I used to be a believer in parallel universes rather than simulation theory. After all, what's there to stop me from stopping my typing at the end of this sentence and hit the club to chug down some shots and do god-knows what? As a proud INTP for the majority of my life, introverted thinking (Ti) drove me to constantly intake new information and imagine the what if. In fact, I almost prided myself as being an INTP in my college apps, as my response to one college prompt went something like this:

Growing up, the internet become my escape. I would be reading SpaceX's website one moment and the next be watching a video explaining relativity in simple terms. My childhood naivete for seeking knowledge was my escape from everyday life, amongst Naruto, Skyrim, and wealth of anime and video games.
Gradually, my interest dampened on these things. The best way to put it is, sh*t just became boringly predictable. I was a class clown in middle school, so I've always had this knack of knowing how my actions would affect others' impressions of me. Pull a string here during a 6th grade english class impersonation, and the girls would laugh. Make an innuendo there, and the next moment a frown would be on the teacher's face. I always wanted attention, so most of socialization came in the form of trying different things, seeing how people respond, and adjusting my actions. I thought I could get anything I wanted in life, and those parent college talks was the stuff of the hour, so I thought, cool, I'll figure out how to get into a good college. Truth be told, who I am today was nearly the same person I envisioned myself to be 4 years ago, when I walked out of my middle school homeroom for the last time, held up a finger at the end of the hall (it was late at night), and shouted out, "I will succeed!"

Today, my world view are mostly the same, except even the once-blurry details are now all the more obvious. I no longer expend the energy to entertain the what-if, for I'm busy figuring out the what-is and the what-will. Most of modern society life to me seems now like a particle undergoing motion while defined by an underlying set of rules of physics. These real life occurrences appear to be the result of probability but their causes themselves are the result of actions that came before then, hence the saying "Everything happens for a reason." Sure, the rate at which possibilities multiply is near infinite, hence the illusion that everything seems possible. But really, once these underlying set of rules are known, most occurrences are predictable. Like in a video game, the NPCs seem to move about randomly, but they're the result of pseudo-random algorithms that are random enough to make us think they're random, but in reality are not. This is now why I believe in simulation theory.

If you think about it, most of our behaviors are becoming more and more predictable. The more competitive society becomes, the more our behavior is driven by the need to optimize our standing in society, because there's only a finite amount of resources (power, fame, money). When we like someone else's totally-undeserving pic of a random cake or something, it's not because we genuinely appraised it to be worthy of it, but because subconsciously our brain wires it to a higher chance the said someone will like our future pics, which is wired to a likelihood of higher standing. It's an uncomfortable truth, but most of our actions are explained by psychology. Being halfway done with the book Influence: Science and Practice, I learned a lot of ways salespeople and people in general manipulate in others using an understanding of basic psychological and civilizational principles, and it's astounding how all of this comes together. Essentially, we've become AI to the point everyone wants to optimize their actions to achieve a certain outcome most consistent with their values/belief (could be for money, power, being liked, or combination of any means of an end). Experience fine tunes our behavior model for optimization (like evolution but sped up so we can constantly see the updated results). It doesn't make sense that we whine and say AI will take away the spirits that make us human - curiosity, genuineness, passion, etc. - because honestly, we're already becoming AI ourselves (it's driven by evolutionary mechanisms that we must act in certain ways for us to survive in society). When I meet some mutual family friends, their children (who undergo the Chinese GaoKao), have essentially become robots. "6 AM wake up every morning. 7-10 AM language tutoring. 10-11 AM tennis practice. 11-12 lunch at cafeteria. 12-1 TOEFL tutoring. 1-3 math and science tutoring, etc." I had to pretend to listen intently as their parents tell me their children's academic regime. Then they give me that surely-you-understand-this-for-you-went-through-it-yourself-and-now-you're-on-top look. "What advice can you give?" I usually just provide some general template and act polite. I do understand, and it's not that I don't want to help, but more that I've seen through the system itself completely and it doesn't work, less so the further ahead I look. In 10 years, majority of education will be personalized online. In 20 years, teachers will be replaced by AI. In 30 years, brain implants will be available that provide the most direct form of education. By midcentury, our brains would be connected to a cloud. In this future where googling for information is automated inside our brain on a subconscious level, it's not just fitting to say what we're doing now is meaningless, it's akin to serving a sentence in jail. Of course, those in my family I tell this to think I'm ridiculous, but it will happen (and I will be a part of it). But the bigger question at hand is, what are the things that are still meaningful, now, in 10 years, 20 years, forever? How can we ingrain purpose for humans when AI takes over society and UBI introduced? What can be preserved and what must go, and how will we adapt? I toss and turn a lot of such schemes in my head. That explains why I'm now an INTJ.

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So no, I didn't take the AMC and didn't plan to take any math contests this year. There're bigger problems that we must solve and their links to the fate of humanity are ones that only our generation can create and secure.

In real life, I roam around a lot now to all sorts of places in the city (almost none of my energy is expended on day-to-day life, so I guess that makes me in the eyes of others spontaneous af). Sigh, I wish I was less lonely. An ENFP/ENFJ girlfriend (or any intuitive-mbti-types) would be nice company until college starts and provide me of some last pre-adulthood fun, at which point its time to start turning these crazy schemes of mine into reality (funding, VCs, business plans, learning markets, startups...). As graduation approaches, I guess I'll keep making my plans.

Check out my website for more elaboration of the visions/schemes I have in mind in the near and distant future.