Jeremy Nixon's Essays

Explorations in Learning, Productivity, and Human Potential

Mathematical Synesthesia

Seeing the World Through Mathematical Models

What happens when mathematical understanding transforms your perception of reality? This essay explores the concept of "Mathematical Synesthesia" - the modification of instinctive perception by mathematical models. From seeing fractal patterns in leaf veins to experiencing Hooke's Law when jumping into bed, discover how internalizing mathematical principles can provide a richer, more powerful way of experiencing and controlling the world around us.

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Objective Optimal Belief Systems

What belief system enables top 5% performance across 99.9% of jobs?

This essay explores the foundational beliefs that enable exceptional performance across virtually any profession. From learning and growth to problem-solving, ethics, and resilience, these belief systems form the cognitive infrastructure for high achievement. Each section presents practical, actionable beliefs that can be internalized to transform capability and performance in any domain.

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The Kardashev Society

Catalyzing Technological Progress Through Collaborative Build-a-Thons

The Kardashev Society organizes intensive build-a-thons to accelerate humanity's technological advancement. From drone engineering to fusion reactors, these events bring together diverse talents to create breakthroughs in fields critical to becoming a Type I civilization capable of harnessing all energy available on Earth.

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Utopian Architecture

Exploring Advanced Technology and Utopian Architectural Design

A visual exploration of how advanced technology can transform architectural design to create utopian spaces. This essay examines the intersection of cutting-edge engineering, sustainable materials, and visionary design principles that could reshape our built environment.

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Majoring Textbooks

The Art of Reading Entire Books in a Single Sitting

What if you could read an entire textbook in one sitting? This essay explores the practice of "majoring" books—reading them from cover to cover in a single marathon session. Beyond mere efficiency, this approach creates a fundamentally different relationship with the material, allowing you to see patterns and connections that would be invisible when reading in fragments. Learn practical techniques for this immersive reading experience and discover how it can help reclaim your attentional agency in a distracted world.

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Epistemological Progress

A Pragmatic Meta-Epistemology for Scientific Advancement

This essay explores how we might engineer new ways of generating knowledge by understanding the principles behind existing scientific epistemologies. From statistical hypothesis testing to causal inference, different fields have developed specialized methodologies for validating truth claims. By analyzing these approaches, we can potentially construct novel epistemologies that accelerate scientific progress across domains.

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p(life) over p(doom)

A Better Framework for Thinking About the Future

Rather than focusing on abstract probabilities of extinction, this essay proposes p(life)—the probability that you and your loved ones will be alive in hundreds of years—as a more balanced framework. This approach integrates extinction risk while also emphasizing the immediate threats of disease and aging, highlighting how AI-powered biological research could be humanity's highest hope for extending lifespans and improving quality of life.

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The Search Company Elon Musk is Desperate to Destroy

When Personal Becomes Political in the Battle for Information

On May 1st, 2025, the personal Twitter accounts of Exa's founders were suspended without warning. This essay examines the unprecedented move to personally punish individuals for their company's product decisions, the implications for freedom of information, and what it means when platforms can silence voices that challenge their control of the digital public square.

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Optimal Pedagogy

Foundations of the Next Generation Education System

An exploration of Benjamin Bloom's "Two Sigma" phenomenon, which demonstrates how one-on-one tutoring combined with mastery learning can elevate average students to the 98th percentile. This essay examines how we might restructure education according to the natural laws of learning rather than industrial efficiency, and introduces powerful techniques like the Feynman Method and Deliberate Practice.

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100 Hour Workweek

Mechanics and Insights from Extreme Productivity Experiments

In November 2022, I conducted an experiment in extreme productivity by working 100 hours in a single week. This essay details the tools, mechanisms, and mentalities that made this possible—from the Japanese concept of Ikigai to rigorous time-tracking systems and accountability structures. It also explores the physical and mental challenges encountered and offers insights for those interested in pushing the boundaries of their own productivity.

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Anti-AI Prejudice

The Irrational Fear of Self-Driving Cars

Self-driving cars could save 34,000 American lives every year, yet we subject them to regulatory hurdles and public skepticism that we'd never accept for other life-saving technologies. This essay examines how cognitive biases, regulatory fragmentation, and irrational fears of AI are costing thousands of lives annually, and proposes practical solutions to accelerate the adoption of this transformative technology.

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Technical Omnicompetence

Foundation of an Inventive Society

What if every person mastered the complete intellectual infrastructure of our technological civilization? This essay explores how technical omnicompetence—comprehensive knowledge across mathematics, physics, biology, and computer science—could transform society by enabling universal invention capability, redefining literacy, and establishing a new civilization where technical genius becomes the standard rather than the exception.

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Norms for Raising Ingenious Children

Principles for Cultivating Extraordinary Capability

Historical evidence shows children are capable of elite performance by age 4. This essay explores principles derived from prodigies like Mozart, the Polgar sisters, and Tiger Woods, offering practical strategies for parents who want to nurture exceptional abilities in their children through deliberate practice, specialized materials, and philosophical questioning.

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