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Oli's Share: Retardmaxxing
From Oli: A new trend I’ve heard about, and am debating the merits of: “retardmaxxing”.
(Thinking about its merits as a philosophy at length being the opposite of the presented mantra! 😬).
The name is potentially a bit offensive to some, but I guess that's partly why it's become so viral... 'Lifemaxxing' doesn't quite have the same controversial ring to it!
The basic idea is to stop overthinking, over-optimising and worrying so much about what other people think, and just get on with things.
I like it as a theory and antidote to overthinkers' stasis. Although, I see some potential issues in peoples' interpretation of how to apply it...
You may want to avoid using it as a license to run around like a bull in a china shop, potentially damaging other people along the way in the relentless pursuit of your own goals.
You could argue that being too heavy handed and headstrong in life could end up making things harder for yourself in the pursuit of some goals (social structures are the way they are for a reason!).
But of course, some areas of life are unfortunately (and unavoidably) zero sum and PvP, so I think it's up to the individual to choose what the right intensity of Retardmaxxing is in each situation/domain in their life.
Accordingly, I sometimes like to refer to my flavour of the philosophy as “responsible retardmaxxing”, or perhaps just: “living life with the handbrake off” (whilst avoiding crashing into other people’s emotional clown cars, as per the book 'The Chimp Paradox' by Dr Steve Peters!).
I’m curious where others land on this: how much of our overthinking is useful social intelligence, and how much is simply getting in our own way?
Barry Wood
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Sep 4, 2026
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"An unexamined life is not worth living.", said Socrates thousands of years ago, but if you're living to examine your life, you're not living.
Humans evolved in small groups whose success depended upon not just physical prowess but social dynamics for rapid decision making. The worst punishment was being cast out of the group, as a lone naked ape was soon predator excrement. To that end, a large part of our brain, and the mechanisms therein, are devoted to keeping us in the group because that's how we were successful.
Modern life is very different. We are generally still organized as a hierarchy of small groups, and those small group dynamics are still very important, and modern identity politics takes advantage of that primal need to belong. However, the increased safety and mobility of modern civilization means that we're each free to choose which group(s) we want to belong to. We just need the will to leave groups which don't value us, and join those that do.
In my family, the traditional 18th birthday gift is luggage. The lessons leading up to that 18th birthday are designed to ensure that you can use the luggage successfully. Beyond just "making your own way", the luggage inspires you to move and keep moving until you find your place in life.
I think the government of Canada should give every citizen a piece of luggage on reaching their 18th birthday...
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