Ponder
24d ago
what issues SHOULD we talking about
- Environmental issues
- Wealth inequality
- How AI will impact your students' lives
- The Mindfulness Revolution
- The rise of secular wisdom traditions like Authentic Relating
- The Psychedelic Renaissance, including communities that use psychedelics in a spiritual/religious setting.
The common theme is that these are developing issues that involve a lot of uncertainty about the near future. They are salient to young people today and learning to navigate these issues will be helpful to their futures.
Ponder
29d ago
Let’s suppose you could self-administer euphoria on command. This would be similar to heroin addiction. What would be your incentive to fulfill the hours of necessary daily tasks to maintain health, if you could summon euphoria at will?
I get the point you are making, but this reminds me of people that take SSRIs everyday and never plan to stop. The SSRI state is preferable to the non-SSRI state and people are still able to function normally in the SSRI state. In the SSRI state people have increased interest in basic human activity.
The SSRI example shows that there are altered states of consciousness that are preferable to the default state of consciousness, and that some people can experience altered states of consciousness with negligible/manageable side effects. Therefore, it makes sense that there could be other alerted states of consciousness that are permanently achievable with minimal side effects. They may require lots of effort/training to discover and maintain, but once they are learned a person could permanently remain in the altered state for as long as they desire. You always have the memory of the less desirable state so there is no need to leave the altered to state to experience a more painful state.
Another example is someone who receives eye surgery to achieve perfect vision. The altered state of perfect vision is strictly preferable to that person. There are no drawbacks to remaining in the preferred state after the surgery is complete.
Ponder
29d ago
Awakening from the Meaning Crisis is what came to my mind too. The first 25 lectures are also now in book format. I think the book presents the material in an even better way because John gained additional experience in communicating the material since the lecture series.
I am curious how the series practically improved your life? For me it provided deep insights into modern problems and explained how we need an ecology of practices to address them. We need to go deeper than propositional knowledge (statements that are true or false) and utilize the other ways of knowing (procedural, perspectival, and participatory). One thing I'm kind of stuck on is the Philosophical Silk Road (in the lecture series it is the idea about a Religion that is not a Religion). I see the necessity of distributed cognition (i.e. collective intelligence), but I haven't had success in finding a like-minded group of people locally that is interested in John's work.
@roche Episode 8 (The Buddha and "Mindfulness"),9 (Insight), and 11+12 (Higher States of Consciousness) are particularly relevant to your post.
Ponder
1mo ago
This is a good response and I'll add one more thing. Tariffs reduce the amount of stuff being produced because it costs more to produce it. If the price of raw materials doubles people are more thoughtful about what they produce. A lot of what gets produced just ends up in a landfill after x years. Maybe it is good for the planet if the world produces less trinkets that ultimately end up in the trash.
Ponder
1mo ago
Maybe the newspapers are trying to cause some of their staff to quit because the newspaper wants to reduce staffing and/or get rid of disagreeable staff.
It would be similar to how some companies use return to office policies to get a portion of their employees to quit. When an employee quits they don't get severance or unemployment. Causing an employee to quit, instead of firing them, saves the company money.
Ponder
2mo ago
Instrumental rationality. Think about the goal you are trying to achieve and then think about if a display of anger will help or hinder your progress toward that goal. Then think about the best way to achieve your goal and work on doing that action. It is redirecting the anger to a productive use and re-engaging the rational part of your brain.
One small caveat is that sometimes a controlled performative display of anger may be appropriate.
HPMOR chapter 19 may help you internalize this lesson:
What you demonstrated today, Mr. Potter, is that - unlike those animals who keep their claws sheathed and accept the results - you do not know how to lose a dominance contest. When a Hogwarts professor challenged you, you did not back down. When it looked like you might lose, you unsheathed your claws, heedless of the danger. You escalated, and then you escalated again. It started with a slap at you from Professor Snape, who was obviously dominant over you. Instead of losing, you slapped back and lost ten points from Ravenclaw. Soon you were talking about leaving Hogwarts....
...The next time, Mr. Potter, that you choose to escalate a contest rather than lose, you may lose all the stakes you place on the table. I cannot guess what they were today. I can guess that they were far, far too high for the loss of ten House points
Then Harry realizes:
I would have taken the slap, waited, and picked the best possible time to make my move...
Ponder
2mo ago
Scott talks about them in the article: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/how-trustworthy-are-supplements
Ponder
2mo ago
I occasionally take mushroom extracts.
If I take Red Reishi or Tiger Milk before bed it tends to improve sleep (falling asleep faster, vivid dreams, and better recall of dreams).
If I take Cordyceps in the morning I'll sometimes feel a mild energy boost for a few hours. It feels somewhat like a milder version of caffeine.
Ponder
2mo ago
The biggest gains will probably come from the income side. For new grads there is often a path of increasing job titles e.g. associate --> staff --> senior --> manager. If you stay at one company each jump is usually a minimum set amount of time and the pay bump is often somewhat fixed based on your current salary. If you look externally for the next step/network you can sometimes get to the next job title sooner and be offered higher pay.
Also, a good perk to consider is employers that pay for continuing education that can be leveraged into higher paying jobs (e.g. an employers that pays a large percentage of tuition reimbursement for pursuing a master's degree).
Ponder
2mo ago
I think response 2 is directionally correct, but it can be combined with other approaches for a more beneficial outcome. You can only focus on a very small amount of the world's data your lifetime. You have to focus on things that are relevant to you. For instance, if you thought about every food (down to the specific plant/animal) in the world before deciding what to eat then you would starve to death because it is too much data to process. With suffering it is just not relevant to focus on most of it, and doing so will drain you of precious resources that you need to address the much more localized suffering.
It is axiomatic that an individual human can only impact a very limited amount of suffering. Once that boundary is chosen it becomes much more manageable. You can do local things that will have an impact on alleviating suffering for others and for future generations (e.g. helping preserve a piece of public land). Also, don't intentionally do things that will cause suffering for others. There is only so much you can do, and the rest of the suffering is out of your control.
You can also expand on response 1. There are techniques that allow you to think about suffering without being as bothered by it. Those include meditation, therapy techniques, Stoicism, psychedelics, and teachings that help you focus on appreciating the present moment (e.g. Letting Go by David Hawkins, or The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle).
Finally, the suffering might serve some purpose that you don't know. Maybe it is needed to teach new people a lesson that they would not be able to learn if the suffering was eliminated. Maybe the suffering is needed to motivate humans to take actions that will lead to a better future world. Maybe suffering is needed so that non-suffering can be properly appreciated.
Ponder
2mo ago
I like how you clarified what wisdom is. The content that I like the most is attempting to explain underlying causes across time, perspectives, and often domains. I agree that it is hard to find this on the internet.
read books
Do you have any tips on determining which books contain useful wisdom? I still run into the problem of sorting out the good content from the garbage.
The other problem with books is that they often aren't timely/relevant unless you have the ability to connect them to modern knowledge/issues. Social media and other technological advancements have significantly changed the world.
The wisdom in many books no longer directly applies to the current world because it is optimized for environments that no longer exist. Some people have the ability to connect/adapt that wisdom to today's world. If you lack that ability then it could make more sense to focus only on current content where other people make those connections for you.
Ponder
2mo ago
What do you think?
If you have a popular forum that is free to join then people are incentivized to push products and narratives because it creates a way for them to advertise for basically free. People are gaming the system with bots and other tactics.
I think Elon Musk came to realization that the only way to solve this issue on forums with anonymous users is to gate content creation behind a paywall.
If you're going to gate a forum behind a paywall it would probably need to have something else that is worth paying for that also attracts a community with shared values. Then the paywall gated forums are a bonus, instead of the main feature.
I'm not endorsing this, but https://petersonacademy.com/ is an example of a paywall gated social media platform.
Ponder
2mo ago
From a biological perspective, humans are wired to survive and reproduce. Having allies and mates who are socially well-adapted to the local culture helps achieve these goals. This is because social support from people with power gives you access to useful resources that you could not acquire on your own. People implicitly/unconsciously know that people with mental conditions do not make the best allies/mates when they have the option to be allies/mates with mentally healthier people.
People are selecting for unconscious predictors to the question of if the person makes a good ally/mate. That is why Elon Musk (who has Aspersers) can overcome the "ick" treatment by demonstrating qualities that make him a good ally/mate.
People cover up their instinctual repulsions because they are following the current cultural norms of polite society.
People with disabilities often try to distance themselves from other people that have a lower-functioning version of the same disability. This is because it is a strategy that enhances their own image as a potential ally/mate.
Ponder
2mo ago
Generally, women in their 30s have lower standards about how much entertainment and validation you need to provide on an on-going basis.
They have much higher expectations about things like owning a house, your career trajectory, and how well you can navigate standard social interactions.
For instance, with many women in their 20s it is fine if you’re just having fun, rent a mediocre apartment, and haven’t got your career sorted out yet. At some point by their 30s those become dealbreakers to many women.
I don’t own a house because I wanted to live downtown to help with my social life, but then I got locked out of the housing market by not buying a house before the inflation from the Covid policies. So, that is one factor that puts me a disadvantage with the 30s women. Also, due to autism I don’t have any desire to become a manager/leader at work, so my career has kind of peaked as an individual contributor.
Ponder
2mo ago
Does anyone have tips on how to use to internet to gain wisdom? I know there is content that will make me wiser, or have some beneficial impact on my life, but what I’m looking for is very ill-defined and non-specific.
Searching for this type of content feels like a slot machine where most pulls pay nothing, but very occasionally you hit a nice payoff that keeps you addicted.
For example, finding Scott Alexander or John Vervaeke had highly positive outcomes to me, but I had to wade through a ton of internet garbage to find them.
This search is also complicated by other factors:
- Once you find and engage with the gems you get sorted into an algorithm that keeps feeding you similar content and then it can switch from being helpful to just being confirmation bias.
- The garbage isn’t easily identifiable because most content is knowledge that helps you stay current and connected with other people that consume it.
- Other people can’t reliably help you find the gems because they are driven by tribalism/jealousy/biases. For instance, I can’t rely on the New York Times or rationalwiki to decide if Scott Alexander belongs in the gem or internet garbage bucket.
- Some wise people seem weird when you first encounter them because their ideas are different than your own. Yet, sometimes their weird perspective is exactly what you need to gain wisdom.
Ponder
3mo ago
I’m in my mid 30s and I’ve never had much success with romantic relationships. When I was in my 20s I could get occasional 1st dates through OkCupid or friends. There were a few girls I was in short-term relationships with, but nothing lasted longer than about 6 months.
I believe that I’m on the autism spectrum and that is why I struggle so much with social interactions that have a romantic component to them. I’d say my biggest challenges are (1) that I find eye contact uncomfortable so I mostly avoid it and (2) that I avoid trying to take any interaction into a flirtatious direction because I lack the skills to do it well and I don’t want to make things awkward.
I workout a lot and I’m in great physical shape. I started taking my looks/diet much more seriously around age 25.
When I was in my 20s things were also complicated by the fact that I had a very naïve and delusion model of how dating/relationships were supposed to work. Basically, I thought being nice, conscientious, reliable, and having a respectable career were the main things I could do to be viewed as good boyfriend material.
In my 30s I got good at getting attractive women in their 20s to approach me and initiate the interaction. It only works at bars that have dancing and involves me being on psychoactive substances (primarily Phenibut) that reduce social anxiety and put me into a flow state. I only do this up to once a week. In these interactions I get feedback that I’m very confident and have good vibes, but I rarely try to flirt even though the woman is usually giving me clear signals that she is sexually attracted to me. I usually try to de-flirt the interaction by dancing in a non-sexual way, or by saying things like, “I’m just doing exposure therapy to help build confidence”. If an interaction goes really well sometimes I’ll ask for her number so that we can hang out in the future. Usually, when I ask for her number I get it. But usually she doesn’t want to actually hang out if I text her in the future.
I think there are number of reasons why I don’t put much effort into flirting in these situations:
- Learned helplessness from my earlier experiences. Knowing that whatever I do will eventually fail at some point in the process even if the next step succeeds.
- When I’m sober and not at the bar I’m not nearly as confident and fun so she’ll probably lose interest in me.
- Wanting to be known as the friendly/approachable/safe guy at the bar instead of a creepy guy just trying to get laid. Currently, most of the bar staff enjoys my presence and is friendly with me.
- Having a low sex drive so I’m mostly wanting a relationship for companionship instead of the sexual component.
- Having to deal with the stigma of a 10-15 year age-gap.
I’ve tried looking for women to date in sober environments and online dating and I just haven’t found anything that works for me. I’m not good enough at masking my autism so most of my social interactions go poorly. Even if I find a decent sober environment (like book club) I feel like there are social norms that prevent me from asking a women out.
My views on dating have also soured in 2 relevant ways:
- I’ve seen first-hand how the confident/fun guy gets treated so much better than the boring/stable/normal guy. I don’t want to just be treated like the normal guy that she reluctantly settles for.
- I can get attention from women in their 20s and it made me lose interest in most single women closer to my age (generally the ones that would have made good girlfriends/wives already paired-off when they were in their 20s). Since I don’t have much relationship experience I probably can’t meet the expectations of women in their 30s anyway.
What is the best path forward for me if I’m looking for a relationship that is mostly focused on companionship with a woman in her 20s?
I’m at a crossroads because my Phenibut experiences made me disinterested in pursing women in any other way. The women I meet sober are much less enthusiastic about me and less physically attractive. I feel like I could attempt to flirt more while at the bar, but I’m afraid of getting a reputation of being the guy at the bar that hits on too many women.
Ponder
3mo ago
I like what you are saying about the importance and effectiveness of humor, but I did want to expand on some of the other points you made.
Indeed, I'd argue that a fully on 70% of what we call 'charisma' is just being adept at humor. The other 30% is being good-looking.
I think this formula is missing an important component of charisma, which is a sense of confidence and certainty. Charismatic people seem to have a way of being confident before it is earned. They can show up in a new situation, or setting, and not seem uncertain like most people. Since they don't appear uncertain people tend to go along with them because the logic is: If someone didn't know what they were doing they wouldn't be able to appear so confident. Someone that is confident must therefore have skills/expertise to handle a situation.
Charismatic people have a way of being confident in their actions in a socially smooth way. If someone disagrees with them they can skillfully navigate the interaction without coming across as insecure and/or an asshole.
humor is such a tricky thing that I'm not even sure how much you can actually practice it
Something that worked for me was to view humor as a clash of perspectives. There is something of an algorithm to it which is to basically compare different perspectives to find variances between them. Once you notice these differences you can start reflect on past interactions and imaginally practice different points where you could have said something humorous. This imaginal practice gave me to confidence to occasionally add humor to my communication.
Ponder
3mo ago
I think looking for the starting point of real GDP decline is missing the point. We can see the Share of Total Net Worth Held by the Top 1% (99th to 100th Wealth Percentiles): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBST01134. It goes from approximately 23% in 1989 to approximately 30% in 2024. Statistics like that could be calculated for longer periods and/or for different wealth percentiles.
The point is that even if real GDP is growing it disproportionately benefiting the people that were already wealthy instead of being more evenly distributed. You also have other data like how women used to be able to afford to stay at home. It leads to a feeling that the middle class is constantly shrinking as the wealthy figure out how to keep more of the GDP to themselves.
Many people see that their lives are getting economically worse. They can no longer achieve the same results as their parents with the same amount of effort. Manufacturing got outsourced to foreign countries, which eliminated a high-school to middle class path for many people. Then the question becomes why am I worse off economically than my parents even though I have the same or higher education? One explanation could be real GDP declining. A more causative factor seems to be the American system is designed to funnel more and more wealth to the wealthy as time progresses.
I think the point of the economic growth discussion is something more like: If real GDP is growing then something in the system is broken if it isn't making life better off for the majority of Americans.
Ponder
3mo ago
Humor is a socially acceptable way to critique controversial topics. Historically, clowns have special permission from their society to parody or criticize defective aspects of their own culture.
In modern society it a way to signal intelligence. If you know something is not true but you also know there are social consequences to directly stating this then you can use humor to avoid the social consequences. Humor also allows you to shift the conversation from the object level (where you could objectively be proven wrong) to a social status game that is basically subjective.
Humor also gives people plausible deniability behind their true intentions. For instance, there is a yard sign that says, “In this house we believe:…science is real…love is love…”. Someone made a parody of this sign that says, “In this house we believe: Simplistic platitudes, trite tautologies, and semantically overloaded aphorisms are poor substitutes for respectful and rational discussions about complex issues”. The parody could have several meanings beyond the literal such as: the person is not a progressive, or the person thinks politics in general are a joke, or the person just thought it was a funny sign. Parody can also sometimes provide a defense that you are just giving homage to the original work.
Humor allows you convey your ideas as emotions/feelings instead of logical statements, which makes them more receptive to some audiences.
Humor (including funny memes) is often a more memorable way to convey an idea. A funny meme is much easier to recall than some long statistical argument about a topic.
Humor shows us a clash of perspectives in our ethical framework. It undermines self-righteous absolutism. It can show us the limits of our understanding, which can lead to self-transcendence. For a further steelman see: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KcvsipxzjXw
Have you ever been in a serious conversation where someone keeps making jokes, and it’s impossible to obtain the same seriousness again
This could be the person using humor as coping mechanism to avoid deeply thinking about their own beliefs, but it isn’t really a problem with humor itself.
Ponder
4mo ago
Someone developing a cult following and convincing enough of their followers to move to a remote physical location where they can outvote the locals. Then they can vote for their own sheriff and government officials that will let them run things as the cult leader wishes. In Wild Wild Country they bussed in homeless to win county elections.
This isn't quite like a monarch because the cult members are always free to leave. It requires the cult leader maintaining a system of loyalty and devotion so that cult members will submit to the leader's rule.
Ponder
5mo ago
I was thinking of this when I wrote the post, but I wasn't sure how the Mormon community operationally does this. It seems like it is more of a social norm to shun/socially-stigmatize ex-members than it being an explicit code of conduct that is causing this.
I'm wondering if you could explicitly achieve this legally with a financially incentivized code of conduct that all members agree to (as opposed to being an unwritten social norm).
Then I'm wondering if you could legally use a code of conduct like this in a secular community. People just want to agree to shared moral values and exclude people who don't agree with those values, without needing to have any shared religious beliefs.
Ponder
5mo ago
It depends on the specifics. One idea would be to start your own group that does something directionally similar but is different enough that it needs to be its own group. Maybe just focus on one specific policy and then become an ally group to the other group.
My intuition is usually to just walk away from these situations and find something more enjoyable to do.
Ponder
5mo ago
There are huge variances in what bars are good for talking to strangers. There are bars near me like you describe, but there are also lively bars with high energy. The high energy bars usually have dancing and cater to a younger crowd (21-30s), some even remove most of the chairs when it gets late so there is more space to dance. The higher energy bars near me are in the downtown area. At these bars sometimes strangers will dance with each other. Not all cities have these types of bars.
If you go to bars where people go to celebrate things (e.g. bachelorette parties) then it is usually acceptable to approach them and congratulate them on whatever they are celebrating.
For talking to strangers maybe a community musical festival would be a better choice. You can chat with vendors, and there are often people at the edge of music area that are up for chatting.
Another option is to consider joining an activity that occurs at a bar. Some bars have volleyball leagues, or outdoor yard game tournaments. You could also join a bowling league as that would be a way to drink with strangers and chat about things.
Ponder
5mo ago
What if the difference between what a non-member and good standing member pay is much smaller? The non-member is just charged market value +1%. What is the threshold for the court viewing it as an illegal scheme?
Business are allowed to donate goods/services, universities are allowed to offer scholarships. So why can't a business choose to offer lower prices to people they view as moral and higher prices to people who haven't sufficiently demonstrated good moral character?
In addition to the responses below 2 other things to consider are reducing salt intake and making sure you are consuming a sufficient amount of magnesium every day. Neither may be applicable to you, but they could be a place to look if regular exercise isn't getting you the results you want.
Blood pressure might be another good data point to measure. I don't know enough to say more but I have experienced that blood pressure and heart rate can be related in a complex way (e.g. something can cause both RHR and blood pressure to increase, or RHR can increase to compensate for a drop in blood pressure).
Btw, I think 60-80 is a normal RHR when awake.
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