A Case for Giving
Hello everyone, I hope you have all been well — our lives are growing shorter by the minute, it would be a shame to waste them suffering or perpetuating suffering. Many of you are now in self-isolation, lock-down or quarantine and might still be adjusting to the situation. If you are...
Ramana Maharshi's Atma Vichara
Hello everyone, I trust you are all keeping well. We are living in an interesting moment in history, somehow I am feeling optimistic that we can learn a lot from it. Although, that is not what I will talk to you about in this letter. In fact, for now, I...
Cloudy with a chance of Coronavirus
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well, both physically and psychologically. Please take all the common-sense steps you can to safeguard your own health and those around you. The first I had heard about the coronavirus was towards the end of January. I was attending a series of...
An Internet that Sparks Joy
What if we designed it to maximise the happiness of its users, rather than the time spent on the platform? What if the efforts of our software engineers helped us reflect on our day as time well spent?...
Beyond Concept
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing really, really well! I haven't written in a while and I said I would have another letter by the end of the year. I have been back from my meditation retreat for over a week now. I don't have much to say...
Until we meet again
Hello everyone, As always, I hope you are all doing well. In this letter, I would like to say goodbye. Well, at least for the time being. Tomorrow I will be leaving for a five-week-long meditation retreat and will not be in touch with anyone. So this will be the...
A Beatific Vision
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. I have made some technical updates to the website in the past week, I made what are called embed cards which allow me to style embedded content so that it is more streamlined with the rest of my website. You can...
If reincarnation were real
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing very well. Last week I was at an Effective Altruism social event and the topic of death came up. I was speaking to a practising Buddhist who was curious about what I thought about reincarnation. I was able to respond to her...
Beyond Good and Evil
Hello everyone, I hope you have all been doing well. If you are well, then there isn't really much more you need. Behind the mask of evil There is no such thing as good, there is no such thing as evil. At least not in the way many of us...
The Evidence for Goodness
Hello everyone, I hope you have all been doing well. That's the goal of this enterprise of life, after all, a world in which all of us are doing well. What more is there to achieve than this? An attitude that many of us hold that never ceases to bother...
A Better World
Hello everyone, I hope you are all well. Increasing happiness and alleviating suffering is the goal, so if you are all well we are a little closer to it. Last weekend I attended the EAGxAustralia conference. A three-day conference where people interested in Effective Altruism gather to share knowledge on...
The Seed of Certainty
Hello everyone, I hope you've been doing well — I certainly have. My new article is finished. I have now left it with the wonderful Iona Italia for editing. It should be published within a week, you'll receive an email when it is. Who knows? "The lunatic who believes he...
The Tragedy of Ignorance
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing very well. It strikes me that this is a formal way of me say I want you to be happy. If you remember last week's email, I talked about a lot of the stories we frame our existence around and how they...
The Arbitrariness of it all
Hello everyone, I hope you have all been doing well and that my letters are making a humble contribution to this. Aside from well-being and our ability to enhance it in others, I see no real basis for meaning in this life. Fortunately, this is more than enough. "Happiness...
The four thoughts that turn the mind
Hello everyone, Are you in high spirits? This email will be long and fun. I hope you have had a good week, for you will never get it back... This week I launched my first major update to the website in a while, you should have all received an announcement...
The technology behind this
Hello everyone, I hope you have all been doing very well. I have been busy working on some fresh updates to the website. A problem I have been facing is how I can support myself when focussing on reading and writing. Ideally, I would like to make a living from...
On Communication and Politics
Hello everyone, How are you doing? Think about that question carefully, what you tell yourself in response is important. I have been taking steps to improve my craft as a writer recently. A chance to practice writing to an audience regularly has also been a pleasant side-effect of being able...
David Deutsch's Multiverse
Hi everyone, I hope you are all doing well. I have finally finished reading The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch and since then I have also finally read Conscious by Annaka Harris. In this email, I would like to talk a little about the former. When David was a...
Happiness and Problem Solving
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing very well. Since I have written about cutting through suffering, I think this time I will talk a little about happiness. Let me start with these two quotes from the marvellous Karl Popper. "The best thing that can happen to a...
The problems we face
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. Here are some questions I would like you to reflect on. What are our biggest problems? Where should we direct our time and energy towards? We all want happiness and shirk from suffering. In fact, a problem is essentially a cause...