Tim Urban ✓
@waitbutwhy · joined 20 Mar 2013
Writer, infant
902 613Followers
912Following
8 290Posts total
75.5MViews on collected posts
Latest posts
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One prominent theory says that long before our fish ancestors left the water, they did a lot of this, briefly scooting from pond to pond. Slowly, some evolved to be so good at scooting around on land and breathing air that they became fully amphibious.
2M views · 34.9K likes
· 1.3K reposts · 199 replies
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You are always one decision away from a different life https://t.co/3dGJxEOYo6
5.7M views · 18.9K likes
· 2.5K reposts · 189 replies
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0:22
When a discussion becomes tribalized, the collective mind drops by 50 IQ points
56.3K views · 628 likes
· 28 reposts · 26 replies
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main thing preventing us from having a productive AI safety conversation is identity. too many AI people want to be seen as intelligent by AI safety giants. too many skeptics want to be seen as critical of EA. you have to actually think. that is the only way we'll get there.
79.3K views · 386 likes
· 19 reposts · 30 replies
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@waitbutwhy Here's a 2,400 year history of technology driven moral panics.
Socrates panicked in 370 BC because he believed writing would cause humans to lose their ability to use memory.
Calm down.
https://t.co/MFbOpA2eFX
2.3K views · 62 likes
· 4 reposts · 9 replies
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@waitbutwhy give
an
actual
good/falsifiable
explanation
of
why
its
not
4.5K views · 173 likes
· 0 reposts · 19 replies
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@waitbutwhy Or have lived through many other moral panics involving new technologies.
322.3K views · 115 likes
· 0 reposts · 20 replies
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I can't predict the AI future, and I'm very unsure about what the right strategy or policies should be moving forward. What I do know is that people who scoff at the idea that we may be in grave danger have not read enough about AI.
214.2K views · 3.8K likes
· 276 reposts · 366 replies
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This row of posts made me feel better and better until the last one ruined everything https://t.co/cyW05gNjU5
136.5K views · 676 likes
· 24 reposts · 25 replies
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If we lived on a planet where the sky was a pale yellow that matched the sun’s color, and we heard about a planet where the sky was bright BLUE, it would sound incredibly weird and sci-fi. Just saying.
122.4K views · 2K likes
· 26 reposts · 43 replies
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Butt dialing is one thing but a man just showed up at my house and turns out I butt ordered an Uber
58.6K views · 482 likes
· 5 reposts · 38 replies
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The explosion came from 2/3 of a gram of matter being converted to energy. About the mass of a paperclip.
176.6K views · 736 likes
· 27 reposts · 34 replies
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I cannot emphasize enough how amazing this was. Videos like this do not do it justice. Truly feels like you're sitting on the field watching the game.
399K views · 1.5K likes
· 36 reposts · 26 replies
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Live immersive MLB on Apple Vision Pro. It felt like I was at Yankee Stadium. The whole experience was incredible.
Shot through the lens with iPhone since it can’t be recorded on headset. https://t.co/oF1J9tBTd8
1.1M views · 2.1K likes
· 97 reposts · 52 replies
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0:25
From @ajjacobs newsletter: https://t.co/4lxlNcqZa9
32.5K views · 21 likes
· 0 reposts · 3 replies
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Gratitude is stored all around us. We only need to look at things with the right lens to access it. Here's A.J. Jacobs making me realize that there's even gratitude waiting to be unleashed in my socks. https://t.co/u3eFtL9sld
92K views · 496 likes
· 40 reposts · 11 replies
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@waitbutwhy Tim, you've outdone yourself. Only on Page 34 and just got punched in the face by Seng-ts'an. "If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease."
25.3K views · 101 likes
· 5 reposts · 6 replies
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@waitbutwhy “With 303 drawings”
So you wrote it for Trump?
59.2K views · 102 likes
· 1 reposts · 90 replies
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@waitbutwhy Hi Tim! Will it differ from the Story of Us series you did a few years back or is it a deeper dive cuz I couldn’t get enough of that one?
328.7K views · 118 likes
· 4 reposts · 5 replies
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My book What's Our Problem? is now available.
The book introduces a new framework for thinking about our chaotic political environment. With 303 drawings, it's a toolbox for understanding our societies, our group dynamics, and our own minds.
Get it here: https://t.co/BnPpcn0RYr
64.2M views · 15.5K likes
· 2.3K reposts · 1.1K replies
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Against accounts of the same size
16 posts from the last 90 days, next to the 100K–1M follower range. shown to more people than peers of the same size.
Median views156 552this account5 983median for 100K–1M
Reach, %17.34%this account1.49%median for 100K–1M
Engagement, %1.05%this account0.93%median for 100K–1M
| Metric | This account | Median for 100K–1M | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median views per post | 156 552 | 5 983 | 26.2× |
| Reach (views ÷ followers) | 17.34% | 1.49% | 11.6× |
| Engagement rate | 1.05% | 0.93% | 1.14× |
Others in this range → Compare with another account → How these benchmarks are built →
Growth & engagement
How the posts we collected actually performed: views and reaction rate post by post, what the audience did with them, and where the follower count goes.
Views per post
176.6K30 Aug
58.6K5 Sep
122.4K6 Sep
136.5K12 Sep
214.2K14 Sep
322.3K
313.1K
4.5K
12K
2.3K
79.3K15 Sep
56.3K
5.7M
2M
Last 14 collected posts, oldest on the left. The scale is logarithmic: one post can outrun the rest a hundred times over.
Engagement rate per post
0.45%30 Aug
0.90%5 Sep
1.66%6 Sep
0.53%12 Sep
2.09%14 Sep
0.04%
1.58%
4.31%
3.12%
3.24%
0.56%15 Sep
1.21%
0.38%
1.81%
Reactions — likes, reposts, replies and quotes — divided by views. Median for 100K–1M accounts is 0.93%.
What the audience does
Likes76.9%87 368 in total
Reposts6.0%6 876 in total
Replies2.3%2 633 in total
Quotes0.8%953 in total
Bookmarks13.9%15 832 in total
Share of every reaction we collected for this account. Replies mean argument, reposts mean endorsement, bookmarks mean the post was worth keeping.
The follower curve appears once this account has two daily snapshots — we take one a day, and this one is on its first.
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