to Scott (including me). My husband and I were sitting at one of the picnic tables, and Scott just strolled on over and plunked down next to me.
That was the day I understood his reasonableness field. It is virtually impossible to freak out in his presence.
After we moved from Texas up to Pennsylvania, we found the Philly ACX community.
I remember the first meetup we attended, in late 2022, just after we’d moved. “Hi, I’m Amanda,” I’d introduce myself. “I drove down from Bethlehem tonight.2 How are you?”
I chose “AmandaFromBethlehem” as my handle for the ACX Discord, and it stuck.3
A couple of years went by. I spent six weeks pouring my heart and soul into an existentially horrifying book review. I submitted it to the 2024 ACX Book Review Contest, hoping to score at least in the top 50%. That’s all I wanted.
Then, through the spring/summer/fall, I went through successive stages of “Phew, that was a stressful writing project! But it’s done!”—“I’m a finalist??? Darn, I still can’t tell anybody which one I did”—“Yay voting is open. Wtf, Manifold says I might win!? What??? I’m not winning”—“I would love to place, but I’m definitely not going to win”—“What the hell. You motherfuckers are morbid.”
Basking in the glow for a while was fun. I donated the prize money to the Philly ACX meetup budget.4
Fast forward a year, to October of 2025. I’d barely posted anything. I had a pile of drafts that I needed to take across the finish line.
The Inkhaven organizers encouraged me to apply. I needed help with my crippling procrastination. I just needed someone to kick me in the pants to get me to post.
I think it succeeded. I needed a break from my stupid house renovation. I needed a reset.
Now I’ve written 30 posts, and my draft folder has only grown. But once Inkhaven is done, I can take my time on some longer effort posts. And I still have those two books to re-read.
I’ll see you all in December. Happy Solstice!
I mean, I still am. [Gestures vaguely at the Gilded Age Capitalism™ vibe of this blog]
Bethlehem is about an hour and a half north of Philly. In bad traffic, it’s two hours.
Ozy reassures me that sometimes a pseudonym finds you. They would know.
We rent a meeting room once a month, and at the time we had almost burned through our leftover FTX money.
you seem like a venerable old-timer to me -- i found lw / rationality in 2022 :)
We never got any FTX money! We were supposed to, but Claire sent it all back