About

I'll start by saying that if you've not tried to capture what you're about in some of "about me" page—you should try it. It's equal parts revealing and impossible.

My name is Daniel Miessler (MEE-slur) and I'm an AI/Security researcher and entrepreneur based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. I started this site in 1999 as a platform for writing and archiving my own technical knowledge. Today it has over 3,000 essays, tutorials, articles, and other types of content, and it serves as my interim DAEMON before I have one officially.

My world model ​

I'll start with a few key sections:

1. How I think the world works
2. What I think is happening in the world, and
3. What I'm doing as a result

How I think things work ​

First, here's my basic world model:

• We humans live in a material and mechanistic universe, and our behavior is best explained by evolutionary biology.
• We technically lack free will, but we can (and should) often behave as if we have it.

• Morality can best be thought of as concern about the experiences of conscious creatures, and specifically how to navigate the range of possibilities between suffering and flourishing.
• Because suffering and flourishing depend on our relation to this material and mechanistic world we live in, science is the best system we have for improving our collective situation.

• Despite the cold, uncaring sound of the above, the world is extraordinarily wonderful and beautiful! There is tremendous possibility for joy and happiness in this life, despite our existence riding an uncaring substrate.

• Reality, and therefore truth, exists at multiple layers, and there are truths at higher, emergent layers that don't exist at the layers below.
• The human layer of reality includes emergent phenomenon such as friendship, love, ice cream, and curiosity—none of which can be found in the thrashing of atoms and molecules. And our understanding of our material world can help us to modify and enhance those wonderful things—just like any other facet of our reality.

• Because of this multi-layer and emergent nature of reality, framing turns out to be one of the most powerful tools available to us. It allows us to see a given situation in different ways, letting us switch between Frames and use the one(s) that move us towards the best outcome (see Science).

What I think is happening ​

So that's a rough breakdown of how I think the world works. Here's a similar analysis of what I think is going on in the early 21st century.

• Humans started in what I'll call Human 1.0, or the Primitive Era. This is where most humans struggle to physically survive, and most people die from starvation, disease, and violence. People are not free because they are in constant fear of death.

• Sometime around the Enlightenment and/or the Industrial Revolution, we entered what I'll call Human 2.0, or the Corporate Era. This is where science and capitalism start enabling more advanced societies, but the result is various types of corporate hierarchy. Life is much better than in 1.0, but people are not free because they are largely defined by their value to a capitalist society.

• As superior explanations for phenomenon started being taught through more advanced education systems, the need for religion has steadily decreased. But when we ejected the faulty religious explanations for events, we also—somewhat accidentally and unknowingly—ejected the meaning that those explanations provided. This has left many people in a state of existential crisis, where they are no longer sure what they're supposed to be doing with their lives.

• Then in late 2022, modern AI was born, and now our collective existential crisis is about to be compounded by the loss of millions of jobs. First from AI, and then from AI-powered robots that can do physical work as well.

• So what we're facing in 2025 and beyond is a world that's rapidly losing its two primary sources of meaning—religion, and work.

• Nobody can say what percentage of current and future problems this will cause or exacerbate, but I think it's very high. This is why I've chosen these issues as my primary TELOS problems.

What I'm working on ​

That being the backdrop, one of my most consistently enjoyable activities is building models of how things work—both explicitly and implicitly.

Said differently, I enjoy finding patterns in how people pursue meaning and happiness, constructing models for how said meaning works, and then creating, discussing, and sharing possible frameworks for improving it.

And that brings us to the present day in the continuation of the above timeline.

• Now, in the early 21st century, we're seeing the possibility of Human 3.0, which I'll call the Creative Era. This is where we break from our roles as corporate workers and consumers and start to define ourselves as creative individuals. In this model, we understand ourselves primarily as unique people who have something to offer the world. We can articulate the problems that we want to address, and we spend our time improving ourselves and creating unique value in the world. This gives us the chance to become truly free for the first time. We are no longer locked into a wage or salaried existence, and we can actually look forward to work because "working" is just our own unique brand of value creation.

• As seen in my favorite short film, MORE, I believe one of the human pinnacles of happiness comes from Play. That is, the state we were in as kids outside running around inventing things, getting into adventures, etc. For adults, and for Human 3.0, I think a major aspect of happiness is merging play with work. This is where you love a particular thing so much that you get lost in it, but it also creates value for others in this new economy of exchange.

• Here's an example of devaslife doing this. Notice how much care went into everything in this video. Camera work. Fonts. Music. The caption style. All of it. This isn't just a tutorial; it's an expression of self. This is an example of what I see many humans doing in Human 3.0. It's self-expression, but it's also a gift to the world. But it also adds value. It's useful.

• Now imagine billions of people doing this—basically everyone on the planet—but for food, art, technology, exploration, music, stories, comics, movies, SaaS services, and—you get the idea. This is what humans were meant to do! To resonate at their own personal frequencies and emit value intqo the world. Absolutely beautiful and inspiring.

In short:

1. We were already heading towards a meaning crisis due to the loss of religion.
2. Automation, AI, and robotics are about to take away most of our legacy jobs, which will make the situation that much worse.
3. We weren't supposed to be doing these jobs anyway! Working 9-5 to help make someone else rich was not our calling.

Human 3.0 is what I'm calling the replacement for this dreary (and quickly dying) existence. It refers to both the state we're trying to get to as well as the actions we need to take to get there.

This is what I am about. This is what I am trying to bring into existence. This is my life's work.

Values ​

I have a unique way of explaining my politics, which you might enjoy using yourself.

I describe my ideal civilization.

Political debates are 98% heat rather than light. One or both sides end up getting triggered down an emotional path and it ceases being a discussion. I find this Ideal World method to be extremely effective at bypassing all of that and uncovering real values, agreements, and disagreements.

So here's mine:

1. A good place to start is The Federation, from Star Trek The Next Generation. All races and religions are welcome, and the focus has moved off of money and onto self-improvement and exploration. This is the baseline.
2. People are inspired to improve themselves and provide value to society through a healthy meritocracy that significantly rewards excellence, but anyone doing their best to contribue to society is able to live a decent, meaningful existence even if they're not exceptional.
3. Those who can't participate in that meritocracy—through no fault of their own—are taken care of by the people who can via a small, highly-efficient government.
4. The goal of this society is to maximize the flourishing of everyone by enabling each person to become their best self, which means all services that enable that to happen are free to everyone, e.g., education, healthcare, etc.
5. The law of the land is that everyone—both individuals and groups—is allowed to pursue their own path to happiness, as long as it doesn't interfere with others' ability to do the same.
6. Criminals are treated as people who need help, not punishment. The goal is to rehabilitate, not to get retribution. And for those who cannot be helped, they are kept away from society in a humane way, and society takes the lessons from them to help ensure others don't end up in the same situation.

What I like about this framework and approach is that it doesn't have a party. In some ways it sounds conservative, and in some ways it sounds quite liberal. Which is precisely the point. Describe the outcome you want, and avoid the labels, and then the real conversation starts.

When I talk politics with someone I always try to bring us back here. I say, this is what I think we should build—how about you? And if they agree with me, well then we're just talking about implementation details. And if they don't—because they think one particular race or religion should be in charge of the others—well now we've found our impasse.

What I enjoy ​

My favorite things to do are reading, writing, listening to podcasts, spending time with my partner and friends, and—honestly—working.

For content, I enjoy a pretty wide range of things:

• History — Especially biographies in the last few years.
• Science / Philosophy — Really anything that updates my world model.
• Classics — I never regret reading a classic.
• LitRPG — I love the constant progress narrative, which strangely feels productive to me.

Here are some of the books that I constantly recommend to people:

Aesthetic and material passions ​

• Typography, Pens, Penmanship, etc. — I have always been obsessed with clean aesthetics, and typography and penmanship bring me tremendous joy in life.

• Coffee — I've been a (serious) student of coffee since around 2015, and am getting pretty decent with it.
• Humor — I take a lot of things in my life very seriously (as you can tell from this page, lol), but I've always been rather silly and enjoy humor immensely. Laughing is one of my favorite things. My top comedians are:
  • Dave Chappelle
  • Louis CK
  • Kat Williams
  • Mitch Hedberg
• Music — I like a few main types of music: 1) very heavy metal, 2) very heavy electronic music, 3) hard progressive metal, and 4) high-end electronic music (hard to describe). I also listen to quite a bit of other stuff as well, but these are my main genres. Some favorites include:
  • Tool
  • Meshuggah
  • Abysmal Dawn
  • Hedex
  • Clozee
  • Nicholas Jaar
  • Boris Brejcha
  • Youna

I suppose in terms of normal things to put on a page like this, I've been with the same girl since I was a teenager, I am decently fluent in Spanish, and I play the drums. But not well.

Colophon ​

• Editor: Neovim (Lazyvim)
• Type: Static
• Framework: Vue
• System: Vite
• Design : Custom, but with significant inspiration from Matthew Butterick

• Fonts: By Matthew Butterick

Contact ​

So that's me being open on the internet and encouraging you to do the same. If you appreciated that, or you have a question, comment, or just want to say hello—please do so.

I love hearing from people on their journeys. You can hit me via x, Bluesky, or email.

Until then, I'm glad I share the planet with you, and I wish you the best possible luck in becoming your true self.

-Daniel