(2022-01-12) Alexander Theres A Time For Everyone

Scott Alexander: There's A Time For Everyone. Last week I got married. I met her two years ago.

Then COVID-19 hit. We switched our dates to a Minecraft virtual world, where we built a house together. At the time, I completely missed the kabbalistic significance of this.

my recommendation for those of you in the same place I was ten years ago is: accrue micromarriages.

Micromarriages come from this post by Chris Olah. They’re a riff on micromorts, a one-in-a-million chance of dying

So by analogy, micromarriages are a one in a million chance of getting married

Chris thinks of micromarriages as a motivational tool. If you go to a party, and you don’t meet anyone interesting there, it’s tempting to get discouraged

Gather your micromarriages while ye may, for time is still a-flying. Do annoying things, expect them to fail, and increment a little counter in your head each time, to prevent yourself from going insane. Then do more annoying things.

Eliezer Yudkowsky sometimes describes this as ‘changing yourself into a more coherent person in order to become a better bargaining partner’, which I find strangely romantic.