Mats Lederhausen

On a mission to inspire human progress.

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

AI isn't the story.

Humanity is.

Every great technology eventually becomes a maturity test for the people who create it.

AI may be the biggest one we've ever faced.

The question isn't what AI can do.

The question is whether we're wise enough to govern it.

My latest essay: "AI and the Maturity Test of Humanity": https://t.co/OcTHppwmz8

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

Most people don’t fail because they lack talent.

They fail because they become very good at the wrong things.

Richard Hamming once asked:
“What are the most important problems in your field, and why aren’t you working on them?”
Almost nobody liked the question.

My latest essay explores drift, meaningful work, and why the world often rewards us for climbing the wrong ladder: https://t.co/MPa1T9ZF5k

Thank you Paul Graham for reminding us of this important topic @paulg

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

Most people are waiting for clarity before they act.

That worked in slower eras.

It does not work when the world is changing faster than our institutions, our assumptions, and even our ability to fully understand it.

The future is not something we passively inherit.
It is something we build toward through action, testing, adaptation, and humility.

My latest essay explores human-centered design, complexity, AI, and why the leaders who matter most now will be the ones willing to move before certainty arrives.

Dream big. Start small. Move fast.

https://t.co/kPWeiyPdp1

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

We are living in a world where it’s never been easier to have an opinion

And never less necessary to live with its consequences

Talk is cheap

My latest: "Beliefs Without Consequences"

Inspired by @robkhenderson

https://t.co/dHVW1fGcIb

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

Most of us live like we have more time than we do.
Until the clock gets loud.
A reflection on time, character, and what actually matters.
→ https://t.co/EYBAtD7gnN

Thank you @BenSasse for the perspective.

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

We like to believe people act on values.

They don’t.

They act on incentives.

When the two collide, incentives win.

If you want to change behavior, change what gets rewarded.

New piece: "You Get What You Reward"

https://t.co/msqnOFkJhp

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

What if the greatest threat to freedom isn’t chaos… but too many rules?

The more we try to legislate behavior, the less we cultivate judgment.

At some point, people stop asking:
“What’s right?”
…and start asking:
“What’s allowed?”
That’s where freedom quietly erodes.
Read more ↓
https://t.co/LnKKxMTLLo

Thoughtful work on this from @DovSeidman and @PhilipKHoward

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

Thinking about intimacy and modern relationships — themes explored beautifully by @EstherPerel: https://t.co/H8IIQEOBlo

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

Thank you to @estherperel for inspiration around the notion of “civic intimacy” which I feel is so incredibly important right now for all of us seeking a more human future!

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

We have never been more connected.
And never felt more alone.
We confuse being seen with being known.

Intimacy does not grow from exposure.
It grows from staying.

My latest article: "Seen Is Not the Same as Known"
https://t.co/c6GhAbBD6y

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

We have never been more connected.
And never felt more alone.
We confuse being seen with being known.

Intimacy does not grow from exposure.
It grows from staying.

My latest article: "Seen Is Not the Same as Known"
https://t.co/c6GhAbBD6y

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

We have never been more connected.
And never felt more alone.
We confuse being seen with being known.

Intimacy does not grow from exposure.
It grows from staying.

My latest article: "Seen Is Not the Same as Known"
https://t.co/c6GhAbBD6y

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

I spoke with @LaulPatricia about Marxism:

One is: What’s remarkable is that Marxism has been tried. Now, of course, defenders of Marxism say it hasn’t really been tried anywhere, but certainly the people who implemented it claimed they were implementing Marxism.

And this is a massive experiment—a global experiment—with a very clear outcome. Namely, the Soviet Union was a disaster. The imposition of communism on Eastern Europe was a disaster. The imposition of communism in Venezuela was a disaster. The imposition of communism in Maoist China was a disaster. Disaster in terms of both poverty and oppression and genocide and stupid wars. So the world has told us what happens under communism, and it’s a sign of how out of touch intellectuals can be that there are still people who defend it despite the entire world giving a very clear-cut answer.

One more is: would you rather live in North Korea or South Korea? Would you rather live in the old East Germany or West Germany? We have an experimental group and a matched control group in terms of culture, language, and geography, and the answer is crystal clear. So this is a sign of, I think, the pathology of intellectual life—that Marxism can persist.

The other is, you did call attention to one of the appeals of Marxism, though, and more generally of heavy, strong influence of government guided by intellectuals, which is that there are certain kinds of reforms that you can state as principles. You can articulate them verbally as propositions—like equality, human rights, democracy—but there’s other kinds of progress that take place in massive distributed networks of millions of people, none of whom implements some policy. But collectively, there is an order, an organization that’s beneficial.

So that can happen organically through, for example, the development of a language. No one designed the English language. It’s just hundreds of millions of English speakers. They coin new words. They forget old words. They try to make themselves clear. And we get the English language and the other 5,000 languages spoken on earth.

Likewise, a market economy is something where knowledge is distributed. You don’t have a central planner deciding how many shoes of size 8 will be needed in a particular city, but rather information is conveyed by prices, which are adjusted according to supply and demand. And you’ve got a distributed network of exchange of information that can result in an emergent benefit.

Now, intellectuals tend to hate that. They like rules of language—of correct grammar. They like top-down economic planning. They like cultural change that satisfies particular ideals described by intellectuals. And so rival sources of organization, like commerce, like culture—traditional culture—tend to be downplayed by intellectuals.

And this can be magnified by the fact that many dictatorships give a privileged role to intellectuals, which may be why, over the course of the 20th century, and probably continuing to the present, there has not been a dictator that has not had fans among intellectuals—including the mullahs and ayatollahs of Iran, but also the communist dictators: Mao and Castro, even Stalin in his day. And every other dictator has had, actually, often fawning praise from Western intellectuals.

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

Most of us don’t suffer from a lack of answers.
We suffer from answers accepted too early.
What if certainty is overrated?

What if the real work of a life is learning to carry better questions?

New essay: How Questions Shape Our Lives
Meaning, wonder, and the long arc of becoming.

Read: https://t.co/SoctWySnro

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

Uncertainty isn’t what stops us.

The demand for certainty does.

When clarity becomes a prerequisite for action, nothing moves.

And thank you @AgnesCallard for the inspiration for this post.

Living Life as a Question
Read here ⬇️
https://t.co/0DgaPHxBFY

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

Every system begins with an assumption about human nature.

Are we infinitely shapeable? Or imperfect, capable, and constrained?

In my latest Substack, I explore why this distinction matters more than ideology and how it shapes the systems we live inside.

Read here: https://t.co/0wgQiHjjrJ

Thanks to @misraetel and @old_school_pod for the conversation on The Blank Slate by @sapinker that inspired this essay.

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

Most people are far more reasonable in private than our public discourse suggests.

If you’ve ever looked around and thought, am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? You’re not.

New essay on collective illusion, inspired by a conversation between @melrobbins and @toddrose:
https://t.co/uObKbuL7Mq

What’s one belief you hold privately that you rarely say out loud?

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

We live in an age obsessed with wings. Speed. Novelty. What’s next.

But wings without roots can be reckless, and roots without wings can be suffocating.

This essay explores why every life needs both.

👉 Roots and Wings:The Balance Every Life Needshttps://inpursuitofelevation.substack.com/p/roots-and-wings

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

Real happiness is not a spark.

It’s a fire you build slowly.

New "Elevate" essay on choosing direction over dopamine.

🔗 https://t.co/kifwXWcI2E

[Mats Lederhausen @matsleder]

The media does more than inform us. It shapes us.

If the mirror we stare into reflects only outrage and fear, we should not be surprised when we feel divided.

My latest reflection explores the hidden costs of cultural negativity and the quiet power of the stories we consume.

Plus, a new song: “Change the Channel.”

Article: https://t.co/wmsqFYLudm