Yudkowsky Ambititon Scale

While trawling through various 'best of Hacker News' articles, I learned of the Yudkowsky Ambition Scale. It's naturally meant to be tongue-in-cheek, and I think it's pretty funny - now we're living in 2019 it seems hard to list Apple and Facebook as entirely separate tiers of ambition. The mention of seasteading also caused me to go down a wiki-rabbit hole for a few hours during which I became enamoured with the idea, but in a science fiction kinda way rather than a this-has-practical-applications kinda way.

Ambition is something I value highly in people, and until reading the scale, I would've labelled myself ambitious (as well as arrogant) .Naturally, the scale pertains to start-ups, but I am not a start-up, I'm just a guy, trying to figure out how to become a better guy. It's commonly given advice to be more ambitious, and I can see why that is - if you aim high and fail, you will invariably have achieved more than if you aimed lower and failed.

This advice is a double edged sword though - high ambitions are good, but high expectations can be damaging, especially in the context of 'being a better guy'. The easiest way to be happier is to lower your expectations. When considering ambition and expectation, it seems important to be consciously aware of this disconnect, and so with that in mind, should I be more ambitious? In terms of my career, my personal relationship, my romantic prospects, my mental health? Maybe I'll come up with a new scale. The Spicer Ambitionish Scale™, coming soon.