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2012 Films

I’ve probably watched 50-100 of the movies that came out this year (hey, I’m on vacation), and these are the ones that I liked enough to watch multiple times (hey, I’m on vacation). Spoilers. (Re: the apparently conspicuous absence of The Dark Knight Rises, I simply don’t have any desire to see this movie again and prefer the earlier Dark Knights.)

The Bourne Legacy
Why did I like this so much? Maybe partially because I love Rachel Weisz and female scientists. Weisz won me over years ago as the sexy, dorky egyptologist in The Mummy. Her approval makes both Renner and Daniel Craig more attractive in my eyes, which is the ultimate compliment coming from me, a sign of a true girl crush. Despite some plot holes such as the lack of killing people with office supplies, this film still has a motorcycle chase scene and even ups the ante with gratuitous wolf wrestling. Apparently contrary to many viewers, I was also extremely sympathetic towards his mission and unconfused regarding the plot. Who wouldn’t fear losing one’s own mind and identity, effectively dying? Furthermore, unlike the other Bourne movies where Bourne battles random minions or incompetent bureaucrats evilly fixated on local concerns, this movie found a suitable antagonist in Ed Norton, an intelligent, lucid, moral person who makes smart, difficult decisions while understanding the higher level risks and costs.

Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina is unbelievably complex, beautiful, and insightful in book form (is there a modern writer anywhere near this level? Is Tolstoy evidence of the decline of literature?), and now in movie form (movies are still on the up since they’re tied to technological innovation and budget resources). I can’t believe this movie hit so many themes and included so many side stories with such a low budget and in such a concise running time. This could only have been accomplished by imaginative, talented people who really understand the themes of Russian literature. They even threw in Tolstoy’s meditations idealizing simple agrarian peasant life- how ambitious!

Stoppard is an amazing screenwriter. But my favorite parts come from, I assume, the director. The theater setup is brilliant and daring, showing the gap between “the real people,” i.e. the Russian elites, and the commoners who rummage about backstage in the dirty darkness, lacking the knowledge or resources to watch the show. In this aristocratic world, the players are also the audience, everyone obsessively watching themselves and each other, everything an exhibition. The only times they’re not on a stage are when the guys are out on the farm; even the closing scene zooms out to reveal a theater blooming with wildflowers.

Such incredible imagery- whose idea were the mirrors, still the director? I also loved the magical, artistic transition shots such as the toy train becoming a real train, the torn letter fragments fluttering into snow, also the tense horse racing visuals where Anna’s fit parallels the horse’s broken back. The musical diegetic switches could probably become metaphors for the whole film, everything was so thoroughly considered and deliberate, but I’ll spare you any meandering essays.

Even without having read the book, I think you get the idea on how complex life and relationships can be when you don’t exist in a vacuum. The double standard enforced by society causes Anna to both resent and rely on Vronsky despite him not having made the rules and generally being on her side. When “wrong” is defined as making a fuss by being in the way of what others want, offending what others view as acceptable, it’s enough to make a woman crazy!

The acting was rich and amazing, even for a relatively a minor/flat character like Vronsky. If you’ve only ever watched Kick Ass out of Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s oeuvre, you never would’ve cast the dorky Dave as the master seducer Vronsky who creepily breaks every rule in the book but is somehow so hot you throw away your whole life to be with him. But if you’ve watched anything else he’s done in addition to Kick Ass, you would cast Aaron Taylor-Johnson as anything. The way he uses his voice and face to morph between screechy, awkward, insecure teen and confident stud who fucks Blake Lively/ Keira Knightley, punches/shoots people, and starts a band is best described as enlightening- an instructive how-to on traveling between low status and high status.

This movie was highly anticipated by Yinmeng and me, mentioning it repeatedly in our Thanksgiving “planning.” On the costuming, dancing, photography, all the visual beauty: years from now I may identify this movie as the sole origin of my extensive and expensive tastes in heavy, exquisite jewelry, furs, crepe, velvet, lace, and casual wearing of veils. The music was also beautiful. I think everything about this movie is perfect: enchanting and creative. I’ll probably watch it a bunch more times in theaters.

Silver Linings Playbook
The script is great. I was amazed by how much information could be transferred through/despite inarticulate, verbally uninteresting dialogue. For example, very few of the lines are quotable or clever or surprising, and yet it was moving and believable and complex. This was not simply due to acting- it was the script, which somehow made inane, low information echolalia expressive and interesting.
Despite Winter’s Bone, I’d never gotten what everyone was saying about how good an actress Lawrence is, but now I see it and think she’s really cool. Bradley Cooper- I only knew him as a lovable jerk in various guy comedies, but he was surprisingly good in this movie (Limitless had a good concept but a bad plot). I thought it was going to be about football watching (what? How boring) and mental illness (bummer) but it’s actually about dancing (wow, awesome!) and was hilarious (DeNiro and Lawrence have a funny fight about the relationship between the Eagles and her relationship with Cooper) and romantic (Lawrence and Cooper, who would’ve thought?).

Les Miserables
I was waiting for Les Mis to come out for this post because that was the last movie I was planning on seeing this year and I rightly suspected that I’d love it. It was the first Les Mis movie wherein I actually understood what was happening or remembered any of the characters names. When you have genius performers and crew working off the compositions of genius composers and lyricists who were working off a genius writer’s 2000 pages of plotting and characters, you get 200 proof ultra-genius that just knocks you out.

Without having read the Hugo, I’d always found the characters painfully retarded. Why is Jean Valjean suicidally moral, appearing to deny his sense of self preservation despite his actually incredible powers of self preservation? His behavior not only offends my survival instinct, it offends my sense of duty towards living up to one’s potential, which is arguably more sinful than any lie or theft. Why is Eponine enabling her crush’s crush on someone else? Why does she have a crush on such a loser anyway? And then she kill herself for his sake? Not only does she stupidly die, she offends my doctrine of self esteem and my philosophy of women being the more sane ones (who falls in love with their male best friend? That’s supposed to be the dumb man’s job), thereby sinning and making me cringe. I coldly consoled myself with the thought that such a woman perhaps doesn’t deserve to reproduce or find love anyway.

While Jean Valjean and the Thenardiers are on opposite poles of the self preservation vs morality spectrum, Javert is off in another dimension living solely off his axiom that the law’s the law. Guided by this root belief, Javert is very principled and robotically amoral, a character type I’ve never encountered in life; maybe real people sense the futility of rules-based philosophies in the face of Godel’s incompleteness theorem. And then there are the young lovers who fall in love at first sight. Who does that?? Only French idiots who should be rightfully dead if it weren’t for Jean Valjean, that’s who!

This movie didn’t really change any of my above views, but it somehow made me not enraged or annoyed by any of their dumb decisions. It was nice. Borat is awesome, and Helena Bonham Carter is one of my favorite actresses. I also kept looking for more shots of Eponine because her waist and torso were freakishly narrow relative to her arm and head circumferences. Instead of annoyance and rage, I felt loving, tender compassion for our pathetic characters. Love for a random stranger or love for one’s oblivious best friend seemed sweet despite its irrationality- after all, irrationality is at the core of romance. And the fact that all these people give up their lives for love (both romantic and not) and other ideals, no matter how misplaced or wrong, is sweet and beautiful. Without changing the characters’ frustrating personalities or tragic circumstances, this was a feat accomplished only through great direction, cinematography, music, and pure onscreen charisma.

This movie also gave me the impression we’re never going to have a French Revolution because the standard of living is so much higher now than it used to be. Poor people would’ve died during childbirth or become orphans starving in the street instead of alive enough to grow up to to college and then become jobless. Despite how bad life was for people back then, especially compared to the cell phone carrying American 99%, they barely revolted. I don’t know much history though. Mainly I feel much more bad for the miserables of the past than for the miserables of today.

Runner up movies I wouldn’t terribly object to seeing again but haven’t/wouldn’t go out of my way to do:

Wreck-It Ralph
There were several hero archetypes bought up in this movie and an interesting undercurrent of accepting one’s identity and destined role in the social order. The eponymous Ralph is a reluctant hero who wants to have a simple life where he’s appreciated, finding nobility in executing the task for which he was designed. A hero in a more literal sense, the GI Jane character shoots aliens and repeatedly systematically saves the world. In addition maybe Vanellope is a heroine in that she doggedly and somewhat selfishly just wants to fulfill what she senses to be her destiny- Ayn Rand would probably approve. To me, the villain was the most interesting character who shows by far the most impressive vision, creativity, daring, ambition, and verve. With a will to power that surpasses most supermen, the villain hacks and controls a whole universe that isn’t even his native universe to achieve his dreams and transcend his programming. This upstart attitude goes against the grain of the rest of the story, wherein Ralph’s bad guy group recites a litany describing how they should accept their badness. Because Vanellope, the true heroine as designated by the game designer gods, finally returns to her throne, the story seems to disapprove of game characters straying from their programming and encourages everyone to find happiness and pride in their true natures. Although Vanellope has to realize her true nature is different from what she’s been told, the premise of video games prescribes an objectively true nature for everyone, which Nietzsche and the villain would disagree with, and which Ralph’s rise as a hero who defeats the villain also proves wrong. Surprisingly deep for a kid’s story, right? The animated movements were also cool.

21 Jump Street
Did Jonah Hill write this? If so, he is awesome. This was so funny and original despite following the tried and true movie script formula.

Prometheus
I haven’t watched any of the Alien movies and normally do not seek out spookiness. However alternative histories fascinate me, especially if they involve aliens, plus this movie had a really well designed and imaginative vision of futuristic and alien technologies. Despite generally disliking the disgusting, I was entertained by the surgery scene and all the exploding squids.

Magic Mike
None of the characters are very deep but the choreography and concept is a win. We should have more movies like this- it’s probably impossible to stop objectifying women so it’s only fair that we also objectify men, a clear case of two wrongs making a right. I’d always thought male objectification would be difficult because men are on average not very attractive or good at dancing relative to women, but this movie proves hot guys are out there, mainly in the South, and that they can dance.

Perks of Being a Wallflower
I read this book ages ago because Chomsky is from USC, which is really close to my high school. This movie is so affectionate towards Pittsburgh that I almost miss it. Despite my childhood being completely different from anything portrayed in this movie, it makes me nostalgic and loyal to my old stomping grounds.
Emma Watson does not do a good job at having a non-English Pittsburgh accent. That plus the short hair has left me disenchanted with the actress who was so cute as Hermione, one of my favorite characters, and so hot in Burberry, one of my favorite brands. But Logan Lerman saved the day! I was uncertain about Lerman’s ability to portray a psychologically unstable, insecure, friendless, unpopular genius because Lerman is abnormally cute and likable. But he’s actually talented and does a good job, so I feel slightly guilty for judging him based on his appearance. Maybe I’m also feeling guilty because I think he’s hot despite his character not even being 18 years old and a big theme of the movie being child molestation. Luckily I’m a woman and that’s one instance of a slightly beneficial double standard. I think it makes sense for women to be attracted to younger men (and for anyone to be attracted to younger women). Maybe one day I’ll be a 45 year old woman dating a 20 year old man- would that be so terrible? Except right now I’m 27 and he’s like 2 years old so it’d be weird if we met anytime in the next 15 years or so, which sadly was not avoidable for Lerman’s character in this movie. Although people used to anticipate sex with the underage all the time back when they were betrothed as infants, and it’s happening to Jacob in Breaking Dawn, which surprisingly no one seems that freaked out about, maybe because our “WTF” neurons are so desensitized and exhausted by everything else happening in those books.

Lawless
I would not normally watch this genre of movie but skimmed it on a plane. Probably due to my having skipped some sections, parts of the plot were confusing and I don’t really understand who was killing who or why. Nevertheless, the amazing acting makes me think I should watch it again without skipping some day. Honestly I never respected Shia Labeouf’s acting because, despite having had sex with Megan Fox, he’s in several very bad movies (admittedly I’ve seen almost every movie he’s in), and I always think of him as that annoying, supposedly funny kid from the Disney channel. He was really good in this movie though, as was that red haired woman, Mia, and Bane.

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The and My Future

“Why are you taking the 101? Can’t you see your iPhone 5 is lying to you? Its map was wrong in Santa Clara and it’s wrong here.”
“The 101 is the 280’s uglier sister. Clearly Steve jobs wanted us to take this route. Anyway now we can have a nice talk where you advise me on my finances.”
It’s funny how I’m the financial expert amongst my non-trading friends even though my opinions are almost certainly things no financial advisor would recommend to anyone.

When I first joined GETCO, I introduced myself to a new employee saying, “GETCO is my first job after MIT,” and the closest person I had to a boss interjected, “And your last.” At the time I sincerely believed and hoped that this would be true. In 2007, the company had 30 traders across 4 offices. Each trader did whatever they decided was optimal in a market that bloomed with opportunity: it was like the wild wild west- so much fertile terrain waiting to be conquered by a few explorers, populated only by some occasionally annoying but generally innocuous natives. I loved it. I never had someone telling me what to do, or really even anyone questioning what I was working on. I didn’t think about the future after GETCO because who would ever want to leave? The business was exploding, we were at the forefront of technology, and if you hesitated to size up your coworkers would make increasingly loud chicken sounds.

4.5 years later, after Singapore I went straight to my NYC desk to clean it out, then to Chicago to resign. I and everyone assumed I was going to stay in HFT because I’m a “world class expert in HFT,” plus headhunters were busy setting up lunches with billionaires with ambitions regarding their nonexistent/proto/growing/declining HFT operations. I was advised not to sign anything till the noncompete was up so I participated in some fantastic handshakes and told everyone I’d see them after my noncompete was over.

I’m not good at vacation so I viewed this year as a rumspringa world tour- I just got back from New Zealand and am writing this while jetlagged, thinking about how my paid vacation will be up in 2.5 weeks. This year I zoomed my head out of focus to see what everyone else is looking at. Let me tell you: Other People are looking at some pretty crazy stuff. I met Verner Vinge and Ray Kurzweil at the Singularity Summit. Compared to these impassioned singularity people, I feel like an ape for mentally shrugging when they bring up existential risk and AI. Nevertheless, my main impression is it’s cool these people are contemplating and perhaps helping decide a vision of mankind as a species. Most people never think about that kind of thing, as individuals or as a species. What is the destiny of mankind? Who even asks this question? Shouldn’t we wander blindly towards our fates like all other species? Aren’t we just dominant, blessed by god to be gods among animals? Anyway, the Singularity Summit led me to go to Rationality camp. This post was originally about Rationality Camp but I guess I’ll write about that some other time (sorry to leave you as irrational as ever, although I can tell you that I made $280+ from poker, won a prize despite not being the most rational (Dilip had the most points in the whole camp but somehow lost his prize to me. Yes! Plus I beat him at some kind of augmented reality game, which victories are documented photographically)).

This year has been upside down: I’ve been paid to not work, spent more time in CA than NYC, and I realized I’m old- I think I’ve aged relative to my non-finance peers. I’m 27 and I’ve started finding younger people annoying. Those fools have no idea how lucky they are. At my age, people are suddenly so hard to impress. If I were starting a company at age 17 people would say, “Awesome.” Now everyone’s like, “Whatever.” Too old to be effortlessly impressive, too young to shove offending kids off my subway seat, I’m at an age when I don’t really notice anyone else’s age unless they bring it up, whereas for years I was conscious of even a year’s difference. Looking back at my childhood, the hours reading in the grass, the biking with friends, my main impression is that an idyllic childhood is a colossal waste of time. Yes, even the priceless hours bonding with family had diminishing returns, and no one really needs to read the collected works of anybody- very few writers have anything to say after their first real book.

Sometimes I see flashes of myself 10 years in the future, so clear it’s almost a memory. This year I started seeing what future Nancy would be if I kept going down the trading path, and I didn’t feel excited. In fact I felt bored. Because it’s basically the same as always, except I’d need increasingly larger sums to get the same level of stimulation. For someone who lives so much in the future, I hadn’t really thought about what I’d think about the future after (if) it already happened. When I’m 40 will I see my 20’s and 30’s the way I currently see my childhood- objectively successful by most measures but privately viewed by myself as largely a waste of time?

I feel ennui regarding the kind of stuff people are supposed to do in their late 20’s, early 30s: the house and marriage stuff. My mom was in constant turmoil over the fact that she was too sick to see me “settled” in my NYC apartment. Prior to NYC, she had “settled” me into all apartments I’d ever lived in. Perhaps out of a desire to do what I thought she’d want me to do, I went out and bought my first furniture since she forced me to buy my mattress 5 years ago when I first moved to Chicago and needed a non dorm issued mattress. I ended up buying a $5000 coffee table made from a single solid cross section of a gigantic tree. Maybe I thought my mom would rest assured in my competence if I showed her this coffee table and other furnitures, that I was a grown up and finally handling this kind of stuff. I think I even bought a house plant of some kind, which never would have occurred to me to do in my youth. Mom just wanted me to be happy, which might not be what I want for myself. Now that I know what it’s like to have the perfect set of plates, I never want to own plates again. That stuff is all at my dad’s house now, completely out of place with his ornate, plasticky furniture.

I think I might’ve reassessed my trajectory sooner if it weren’t for the parents’ cancers. Cancer put me in a mental state of martial law where I was single-mindedly attacking obstacles without considering the problems of philosophy- who cares about higher ambitions when it’s life or death?

Now I feel like there’s more pressure. Maybe this is true for us as a species too- just as we’re most successful, there’s the most danger. Humans have accomplished a lot relative to other animals so the universe is ours to lose, plus we have to decide the extent of our future ambition. Similarly, as a kid the difference between working a little and a lot was the difference between an A- and an A+, whereas now there’s so much at stake- it’s now the difference between losing money and making money.

I’m acutely aware of being the writer of not only my writing but also of my own life. It’s exciting and scary and writer’s block-inducing to decide the next act. But from my life there’s just one thing I ask: don’t tell me how it ends.

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On Ambition, then Criticism of High School Nancy

Next year is my 10th high school reunion. Looking at people I went to high school with, I’m stupidly surprised by how normal they are. I guess I had never internalized what normal people are or where they come from. Consulting Facebook: the prettiest girl in school cut her hair short and married an unphotogenic fat man. The track star is fat and unemployed. This one kid I could’ve sworn would be a CEO has a baby and is obsessed with golf of all things. I guess we’re all still young and maybe people take another 10 years to really get going, but I’m still… disappointed. How is everyone so freaking comfortable? Was I the only one who watched Fight Club 100 times when skipping school?

A thought flashes through my mind: what a fool I am for trying so hard, for being discontent. I should have some babies, learn to cook. Everyone else is doing it and they’re happy. Why can’t I be normal, make my dad happy? Why do I want to rule the world when it’s so much easier to just do what you’re supposed to do? Marry a nice boy from a nice family, buy a house.

My personality has changed a lot in the past 10 years. These days I can’t understand why anyone without a family would be risk averse or unambitious. Literally nothing bad can happen to us, so why not shoot for the stars? Worst case, we go get mindless corporate jobs. Absolute WORST case, we go live with our parents like the Italian or Japanese youth.

Looking at my attitude now, you would’ve expected childhood me to have been hacking into FBI databases (well, maybe I did and was never caught!) and selling powdered milk to my obliging neighbors. But I wasn’t an entrepreneurial kid. I didn’t work that hard because everything was easy. I applied to stuff and got into selective programs of my own volition- my parents had no idea what the SATs were or anything about the USA school system and probably thought most kids were out helping on the farm during the summer- because I’ve always had the instinct to try to get into whatever the most exclusive program was. I probably got that from centuries of Chinese breeding, along with the lack of inclination to bend the rules or start something up.

I wish I’d taken more risks as a kid, especially since kids can’t go to jail or get sued. I think regret is part of why I feel so drawn to risk now. I don’t want to look back in 20 years and wish I’d taken more chances back when I didn’t have 3 kids. But I wonder, Would I be happier if I were less ambitious? Not to suggest I’m not happy. But I have so much work all the time. Normal people do not work that much towards something with such a high chance of failure. Why am I making things so hard for myself? Do I really think that one day I’ll achieve even a fraction of what I’ve dreamed? Ambition: virtue or folly?

I think I want to prove that I’m getting better. That this passage of time isn’t a waste of time. That at reunions I’m always a different and better person. High school Nancy was an idiot, especially senior year because that was a total waste of time. I’m glad I’m not her anymore.

High school and Pittsburgh are the same tangled knot of neurons. Senior year I was late > 30% of the time (you were late if you arrived before 4th period, anything after was absent) and missed 20% of my school days. I forged my notes and ignored a summons to a truancy hearing (nothing ever happened). At home no one spoke to me and I spoke to no one, taking my meals alone in my room. There were 4 chairs at the dinner table- not enough for me and I wasn’t about to go get one. My mail was dropped at my closed door. I wish I could say I occupied myself building an industry-transforming technology like Sean Parker, or even systematically devouring the collected works of Shakespeare, but I wasn’t. I was useless and watched movies on cable. School was wretchedly easy and I shamelessly did my homework during class, garnering the resentment of the nerds who actually tried and took everything seriously. I never talked to my mom, who had abandoned me to travel the world, telling me, “Now is my time,” to which I ungratefully replied, “Good, I don’t need you.” This was true to my feelings- I didn’t think I needed her. I was going to college soon, plus my dad bought a new house in which I occupied the entire wing of the first floor. When I left for MIT, my dad, stepmother, and stepbrother promptly moved in, shoving all my junk upstairs. Everyone was sick of me. First my mom had gotten sick of me, then everyone in Pittsburgh, and I was sick of Mt. Lebanon too- chicken and egg.

I hadn’t told my parents what colleges I was applying to. To my mom, I said, “I got into MIT but I’m probably going to Princeton because of my boyfriend.” He was my first boyfriend. Who isn’t completely fucked up by their first relationship? Who doesn’t fuck up their first relationship? Anyway, I told the same thing to the Princeton admissions people, including the part about always wanting to go to MIT, and didn’t get in. Funnily, my mother had moved to Princeton, “to be close to you, Nancy.” I’m not sure how accurate that is. She was tired of globe hopping and probably realized Princeton was the most homey, non-cosmopolitan place she could imagine.

At MIT, my high school friends kept messaging me but I forsook all things Pittsburgh. My dad, stepmother, stepbrother, and all my high school best friends were still in Pittsburgh; I was the one that had left. When I came back, we had all diverged. Now that there actually was drama, my best friends and I no longer knew the dramas of each other’s lives, we who had spent hours on the phone together, hours whispering in the darkness at sleepovers. It’s still a shock to realize they are now people who go to clubs and party and drink. I’ll always imagine us frozen in time, girls in shorts on the grass in our backyards wondering about the world.

When I go back to my dad’s house now, I devolve into my senior year self, eating in bed and reading Robin McKinley and getting crushes on stupid underage boys who I don’t even know. To get out of the house, I try to channel my pre-senior year self, who spent all her weekends at the library taking out 20 books at a time and sneaking the rest through the security system, ate at Lulu’s noodles in Oakland, sketched dinosaur bones at the Carnegie Museum, saw inscrutable movies at the Denis theatre, drank Izzys at Uptown Coffee in Mt. Lebanon, laughed so hard with her friends our abs would be sore, inhaled my friends’ parents’ ethnic cooking, went swing dancing downtown. All those happy times in Pittsburgh- I have to dig for them, whereas the sad stuff bubbles up unbidden.

Beyond my circle, I barely knew my classmates, aghast whenever Anjani would casually mention so-and-so’s eating disorder and so-and-so’s boyfriend. I had no idea who was dating or eating what. I always felt separate and different, which I was in a lot of ways but I should’ve been able to get to the places where we were the same. I got asked to 4 or 5 different proms (but I only went to the Fox Chapel prom in addition to my own) and could make friends easily in certain settings, but during senior year the desire to relate to others drained from me. Having befriended the seniors who were the previous keepers of the photography club clique, upon their graduation I became the new photography club president, but I didn’t go much, didn’t amass a new clique. Mentally, I had already left Pittsburgh. Moral: don’t stick around bodily if you’ve already mentally checked out- you can ruin years of good memories that way. But who ever learns from the moral of any story?

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Questioning Your Beliefs

Another thing we discussed at this CFAR alpha testing ages ago is that we’re supposed to question our beliefs. A way to do this is by hanging out with people with beliefs different from our own. My first reaction to this was that it’d be hard to do because 1) I don’t know any idiots, and 2) I don’t want to hang out with idiots.

The instructor gave an example of hanging out with vegetarians to understand what vegetarians actually ate and to help deal with the discomfort of thinking about the morality of meat. Another example was to hang out with grad school dropouts and people who were never in grad school to understand what the rest of the world thinks of academia and the importance of PhDs.

After some reflection, I realized most of my friends disagree with me on some things, but probably not on the big things, or if they do, we don’t talk about it because we don’t want to argue. I generally suck at arguing because I get annoyed and start insulting and punching the other person (figuratively…).

This idea of engaging with people who think differently precipitated my beginning to participate more in internet communities. People don’t hesitate to disagree with me on the internet, whereas they are often quiet in real life, I guess intimidated by someone as wise and serious as I am.

Some topics where I discovered my beliefs are very different from the beliefs of most people:
1) HFT.
2) Politics.
3) Money.
4) Diet.
5) My own greatness.
6) Charity.
7. Olivia Wilde.
8) Patents.

I haven’t really modified any of my beliefs yet so I don’t know if any of this is working to make me more rational. However, I think I am understanding the opposing beliefs better. So here’s my modest goal for now: be able to describe what others’ points of view are on all topics where I have abnormal beliefs.