Tim Urban
Writer and illustrator behind Wait But Why, a long-form blog of stick-figure-illustrated explainers on science, technology and society, and author of the book What's Our Problem?
Tim Urban did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
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What they believe
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Parenting has less influence on how children turn out than most parents assume.
Toddler parents can take solace in the fact that parenting probably matters less than we think it does.
waitbutwhy.comSaid 24 Oct 2025This on korrents
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Augmented reality and virtual reality are no longer separate categories, but points on one continuum.
And it's a general reminder that AR and VR2 being separate categories is a thing of the past.
waitbutwhy.comSaid 9 Feb 2024This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
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25 November 2025
24 October 2025
From one piece Tales from Toddlerhood 3 beliefs · waitbutwhy.com
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korrents.com
Young children learn a new language through immersion far more effectively than adults do.Their words
If I took my daughter to China for a year, and we just lived there with no language instruction, I'd come back knowing approximately six Mandarin words and she'd be fluent.
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Their words
Toddler parenthood is a reality distortion zone that makes it hard to remember that most people find your toddler breathtakingly uninteresting.
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Their words
Toddler parents can take solace in the fact that parenting probably matters less than we think it does.
9 February 2024
From one piece All My Thoughts After 40 Hours in the Vision Pro 3 beliefs · waitbutwhy.com
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Their words
It's the next step in a centuries-long human mission to conquer long-distance.
All My Thoughts After 40 Hours in the Vision Prowaitbutwhy.com
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Their words
If you zoom out on a story of technology, you usually see a big exponential curve. But if you look at the curve up close, you see that it's wavy, made of S-curves.
All My Thoughts After 40 Hours in the Vision Prowaitbutwhy.com
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korrents.com
Augmented reality and virtual reality are no longer separate categories, but points on one continuum.Their words
And it's a general reminder that AR and VR2 being separate categories is a thing of the past.
All My Thoughts After 40 Hours in the Vision Prowaitbutwhy.com
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Meta Quest 2Their words
In 2020, standing around during Covid with my dick in my hand like everyone else, I got myself a Quest 2. It was amazing. I loved it.
23 May 2023
From one piece 10 Thoughts from the Fourth Trimester 3 beliefs · waitbutwhy.com
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Their words
this is the most personal of personal decisions and no one should ever try to pressure anyone else to have kids-it's way too big a thing to be anyone else's business.
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korrents.com
Expecting parents should be required to take a mandatory course before caring for a newborn.Their words
There should obviously be like a mandatory four-hour course every expecting parent has to take before they're actually in charge of a newborn.
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Their words
The problem is, when humans went bipedal, our pelvises got smaller, and as humans got smarter, our heads got bigger. So evolution had to get creative. Its solution: all human babies would be premies, born when they were still small enough to pass through a human pelvis.
17 February 2023
From one piece A Short History of My Last Six Years 2 beliefs · waitbutwhy.com
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korrents.com
Liberal societies currently face an existential risk that must be addressed to reach a better future.Their words
This book is my best crack at explaining what I think is an existential risk to liberal societies and what I think we need to do to get to that awesome future I used to be so excited about.
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Their words
There were a bunch of bad trends: Tribalism was flaring up everywhere, mass shaming campaigns were roaring back into fashion, politicians were increasingly clown-like, public discourse had become a battle of one-dimensional narratives.
14 April 2021
From one piece Mailbag #2 3 beliefs · waitbutwhy.com
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Their words
Many films are the most fun the first time because a part of our brains loses itself in the plot and actually experiences what the characters are experiencing, to an extent.
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korrents.com
People should feel free to enjoy art they love regardless of the artist's personal failings or beliefs.Their words
I think in most cases, we should feel fine loving the art we love, regardless of who the artist is, what they did, or what they believed.
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Their words
Clearly something other than the current type of healthcare advances will be needed to crack through the natural human lifespan ceiling-it'll take some deeper recoding of the human genome.
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Hardcore HistoryTheir words
Currently hooked on Dan Carlin's Hardcore History . 100 people recommended it to me and I kept putting it off and finally listened to the 6-part WWI series and that was that for me.
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Usesrcmnd.app
Gravity BlanketTheir words
But Instagram has gotten pretty good at it and now I own a gravity blanket , a moon pod , stretchy jeans , a great hoodie , and like 19 fidget toys and physics toys and other stupid things that make me happy .
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Usesrcmnd.app
Moon PodTheir words
But Instagram has gotten pretty good at it and now I own a gravity blanket , a moon pod , stretchy jeans , a great hoodie , and like 19 fidget toys and physics toys and other stupid things that make me happy .
30 September 2020
22 September 2020
25 March 2020
2 January 2020
Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 25 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Parenting has less influence on how children turn out than most parents assume.
Toddler parents can take solace in the fact that parenting probably matters less than we think it does.
Tales from Toddlerhood Said 24 Oct 2025
Most people are not genuinely interested in videos of someone else's young child.
Toddler parenthood is a reality distortion zone that makes it hard to remember that most people find your toddler breathtakingly uninteresting.
Tales from Toddlerhood Said 24 Oct 2025
Young children learn a new language through immersion far more effectively than adults do.
If I took my daughter to China for a year, and we just lived there with no language instruction, I'd come back knowing approximately six Mandarin words and she'd be fluent.
Tales from Toddlerhood Said 24 Oct 2025
Show 22 more
Augmented reality and virtual reality are no longer separate categories, but points on one continuum.
And it's a general reminder that AR and VR2 being separate categories is a thing of the past.
All My Thoughts After 40 Hours in the Vision Pro Said 9 Feb 2024
Technological progress looks smooth and exponential from a distance but is actually made of individual S-curves up close.
If you zoom out on a story of technology, you usually see a big exponential curve. But if you look at the curve up close, you see that it's wavy, made of S-curves.
All My Thoughts After 40 Hours in the Vision Pro Said 9 Feb 2024
Virtual-reality hangouts are the next step in humanity's long effort to close the gap of physical distance in communication.
It's the next step in a centuries-long human mission to conquer long-distance.
All My Thoughts After 40 Hours in the Vision Pro Said 9 Feb 2024
Evolution made human babies effectively premature, since bipedalism shrank pelvises while brains grew larger, forcing late fetal development outside the womb.
The problem is, when humans went bipedal, our pelvises got smaller, and as humans got smarter, our heads got bigger. So evolution had to get creative. Its solution: all human babies would be premies, born when they were still small enough to pass through a human pelvis.
10 Thoughts from the Fourth Trimester Said 23 May 2023
Expecting parents should be required to take a mandatory course before caring for a newborn.
There should obviously be like a mandatory four-hour course every expecting parent has to take before they're actually in charge of a newborn.
10 Thoughts from the Fourth Trimester Said 23 May 2023
No one should pressure another person about whether to have children, since it is too personal a decision to be anyone else's business.
this is the most personal of personal decisions and no one should ever try to pressure anyone else to have kids-it's way too big a thing to be anyone else's business.
10 Thoughts from the Fourth Trimester Said 23 May 2023
Public discourse has degraded into tribalism, mass shaming campaigns, and one-dimensional narratives replacing genuine debate.
There were a bunch of bad trends: Tribalism was flaring up everywhere, mass shaming campaigns were roaring back into fashion, politicians were increasingly clown-like, public discourse had become a battle of one-dimensional narratives.
A Short History of My Last Six Years Said 17 Feb 2023
Liberal societies currently face an existential risk that must be addressed to reach a better future.
This book is my best crack at explaining what I think is an existential risk to liberal societies and what I think we need to do to get to that awesome future I used to be so excited about.
A Short History of My Last Six Years Said 17 Feb 2023
Extending the human lifespan past its natural ceiling will require deep genetic engineering, not just better healthcare.
Clearly something other than the current type of healthcare advances will be needed to crack through the natural human lifespan ceiling-it'll take some deeper recoding of the human genome.
Mailbag #2 Said 14 Apr 2021
People should feel free to enjoy art they love regardless of the artist's personal failings or beliefs.
I think in most cases, we should feel fine loving the art we love, regardless of who the artist is, what they did, or what they believed.
Mailbag #2 Said 14 Apr 2021
Watching a film for the first time is exciting because part of the brain immerses itself in the plot as if experiencing it firsthand.
Many films are the most fun the first time because a part of our brains loses itself in the plot and actually experiences what the characters are experiencing, to an extent.
Mailbag #2 Said 14 Apr 2021
Reasoning from first principles means gathering only what one knows to be true and building a conclusion from it.
A scientist gathers together only what he or she knows to be true—the first principles—and uses those as the puzzle pieces with which to construct a conclusion.
The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce Said 6 Nov 2015
Reasoning from first principles means taking the basic raw ingredients as the building blocks and working upward from them.
The chef reasons from first principles, and for the chef, the first principles are raw edible ingredients. Those are her puzzle pieces, her building blocks, and she works her way upwards from there, using her experience, her instincts, and her taste buds.
The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce Said 6 Nov 2015
A person who works from a recipe, even an innovative one, starts from something that already exists.
But what all of these cooks have in common is their starting point is something that already exists. Even the innovative cook is still making an iteration of a burger, a pizza, and a cake.
The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce Said 6 Nov 2015
The chef creates, while the cook copies in some form or another.
The chef creates while the cook, in some form or another, copies.
The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce Said 6 Nov 2015
Independent reasoners are almost certain to make a splash given some talent and persistence, while those who start from what already exists face a ceiling on their impact.
For cooks, even the more innovative kind, there’s almost always a ceiling on the size of the splash they can make in the world, unless there’s some serious luck involved. Chefs aren’t guaranteed to do anything good, but when there’s a little talent and a lot of persistence, they’re almost certain to make a splash.
The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce Said 6 Nov 2015
Conventional wisdom lags behind reality, so someone who looks at the present directly can act on information others have not yet been given permission to act on.
Conventional wisdom is slow to move, and there’s significant lag time between when something becomes reality and when conventional wisdom is revised to reflect that reality. And by the time it does, reality has moved on to something else. But chefs don’t pay attention to that, reasoning instead using their eyes and ears and experience. By ignoring conventional wisdom in favor of simply looking at the present for what it really is and staying up-to-date with the facts of the world as they change in real-time—in spite of what conventional wisdom has to say—the chef can act on information the rest of us haven’t been given permission to act on yet.
The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce Said 6 Nov 2015
Conventional wisdom assumes things are the way they are for a good reason, and history repeatedly proves status quo dogma wrong.
Conventional wisdom worships the status quo and always assumes that everything is the way it is for a good reason—and history is one long record of status quo dogma being proven wrong again and again, every time some chef comes around and changes things.
The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce Said 6 Nov 2015
If a chain of reasoning rests on a wrong inherited recipe, the conclusions built on top of it will be just as wrong.
And if the tenets of that church don’t truly resonate with you or reflect the current reality of the world—if it turns out that you’ve been working off of the wrong recipe—then whatever conclusions have been built on top of it will be just as wrong. As demonstrated by the flood geologists, a reasoning chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce Said 6 Nov 2015
Dogma, unlike first-principles reasoning, is not customized to the believer or meant to be critiqued and adjusted as things change.
Dogma, unlike first principles reasoning, isn’t customized to the believer or her environment and isn’t meant to be critiqued and adjusted as things change.
The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce Said 6 Nov 2015
Creative thinking is closely related to first-principles reasoning, since in both the thinker has to invent their own thought pathways.
Creative thinking is a close cousin of first principles reasoning. In both cases, the thinker needs to invent his own thought pathways.
The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce Said 6 Nov 2015
Being a gamechanger is just having little enough respect for the game to see no good reason not to change the rules.
Being a gamechanger is just having little enough respect for the game that you realize there’s no good reason not to change the rules.
The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce Said 6 Nov 2015
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 7 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Loved Meta Quest 2
In 2020, standing around during Covid with my dick in my hand like everyone else, I got myself a Quest 2. It was amazing. I loved it.
waitbutwhy.com 9 Feb 2024
Uses Moon Pod
But Instagram has gotten pretty good at it and now I own a gravity blanket , a moon pod , stretchy jeans , a great hoodie , and like 19 fidget toys and physics toys and other stupid things that make me happy .
waitbutwhy.com 14 Apr 2021
Uses Gravity Blanket
But Instagram has gotten pretty good at it and now I own a gravity blanket , a moon pod , stretchy jeans , a great hoodie , and like 19 fidget toys and physics toys and other stupid things that make me happy .
waitbutwhy.com 14 Apr 2021
Show 4 more
Loved Hardcore History
Currently hooked on Dan Carlin's Hardcore History . 100 people recommended it to me and I kept putting it off and finally listened to the 6-part WWI series and that was that for me.
waitbutwhy.com 14 Apr 2021
Uses S'well thermos
I’ve also recently gotten into the small S’well thermos, which I use when I don’t have my bag because unlike my normal one, it fits in my jeans pocket.
waitbutwhy.com 6 May 2016
Loved Being John Malkovich
Movie that I loved and took fully seriously and then saw again with people who were laughing the whole time and realized it was actually a comedy: Being John Malkovich.
waitbutwhy.com 6 May 2016
Loved The Martian
Book for sure. The movie was solid and enjoyable, but kind of just another pretty good movie. The book was special.
waitbutwhy.com 6 May 2016
Where they publish
Blog Wait But Why His long-form illustrated blog, running since 2013.
Recent
- The sights and sounds of Bhutan 25 Nov 2025 Stories from my visit to the mysterious Himalayan kingdom
- Tales from Toddlerhood 24 Oct 2025 Eight thoughts from a strange and harrowing world
- All My Thoughts After 40 Hours in the Vision Pro 9 Feb 2024 Welcome to the 2030s.
Show 7 more
- 10 Thoughts from the Fourth Trimester 23 May 2023 1 baby, many thoughts
- A Short History of My Last Six Years 17 Feb 2023 On June 18, 2016, I slipped and fell down a deep, deep hole.
- Mailbag #2 14 Apr 2021 We have a whole lot to talk about.
- The Trump-Biden Debate 30 Sept 2020 In case you missed it...
- The Big and the Small 22 Sept 2020 I have a surprise for you.
- You Won’t Believe My Morning 25 Mar 2020 A highly unexpected turn of events.
- It’s 2020 and you’re in the future 2 Jan 2020 Some people are young, just not you.
Link verified 4 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
x.com @waitbutwhy The Wait But Why X account, which he writes.
Recent
- The advanced aliens observing us are like “wait that was actually really cool” 16 Oct 2026
- Purchased last year at Art of Play. The bird was too expensive. 13 Oct 2026
- Every day I sit down at my desk and stare into the same massive Word document to work on my book, this old Yiddish folk song ends up stuck in my head 10 Oct 2026
Show 17 more
- We really need to sand it down 10 Oct 2026
- If you would like a taste of what my life is like right now, I wrote this in my book draft— "It’s weird to think about how different aliens may be from us. Maybe they’re 100 feet tall. Or 6 inches tall. Maybe they’re not tall at all because they have 100 legs and look like long strands of spaghetti. Maybe they have giant balloon heads, 40 arms, and 70 boobs." —and my fact-checker flagged the last sentence as a false claim, writing: "Highly unlikely on Earth-like biology. Mammary number correlates with litter size in several species, suggesting an evolutionary pattern, and is limited by the en… 3 Oct 2026
- I really can't even with quantum mechanics 1 Oct 2026
- Great use of AI 30 Sept 2026
- 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. 15 Sept 2026
- When a discussion becomes tribalized, the collective mind drops by 50 IQ points 15 Sept 2026
- It is not like other technologies 14 Sept 2026
- 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. 14 Sept 2026
- This row of posts made me feel better and better until the last one ruined everything 12 Sept 2026
- 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. 6 Sept 2026
- Butt dialing is one thing but a man just showed up at my house and turns out I butt ordered an Uber 5 Sept 2026
- The explosion came from 2/3 of a gram of matter being converted to energy. About the mass of a paperclip. 30 Aug 2026
- 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. 29 Aug 2026
- I really wish the rise of LLMs didn't come along with catastrophic job loss, massive privacy invasions, and maybe also the apocalypse. Because when you put those side effects aside, it is the COOLEST MOST WILD TECHNOLOGY EVER. 24 Aug 2026
- I've recently been rewatching this whole series as cozy entertainment to fall asleep to 23 Aug 2026
- My three-year-old just asked me if our dog came from mommy's belly. Imagine being that level of disoriented. 23 Aug 2026
- I’m gonna go ahead and say this is not good 21 Aug 2026
Link verified 4 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
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Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
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