TwiceHuman
5hr ago
It is probably dangerous if you achieve higher control of yourself than average people can. Changing an emotion into another is fairly exotic, but changing the target of emotions is a common defense mechanism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_(psychology) As far as I'm concerned, all alchemy is actually psychology, but projected into the real world. Embodying an emotion sounds like it could just be a result of attention directed towards an emotion, such that said emotion is the meditation object?
This is basically the process behind all serious meditative/psychedelic states, no? Meditative, probably yes. But in general, all religious, spiritual and sometimes traditional rituals are about achieving exotic states of mind, either ones of very high or very low excitement. I think this is because the brain is mallable (receptive to change) in these states. In "prometheus rising" they talk about how you can reprogram people with LSD, and you probably know about the trance state. You may also know that the brain accepts something as true the first moment you see it, and only judge it afterwards, which is why some advertisement tries to overstimulate you as it delivers its message. It's like these are methods of making our brain "let its guard down" so that we can influence it more, or alternatively ways of getting past the ego.
Am I right to assume that you've read this? https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/20/meditative-states-as-mental-feedback-loops/ I think the main take away is that feedback loops are unnatural, and that the brain tries to prevent them by default. Which is why you need a great concentration and ability to avoid distractions. When accelerating in a fast car or listening to music, I sometimes get chills (ASMR response), but it depends on how I tune my attention. I have to sort of "surf" on the stimuli. This likely generalizes to all senses and emotional responses (chills doing massages and the build-up of tension/anticipation doing important scenes in movies, etc). Does this not imply that feedback loops are the norm? Merely that with most peoples ability to concentrate, they only last a few seconds.
The link you sent sounds like a manic episode. heightened energy, racing thoughts, feeling that things are connected, higher and higher escalation. I sometimes feel like that on stimulants, and when I think about important things thoroughly until I have very strong beliefs (in other words, tidying up doubts and loose ends and other internal conflicts and inconsistencies. If you want to feel really great, spend a few hours doing this). I've often heard that Kundalini has strong effects, and that the "out of body" aspect is dangerous (makes some people go crazy). I think the positive effects come from focusing on your body, mainly the "chakra" areas, and creating feedback-loops on these sensations. By the way, the reason why "out of body" experiences is bad may be because our perception of yourself has a specific place in your head, say between the eyes and back a bit, and that it's dangerous to disconnect from this. You know how it feels like you're floating doing sleep paralysis? This is the brains model of the body, often called the spirit body by mystics, and it may be related to our sense of Proprioception. I don't know if you can accidentally mess up this sense, but it's possible. I personally experience discomfort at times because it feels like my "point of self" is slightly off center, maybe because the left and right side of my face have different sensitivities. Anyway, I've heard that some cultures place their "selves" in the heart rather than in the head, and some crazy book (I forgot which one) recommend shifting this area around as an exercise, so maybe it's not that dangerous as long as you don't move outside of your body, but this is guesswork on my part.
I'm not sure why just focusing on ones heart (or chakras, or kundalini) has strong positive effects, but our brains relation to the body is probably more important than we thought (hence Yoga and such). Books like "The body keeps the score" and some obscure books claim that discomfort and even trauma is basically located in the body and causes muscle stiffness and "blockades" in the "flow of energy" whatever that means.
And about consciousness, what people call "awake" is simply not living on autopilot. To have a consistent sense of self rather than periodic self-awareness with blurs in between, you make your sense of self the object of meditation and train yourself to maintain it at all times. I've read a book on this once as well, but I don't remember the name. Sometimes, meditating on something strengthens it, but sometimes it breaks it down (say a word over and over again and it will lose meaning). I'm not sure how meditation which strengthens the self and meditation which dissolves the self are different. The ways to reinforce things and destroy things seem eerly similar. Meditation makes some people more alert, more alive and more anchored in the moment, while it causes other people to disassociate, have no ego, and become apathetic or stoic. I wish I knew the tiny differences in approach which causes these wildly different outcomes.
Finally, I have a bonus insight for you. The strength of your senses is what makes you feel alive. Having dirty glasses, ears blocked by earwax, a loss of smell due to a cold, etc. always makes me feel like reality is less real. So it seems like sensory inputs is what ground us in reality (which may be why the numbening effects of dissociation makes reality feel like a game, movie or dream rather than reality). I hope these insights were useful! If you want, I will try to dig up the titles of some of the books I've read on this, though 40% of it is my own original ideas and guesses.
TwiceHuman
6hr ago
I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. It requires a rather high intelligence to notice that everything is necessarily relative, and people usually don't if they can convince themselves that something is fundamental. Convincing yourself, for instance, that the earth is the center of everything, or that god is the center of everything, or that morality is objective, gives you a reference point, and it takes a lot of questioning to realize that neither of these are true.
Whenever there's a conflict between A and B, A will be correct from As perspective, and B will be correct from Bs perspective. A parent perspective C can be used to judge A and B, but there's no perspective for which you cannot create a conflicting perspective such that both seem equally value, and you're in need of a parent perspective. If two Christians disagree, then then a priest may be the judge. If two priests disagree, then the bible may be the judge. If two religions disagree, then what? You always need something "higher", but there's no "highest". It's also for this reason that there cannot be an authority of truth. The authority will be unable to judge itself, so it won't know if it's mistaken. This limitation applies to everything from the government, to cultures, to mathematics itself. Something merely seems universal when everyone agrees on it. If humanity could agree on morality, it would seem universal until an alien race came along and said something different. Who judges the judges? It's judges all the way down. Who created the universe, god? Well, who created god? Math is based on set theory, well, how do we prove the axioms of set theory are correct? The problem of infinite regres is everywhere. You can arrive at it by thinking, which is why ancient philosophy often says "There's no one true path". It's why Nietzsche said that there's no facts but only interpretations (perspectivism). It's also how Einstein could discover relativity. The axiom "everything is connected" is also derived from this line of thinking.
When you try to orientent, compare, and judge things, in any field, you run into infinite regress. This is generally why thinking too much leads to nihilism, you realize that everything is arbitrary and mistakenly believe that this means that it's counterfeit.
TwiceHuman
16hr ago
where it changes depending on where we stand
Is this not just relativism? If you think about anything long enough, you will find that there's no one true answer, no matter if the subject is morality, meaning, philosophy, or mathematics (incompleteness theorems). Everything is fundamentally relative. And while there's no "one true" path, god or set of values, you must yet choose something, you can't just not have values, beliefs and direction. So you choose something arbitrary, knowing that it's not everything. Kathenotheism seems perfectly logical
Your conclusions so far sound about right, except I don't think that hyperventilation and LSD are harmless (You could develop HPPD for instance).
Everything else seems true. Human happiness is not zero-sum, this is trivial to conclude since it's possible to experience more suffering than happiness. This implies that the opposite is possible, and that our brains just prevent this because the negative bias helps with survival. In other words, you're trying to hack your own reward centers, and your brain made this difficult to do because it knows that it can be dangerous. If you try to lucid dream and your dream characters get angry with you, it's probably for the same reason.
What further path are you hoping for? That you can learn to control or influence reality with willpower, that you can shift into a better timeline/reality by adjusting your energy, that you can re-program yourself, that you can live in constant bliss or reach a higher level of consciousness?
Some say that deep meditation allows us to realize that we're one with everyone, meet "god" or some infinite source of energy (gateway process, etc), experience "non-duality" (this is just messing with the human perception which separates things), or to be able to contact anyone connected to the earths magnetic field.
Some say that beliefs can influence the world, that the world matches your level of energy/chakra/frequency/vibration, that you and the world are one (Hermetic principles), that the questions you ask decide what questions you get (John Wheeler), that human consciousness controls the wave function collapse (this direction unifies mysticism and science a bit), or that reality is agreement (that everything is a game. The EST seminars go in this direction a bit in their approach to enlightenment).
You can program yourself, hypnotize yourself and others, manipulate your own belief structures and other fun stuff. Every article on here is high-quality, and I recommend reading it because it contains a bunch of warnings that I don't want you to lose out on: https://cognitiveengineer.blogspot.com/2011/11/resources.html
Living in constant bliss (which should be possible given that these mechanisms don't rely on dopamine or other neurotransmitters, but occur in the processing of sensations) probably just requires a strong concentration, then to focus on a pleasant experience in your body, and keep the focus such that a feedback-loop occurs. When your focus is strong enough, it will feel like a hand grabbing the object of focus. This is likely the origin of the idea of telekinesis. In states of mania or otherwise inflated confidence, your willpower might also be so strong that it feels like you can do anything (and you may actually manage to do some things that in retrospec are impressive)
I've also read about egregores, divining, magic, the collective unconsciousness, synchronicities, demons, DMT creatures, oracles, the law of attraction, etc. And I can probably explain these logically and kill the fun. I could also give you reasons to believe in them, just to keep things a little interesting. Man, I should really spend my time better. Oh well.
consigning yourself to fate like this was more or less insane
"Trusting the universe" helps peace of mind. Not trying to control what you can't control saves a lot of cognitive energy, which is probably why it's recommended by so many spiritual people (to me, they're just a type of psychologists though). Anyway, I've written enough for now. Which parts interest you?
TwiceHuman
5d ago
This is all getting silly. Women vote differently from men because they're more emotional, social and subjective. So they're camp "It's fine if everything gets worse, as long as we're not mean" while men tend towards "It's fine if we're mean, as long as our society improves".
There's like half a standard deviation of difference in the distribution of personality traits, which causes these differences in voting outcomes. There's no need to fabricate any wars, and act like natural tendencies are a way of punishing eachother and securing ones power. "Why are men keeping women out of engineering?" They just like engineering at a higher frequency.
Trying to pressure other people into having the same values as yourself is, and always was, bad taste. And both genders are biologically hardwired to enjoy sex. None of this is necessary, I know because I still hang out in communities with zero politics, and in which men and women enjoy eachother and in which people would be confused if you talked about power dynamics or even a gender divide.
Now, I don't disagree with your takes on the issue, I reject the issue itself and suggest that you do the same. I ended up replying to you because your comment is short and approachable
If a majority of people want to end democracy, I cannot think of an argument against it. If you're pro-democracy because you think the majorty is right, then you wouldn't be justified in stopping the majority from ending democracy. If you value democracy because it's correct, then you're also saying that you're wrong when the majority disagrees with you, which it would in this example. I can still save it, though. Suppose democracy was not about correctness, but rather about freedom. Then it would pain you to see people having the freedom to choose that they wouldn't want to be free anymore. But this choice imposes on the freedoms of those who still wants to be free. But if people say "I like democracy" when what they mean is "I like freedom", then people become confused and we reach the wrong conclusions, so it's important not to confuse ends and means. Democracy is not your highest value, it's something else which is unstated and which correlates with democracy.
is a valid critique of democracy
Yes, but then it's not democracy which is optimized for, but rather "good opinions", which democracy once did better. But now we have a problem, for while I can agree with your take, there's no objective way to measure if we're correct or if we're mislead. For democracy used to be how we measured, and now we have made something out to be more important than democracy, which we have no way to measure.
the people putting in place mandates should really have considered the second order effects
Vaccine skepticism can be blamed on those who promoted the vaccines. They repeatedly acted like people who were out to mislead you and put you in danger, while stating the opposite. For instance, they said "These vaccines are completely safe", but also that neither these companies, nor the government, would be to blame if getting the vaccine went horribly wrong for you. "I promise you this is safe, but I take no responsibility for the consequences" is a statement which will make people distrust you. Now, this doesn't imply that the vaccine isn't safe, merely that it's reasonable and logical to doubt that it is. About 10 more things like this happened (documents being held back, people being told that herd immunity would occur, being being told that the vaccine prevented you from spreading or getting Covid, both claims which turned out to be false), etc etc etc.
So, again, even if the vaccine is perfectly safe, the only reasonable response to somebody repeatedly lying to you, and even trying to use political and legal pressure to force you to inject something in your body which hasn't even been properly tested, is resistance. It's not the counter-movements fault that people distrust vaccines, but the sheer incompetence of the main movement.
TwiceHuman
5d ago
I generally agree with everything you wrote, but I wouldn't limit myself to just trustworthiness. I think there's a sort of "brainrot" quality to modern news which is independent of truthfulness. A lot of articles are "watch this silly video" or "guy does whacky thing". That's news exploiting other psychological needs, which is a bad direction to go in, because you end up with people optimizing only for the thing which triggers rewards in the brain, without the substance. Instead of news which are also interesting, we're getting interesting things which aren't news. This is like selling lootboxes without the videogames, or sugar without the food, or fanservice without the story.
By the way, I seem to remember journalists being people who put their lives on the line in order to fight against corruption (that it was almost an admirable job to have). It seems like the news are now owned by those who are corrupt, though, causing a disconnect with the average viewer. One of the causes is that the scope (size/range) of news media is too big. Decentralized news for every local area is superior to everyone reading the exact same set of global news. And to large companies, we're just numbers on a spreadsheet, so the human element is lost. This is a another kind of disconnect, and honest news alone cannot make up for it (objectivity and empathy are different after all) Anyway, a small sphere of concern is essential to psychological health, most of the mental health problems lately can be attributed to people who worry about far-away things while neglecting what's near to them (like themselves and their family, factors which are actually within their ability to influence or control).
And I’m not really saying “get rid of it, don’t use it”
I see. I suppose that's just my own view, then. Sure, you can reduce your media consumption to what it was in the past, such that you get what used to be a healthy and even useful level of information. However, I do not believe that a low amount is healthy nor useful anymore. Media is not trustworthy anymore, it's not honest, it does not cover issues that I consider to be important, it does not transmit information in a useful manner. I think it has gotten so bad that it's literally worse than nothing. What you say about being able to adjust for bias, is true. But any work we consume will rub off on us, it will change how we think, how we use language, what we focus on, and how we view the world. Social movements are nonsense (their success is only possible when they're not needed. Feminism can only succeed in socities which discriminate against men. If a movement gets public support, then the public cannot also be against that movement, it's a contradition) This is true for countless of issues. How are people not noticing that nothing makes any sense? Have you never read an old book written by somebody actually intelligent, and felt yourself slowly waking up and regaining the ability to think? So that once you return to the garbage you consumed previously, you immediately see through everything wrong with it? We're tricked into entertaining wrong questions, and focusing on issues which don't exist. We try to win arguments, but don't even notice that the very definitions and oppositions are flawed.
Neutral news is only impossible for us, the consumers. It's not that they couldn't just report facts if they wanted to, for them it would be easy. But it's not where the money is, and it seems like everything just flows in the direction of money now, and that individual people have very little control over anything. Like money is a force of nature. It also feels like "quality" is losing to "quantity" more and more in ROI. Something kept this at bay in the past, probably taste and high standards
TwiceHuman
6d ago
I see. I personally wouldn't hang out with a crowd that I could identify by their political leaning. I'm personally extremely high in openness and pro-freedom, but against degeneracy and weakmindedness, so I don't fit on any political spectrum in existence.
But I think you can find more agreement on up-stream issues than on particular issues. I remember telling somebody that sending money to troubled migrants living in their own country is way more cost-effective than helping them in our country. This position is both "anti-immigration" and "pro-helping poor people far away". You can usually spin your own opinion in a way which favors both sides or the person you're talking to.
I think not talking about politics is good for the most part (it tends to be far-away issues), but some issues will affect you personally, and it's your right to comment on that, or to make jokes and such. The facts shouldn't be controversial, for instance "Food is getting expensive lately". I don't think you necessarily need to say the reasons and solutions out loud.
I interact with about 10% of people, and sort away 90%. This still leaves enough people that I don't isolate myself. I'm not sure what balance you're comfortable with personally?
My hope is that the vibe shift can be helped along by people like me
"He who fights with monsters..." Be careful that you don't attempt to change something, only to have it change you instead. Dumb and unreasonable people are innumerable, I genuinely don't think fighting evil is viable. I also think that being pro(good thing) is better than being anti(bad thing), because of how negation works psychologically (the mathematical negation is mechanically different). Also, fighting something legitimizes it in a sense, and makes it more popular. Ignoring things, and rejecting them is likely more effective. For an example of rejecting, I mean that the statement "I hate my boss" legitimizes your bosses position, whereas "Who made him the boss?" attacks it. If we hate "the elite", then we collectively agree that they're elites, which is precisely what makes them elites (as reality is largely based on agreement). I should probably make a post on this some time.
I’m prepared to have my social media accounts nuked from on high at any time
I see! That's likely easier on the psyche
TwiceHuman
6d ago
You probably can't escape social media easily, but you can escape politics. Which, by the way, feels fantastic and like being back in the past.
I think that news and media is psychologically unhealthy. If anything is important enough, you will hear of it anyway. If you really want to watch news, I suppose there's these "neutral, all-sides, unbiased" news sites, but I trust them about as much as I trust "debunkers" and "fact-checkers", which are 1984 ministry of truth levels of insanity to me. I cannot take authorities on truth seriously, it's a dumb concept in a way which one cannot help but notice if they think about it a little.
And I agree, it's like taking something too seriously hinders ones ability to think about it clearly.
TwiceHuman
6d ago
I usually go to more right-leaning websites and communities, and I recall seeing maybe 6 or 7 actual neonazis, but I have never seen anyone write that all vaccines are bad. Maybe a tiny bit of tech-savviness filters out the low-IQ schizophrenics who recommends "all-natural" alternatives to everything. 1% sounds like a lot, though, but I can't refute it if I include the offline population and Facebook users.
TwiceHuman
6d ago
This is literally my first time seeing such a person. I've never intentionally looked for them, but I've interacted with quite a lot of people in the past few years.
Of all people that I have seen who refuse to get the Covid vaccine, everyone still get (and support) literally every other vaccine. I'd estimate people who are against all vaccines to be 0.1-1% of the population at most. You can't really go lower than that. 1% of the population has an IQ below 65, 1% of the population are psychopaths, 1% of the population are pedophiles. If an issue is so rare than it applies to about 1%, I don't think coordinated efforts to improve them (like education, peer pressure, or more laws) is going to help any. I just accept that a small portion of the population is a little crazy by statistic necessity.
TwiceHuman
6d ago
If you wish to avoid radicalization, wouldn't it be best to stay away from social media entirely? Or you can think for yourself like I do (this will likely put you out of sync with most people, but you will have a sane view on things)
By the way, that person clearly had nothing of value to offer you. She's some brand of mentally unwell (I'd say stupid, but she seems lucid and I don't notice any typos). There may be people worth interacting with on that site, but I think it's a bit cruel to yourself to interact with somebody that you know will waste your time and treat you badly, and giving them the benefit of doubt.
I've only seen Bluesky on Japanese Twitter so far, so I thought it was Japanese, in which case it would be somewhat safe from a political takeover. But now that I Google it, it seems like it's American. I'd recommend you don't get too attached to the site (in other words, mentally tag your account as throwaway so that leaving or getting banned won't affect you too badly in the future)
TwiceHuman
7d ago
Views like your own do not seem uncommon to me, but they seem disconnected from common sense and I can't tell if I'm taking words too literally or if people have internalized so many weird perspectives on things that they've lost their clear-sightedness.
1: If somebody wins democratically, then that's democracy. If you dislike a democratic process, then you're arguing against democracy, and not for it. I can't make sense of rejecting a democratic result with the argument that something democratic is a threat to democracy.
2: I do not see anybody, anywhere, downplay the importance of vaccines and antibiotics. Not even when I follow your link. People dislike one specific vaccine (if you can even call it that), because it wasn't tested properly. And many of the connected companies have some shady histories. I don't even think it's relevant if these companies did anything bad or not, or if the vaccine is harmless or not. A large amount of people lost all trust in these companies and those who support them, and for perfectly valid reasons.
3: The correlation between IQ and ideology is weak, and it doesn't tell you which side is more correct.
I liked the article. Not because it's "true", I'm fed up with that concept anyway, truth is not going to save any of us. I like it because it's a rare display of humanity, it's a break away from disillusionment. Is it a bit embarrassing and silly? Yes, like I said, human. It's different from the naivety of the left, as the left is simply deluded about the consequences of their actions. This essay gives value to something which already exists, instead of placing false hope in the future potential of something and clinging to it because of that. There's substance here, just not intellectual substance, but man can't live on bread alone.
While I agree with you, I think "busting out the compasses and graph paper" is what science is. We've reached the limits of what we can do in our minds, so now we do mathematics on paper. This allows us to calculate things that we cannot wrap our heads around (try visualizing infinite-dimensional spaces for instance)
One thing I have noticed that less intelligent people do is solving the same problem over and over again. Even culture wars are like this. "X people are discriminated against, and it's totally not their fault, so we need to give special rights to X group to prevent this, as it's only fair to escalate their power/position in society". Even as a teenager I generalized this problem to every related problem which could exist, but somehow society still sees a sense of novelty in "We are X, we are victims, give us power or you're bad and support bad things"
Edit: My point is that, even with pens and stacks of paper, stupid people cannot generalize or reach levels of abstractions which gives them the advantages of space. Space is really powerful though, even more than Time (which is probably why PSPACE and EXPSPACE are bigger than PTIME and EXPTIME respectively. Not that I actually know complexity theory)
TwiceHuman
1mo ago
I agree with everything that you wrote, but I also think that there's plently of evidence that the left is playing dirty. I give Trump about 30% of winning, because the entire game is rigged against him in a way which I consider fraud. In my view, this fraud is possible in the first place because democracy has been undermined.
TwiceHuman
1mo ago
Peoples reactions to Trump has nothing to do with Trump. I think it's the psychological side-effect from years of media propaganda against him. There's no things which exists in reality, which warrant a strong reaction against Trump. But if you look outside of reality, in various stories and subjective experiences and predictions, you can find reasons to feel strongly about Trump. If somebody claims that Trump is a psychopath, for instance, you may experience him as such, even if you would never have come up with that idea on your own if nobody had told you.
This forums is quite competent around politics, but I feel like psychology is more essential in understanding the world than any political theory is. It's like psychology and human nature is the "upstream" of everything, in the same way that one can spend tens of years in vain trying to make sense of women or dating, but then reading a few books on evolutionary psychogy and natural selection and have everything fall into place in a couple of days.
I've read that book, but I didn't understand this part as well as you have (I just assumed it was because I hadn't read Lacan, but maybe I just missed something) I do want to point out that the ledger is of course nonsense, but also that it's useful to create the concept, because it makes life into a meritocracy. That human beings manipulate reward systems (wireheading or goodhart's law) rather than just chasing the rewards like they're meant to, is a different problem.
It's not just hunger, suffering works the same. You're hungry until you eat, and you make yourself unhappy "until you reach that goal, after which you will deserve happiness". We're afraid of letting go of suffering though, because of the belief that we won't reach our goal if we do (or the belief that we might even forget about the goal (this is why using a calender can reduce ones anxiety by a lot)). The "wireheading" when it comes to suffering is avoidance, procrastinating, distracting ourselves from what we're meant to do. Another example is shame and guilt. It's "invented" in order to motivate certain behaviour. You can dismiss them as nonsense, but then you also lose the benefit they were created to bring (for instance, if we accept that we're just a product of our environments and thus not to blame for anything, then how do we convince eachother not to be criminals?)
TwiceHuman
2mo ago
I love being around people who are competent and developed, around such people you can just let cause and effect do its thing, without worrying about where you're heading. Is your point that a mentally healthy society cannot be properly controlled, which is why people in power are implementing changes which reduce the mental resilience of the population? Because if so, I do agree.
The assumption that people under the age of 18 don't have self-control
Oh, I don't believe that myself, I just agree with society that there's more people with self-control above 18 years of age than below. We are punishing capable people by designing society in a way which protects the lowest common denominator. But my point is that, while I'd like to give everyone more freedom, it would only result in a more hedonistic society. The sort of "rights" that people are after today just seems like the desire to indulge in harmful behaviour and to destroy oneself. Activists are trying to get rid of social judgement towards behaviour which is harmful (like being obese, having casual sex, or fetishism) but one is in a really bad state if one seeks agency for such reasons.
Yes, but that pipeline is ripe for abuse.
By the government? Sure. Our society isn't good enough that we can give somebody the authority to decide who gets to have freedom and who doesn't. By the way, I said as much freedom as one could handle, not as much as they needed :) Here's a quote by Taleb that I quite like: "I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist". I must agree with him that something goes wrong as a result of scaling. I've only experienced "rules aren't necessary" in smaller communities.
It requires a more temperate people to do this properly
Perhaps the sort of calm which is a result of confidence and competence? For I don't think being "temperate" is good on its own, if it means having no strong convictions, not caring much, and having weak emotions and drives. It has been said by Nietzsche, Jung and Jordan Peterson that one cannot be a good person if they can't be dangerous, and I can only agree with them.
Anyway, is this temperateness something we can cultivate in people? For it's my point that there's something fundamental in people which makes all the difference. Something that, if it turns out alright, everything will work out, and if it doesn't, then you need rules, and regulations, laws, and punishment, surveillance, micromanagement, and so on. My point is that improving society can only be done by improving people directly (from the inside, not outside), and that this kind of improvement is sufficient. People are the atoms of society, any "solutions" on the upper layers are wasted. Japan doesn't have less crime because they have better laws, but because they're Japanese. The Japanese are not a consequence of Japan, Japan is a consequence of the Japanese people. People, their characters, and their nature is the root of everything, and everything else is downstream from that and barely worth bothering with (at least, that's my current worldview). Please let me know if I misunderstood you along the way
TwiceHuman
2mo ago
I have a girlfriend already, I still like helping people. I don't want to see people procrastinate so much that it fucks up their future, so seeing a better outcome unfold is enough reward for me. It's like cleaning your house so that you can endure looking at it, except you're removing bad futures/possibilities, rather than trash
TwiceHuman
2mo ago
If all our pressure is of the negative kind, then it results in stress, hopelessness, depression, poor sleep, etc. Ideally, we find competition to be both fun and rewarding. Human beings are largely "anti-fragile", but some of us are more anti-fragile than others. I'm extremely harsh with myself, but I have a friend that I'm helping pass university, and I simply cannot help her by applying pressure, it only makes her weak, doubtful of herself, and prone to giving up.
You can cultivate anti-fragility in people, but it's hard to tell what it's made of exactly. Core beliefs, past successes, pride, hormones, masochism, strong drives? What kind of people play video games on hard mode and enjoy it, and how can we make sure that we get more of this type than of the victim-mentality type?
I know some people who broke because of stress, and it's unlikely they will ever be able to work again. Meanwhile, I'd put myself in danger if I did not push myself.
TwiceHuman
2mo ago
Would you agree if I said that these "harmful behaviours" all depend on the people who engage with them? The trade-off is actually what age limits achieve. Why can't children drink alcohol? Because children can't bear that much freedom, they'd likely destroy themselves. So before 18, drinking is a "harmful behaviour", and afterwards, it's not, under the assumption of course that people above the age of 18 have more self-control. I agree that, for society, more rules can be better, but I personally don't need nearly that many myself. So less libertarianism is only best under the assumption that everyone should live by the same rules. A more flexible "Every individual should have as much freedom as they can handle" opens up more more interesting possibilities. Finally, may I add that rules are of almost no importance? Same with police, laws, restrictions. These are just symptoms of deeper problems. If you need them in the first place, something has already gone wrong. Even if cocaine was legal, I would still avoid it. For a society, it's more important that its citizens don't want to do drugs, than it is for said society to ban drugs.
I agree that "over-policing" is a good idea now. It worked in El Salvador I believe. But why is it necessary in the first place? I think it's possible to cultivate people in such a way that you don't need rules. For example, I allow myself to be as immoral as I want, but I don't ever feel like doing anything bad, so the natural consequences of doing whatever I like is that I do what's right.
Perhaps, the need for rules is a sign of decline?
TwiceHuman
2mo ago
I'm mostly the same as you, almost no changes in my beliefs since my early teens, only evidence that I was correct all along. However, there's some classes of very unintuitive insights, like the following:
I was wrong about the value of freedom. It's still valuable to me, but I believe that many people are better off with less, and know I know that restriction helps creativity (writers block, analysis paralysis, indecisiveness, being lost in life etc) seem to be consequences of excess choices. Furthermore, excess freedom often lead people to ruin themselves.
Like Dag said, people who meditate aren't perfect. I think this is because people who meditate the most are those who need it the most. Those who go to psychiatrists also aren't the most mentally healthy, right? It's the opposite.
Suffering isn't really a bad thing. You're meant to act as if it's bad, but it's good for you (but only if you fight against it as if it weren't!).
I used to think that intelligence was the answer to everything. Raise the average IQ by 15 points, and we'd get 100 times more people like Hawkings, right? But now I don't look for friends in intellectual circles anymore, I'm having a much better time around people with IQs in the 115s. I've liked very few of the 145+ IQ people I've met.
I used to dislike vagueness, but now I love it. If you don't label things, you allow them to be what they are, and when you label things, you restrict them. Socially, this can work like magic, you can flirt with somebody, and they get to decide how seriously you were being when you said what you did.
I now consider information to have serious downsides. Knowing less is often better. I even avoid environments in which the legibility is too high. In Ribbonfarm terms, I stick to Warrens and avoid Plazas. I sometimes intentionally keep myself from understanding others, and (selectively) keep them from understanding things about me. Physical cash has a much lower legibility than credit cards, which is why I think it would be a terrible idea to get rid of it.
In the past I thought egoism was bad, now I think it's good. Gatekeeping is good too. Discrimination? Invaluable (choosing a romantic partner is like the ultimate discriminatory behaviour). I used to think I was a good person, but it turns out I was a coward. By the way, while I dislike Muslims, I believe that their lack of self-doubt is very much a sign of health. Human beings aren't mean to suffer from their conscience to the degree that we now do in the west. I'm inferior to Genghis Khan because I will never be as true to live as he was.
Anyway, the pattern here, which I likely didn't show very well, is "Sometimes the truth is the complete opposite of what's intuitive". When you take something to the extreme, it tends to flip onto the opposite extreme (like atheist scientists becoming religious), and I did this to myself in many areas
I suppose so, yeah. Some people arrive at axioms "I think therefore I am", others arrive at nothingness "Nothing is real" or at least the conclusion that thinking is fundamentally limited "The dao of which can be spoken is not the real dao", "where one cannot speak one must be silent", "I can only know that I know nothing", "Life is absurd".
That "something cannot come from nothing" does not take into account the mystery of why anything exists at all, it also doesn't imply that anything is truly universal - but that something arbitrary seems to be all which exists. You can call laws of physics, human nature, and the universe fundamental, but they're "specific", things which exist in themselves, and thus not thing which generalize outside of themselves. Different people could exist, different universes, different laws of physics. Ours just happen to be what we were given.
And in all honesty, we cannot even communicate or think unless we use a foundation, so I think it's fine just to choose something. Just like it's fine to choose a language, a culture, a religion, an axiomatic system, a system of values, a morality. None of them will be universally valid, but they will be valid in the scope in which they exist, and that's good enough. It's the same for me, I must have a personality, a job, and a social role. I can only specialize, as general improvement stop being possible at a certain point (since the areas of further improvement contradict eachother). I actually recommend not learning too much or growing too wise, as you may lose your ability to believe in the arbitrary things that you've chosen. The alternative to having both pros and cons is simply having nothing at all, which is worse. In other words, we must be egoistic and take actions which from certain perspectives, are mistakes. Our locally valid ideas are only valid in a limited scope, but we must believe in them nonetheless. We must believe in ourselves with no external validation beyond the fact that we exist. We solve nihilism by rejecting the idea that universal validity/external proof is required for something to be real (in other words, rather than solving the problem, we reject the problem). In the words of Max Stirner "I have based my affair on nothing" (meaning on himself I suppose). My own existence is an axiom to me, that's the solution to any existential problems I may have.
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