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
4d 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
5d 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
5d 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
5d 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
5d 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
5d 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
5d 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
TwiceHuman
3mo ago
I'm not the person you just responded to, but
I personally don't interact with people who care about politics in a way which makes them hostile and prone to policing other peoples beliefs, behaviour and language. I avoid them like I avoid people who complain or brag all the time. Personally, I'd respond something like "I don't like talking about politics", "I'm not interested in that topic", or "I'm invested in other things". There's various things they could respond to that, but I think I have an answer for most things that civilized people could say. As for the rest - they're sufficiently unpleasant people that I can allow myself not to be polite to them.
TwiceHuman
4mo ago
I think it's because JP spend a lot of time thinking about evil, and he seems to have learned about the human capacity for evil by studying WW2 and concentration camps. He knows how easy it is for somebody to fall into an ideology like nazism and rationalize ones hatred for an outgroup, and he's quite determined to keep this from happening (again, this is just my view). Sadly, because he feels so strongly about this, he seems unable to pick up on the patterns relating semitism and wokeness.
TwiceHuman
5mo ago
I attempt not to read too many news and other such things. It's probably not healthy to learn about so many problems which are outside of your control. I believe they might also distract you from your own personal life, and from your immediate surroundings, over which you do have some influence.
People who aren't chronically online seems to have it better, and you don't seem to be feeling unwell because you feel these problems personally, but because you hear that they exist and may affect you in the future.
I'd say focus on yourself, your family and friends, and spend your time on what matters instead of hedonic distractions. So that you do not spend effort on things which tire you out while causing zero positive changes in your personal life (I believe this might train your brain to think that effort is futile)
TwiceHuman
5mo ago
I'll try to answer this despite not knowing much about the topic. I'll rely on my intuition here, if anyone can poke holes in what I'm about to write, I will try not doing this again in the future.
1: I think the main reason is a "Garbage in, garbage out" problem. We lack better training data, and not just more of it. 2: I think censorship, various modifications to protect against 'attacks', and minor crippling of abilities (with the goal of preventing the models from being able to do immoral or illegal things) have made newer models regress in some ways. 3: I think there's a slight connection to the stagnation of movies, video games, computer programs, and so on. These are also not improving, despite growing resources, team sizes and technology. The direction of optimization, and the direction of what consumers enjoy, seemingly split into two diverging paths. I wouldn't go as far as claiming that the enshittification process has started for AI, but I don't think the focus is purely on capacity anymore, and it's probably not researchers which are in charge anymore (just like most programmers are told what to create by non-programmers, limiting the quality of the outcome). If competent scientists are allowed to work undisturbed with no regard for public perception, advertising or shareholders, I believe they can create something amazing/horrifying rather fast.
TwiceHuman
5mo ago
Hmm, I don't exactly disagree. But I think a major problem is that people optimize for votes (Goodhart's law) instead of what the votes are supposed to represent. This happens even without votes, and we can conclude that people are the problem... But still, if a lack of votes removes some of the cognitive punishment or reward of posting something that everyone agrees or disagrees with, and helps people focus on what's important, I think it might be a good idea still.
Lets assume that I'm wrong and that none of these problems actually apply to voting (that common critiques against voting are wrong). Now I want to ask: What's the benefit of votes? Do they just reveal information about what the average reader thinks about your comments? I don't think that's all that valuable, mostly because I don't trust the average opinion of a community as a judge of quality.
The crowd seems to be good at telling that something is different, and shunning it. But differentiating between "Different because it's better than what's popular" and "different because it's worse than what's popular" seems like an impossibility. The votes just steer one towards sameness, inside-jokes, preaching to the choir, saying what people already think and agree with. This is why echo-chambers and excessive use of inside-references ('circlejerking') happen.
Some places will have comments which are out of place because they're excellent or written by a highly intelligent people, and other comments will of course be out of place because they're garbage or written by mentally ill people. But votes (well, people in general) seem to protect against both positive and negative change. It seems like the familiar is felt as good, and the unfamiliar is felt as bad. To the point that people will joke about among us despite claiming to dislike it. This is probably a quirk of human nature?
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
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