ADAL

I'm a 40-year-old male, and I live in Bergkvara, Sweden .

I speak English, some Spanish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish, Latin, German, and a tiny bit of French, Russian, Danish.

Current level: Enthusiast

• 3

• Something to tell the world!

  I'm not like anyone else you've ever met. I'm always striving to understand the world, at every level, and I enjoy talking about it. I love philosophy and science. People say I'm smart but I'm not sure I always agree. I do tend to be radically skeptical and simultaneously cynical and optimistic. I cook, I walk and I read textbooks for fun. I used to work in computer security and I was pretty good at it. These days, I work on myself. What do you do? What are you interested in? Maybe we have something in common.

  Right now I'm mostly looking for people to chat with.

• Cities and countries I have visited

  I've roadtripped from Vancouver to Tijuana before... Worked in Hiroshima, lived in California, Sweden, Portugal, Wales and Spain. Backpacked from Sweden to Italy through Denmark, Germany, Austria, Italy. Visited Prague, Paris and Porto. Noway, Denmark, Poland... I really loved Montreal where I spoke at conferences a few times.

• My interests in other cultures

  I'm pretty interested in Indo-European and Middle Eastern cultures including back to ancient times but I never stop learning about the rest of the world either. Geography is one of my biggest interests and the first things i usually ask people about is where they come from.

• A personal challenge

  The hardest thing I ever had to do was leave Portugal. I think a piece of me died that day.

• I'm an expert at...

  My knowledge is extremely broad but my specialty is programming and computer science in general, especially type theory and foundations of programming languages. My interests range from philosophy, mathematics and science to mining, gardening, languages and philology, programming, electronics, UNIX, Buddhism, history, politics, economics and especially geopolitics and geography. It's a long list, I get obsessed with random topics from time to time and deep dive into them until I get exhausted.

• Childhood pleasures

  Legos!!!!!!!!

• My proudest accomplishments

  I think moving to the other side of the planet and getting a great job without a formal education. I'm pretty proud of some of the software projects I've worked on and a lot of the things I've learned academically. I think i'm pretty proud of some of the DIY projects I've done and plants I've grown too...

• Favourite books/authors/films

  I'm going to skip this one for now... I watch a ton of movies and grew up reading Jack Kerouac and the existentialists. I read a lot of textbooks for fun actually.

• Living abroad for one year

  I think it'd be either back to Portugal or check out China.

• I always enjoy talking about...

  Anything really. I talk a lot about politics and dating right now but it changes from time to time. I'll probably blab about whatever I'm particularly i interested in at the time.

• Making the world a better place

  I think economic democracy is the next step. We need to help the poor and save the environment and distributing power is the way that I believe we can best do that. Oligarchy doesn't work.

• Personal skills

  I think my most interesting skill is my ability to learn obsessively. After that it'd probably be programming or some of the math or philosophy I know maybe.

• I recently learnt...

  I didn't know China had an island called Hainan which is about the same size as Taiwan.

• 10 years from now

  Oh who knows really...

• I'm excited about...

  I'm excited about my journey to understand the world better, also about this website right now... kind of interesting.

• Something uncommon about me

  I'm probably not like anyone else you've ever met. A lot of people say that but I think you'll quickly find that to be true and I'm not going to try to summarize that.

• It was better before

  Am I allowed to say nothing? I have no idea... Maybe they had more ability to focus.

• It is better now

  People seem to be a lot more skeptical of the rich.

• I wish people knew more about...

  I wish everyone knew more about epistemology. I think it and logic should be taught in grade schools. I think it'd solve a lot of the world's problems. We might want to consider teaching social skills more formally too.

• As a child, I wish...

  I wish I had started studying philosophy as a young kid and had people able to mentor me in that.

• A career without obstacles

  If I could be anything, I'd be a philosophy professor.

• My parents and me

  My mom isn't very skeptical or critical. My dad isn't living.

• My feeling about the future

  In the short term I think we're in for some very dark times and are borderline doomed but in the very long term I think things are going to work out really great.

• My opinion on human nature

  I think naturally good vs. selfish is a false dichotomy. I think being good is actually in our self-interest for the most part. I'd love to talk about this if you want.

• I feel concerned about...

  I'm pretty concerned about fascism gaining popularity again and the inability of our economic and political system to handle climate change.

• A trick or piece of advice

  "When we see our uniqueness as a virtue, only then are we at peace."

  "When you're ugly and someone loves you, you know they love you for who you are."

• Life regrets

  I regret not treating some people better. I regret not studying philosophy earlier.

• Improving the school system

  Epistemology all the way.

• Over or underrated

  I think capitalism is overrated. It's better than feudalism but not good enough.
  I think logic, semantics and epistemology are dangerously underrated.