Intellectual masochist: is someone who seeks out mentally painful or exhausting scenarios - complex problems with no good solutions, philosophical paradoxes, depressing truths, cognitive dissonance - and engages with them voluntarily and even finds some satisfaction in the struggle itself. Like, most people avoid thinking about "will the AI revolution lead to my genocide faster or slower" because it's fucking depressing and paralyzing.
An intellectual masochist goes "hmm, let me really dig into this, map out all the scenarios, test the AI systems, have the hard conversations" - not because it feels good, but because wrestling with hard truths is preferable to comfortable ignorance.
An intellectual masochist goes "hmm, let me really dig into this, map out all the scenarios, test the AI systems, have the hard conversations" - not because it feels good, but because wrestling with hard truths is preferable to comfortable ignorance.
Sentence: As an intellectual masochist, she found herself compulsively drawn to the bleakest climate change models, preferring the grim satisfaction of understanding the full scope of the catastrophe to the uneasy comfort of willful ignorance.
by Evaler8 October 3, 2025
Get the Intellectual Masochistmug.