[Linkpost] "“The first two weeks are the hardest”: my first digital declutter" by mingyuan

[Linkpost] "“The first two weeks are the hardest”: my first digital declutter" by mingyuan

Author: LessWrong January 20, 2026 Duration: 4:28
This is a link post. It is unbearable to not be consuming. All through the house is nothing but silence. The need inside of me is not an ache, it is caustic, sour, the burning desire to be distracted, to be listening, watching, scrolling.

Some of the time I think I’m happy. I think this is very good. I go to the park and lie on a blanket in a sun with a book and a notebook. I watch the blades of grass and the kids and the dogs and the butterflies and I’m so happy to be free.

Then there are the nights. The dark silence is so oppressive, so all-consuming. One lonely night, early on, I bike to a space where I had sometimes felt welcome, and thought I might again.

“What are you doing here?” the people ask.

“I’m three days into my month of digital minimalism and I’m so bored, I just wanted to be around people.”

No one really wants to be around me. Okay.

One of the guys had a previous life as a digital minimalism coach. “The first two weeks are the hardest,” he tells me encouragingly.

“Two WEEKS?” I want to shriek.

[...]

---

First published:
January 18th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/eeFqTjmZ8kS7S5tpg/the-first-two-weeks-are-the-hardest-my-first-digital

Linkpost URL:
https://mingyuan.substack.com/p/the-first-two-weeks-are-the-hardest

---



Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.


Dive into a stream of ideas where technology, culture, philosophy, and society intersect, all through the lens of the LessWrong (Curated & Popular) podcast. This isn't a traditional talk show with hosts, but rather a curated audio library of the most impactful writing from the LessWrong community. Each episode is a narration of a full post, selected for its high value and interesting arguments, focusing on pieces that have been formally curated or have garnered significant community approval. You'll hear clear, thoughtful readings of essays that tackle complex topics like artificial intelligence, rational thinking, moral philosophy, and the forces shaping our future. The audio format lets you absorb these dense, often paradigm-shifting concepts during a commute or a walk, turning written analysis into an immersive listening experience. This particular feed is deliberately selective, offering a manageable stream of the community's standout work. For those who want an even deeper dive into the discussion, there are broader feeds available. The LessWrong (Curated & Popular) podcast serves as an intellectual filter, delivering the signal through the noise and inviting you to engage with some of the most rigorously examined ideas on the internet.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

LessWrong (Curated & Popular)
Podcast Episodes
"My Willing Complicity In “Human Rights Abuse”" by AlphaAndOmega [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:47
Note on AI usage: As is my norm, I use LLMs for proof reading, editing, feedback and research purposes. This essay started off as an entirely human written draft, and went through multiple cycles of iteration. The primar…
"Don’t Let LLMs Write For You" by JustisMills [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 5:53
Content note: nothing in this piece is a prank or jumpscare where I smirkingly reveal you've been reading AI prose all along. It's easy to forget this in roarin’ 2026, but homo sapiens are the original vibers. Long befor…
"Thoughts on the Pause AI protest" by philh [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 11:12
On Saturday (Feb 28, 2026) I attended my first ever protest. It was jointly organized by PauseAI, Pull the Plug and a handful of other groups I forget. I have mixed feelings about it. To be clear about where I stand: I b…
"Less Dead" by Aurelia [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 14:11
Come with me if you want to live. – The Terminator 'Close enough' only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. – Traditional After 10 years of research my company, Nectome, has created a new method for whole-body, whole-…
"Gemma Needs Help" by Anna Soligo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 15:00
This work was done with William Saunders and Vlad Mikulik as part of the Anthropic Fellows programme. The full write-up is available here. Thanks to Arthur Conmy, Neel Nanda, Josh Engels, Dillon Plunkett, Tim Hua and man…
"On Independence Axiom" by Ihor Kendiukhov [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:59
The Fifth Fourth Postulate of Decision Theory In 1820, the Hungarian mathematician Farkas Bolyai wrote a desperate letter to his son János, who had become consumed by the same problem that had haunted his father for deca…
"Solar storms" by Croissanthology [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:22
Most of civilization's electricity is generated far off-site from where it's delivered. This is because you don't want to be running and refueling coal/gas/nuclear plants inside cities, hydraulic/wind power can't be move…
"Schelling Goodness, and Shared Morality as a Goal" by Andrew_Critch [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:50
Also available in markdown at theMultiplicity.ai/blog/schelling-goodness. This post explores a notion I'll call Schelling goodness. Claims of Schelling goodness are not first-order moral verdicts like "X is good" or "X i…