Category: Life Page 1 of 4

My Current Theory Of Ethics

On February 27, 2026

Many years ago, I subscribed to my own pet version of Utilitarianism that I called Eudaimonic Utilitarianism. In practice, it ended up functioning as the Classical Utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, but with higher aspirations. Over time, I added some additional ideas, like Kantian Priors, but the basic idea was roughly the same.

Recently, I’ve thought a lot about ethics and questions of what I actually believe now. I think, over time, I’ve drifted away from a practically hedonistic view, towards something that more closely resembles the Preference Utilitarianism of Harsanyi and Tomasik.

The way I see it, morality is about values. It is about valuing equally what everyone values. What we value is not set in stone. It is dependent only on what the subject, the sentient being, cares about.

Generally, sentient beings care about their happiness. They desire happiness and avoid suffering intrinsically, which is the insight of hedonism. But they generally care about other things too. They care about whether they live meaningful lives, whether there is beauty in the world, whether truth is upheld, whether their children go on to live good lives too. These things, it can be argued to be instrumental goals rather than intrinsic, but I wonder, how are we to judge this? Who are we to decide that some values are more important than others?

Happiness is still important, but it becomes one consideration among many. This form of Preference Utilitarianism is inclusive like that. This differs from the Objective List form of Utilitarianism, in the sense that we the outsider do not arbitarily choose some set of things to be important for someone else. The moral patients themselves, decide what matters.

In many ways, this idea is encapsulated well by the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” It’s a rule that exists not only in Christianity, but a myriad of religions and philosophies. It’s something that many wise people have converged on. It’s self-justifying, in the sense that, the world would be better for everyone if everyone followed it.

So, in some sense I’ve come full circle back to my upbringing, albeit with a tad more sophistication. If I look closely, Eudaimonic Utilitarianism as I originally proposed, is actually closer to Preference Utilitarianism than Hedonistic Utilitarianism. What matters to me is hopes and dreams being fulfilled, more than mere pleasures and pains experienced, though those still matter too.

This helps to counter the thought experiments like Nozick’s Experience Machine, or the Utilitronium Shockwave. Giving the perfect drug Soma to people against their will is wrong, even if they might be blissful. Tiling the universe with happybots, ignoring the wishes of everyone else, is also not right.

There’s the thought experiment of the mathematician who either dies believing they have achieved their life’s work in some grand theorem, but not actually, or dies believing they have failed, but actually succeeded. It seems to me, even disregarding the value of the theorem to society, that it is better that it is truly found, even if the discoverer never knows.

In my earlier writing on Eudaimonic Utilitarianism, I used the surprise birthday party example to argue it was different from Preference Utilitarianism, but in truth, it wasn’t a good example. While they may have a preference not to be lied to, they also have a preference to not have such surprises ruined, to learn that they have wonderful friends in a moment of joy and celebration. It is what they would want if they truly knew all the relevant details of the situation.

I might still use the formulation of “to maximize the happiness of everyone”, but with the understanding that happiness is partially a proxy. It is the emotional goal state we experience when the state of the universe matches our wants and desires.

Morality then, is a matter of finding the compromise where everyone’s hopes and dreams are reached as much as reasonably possible, a fair distribution of happiness and joy, of projects achieved, of wondrous worlds attained. From the perspective of an impartial observer of the universe, everyone’s hopes and dreams count the same.

This is my current theory of ethics. It is, perhaps, still not complete. I don’t pretend to know that it is The One True Morality(TM). It’s just a working theory I have about it. Perhaps things will evolve again in the future. But this is where I am now.

The Silly Adventures Of Toddler-Kitten

by Josephius

On January 23, 2026

In Life

My wife and I really like cats. It’s to the point that she has several nicknames for me that riff on that. So, almost since he was born, my silly nickname for the baby (now toddler) has been <firstname>-kitten. He recently learned how to actually say his nickname, which is kinda adorable. I thought I’d change things up a bit and offer some more silliness from the land of Toddler-kitten. I’m choosing to conceal his actual first name and will use “Toddler” as a placeholder.

Anyways, Toddler-kitten is very silly. He learned a while back to say “light on!” and “light off!” when wanting me to turn the lights on and off. Recently, he’s started saying “piano is on”, when someone is playing the piano, and when he wants me to play the piano, he will go up to the piano and say “piano on!”

He used to also go “yay!” and clap when someone finished a song, but nowadays he just matter-of-factly states “piano off”.

Aside from that, he’s still quite obsessed with turning the lights and fans everywhere in the house on and off over and over again while I hold him up to the switches. It’s quite a workout for me.

Toddler-kitten is very picky about food. Although the daycare somehow feeds him other things, at home we can literally only get him to eat cheese bread, apple slices, and avocado. Oh also, pizza crust. For some reason, he only likes the crust.

I have a very hard time saying no to Toddler-kitten. Luckily, for the most part his personality is relatively happy and friendly and once at daycare when there was a little girl crying nearby, Toddler-kitten went up to her and and went “happy!” to try to cheer her up. He learned the word “happy” pretty early, possibly in part because we have a board book, Happiness With Aristotle.

Toddler-kitten can fuss though. He used to be worse, where if he didn’t get exactly what he wanted he’d cry for like half an hour. These days it seems easier to reason with him, though he still gets upset at times, and says “mad!” I’ll usually then ask, “Is Toddler-kitten mad?” and he’ll go “no!”, but it’s pretty obvious he’s mad.

Before I became a dad, I worried about whether I’d be able to handle changing diapers. Turns out you get used to it quickly and it becomes quite routine. I think I’ve probably changed thousands at this point…

Toddler-kitten grew out of using a pacifier very early. He learned to suck his thumb, but because back then he always wore a cloth bib, he learned to only suck his thumb when there was a loose cloth-like thing nearby he could also hold at the same time, so when we stopped having him wear the bib, he stopped sucking his thumb except for when we put him in the sleepsack, which he used like his bib as a thing he just kinda holds next to his thumb as he sucks it. It’s how he soothes himself to sleep every nap and night.

Speaking of it, Toddler-kitten has, since as early as four months, slept like an angel reliably through the night, or at least, when he wakes up, he quietly soothes himself back to sleep. It’s a blessing.

He also learned to meow. I and my wife have developed a way to convey a surprising amount of information through the intonation of a meow. Naturally, he figured it out too, sorta. One day, out of the blue, he went “mi mi meow!” and I was like… “mi mi meow?” and he was like “yes!” This exact exchange has happened a few times now. He also will say “meow meow meow”, which is something I occasionally say, except unlike me, he sometimes shouts it at the top of his lungs “meow Meow MEOW!!!” I do not know how he learned to be so loud. He can be absurdly loud sometimes. “Toddler-kitten! You are very loud!”

Another random story, we used to soothe him by telling him stories. I generally would start the story with “Once upon a time there was a cat, and this cat was named Toddler-kitten, and Toddler-kitten was wondering the universe in search of friends.” Then I would have the cat go on an adventure, usually meeting Mr. Owl on a planet full of trees and learning the secrets of the universe from him. Occasionally, they would go into space on a rocket ship and enter a black hole or meet The Cosmic Orange Cat, who was very big and bright. Sometimes, to keep the story going, they would get stuck in a time loop, or a situation where within the story, a character was telling another story that also happened to start with “Once upon a time there was a cat…”

Anyways, I just thought I’d share for some reason.

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavour

by Josephius

On January 22, 2026

In Life, Projects

Years ago, I remember sitting in a professor’s office. There were stacks and stacks of textbooks, shelves of more textbooks lining the walls. I felt like he had more books than a library.

In those days, I was a master’s student in the course option, looking to try to switch to the thesis option so I could do real research into the thing I thought was really cool, which was neural networks. In those days, AI was still a niche field of science, and connectionism (later called deep learning), the subset that neural nets fell under, was full of eccentric personalities committed to the beautifully foolish endeavour of trying to take our limited understanding of the algorithm of the brain and turn it into something grand and wonderful.

I somehow, back in those days, convinced the professor to take me on as a student, even though neural nets were just the last line on his list of other, at the time, more respectable research interests.

AI back then was very different from what it is now. I feel a sense of incredible sadness at what things have become, possibly also some rage. What was a profoundly interesting scientific endeavour has turned into this giant buzzword and megalithic all-devouring capitalism machine.

I was there before all the hype. Trying to do cool things before it was cool. Back when it was science! And clever engineering, and a bunch of math I didn’t really understand at the time. I remember when the Machine Learning Reddit was a place for random enthusiasts to discuss silly side projects, when papers came out every few weeks, rather than several every hour like now.

AI used to be, used to mean, something else. At least, to me it did. Maybe you could argue the goal was always this. But I think, people like Turing, like Simon, like Minsky, they’d be appalled at what people call AI now.

I mostly didn’t stay in contact with my supervisor after I graduated. He is a kind man who gave me a lot of leeway to finish my thesis despite many delays. I still have the copy of the Machine Learning textbook he gave me as a gift when I successfully defended the thesis, to replace the one I’d borrowed from him and returned earlier.

I kinda miss the days when things were heady and full of promise and potential. The world seems like it’s gone insane. I miss when I was just part of a beautifully foolish endeavour (yes, I know that’s also the title of Hank Green’s apparently fabulous book). I just…

Confessing To Murder

by Josephius

On January 21, 2026

In Life, Philosophy

I have a confession to make. I own a grand piano that originally cost enough to, according to GiveWell, save three lives by instead donating that money to the Against Malaria Foundation. In a sense, I was responsible for the deaths of three people in that way.

It wasn’t even something that I could argue was necessary, like a car to drive to work with. A grand piano is pure unnecessary luxury. And one that depreciates in value, so selling it and donating now wouldn’t save all those lives.

It’s kinda like a Trolley Problem, except on one track it’s three human beings I’ll never meet, and on the other side it’s an old out of tune grand piano that I rarely even play and that mostly gets played by my wife.

Anyways, from the perspective of the saints and angels and probably Peter Singer, I’m actually pretty evil. But then, by that judgment, the overwhelming, vast majority of human beings are no better.

And who am I to judge? Utilitarianism is super demanding like this. It also leads to bizarre conclusions like the Hedonium Shockwave where the greatest good thing to do is to convert all matter in the universe into happybots or pulsating pleasure blobs as quickly as possible, tiling the universe with them, ignoring the concerns of everyone else.

Taking things to their logical conclusion can, intuitively, feel wrong. It’s very easy to focus on particular axioms and prove from first principles that something absolute is true. But… reality is more complicated than that?

From a certain perspective, I am well and truly evil. I am a murderer of innocent lives by virtue of not saving them when I very easily could. But that logic condemns nearly everyone. What use is there in that? Do people stop deserving happiness because they are so far from perfection?

Judgments like this are, in a way, cruel and cold moral calculus, lacking in compassion towards those who, like us, are inherently flawed creatures.

So, what do I do about the piano? I could still sell it and maybe save a life. I could try to play it more, make the most of it. Does it even matter that much? Powerful people toy with the lives of others quite casually these days. My sin seems orders of magnitude less evil. But, in a way, it is still an evil, and I am definitely no saint.

Everyone Is Secretly Awesome

by Josephius

On January 20, 2026

In Fandom, Life

Recently, my wife suggested a new anime to watch: Fate/Strange Fake.

We watched the episodes so far, and the first thing that comes to mind is another anime I adored called Durarara. That should be no surprise, as Fate/Strange Fake’s original light novels are written by none other than Ryogo Narita, who also wrote the original Durarara light novels.

If you liked Durarara, I think you’ll like Fate/Strange Fake.

It’s hilarious, and over the top, and I like it a lot so far. Maybe some of the bloodier scenes are a bit much for me, but the overall impression I have is good. I also like that there’s at least one paladin-like character to cheer for (and for my wife to swoon for).

There are still wonderful things in the world. Silly, wonderful, ridiculous, things, experiences, stuff.

Life spins on, like the ceiling fan my toddler is obsessed with and won’t stop turning on and off while I hold him to the light switch.

Understanding Limitations

by Josephius

On January 16, 2026

In Life, Motivational

When we’re young, we often strive to Achieve Great Things(TM). It’s easy to dream when we have our whole life ahead of us, a vast ocean of possibility and potential.

As we get older, reality starts to set in. The things we planned to have done, are still left unfinished. It becomes more and more apparent that our legacy may not be as great as we had once hoped.

There’s a character in a John Green novel who passes through the world without really any expectations. She chooses not to engage, and just enjoys the tragic beauty of existence. There’s something to be said for that. We don’t have to Achieve Great Things(TM). There is no pass or fail mark at the end of life, except our own evaluation of ourselves, perhaps the evaluations that others have of us, memories that will fade with time.

What we do in this life says a lot about our character. Many of us aren’t given the kinds of opportunities to Achieve Great Things(TM) that a few lucky people get. Given this reality, what we do with what we have, how we try to live our values, whatever they are, is how we can judge ourselves.

When we look in the mirror, who do we see? Who are we to those who love us? To those we love? Perhaps we’ll never truly know.

The world is a mass of atoms, a mess of ideas, and a myriad of people living as best as they can. There is value in this world, but it is up to us to decide where that lies.

Nothing we do matters to the end of the universe. But everything we do matters to someone somewhere for a fleeting moment in their life. All the big journeys are a series of ever so small steps. As long as we try to go in the right direction, we can hope that we’ll find a way home.

In the end, we won’t live forever. No amount of Singularities will make us immortal, because entropy cannot be reversed. Our demise is inevitable. Which makes life inherently seem tragic. But in truth, we don’t need to live forever. The longer we go, the less each moment seems to count in the sea of moments we have. It is better then, to live moments that matter.

The human condition is just this. We can’t escape it. We can defy it with all our might, but as frail human beings, the universe is an uncaring wall of stone against which we cannot pass. But we can write on the wall, and leave our mark.

Ultimately, life is what we make of it. Whether or not we were created for some purpose or not, we exist with dreams formed by our experiences. Dreams that may never be made real, are nonetheless real within us, true as anything, like an equation written in stone. Or perhaps in sand that blows away.

But for a moment, we are real. But for a moment, the universe is something we experience, even if most of it is unfathomable madness. To live is to embrace something beyond ourselves, and to see the beauty in the madness.

Worlds exist within each soul. Constructs of our imagination. Strands of hope and threads of fear, and every string of attachment and folly. All is weaved into the life we live, a thing that brings us both joy and sorrow, at different moments, different waking breaths.

Is there justice, ultimately? We cannot know this. The gods alone know what is truly right. We can seek and strive to fulfill a destiny, or demand our cause is righteous. But in the end, we know only that we were someone somewhere, seeking goodness, seeking to do what was right, failing and falling, but then, getting up again, dusting off our feet, and standing at the edge of eternity.

Our world isn’t real. Not in the sense that we can know what is outside our senses. But our world is real to us. Our world is an innate truth inside our souls. Nothing can take away the happiness and sadness we experience. They are etched into time, though they may yet be forgotten.

So, what are we to do? Take a deep breath. Imagine the world we want to be. Live a life with a mission worth fighting for. Or accept the world as it is. Or both. We can strive and hope, and still recognize the beauty of a world gone mad.

Let us dream of worlds unseen, and search for paths to the future, aware that our life is but a faint light flickering in a world of shadows.

The world continues to turn. We will be what we are and were.

The State Of Joseph 2026 – Random Mundane Stuff

by Josephius

On January 5, 2026

In Fandom, Life, Projects

It’s the new year, and I’m sick. My parents-in-law have been visiting and either they or the toddler coming home from daycare brought a pretty bad strain of something. First the father-in-law had a cough and a fever. Then the toddler got a fever and was lethargic for days.

Then my wife got sick with the fever. Then, I got the fever and also the worst sore throat I’ve ever experienced. I couldn’t fall asleep because swallowing saliva felt like knives.

Thankfully that seems past now, although I still have an annoying cough.

A thing I’ve been experimenting with recently is to ask three different chatbots the same questions, treating them almost like a council of advisors. Right now the “council” consists of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, all free tier. My wife likes DeepSeek, but three is already a lot to copy and paste to for every question.

Anyway, my experiences so far are that they are generally yes men who generally agree with and come up with justifications for just about any idea I have, with some obvious exceptions when the idea is just blatantly foolish.

Interestingly, while ChatGPT and Gemini tend to offer very similar advice, Claude sometimes breaks ranks and offers more skeptical, critical advice. That I actually found pretty interesting.

Also, Gemini sometimes comes up with unique ideas or solutions that the other two don’t mention, such as using the Sunshine and Moonlight streaming software to solve the issue of wanting to play PC games on the 4k projector in the basement by streaming them from my office machine.

I had originally been trying to figure out how to fix an old PC I have with an ancient i7-3770 CPU and a 2080 Ti GPU, and whether it made more sense to buy a new PC and put the 2080 Ti in it.

The chatbots, particularly Claude, were actually very useful for helping me troubleshoot these computer problems, letting me fix an Nvidia driver issue in Ubuntu that was preventing me from starting up the computer.

My main reasons for tinkering with PCs again was that I had gotten my wife Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for Christmas, and was thinking she’d prefer playing it on the couch with the 4k projector rather than in my office on my main computer.

I also had aspirations to introduce her to D&D by way of Baldur’s Gate 3 split screen co-op, which also would be nice on the projector.

Also, if I could salvage the 2080 Ti, I’d be able to use it for ML experiments as well.

I spent a lot of time looking at store stock on the local computer store website and trying to discuss with my council what options made the most sense. Alas, I picked an awful time to look at PCs as RAM prices have skyrocketed due to AI demand.

I was too sick to go to the store, so I watched as the ones I was considering got sold out. In the end I decided this wasn’t worth throwing like $1000-$2000 CAD at given my use cases were so limited, and my wife seemed okay with just playing in my office.

Nevertheless, I wasted a ton of time researching options and being told the relative merits of each by my ever agreeable chatbot council.

The old PC still has some issues where I have to literally open up the case and unplug and plug back in some power connectors every time I wanted to boot it up. The power supply is over a decade old, and I’m not sure if the GPU itself is actually not damaged too. It might be a lost cause at this point.

My wife actually got me the Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander decks for Christmas. We’d played with the Bloomburrow starter preconstructed decks earlier when I first introduced her to the game. She liked how cute the Bloomburrow setting is. Imagine rabbit knights and otter wizards doing battle. It’s probably the cutest Magic set since maybe Lorwyn, possibly cuter.

Alas, it’s really hard to find time to play with my wife. Her job is plenty stressful and she works A LOT. More reason why the gaming on the projector idea needs to be as convenient as possible.

We used to play Stardew Valley on the projector via the Switch. But that was 1080p. Apparently, 4k is much nicer even with a game like that. Though, I can just hook up my laptop to the projector if I want something like that.

And streaming from my office computer to the projector through my laptop for a game like Expedition 33 does actually work and looks and sounds glorious. It’s just a hassle to set up and potentially laggy.

And, again, my wife barely has time to play anyway…

I’m really not sure where I’m going with this ramble. I’m still sick, so I’m typing this on my phone in bed instead of at my computer in my office and man, this is a slow way to write.

It seems like I’m very easily distracted with random rabbit holes or nerdsniped by whatever thing happens to capture my attention. Obsession and flow state. Strange.

Anyways, all this is to say not much is actually happening in my life right now.

I finally got winter tires after much prodding from my wife. I had driven over two decades on all-seasons, but now that I have a kid that I have to take to daycare through snowstorms, I shouldn’t risk it anymore. So far the difference has been noticeable.

I regret procrastinating on getting the flu shot. I haven’t been this sick in a long time…

At least we can look forward to the next season of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End this year. My wife suggested we watch the first season when it was still airing. As a former otaku, it impressed a lot. A strong recommend if you are at all into anime and/or high fantasy.

In other news, the toddler is adorable and learning words fast. He also is very silly. He invented the “no no song”, which is basically going “no no no no” to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

He also likes to go turn light switches and fans on and off over and over, as well as go up and down the stairs, again, over and over, either climbing or by getting me or whoever to carry him. We have a basement and three floors, so this gets arduous.

He also likes me to read certain books over and over. We joke the characters are trapped in a time loop. Graham turns two… again!

He also sometimes says his own name a lot, which kinda reminded my wife of a Pokemon.

I’m still on the bed right now, listening to the joyful shouts of the toddler and the laughter of the grandparents from the third floor.

Anyways, time to put the toddler to bed. Life goes on.

Challenges

by Josephius

On October 8, 2025

In Life

August wasn’t a great month. I developed a problematic medical condition. Then, the toddler got sick and needed to stay home for a while. Then, at the end of a vacation, the car broke down and forced a long tow.

September was a relative reprieve. Things were normal, except my mindset wasn’t great. I wasted a lot of time and didn’t get things done that weren’t immediately urgent.

October so far saw a recurrence of the medical condition.

At times like this, I don’t think about the absurd stuff I sometimes post here about. More mundane matters invade my life and I forget for a while my other concerns. The thoughts come and go. Life interrupts.

I’m getting older now. I need to pay more attention to my health, something I’ve often neglected in the past in favour of the pursuit of silly things.

I’ve sacrificed a lot for my family. So has my wife. I didn’t realize before how just how difficult it can be to have a child, the sheer responsibilities that pile up, the work that needs to be done, with no break. It’s the consequences of the choice we made, so I shouldn’t regret it. The toddler remains incredibly cute.

I wish I could be better than this. I wish I could rise to the occasion and be a good father and husband and son. But I feel like I’m just treading water. I’m doing okay, but not great.

My career is, if not dead, at least on pause while things get sorted out a bit. The toddler will probably get sick a lot during the winter, so the plan is to take it easy on the job search front. For all intents and purposes, I’m a househusband right now.

In this modern age of equality, I shouldn’t feel unhappy at being a househusband. But in some sense, I feel like I’m wasting what potential I had. That these past three years have had a tremendous opportunity cost to the career I could, in theory, have had.

Though, realistically, the grass is always greener on the other side. I don’t know the counterfactual. It could easily have been that I briefly got something, and then would get laid off anyway in the mass of tech layoffs recently, or something like that.

Family should come before career. At least, that’s my choice.

I made my choices. I have to accept the consequences. No looking back. I need to focus on the present and future. Enjoy the moment. Prepare for what’s next.

At least these physical health things distract somewhat from the mental health stuff. Sorta. Not really. I still need work on that side too. It’s a long running thing. Some months are better than others.

Where am I going with this? I guess I’m just venting again. This blog is so obscure that I doubt anyone at all reads it. The only comments I seem to get are all spam.

(Sidenote: I finally got around to activating the spam filter, so now I don’t have a million spam comments up for review. I did see a comment that could be not spam, but I’m not sure.)

The struggles of an average Joe. I suppose that’s me.

I’m not sure what the point of this all is. Is life a test? Is it just a bunch of stuff that happens? I tried going to church again recently. I don’t feel like it did much.

I feel like, if the powers that be are real, they’re distant. The coincidences seem to have subsided. I’m left with mundane problems and mundane concerns. Of course, that’s always been the case. I just hoped for something foolish, as always.

Words can hurt people, including, especially, people close to you. I sometimes forget this. I sometimes make incredibly dumb mistakes still. My judgment remains mediocre. I sometimes forget to be kind.

In my heart, I wish for many things. Reality though, mostly doesn’t care. There are more important things than what some random individual on Earth, in a sea of billions, wants for themselves.

At my last birthday dinner, I wished for world peace. How cliche right?

The world continues to turn. Life goes on until it doesn’t. Enjoy the ride while you can. Things have a way of surprising you, both in good and bad. So, sometimes, it is enough to just survive.

Residual Feelings

by Josephius

On October 1, 2025

In Life, Limerence

I had a dream right before I woke up this morning. In it, an old friend and long lost crush appeared and reconciled with me, apparently because someone else had pretended to be me and contacted her via some email or message that somehow made things better.

It was a weird dream, and I’m not sure it makes any sense, but I felt like it reminded me of her again. She’s a girl from my past. I wrote some vague blog entries a while back about her. We never actually dated. It was unrequited love nonsense of the stupidest kind.

I did a lot of stupid things and managed to alienate her from me. It’s a long story, and probably not worth getting into here. Suffice to say, I still think about her, still wish her well, still wonder how she’s doing. I regret a lot of things, but I also hope that, somehow, the experience helped her grow and succeed in life in other ways.

Emotions are foolish, I guess. At times the thing I want more than anything else in the world is just to reconcile, to even be able to speak to her again. As old friends whose paths diverged long ago.

But, I don’t deserve that. I know I don’t. And I’m afraid if I tried to reach out again, she’d just block me.

What do I want? Why do I feel? What’s the point of all this?

I sometimes think, if I had more agency, I would just contact her in a more straightforward, honest manner, and work things out like an adult. Most likely she’d just ignore me, or say some angry things, but at least we’d be going somewhere.

I tried in therapy a while back to get some help with moving on. My therapist actually suggested I write a letter, but not send it, and then write what I think her response would be. I balked at that. I didn’t want to put words in her mouth.

They say that things that happen in your 20s leave a stronger impression…

It doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, but it matters to each of us. So, I continue to wait for something that will never happen. I continue to dream about something I don’t deserve.

The reality is that I made mistakes and lost a good friend. The consequences of life actions need to matter. As John Green put it, “the world is not a wish-granting factory”. So, the right thing to do, sometimes, is nothing at all.

A Question Of Career

by Josephius

On September 15, 2025

In Life, Motivational, Projects

Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do next.

In July, I ended my contract with Twin Earth. It was mostly a formality, as I hadn’t done any billable work in over a year, having spent most of my time taking care of my new child while my wife worked full-time.

That child is finally in daycare, so, in theory, I have time again to pursue my career. But the reality is that the first year of daycare often comes with repeated sickness and instability. So, I’m not sure how aggressively I should pursue work again.

Given that, I also am not sure what direction to take now. My ideal career at this point would probably be either AI Safety research engineering work, or something creative, like indie game design or writing novels.

AI Safety is a small field. Compared to the AI industry proper, there’s something like just less than a thousand people working on AI Safety. And the funding is relatively sparse compared to industry. It exists, but it mostly goes to very smart people who are willing to move to the Bay Area or London. I’m not sure I’m even competent enough to work in the field.

Creative work under my own brand could be fun, but success would be kind of like winning the lottery. Most likely I’d end up spending a lot of time and not making any money. The games or novels I might make -could- maybe be useful for spreading important ideas into our culture. There is the slight chance I could do something meaningful. Even just writing a novel for my child to one day read, like what Tolkien did with The Hobbit, could be worthwhile in a small way.

But there’s opportunity cost. AI Safety -could- be more important to move the dial on. And there’s also the idea of working in the AI industry, or game development, or even just some generic programming job. Any of these would actually pay, and in the case of AI, probably much better.

I do have a family now to feed and ensure they have a good life. A normal person would take that as a good reason to go back into AI, or find some mundane programming job that can pay the bills and make things work.

Of course, as a former dreamer, I want to do something grand and meaningful and big. So, AI Safety and indie creative work have an appeal to me. The latter is probably not prudent, but would be a way to keep my hands clean of the AI mess that is now being created. The former is a way to fix the mess, or at least prevent its worse excesses, but risks encouraging the whole industry, safety-washing as it’s called.

My education, my credentials, the greater part of my work experience, tends to lean towards the technical, the AI work, and to a lesser extent game dev stuff. Writing is something I know I have some talent for, but I’m uncertain if that talent is actually enough to be exceptional, to actually be that much better that my writing would be worth reading over the other options.

There is a massive pile of literature in the world already. Most people will never live long enough to read all the classics, much less all the books they’d be personally interested in. Why add to the pile?

On the other hand, do I think I can actually make a difference on AI Safety? Much smarter people are struggling to figure out how to attack the problem. It may not even be a solvable thing. It could be intractable.

There’s an argument among Effective Altruism circles that the best thing most people can do is to Earn-To-Give. To find the highest paying job they can find, and donate as much as they comfortably can to the most effective charities. On paper, the numbers work out that this is the best thing you can do with your time and energy, unless you are an exceptionally good fit for direct work on the causes that matter.

That would suggest I should go back into AI, and just donate what I can.

But AI is increasingly a field that contributes to a lot of cultural pollution, technological misuse, unethical profit-seeking, etc. To what extent would I be condoning such things by choosing to participate in it?

Realistically, this is a problem for the long term. Right now, with my child in daycare, and potentially seeing interruptions in that, it may make sense to be patient and do something less demanding for now. Perhaps, in the interim, it does make sense to explore creative work on the side, to test whether or not I can write well enough to justify a project of some kind.

I tried testing my game design ability earlier when there was some time when my wife’s parents were here. I was able to finally finish programming the game Star Lance, and create another game called Cities and Tactics. That showed I have some aptitude, though nothing particularly special, I think. I should try writing some short stories, and see if they’re any good…

There are lots of things I should do. I still suck at doing things. I think. I ponder. I have intellectual wanderings and musings. But actually doing things? I hesitate. I question. I doubt. I’m not good at being productive. It makes me think I may not be cut out for any of these things I’ve been considering.

In another life, I would have been something like a political philosopher. That probably could have been my calling if I’d been more foolish. Though realistically, I’d probably have ended up starving instead.

My wife thinks maybe I should go to teacher’s college and become a teacher. She thinks I have the empathy for it. I’m not sure about that. If I want to teach, I’m probably more inclined to write a book about the thing I want people to learn. Dealing with actual people is not my forte. At the same time, teaching seems like a very noble profession.

Maybe I should consider what will likely disappear due to AI first? My two skills in life, programming and writing, both seem to be things that LLMs are uniquely suited for. An unfortunate coincidence, that.

I don’t really know what to do with this. My career was going… somewhere? But now it’s on pause and I’m not sure I can go back. I feel kinda useless in that regard, washed up.

The pivot into game development might have been a mistake, but then, I didn’t exactly have any other opportunities at that moment. I took what was there. I’ve never been in a position to choose between multiple job offers at the same time. I’ve never been that successful, that privileged.

I find I end up just going with the flow. My life is mostly stuff that happened, and I did what seemed to make sense at the time. I never really planned far ahead, aside from maybe choosing to study AI before it was cool. That was a lucky choice, it seems. Though I don’t know the counterfactual, so maybe it wasn’t, who knows?

Anyways, the reality is I’ll probably end up choosing what ever opportunity first presents itself. Right now there’s not much going on. I should maybe be more strategic, but I suck at that too.

Where am I going with this? There’s possibilities, but they are very uncertain. There’s things I can do, but I don’t know if I should. There’s paths to take, but I hesitate. I want a sign. I want some clear instructions from God that this is what I should do with my life. But it seems like I’m not getting a sign, or at least, I’m too dumb to recognize it.

These days my mindset is darker than usual, more melancholic. I’m tired.

I wish I could end on a high note. I want to believe in something. I admit that life isn’t that bad. I should show more gratitude. I know the CBT, I know in theory that things are okay. I just feel a certain way. I guess it can’t be helped.

In case someone is actually reading this, I have these ups and downs. Usually, in the past, I posted during the ups. Recently, I’ve tried posting during the downs, to perhaps balance things, to show a more real presentation of myself, rather than the idealized image that you often see on social media. I’m not sure if I went too far, have said too much that is much too personal and bad for my prospects.

I hope that being so impulsively honest helps people to understand me better. But I should probably cut back on this kind of thing. It does nothing for my cause with recruiters, I think.

Words can come back to curse us. Or they can teach and help us to connect. It’s a matter of wisdom I suppose, which one happens in the end. I want to communicate, because I seem to care what other people think, because what they think leads to how they feel, and what they feel matters.

So, regardless, maybe I should write. There are stories in my head I want to write. I really should stop hesitating, fearing that they will prove my incompetence. The truth is likely that I’ll be decent but not exceptional, like with most of my hobbies.

I have to trust that something will open up. That there is a place for me in this world. Somewhere in the future, things will work out, somehow. I just have to patient and kind and myself.