Date: July 17th, 2026 11:06 PM Author: Jared Baumeister
Most of your knowledge didn't come from words and can't be explained in words. For example you know what a banana tastes like because you've eaten them, but there's no other way to obtain that knowledge. Almost all of your actual knowledge in your head is like that - it comes from your direct sense of your surroundings
Date: July 17th, 2026 11:09 PM Author: Jared Baumeister
When you read a book it's like this too btw. You're just this disembodied soul bumping into things in the dark, only some things reflect light in ways that make them detectable to you, and it's through these interactions between light and reflective objects that you gain any knowledge of anything. To even read a book there has to be visible ink and a source of light. What makes it legible is how the light interacts with the text
Date: July 17th, 2026 11:14 PM Author: Jared Baumeister
Where it gets political is when he says that people can be evaluated by how much darkness they carry with them. All humans have some darkness in them, i.e. they can never reflect light perfectly, but some folks are like 75% darkness, and they're unfit for leadership. He said we're supposed to choose leaders who reflect the most light. So that was incompatible with local politics in that era