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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3703 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for May 10, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Things are going slightly better. I still believe that I am fundamentally unlovable due to autism and subpar physical appearance, but I've realized - just like my dad taught me with respect to work performance - that if I'm going to avoid terrible outcomes, I need to be in the top ten percent. That just gets you a seat at the table...just like top-10-percent performance at work is table stakes for an Aspie to get a job, keep food on the table, and not be living in the ghetto or trailerpark dodging bullets and assholes chasing you with knives. I've got to look like I could compete in physique bodybuilding competitions, be impeccably dressed, and be extremely kind AND make...hmm...maybe a million a year? just to have a chance at a relationship with someone that isn't going to wind up with someone in some kind of institution or other. There is nothing wrong with this...that's just how it is.

So I've been practicing speaking better, learning facial expressions, and being graceful. I believe that the average person - the average Joe - is every bit as good socially as an English longbowman was at archery seven hundred years ago, or as good as his Mongolian counterpart was on horseback. That they can go years without making a blunder large enough to be put into words (at least, while sober), that every smile, every gesture, every laugh is as graceful, as effortless, and as beautiful as a concert pianist's music or a professional ballerina's grace. To be better than this takes immense determination and talent, but I hope to be tolerable at some point...to not subtly repulse people because I laughed for a fraction of a second too long at a joke.

I don't know if anyone on the spectrum has ever become above-average socially. Maybe Aella, but she's a special case...I'm a dude, and short of independently advancing medical science I'll never be pretty or beautiful. But I hope that I can be charismatic enough to not only have a large social circle but convince someone to willingly and freely endure something they find disgusting. That's a hard thing to do...but there have been average people that have pulled it off.

A question, for all of you: If you have ever seen anyone who was charismatic enough to inspire people to willingly endure disgust, or misery, or chronic pain simply to make THEM happy, how did they do it?

You’re in medical school, right? That’s probably in a college town? Important info

Yeah, it's a college town. Even so...why does this matter? A good makeup artist can do good work on a hog, and this is admirable, but it's still a hog.

What is your goal here? To establish meaningful relationships? Is that actually what you want? There are many lonely people in the world who would be happy to find a friend, but friendship is not about what a person can do for you, it’s about what you can do for them.

If you’re just looking for people to fluff your ego or be your servant, it ain’t gonna happen.

I can have friendship. It is probable that I can have a lot of friends. I do not think that a romantic relationship that is better than being alone is a realistic goal for me, however.

It’s not realistic at your current level of self-esteem, I would agree.

If you’re simply looking for a woman, regardless of personality, many commenters here have suggested a “mail-order bride” type from Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe. And they’re not wrong. Millions of women would kill to move to the US even if it meant marrying a person with autism.

I would take these suggestions seriously. But I get the impression you want a woman to fall in love with you, not because you think that’s more romantic or respectable, but because it will pump up your ego. I think your desire for a relationship is a bit misplaced. Trust me, a relationship does not heal your insecurities, that has to come from within.

Why the hell wouldn't she simply leave me as soon as the ink is dry on the green card? Not blaming her - I'd do the same damn thing in her shoes.

autism and subpar physical appearance, but I've realized

This is of course subjective. How did you come to this realization? People online who post pictures tend to be in the top quartile.

For the autism: professional diagnoses. For the physical appearance: measuring tapes are pretty objective, and even if my face was average I’d still be 5’6”. The two together are probably too much for me to overcome…if I was 6’2” and had a great-looking face, or if I was neurotypical, I’d probably be OK. Without having to decide where I want the ambulances if I wanted a partner.

Dude you are doing this all wrong. You don't need to be super hot or perfect or whatever you're trying to do. You need to be nice to yourself, accept yourself with all the flaws you have, understand that you're doing your best and nobody's perfect, stop comparing yourself to others. Just be happy with who you are. Otherwise you are playing an impossible game that leads only to misery.

Do whatever you have to do to change your mindset, don't do whatever you have to do to chase perfection or charisma or whatever. You sound insufferable because you can't accept the good parts of yourself so if someone admired any of your qualities, you're so hard on yourself that you'll repulse anyone who wants to show affection toward you. This is a horrible way to live, for yourself and for the people around you, so you owe it to yourself and others to get your shit together, show kindness and gratefulness toward yourself and those around you and stop comparing yourself to anyone you think is better off than you. They're probably going through all sorts of horrors that you can't see, just like you are.

Your writing is quite good (the claims themselves less so). Why wouldn't the same intelligence that lets you do that apply to being 'social' as well? Both are about communicating with or having a certain impact on people.

That they can go years without making a blunder large enough to be put into words (at least, while sober), that every smile, every gesture, every laugh is as graceful, as effortless, and as beautiful as a concert pianist's music or a professional ballerina's grace

This is hilariously false. Where'd you get that impression? Small blunders happen pretty frequently. Large blunders still happen with some frequency. From the smallest things like 'you're talking to someone, intend to say one word but say another, and they get confused' to something like 'you suggest a restaurant / activity, everyone goes to it, turns out they all hate it' to ...

I'm still struggling to understand how you came to believe all of this. Could you narrate, like, a recent particular five to ten-minute period where all of your normal acquaintances were acting like impeccable socialites while you made a bunch of blunders? As that's apparently the normal state of your life?

If you have ever seen anyone who was charismatic enough to inspire people to willingly endure disgust, or misery, or chronic pain simply to make THEM happy, how did they do it?

Slavoj Zizek travels the world speaking to paying audiences of intellectuals, has been married four times and he has two children. According to wikipedia his third wife was an Argentinian model. His current wife is thirty years younger than him. The precondition for how he did it was in not dismissing it as impossible or insurmountable. He achieved those outcomes despite being a flabby book-nerd who can't get six words into a sentence without twitching, stimming and flecking his t-shirt with spittle.

Stephen Hawking had three children and his wife married him despite his being diagnosed with a condition that would condemn him to life in a motorised wheelchair. Later he divorced his wife in order to marry one of his full-time carers. He spoke through a computer and his most graceful gesture would look like a mild spasm if anyone else did it.

I'm not saying you'll get married to a model if you ""just be yourself"". All I'm saying is that there are normal average women out there who don't need you to be an impeccably dressed millionaire bodybuilder before they'll give you a chance.

Things are going slightly better

That's all you need. Achieve the same outcome enough times and eventually things begin to go well.

Muggsy Bogues played in the NBA at 5'3". I'm taller than him. Does that mean I too can play NBA ball... maybe ditch medicine for the Golden State Warriors?

Hmm. About the cult leaders: William Penn did something like this in 1670 with twelve jurors who went two days without food or drink, then spent nine weeks in jail because they refused to convict him. Bushel’s Case is the only one that I’m aware of, but I’m far from a historian. William Penn was a remarkably charismatic aristocrat…like the difference between, say, LeBron James or Michael Jordan and the second-string point guard for the Golden State Warriors, whose name you likely don’t know unless you follow basketball. Penn, however - unlike me - was doing what he did for some concept of the greater good. I cannot see how people like me having families and making more like me - more people who cause mild biological offense simply by existing, who activate systems of bias and prejudice almost as central to our nature as human beings as the feelings we feel about deformed people - feelings, I might add, that are either inborn or learned by six months of age. Months, not years. Six month old infants prefer attractive people to ugly ones. I can understand and accept that people like me ought to be celibate for the greater good, and should dedicate their lives to something prosocial in exchange for ordinary social inclusion. I understand the idea that we ought to be expected never to express a single shred of interest in sex or relationships, either: if we did, we might get the idea that we, like other “normal” people, had a right to shoot our shot (but not to never be rejected or some bullshit like that) like anyone else. There is value to that: we might become resentful and find ways to fuck up the social fabric that we all depend on or something.

I do not understand why we are encouraged to have relationships, given that it is likely that lights and sirens, institutions and social workers, tragedy and misery, will be involved. The best I can come up with is that I’ve earned some kind of dispensation by being a medical student, and people assume and hope that physicians can say “Not today” to personal misery and tragedy the same way they do for their hospital patients. Who knows: maybe we can figure out how to get good outcomes for our 400lb wives, or be good husbands and fathers if our wives decide to try and stab us, or some other miserable crap like that. And…maybe, and this is a hell of a stretch - I can’t quite understand - it’s better to contribute by making the next generation in these conditions than to be celibate.

I might have been exaggerating about the Mongols and ballerinas, but I think that people like this are maybe 95th percentile at best? The longbowmen I wasn’t joking about; John Smythe c. 1300 was an ordinary village blacksmith that could pull a 130lb bow and hit a dinner plate at a football field. Same with the barrel-maker in the next village over. This was ordinary. That is the ability that I think average people have. Someone that’s say, a salesman? Definitely comparable to a professional musician or something like that. And I have a friend that’s a professional musician, another that became a professional golfer. Know a couple guys that hold state powerlifting records.

You talk so much about your supposed ugliness. Have you posted a picture of yourself so far?

I talk about being unattractive. My physical appearance is...20th percentile, I'd say. Not Quasimodo, but not at all good. Add autism to that, and it's not looking good at all. I will contend that autism functions in more or less the same way as physical deformity or ugliness. Someone could watch me talking with my friends and form a durable opinion on my awkwardness after just a couple seconds. A single still photo would be enough.

A single still photo would be enough.

Please show, don't tell.

I've got to look like I could compete in physique bodybuilding competitions, be impeccably dressed, and be extremely kind AND make...hmm...maybe a million a year?

Bro, that's not top 10%... that's top 1 in 10^4 or 10^5, how many kind millionaire bodybuilders do you see walking around in daily life? top-10-percent isn't that hard to do...

I'm 5'6 and ugly. AND on the spectrum. This is table stakes to get someone average, for someone like me.

How ugly are you exactly? I doubt you are uglier than Bukowski (who's photo I posted in response to one of your previous rants) and I would lay million to one that he was a bigger asshole -- and that guy was pulling chicks without trouble before his semi-success as an author. (in fact his first wife, who he married before he got super-ugly, was by far the worst looking. How do I know? He told her so all the time, and put it in his (unpublished, for quite a while) books. Like I said -- asshole)

You know what people like about Bukowski? He was the most honest author in history; I presume he was similar in person.

Maybe try that.

Not in a "be yourself" kind of way -- more of a "be honest with yourself and others" kind of way.

I do recommend alcohol in this case.

I think that being on the spectrum puts me in the bottom five percent for attractiveness. As I am now…I think my level of attractiveness is “just barely attractive enough for people to not be openly surprised or disgusted that I want a relationship” or “attractive enough not to be desexualized (in the disability theorist sense)” or “attractive enough that people at least pretend to be surprised that I’ve never had a relationship”. As far as my physical appearance…my face is 25th percentile perhaps, I’m 5’6”. I also think that Bukowski’s not all that ugly…maybe ruggedly handsome, or ruggedly masculine, not that bad compared to men his age. He’s neither morbidly obese nor deformed, and he’s six feet tall to boot.

I believe that being on the spectrum more or less functions the same way as deformity. Yes, you can learn ways to compensate; yes, you can learn social skill. But people make durable judgments about us from still photos of us interacting with friends, or two seconds of video…no, it’s not quite the same as someone that’s been burned in a house fire, but the snap judgment is still there and I’d argue the mechanism is similar.

I’ve tried alcohol. Tried pot, went to Oregon (where it’s legal) to try shrooms. Several times. I had a nice experience once, felt a bit more socially perceptive (and this was confirmed by a close friend), but it’s not enough.

Even if Bukowski was ugly: Muggsy Bogues played in the NBA at 5’3”. I’m taller than him. Does that mean that I, too, can play professional basketball?

Very few people play professional basketball. Finding a relationship is something considerably easier and something the majority of people can do - though it has become more difficult in recent years. In addition, professional sports are inherently competitive - there are a fixed number of slots on teams that people fight and compete for. Whereas the number of relationships is elastic.

I understand your frustrations. I frequently wonder if I will die alone. I believe that I am very unattractive, have an unattractive body (despite going to the gym), and have a repellent personality. On the other hand, other gay men, when I interact with them, often show interest in me and compliment me and often seem genuinely surprised at my lack of romantic success. Though I know my thoughts are irrational and it's wrong of me to have them, I've never been able to control them.

But people make durable judgments about us from still photos of us interacting with friends, or two seconds of video…

I don't think this is true. Do you judge others so quickly?

I think that being on the spectrum puts me in the bottom five percent for attractiveness.

I think you are mistaken. It's probably not your fault you've been hoodwinked by a bunch of people who want to medicalize everything. Nobody cares if you are "on the spectrum".

I also think that Bukowski’s not all that ugly

Come on now: https://tommygirard.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/bukowski-and-his-wife-linda.jpg

The dude is fucking ugly. The wife is perhaps not a prize, but she doesn't weigh 400 pounds and is considerably younger than him. And if you think your personality is a barrier, have a look into some of his antics. Your social awkwardness will not stand up, I guarantee.

Muggsy Bogues played in the NBA at 5’3”. I’m taller than him. Does that mean that I, too, can play professional basketball?

Maybe if you travel back to 1980 and try really hard? IDK, are you good at basketball? Anyways you are not trying to play in the NBA, you are trying to play 21 on the corner lot -- NBA would be marrying Christie Brinkley or something, you should not try to do that.

Not sure I would recommend reading Bukowski personally, but he is full of tips for various life situations:


friendly advice to a lot of young men, and a lot of old men, too


Marry a woman with one leg and shave with a straight razor

And carve your name in her anus

He looks old, not ugly.

There's not as many pictures of him when he's younger, but he's pretty ugly then too -- he had bad acne for one thing, the scars of which you can still see when he's older.

Anyways the point is that he was pulling much younger chicks when he was old and ugly -- his first wife (when he was pretty young) was the ugliest one.

I recently found a simple (albeit tedious) way to dramatically improve my experience of using Twitter, to filter out the specific topics which I hate, and I want to share this method.

It's simple: just keep identifying key words which you associate with below-average tweets being shown to you (according to your personal standards), and then keep adding those words to your muted words list. (Not just key words from top-level tweets, but also key words you associate with mediocre reply tweets as well).

This is mathematically guaranteed to make your life better, as long as those key words really are commonly found in your least-favorite tweets.

I have tried repeatedly letting Twitter know about specific tweets which I am not interested in, and over time it helps, but Twitter's algorithm seems to be very determined to "push" certain kinds of tweets (probably because those tweets are associated with higher overall engagement). The only absolute way to block these tweets is to block every single plausible unique word associated with those types of tweets.

To mute words on desktop browser, go to: Home > 3 dots (...) > Settings & Support > Settings & Privacy > Privacy & Safety > Mute & Block > Muted Words > "+"

Or set up a bookmark directing to https://twitter.com/settings/muted_keywords

(In the app it is a similar sequence of steps.)

Then decide how long you want to mute the word. (I usually mute words forever.) If you want to block a phrase, use quotation marks "". You can also choose to not mute tweets which are replying to your own tweets.

I know it's tedious to do this, but it will save you from reading thousands of awful tweets. It pays for itself in a massive way.

Also, Twitter will tell you which reply tweets have been muted, and you can display them if you want, to double-check that you are in fact muting tweets which aren't worth reading.

This is my list of muted words so far, in case you also want to block any of the tweets with these words, or just to see what this might look like. (One annoying aspect is that you have to mute literally every single permutation of certain words and topics.)

Muted words:

"#thread" savetonotion @savetonotion @threadreaderapp threadreaderapp @rattibha @readwise readwise "action shooter" fps santos shit insurrection j6 "gaming session" "ass up" rattibha unroll "my dude" misgender misgendering "biological woman" "biological female" TERF "gender critical" mutilate mutilation "biological male" "biological man" demons demon cucked cuck carroll doge "bitcoin prize" "exclusive content" puberty transitioning transition chevy "sexual harassment" "michael obama" michelle "IRA" hexican Litecoin cryptocurrency crypto bitcoin dysphoric dysphoria cdc flu "identifies as" pedo "minor attracted" pedophile "turning points" "charlie kirk" "vaccineinjuries" "vaccineinjured" "vaccineinjury" "james cameron" mtg "january6" "january 6" "jan6" "january 6th" avatar "sexual orientation" lindell pillow mypillow espn football basketball nba nfl crapper lgbwithoutthet fauci gates schwab WEF vaccines mrna gender tran troon trans covid vax unvaccinated vaccine "prince harry" markle incel trump impeachment impeached impeach hamlin damar aella Andrew Tate Kari Lake kari Kari's tates Tate's "Tate" Cobratate cobra tate "andrew tate" "andrewtate" repukkklican Hitler nazi "p e l o s i" nigga nigger "n word" hammering hammered hammers hammer bolsonaro bolsanaro lula qanon "piece of shit" truss underwear catturd2 catturd "name is david" berkeley nudist "body counts" "body count" "jake paul" prostitute's prostitute depape's depape "peter mccullough" ligma "gave the order" pelosi's pelosi vagina penis paul pelosi "paul pelosi" wordle shapecel wordcel autogolpe

One might think I was a liberal from reading this list, but actually I am a (mostly) conservative who is just tired of certain topics and would prefer to see other things now.

Also, some of these words do sometimes show up in great tweets, but not often enough for me to put up with all the worse tweets which contain those words.

I hope this is helpful!

I loled at your choice of words

RLHF for social media.

Exactly!

I'd like to say that I'm confused.

My Twitter feed is nowhere near as degenerate as yours must be, if you feel the need to roll out such filters. After I've broken it in, mine seems better than even curated Reddit at finding things I might enjoy!

I realize I was possibly overly vague about the specific ways I admire you, vectors along which I would welcome tips from you at any time, if you cared to share them-

-You seem to be more perceptive & appreciative of a wider array of cultures, than most

-You seem to be less limited by any conventional forms of identity, and more open to transformation

-You seem quite smart, and you're a very good writer

-You seem quite friendly and happy

Tips always welcome! I am sure I am not the only person here who appreciates your influence a lot.

You seem to be more perceptive & appreciative of a wider array of cultures, than most

I'd chalk this down to being a very atypical India who is quite unhappy in India. If you don't like your native culture, you can't help but try and find out more about others.

Now, over the years, I've become less of a West-aboo, especially give the rise of Wokism. I can appreciate the aspects of it I care to nurture, like liberalism; while also appreciating certain aspects of my own. Extended families, more interest in academic performance, the optional fallback of arranged marriages, all of these are things I now appreciate. But the best part of the West, and why I'm moving there, is that you have a great deal more freedom to import your own cultural mores in addition to the local ones, as opposed to cultures that are more insistent on conformity.

You seem to be less limited by any conventional forms of identity, and more open to transformation

I've been a transhumanist ever since I was a child reading sci-fi.

Ever since I realized the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel

There's no solution for me to share here, either you are simply highly open-minded and unattached to your current form, or you aren't. You could try psychedelics if you want to try and boost your openness to experience, but that has its own risks and downsides like becoming more susceptible to woo. As a doctor, while I consider the human body as a marvel, I can also see it as the machine it is, with obvious design flaws.

You seem quite smart, and you're a very good writer

Thank you! I pride myself on my writing, and being significantly smarter than average, even if it's gauche to celebrate the latter. I've never taken an explicit IQ test, but based on standarized tests, I should be at least 99th percentile in terms of IQ, or ~130, which is also around what I got the times I solved Ravens Progressive Matrices (a very large component of modern IQ testing) online or with an app. Still wish I was smarter though, and while my mom was great at art and by dad at math, when it was my turn the both canceled out, leaving me a 99.999th percentile Wordcel haha

Unfortunately, there's no real way, easy or hard, to significantly boost your intelligence at all; and humans have been trying for a good while. Of course, if you're a Mottizen, you're already a cut above average.

If you want your kids to be smart, suppress the urge to marry hot bimbos, and choose a smart partner. Rich dudes who marry trophy wives with an empty display case in their skulls are doing their kids a disservice.

As for writing, well, once again largely immutable, but with significant effort, you can improve to a degree. Additionally, writing a lot will obviously improve your quality and output. Now, you can also use GPT-4 as a writing aid, albeit for me it's often not worth the hindrance since I still think I can write better than it can if I care to.

You seem quite friendly and happy

I do my best to be nice to people until they give me good reason otherwise, be it online or IRL. This can be improved with practice, though my parents inculcated a great deal of politeness in me, and in my adulthood I've noticed you can get quite far by being kind and considerate.

Unfortunately, I am anything but happy IRL, even if my efforts to be more expressive and enthusiastic than most give that impression. I'm pretty depressed, to the point that I'm mostly just holding on till I can find a definitive cure, perhaps ketamine therapy in the UK, or electroconvulsive therapy, albeit the latter scares me due to memory loss.

Still, I do try to be nice, and mostly avoid descending into bitterness in my interpersonal relationships.

We are very lucky to have you in the West! I hope you will always be well-treated.

I dislike the lack of nuance most Westerners bring to immigration. Every person is different. There are some native Westerners I wish we would kick out, and some immigrants I would bribe to bring in. But almost nobody else wants to take things on a completely case-by-case basis.

Maybe we are both grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side types. I don't like the USA very much, but I hope it will do well for the sake of my loved ones. And for the sake of my Indian friends, I hope India will do well, too!

Ever since I realized the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel

Powerful words!

You could try psychedelics if you want to try and boost your openness to experience, but that has its own risks and downsides like becoming more susceptible to woo. As a doctor, while I consider the human body as a marvel, I can also see it as the machine it is, with obvious design flaws.

Nice perspective :).

I pride myself on my writing, and being significantly smarter than average, even if it's gauche to celebrate the latter.

It shouldn't be considered gauche, IMO. A lot of high-IQ people aren't actually smart enough to celebrate it, because if it were more celebrated, it would change the culture towards encouraging people to develop their intelligence more. This would benefit society at large, and it would especially benefit the high-IQ types.

This seems to be one of many perverse tradeoffs I have observed with high IQ. High IQ people should by a narrow theory be utterly dominant, especially in an age like ours, and yet they aren't, for a variety of strange reasons like this self-abnegating tendency (including having so few children, although perhaps in the future that won't matter).

Unfortunately, there's no real way, easy or hard, to significantly boost your intelligence at all; and humans have been trying for a good while.

I mostly agree with you, yet I also think it's strange and can't really be true... How is it that we can change our muscular strength so much, but our intelligence so little??? What evolutionary purpose does that serve?

Not only does it seem so hard to improve overall intelligence, it seems quite hard to even change our type of intelligence.

If you want your kids to be smart, suppress the urge to marry hot bimbos, and choose a smart partner. Rich dudes who marry trophy wives with an empty display case in their skulls are doing their kids a disservice.

Haha, amusing advice, and probably good advice!

Now, you can also use GPT-4 as a writing aid, albeit for me it's often not worth the hindrance since I still think I can write better than it can if I care to.

I would need the help a lot more than you do, so I will try it :).

my parents inculcated a great deal of politeness in me, and in my adulthood I've noticed you can get quite far by being kind and considerate.

Good for you & for everyone else.

Unfortunately, I am anything but happy IRL, even if my efforts to be more expressive and enthusiastic than most give that impression. I'm pretty depressed, to the point that I'm mostly just holding on till I can find a definitive cure, perhaps ketamine therapy in the UK, or electroconvulsive therapy, albeit the latter scares me due to memory loss.

Oh no! I truly wouldn't have guessed that. I am so sorry.

I was once very depressed for many years, over a decade ago. Eventually, with enough changes to diet, sleep, exercise, beliefs, and social circles, I became much happier (but barely any smarter, which frustrates me).

My general suggestion is to keep trying new things, but to first maximize your trials with safe and highly varied experiments.

Only once you have tried all of the safe herbs, supplements, diets, beliefs, meditations, sleep aids, exercises, sunlight exposure, hobbies, people, environments, etc., should you try something like ECT, IMO. (Although maybe ECT has been improved since the version used by a highly intelligent friend of mine, which had a horrible long-term effect on her mind and didn't even make her feel any better.)

(Maybe ketamine, especially starting with a low dose, might be quite safe, I never researched it. But it seems like a weird idea to use an anesthetic to become a better person.)

Also, my experience is that lots of 0.1%-3% improvements will add up to a huge and resilient overall improvement. Small improvements really are enough, and a more diverse set of experiments and solutions yields far more self-awareness.

Unless I have a severe accident, I doubt I could ever be severely depressed again. For other people, if their pill stops working they are SOL, and they won't understand themselves any better than they did before.

I do try to be nice, and mostly avoid descending into bitterness in my interpersonal relationships.

That is admirable. It shows you still have fight in you, and standards.

Thank you!

On the topic of why intelligence isn't easy or even merely difficult to improve:

Unlike larger muscles, more intelligence didn't have any inherent downsides in the ancestral environment. Today, smarter people are more likely to end up in dysgenic IQ shredders like cities, or simply have less children, but that wasn't really the case before.

If you go from being a normal dude to being absolutely jacked, your basal metabolic rate can go from like 2500 to 4000, which is absolutely massive. That's even leaving aside exercise. In earlier times, when we weren't effectively post scarcity for calories, if being twice as strong didn't allow you to get literally twice as much food, you're going to starve to death while a scrawny dude might scrape by.

Thus, our bodies are programmed such that they refuse to hold onto to extra muscle unless it's being both actively used and well fed.

On the other hand, both Einstein and a village idiot have nigh identical brains that born burn 20 watts regardless of whether they're deriving E=mc^2, or going ooga booga.

In genetics, there's strong evidence that intelligence is a consequence of health, that every deleterious mutation decreases intelligence and there are very few mutations that increase it. The greater the mutational load, the lower the IQ. If you had an cloning machine that could create an individual who had the literal average of everyone's genes, they'd likely be significantly smarter than the average person because the errors would be canceled put.

(Brain size is a component, but that's the gist of it)

Since intelligence is so useful, there have been strong evolutionary pressures to increase it, such that the low hanging fruit has been long plucked by evolution itself. Most pharmaceutical aids are simply tradeoffs, such as Adderall increasing focus but decreasing creativity.

IQ scores can be increased by practise or education, but only to a small degree. That's because IQ, while a very good proxy got intelligence, is still a proxy that can be gamed. But the gains are limited, you can't take a 100 IQ person and get them to score 140 no matter how much you train them, and I doubt they could make 120 either. So in practise and reality, intelligence is largely immutable after birth.

Thank you for probably the most informative reply comment I've ever gotten online!

These reasons satisfactorily explain to me why it is so hard to become more intelligent, thank you.

If you want your kids to be smart, suppress the urge to marry hot bimbos, and choose a smart partner. Rich dudes who marry trophy wives with an empty display case in their skulls are doing their kids a disservice.

That is true.

If you are fairly well-off (say, a doctor or techbro) but also very unattractive, how might you do this while making reasonably sure that the kids are raised in an OK environment...no abusive shitbaggery, plus basic food, shelter, and medical care. I don't know about the route of importing a wife...that might work, but again, she's disgusted by you (for good reason!) and is only with you for $$$ and a green card. Maybe the husband's going to be a decent human being to the stepchildren. Maybe not; I've heard some stories.

I have no idea what specific combination of events made you so intensely self-loathing and nihilistic.

Since you're a med student, just know that you're going well past the LD-50 of black pills, and to no good end. There is such a thing as overcorrection away from normie stupidity.

Even if you're very unattractive, it's still exceedingly unlikely that your spouse would be outright abusive to your kids. You'd have to pretty bloody unlucky, and in any relationship of reasonable length, you're likely to be able to filter out the psychos youeelr before they baby trap you.

The "maybe, maybe not" mindset is pointlessly helpless when perhaps fewer than 5% of all people are abusive to their kids, and maybe sub 1% for outright damaging.

Also, women are simply not as motivated by looks alone as men are, a strong provider looks eminently more desirable once they're past the fuck around phase in their early 30s.

I get it, you drew the short straw on looks, height, and being remarkably autistic. Even then, if you're intelligent and hard working, you can compensate a great deal with money.

Maybe your mail order wife isn't head over heels in love with you, but in all likelihood she's going to be content, and if you have kids, unlikely to abuse them, because most people don't abuse their biological offspring.

I am not sure about that. I think I'd be divorced at best and get my throat slit for life insurance money or something at worst. I don't blame her for that and am even mostly okay with that... if she's a decent mom, provides basic food shelter and medical care with her ill-gotten gains, and doesn't look the other way if her new boyfriend rapes the kids. I think it is relatively unlikely but fairly possible that my spouse might be an abusive shitbag to the kids…but more likely that she divorces my disgusting ass when the ink is dry on the green card, gets with another dude, and that dude is abusive to the stepkids. Kinda sucks for your kids to be raped by Mom’s new boyfriend while you can’t do shit about it.

As far as content: people can habituate to quite a lot, but I think that the absolute best outcome is that she is only mildly disgusted by me, loves our kids, and is with me because I send a bunch of money to her desperately impoverished family of origin. I don’t know much about alimony…say I’m earning $250k after taxes, could she potentially get $150k of that as alimony and child support? Maybe she endures being with me because she is devoutly religious or something and admires that I’m basically a cash cow for her family? Like…I don’t see a damn bit of value I’d provide that a smelly ATM can’t. At that point I’m basically livestock on legs, being milked for cash and either put out to pasture (where I had better cough up that milk and lots of it, or go to prison) or slaughtered (if it’s not too dangerous, and I’m worth it as meat).

No, most women are not like this. My argument is essentially garbage IN, garbage OUT: you fish with dogshit bait, you get shit results.

I know someone whose mother tried to fucking kill them when they were ten. Their father? A 5'4" special forces officer. Height can be that brutal if you aren't also rich, part of a religious community, or lucky.

As far as nihilism and self-loathing: I’ll cop (somewhat) to the second. As for the first: being very unattractive often leads to that. As can large changes in appearance, in either direction. Still. My interpretation is that people, in thinking that I can have a relationship, have faith in me to turn shit into sugar. To have a good (or at least decent) family in the midst of tragedy, to be a good father and husband while dealing with the fallout of a wife in and out of some kind of institution or other. That is a lot of faith to have in a person: be a good father and husband while dealing with What’s Eating Gilbert Grape-tier shit. I’ve seen it happen…one of my medschool classmates had a background like that.

Their father? A 5'4" special forces officer. Height can be that brutal if you aren't also rich, part of a religious community, or lucky.

You say this as if 5'4" men's wives usually attempt to kill their kids. That's such a rare occurrence that you're doing an incredible amount of reaching just to connect the two factors.

5'4" men are either remarkable, very lucky, or they decide where they want the ambulances. I've only once seen a 5'4" man with a woman that was sane and not morbidly obese. He was a future neurosurgeon with enough charisma for a career in politics.

More comments

This could still work for you, too! You could check if any key words correlate with your less-favorite tweets, and even though those words might be a lot "nicer" than the words in my list, muting those words should still improve your feed!

I wade into some culture war waters, and those tend to be foul, or foul-adjacent enough for the Twitter algorithm to assume that I am interested in this kind of stuff. I am very glad to learn that other people aren't being subjected to the same stuff I have indirectly subjected myself to.

Also, I (truly) believe that you are a better person than me, dear self_made_human, so it doesn't surprise me that your feed is better than my feed :D. Do you have a Twitter account you feel comfortable sharing? I could see who you are following.

Actually, since I am feeling "carpe diemish" and might have a bit of your attention- do you have any tips on becoming a more evolved and self-made human? :) (No worries if you don't feel like answering such a big question asked by a lurker, haha.)

The people who say flattery won't get you anywhere are lying, so I'm mostly happy to comply ;)

I do have a twitter account, but the issue is that it's entangled with my IRL name, which I'd rather not associate with my other online persona. It wouldn't even be of much use to you, since I mostly lurk.

That said, these are the accounts I follow:

Soren Iverson

@soren_iverson

New ideas daily. Contact: hello@soreniverson.com Twitter subscribers get exclusive ideas ✨

prerat

@prerationalist

social media influencee

gaut

@0xgaut

@alongsidefi

— Tweets that won't put you to sleep

near

@nearcyan

somehow, I keep ending up in the AGI timeline

😈

@deepfates

conceptual artist

Jim Fan

@DrJimFan

@NVIDIA

AI Scientist.

@Stanford

PhD. Building multimodal generalist agents. Sharing hot ideas & deep dives! NeurIPS Best Paper: MineDojo. Ex-

@OpenAI

,

@GoogleAI

@goth

@goth600

ACCELERATE, THIS.

Ethan Mollick

@emollick

Professor

@Wharton

studying innovation & startups and (now) AI. Democratizing business education with games. Substack: https://oneusefulthing.substack.com

janus

@repligate

🔄Bing Orchestrator🔁 🌐🎰🌐🎰🎰🌐🎰🌐 💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻 ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ 🎮🔤🔀🌎🗣🚪👥🔎 Tweets can be accessed via Bing chat 🔑

roon

@tszzl

spice must flow

ToughSF

@ToughSf

Matterbeam. Author of the ToughSF blog. Original SuperNerd. Kurzgesagt Team Duck. Discord http://discord.gg/MzSjtqw

depths of wikipedia

@depthsofwiki

I am

@anniierau

and I also run

@internetdepths

!

James Miller

@JimDMiller

Smith College economist. Author Singularity Rising, Game Theory at Work. JD Stanford, PhD U of Chicago. AGI alignment, free speech, free markets.

Fascinating

@fasc1nate

Posting interesting science, gadgets, history, art, and more.

Stonetoss Comics

@stone_toss

  • Cartoonist - New comics every Tues/Thurs - NFTs:

@FlurksNFT

Rob Miles

@robertskmiles

Explaining AI Alignment to anyone who'll stand still for long enough, on YouTube and Discord. Music, movies, microcode, and high-speed pizza delivery

Zero HP Lovecraft 🦅🐍

@0x49fa98

Let no one reduce us to the status of ascetics. There is no pleasure more complex than that of thought.

Flick

@Flick06484765

https://boosty.to/dimetrius http://patreon.com/flick

Alexander Kruel

@XiXiDu

“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality” ― Seneca

KEITH BLAST

@keithjohnstack

I just want to play video games. No commissions or interviews. he/him

Zvi Mowshowitz

@TheZvi

Blogger world modeling, now mostly AI and AI x-risk, at Don't Worry About the Vase (http://thezvi.wordpress.com or SS), founding Balsa Research to fix policy.

Stanford AI Lab

@StanfordAILab

The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL), a leading #AI lab since 1963 shares its latest AI news, research, and more! ⛵️🤖

DeepLearning.AI

@DeepLearningAI_

Gain the knowledge and skills for an AI career.

Bryan Caplan

@bryan_caplan

GMU econ prof, NYT bestseller, father of 4, author of Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, Case Against Education, and Open Borders.

Scott Alexander

@slatestarcodex

I have a place where I say complicated things about philosophy and science. That place is my blog. This is where I make terrible puns.

Paul Graham

@paulg

Robin Hanson

@robinhanson

Let’s skip witty repartee & discuss fundamental questions. Views are mine, not GMU’s or Virginia’s. Books: http://ageofem.com, http://elephantinthebrain.com

Google DeepMind

@DeepMind

We’re a team of scientists, engineers, ethicists and more, committed to solving intelligence, to advance science and benefit humanity.

Eliezer Yudkowsky

@ESYudkowsky

Ours is the era of inadequate AI alignment theory. Any other facts about this era are relatively unimportant, but sometimes I tweet about them anyway.

Of these merry band of misfits, ZeroHPLovecraft is by far the biggest Culture Warrior, and while I don't endorse the vast majority of his views, he's almost always very funny in a mean way. There's a lot of shitposting in there, so caveat emptor.

In terms of being a better, more self-actualized person, I doubt I'm the best person to be giving you advice. Am I doing anything special to be the way I am? Not that I can tell. The best advice I can give you is-

A) Take performance enhancing drugs, medical science will almost certainly be good enough to undo most of the damage if you aren't a retard about it. Since I have ADHD myself, it's not really negotiable if I have to worry about academics.

B) Read shit tons. Of course, given that you're a denizen of The Motte, you too likely have a crippling insight porn addiction, and your life might actually become better if you suddenly develop illiteracy and need to focus on IRL matters.

If there's any specific aspect about my persona you want to know more about, feel free to ask. Who doesn't like talking about themselves?

Thank you very much for sharing your follows, and I understand your desire to preserve free-spirited anonymity :).

Those are a great list of follows. I follow most of them already. I will add the remaining ones, too.

Yes, I also have "crippling insight porn addiction", but there's "insight", and then there's.... INSIGHT. I would guess you have more of the latter, than most purveyors of "insight" have.

What were some of your favorite sources of INSIGHT? Favorite books or websites or... whatever.

What "performance-enhancing drugs" have helped you the most overall? I apologize if you've already written about this before and I missed it. I am doing better recently with repeated small dosings of nutritional yeast and NALT (for the dopamine boost). But I like to try new things!

I mentioned "aspects of your persona" in my other reply comment to you.

Let's see, the most obvious suggestions are ones you likely already know, such as Scott, LessWrong etc.

For keeping up with scientific advances, I highly recommend Quanta Magazine, it manages the rare feat of being very high quality and in-depth, while also being approachable for laymen. Unlike typical popsci sites, they don't dumb things down.

Other substacks I quite like are Emil Kirkegard and Richard Hanania, they cover quite a bit of thoughtcrime surrounding HBD.

Zvi Moshowitz is a good follow on LW, Twitter or his own substack.

Matt Lakeman covers loads of stuff on his, from interesting ethnographies to geography and science.

In terms of performance enhancing drugs, stimulants are great, assuming you can get a prescription. If you work out, creatine is cheap and also surprisingly effective with a degree of scientific validation most PEDs can't compare to, while being entirely legal.

Thank you, I will check out Quanta, and thank you for reminding me about Matt Lakeman :). (The others I already followed, luckily... convergent interests!)

Creatine makes me feel irritable, and it's the most ADHD I ever get, which is weird, since it does't seem to have that effect on most other people. I just literally can't seem to control my attention when I use creatine, and my working memory becomes terrible.

And because it doesn't seem to affect other people that way, I can't copy other peoples' research on what to do to balance out the negative side effects. I love the increase in physical stamina from creatine, and the positive effects of more exercise do help somewhat.

Depends on what spaces you hang out at.

In the past, the folks I followed on twitter were mostly in the Software industry. It was not a fun experience to find out that most of the well known and influential folks in the industry who I once looked up to would unplatform me if I ever tried to add some nuance into the whole spiel.

I very much had to filter out any culture war relevant topics or keywords from my feed to restrict it to the technical content embedded between the rants and snide remarks.

Now most of them are off to Mastodon and my twitter feed is healthier for it.

Weekly Pentathlon attempt, five exercises for a target number of max reps in six minutes, five minutes rest in between, a fantastic use of the first hour after I wake up. Used the 28kg and tried to really push it on the early exercises and get closer to full marks, and just gutting through the last two sets was the plan.

Clean: 118/120

Long Cycle Clean and Strict Press: 60/60

Jerk: 81/120

Half Snatch: 64/108

Push Press: 120/120

443 total reps, at 3.5 points per 28kg rep, comes out to 1550.5 points. New PB, and I reached my goal of breaking 1500.

At this point I know it's 100% conditioning and breathing that is the issue. I want to reread Breathe and The Oxygen Advantage and spend the next couple weeks doing breathe work and working hard on cardio. If I could just keep my breath controlled as I hit the wall I could have gotten a lot more reps, but once I lose control of my breathe my technique gets all wonky, and I cut sets short rather than risk injury. That happened on everything after the Long Cycle. I was especially disappointed in myself that I lost reps on the Jerk, which should be the easiest exercise on the list by rights. If I had left Long Cycle reps on the table and rested longer, I would have gained points on the Jerk from being able to get more points overall.

A month into this game, the physique results have been good, on balance. My shoulders, biceps, tris, glutes, quads, adonis belt/cum gutters, and forearms are all looking better than typical for me. Abs are getting that kettlebeller look, like in photos of old-timey strongmen, I never get lower abs anyway. I highly recommend doing a month of trying to get a good score in this if you have enough KB experience to do all the exercises with good form. It is different enough from what I was doing before that I'm seeing great results.

I'm going to try to break 1700 yet, and then I'm seeing that I need some cardio work and conditioning. This has me in a "ridiculous challenge" mentality, so I'm eye-ing up doing an xfit "Half Murph" in my barn every morning, or close to that, for a few weeks.

I'm on day 52 of my diet. Down from 77 kg to 73.35, so about 500g per week. Seems like my initial estimate of my maintenance calories was pretty much spot on. I also got to eight pull-ups today, my PR.

Personal trainers are nice, but also have weird blind spots. I've had three, and none really could help me find my squatting stance, I had to spend a couple of evenings I was stuck at home with a cold to experiment with the stances. Turns out I prefer a quite narrow one, with my feet barely a shoulder width apart, it's the best stance for my knees. I now get a weird pain in front of my hip joint the day after the leg day, though, is it rectus femoris ligaments complaining?

I now get a weird pain in front of my hip joint

It's impossible to tell without a more detailed description, and probably seeing your squat in person. Sounds like it might be something getting pinched or impinged from your more narrow stance. If that's the case, in the words of the GOAT Ed Coan: "open your taint." The extra external rotation should relive pressure near the head of the femur as well as reduce twisting strain in the knees.

It can also be hard to tell whats going on while you are changing body weights. The angle the tendons pull at change as your body changes. Some very minor tendon related discomfort can go away as you move away from random highly disadvantageous leverages. Either because you fat leverages change, or muscle growth changes the angle of pull on the bones. Do not ignore acute or chronic tendon pain though, that's a recipe for a very long and sometimes irrecoverable setback to training.

After some crawling around in a muddy field at work, my lower legs have swollen up and are fairly painful. I think this is probably some kind of insect bite allergy that will resolve in 1-5 days, but it's still very annoying, as much because I don't want to wear trousers in summer. But hey, my left calf doesn't look so small any more!

Not my thing so I'm probably off but since you haven't gotten any replies - Is it obviously not severe poison oak/ivy? this is what the experts recommend. They say if it's not a small rash or you didn't see the poison ivy you should see a medical professional, but it's hard to tell how much of that is serious vs the CYA of a webpage for popular consumption.

Are there obvious insect bite spots? It's possible to get multiple bites, but it's a bit weird for an insect bite to swell up both lower legs.

I got really severe poison ivy a couple years back, tried two or three OTC remedies didn't work, went to a doctor, got a prescription cream, that cleared it up almost instantly. So there are treatment options that going to a doctor gives you. At least if you're at the point I reached where I couldn't sleep or move around much.

It was on grass and it looks like I have bites on both legs. Plus, I've had this before, I had a tick bite last October that made my ankle swell up, and I've had it before on my arm. I'm not worried or anything, before it cleared up in 1-5 days.

Hello! First post here, lurker on and off for some time. Not sure how to phrase my question so I'll give a bit of info about myself first.

I'm a woman in my early 30s, college graduate with a worse-than-useless (i.e. expensive!) degree, working in a field that I don't find particularly challenging or motivating. This is fine with me, it pays the bills and then some and I have plenty of leisure time. I always was good enough at school to be placed in "gifted" classes but looking back, "smart" meant good at school and not much more. Concepts like "critical thinking" only began to resonate woefully late, after I'd already received my bachelor's degree (how??). For the past few years I've been very narrowly focused on studying psychology, PTSD, other self-helpy topics. Other hobbies include studying languages, fitness, painting, cooking, spending too much time on Reddit, etc.

I don't have many friends and struggle to make and maintain relationships. I tend to not like people very much and get fixated on my one person (usually a romantic partner) and am chronically disappointed by aspects of these relationships. Recently, I've been experimenting with cannabis and feel as though my mind has fundamentally changed in some way (even when I'm not "under the influence"). I've become extremely fascinated by history and, for lack of a better way of putting it, how and why things are the way they are. Suddenly the realm of knowledge one can acquire seems immensely vast and I am hungry to learn as much as I possibly can. Beyond that, I want to meet and know smart people who I can learn from! I'm overwhelmed and don't know where to start. After more than 30 years of never trying to discuss anything remotely intellectual, I feel stunted and useless. I feel like I've missed out on my best years specializing in psudoscience and "the arts."

I guess I'm grappling with both the burgeoning understanding of my own ignorance, as well as a lack of direction and community. I don't know anyone who wants to talk about anything other than the shallowest pop culture. I'm beginning to resent my relationship with my boyfriend who doesn't seem to have the skills or desire (not clear which) to converse about anything intellectual or controversial. I also don't feel like I'm smart enough to contribute meaningfully in spaces such as this one. Aaaand I continually feel discouraged when the means I try to use to increase my knowledge feel above my level. Like, maybe I'm just limited by lower intelligence? Wondering where others began and if anyone has any advice, thanks!

Unpopular opinion: It is genuinely possible to be not smart enough to productively engage in intellectual discussion, while still being smart enough to appreciate it and aspire for more. A lot of people are too obsessed with kindness over accuracy to point that out.

That being said, if you're a lurker, it's hard for anyone to judge one way or another given that they have nothing to judge on!

If you made it onto gifted programs, you can't be too dumb, and you're not likely to be outright below average either. Of course, I'm not in a position to judge how much that assessment measures conscientiousness and hard work as opposed to raw intelligence.

If I had to pull numbers out of my ass, I'd wager that people below an IQ of 110 are unlikely to ever be respected members around these parts, and those below 100 likely incapable of contributing anything of note. That's not a very high bar, but it still rules out billions of people.

Now, my forays into the ratsphere began decades ago, so I can hardly remember the exact path I traced, but it was something like-

Normie reddit - LessWrong - Slate Star Codex - The Motte. I certainly got a great deal out of reading the Sequences by Yudkowsky, no matter how clichéd that sounds.

I'm beginning to resent my relationship with my boyfriend who doesn't seem to have the skills or desire (not clear which)

My previous girlfriend, while very sweet, was a normie who couldn't really keep up with me on anything interesting. On the other hand, my current girlfriend is tack sharp, and sufficiently well read and capable of forming her own opinions that we regularly have vigorous debate.

I didn't break up with my previous gf over that of course, I have enough mortal intellectual combat online to scratch that itch 🙏. It's up to you what kind of tradeoff you want in a partner if you can't have both.

After more than 30 years of never trying to discuss anything remotely intellectual, I feel stunted and useless. I feel like I've missed out on my best years specializing in psudoscience and "the arts."

There are a few degrees, like Law and Philosophy, that do end up making you sharper and more astute, but those aside, I'm an unabashed STEMlord.

Suddenly the realm of knowledge one can acquire seems immensely vast and I am hungry to learn as much as I possibly can.

I'm quite certain that the smarter you are, the more likely you are to be nerd-sniped by insight porn. Certainly, you don't see dumb people going on random Wiki crawls.

Fascinating, thanks for taking the time to share all this.

Of course, I'm not in a position to judge how much that assessment measures conscientiousness and hard work as opposed to raw intelligence.

Ha, I definitely didn't work hard at all, and had a lot working against me (divorced parents, time divided 50-50 between the two homes, raised by addict/bipolar mom and thoroughly disinterested dad) so I probably am not unintelligent.

It's amusing to think how long I incuriously took for granted that "I am smart," not bothering to question to what extent that was true (and what I should do with it). Your last point about "insight porn" resonates although I hadn't heard the term before.

Again, I appreciate your response!

I'm an unabashed STEMlord.

Sorry doctors but if your work is mostly deducing off things you memorized and doesn't involve math, you are still part of the kingdom of STEM. But a STEMserf perhaps, lord..? No.

Let's call it STEM adjacent then, we did have biochemistry with actual equations (!!) in our syllabus after all.

Doesn't M in STEM stand for medicine to begin with? And diagnosing/treating is basically debugging a human, as far as I'm concerned. Don't let them bully you!

The M usually stands for mathematics. The science in STEM only encompasses the natural sciences.

I know what you mean. I felt this way somewhat when I found the rationalist space years ago. I basically just put my non work life on hold and read all these posts from slate star: https://slatestarcodex.com/archives/

With a lot of googling and other research as well. Took me about six months but it was worth it, my world view changed entirely.

Thanks for your response--I guess I need to accept it'll take time and things might feel different as time passes. Exciting to hear that you feel it was worth it, though! An ex of mine used to always share SSC posts with me and I felt like I couldn't understand them. Going to try again, but more slowly.

Unironically try asking ChatGPT about concepts and specific posts you couldn't follow. It knows about SSC, and is smart enough to help.

I appreciate this! Still stuck in my primitive googling ways but I should give this a shot.

It helps too if you can discuss these things with other people, online or IRL. There are a bunch of SSC meetups and effective altruism meetups if you’re into that crowd.

Yeah, I used to be terrified of "looking stupid" so kept my mouth shut on basically everything until... now? Bad strategy, would not recommend!

I still remember marveling that the stupidest-sounding kid in my college engineering classes was getting the highest test grades. It turns out that everybody had stupid questions, and "ask them right away and look stupid" was a better way to handle them than "keep your embarrassing secret and hope you can fix it all by yourself before test time comes".

Having real conversation partners is nice but not necessary, I mean you are on the motte with hundreds of potential people to talk about "intellectual" topics. Start off by talking to us?

As for meeting them in real life, it's going to be difficult. Just because your intellectual interests align doesn't mean your personalities won't clash. If you think this is going to be too difficult based on your geographical area, then just accept the fact it will probably never happen. Lucky for you theres thousands of niche online forums.

I joined a local Toastmasters club in my 20’s in the early 00’s, and I now have a circle of fifteen friends and dozens of acquaintances who talk about interesting things in all fields of life.

My advice is to visit Toastmasters clubs and join the one which has people like you’d like to be like, or the one with the most interesting speech topics. You’ll find yourself blossoming in months.

I literally never heard of Toastmasters until like, yesterday. There are about a hundred within 5 miles of me it seems. Thanks!

I'm 31. I've joked that half my reading of the past two years have been completing homework assignments I half assed in a great books course freshman year of undergrad.

Early 30s is when Jesus and the Buddha and Mohamed got serious. You got time. You have valuable contributions to make.

Great comment, thank you so much.

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I love the arts (why the scare quotes?) I also typically find reading or online discussions on what you're referring to as intellectual topics much more bearable than sitting and listening to people in realtime drone on about their idiosyncratic worldviews. Lots of signaling and posturing in those settings.

While your boyfriend may not be your go-to for discussions on geopolitics or phenomenology, that's not perhaps what boyfriends are best suited for (any more than girlfriends, or husbands, or wives). (Note I am not suggesting anything lascivious, just that the emotional comforts of an SO do not always correlate with their readiness for or prowess at intellectual debate.)

I don't mean to sound too bearish on your post here, I just think it might be idealizing a certain smartperson (TM) reality that doesn't exist, or doesn't exist the way I am perceiving you are framing it.

Reading wide and various is my advice, such as it is. But it sounds as if you're already doing that.

Edit for poor thumbtyping.

Thanks for the insightful reply. I think you're correct to point out the way my present mindset is coloring the things that I think are valuable and those that seem not to be. No shade to the arts ("the arts") intended, I suppose I might be a bit disappointed in the extent to which I specialized. I've been actively spending time improving my painting skills, and that is something important I don't plan to discard.

As for the rest, I think you're right re: my idealization and I appreciate hearing it. I think I might be clinging to this as "the answer" to other areas of dissatisfaction in my life. I have a tendency to fixate/obsess on one thing or another and this is probably the latest manifestation of that (and it happens to be much broader in nature, I think, than my usual obsessions (e.g. houseplants or fashion). Ultimately, I'm feeling a lack of social connection and a frustration with what feels like hollow interactions with people who don't seem to understand me (and vice versa). Years of self-help psychology, therapy, and other forms of "healing from trauma" haven't been terribly effective. But now I'm rambling so I'll leave it there. Thanks again!

Your self-awareness, lack of defensiveness, and clarity of prose all suggest to me that should you find a group of likeminds--as long as they don't happen to also be assholes--you will thrive exactly as you imagine. Maybe you're already there.

It was once put to me that no one person has to be my everything. The same is of course true of social circles.

Again, thank you! I'm working on it. Never managed to maintain a friendship for more than a couple years (even in school) but I've learned a lot about how to keep showing up and be intentional, so hopefully this time I'll do better.

I've been into "intellectual" pursuits for most of my life, since middle school at least since I started consuming all science news articles I could find.

A couple things that might be "wisdom" from me:

  1. Pursuing intellectual topics does not require anything other than average intelligence and interest. You don't have to be a genius to find history, cool science, or esoteric brain topics fun. I do believe IQ is real, and can have some noticeable real world effects, but most of those effects can become a wash if some other person has more time and interest.

  2. Speaking of time, you are starting late, but that is not a bad thing at all. In some ways I am jealous. There are many cool things to learn, and you have lots of low hanging fruit. Unlike school this is not a competition. You don't have to be the most learned person in the room. You only have to compare yourself against how much you knew yesterday.

  3. Romantic partners don't have to share all of your interests. I have a wife who is not intellectually inclined at all. I'd also be pretty confident that she is smarter than me IQ wise. I don't think most people are intellectually inclined. That is fine. You can still connect with them on other areas of shared interest. You can still be attracted to them. You can still enjoy activities with them.

  4. You can often find the intellectually inclined doing things that work out their brain. It might seem obvious, but its worth pointing. People that care about their body can be found doing things that exercise their body. Same with the mind. There are meetup groups for slatestarcodex, dungeons and dragons groups are about using your imagination and acting skills, and any text-based online community or forum is going to mostly be people using their minds.

I like browsing youtube for interesting science education. There are some very fascinating historical blogs and podcasts out there.

When I asked ChatGPT for advice for you, they gave what I thought was mediocre advice, so I won't repeat it. But when I asked what groups you should join I thought their advice was more helpful (except for item #7, which is a bad suggestion I think):

  1. Book clubs or reading groups: These groups bring people together to discuss and analyze books on a variety of topics. They can be a great way to meet like-minded people and expand your knowledge.

  2. Historical societies: Many cities and towns have local historical societies that offer lectures, tours, and other events related to local history.

  3. Language learning groups: Meetup groups and language exchange programs offer opportunities to practice speaking and learning languages with others.

  4. Philosophy clubs: These groups discuss philosophical concepts and ideas, often with a focus on applying them to real-world issues.

  5. Meetup groups for intellectual or academic topics: Meetup.com has a wide variety of groups for people interested in everything from science and technology to social issues and politics.

  6. Toastmasters International: This organization helps people improve their public speaking and leadership skills through meetings, workshops, and other events.

  7. Mensa: This organization is open to people with high IQ scores and offers networking opportunities, social events, and other resources for intellectual growth.

Thank you for your kind and thorough response! The craziest part is that I didn't feel like I was uninformed... it just didn't occur to me to consider how much more was out there. Feels totally silly in retrospect but my past self looks like a shell to me! I really appreciate the sentiment "You only have to compare yourself against how much you knew yesterday."

And thank you for sharing point number 3--I also think my partner is more intelligent than me, and my frustration is likely coming from feeling a lack of shared interests at all right now. That and those interests we do share, he doesn't seem to want to talk about. So... probably a whole other issue.

And good recs from ChatGPT! I'm lucky to live (and work) in one of the most populous cities in the US so there isn't much of an excuse for me not finding people to connect with. Gotta keep at it (and be patient)!

I'm continuing to lose weight from semaglutide (down 25lbs so far in about 3 months), these past few weeks at a rate of 2lbs/week. I'm also working out 6 times a week doing high-volume bodybuilding style training in order to preserve every shred of muscle I've built over the past 10 years of intermittently working out, and of course eating very high amounts of protein.

I'm still roughly 22 or 23 percent body fat, so not shredded by any means, but beneath the fat I have about 165lbs of lean body mass at a height of 5'9.5, and the large body frame that caused me so much anguish as a teenager is starting to play in my favour because it turns out that my shoulders are wide as fuck (21inches across from shoulder to shoulder measured on a wall, and 53inch shoulders circumference, and it turns out that girls like wide shoulders the way guys like tits?) ... so the overall figure is starting to come together, and the face has slimmed down too. Overall I look ok and muscular in clothes, but kind of unimpressive naked.

I have noticed... changes... to the way I'm perceived socially. Lots of furtive glances when I pass by (and some direct staring), lots of girls staring at my chest when I talk to them, a lot more inexplicable hair-playing and lip-licking, groups of high-school girls giggling when I pass by (which caused me a fucking spike of anxiety when it first happened, high-school-girl-giggling was not associated with anything good the last time it happened to me). I notice that people seemingly want to integrate me into conversations significantly more than before, I've noticed a subtle shift in energy when there's a casual group discussion.

It's also kind of fun to see new people I meet kind of be perplexed after talking to me for the first time. Bear in mind that my fundamental personality is that of a physics nerd (though now I do machine learning), that was the archetype that crystallised inside me during my adolescence, and getting muscles and a bit leaner has done nothing to that aspect of me. But this means that people kind of get visibly perplexed when I ask good questions during ML poster sessions, and when I don't fit their idea of a dumb muscle-bound jock. So far this has mostly amused me, we'll see how It'll get as I get even leaner.

As I get leaner the changes accelerate, every 5lbs decrease has produced more changes of this sort than the last. Overall this has been a strangely emotional experience, I'm basically in the process of fulfilling the dream of my 14-year-old self, and I don't really see any obstacle that could prevent me from getting to 12% body fat in a few more months.

I'll write a much longer top-level post with pictures and everything once this is all over.

How does semaglutide work on you? Do you eat smaller portions now, or have no inclination to snack between meals?

It's kind of both, smaller meals fill me up more than before, before semaglutide I'd still kind of be hungry after eating a full 12'' subway sandwich, now eating like 650 calories makes me satiated and good to go for the next 6 or 7 hours. It also calms late night cravings (which were my main weakness), so I don't go to sleep hungry if I eat in a calorie deficit. There's also massively less desire to buy sweets at the weekly grocery run. But hunger signalling still works: I still get hungry before a meal, it's just a lower level than before.

Overall I look ok and muscular in clothes, but kind of unimpressive naked.

Keep in mind that even non-doctored photographs of fit people are often taken in the context of using dehydration, pump, some alcohol, posing, lighting, or all of the above. I've been as lean as 9-10% body fat and still didn't really love how I looked if I just stood in front of a mirror with my body relaxed (not slouching, decent posture, just not flexing). At that weight, I could produce photographs of myself that looked strikingly different from that real-life impression by coming back from a run dehydrated, having a drink or two, knocking out some pushups, turning at an angle, and flexing. Not fitness-model tier because I'm less muscular, but still way more impressive than walking around.

Meanwhile, my wife says I always look basically the same. Shrug.

Would you say that semaglutide makes a large difference? Personally, I've never had much of a problem just eating less - I'm losing weight now, and without counting calories or being particularly strict or doing much cardio.

Overall I look ok and muscular in clothes, but kind of unimpressive naked.

Regardless of what you see on social media, most people, even people who are in shape, do not have visible abs, assuming that's your barometer for 'impressive'. Plus I think abs are fetishized too much. Simply having a flat stomach and a slight taper to your torso is enough

Yeah semaglutide is making literally all the difference for me, but only through the "I'm much less hungry" pathway, I don't think it has some special fat-burning ability outside of its appetite suppression, so if that hasn't historically been a problem for you, then semaglutide probably won't help.

How long did it take for things to "kick in"? I am starting with a different GLP-1 agonist and while the initial nausea has passed I don't feel like my appetite has dropped that much.

It really took me like 6 weeks to see the full effects. These have half-lives of about a week, which means that the concentration in your blood after a few weeks of taking it is actually twice as high as it was the first week. The initial weeks were also spent slowly escalating the dose to make sure I minimised side-effects. I'm taking 1.0mg/week of semaglutide spread into 2 injections each week, at this dose my appetite is very clearly suppressed, and I could already feel effects when my dosing was 0.6mg/week.

working out 6 times a week doing high-volume bodybuilding style training in order to preserve every shred of muscle I've built over the past 10 years of intermittently working out

I don't know anything about this stuff, but I thought I remember hearing people (maybe even Motte people) say that it's much easier to have weight loss cycles separate from bulking cycles. I'd be curious to know, because I'm also losing weight and working out, though I'm more focused on losing weight, and I'm working out much less intensely than you. I'm just working out a few times per week, and if my smart scale is to be trusted (I don't actually trust it, it's too inconsistent day to day), I'm losing muscle, despite the working out. But still, my body fat percentage is still going down, meaning in losing more fat than muscle.

Yeah cutting cycles and bulking cycles are different, but your training in the gym shouldn't differ too much between them. The things you do in the gym to gain muscle during a bulk are the things you need to do to maintain muscle during a cut. What I do is a 6 weeks training -> 1 week deload cycle. So for 6 weeks I eat in a hypocaloric diet, and add weekly sets to all my muscle groups over those 6 weeks, then I take a week completely off from training to recover, during which I eat at maintenance, then repeat the cycle.

I don't know anything about this stuff, but I thought I remember hearing people (maybe even Motte people) say that it's much easier to have weight loss cycles separate from bulking cycles.

It's the ladder of building muscle:

  • noobs can gain non-trivial amount of muscle while dieting or later eating at maintenance

  • intermediates can gain non-trivial amount of muscle when bulking

  • advanced bodybuilders can only gain non-trivial amount of muscle when bulking on a very strict diet

In general, skeletal muscles are luxury organs. Your body will get rid of excess muscle as soon as it convinces itself it needs to conserve energy and it doesn't really need them that much. That's why it's necessary to keep all your muscles well-fatigued during cutting, especially when you have bigger muscles that usual: your body goes, "shit, not enough food, what can I convert into energy? These fat stores look useful for a rainy day, how about I start with these biceps?"

Yeah, it's generally more efficient to cut and then bulk than to do a recomp at maintenance. It is possible to gain muscle while on a deficit but it depends on certain things like, starting body fat %, training history, previous training history, size of the deficit. If you have a higher body fat % it's easier to maintain or gain muscle on a cut (until you get to a low bf%), if you're new to training it's easier to build muscle, if you have previous experience lifting but took an extended break and lost muscle mass your body will put it back on faster than an untrained beginner and if you diet more slowly it's easier to maintain or gain muscle than if you lose the weight fast.

Still important to train while dieting though to maintain as much muscle as possible, and usually cutting diets have even higher protein targets.

If it changes your emotional reaction at all, I think you're finding out that you're really a good looking dude rather than just that you're better off not obese.

I'm bigger than I think you are now and probably been a little leaner, and I did not have schoolgirls giggling as I passed by. And for that matter, I'm a pretty dude myself! dropping the weight has revealed that you've been gorgeous all along.

Okay... Today on the subway a ridiculously attractive girl literally started blushing when our eyes met, like, her cheeks and nose became very visibly red, and she wasn't wearing blush make-up, this also happened a few times over the past few weeks. Is that a muscles-dependent effect, or a "you're handsome" effect?

It's not one or the other, it is BOTH together.

I have friends that are built like a brick shithouse, but the finishing on the brickwork was bad, ugly, poor face shape unfortunate haircut bad skin bad style. They don't get stared at.

If you literally have hot women stare at you in public, it's everything you are doing. The styling, the mannerisms, the body, the facial features. In the past, the body was letting you down, and hiding all those other qualities, now it's picking you up and displaying them.

That's the point I'm trying to make contra the Black Pill attitude of "they only love me because I'm not fat now and that's depressing." No, everything else about you is awesome too and was before, it just used to be hidden under the fat.

Keep in mind that visually, if I have a good idea of what your body looks like (mine), if you are losing belly fat that increases the contrast and angle from your shoulders/lats/chest to your waist. You might look bigger and more imposing at a glance than you did when you were actually physically bigger but rounder and softer so you read smaller.

I'm trying to make contra the Black Pill attitude of "they only love me because I'm not fat now and that's depressing."

I mean. Large changes in physical attractiveness in either direction tend to produce cynicism. Read some accounts of fat people that lost a lot of weight. Or of people that got medically-indicated surgery for their puny jaws. Or on the other side...stories about people that became disabled or disfigured.

Returns on physical appearance, like returns on most things, are logit-curve-shaped: it rocks to rock and sucks to suck. Luckily, OP has now managed to be well above average for physical appearance. Good for him.

I would go so far as to say that people get weird and cynical about any strongly attractive traits they have. It's a pattern I've noticed in people regardless of what the trait is. Money, Ethnicity, Fame, perfect breasts, a huge cock, whatever. It becomes a question in their mind whether their partner is attracted to some mystical "real self" outside of that one strong trait.

Which is why eyes are the best thing to compliment about anyone, no one will get weird about it. Except occasionally East Asian girls in America, but you can normally get through that.

I would go so far as to say that people get weird and cynical about any strongly attractive traits they have.

And any strongly unattractive traits they have.

No, if anything people with singularly strong unattractive traits become Romantic rather than Cynical.

The guy with a huge dick becomes cynical about his strength. "Women only love me for this thing, they don't love the real me."

The guy with a micropenis romanticizes it. "Women would love me, I'm wonderful, except for this thing."

Hmm. Maybe a micropenis isn’t exactly a great example here: it’s not obvious and doesn’t lead to discrimination in social settings. Someone that looks like Freddy Krueger, on the other hand…he’ll conclude that people kind of suck and are slinging a lot of bullshit about being inclusive and accepting. I’ve read about (but never personally knew) Freddies; I’ve known a couple of Fridas. I don’t know if a deeply unattractive woman becomes cynical while her equally-ugly Quasimodo-like twin brother develops a sense of romanticism.

I’d contend both are like “damn, people suck and are superficial”…

EDIT: Frida told me that she felt her personality didn't matter. That all that mattered was physical appearance, or rather that her face was too ugly to ever find love. I don't think she thought her personality was remarkable or that she had any kind of exceptional inner beauty: she was sad, angry, and cynical. Also blunt and hilarious and caring.

Hmm, somehow I doubt that. It's not like all schoolgirls I pass by giggle, but it's happened like 3 times over the past month (I probably pass by more schoolgirls than you because I take the subway). But then I'm curious, what things did you notice in your case?

But then I'm curious, what things did you notice in your case?

Hard to say, I don't really have the transformation you're undergoing to talk about. When I started lifting in college I went from 5'11" 165 to 185-195 for ten years, but I kept wearing 32 pants and a 40 jacket they just fit differently over time. I generally am in Thibs' old Muscle Migration Theory, my weight and general muscle stayed the same it just varied from half assed Oly lifting to climbing to powerlifting. It's only in the last year I changed up my lifting and my supplements and packed on another ten pounds to 205 and just can't find fucking anything that fits right without stretch. I'm definitely the attached meme here, my level of female attention has barely changed from 18 to 31 despite carrying 20 or 30 more pounds of decent muscle, at varying distributions and levels of leanness. Lovers will often compliment things like my shoulders, or my forearms, or my biceps, but only after we get together and I strongly suspect that they are pretty secondary to the attraction.

In general my model of human, and especially hetero male, attractiveness is that the curve is very discontinuous. The return to a good vs a great personality is more or less zero difference if you're a totally unfuckable 1/10, and even getting to a 2/10 won't change much, but get to a 5/10 and all that starts to come into play. An 8/10 handsome face attached to a 3/10 fatbody doesn't deliver much, but put it on a 5/10 ordinary body and all of a sudden it's go time. Essentially the biggest returns are all at that point between 3-6/10 when you go to average and then slightly above average; then there is almost no return until you get to 9/10 and you're actively everyone-in-the-room-looks-at-you gorgeous. The factors all kind of hang together and need to be in line for any one to really give you returns.

Which is to say: You've been a good looking smart charismatic dude all along, you finally dropped the literal anchor holding you back. Better living through chemistry. Mazel tov!

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Hmm. I kind of disagree here. Being 2/10 probably sucks a good deal less than being a 1/10. At a certain level of unattractiveness...say bottom five percent or so, rough ballpark...it's kind of understood that you're not interested in sex or relationships, and to be interested - even in the abstract - is transgressive and creepy. Nope: Quasimodo doesn't get to join in when the guys are shooting the shit about attractive celebrities, there's an awkward silence. If Quasimodo hits on Jane Average, there is a good chance that he will be considered creepy for doing what would be unremarkable for Joe Average. Once you aren't experiencing what disability theorists call desexualization...yes, you're right there. It's a logit-curve-shaped distribution.

No, I am not pulling this from my ass, incel boards, or other crap. I've personally experienced this (although it was due to a combination of autism and physical unattractiveness; I've had friends tell me on several occasions that I either should never have a relationship or that my only hope was gold diggers). And my experience aside, I've had similar conversations with unattractive men and women that described the same phenomenon I'm talking about...not to mention the disability theorists' description of this.

This is NOT "You're unattractive; I'm not interested" but "Damn: you're unattractive as fuck - how dare you be interested in anyone, ever?". It's doing poorly on the basketball court versus being told you shouldn't even be on the court at all.

My point coincides with yours, my man.

I think of a 1 and a 2 as equally more or less unfuckable grades, so moving up one grade delivers nothing at all. Being Disney Quasimodo rather than Hugo Quasimodo delivers no advantages.

Going from an unfuckable 2 to a merely unpleasant 3 is a HUGE return, going from 3 to a below average 4 and to average 5 and above average 6 are each delivering returns. But getting from above average to slightly more above average delivers less.

Yep. There’s either three or five classes. A lot of average in the middle to chug through. Like…there’s 0s, 1s, and 2s. Or 0, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Essentially the biggest returns are all at that point between 3-6/10 when you go to average and then slightly above average; then there is almost no return until you get to 9/10 and you're actively everyone-in-the-room-looks-at-you gorgeous. The factors all kind of hang together and need to be in line for any one to really give you returns.

Also highly relevant in the middle tier is dressing well and getting a decent haircut. Contrary to what the Russians mentioned in the thread the other day think, maintaining a decent haircut isn't gay and doesn't take any real effort. If you're going to be wearing a suit, do get it tailored. Buy shirts that conspicuously display your forearms when they're rolled up. Whatever positive features you have, accentuate them.

I have noticed... changes... to the way I'm perceived socially. Lots of furtive glances when I pass by (and some direct staring), lots of girls staring at my chest when I talk to them, a lot more inexplicable hair-playing and lip-licking, groups of high-school girls giggling when I pass by (which caused me a fucking spike of anxiety when it first happened, high-school-girl-giggling was not associated with anything good the last time it happened to me). I notice that people seemingly want to integrate me into conversations significantly more than before, I've noticed a subtle shift in energy when there's a casual group discussion.

You should know that this continues as you go down this path. I've heard that as you get better muscle mass to fat while retaining size (eg endomorphs), girls will continue to react, including becoming more brazen around you. If you are good at not fucking up, things will turn out very very well for you. Enjoy.

I'm glad to hear that it's working out for you! It's not often you get to hear the outcome of both semaglutide and strength training, since the people on the former are usually more concerned with losing weight than anything else.

Overall I look ok and muscular in clothes, but kind of unimpressive naked.

Hey, if you want to get laid that's good enough, by the time clothes are coming off she's probably not going to say no ;)

It's not often you get to hear the outcome of both semaglutide and strength training, since the people on the former are usually more concerned with losing weight than anything else.

Guilty.

As someone who became a pure cardiocel (couldn't get sema so I just white-knuckled it and fasted) to lose weight...goddamn, this thread has me checking out Stronglifts again.

Yeah, the only thing that's preventing me from getting laid a lot right now is my own internal sense of perfectionism and fairly high standards (both for myself and the girl).

There's also a strange sort of muted anger towards women that I have to work through. I don't feel like I've changed internally at all, I'm the absolute exact same person as I was 40lbs ago (I lost 15lbs before starting semaglutide), and it feels like losing the fat shouldn't make such a big difference in a fair world. Of course this is naive of me, and I'd absolutely treat an obese girl differently from a slim one, but the black pill is still hard to swallow...

the black pill is still hard to swallow

Indeed. A few years back I developed a physical disorder which caused me to lose about 50 pounds and also lose all confidence and personality. Where before I made lots of jokes, teased people, and sort of commanded the flow of group conversations, afterwards I couldn't even do bare minimum things like maintain eye contact or finish sentences without pausing to gather my courage, among many other issues. It was a transformation from maybe a 3 in looks, 7 personality to maybe a 7 in looks, 2 personality. As you might guess by now I got about 1000x as much attention from women during this period.

It really shouldn't be a blackpill; I think the issue is that we have misplaced higher standards for woman than for men, and then we're incredibly disappointed when those higher standards aren't met.

Large changes in physical appearance produce cynicism in many.

I wonder why more people aren't getting plastic surgery, to be honest. They're not exactly leaving $20s on the ground in Grand Central...but they're failing to climb the stairs to the top of the Empire State building for $1000 in many cases.

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