The World's Most Selective University 1: Copyrights, Unconventional Ideas and Unpopular Opinions

One of my more important posts, not skippable. Potentially important ideas, ('potentially' too account for subjective bias) information density high, and length is medium relative to my other posts in this 'important' category. All of this I indicate in the beginning of every post. Similar posts: 'Absurdism, Science and Creativity', 'Confessions' and 'Students Unable to Thrive', but no prior knowledge required. The general overview or structure is as follows: I'm going to start with an idea I previously discussed in an edit to the post 'Absurdism' and expand on it and attempt to describe it in greater detail. New to this blog? Start here.

In the next part of this series, I’m going to talk about my thoughts and ideas related to education and my philosophy of education, including what an ideal curriculum would look like to me.

Here's a brief overview of the structure of this post series: expanding on points I mentioned in 'Absurdism', the world's most selective university, copyrights and patents, my philosophy of education, a community of people who value common virtues (such as lifelong learning and a love for knowledge, and my thoughts on Dark Academia, the last two topics are covered in the next part.)

Here's an overview of the structure of this post: Expanding on the points from Absurdism, moving on to a discussion about my experience applying to the world’s most selective university, and finally a discussion about unconventional and unpopular opinions- just to get it out of the way now so no one has any distorted expectations, not the opinion itself- they are in my other blog posts- but a meta discussion about my thought processes while making these opinions public; it’s a very funny and interesting situation, as you’ll understand when you read it. Finally, a bit on copyrights and patents.

(Yes, I applied to it, I really want to get in, and I'm still going to critique it. In the second part of the post. Aren't I such a genius wise little lad, so rational and wise in the ways of the world? That's sarcasm, and well it's not that irrational, because it's not a rant; it's constructive criticism, and I like the university primarily because I like it's core values and it's philosophy of education is the closest and university's philosophy is to my own, and I suggest ways I think in which it could be improved, though I might be wrong and again I'd be happy to be corrected by professionals and people with formal training in education and related fields.

And readers of my blog also might know I rant a lot about the education system's flaws, but as I said, I was just trying to describe the problem in as much detail as possible because the problem is more important than the solution, as I explain elsewhere but in brief, the solution might be wrong and have to be rejected but the problem would always remain hence must be explained as clearly as possible in order to realize why it's a problem and why, and how it could be solved. As promised, in this post I propose some solutions. No complaints, because I've already spent a lot of time criticizing the flaws, so now it's time to focus on solutions.)

This is the structure of this post: The curriculum and pedagogy at the university, it’s similarities with my ideal vision and philosophy of education, constructive criticism and how it’s model could be improved, and finally building a community of like-minded individuals who share some common core values one of them- as you might have guessed- is a genuine sense of curiosity and desire to learn, what the community would involve and why anyone should care. Plus a little bonus at the very end of this post.

(it’s already far better than many pre-existing models, yet I see scope of improvement to make it better; I don’t criticize any university for its curriculum or pedagogy because I know it’ll come off as complaining and there’s too much to criticize- most universities in India, for instance- but this one is special, and I can see how it could improve, or even if it doesn’t want to improve, how I could take inspiration from it and learn from it’s good parts to improve my own ideal vision of an education system and philosophy of education, because these are fields that I wish to get involved in in the very near future even though they aren’t exactly my primary research interests, they’re higher up on the list of my research questions than most, in terms of importance. More on this later.)

I posted the following in 'Absurdism' and I'm going to expand on these ideas now:

Previously, I just knew about using writing as a medium to achieve this goal, such as combining fiction with real scientific concepts in an interesting way, like HPMOR, Flatland and other books; also knew about games like Mastory. In addition to that, I realized the importance of the Socratic method, plus why it's necessary to teach the history and philosophy of the subject, including its relevance to the present world, daily lives, current problems and teaching students how to think like the researchers who first came up with such principles, and how they could come up with it to if they were in a universe where such things were not invented but the scientific and technological progress was sufficient.

Which means that they should not just be able to recall (without having memorized) all general abstract concepts from first principles and be able to explain it in simple language in several ways and how to apply it to novel situations and contexts to solve problems, but go a step ahead and play with those ideas and principles (which requires them having an intuitive grasp, understanding it at a deeper level and the whole chain of cause-and-effect including the why and the how, and how each of these disciplines relate with each other and how all disciplines interact in complex ways in every real-life event, and changing variables and looking at the same principle in different forms from the lens of different disciplines (which is not nearly as daunting as it sounds and really fun if taught in the right way.)

And finding connections with previously acquired information, and knowing why they are studying what they are studying and if it's the best way to learn it, how to utilize their time to maximize their probability of living a fulfilling life, (tailored to their personal strengths and inclinations; personalized education that's not a competition to beat other kids or get into the most prestigious university or get the most coveted corporate job, though for the less interested students that might become a separate institution like diploma and workforce training, but I think everyone could be made more curious and passionate about how the universe works and think more deeply, enjoy life better and be in a better position to help those who are less fortunate and suffer.)-

Questioning everything; discover their values, inclinations, interests; being students in a world where everyone is plugged into their little devices (Nozick's machines, see my Schopenhauer posts) so they can be the ones to take charge and create a better society- be more mindful and rational leaders, intelligence is not nearly enough, need to develop the mindset and cultivate the necessary qualities and virtues required to handle such responsibility- which is fair to everyone and doesn't give anyone less fortunate unfair advantages or make them suffer due to random chance of birth.

Plus how to think about such concepts using a-priori logic and reasoning rather than rote memorization of concepts, so they could delegate the more annoying stuff to AI and focus on augmenting their abilities and how to think and solve problems, including how to live fulfilling lives which most students don't realize until it's too late (I might create a post on such learning tools and techniques). And personal experiences to teach general principles through multimedia and hands-on projects. This approach promotes logical thinking, problem-solving, and understanding rather than memorization. (I'll just create a post about this soon, and stop the point about education right here.)

Guess what’s the acceptance rate of the university a kid with lots of self-doubt and inferiority complex applies to? The title might have taken away the element of surprise, but it’s a bit less than 1%, even lower than MIT and Harvard! Yes, because why not! You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, and my perception of my own abilities can only rise, and it would rise exponentially if I get in, while I don’t think it can get lower, though I have regained some self-confidence and external validation that I describe in my post ‘The Diary of an Autistic Kid’ so there is some risk, but high risk, medium reward.. though I’m getting confident in my ideas so let’s just recalibrate or re-adjust my perception to be in line with my subjective mental state (and because it sounds better) and say it’s high risk and high reward!

Also if you’re someone from the university itself doing a background check reading this, maybe please don’t reject me? I mean, I’m already being what people would call silly and I call being myself, so I’m not afraid what you think, you’d only get to know me better and I think I can rely on you to be as close to objective while deciding if based on all this info you believe I’d be a good fit for your university; and so I’d also accept it and not take it personally if you reject me because I know it won’t be an indicator of my worth but your own requirements for the student body, and because I’m not a good fit if I’m not selected and if it were a place that I could thrive in then I’d be a good fit and then I’d be selected. I’d like to get some feedback but I understand if I don’t, and I’ve still not received a reply to my questions related to the pedagogy but anyway – eagerly waiting for the decision!

Oh also here are some very interesting experiences I had while applying to Minerva University. You’re going to have fun and also get a glimpse of how my gifted intelligence and wisdom manifests itself in the real world (I’m being sarcastic) so here’s one: Minerva has these real time interview questions, and one of the questions was what I plan to get out of my time at Minerva; something like imagine yourself graduating after 4 years and now reflect on how you have changed as a person in those four years.

I talked about how I have very specific requirements and what I want out of my university. I talked about how I have very specific career goals to connect different fields, I’m open to modify as I go along, a list of research questions I always have with me that I intend to solve as soon as possible that would require interdisciplinarity and basic knowledge of several topics; how I like finding analogies between seemingly unrelated fields to use techniques and methods of one to solve problems of another; also some of my favourite methods that I’m going to apply to every problem that could be solved with it- that’s the other way in contrast to having questions you solve with multiple methods.

I talked about how I know which courses to take and knowledge of topics to acquire down to the names of the textbooks, skills that I intend to cultivate throughout the undergraduate years; the type of peer group and the type of values and qualities that I admire and hence desire to cultivate in myself and emulate in order to be my best self, discover my values and inclinations and use my abilities and interests to help others and create a better society in ways I’ve already planned out in my lengthy word docs.

Then- now this is what some people might consider foolish but I’m just being myself and I absolutely don’t regret it, it’s so fun and it’s rational even if counterintuitive and unconventional, it’s just me being different and embracing my uniqueness- I also said how I don’t really care that much if I’m accepted to Minerva, because now I’m confident in my abilities and I’m sure that I can thrive in any educational environment regardless of external factors because I’m passionate and motivated enough to find a way to achieve success in any kind of environment, and the Indian education system I’ve been through is evidence of the fact that I have still not lost my motivation, though it’d definitely be much easier with a more conducive environment, it’s by no means necessary.

(I didn’t intend to say this but said in the moment what came to my mind, but now after my initial anxieties and apprehensions I have figured out after a lot of deliberation and deep thinking that it is after all the rational thing to do and I’m in fact glad that I didn’t get the time to not say it and plan too much, which is one of the nice parts about the interview process, other things I describe elsewhere in this post.)

Now, that’s related to my philosophy of education and my strong belief in lifelong learning and self-improvement. I’d realized very early on that the traditional educational institutions are woefully inadequate to fulfil or satiate my intellectual needs and curiosity, and so I decided to take my education into my own hands when I was in high-school, which has been one of the better decisions I’ve made till now.

To be more specific, I started reading textbooks, papers, watching lectures, reading scientific journals and magazines, reaching out to researchers for guidance and advice, and learning and I’m still doing this now, this was all I did till I started writing a few weeks ago and I’ve been spending a bit too much time writing, and I need to learn and read more, but I’m an avid reader and I love books and learning. I find it rare to meet people with a genuine sense of curiosity and desire for learning, so I don’t depend on others and have been a lone wolf until I realized that science is a collaborative effort (see my posts Myth of the Lone Genius Scientist) and that in order to make any significant progress and have a realistic shot at achieving my goals and ambitions, I need to seek help from others.

Not just due to my limited time and cognitive resources, but also because someone might enjoy and be good at subjects I am not but I need to make progress; also because collaboration makes the work easier and increases the probability of success, and because I need someone to fund my research till I gain the financial security (or independence) and my own lab, and because if I startup I would need people to backup my idea. And I do intend to do all of that because I admire the idea of the polymath, renaissance man, gentleman scientist, which I’ll elaborate on in another post.

So now here’s a reference to this post in this post itself, yes, I like going meta, which is also why I like coming up with my own meta-cognitive strategies and creating complicated hypothetical game theory situations (some examples of game theory like but not exactly games I play a few paragraphs ahead after the experiences with the admission process.) so I went wildly off-tangent and forgot where I started from which is common among Aspies but- no offense to my fellow Aspies cause I’m still learning and trying to get rid of all stereotypes I’ve been conditioned to believe in by popular culture depictions and society- I always see it like getting distracted by that ant or butterfly and then forgetting which flavour of ice-cream you want or something..

Which is also great but I mean... not the sort of extreme stuff you’ll know when you read my game theory questions shortly which may have nothing to do with game theory but then I don’t know if any such field exists and then what on Earth it could belong to so game theory seems the closest and safest response. I’d be happy to be correct by any professional philosopher or economist so I could then invent my own new field maybe~

So here’s the post self-reference that I was talking about. I just asked a current student at Minerva who is also a representative and helped me during the admissions process and who I still keep asking questions this question.. which in brief is about unique ideas that I didn't think were valuable until recently being diagnosed with Asperger's.

Some researchers (none of them academics or philosophers) have confirmed the merit of my ideas, which involve urgent social problems that I have found flaws in. I've been advised to expand my audience through social media to find like-minded people and collaborators, but I'm concerned about potential misinterpretation and the impact on my future career prospects.

I wish to promote greater compassion and rationality in the society, and I strive to be logical in all my ideas. However, I am concerned that my ideas may be misinterpreted by others, whether due to malicious intent or ignorance, potentially harming my future career prospects. As I plan to apply to universities soon, I hope that my ideas will not be viewed unfavorably during a background check.

If my ideas are published, universities may be more likely to understand my perspective and consider me a competent applicant. So, it could be said that I need some feedback on my ideas from some professionals, (or graduate students) and some questions regarding the technical aspects of publications. I explain this above earlier when I talked about this in my post ‘Unreasonable Effectiveness’ where in very brief I explain why I think my ideas are valuable and why I think I’m qualified to talk about them.

Not a controversial thing, as I said I stay true to my compassion and logic, and the only thing I talk about it ways to help those who suffer. Just unconventional and different, and all I'm concerned is about people- due to stupidity or malicious intent- misinterpreting it to make it sound controversial. I also thought of a patent

Actually, on second thought, to be more accurate, I don't even care that much about what people who jump to conclusions might thing. My primary concern at that universities might misinterpret it instead of looking it at as potential of my ability to do research. For example if it were mathematics, I'd be fine doing this because equations can't be interpreted in the wrong way to say anything controversial (not easily). But it's more of psychology and philosophy which can.

And so, as you might guess, I not just published those ideas in my new posts (Schopenhauer, Courage, and Veganism, among other important ones) but also created a post critiquing the very university that I want to get into, and have been working hard to maximize my chances, and that also happens to have a very low acceptance rate. So, if the admission officers decide to read my posts- let’s take cases like we do with tree diagrams and mathematical problems, hypothetical possible scenarios:

First case: okay first let me get it clear that they’ve already taken the decision and I’m going to receive it any day now. With that in mind, first case is that they have rejected me, and they’ll either think that they made the correct decision or change their decision, though the former is more likely, assuming that I’ve been rejected.

Second case is I’ve been accepted, and then again they will either get more confident in their decision or change it. In this case also where I’m accepted, first is more likely if their analysis is unbiased and objective, but second is possible if they were unsure and needed more info and more info is in my favour.

In either case I am being myself by talking about my ideas, and many might think that I’m being stupid by talking about these ideas till I am in a position to be listened to with some power and authority, but power and authority are exactly the types of superficial social constructs I attack, and I also believe age and credentials must not be a barrier for those with great ideas, and I wish to bring this mentality to research and scientific community just like the tech industry.

So, if the university rejects me after learning that I have such ideas, maybe it’s better to not attend such a university, because I’m just being myself and if the university thinks that me being myself is not a good fit for their university, then it’s a good decision. On the other hand if they think that my unique and unconventional, radical ideas that are logical and aligned with my core virtues of compassion and empathy, and take it as an indicator of my potential given the right support and mentorship, then that’s great too.

Cause the fact is that I’m going to talk about these ideas sooner or later, and it’d be better if I get a university supportive of these ideas than one that’s not, and instead of me being afraid of making my ideas public, once again I just need to take my own advice and not care about such superficial things because it’s a nice university filtering process, and for the university, a student filtering process; I’m just making it easier for them to make a decision, and as all universities say, being myself, not someone I think they would expect me to be, or something I think they would be likely to select. Just who I am, who I think I am, and my ideas.

What’s wrong with it, and why on Earth am I all of a sudden caring so much? Social conditioning of course, need time to get free of all social influence that prevents me from being myself, and acting according to my true inclinations without being afraid of such insignificant stuff cause it’s not even harming anyone, and I’m under no obligation to please anyone. I am not even dogmatic or endorsing or imposing my beliefs, and being open-minded and perfectly consistent with the scientific method, so if the university doesn’t value such qualities, it’s probably better to not be a part of such a university for me personally.

Bonus: Someone helpfully suggested I get my novel ideas published in a reputed scientific journal in order to have universities not outright reject when I apply and at least consider for a moment that I might be a competent candidate and have potential to be a good enough researcher having published in a journal and having these unconventional and radical yet logical ideas at such an age, and correctly infer from this the fact that with the right mentorship and support, I could achieve great things, and I have a whole roadmap and research ideas down to the details for how I’m going to do that regardless of which university I get into, but a better university would make life much easier.

Because as I said I don’t really care about people misinterpreting because I am there to clarify if they are open-minded enough, and they can’t really refute my central theme and main ideas without confessing to believe that the poor deserve to suffer or people deserve to be tortured or something, cause my central theme is all the ideas is kindness and compassion for all beings, everyone deserves to be loved and understood and less fortunate need to be helped, supported by current irrefutable scientific empirical evidence, open-mindedness and possible counterarguments, everything perfectly aligned with scientific method, so they can’t attack me without attacking kindness, compassion and the scientific method itself.

So, I was thinking- oh my god- no I’m an agnostic atheist so I’m just using it as a figure of speech- this is so hilarious I’m dying like even though I might literally get assassinated by society it’s so fun you know, I might literally die but I’m metaphorically dying that is laughing cause it’s to funny, and I rarely find stuff funny cause of my dark sense of humour as you will see this might not be funny for everyone but here it goes:

So, this person suggested I get it published in a scientific journal. Even then I was unsure if I should do so, so I talked to a few people, still reaching out to professors but just want to let you know about this convo I had with this guy. During the convo he tried to explained how even if I do all of that, I could still get rejected by explaining with an analogy with a guy from middle East who publishes a paper about women being inferior or something than men and then applying to the USA and everyone knows no university in the whole States is going to admit him, none outside the middle East where such views are acceptable, even if he uses scientific evidence or whatever, they just won’t.

I told him my ideas are not that controversial, but then I also told him that actually some people might misinterpret it to make it sound that controversial. And then I realized that if I hide these ideas now, I’m going to make it public in undergrad and then they’re gonna kick me out of college anyway, and so better to just get rejected by such closed-minded universities not open to unconventional ideas sooner than later.

So he also gave me an example by bringing up Jordan Peterson. Oh boy. You don’t know how funny it is, the coincidence that I was just thinking very deeply about JP not a full week ago and now this boy brings it up again. So in very brief, Jordan Peterson is a Canadian Psychology professor who has some interesting ideas but who’s seen as a right-wing bigot by many people, and my issue was that almost a week ago, I saw some of his lectures and they were really similar to some of my ideas (see post Confessions) and I got some great insights from him. And I was going to post on the subreddit associated with JP but I was not, for reasons that might be obvious but I’ll just explain now.

So my reddit account is connected to this blog post and this blog post is public hence my subreddit post would be public during a background check by the universities. And even though I made is so very clear by saying stuff like: I separate the art from the artist, the man from his ideas from his other ideas, a broken clock strikes 12 twice, I am open-minded and I don’t have any association with JP, I think he has some nice ideas but I won’t comment on some of his others, no I’m not a bigot and homophobe cause I have many good friends who are queer and I’m myself a neurodivergent and very supportive of the queer community. Still, despite all of this, I decided not to post it.

Why? Because even with my unconventional ideas and unpopular opinions, I know there are people who will still try to attack me, but the more important reason is that evidence is unclear: JP actually reframed a law in Canada to spread awareness about free speech even though it was about violence against homosexuals or something like that. So he said he won’t be forced to use pronouns when it was in fact about being imprisoned for violence against homosexuals. And we also can’t say for certain if it’s ignorance or stupidity, because he is a pretty smart and intelligent person and so the probability of that being a case seems to be infinitesimally low as you’d know if you watch some of his lectures.

So people say that he was just using an old tactic of right-wingers to cover their bigoted views with something more acceptable in society in order to deceive people into thinking that they are right and eventually cause harm to the queer community, so I’m not saying that JP has any malicious intent because I know more than anyone else (even though I’ve not even got started yet) how easy it is for people to misinterpret your ideas to mean anything they want and attack you, especially in philosophy and psychology, issues that not just involve ambiguous natural language but also issues that people have strong beliefs in related to their identity, intelligence, personality, human nature and condition and hence are more emotional when it comes to such topics, hence why we can’t debate about political philosophy the same way we can about mathematics, even though form an objective unbiased view both are more similar than we might think.

I’m also not saying that JP is right, all I’m saying that is relevant to this discussion is that it would be a sort of career suicide for me if I were to associate with him. And that’s when my brain gave me this twisted and hilarious idea that I told the boy and that gave us a good laugh and that might again make you think, or make you confident depending on your proclivities and predisposition, that I definitely belong to a mental institution and that there has to be something wrong with my brain (I’m just different, and now I’m far beyond the point of caring even if there is anything wrong with it.) ^^

I told him that, not gonna lie, even if I go as popular as JP at my age, even before starting university (JP got controversial after he was already an accomplished academic at a prestigious institution in Canada relatively later in his career) even if it’s getting popular and infamous for all the negative reasons, won’t that be a huge accomplishment on its own? Like, I might not even have to attend university anymore for obvious reasons if you get what I mean…

I also admit that regardless of the man, who I keep separate from his ideas just like I’m able to separate the art from artists) and I admire Jordan Peterson’s linguistic ability.

He himself talks about how expanding your vocabulary and mastering the use of language and rhetoric is very powerful, perhaps the most powerful and dangerous tool in all of human civilization, and even though being a bookworm since as long as I can remember I have always appreciated language and good writing, it’s only very recently after diving deeper and thinking more deeply about such topics that I have realized how language has the power to fundamentally change our very perception of reality, and how with the right sort of words you could influence the masses to believe absolutely anything and everything, justify any belief or idea to attain your selfish desires, if you have the logical and linguistic ability and the intelligence to rationalize, and I’m not even exaggerating. (More on this in my post Absurdism and Objective.)

So it also happens that I enjoy writing as much as reading, something I discovered very recently, and that some people tell me I’m good at it though I currently don’t have sufficient evidence or data points to say anything for sure, yet I’m confident enough to keep trying and know that I’ll improve if I keep at it. Maybe it’s my brain rationalizing based on my subconscious desires and intuitive preferences once again, but coming up with logical reasons to like linguistic ability; using my own linguistic ability to justify my preference for linguistic ability just because I’m already inclined to like linguistic ability and language skills. I don’t think my brain is that clever but it surprises me sometimes and it’s better to be safe than sorry, prepare for all possible scenarios, but I currently don’t see how I could use my own linguistic ability to somehow rationalize not liking linguistic ability, though I’m sure with enough time my subconscious will give me some.

(Update: I did. Then I noted it down, then I forgot where, and strangely all my recent notes have been disappearing, and I’m getting first-hand experience what it feels like to have your notes burn down in a fire- Newton reference- but I’ll try to edit this again when I do. Something like how rationalization is necessary but not sufficient yet people unable to articulate their thought processes might themselves grow doubtful of their own reasoning if they don’t learn how to express it, but I think it was something else.)

Also, I actually expect people to misinterpret my ideas, not because they are controversial, but because I believe that if you have an unconventional belief or idea, you should be prepared to defend it and explain it as clearly, articulate it in simple language that makes it comprehensible to every person while leaving no doubt in people’s minds and no scope of them misinterpreting your ideas, because if you already make it so clear and detailed and leave no room for people to rephrase it or reframe it in a negative way and planning in advance and taking measures to account for any possible misinterpretations or other contingencies, by clarifying any misconceptions that might arise in the future and engaging with the people to answer all their questions and clarifying their doubts, engaging in open discussion and debate and learning something new and improving, then I see no harm in sharing unconventional ideas publicly. (See the edit in my post Heated Debates).

It's also true that every new radical idea faces resistance at first before it’s widely adopted, so I’m not afraid of judgment and it would actually be a sign that my ideas have some merit, but in any case I won’t let it shake my confidence or rely too much on external validation, and in fact welcome people to provide me with honest feedback and constructive criticism so I can recalibrate my beliefs to be more aligned with reality and also get closer to solve the problems I wish to solve, such as eradicating excessive suffering as well as taking control of external factors that influence lives of people and makes some less fortunate than others due to accident of birth or random chance, problems I describe in other posts.

I am aware that my ideas may be misinterpreted, but I am seeking a platform from an institution that is courageous and receptive enough to provide me with the resources, support, opportunity, mentorship, and peer group to achieve success. I want a chance to prove my merit. I have realized that I need not worry about offending any institution or facing rejection, because an institution that is a good fit will accept me for who I am and what I believe in. I believe that everyone should be helped with compassion, logic, and other virtues. If an institution does not uphold these values or does not want a student who tries to live rationally according to these qualities, then I do not want to be a part of it. This is also a test to see how flawed the education system can be. If any institution actually allows me to pursue my ideas, it will be a ray of hope and increase my confidence to achieve great accomplishments in the near future. Although I will continue to pursue my goals regardless, life would be much easier if I had the support of such an institution.

With the right support, facilities, and mentorship, I could focus on my main projects and ideas rather than overcoming superficial social constructs like cognitive biases revolving around prestige and credentials. These constructs can make it harder for me to get my point across and would require me to employ deliberate rhetoric and other persuasive tactics to counteract the effects of bias. However, I do not wish to resort to such means and instead focus on the logic and merit of my ideas. Nonetheless, if it involves creating a better society and reducing suffering, I will not hesitate to use persuasive and influential means.

By the way, it’d be a pity of Minerva rejected me, because it sounds like a really nice institution with it’s innovative and novel pedagogy and philosophy of education closely aligned to my ideal philosophy. So I might consider reapplying next year as a transfer applicant (same admission process as freshmen) just to see if I get lucky next time, because this time when I applied, I had not started writing all these posts with all these ideas, and so they might have formed a judgment and made a decision based on the information they had available. And I could build a stronger profile and collect more evidence (they require evidence for all accomplishments).

But then again, on second thought, I might not reapply. Because they already had a very comprehensive entrance test with automated personal interviews and all sorts of ability tests, so if the AOs were unbiased and their criteria was accurate enough, they would already have formed a good-enough estimate of my abilities and potential, and decided I’m not someone who has the potential or not thrive in the environment of their institution, or any number of reasons.

Even if their criteria are not accurate enough, they have once decided that I’m not a good fit or whatever, and so my valuable time must not be spent wasting my time on a university that has already determined my abilities and made it clear I won’t make a good student at the institution. And in fact, counterintuitively, I’d only be respecting the decision-making ability and judgment skills of the AOs who rejected me by not reapplying because if I expect them to change their decision this time, it would be clear that they made the wrong decision last time, and I don’t think any AO would wish to admit that, or like a student who doubts their abilities in selecting the right students. On the other hand, if I don’t expect them to change their decision, why the hell would I even reapply in the first place?

(Keep in mind that everything I’ve written above is assuming that I’m rejected; or rather, presuming I’m rejected, because you use “presume” when you have good evidence for whatever follows, and if an acceptance rate lower than Harvard and MIT is not strong evidence, I don’t know what is.)

(I just had an interesting idea. I’ll just not post this thing- these posts- before I receive my decision, and this way I’d get to know what they AOs actually think about me; if I’m a good fit or not, and this way I’d see how reliable and accurate their decision making process is. You know what. I’m doing this. By the time you’d be reading this blog post, I’ll have received my decision, yet I’m going to preserve my writings from back when I had not, and just write about my decision at the end in the ‘edit’. Let’s see what the AOs decide. Heh.)

But if I’m selected: As I mentioned earlier, I’m going to make the best out of the opportunity I’ve been given, and I would expect the professors and peer group to be supportive and try to learn from other interesting and intelligent people with their own interests, ambitions and goals, and together help each other achieve their goals. It would seem like a university like this that has taken such a radical and unconventional step to reform the education system would also have values that would make me a good fit and receptive to my own unconventional yet perfectly logical and rational ideas, but that remains to be seen.

And it’s funny how calm I am knowing that the decision is going to be released in a few days, any day now, but I am happy to have achieved something that I had expected to take much more training. I have detached myself from the outcome, because the outcome is dependent on several factors out of my direct control, and it’s irrational to give an external locus of control the power to determine your own happiness and fulfilment.

I am now confident in my abilities, and so I’m uncharacteristically calm despite knowing that getting into this university would make my life much easier and greatly increase the probability or likelihood of me achieving my goals. But now what I know that I can achieve my goals anyway and not attaching my sense of ‘self’ or ego or abilities to the outcome of the university, I’m much more calm, and that’s one of the main lessons of Stoic philosophy demonstrated in real life through this personal experience of mine.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention how fun the admission process itself way. No, not just the actual process itself, or what would jump at your mind when you hear that word, even though that was also enjoyable and such tests I always find mentally stimulating that also force me to organize my messy scattered thoughts by gathering them all from different corners of my mind and articulate them in a coherent structure by trying to put them into words-

(Just like I’m doing right now; meta again? Mark Zuckerberg would be proud. Wow I’m so funny, did you see how I made that pun? I’m usually not so adept that making puns, more at sarcasm. And yes in case it needs to be clarified, that was sarcasm, and that’s not funny. At least not to me; humour is subjective. By the way did you know my most popular nickname is robot, just like Zuckerberg? I think I write about his elsewhere in my post about Asperger’s..)

Okay, coming back to the topic, I didn’t just find the process enjoyable, but the ideas and questions that it made me come up with, by observing the process and the way they do it, their philosophy, something I discuss in greater detail in the next part of this post. And my own philosophy. Their philosophy is available to everyone to read on the net, and I’m not their representative--

(Oh- I just realized I could actually be their representative, and this blog post could be a promotion of their university, me pretending to be a student- or maybe I’m already a student- and trying to generate attention on LinkedIn and everywhere just like universities deliberately create controversy in order to catch people’s attention and make themselves known.

But do you think I’d be stupid enough to make it known like this if I were? Wouldn’t this be risky and why would I risk getting sacked? Maybe I know the university won’t fire such a creative, clever, intelligent and charming rep like me, and so I’m taking huge risks as I know I’ve got leverage and the university would be at loss if it let me go, as I’m non-replaceable, got nothing to lose? Or maybe I’m just saying this so you suspect me, as no one would suspect a rep to do something silly like that, and no one would believe him if he did that.. but then why would I point this out? Maybe for the same reason? Okay now I’m also getting confused so let’s stop here.)

As I was saying, I’m probably not their representative (if you’re a Minerva official reading this, it’s a joke, so please don’t sue me or anything for claiming to be a rep or anything. In case this needs to be clarified, I’m not a rep. And if you were someone who had seriously believing that, please don’t read my other important blog posts, as the ideas are much more complex and dense, and this was a good weed out or filter to know if you’d be able to comprehend and enjoy the ideas I’ve presented in the other posts, though I’ve tried to explain them as clearly in a very simple language, but some ideas just can’t be articulated without resorting to slightly more advanced vocabulary. And yes here I’m assuming a correlation between knowledge of advanced vocabulary and the ability to have the cognitive ability to comprehend relatively complex ideas, in case you were wondering how they are related.)

As I was saying (coming back on topic for the third time LOL I do this a lot in my posts because I can’t do this in real life with real people, but my blog is my personal space and I can be fully myself and if anyone doesn’t like it they can just stop reading and I actually request those who are not having fun or think they’re not learning anything new to just save their valuable time and do something much more fruitful, interesting or productive. Coming back to the main topic for the fourth time now Haha~)

I was saying how I’m not a representative and anyone can read their philosophy of education on their website, so the second part of my post is not going to talk much about that and instead I’m just going to explain it’s similarities with my own philosophy, it’s flaws and how it could improve, in my opinion, and focus on my own ideas and thoughts related to the ideal education system and other research project ideas related to education.

(I actually contacted the people who designed the curriculum and the chairman, but they understandably refused to discuss such matters with a curious little teenaged kid. I actually have screenshots of the convo, that I uploaded with my application to Minerva as evidence LOL and they still haven’t my answered which is part of why I created this blog post.)

Also, I was intending to try to get my paper published because even if it didn’t get published, I could say that it’s because of my age and credentials and not on the basis of the merit of my ideas, and if it did, that would also be great and evidence that age and credentials should not be a bar for highly motivated young students with adequate theoretical knowledge.

I mean, in both cases it’d be in my favour, because I already have started this Youth Research Convention to help kids develop their own research projects, and I eventually aim to make research open to everyone who has good ideas so they are judged no by their superficial meaningless degrees or age but their ideas. Also, the bad ideas, to counter confirmation bias and the survivorship bias, as I talk about in one of my recent LinkedIn posts. (I also asked him if he knew any young person who’s achieved such a feat, getting published in a reputed journal, and even though he didn’t, I answered my own question and sent him this highly inspiring link: https://www.elsevier.com/connect/how-i-published-in-a-scientific-journal-at-age-12)

And here’s another fun logical reason (rationalizations; see Confessions post) coming back to the funny idea I talked about getting infamous and popular for all the negative reasons: I not only would get to advance my ideas that age and credentials don’t matter, but go a step ahead and also start early on spreading my ideas and talking about my beliefs (with an open-mind always, never gonna give you up, never gonna let you- oops oh no sorry not sorry I just rick rolled you haha.. I meant, never gonna give that up, the quality of open-mindedness.) that superficial social constructs like prestige are meaningless words that distract from the real issues of society, and so I could also show everyone who says (my father one of such people) that a degree is important and a person can do absolutely nothing without a degree.

I disagree, and I know I can, but I also know that coming from a middle-class family with not that much wealth, privilege, power or connections I do need to play the game and be a part of the system- regardless of my beliefs- so that I can get to a position where I can make the system a more fair one to those less fortunate who happen to be at a relative disadvantage just due to random chance, blind luck or accident of birth. I’d get to bypass all of that! Also it’s just another unpopular opinion and subconscious personal preference but I believe that being anything at all on the both extreme is much better than the average mediocre layman.

But don’t take it to mean that I’m going to go negative, I’m not that stupid, as you’d know how strongly I hold on to my core values despite resistance from my brain and it’s powers of rationalization (see post Confessions.) Of course I won’t get my hopes too high but it’s an interesting idea, and just another reason for me to talk about my ideas openly without being afraid of judgment (I think I’m not rationalizing again but I’m not sure and to be perfectly honest, I don’t care.)

Oh, and I agreed on phone to not talk about JP but as you can see, I decided to just go all in as I’m not saying anything ‘wrong’. I might just have unknowingly committed career suicide before my career even started. Oops. So tragic. Anyway. Do I look like I care? Yeah I might look like I do but let me make it known that I don’t. Also, in case you think I’m a privileged little son of a sparrow sitting up there in a position of wealth and power whose family gifts him a new Ferrari and chocolate castle (or whatever IDK what rich kids are gifted) then you can’t be further from truth.

I admit that I am relatively privileged compared to those who are below the poverty line and lower middle class, but I belong to a middle-class family with no power, connections or wealth for me to be able to succeed without a degree from a prestigious institution and support of the society, which is what makes this even more interesting.

So imagine the amount of confidence and courage it takes for such a person to act true to his values, someone who also funnily enough happens to be extremely introverted and have lots of social anxiety earlier in his life. In fact, I’m grateful to not be too privileged and all the suffering I’ve been through (see post Flowers for Algernon) so I am not in a better position to understand what it feels like and also have enough ability to help those who are less fortunate than me. I like it how this is more fun than I would have expected-

I would have predicted or anticipated my subjective mental states to be roughly similar to that of anxiety and fear of judgment and ostracization or being labelled an outcast, but I’m standing by my core values and virtues, true to logic, scientific method, open-mindedness, empathy, kindness and compassion, and it’s comforting to know that even if I’m cancelled or whatever, even risking rejection from universities (calculated risk, so perfectly rational according to my values, preferences and goals)~ Nietzsche would be proud…

Or maybe rolling in his grave due to a stupid 19-year-old using his philosophy without even reading his book to justify advance his own nonsensical ideas, I really can’t say. Probably just like Shakespeare when someone used wrong English words or made any grammatical errors back when I used to be a gramma Nazi. (No longer one, as I describe elsewhere; in brief, now I believe that the purpose of language is to get your point across and if you can convey your thoughts clearly enough that’s fine for everyday normal conversation between the average person.

But definitely not okay for when you’re talking about ideas that require you to use advanced vocabulary where simple words can’t do, though most things can be simplified and explained like you’re talking to a 5-year-old, now I know that some things cannot, just like you can’t dumb down complicated mathematical quantum mechanics equations and express them in any natural language- not just English- to explain to the layman, let alone a 5-year-old kid.)

Also a quick short note on self-deprecating humour. I usually request people to keep in mind the feelings of others and myself go to great lengths to not offend anyone, a bit too much, which was probably one of the reasons I wasn’t exactly the popular kid during my school days, once upon a time an eternity ago. But I myself crack jokes on my own inability and tell people that it’s very hard to offend me. I would actually play along and crack better jokes about myself than you did and you’d be shocked and it’s also an effective way to shut up such foolish people. So if someone says something against Aspies I’m absolutely not fine with it. But if they say something about me specifically, well, jokes on you because I’m into that shi-

Another quick short note on my being confident and expressing such opinions so openly now- it’s funny because if you’re someone who knew me since my school days, I cared too much about everything. Too late for class, too afraid of judgment, scoring too low, now I can see how ridiculous it was but also understandable because I had social anxiety disorder and other comorbidities during that time. So now I’m the exact opposite; I didn’t just become as confident and expressive as the average person, but I just jumped from one extreme to the other. Just like my mom sometimes tells me, I can’t just be “normal” and I’d be lying if I said I’m not enjoying this.

At least I’m not faking and pretending to be someone I’m not, conforming to the majority by acting like a hypocrite who unknowingly and understandably says they believe in compassion and then give up their beliefs the second it's needed the most, playing a part and sharing a large responsibility in propagating ‘evil’ and suffering, being more ‘evil’ than the people they call ‘evil’ who are usually victims or chance and circumstance. That’s a taste of one of my unconventional ideas, read more about this one in my Schopenhauer series.

And so, in summary, I might get rejected, and I might get kicked out later, but I don’t care, because if the university is one that doesn’t believe in open discussion and productive debate of unconventional yet logical ideas, it’s not a university that I wish to be in, be It the galaxies most selective and prestigious university that generates all Nobel laureates and Chief Executives, or even one in all the alternative universes, I don’t care if it doesn’t respect values such as open-mindedness, logic, scientific method, compassion, empathy, rationality and kindness.

It’s kind of like Hitler getting rejected from art school and later changing the world. Oh No no no bad example, horrible example... Umm how about this- like Ramanujan who had to drop out just because they were not letting him study mathematics at university with scholarship so he just did his own thing. Yes, that’s much better. Also a fellow Aspie just like me, strong indicators of him being one.

So, yeah, even for Minerva, if they’re not open to constructive criticism and my eccentricities, then I’d be better off getting rejected because I need an environment that allows me to flourish, and I’m never going to let the education system and superficial social and psychological constructs distract me from my main goal; I know at least enough about cognitive biases, logical fallacies and cognitive science to be aware of such rookie mistakes, even the most dangerous of all Rationalization (see post Confessions).

I know that I have the ability to thrive in any environment, and now if I get into a good institution, great. If not, still no worries, I’ll just show everyone how age and credentials are worthless and how all social constructs are making them act in ways that is causing them to harm themselves and others and cause unnecessary preventable suffering. I know because I’m an Aspie and because of my unique traits and worldview that I mentioned earlier in this post.

Oh, that reminds me how people have been telling me I write well but I should use ChatGPT to be more concise, and here is a nice idea to make my short LinkedIn posts more interesting and captivating without using AI: I’ll just write how I have some unpopular ideas that might get me assassinated, imprisoned, and how I just publicly said a lot of impolite stuff to universities I applied to considering their prestige and my background, and my patent ideas-

Okay all of that is untrue and a bit too dramatic even for my taste, someone who occasionally likes exaggerating for dramatic effect but strongly dislikes sensationalist and clickbait headlines because of the damage it has done to the perception of science in the eyes of the general public and spreading irrationality and pseudoscience which I have reasons to have personal enmity towards… I’ll use a more realistic version, and it might be the reason you’re reading this right now, I don’t know.

I will live according to my values and inclinations, and anything that influences me to act irrationally in a way that makes me conform according to behaviour that I don’t feel comfortable with or don’t prefer, and that doesn’t even cause any suffering to anyone, then I see no logical reason not to do so. I could even extend the idea to when there is suffering included, but I won’t because I believe that suffering must be eradicated and all sentient beings who are less fortunate than me must be helped, all of them, deserve to be loved and understood. That’s another practical application of ideas I describe in ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ and the Schopenhauer series.

Here’s the game theory mental games I play in my head when I’m bored and have the time which is not often but I still do anyway because I can’t help it and my brain does it automatically... Please stop reading if you start getting headaches: Before counter-arguing to the person's reply, assume that the person already thought of it and then reply to that, using maybe some form of with that not only goes polar opposite and exaggerates but also goes back and further in the chain of cause-and-effect expanding through both space and time by taking every component of the chain into account and then analyzing it through the field of any discipline as everything is connected at some level of abstraction through some fundamental axioms though I'm just guessing here not sure [if you're a mathematician reading this and disagree I'm just playing with ideas here not saying it's true] and every event is a complex interaction of several disciplines.

And so after that reply, just consider how that reply could not just be taken into account but try to rationalize [for this you need to be at least above-average in logic and language skills or linguistic ability in general, which could be trained by the process of learning by internalizing general principles or training skills transferable or just direct manipulation through various interventions but let's not get into that here] and explain [regardless of truth, we're just playing a game having fun, here don't care about what's true] how you already took it into account and planned in advance by your exceptional powers of forecasting and foresight [brag about your made-up Metaculus score if necessary but not need to resort to dishonest deception tactics].

Then also consider how that person could have taken into account what you had planned to counter their own counter-arguments [so kind of like thinking about what he thinks that you think he thinks and planning in advance for what you are going to think after that and act accordingly] and think how they could rationalize that, then again try to outmanoeuvre each other till one of you gives up or one of you can't go more meta and get mentally exhausted due to their cognitive limitations and lack of resources after which you could assert your [intellectual] dominance and establish your superiority over that being [just kidding. If you're inclined in that way]

And to make it more fun, assume malicious intent for someone seemingly good intentions and try to figure out how it could be evil in the long run by forecasting and thinking in terms of butterfly effects as every event is connected by a continuous chain of cause and effect and it's impossible that something is all good or all bad. Do the same with a person with seemingly malicious intent but could have good butterfly effects which is also related to my free energy principle, rationalization and the explore-exploit trade-off post.

Here's another similar question based on my variation of Hanlon's razor: just think about who could the outcome benefit to find the person with evil intent, even if the person says that they are ignorant or foolish because we cannot yet read qualia or subjective mental states accurately and so anyone with evil intent could say they're ignorant.

Go a step ahead- this one just occurred to me while I'm writing this- and think how they could actually be stupid even though they are saying they're stupid but it seems they're evil, and further think how they could be leveraging exactly this to make you believe, fool you or manipulate or deceive you into thinking that they are foolish; or maybe that you're overthinking and it's that they really are ignorant and stupid, but then this again could be -part of their plan to outthink you outthinking them. Do the same with people with seemingly good intentions. Psychoanalyze your own subconscious to make it even more fun.

Just in case I need to explain in simpler language, to appropriately rationalize having already taken into account a matter that the individual in question was privy to prior to your discourse, while concurrently aiming to outmanoeuvre their perception of superior intellectual prowess and supplant their anticipated strategic manoeuvres, presents a formidable challenge. That’s the reason it’s funny, interesting and mentally stimulating at the same time, and some of them are also nice life lessons and thinking tools such as the malicious intent one and thinking in advance about the other person’s reply one.

So to summarize the questions in simple language- at least as simple as possible without info loss- How can you effectively counter an opposing party's reply by assuming their foreknowledge, and then craft a response that not only polarizes but also showcases your exceptional forecasting abilities through deep analysis? Once delivered, how can you skilfully rationalize that you had already accounted for anticipated counter-arguments? Then think- how can you deftly anticipate potential reactions and outmanoeuvre your opponent in a game of mental wits until they concede?

Lastly, to add excitement, you could explore the possibility of malicious intent or analyze your subconscious, if you still have mental energy left for that and still not having fun, though if you are at such a stage then I’d like to have a conversation with you cause when I try to talk about this with others most people’s brain seem to shut down after a few words, let alone going through all the questions and then also having enough resources to not just find it fun but go another level though I can still go ahead but let’s not make this post longer.)

Another question, this one is easier, and you know what to expect. Guess which country someone who loathes heat and sunlight (not objective belief, as I do realize the important of sunlight for our ecosystem, just a personal intuitive preference because of the undesirable negative emotional affect it generates in my brain; just subjective value judgments and opinion, not belief, if that makes sense.) and loves cold dark weather with minimum sunlight is planning to apply to this year for the undergraduate studied?

I know you’re smart enough to know it’s not somewhere cold and dark. Not Scandinavia or certain part of the States, then. It’s Arctic. Just kidding, there is no reputed university there, just the University Club of Emperor Pengu- oh no NVM haha I’m so stupid I just promised the penguins that I won’t talk about it in public because they want humans to believe there are no penguins in Arctic and I was going to say just that! Caught myself just in time, why, I might even have disclosed the secret that the Penguins are planning to take over the world- no, universe- and give me a leadership position with control over certain parts of the world, a few countries and galaxies here and there. Haha phew close call, I would get assassinated by the Penguins if I did that. Oh wait Whoa look there an army of penguin with machine guns and chainsaws- one even has a rocket launcher! - I wonder where they’re going.. why do they seem to be coming towards me I’m just being paranoid.. I didn’t disclose.. oh wait- Oh freak NO Please Someone Hel-

I negotiated a deal and I’m gonna wipe out your memories after you stop reading this post (I won’t, relax, just play along; penguin spies are watching us) because I told them curiosity kills the- dog.. (Why does it always have to be cats? Even Schrodinger chose a cat and I even created a post about it and while discussing the topic I always used cats so now I need to counteract the bias.. Well no sentient being deserves to die but... how about let’s assume panpsychism is true and curiosity kills the- rock? But that’s same as plants which is same as ants which is same as cat which is same as dog which is same as humans.. let’s not get into that here. For my thoughts on cats v dogs see post ‘Random Out of Context Messages’)

And as I was saying, I left my readers hanging by not answering the question about applying to universities in which country and some of my readers might be unsatisfied so here’s the answer: it’s Australia, though that’s not the only place I’m applying to. And just in case you’re curious- though I know (hope) you’re not- I do like the Nordics and it sounds like the best place on the planet for reasons I won’t get into here. Or okay in brief, the egalitarianism, social safety net, cold dark cloudy weather, introverted society, scenery, minimum gender gap, high levels of life-satisfaction etc. Not perfect but much closer to perfect than most other countries.

I have this friend who is also applying to Minerva, just the next cycle. I applied to RD 1, and he’s going to apply RD 2. Interesting incident that took place today: received a call. It was like a sitcom or dramedy where the universe is against a person who is bent to achieve something, like the whole college against him, not a single helpful professor, facing all the technical issues ever possible that I never did, then the university telling him they’ll fix it but they never do until after the deadline has passed, and so on. Kind of opposite to the law of attraction, though I believe that most law of attraction books are pseudoscientific, I believe that it has a more scientific explanation, growth mindset, when you wish something, desire something, you work hard and opportunities present themselves in front of you. I know it’s true because it’s happened with me several times, but then there’s that bias which makes us find meaning where there is none, cherry picking, p-hacking, whatever. So nothing is absolute, just like everything else in psychology, it’s unclear.

I tried to inject some of my own absurdist worldview and twisted sense of dark humour to mock the institution and the way the system works, but apparently it’s not the sort of humour that’s understood by most people. For instance, I told him how I find it hard to believe that he had to send the contact of a counsellor in USA because every single person in his university is so unsupportive, and that he doesn’t need to be too sad about his luck or current third-tier college because he would have the last laugh when he gets into a position of power in the future.

I also told him he’s trying his best, and that he doesn’t need to be too worried because he is doing everything that’s under his control, and so he doesn’t need to be concerned about the outcome. And that it’s just another interesting personal experience and I’ll include his incident in brief in my blog post as my own way to pay my respects- press F, if you will.

(This is Stoic philosophy, though it aligns nicely with Absurdism by allowing you to extract greater joy by mocking the hilarity of the system and situation, by allowing you to focus on things you can control and having a healthy worldview that’s also so fun. I have made some similar connections between my other values and beliefs, such as rationality, scientific method, logic, lifelong learning and many more, but here’s one that might be unexpected- dark academia- at least the love for knowledge part.)

So most of it was he explaining the problem and me- a person who is not a Minerva rep or student but still has the relative advantage of having better language and decision-making skills which is probably why he called me in the first place and why I tried to help him- so I will omit the more boring details of the conversation such as how he misinterpreted an email and how I suggested the most rational (in my opinion) solutions with algorithmic steps arranged in the order of priority taking into account the limited time and deadline, and also to maximize the probability to of achieving the desired outcome considering all factors.

I have some interesting ones but won’t go into detail because of reasons I explain in the meta-post and because it’s already too long. He was afraid of calling this counsellor who lives in the States, and said it’d be wrong to call her that many times. I explained with an analogy why that’s not true. If a person is dying, bleeding out to death in front of you, and the hospital doesn’t pick up the phone, you don’t just freaking give up and say ooh the hospital would feel bad, guess I’d have to let him die then LOL anyway. You don’t do that, and even if the hospital is offended, you explain your circumstances. Now, nobody is dying, but this was almost as serious because it involved higher education and all the facilities that the university could provide him with, so I told him to keep calling her as much as he can and apologize later. But then he told me that he didn’t even call the university rep, and I did a mental facepalm. And told him to do that, right now, hang up and do that before doing anything else. Funny thing is he’s studying computer science and I am not too good at computer science yet I help him with all the technical and AI stuff. But he is a smart guy. Motivated and driven, despite coming from an underprivileged background.

I try to explain my idea to my family members, and I’ve learned the hard way that I should probably not do so unless I wish to destroy my mental health and also not succeed at my projects. This is because you present your ideas to the people who are receptive to new radical ideas. You don’t need them to share your worldview, of course not, but they need to be open-minded and logical enough to at least be willing to listen to your unconventional idea without judgment, not get too emotional while defending their side, and critique your ideas, not you. And maybe this is too much to ask, but like me, not try to change your mind, but ask you questions about your own beliefs and try to make you understand the reasoning behind their own beliefs, while respecting the opinion of the other side. That’s apparently too good to be true for average members of the society, judging from my family members who may not be accurate representations of average members of the Indian society but nonetheless are more or less a good starting point to do for this discussion

My uncle told me that he only respects degrees. Credentials. He explained how even if I became the President of the United States or Prime Minister of India but don’t have a degree, he will consider me stupid. And I tried using logic and my own experiences with how flawed the education and evaluation system is, but very soon it became clear to me that he’s not one who’s persuaded by logic or reason.

He wasn’t willing to explain the reasoning behind his rigid beliefs, and he also wasn’t willing to listen to my own comments, let alone try to understand and be open to changing their mind. Sounds an awful lot like rigid closed-minded dogmatic ideological beliefs and a result of extreme social conditioning as well as adherence to societal norms without questioning them or scrutinizing them with logic, don’t you think? Directly goes against foundational principles of the scientific method and my core values scientific skepticism and rationality.

I told him that I’ll show, not tell, and he again said how I’ve wasted all these years dropping out of institutions and how this shows how I’m not smart enough to get a single degree. (See my post about Asperger’s; in short, I was unable to thrive in the traditional educational environments and there are many good reasons for my recent decisions, especially as I’ve been diagnosed with Asperger’s. And now it’s got personal with the education system; first it was only the healthcare system. More in other posts.)

I kept silent. This was one of those situations where intelligence completely fails you; you could be perfectly logical and have some intelligent reasons to justify your beliefs or behaviour, but if you lack what I call rationality and what others call wisdom, you are going to get yourself killed very soon, not even exaggerating, if you read the biographies of some highly intelligent scientists and mathematicians and the stuff they kill and get killed for…

Here, I knew that this person is not open to changing their mind (makes sense, because my uncle is the father of my cousin, the same cousin who makes a guest appearance in the edit of my blog post ‘Confession’ who snatched my notepad and cause me great mental agony but another interesting personal experience)- and is also not even willing to listen to my ideas.

So I just kept my arguments to the bare minimum and took very small well-informed calculated risks rather than unwise irrational behaviour that could have gotten me smacked in the face leaving me with a face that’s even more unattractive and deformed than how I already look naturally. I don’t really care about appearance, but I also don’t want to scare off people with my looks or make it easier for them to form a negative perception of me.

Anyway, here’s what was going on in my mind: I’m going to try to be a part of the system, so that I can show everyone that I have at least enough ability to criticize the system and bring about reform from the inside rather than criticizing it because I was unable to get in, due to ego issues or personal problems rather than logical and rational reasons.

I am going to master the game, and then change the rules, to show that I’m not being unfair and cheating because I was unable to beat the games because of my abilities, but because I wish to change the game despite being the top-ranked gamer who has mastered the game.

Likewise, I’m going to get my degrees, up to the PhD (that’s the current plan, at least) and then show everyone that credentials are insignificant and meaningless pieces of paper with no value on their own and just part of the outdated mentality, a social construct and tradition that may have worked in the past but that needs to change to suit the needs of the modern society, and that causes great harm to the mental health of all students in involved, even those who are good at it, by giving them a false sense of their abilities by making them think they have all the abilities required to succeed when in fact they are only good at memorizing and regurgitating information in exams, and they might have potential, but it’s being misdirected and getting good grades is not sufficient, and by no means even necessary to succeed in life.

If my uncle was a but more open-minded and receptive to novel ideas, I’d also have told him how several successful entrepreneurs dropped out of college and went on gain positions of great power and wealth by founding innovative startups that created large-scale impact and change how people live, many of the products he himself uses, later on becoming unicorns.

And I was laughing at him inside my head when he told me how he doesn’t care what anyone becomes if they don’t have a degree, I was telling myself how those billionaires who are literally running the world don’t give a f- what your skewed criteria of success is, and I also don’t care what you think cause you’re not open-minded and willing to consider my ideas, one of the people I have that much respect that I allow them to influence my emotions, behaviour and beliefs (I don’t know any such person currently, but that’s something I discuss in my blog post about Friendship. I hope he doesn’t read this or I’m dead and disowned LOL.)

Now, I do believe that there is something to learn from everyone and everything, and this uncle of mine is, to be fair, more thoughtful and clever than the average person I meet in my everyday life. (it’s a figure of speech, a metaphor, not to be taken literally, because in real life I meet exactly zero new people every day; remember I’m socially isolated? I don’t think anyone in my society is even aware of my existence.)

And so, I learned something new about how such people think about the system and how this could be representative of the sort of mindset that’s one of the major hurdles in changing the system, and in general the thought process and worldview of neurotypical middle-aged people in the Indian society, if I can generalize it even that much, though I might be mistaken.

He also has a history of getting violent and anger issues, so I am glad I was able to keep silent and not speak too much, though I did voice my opinions even though I could have just lied and taken the easy way out and showed him rather than argue, but I dislike dishonesty, so it’s fine.

Oh, in another interesting conversation I had with another neurodivergent person not too long ago, someone who studied in another country and is successfully working there, told me how he once saw this advertisement where they required an applicant to a position for a salesman job to have at minimum- guess what- an MBA. And I chuckled and told him how that brings to my own mind an advertisement of a PhD being required for a lab tech job.

Anyway. Society is ridiculous and at times it’s sad but it’s all hilarious and absurd, and at times makes me cynical, but I’m optimistic while staying a realist, and misanthropic while trying to help humans at the same time (I am able to hold contradictory worldviews and beliefs in my head all the time with very little mental effort, and switch whenever one is more convenient than another without committing to any, or facing any dissonance; half-kidding, don’t care enough to elaborate.)

And as an opportunity to be the one who brings about a change for the better (reframing). I somehow convinced my father to take my back home and cut short out visit ASAP by emotional blackmail and appealing to emotions and crying a bit. As always, it worked like a charm.

Did you seriously believe that? Really? I hope not. I did successful convince him but using logic and tact, keeping in mind my mental representation of his personality and what words would influence him to maximize the probability of using the right words and way of speaking to produce the optimal amounts of emotional affect, by giving him good reasons and also telling him how it would be in his own best self-interests to do so, by reframing the situation to seem like it’s the best possible decision in this case, though as we know, ‘best’ is arbitrary and subjective and with my logic and language skills.

I could have done this even if we were going soon and I wanted to stay longer. And it might seem like I had meticulously planned or scripted before calling him but trust me, I didn’t. I’m just post-hoc posteriori psychoanalyzing myself and the conversation, because it wasn’t that complex and everything I just told you I did subconsciously without thinking,

I can plan in advance, but I have not yet come across any situation in which I have had to do so. I improvise, test my limits, and haven’t found them yet. Then later I analyze the conversations and realize I did well.

Though it’d be fun to sometime use all the linguistic, influence, rhetorical, and decision-making tools in my toolkit to see how high my linguistic ability can take me, but as I explain elsewhere, I’m not a freaking psychopath and I strongly dislike dishonesty or deception in myself or others; and from personal experience I’m glad that I’m also good at detecting it in others, as I play game-theory mind games in my head all the time, which I describe here or elsewhere, and so comes to me naturally.

I use my ability for ‘good’, my ‘good’ fortunately being aligned with several aspects of the current ethical code in society. Honesty and kindness are virtues I greatly value, and I’m probably not going to change that anytime soon, even though I have good logical reasons to do so and also be at peace with myself by using my ability to rationalize based on personal preferences to avoid cognitive dissonance. (See post Confessions)

Go figure old-time uncle and father who think I’m stupid because I dropped out of multiple institutions or almost failed at mathematics. I do admit I’m not as intelligent as other peers in some domains, but now I’m confident enough to know that I’m at least above-average in certain other topics.

Two more funny very recent incidents. First: In my old institution before I dropped out, I was told by a like-minded senior third-year student that after estimating my ability and motivation judging from a few conversations we had, this university won’t be a good fit for me as its newly established and the peer group isn’t the type to be passionate about their studies. The point about peer group was even repeat by a senior professor and administrator in the same university, who told me I’m the first such student he’d come across.

(That’s an interesting story in itself; I was summoned at midnight and without any context or reason sleep me was bombarded by questions about rotational mechanics and radius of gyration from high-school physics, I didn’t even ask why, and after talking about a few similar topics told to go back. Only next day I asked around and found out he’s an interesting personality who dropped out of one of the most prestigious institutions of the country to attend university there for some reason.

And about the senior administrator, I had an interesting chat about the education system in the university and gave some suggestions to improve it that he seemed to find helpful and receptive to my ideas; I hope to meet more such open-minded professors in my new university, always available to provide guidance or clear any doubts related to the pedagogy and systems in the university. More on this in another post.)

And I myself felt that there weren’t too many research opportunities or facilities, and the peer group also isn’t exactly what I wanted out of a university. It was hard to find like-minded people, and I spent most of my time alone even though all the people were really nice and I did talk a lot (and still everyone told me I talk very little.) But here’s something funny and unexpected that happened after I dropped out:

I received direct personal text messages from different people- all of them who I had observed didn’t interact much with each other and hence the probability or likelihood of it being a prank is too low, and I’m also certain it wasn’t sarcasm- telling me that they actually used to think that I don’t deserve being in such a university and that they thought I felt out of place in it.

Now I had to explain how it doesn’t matter what university one studies in because prestige is a social construct and the education system and entrance examination is set up in a way that does not always favour the kids with more potential and so smart kids can end up in not-so-good institutions but that’s even assuming I’m smart which I have good reasons to believe I’m not but I still explained to you by considering your own assumptions are true, so I guess that’s a good enough argument to crumble the sand castle by not needlessly going at a higher level of abstraction and attacking that idea when a simpler and more specific one would do.

My mom said the same thing next day, and I realized that this is one very big demotivator. I need to change my environment and find some people who think like me and have similar goals, because otherwise I see a time in the very near future, an even with a more than realistic chance- or at least much greater than chance probability- of occurring if I don’t actively try to prevent it. The only way out if university, and if I get the wrong university again, I’m seriously going to be in- I don’t even want to think about it; let’s make it an exception to my general rule of negative visualization and preparing for the worst-case scenario, because this one is simply unacceptable.

I said this because when your family members are supportive but don’t understand your ideas, and constantly keep telling you trying to brainwash you, make you conform and condition to the exact outdated traditional mentality I’m trying to change, it gets hard after point to focus on your projects and I can absolutely not afford to lose my newfound confidence in myself and my abilities, as all the possible outcomes I can conceive of in such a scenario are too undesirable.

I am confident that I can make an impact, and my ways are different, just like my worldview and ideas. I have interesting research project ideas and questions and I’ve talked to researchers who have validated them and told me they have merit and everyday I’m getting more evidence that they’re realistic by looking at breakthroughs in related fields, and I can’t wait to start working on my projects and solve the research questions I’ve been gathering.

I know I can create a better society and help people who everyone thinks are hopeless, and when your family doesn’t even listen to your ideas and just outright tells you that you’re being stupid and that the social systems are correct and social institutions are perfect and nothing is wrong with the world and I can’t do anything, you can’t help but feel a bit lost even when you know they’re the victims of the same outdated rigid closed-minded mentality that I’m trying to change.

This is why I need people who believe that the problems I’m trying to solve are problems. The education system, for instance, among several other social systems I describe in my posts. This time I told my mom (who was telling me degrees are useless) that Jobs, Gates and Wozniak, among several others don’t care what your criteria for success is because they’re running the world.

That go back in time and tell Ramanujan, the man who knew infinity, he’s an idiot for dropping out of university with scholarship just because he can’t study a few easy subjects along with mathematics (also something I wanted to tell to that uncle who said he has no respect for someone without a degree.) I’m not saying I’m as smart as them, nowhere close, not even in dreams; I’m just trying to point out the flaws in the logic of their arguments.

This time my mother questioned me and asked what a better criteria for success would be, and I told her, just take tech industry that is now shifting towards skill and talent. Practical projects, Kaggle, GitHub, Competitive programming, more difficult than any exam in the world, also requires hard-work, practice, creativity and some natural talent.

But if you want to be a code monkey who debugs code and does relatively unimportant and unstimulating work that’s going to be automated soon, then a degree is more than enough for sure. I did succeed in convincing her about the tech industry, but as I said it’s getting more emotionally draining as back when I didn’t know I have autism and had started doubting my own sanity (my post about Asperger’s.)

She also asked me how they can believe that I’m doing something important, and that’s a good question, as I’m doing something different and I can’t tell her this is going to work. If I was going on a path well-known, tried and tested, as the average student by societal pressure who succumbs to herd-mentality (and does the right thing if they don’t have any ambitions to do anything different and are afraid of taking risks or don’t wish to do anything innovative or novel in entrepreneurship or research.) I would have told her exactly what I plan to do and that it’s almost certainly going to work out.

I can still tell her everything exactly as I see it, but she won’t get it (I’ve tried several times) and I won’t be able to give her the probability of me succeeding, because there are risks involved. It’s a road not taken, and I can’t tell her I’m going to get that engineering degree from the prestigious institution and get a high-paying software engineering job at a multinational or something, because I have no interest in that.

I don’t even have an interest in the civil services (which my parents try to convince me to try for; and you might know by now that the ridiculously simple persuasion tactics they employ are way too easy to counter for me without even thinking, with sound logical arguments, of course, though I have some other great tools, and as always I’m not even defending my own perspective; I’d like to change my mind only if they give me some logical reasons, which they can’t, without understanding my own plan and ideas first, which also they can’t, or at least don’t.) which are harder but still have relatively little impact and that almost everyone tries but no one is doing what I’m doing, and in fact I’d be more than happy to meet someone who is.

So, I just tell her that I’ll show in the coming months, won’t tell. I just tell her to assume I’m another average teen who just likes working on silly stuff just like someone who likes watching cartoons and anime and playing video games all day, and I’m just relaxing in my gap year till university starts when I’ll just pass and show you that degree; no need to talk about all the things that would be better understood by showing rather than wasting time and energy explaining, and that’s what I’m going to do.