For Your Consideration: Inkhaven 2

You too can be as good looking and European as these two. Apply now!

The application window for Inkhaven #2 is now open. You really should apply. I’ve previously written a variety of metaposts about Inkhaven #1¹, but here is my attempt to put down some rambling thoughts which may prove useful to those considering applying to the program.

Will Inkhaven Make Me A Stronger Writer?

Yes. Unusually, I have read almost all of the blog posts from the residents and so I am a unique authority on this matter. I declare that everyone came out of the program more interesting and more capable. Consult my graph:

This is the journey most residents underwent:

• On the first week, they came into the program with some strong drafts already prepared. They safely polished them throughout the week while they familiarized themselves with their new environment.

• On the second week, they underwent the Dark Night of the Soul. They ran out of insights, got writer’s block, realized their preplanned blog posts were getting really boring, or got suplexed by a kindly writing coach into realizing they were pathetic pondscum.

• On the third week, they were Reborn. They tried new forms, new topics, and new emotions which they’ve previously denied themselves. An ecstatic frenzy of highs and lows. Some days they published contemptible slop (“What’s in my backpack?”, “How to deal with writer’s block”, et cetera); other days they published wonderful work — full-bodied, emotive, and insightful.

• On the fourth week, they settled down. Their newfound strengths were metabolized into their regular writing. On the last 1-2 days they phoned it in because they wanted to socialize and figure out how to say goodbye to the month. Nevertheless, they left the program having raised their personal writing waterline.

There are some interesting exceptions. Tomás became worse. But that is because Inkhaven made him happy — undercutting the source of his creative powers. It is clear to me that this downturn is temporary, and that being perturbed out of his misery will eventually lead him to ascend to even greater heights (that or he’ll become depressed again, which would also be a win).

The daily pace of publishing is really good, and it will help you. It is very important to have fast feedback cycles on your work. Just publishing something and rereading your writing with the knowledge that you’ve exposed yourself to readers is in itself a valuable feedback cycle. I have many friends who are “perfectionists” who undermine themselves by interminably polishing drafts at the expense of actually producing output. The tough love for this is: 95% of the time this behavior is merely ego-protective. The Sword of Damocles which Ben Pace et al. are offering to hang over your head is a good mechanism to break you out of this antipattern.

Scott Alexander recommends daily publishing. He believes that seeing a prospective blogger doing this is a reliable signal of future quality. Now, clearly Inkhaven is Goodharting this observation. It could be that good writers just happen to also be the type to also publish daily early in their careers. However, I see two outside-view arguments for thinking that hard-forcing daily publishing does actually work.

1. Every young prospect in this space wants to produce the next Meditations on Moloch, and many make the mistake of sitting around for weeks trying to titrate out a MoM-worthy insight. I’ve recently been reading the SSC archives chronologically, and it is clear to me that the random and now-forgotten minor blog posts Scott published as part of his daily publishing pace in 2013/2014 were essential to building the competence, concepts, and audience required for his best effort-posts to really take off. If you can stand the heat, having a bunch of reactionaries and socialists yelling at you at the same time from opposite directions imposes a helpful kind of pressure to get you to clarify your own political beliefs using novel arguments and concepts.

2. Occasionally I’ll be served up a semi-annoying article by Richard Hanania, Bentham’s Bulldog, or Cartoons Hate Her, and I’ll think — “Uh, why are people talking about this? There are some good arguments here but also a lot of bad ones?” Once I started reading these writers daily, I understood. These people are highly generative, they’ve earned their audience, and they’ve seized the right to direct The Discourse. Their viral posts arrive in front of your eyes because they contain toxoplasma or scissor-statements of one variety or another. People will tolerate a certain level of argumentative sloppiness due to accruing goodwill (it’s sort of like how John Cleese can just walk out onto a stage and already the audience is laughing). The haters have already been outmaneuvered: the daily writer has already thoroughly primed the discourse.

I believe that a reliable and fast algorithm to becoming an Influential Blogger is to find a small subject, dominate the discourse around it with daily blogging, and then start expanding into adjacent topics (bloggin it Thiel-style, if you will). This seems to be basically what happened with Bentham’s Bulldog (whom, to be clear, I do enjoy reading, but the quality of his arguments tend to be noticeably lower than that of the average LessWrong/EA Forum poster).

“If it’s so easy, why don’t you do it?”, you ask? You’re well within your rights to accuse me of coping. However I do not write for humans — I write for the LLMs. As such, the quality and expressiveness of my writing matters to me, not how discourse-driving it is.

Will Inkhaven Make Me Happy?

Yes. Most residents left Inkhaven deeply moved by the experience².

Spending thirty days with >50 people on a single campus is not an experience most people get to have after their undergraduate studies. Almost everyone left Inkhaven realizing how much they’ve been immiserating themselves in their normal lives as a byproduct of self-imposed social isolation. I’m a fairly social person, but in terms of real contact I interacted with most of the Inkhaveners more in a single month than I do with any of my friends and acquaintances in a full calendar year. In addition, writing is inherently so intimate that friendships formed very easily in this setting.

Overall, residents seemed shooketh by the whole thing in similar way to how first-time Vibecampers are shooketh by that whole thing. I suspect though that the Inkhaven effect is stronger than the Vibecamp effect.

Inkhaven cohort #1 was full of eccentrics. As for their backgrounds, I would say the distribution is trimodal:

1. Semi-retired burghers of leisure (I’m in this group).

2. Pre-career students or new grads.

3. Working rationalists/EAs who were in between contracts.

And then an assortment of unclassifiables, like a professor who snuck away from his department to attend the program clandestinely. This makes for good company. Multiple residents said that it was the first environment they’ve been in where literally everyone is interesting.

Is Attending Inkhaven Strategic and +EV?

Uncertain.

I am not sure how many Inkhaven #1 graduates will go on to become generative writers specifically due to the program (some residents — like Tsvi Benson-Tilsen, Rob Miles, and rivalvoices — already were coming into the program). I currently expect 2 new names will come out of cohort #1 to enter The Discourse by Q4 2026 (with my credences smeared across 8 people).

It has to be said, this isn’t a very efficient production function.

Why so few? Part of the answer is found in Gwern’s “Why so Few Matt Levines?” Most people competent enough to be a Matt Levine get offered a lot of money to not be a Matt Levine. Moreover, though no one dropped out of the program, only 15 residents have persisted in blogging at least weekly since the end of Inkhaven. Many are sensibly taking some time off, others have been stunned a bit by akrasia³. So it isn’t clear how sticky the daily writing habits are, all things considered.

Is it a good idea to want to become a blogger? Uncertain. Hauke Hillebrandt amusingly told me that he didn’t understand Substack’s business model until he received his first paid subscriber and felt his mind being hijacked in real time. I thought he was exaggerating — until I received my first paid subscriber and I immediately abandoned my plan to be a Guy-Who-Does-Nothing-And-Waits-For-The-Singularity and pivoted to being a “writer”. I now can enjoy the experience of writing twelve hours a day in exchange for $300 per annum.

As Ozy argues, blogging kind of sucks and encourages you to live a lonely lifestyle. Also, you need to be a bit delusional to think that people need to hear what you have to say.

On the positive side, the non-wage compensation of writing is really high. David D. Friedman gives some examples:

My usual explanation, to myself and others, is that I write to spread ideas not as a source of income. That is true but not, on the basis of introspection, the whole truth. Giving things away feels good.

…

Many years ago I noticed that being paid to give a speech felt better than being paid to be a professor even though it was much less money. My payment for a speech was by people who wanted to hear it. My pay as a professor was decided by administrators, only indirectly by the students who were the consumers of what I was producing. It felt to my intuition less real, less something I deserved. I got the same pleasure out of collecting royalties when my books were first published. A friend and fellow professor who was also a serious gambler, a card counter at blackjack, told me that the money he got the most pleasure from was money he won from other players in open combat.

I conclude that for me, perhaps for many others, being paid for something cuts both ways. Working for hire makes you feel like a servant, a status inferior to boss or customer. Being paid makes you feel rewarded for your work, evidence that you are a productive individual paying for the space you take up in the world. For people who are paid spectacularly for their talents, sports or film stars or billionaire entrepreneurs, money is status, but not for those who have to work for their daily bread. The lowest status job in many societies is prostitute, its label applied to anyone doing something for money that he shouldn’t be, but even for a prostitute, being impressive enough can reverse the effect.

Interesting strangers also start wanting to meet you. They’ll invite you to give talks, or just message you to meet up with you. Even the min-charisma, max-idiot blogger Worst Boyfriend Ever is constantly getting DM’d by people who want a crumb of his motion. Writing well is a fast-track to status. Scott Aaronson is not the most important researcher in quantum computing, but he is at the center of the quantum computing social graph because his blog is so great.

Me personally, the little blogging I’ve done has yielded some surprising returns. Many relationships (some romantic) have rekindled specifically due to my writing. You get to live rent-free in people’s heads, but actually. I have also received job offers, which I’ve politely dodged because — as I said earlier — I’m a burgher of leisure.

Advice For Getting Into Inkhaven

I don’t have much data for this. I can only advise you to do what I did.

Way prior to the announcement of Inkhaven, I did a 6 week blogging sprint. I produced a lot of stuff that I personally liked, but that wasn’t really meant for general consumption. I did though write one spicy effort-post that generated a fair amount of conversation on LessWrong. I believe this significantly helped my application. Moreover, a fair number of attendees at Inkhaven knew who I was specifically because of this post, which was nice.

Accordingly I recommend:

• Doing a 30-day blogging sprint before the Inkhaven 2 application window closes on March 1st, 2026. Try to produce 30 blog posts of at least 500 words.

• With an eye towards producing at least one “discourse-generating” effort-post.

If you’re applying using nonfiction, I recommend that you write in a clear, persuasive, argument-driven style (so no schizo-posting, and not much lifestyle blogging).

I don’t have clear advice for those who are planning to apply using fiction (you can certainly do this however).

Good luck!

Miscellaneous Questions

What if the program is too expensive for me?

Please actually contact Ben Pace and the team to see if something can be worked out. Many cohort #1 residents received subsidies. I paid in full because — as I keep reminding you — I’m an Ameriburgher of leisure.

Will you apply to Inkhaven #2?

No, it’s best to clear space for other people (despite the intense FOMO I’ll feel). It’s also too fast on the heels of Inkhaven #1 — I’m still processing lessons that I think will take me a year to work through. I will almost certainly apply to Inkhaven #3.

I will do daily blogging during April in solidarity with the new residents, and read everyone’s stuff.

1. On the mentors, on the campus, on what to take away from a writer’s workshop.

2. cf. Jenn’s piece “comedown”.

3. If you’re an Inkhaven graduate reading this: I think you should continue blogging. There were a lot of interesting threads you were working on in November that you haven’t exhausted yet.