Wait But Why

Wait But Why
Available inEnglish, Chinese
EditorTim Urban
URLwaitbutwhy.com
Launched2013; 12 years ago (2013)
Current statusOnline

Wait But Why (WBW) is a website founded by Tim Urban and Andrew Finn and written and illustrated by Urban. The site covers a range of subjects as a long-form blog.[1] Typical posts involve long-form discussions of various topics, including artificial intelligence, outer space, and procrastination, using a combination of prose and rough illustrations.[2][3][4]

On May 21, 2014, Urban posted "The Fermi Paradox", a post that became extremely popular.[5][6] A 2016 Ted Talk by Urban on procrastination, based on concepts from the blog, had garnered over 70 million views by March 2024.[7] A post on the blog about Elon Musk and Neuralink was produced with involvement from Musk himself.[8]

In 2019, Marie Boran of The Irish Times summarized the website as a collection of "lengthy, thoughtful and well-written blog posts", praising them for being an "accessible and entertaining primer on human nature".[9]

In 2023, Urban published What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies, analyzing what Urban sees as the major problems with politics as a whole. The book was endorsed by Elon Musk on Twitter.[10]

References

  1. ^ Davis, Noah (30 October 2014). "How Do You Make a Living, Email Newsletter Writer?". Pacific Standard. Retrieved 22 December 2015.
  2. ^ Roberts, David (27 August 2015). "Tech nerds are smart. But they can't seem to get their heads around politics". Vox. Vox Media. Retrieved 4 September 2016.
  3. ^ Grothaus, Michael (5 March 2015). "The Secrets Of Writing Smart, Long-form Articles That Go Absolutely Viral". Fast Company. Retrieved 22 December 2015.
  4. ^ Eyal, Nir (10 August 2021). "The Behavioral Economics Diet: The Science of Killing a Bad Habit". Psychology Today. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
  5. ^ "The Fermi Paradox - Wait But Why". Wait But Why. 2014-05-21. Retrieved 2018-03-20.
  6. ^ Klein, Ezra (2020-02-10). ""We're in the climax of a movie": Tim Urban on humanity's wild future". Vox. Retrieved 2020-04-25.
  7. ^ Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator | TED, retrieved 2023-03-01
  8. ^ Welsh, Caitlin (17 July 2019). "Elon Musk claims robot surgeon will sew electrodes into human brains in 2020". Mashable. Retrieved 16 October 2021.
  9. ^ Boran, Marie (17 September 2019). "Weblog: Wait But Why offers long and thought-provoking reads". The Irish Times. Retrieved 16 October 2021.
  10. ^ Quiggle, Jeffrey. "Elon Musk Just Gave This Book a Glowing Endorsement". TheStreet. Retrieved October 31, 2023.
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