As a bonus: I’ve also just started writing a book (a collection of essays, some of them new, others revised from my old blog posts) about the life experience of being an over-age, under-experienced, self-taught programmer and data scientist. It is quite different to the blog here and contains almost no personal information about me (though not for that reason; just because the first book was my attempt at starting a business in 2003). All the reviews for it are five stars, and it is a long way from being finished – I hope to have something published within the next year. I’m keeping an eye on this site to see if it becomes more popular before I finish my book and then delete it. Finally, with this post I also launch a new and experimental feature on the website: “Stories”, where I talk about some of the events in my life that I believe have had an impact on me, my decisions and my attitudes. (As an aside: there is a similar style on Less Wrong, but at LW it seems to be quite common and even part of the code). I hope this has been interesting to read. And I hope that if you’ve read this far then perhaps you will click through the link at the end and buy my book… I’m getting really close to finishing it! It was a great pleasure and honour to meet you and take your course. You talked about how one learns to deal with the world by facing it and accepting it for what it is, rather than by always looking for another way to deal with it. This attitude and wisdom, particularly as applied to dealing with bullies and predators, saved my life many times. I would like to offer you some of my hard-earned lessons, and advice. If you ever find yourself in need of my help or advice again, please let me know, and I’ll be there for you. Here is my first advice, which you told the class to try it on everyone: “As I was telling you, your ability to survive the next decade of our species’ existence depends on your being able to stand up for yourself… This may be difficult for some of you. If you’re like most of us here, you haven’t had much practice at this. But you’ve been practicing your whole lives. And practice makes perfect.” I can’t tell you how powerful it is to be able to stand up for yourself. For decades now the forces of civilization have been driving their tanks through the landscape of the free thinkers and rebels and mavericks who once lived on this planet. We don’t like to hear that. We like to think we are the exception and that these other folks were an evolutionary dead-end. They were not. They were a necessary part of the process of evolving into humans that would eventually become you and me. The more of them we kill, the more humans who come from them with the same strengths and weaknesses they have, and the longer you and me are left to grow old. I spent my formative years in the Deep South. The region was a breeding ground for people who had these unheard-of strengths and weaknesses. The same strengths and weaknesses I saw in others, and also in myself, had been passed down from generations of these people. And they were the sorts of people who, given an equal playing field, are still with us now. So, when you see such people, you should stand up for them. Your strength, in doing so, is that you are one of them yourself. They will see this in you, and that is your best protection. I had occasion to be one of them many times. But let me give you an example from just one day. I had an early lesson in the value of standing up for yourself. That day I was standing near a group of high school students in the cafeteria. It had only been two weeks since the Columbine massacre and they were all talking about it. I made a snide remark to them that one could interpret as disparaging the victims, and was met with a chorus of, “No! It is not a joke! We cannot joke about that!” I knew exactly how it had felt and what I had said. I had seen them look at me with blank, uncomprehending faces. Their words had come from one place: they’d been bullied, or they knew someone who had been bullied. They were so frightened by the event that they could see nothing else. So now when they saw someone who they thought might be one of those who had caused it, the only thing they saw was an abuser, and that person was to be destroyed. So, what happened next? I did not back down. Nor should I have. I should have let the force of their emotions show them the consequences of their actions. But that’s another story. The important thing is that from the moment I took a stance against their fear and their anger and their hatred, they knew that I had their back. I was not an enemy to be destroyed. I had the confidence of the people who would protect them. And I have since, and I do. You never get rid of that. That is who you are. And of course, it goes even deeper than that. The one thing all of these people had in common was that they had had their hearts broken. What does it do to someone who is so angry they’ve lost their ability to trust? We all have something like that. Your strength is that, for all the things that make you angry, there is something you can’t stand losing. I once said to a girl that I liked her (I’m trying not to make you angry), “I don’t want you ever to be hurt by anyone again.” She misunderstood what I had said. It wasn’t that I didn’t want anyone to hurt her. I wanted everyone to know that I didn’t want anyone to hurt her, ever. Her tears told me all I needed to know about her understanding what I had said. My words had been a threat to her to do this. Her tears meant she was willing to do whatever she had to do to prevent that. They’re still with me. You get a lot of that among all the others. It gets overwhelming at times. But we have to keep reminding ourselves of our strengths, too. Our strength is that we are good people. And it will be the day that someone is able to say that about you, with a straight face, that you are truly lost. There’s another lesson I have learned. It is one of the most important lessons, because in the modern world it is one that may be the only thing that can save you from the fate that all the other great civilizations before us faced. You see, in every modern city there is someone in your life who has been chosen to be your mentor. They can be your boss, or an authority figure, or a trusted friend, but this person has been chosen to be your guiding light. I was lucky that I met my mentor at a time when we could actually talk. We sat together in a café and shared stories for many hours each day. We sat at a corner table and I always used my laptop to watch my back, and he would point out to me all the predators, especially those in positions of power. I had been looking out for these people before I met him. But I didn’t know them to be predators, I only knew that they were bullies. I am not sure if the fact that he was gay played a part in this, but we did have a very different take on the events that occurred around us in the city. He had an older brother with whom he was very close. His brother was a true revolutionary, a real one, and was shot dead at the hands of some bad cops as he was running from the law to hide from what was coming down. That’s the thing that I learned from him. A year later I would be on the outside of this whole scene, but I knew that something was going to happen. You don’t see it coming. It is not the place of those who have always been on the inside to expect that something will suddenly burst out of the ground. But it is the place of those on the outside to expect it and prepare for it. And when you are prepared, you will be prepared for everything. I also learned from him that those who look at us must think that we are insane, but do not take my word for it. Because some of the greatest warriors I have ever met are gay. Let me tell you a story about one of them. She came out of a family so insane and horrible that their house was so far beyond insane that we used to refer to it as “the insane house.” Her father had been sent to this country as an orphan when he was eight and her mother had been fourteen. And when