a bottle with a message in it on the beach

True Generalist blog

Browse all the blog posts here. Hub pages organize posts around certain themes.

Latest blog posts

  • Necessary generalists: Philosophical self-defense

    What everybody needs, most of all, is the ability to reject “bad philosophy.” And philosophy is most worthwhile as a means to that end. When you start to consciously dabble in philosophy, what’s most important is that you go all the way through: get familiar a lot of different philosophies that contradict each other. Then you return…

  • Necessary generalists: Financial planning (gambling)

    In a relatively free-market financial system, the way you grow your wealth is by risking it. This is inherently dangerous, but that danger can be mitigated with knowledge and experience. Broad-market index funds have performed well in the past but carry some hidden risks that may warrant dabbling in more creative investment strategies.

  • Necessary generalists: Physical health

    You should know your body very very well. The modern world is full of unique health hazards that we did not evolve to handle. And modern medicine, while extremely powerful, has critical gaps that we currently need to account for at the individual level.

  • A place for generalists

    The modern world is fertile ground for generalists. There has never been a better time to invest in side projects, try new things, solve new problems!

Hub pages

Necessary generalists

There are some things that pretty much everybody should dabble in: fields where everybody should have, say, roughly two university courses' worth of knowledge. So we're all "necessary generalists," in the sense that we need to have these few things covered, even if we'd rather put all our focus into a single separate thing.

The generalist’s skillset

This hub page is about the meta-skills that all generalists should have—skills to help keep their lives in balance and avoid common pitfalls. This is a list of the skills and mindsets that I've found necessary to use myself, and I'll add to it in the future as more ideas come up or are suggested to me by others.