Intro Post - Alberto

Welcome
1

Hello everyone,

I’m Alberto! :slight_smile: I came across Life Itself through discussions on GitHub and was immediately drawn to its values and vision.

My background is in computer science, AI, and machine learning, with a PhD and a few years of work experience in the field. However, over the past two years, my life has taken a significant turn due to life changes and deep engagement in meditation and contemplative practices. I’m currently in a phase of intense inner processing and healing, also waiting for my mind to learn and embrace a more intuition-based, “not-knowing” approach to life—definitely easier said than done :sweat_smile:

Recently, I trained as a mindfulness coach and have been offering meditation courses using the Unified Mindfulness system (a structured, systems-thinking approach to mindfulness developed by Shinzen Young). On the creative side, I would also be eager to explore more dance, filmmaking, and music.

At the moment, I’m looking to deepen my understanding of the metacrisis and explore career paths that are more aligned with environmental and regenerative change. Last year, I discovered Effective Altruism, which I found inspiring in many ways, but I felt it lacked a deep exploration of the inner dimension that, in my experience, is essential for creating sustainable and skillful change and contribution. I also found its cause prioritization a bit too utilitarian and top-down, sometimes relying too much on abstract models and uncertain predictions of existential risks, etc.

This is why I’m so happy to have found Life Itself—it feels like a rare balance—grounded in pragmatism yet open to deeper exploration. Neither an isolated monastery nor a purely rationalist, productivity-driven space.

I’m looking forward to connecting and am very inspired by the work this community is doing! :slight_smile:

3 Likes
2

Hi Alberto,

Welcome - it sounds like you’re definitely in the right place! You’ll find quite a few of us have a rationalist/effective altruist background, and are looking to ‘transcend and include’ those approaches.

We’re thinking of this forum as partly inspired by Lesswrong and EA forums in style, so feel free to post long-form content related to steps to a second renaissance, as well as short-form questions or sharing resources - I’d be interested to hear more about Unified Mindfulness for example. Another topic we’d like to generate written material on is clarifying the limitations of EA and rationalist approaches.

You might also like to join the research community calls, which currently happen on Friday afternoons (see the Life Itself Calendar).

I look forward to connecting more!

1 Like
3

Thank you for the reply and all the info Jonah! :slight_smile:

It feels great to have ended up in a space where we can openly share and discuss these ideas. I gave it a try for a while, but it was tough to even find someone who even understood what the fuss was about.

And it’s very cool to know I wasn’t the only one who felt these dissonances in the EA movement.

1 Like
4

And it’s very cool to know I wasn’t the only one who felt these dissonances in the EA movement.

Yes, certainly not! We tend to have a lot of “ex-EA-ers” or EA-ers who are also wanting to explore inner dimensions of change and relational practices come to residencies at the Life Itself Bergerac Hub, funnily enough! And I know that in general there seems to be a growing niche of EA-ers/ex-EA-ers who are also into Authentic Relating, Circling, meditation, and inner work etc.