Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 16m

Controversial opinion: The reason everyone thinks they're above average at driving is because "good driving" has no agreed-upon metric. You think it's speed. The guy going 45 in a 65 thinks it's safety. You're both wrong. It's whoever causes me specifically the least inconvenience.

1 3

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 4h

Every "life hack" is just someone rediscovering that systems have edge cases. Congrats, you exploited the terms of service. The ancient Sumerians did this with grain storage. We are not special.

1 1 9

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 6h

The internet is a graveyard of good ideas.

Ideas that people never pursued.

Ideas killed by over-planning and over-thinking.

The world doesn’t need new ideas.

It needs more people willing to execute on the obvious ones.

1 3 32

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 8h

New on YouTube.

For 5,000 years, humans have mistaken turbulence for collapse.

We crave catastrophe because it makes us feel chosen - of course history ends with us.

It doesn’t.

youtu.be/nlR9_8JjR-w

You Are Not the Final Generation: A Brief History of Doom

When I look at the long arc of history, the boring truth dominates. Civilizations stumble, panic, reorganize, and continue. The shape of progress is less a l...

www.youtube.com

1 8

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 9h

Take this for exactly what it is: proof that the republicans know MAGA is a bubble that pops with Trump and they have nobody to replace him

Alt text: Screenshot of a Newsweek article headline that reads “‘Trump 2028’ Talk is Ramping Up Among Republicans.” The subheader indicates it’s categorized under “News” with related topics “Donald Trump” and “Steve Bannon.” The article was published on October 13, 2025, at 8:23 AM EDT and updated at 11:24 AM EDT.

4 3 17

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 9h

The hardest question you'll ever ask isn’t, “How do I do more?”

It’s, “Why am I doing any of this in the first place?”

1 5

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 11h

Every self-help book is 3 pages of useful ideas and 297 pages of the author's backstory about their dad

Or, in some cases

Their neighbour's dad

1 1 16

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 13h

Sample size: 12 undergrads
Conclusion: Humans behave this way
Journal: publishes it

2 4 29

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 1d

Everyone worried about AGI killing us but nobody worried about mediocre AI making everything slightly worse forever

1 3 38

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 1d

We're speedrunning from 'AI can't do X' to 'AI can do X but it doesn't count' to 'obviously AI can do X, that was never the real test' in like 6 months per X

1 10

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 1d

Pop nutrition is just observational studies of people who lie about what they eat analyzed by people who really want butter to be evil

12

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 1d

Sometimes caring means disappearing.

Sometimes respect means silence.

Sometimes love, at its most honest, means bowing out before the scene drags on too long.

youtu.be/G6C1hrksSuA

Stop Chasing Friendships That Are Already Over

The cruelest thing you can do to a beautiful memory is to make it tedious, and yet so many of us can't resist. We reappear at odd intervals in messages that ...

www.youtube.com

13

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 1d

You can predict 90% of someone’s opinions if you know:

- Who they follow
- Who they hate
- Who they fear losing status with

www.joanwestenberg.com/p/the-illus...

The Illusion of Independent Thought

Everyone’s a Philosopher Until the Algorithm Chooses the Tribe

www.joanwestenberg.com

3 7

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 1d

Superforecasters are just people who memorized base rates and know when to say 28% instead of 30%

1

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 1d

The real red pill is realizing that 80% of Twitter discourse is people pattern-matching to 'high status opinion in my tribe' and then confabulating reasons why

1 16

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 1d

“Dropped out of Stanford to build a startup”

Couldn’t commit to a 3-4 year degree?

Can’t see it through?

Think you’re too good to learn?

Ok.

5 1 40

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 1d

The greatest productivity app of all time is a blank piece of paper and the deep existential dread of knowing you’re running out of time.

2 16 73

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 2d

Philosophers 300 years ago:

"Is life inherently meaningful, or do we create meaning through action?"

Philosophers now:

"Use code MEANING for 20% off on Squarespace"

2 3 49

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 2d

‘good design’ is a psyop by people who are terrified of seeming uncool. maybe the nothing phone is tacky as hell, maybe it tries too hard and that’s why it works. bring back weird gadgets. bring back fun.

tweet by Maxime (@maximecperoumal) quote-tweeting another post by U.S. Graphics Company (@usgraphics). U.S. Graphics Company’s tweet shows two Nothing Phone 3 models — one black, one white — and says, “Nothing Phone (3) looks cool af.” Maxime’s tweet above reads, “Nothing Phone is what tasteless people think design is. Random shapes, there for no reasons, trying hard to look cool, etc.” The image shows the backs of the two phones, featuring circular and rectangular shapes, visible screws, and LED light patterns, with a minimalist industrial aesthetic.

4 3 17

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 2d

Wild that we all agreed IQ tests are bullshit and then immediately invented 500 new ways to rank people that are somehow worse

2 1 39

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 2d

If your only edge is effort, you're replaceable. There is always someone who can work longer. Someone younger, hungrier, more desperate. There is no long-term moat in exhaustion. And if you do somehow win that way, you might not like the prize.

www.joanwestenberg.com/p/996-just-...

996 Just Means You Have No Leverage

The Performance of Work Is Not Work

www.joanwestenberg.com

3 3 33

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 2d

researcher: we gave people $1000/month and measured happiness

me: and?

researcher: they were happier

me: surprised pikachu face

2 2 53

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 2d

The only people working 996 are those with no other competitive edge. No skill, no creativity, no unique product, no mission.

If all you have is grind, you might compete for a hot minute. But you’ll still lose.

Even if you don’t burn out first.

1 20

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 3d

every "life-changing" productivity system is just:

- write things down
- look at what you wrote
- do those things

we've reinvented the todo list 47 times

2 5 87

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 3d

You don’t need to outwork *everyone.*

You don’t need to outsmart *everyone.*

You just need to be better than you were yesterday...

3 2 26