I used to think that a lot when I first started running paid ads.
I’d hear someone explain a principle that sounded completely logical.
Or I’d swipe a video script that had done tens of millions of views, write what I thought was a strong version of it, and expect it to at least win a little.
Then I’d spend the money.
Many times, it did absolutely nothing.
After enough of that, I stopped confusing “this makes sense to me” with “this is true.”
Now most ideas start as: this sounds reasonable. Let’s test it.
That’s the one thing I’d add to the Level 3 idea here.
Questioning your beliefs matters. Journaling matters. Reading opposing perspectives matters. But with internal reflection, I can still be the person interpreting the evidence and deciding whether my explanation survived.
An external scoreboard is different.
I make a prediction. I put something at stake. Reality gets a vote.
A failed prediction doesn’t mean the whole belief is wrong. It just gives the belief something it can actually lose against.
That has changed the way I think more than trying to become a better thinker inside my own head.
Here's what I keep running into, though. Most scoreboards in this industry only measure the yes. Conversions, opens, revenue. Nobody counts the people who read it, felt the manipulation, and closed the tab, or the ones who bought and refunded a month later.
So the prediction gets graded, but only on the half that's easy to see. Did you find a way to measure the cost side in paid ads, or is it the same problem there?
1. You say fusing your identity with an idea is level 1 thinking. Then the piece builds an identity around not being manipulated and hands it to the reader. The Programmer. And it shows them they are superior because of their level of thinking, since people below won't understand them.
2. The power of suggestion is strong here. Plant the suggestion that the reader cannot be manipulated, and they stop watching for it. Twenty minutes to become impossible to manipulate is the sentence that does the most work in the whole letter, because a reader who believes it stops checking. That's a documented effect, not an opinion.
I'm not saying you're doing it on purpose. I predict that the people using these methods will be the ones who reap what they sow in the end.
Fantastic article, but I believe you're missing the big elephant in the room: AI.
You'll stay an NPC forever if you don't verify the provenance of the content you consume.
AI has fooled a large population of online content creators into thinking they know what they truly think. Their superficially fluent output is then read by unsuspecting others, unknowingly simulating (possibly false) understanding in their own minds, and they pass it along with a cursory hit of the "share" button. And so the virus spreads this pseudo-understanding, infecting the minds of all who say they don't care whether they're reading AI-generated content.
What is more dangerous than a tool that makes you believe you know more than you do? A tool that makes others believe it too.
AI is creating an army of NPCs that think they are Programmers.
I like that you specifically tagged it as a tool. I think a tool can’t make you believe you know more than you do. It’s just a tool.
It’s only wrong when you choose the lazier option i.e relying completely on it and skipping the part where it’s actually meant to boost productivity.
Let’s face it. Years ago, anyone would argue that search engines took away the advantages of having to manually go through articles and collect information. But again, it’s just a tool
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is necessary for high agency. What you think creates how you feel, how you feel becomes an emotion, that emotion becomes a vibration, and that vibration becomes a magnet that attracts things to you. All people at Level 3, the Programmers, must have a high EQ.
What he says in 1 and 2, and even 3, reminds me of what Napoleon Hill referred to in Outwitting the Devil as drifting. And the solution is thinking for yourself and having a definiteness of purpose. This whole thing is really about the reclamation of our minds. Dan broke this shit down simple and plain with a map of how to take control. I love it!
I would love to consider myself Level 3, but I think this is not a permanent state. Although, once you have self-awareness like this, it's almost like — once you see, how can you revert back to not seeing? However, that doesn't negate the fact that we can be blinded by our own emotional state and slip back down to Level 2. I'm not sure if someone at Level 3 can go back to Level 1.
We all start out identifying with our tribe, family, culture, religion — the source we got our programming from and held as "the way, the light, the truth," and no other. And when you realize you've been molded, the questions ensue. It sets the course to break the mold and pull the thread. The thread is that question, followed by another, until one question reveals something so profound that it shifts everything you believed. You can call this an epiphany.
I know what it feels like to go against Level 1. And I'm currently fighting at Level 2 to reach Level 3. Dan writes about removing those from your environment who keep you stuck. That takes some rebellion, fearlessness, audacity — or like Mark Manson says, not giving a fuck. But moreover, I'd add two negatives to bring you to a positive assertion: knowledge of self and emotional intelligence gives us the escape velocity needed to break the gravitational pull of our tribal roots.
Do you think someone at Level 3 can ever fully slip back to Level 1? Or once you've truly seen it, is that floor gone for good?
Thanks, nice article. I would add that at Level 3 you also learn to validate the views that you do not agree with. Progressives would be an example for me, I have been learning to see how important it is for a progressive to believe in a utopian fantasy in order to ward off the nihilism. This keeps them as human for me, and that is the ultimate level.
I agree. I wonder sometimes whether I’m crazy and delusional for believing in a utopia society, and for trying to figure out how to help create it, but it’s just stronger than me.
I loved this piece, Dan. I don’t think I’ll become impossible to manipulate in 20 minutes 😂. What really draws me in is the way you weave so many threads together — psychology, politics, social media, dependency, spirituality, identity, decision-making — into one larger picture. That really resonates with me and inspires me to find my own words for how I see the world.
At the same time, I try not to take any of it too seriously. Models, levels, frameworks, stages of development — I've been familiar with these ideas for years — through Ken Wilber, Integral Theory, Spiral Dynamics, and so on. They can all be incredibly useful. But they're still models. Stories. Maps — not the territory.
Maybe that's why I love the image of the Tibetan sand mandala. People spend days creating something extraordinarily detailed and beautiful, grain by grain. And when it's finished, they deliberately dismantle it. The sand is swept together and returned to flowing water.
All that care. All that precision. All that beauty.
Gone.
I think there's wisdom in being able to build a beautiful framework — even weave an entire tapestry of ideas — while still being able to let go of it and say: none of this is true. Because there is no such thing as truth.
In martial arts, I learned something similar: you have to burn what you think you know.
Build it. Use it. Learn from it. Then be ready to let it go.
Thought-provoking as usual. Many people who rely heavily on AI to assist their writing wonder whether their writing can actually be discerned by other people.
Yes. I think it is not that hard at all.
AI makes your thinking so generic. I sometimes think it is even more harmful than junk food.
There are two things that make AI-generated writing very obvious to me.
First, since LLMs generate text token by token, the writing often feels like it is built sentence by sentence. You read an article and feel like you are looking at a stacked wall of sentences.
Second, some articles arrive at their conclusion almost presumptuously from the very beginning, but the writer cannot really explain how they got there. The conclusion comes first, and the thinking is filled in afterward.
After all, writing an essay is an attempt to explore a problem, not to arrive at a conclusion.
Yes and I’m so sick of literally recognizing the words AI has fed into some people who then present it as their opinions. Don’t get me wrong, I use AI to discuss some ideas and ask questions, too. But when it’s so surface level that you ask it for the idea itself, that’s BS to me. Saying AI doesn’t have taste and that taste is human, for example: if you ask any model right now what will remain human, it will tell you taste. And choosing to put this in an article directly kind’a means you have none. 🤷♀️
The title is clickbait but of course you know it. I’m glad I resisted the urge to skip it and read the article, you see the structure behind things, it was a good read, a memorable metaphor of society.
I feel like at level one feels like knowing the essense of sapiens book.. at level 3 you realise how most are going to always be at level 1 or 2 and see what you can make of that in your life.
Dan, deze is speciaal voor jou: Ik denk dat het 'fundamentalist zijn' en het denken op level 3 elkaar niet in de weg hoeven staan en naast elkaar kunnen bestaan. Als alleen level 3 bestaat verhoog je jezelf als een soort alwetende God, maar je kan nooit alles weten. Er kunnen altijd dingen gebeuren die je nooit had kunnen bedenken en waar je dus geen rekening mee kon houden. Er zijn dus grotere krachten dan jij als menselijk persoon. Je zegt ook altijd entropie neemt altijd toe. Eerst geloofde ik dat niet, omdat er mooie geordende patronen zichtbaar zijn in de meest ruig uitziende natuur maar nu denk ik toch dat je wel gelijk hebt. Echter als entropie altijd toeneemt, moet er een kracht sterker zijn dan een mens en die wel naar orde neigt. Aangezien de mens alleen al niet zo groot en krachtig is dat we overal rekening mee kunnen houden. Er zouden ons gewoonweg dingen tussen de vingers uit glippen. Daarom moet er dus een ordelijke kracht zijn, die vele malen sterker en groter is dan een mens of een groep mensen en dat zou ik dan toch 'God' willen noemen. Er moet een uitmuntend geniaal brein zitten achter alleen al alle natuurwetten. Alles houdt verband met elkaar. Dat kan geen toeval zijn. Ben ik nu dan een fundamentalist die nooit op level 3 zou kunnen denken? Of zou het toch allebei naast elkaar kunnen bestaan? Ik hoop echt op een reactie van je in welke vorm dan ook. Bedankt voor het lezen.
They stop thinking and start reacting, which is far more dangerous than it seems, because if the outcome of your life depends on the choices you make, and your level of thinking determines the opportunities you can see - the amount of time you spend reacting, being offended, or regurgitating the scripts society and culture trained into your brain
Because the fullstop is missing in the end and the subsequent line "That is our goal." looks disconnected with this para.
“There’s no way this doesn’t work.”
I used to think that a lot when I first started running paid ads.
I’d hear someone explain a principle that sounded completely logical.
Or I’d swipe a video script that had done tens of millions of views, write what I thought was a strong version of it, and expect it to at least win a little.
Then I’d spend the money.
Many times, it did absolutely nothing.
After enough of that, I stopped confusing “this makes sense to me” with “this is true.”
Now most ideas start as: this sounds reasonable. Let’s test it.
That’s the one thing I’d add to the Level 3 idea here.
Questioning your beliefs matters. Journaling matters. Reading opposing perspectives matters. But with internal reflection, I can still be the person interpreting the evidence and deciding whether my explanation survived.
An external scoreboard is different.
I make a prediction. I put something at stake. Reality gets a vote.
A failed prediction doesn’t mean the whole belief is wrong. It just gives the belief something it can actually lose against.
That has changed the way I think more than trying to become a better thinker inside my own head.
ooooh, well said! Reality gets a vote!!
Here's what I keep running into, though. Most scoreboards in this industry only measure the yes. Conversions, opens, revenue. Nobody counts the people who read it, felt the manipulation, and closed the tab, or the ones who bought and refunded a month later.
So the prediction gets graded, but only on the half that's easy to see. Did you find a way to measure the cost side in paid ads, or is it the same problem there?
That’s a really good point. I think you just exposed the next problem with my own idea: we still design the scoreboard.
A lot of the cost side actually can be measured — refunds, chargebacks, churn, bad leads, complaints, customer satisfaction.
Some costs don’t show up cleanly at all. Someone can see the ad, feel manipulated, close it, and disappear without ever telling you why.
The other thing I’ve seen is that the votes don’t arrive at the same speed.
Revenue can say “yes” today.
Refunds, churn, or unhappy customers might not vote for another 30 or 90 days. By then, we may have already scaled the thing we thought was working.
A scoreboard is only as honest as two choices: whose outcomes count, and how long you wait before calling something a win.
Brilliant.
1. You say fusing your identity with an idea is level 1 thinking. Then the piece builds an identity around not being manipulated and hands it to the reader. The Programmer. And it shows them they are superior because of their level of thinking, since people below won't understand them.
2. The power of suggestion is strong here. Plant the suggestion that the reader cannot be manipulated, and they stop watching for it. Twenty minutes to become impossible to manipulate is the sentence that does the most work in the whole letter, because a reader who believes it stops checking. That's a documented effect, not an opinion.
I'm not saying you're doing it on purpose. I predict that the people using these methods will be the ones who reap what they sow in the end.
Fantastic article, but I believe you're missing the big elephant in the room: AI.
You'll stay an NPC forever if you don't verify the provenance of the content you consume.
AI has fooled a large population of online content creators into thinking they know what they truly think. Their superficially fluent output is then read by unsuspecting others, unknowingly simulating (possibly false) understanding in their own minds, and they pass it along with a cursory hit of the "share" button. And so the virus spreads this pseudo-understanding, infecting the minds of all who say they don't care whether they're reading AI-generated content.
What is more dangerous than a tool that makes you believe you know more than you do? A tool that makes others believe it too.
AI is creating an army of NPCs that think they are Programmers.
(More on the dangerous of reading AI-generated content here if curious: https://hereisyourbrain.substack.com/p/ai-generated-content-mind-virus)
I like that you specifically tagged it as a tool. I think a tool can’t make you believe you know more than you do. It’s just a tool.
It’s only wrong when you choose the lazier option i.e relying completely on it and skipping the part where it’s actually meant to boost productivity.
Let’s face it. Years ago, anyone would argue that search engines took away the advantages of having to manually go through articles and collect information. But again, it’s just a tool
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is necessary for high agency. What you think creates how you feel, how you feel becomes an emotion, that emotion becomes a vibration, and that vibration becomes a magnet that attracts things to you. All people at Level 3, the Programmers, must have a high EQ.
What he says in 1 and 2, and even 3, reminds me of what Napoleon Hill referred to in Outwitting the Devil as drifting. And the solution is thinking for yourself and having a definiteness of purpose. This whole thing is really about the reclamation of our minds. Dan broke this shit down simple and plain with a map of how to take control. I love it!
I would love to consider myself Level 3, but I think this is not a permanent state. Although, once you have self-awareness like this, it's almost like — once you see, how can you revert back to not seeing? However, that doesn't negate the fact that we can be blinded by our own emotional state and slip back down to Level 2. I'm not sure if someone at Level 3 can go back to Level 1.
We all start out identifying with our tribe, family, culture, religion — the source we got our programming from and held as "the way, the light, the truth," and no other. And when you realize you've been molded, the questions ensue. It sets the course to break the mold and pull the thread. The thread is that question, followed by another, until one question reveals something so profound that it shifts everything you believed. You can call this an epiphany.
I know what it feels like to go against Level 1. And I'm currently fighting at Level 2 to reach Level 3. Dan writes about removing those from your environment who keep you stuck. That takes some rebellion, fearlessness, audacity — or like Mark Manson says, not giving a fuck. But moreover, I'd add two negatives to bring you to a positive assertion: knowledge of self and emotional intelligence gives us the escape velocity needed to break the gravitational pull of our tribal roots.
Do you think someone at Level 3 can ever fully slip back to Level 1? Or once you've truly seen it, is that floor gone for good?
Thanks, nice article. I would add that at Level 3 you also learn to validate the views that you do not agree with. Progressives would be an example for me, I have been learning to see how important it is for a progressive to believe in a utopian fantasy in order to ward off the nihilism. This keeps them as human for me, and that is the ultimate level.
I agree. I wonder sometimes whether I’m crazy and delusional for believing in a utopia society, and for trying to figure out how to help create it, but it’s just stronger than me.
I loved this piece, Dan. I don’t think I’ll become impossible to manipulate in 20 minutes 😂. What really draws me in is the way you weave so many threads together — psychology, politics, social media, dependency, spirituality, identity, decision-making — into one larger picture. That really resonates with me and inspires me to find my own words for how I see the world.
At the same time, I try not to take any of it too seriously. Models, levels, frameworks, stages of development — I've been familiar with these ideas for years — through Ken Wilber, Integral Theory, Spiral Dynamics, and so on. They can all be incredibly useful. But they're still models. Stories. Maps — not the territory.
Maybe that's why I love the image of the Tibetan sand mandala. People spend days creating something extraordinarily detailed and beautiful, grain by grain. And when it's finished, they deliberately dismantle it. The sand is swept together and returned to flowing water.
All that care. All that precision. All that beauty.
Gone.
I think there's wisdom in being able to build a beautiful framework — even weave an entire tapestry of ideas — while still being able to let go of it and say: none of this is true. Because there is no such thing as truth.
In martial arts, I learned something similar: you have to burn what you think you know.
Build it. Use it. Learn from it. Then be ready to let it go.
But your sand mandala was beautiful, Dan.
Thought-provoking as usual. Many people who rely heavily on AI to assist their writing wonder whether their writing can actually be discerned by other people.
Yes. I think it is not that hard at all.
AI makes your thinking so generic. I sometimes think it is even more harmful than junk food.
There are two things that make AI-generated writing very obvious to me.
First, since LLMs generate text token by token, the writing often feels like it is built sentence by sentence. You read an article and feel like you are looking at a stacked wall of sentences.
Second, some articles arrive at their conclusion almost presumptuously from the very beginning, but the writer cannot really explain how they got there. The conclusion comes first, and the thinking is filled in afterward.
After all, writing an essay is an attempt to explore a problem, not to arrive at a conclusion.
Yes and I’m so sick of literally recognizing the words AI has fed into some people who then present it as their opinions. Don’t get me wrong, I use AI to discuss some ideas and ask questions, too. But when it’s so surface level that you ask it for the idea itself, that’s BS to me. Saying AI doesn’t have taste and that taste is human, for example: if you ask any model right now what will remain human, it will tell you taste. And choosing to put this in an article directly kind’a means you have none. 🤷♀️
I call it mental sanitation.
The title is clickbait but of course you know it. I’m glad I resisted the urge to skip it and read the article, you see the structure behind things, it was a good read, a memorable metaphor of society.
Okay, I got the hint. You got yourself 20 min back😊. Thats it right - “intent is what guides if it is or is not impossible to manipulate.”
Applies to this post 📫 too…. Dan Koe
timeline article - cognitive security is becoming increasingly important :/
"The world doesn’t need more consumers. It needs more of what only you can create."
I've been saying this for a while now. I have recorded videos about it, tweet it, express it via my Chronicles of Curiosity podcast.
You're born to create. You're created by the highest spirit so why ain't you creating?
level 2 and level 3. so if one wants to understand and see different perspectives. but don't have enough domain or knowledge base available.
I feel like at level one feels like knowing the essense of sapiens book.. at level 3 you realise how most are going to always be at level 1 or 2 and see what you can make of that in your life.
Dan, deze is speciaal voor jou: Ik denk dat het 'fundamentalist zijn' en het denken op level 3 elkaar niet in de weg hoeven staan en naast elkaar kunnen bestaan. Als alleen level 3 bestaat verhoog je jezelf als een soort alwetende God, maar je kan nooit alles weten. Er kunnen altijd dingen gebeuren die je nooit had kunnen bedenken en waar je dus geen rekening mee kon houden. Er zijn dus grotere krachten dan jij als menselijk persoon. Je zegt ook altijd entropie neemt altijd toe. Eerst geloofde ik dat niet, omdat er mooie geordende patronen zichtbaar zijn in de meest ruig uitziende natuur maar nu denk ik toch dat je wel gelijk hebt. Echter als entropie altijd toeneemt, moet er een kracht sterker zijn dan een mens en die wel naar orde neigt. Aangezien de mens alleen al niet zo groot en krachtig is dat we overal rekening mee kunnen houden. Er zouden ons gewoonweg dingen tussen de vingers uit glippen. Daarom moet er dus een ordelijke kracht zijn, die vele malen sterker en groter is dan een mens of een groep mensen en dat zou ik dan toch 'God' willen noemen. Er moet een uitmuntend geniaal brein zitten achter alleen al alle natuurwetten. Alles houdt verband met elkaar. Dat kan geen toeval zijn. Ben ik nu dan een fundamentalist die nooit op level 3 zou kunnen denken? Of zou het toch allebei naast elkaar kunnen bestaan? Ik hoop echt op een reactie van je in welke vorm dan ook. Bedankt voor het lezen.
Looks like this para is incomplete:
They stop thinking and start reacting, which is far more dangerous than it seems, because if the outcome of your life depends on the choices you make, and your level of thinking determines the opportunities you can see - the amount of time you spend reacting, being offended, or regurgitating the scripts society and culture trained into your brain
Because the fullstop is missing in the end and the subsequent line "That is our goal." looks disconnected with this para.