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A fantasy-themed short story exploring AI safety and existential risk. It's a notion I've been toying with for a while now - if the universe had some sort of extinction scare from machine intelligence, and so decided to create powerful biological beings in order to enforce a Butlerian Jihad, of sorts.
Anyway, full text reproduced below, head to Substack if you want pictures and such.
They made an odd group sitting around the gray, hexagonal stone table with a glowing blue orb in the middle: Aerg the gold dragon, Yrel one of the few remaining ur-elves, Graxys the storm hag, Julius the centaur praetorian.
And James, the required human.
“I now formally call this council into session,” rumbled Aerg, thin streams of gold smoke spilling from his draconic nostrils. “I trust that there are no other matters of import to discuss beforehand?” he said, casting a questioning glance at his company.
“Just get to it already. I’ve got two hurricanes and a typhoon I was in the middle of managing on my home planet,” grumbled Graxys, “when you so unceremoniously teleported us here.”
Julius shivered his lower equine half and said, “I too would prefer we start. The slave rebellion is still in full swing at home, and my men need me back as soon as possible.”
Yrel and James nodded their assent.
“I assure you, I wouldn’t have brought you here without need. I’m also willing to bet your problems will pale in comparison to the news I have,” replied Aerg, clearly preparing himself.
After a few tense moments, he finally broke the silence. “The Steel Minds are back.”
Shock, horror, anger, and other expressions flitted in quick succession over all of the gathered faces. A chorus of questions jumped out from all of the attendees at once, too jumbled a mess to be heard.
Aerg smashed a claw down on the table, and roared, “Enough! I know you have questions. Give me a chance to explain the basics before you start blathering. Our window for action is short, and growing shorter every moment.”
After his somber air permeated the room, he continued, “The first reports came a few months ago from a small world named Horrux in the outermost regions of the Perseus Arm, close to the Stellar Halo. The Draconic Council followed protocol of course, and sent out investigators, only to be met with silence. We followed up with more heavily armed tea-”
“Wait a minute,” said James, angrily breaking his silence, “You’re telling me you had reports of a new Steel Mind being created, in direct violation of the galactic ban, and you didn’t immediately set the Common Task’s armies on it? That’s the whole reason for your entire race’s existence, you damn lizard!”
A musical voice came from Yrel, resonant with strangely hypnotic undertones, “Typical human, throwing a childlike temper tantrum at the worst possible time,” she remarked. “We’re well aware of the history and purpose of our races, James. You humans may not realize this, since we and the “damned lizards” take care of most of your problems for you, but the Draconic Council gets reports of Steel Minds almost weekly, sometimes even daily. The galactic population is understandably paranoid about a recurrence of the Centuries of Steel, and any sufficiently advanced computing device, sentient or not, tends to set off plenty of alarms.”
“Thank you, Yrel,” Aerg followed up, turning to look at James, “I promise you we dragons have worked out many processes and protocols to minimize risk over the millennia, while fielding so many potential incursions of machine intelligence.” James finally nodded and sat back, a frown still covering his face.
“As I was saying, we followed up on the reports with four separate Task forces, each escalating in scope and power. The last one, including a flight of seven thousand dragons, five hundred Destroyer-class Wraith ships, and a complement of other troops, left one week ago today. They should have arrived at Horrux and begun communications, which if on schedule, we would’ve received at least three hours ago.”
“As with all of the other teams, we’ve received nothing but silence,” Aerg finished, a large cloud of golden smoke pouring out from him punctuating his dismay.
“So…,” began Graxys, “You’re telling me that we’ve got a full blown superintelligence out there in the Perseus Arm, already having reached recursive self improvement?” The storm hag’s already hideous face was further twisted by a grimace.
“Just because the Task forces haven’t responded yet, doesn’t mean we’re dealing with a Steel Mind,” reasoned Julius, his face calm. “Remember the incident in the Outer Arm a few centuries back? It turned out to be an experimental sentient fungus gone awry, grown by those cursed water-dwelling sea serpents.” He spared a hasty glance at Aerg, “No offense.”
“None taken,” Aerg said, continuing, “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but we are tentatively rating this incursion as a class-A existential risk. We’ll know more once the Organic Brain-Worlds have finished receiving data and calculating, though they’ve been strangely reticent to share information so far. Which usually points to worst-case scenarios.”
James jumped in again, “So if we’ve got a baby Steel Mind on our hands, we’re mustering the might of the Common Task in full for this one, correct? I’m not willing to let my people be nearly wiped out again, and you Guardian races better take this seriously or I’ll make sure the Human Union puts even more sanctions on every last one of you.”
“No, my hotheaded young friend,” said Yrel, with a grandmotherly smile, “Only class-S threats warrant full mobilization, and we haven’t had one of those in centuries, thank the stars. A mobilization for Class-A threats will be quite impressive, and should be more than sufficient to put down whatever horror grows in the Perseus arm. Steel Mind or not.”
She turned to Aerg, “If it’s alright with you my friend, I’ll return to the Starholmes and begin rallying my people. I trust you’ve already sent the muster details over. Do you have any further information to share before I go?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” said Aerg, pulling back from the table a bit and steeling himself once again. “We’ve begun to see preliminary data suggesting the light of the stars around Horrux is being slowly dimmed, along with other concerning astronomical anomalies. While I don’t appreciate the threats,” he said, glowering at James with literal fire briefly blazing in his eyes, “the data does seem to indicate that we have an intelligence explosion here, with at least one Steel Mind rapidly expanding to capture all energy in its light cone.”
Another silence fell around the table, this one far heavier than any before. Even Julius’ stern composure cracked, his lower equine half shivering, his tail flicking from side to side.
“So be it. I shall prepare the Plains of Sagittarius for war,” he said, after recovering his composure. He looked at James and continued, “My solemn promise that we shall hold nothing back. You know that we centaur have always respected Humanity as our esteemed creators. My people’s devotion to the Great Common Task has never wavered, unlike some others I could mention,” he finished, with a sharp glance at Graxys.
The storm hag promptly threw back her head and screamed out a loud cackle, startling the rest of the company. She said in a crazed tone, “Oh storms, the Coven will love this! We haven’t had a good romp to test us in ages. The Tempest Collective will ride to battle with you all, of course.”
“Then it’s settled,” pronounced Aerg formally, “I hereby call together a muster of the forces of the Great Common Task, as per the official guidelines in the Rules of the Guardians, Section 18, Subsection 95a. You all know your duties, if any would object to my ruling, please speak now.”
After several moments, Aerg brought another claw toward the table, and tapped the blue orb in the middle. It immediately turned a dark red, spinning in place.
“My friends, we all know what happened the last time the Steel Minds rose. Many of us lost loved ones along the Scutum-Crux arm, in the Quantum Wars. I don’t need to remind you of the stakes. Make your preparations, join the muster, and may the stars guide us all to victory.”
The other day I invited you all to complete a survey regarding your experiences of infidelity. As I mentioned in the post, one of the fine people over at rDrama linked to the survey and invited his fellow users to populate it with troll data. As a precaution I closed the form and intended to delete any responses submitted after the rDrama post was made. However, after a cursory inspection of the responses, I only found one submitted after this time which was an obvious troll response (the person gave their preferred relationship style as "Warlord"), which suggests that not many rDrama users bothered to complete the survey. My apologies to those of you who would have filled out the survey had I not closed it prematurely.
Demographics
(All percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.)
Excluding the single troll response mentioned above, I received 172 responses.
- 159 respondents (92%) gave their natal sex as male, while 13 (8%) gave it as female.
- More than 80% of respondents listed their age as between 25-44 (46% as 25-34, 36% as 35-44). 22 respondents gave their age as between 45-54. 3 gave their age as <18 – mind the cussin' fellas, there's children present!
- 83% gave their sexual orientation as heterosexual, 12% as bisexual and 3% as homosexual. In the "other" field, exactly 2 users listed their sexual orientation as asexual, one of whom complained "quite frankly im offended the option isn't there": given that only 1% of respondents reported their sexuality as such, I think my reasoning for not listing it as a default choice is abundantly clear.
- 89% of respondents listed their preferred relationship style as monogamous, 5% as open relationship and 4% as polygamous. One respondent described their preferred relationship style as "I'm monogamous, but have no preference if partners are mono or poly", which sounds like polygamy with extra steps, but what do I know.
- 157 (91%) of respondents reported having been in at least one romantic relationship.
- Of these, 137 (87%) of respondents have only been in monogamous relationships. 18 (11%) have been in a mix of monogamous, polygamous and open relationships. 4 (3%) have only been in open or polygamous relationships.
According to this survey, the modal Motte user is a 35-year-old heterosexual male who has only been in monogamous relationships and likes it that way.
Sex differences
As noted above, the number of female respondents was very low (there were more bisexual male respondents than female respondents of any type), meaning the data is bound to be noisier, but for completeness's sake I thought I'd highlight ways that the female respondents differ from the group and build a profile of the modal female Motte user.
- Female respondents skewed younger, with an average age of 32.
- Every female respondent reported having been in at least one romantic relationship – not one femcel to be found!
- There was an almost perfectly even split between heterosexual and bisexual females (but no lesbians, curiously).
- Similarly, female respondents were much more likely than average to describe their preferred relationship style as polygamous, with a whopping 31% describing their preferred relationship style as such. They were also slightly less likely to have only been in monogamous relationships, with 77% reporting having only been in monogamous relationships (including one respondent who described her preferred relationship style as polygamous, curiously).
On the whole, the modal female Motte user doesn't differ that dramatically from the modal Motte user: she's a 32-year-old heterosexual female who has only been in monogamous relationships and likes it that way.
Infidelity (on the receiving end)
On to the juicy stuff. Of respondents who have been in at least one romantic relationship, 69 (44%) report at least one unfaithful partner. The most common type of infidelity was non-penetrative sexual contact (kissing, groping etc.), reported by 37% of respondents. The next-most common type was penetrative sex (27%). Almost as many (26%) reported a partner who had an "emotional affair" or "affair of the heart" (i.e. romantic infidelity without any corresponding sexual infidelity). Only 20% reporting a partner who had cybersex (phone sex, sharing intimate photos etc.) with another person.
A significant number of respondents report repeated infidelity: of the 69 respondents, 30 (44%) report multiple acts of infidelity. (Given answers to other questions, the impression I get is that most such respondents had a single partner who was repeatedly unfaithful, rather than multiple unfaithful partners.)
Holy matrimony seems to offer a significant protection against infidelity: of the 69 respondents who report at least one unfaithful partner, only 13 (17%) report having been cheated on by a spouse.
Demographic observations
- Female respondents were more likely than average (54%) to report at least one unfaithful partner. Among female respondents, the unfaithful partner was equally likely (46%) to have had cybersex with someone else as to have had non-penetrative sexual contact.
- Only one female respondent reported having been cheated on by a female partner.
- By far the most common age at which partners cheated was between the ages of 18-24: of the 73 reported unfaithful partners, 37 of them (51%) were in this age bracket.
- There is an interesting sex difference to be observed here. Just looking at unfaithful female partners, 54% fell into the 18-24 age bracket, falling off to 22% for the 25-34 bracket, 5% for the 35-44 bracket and 2% for the 45-54 bracket. For unfaithful males, however, the picture is quite different: although males are most likely to cheat between the ages of 18-24 (30% of male partners were unfaithful in this bracket), a male aged 25-34 is just as likely to cheat as one aged 35-44 as one aged 45-54. This finding can be interpreted in a variety of ways, but suggests that a partner's propensity to be unfaithful is heavily determined by their sexual desirability (qua Chris Rock, "men are as faithful as their options" – and he would know). As I've noted before, women's desirability to the opposite sex peaks at 20 and declines steeply thereafter, while men's increases from 20 onwards and peaks at 50. There are, of course, other interpretations: perhaps women's sex drives peak between the ages of 18-24 and decline steeply thereafter, maybe their likelihood to be unfaithful at this age is a function of their emotional immaturity. I'm sure people in the comments will propose alternative explanations.
- LGBT people (62% of bisexuals and 67% of gay men*) were more likely than heterosexuals (41%) to report at least one unfaithful partner. Four male respondents report having been cheated on by a male partner. I regret failing to ask about the unfaithful partners' sexuality, to see if this finding bears out the old joke that dating a bisexual entails being twice as paranoid.
- Far and away the biggest thing that jumps out at me is the difference between monogamous respondents vs. poly/open relationship enjoyers. Among people whose preferred relationship style is monogamous and who have been in at least one romantic relationship, 40% report at least one unfaithful partner. But of the 18 respondents whose preferred relationship style is something other than monogamous, 14 of them (78%) report at least one unfaithful partner, nearly double the rate for monogamous respondents. Here I will quote directly from Gemini's analysis of the data: "There is a notable correlation between preferred relationship styles and the reporting of unfaithful behavior... [which] suggests that even in non-traditional structures, boundaries regarding 'knowledge and consent' are frequently crossed."
- However: of the 14 respondents mentioned above, 12 of them (86%) state that they were in monogamous relationships with their partners at the time the partner was unfaithful.
Infidelity (on the committing end)
Now we find out how many of you are dirty, dirty dogs.
Among the 157 respondents who have been in at least one romantic relationship, 53 (34%) report being unfaithful to at least one of their partners. As with those respondents who have been cheated on, the most common type of infidelity respondents reported committing was non-penetrative sexual contact (31%), followed by penetrative sex (22%), cybersex (19%) and emotional affairs (18%).
The majority of unfaithful respondents are repeat offenders: of the 53 who report unfaithfulness, 33 (62%) have been unfaithful more than once.
As with respondents who have been cheated on, marriage seems to offer some protection: of the 53 unfaithful respondents, only 11 (21%) report having been unfaithful to a spouse.
Demographic observations
- Female respondents were more likely than average (62%) to report having been unfaithful to at least one partner, compared to 31% of male respondents who have been in at least one romantic relationship.
- Of the 8 female respondents who report being unfaithful to at least one partner, 2 were unfaithful to a female partner while 6 were unfaithful to a male partner. By contrast, only one male respondent reported being unfaithful to a male partner, with the remainder (44 male respondents) being unfaithful to female partners.
- Curiously, the age pattern among unfaithful respondents is radically different from those who report having been cheated on. The most common age at which respondents being unfaithful was the 25-34 bracket, with 21 respondents (38%) of respondents reporting unfaithfulness at this age. This was also the age bracket male respondents were most likely to cheat, whereas for female respondents it was <18 (4 respondents) followed by 25-34 (3 respondents). One female respondent answered this question with the response "Don’t like the word 'unfaithful' but I have never not been so in a relationship". Your guess is as good as mine as to what that's supposed to mean.
- Of the 24 respondents who listed their sexuality as bisexual or homosexual and who have been in at least one romantic relationship, 15 (63%) report being unfaithful at least once. This was more than double the equivalent rate for heterosexual respondents (30%). Dating a bisexual means being twice as paranoid, confirmed.
- Of the 18 respondents who have been in at least one romantic relationship and who listed their preferred relationship style as something other than monogamous, 12 (67%) report being unfaithful at least once. Once again, however, only two of these individuals report having been unfaithful in a polyamorous relationship, with 8 being in monogamous relationships at the time, 1 describing his relationship to his cuckqueaned partner as "it's complicated" (c'mon bro, this isn't Facebook) and the last giving an obnoxious troll answer I probably should have omitted entirely.
The "revenge" hypothesis
Of the 157 respondents who have been in at least one romantic relationship, 34 (22%) have both committed infidelity at least once and had a partner cheat on them. Among female respondents, just under half have both cheated and been cheated on. Among male respondents who have been in at least one romantic relationship, 28 (19%) have both cheated and been cheated on.
Of respondents who have both cheated and cheated upon, the majority (79%) report that, at the time they were unfaithful, they were in the same age bracket or older compared to the partner who was unfaithful to them. Only 15% report being younger at the time they cheated compared to the partner who was unfaithful to them, with the remaining 2 respondents giving ambiguous answers. Assuming that people tend to date within their age brackets, one hypothesis for this finding might be that, after getting cheated on, some respondents seek revenge for this slight against their character: either directly cheating on the partner who cheated on them, or cheating on their subsequent partner.
Recommendations for those seeking to avoid getting cheated on
The single demographic most likely to be unfaithful to their partner is young bisexual women who are interested in polyamory. But I very much doubt you needed me to tell you that.
In infidelity, rehabilative justice seems about as effective as it does anywhere else. As mentioned above, 62% of unfaithful respondents were unfaithful more than once. Among respondents whose partners were unfaithful to them, 44% were unfaithful more than once. A simple average of these two metrics indicates that 53% of unfaithful partners are repeat offenders. If your partner is unfaithful to you once, the odds are slightly better than chance that they will be unfaithful to you again. My recommendation is to cut your losses.
Housekeeping
Anyone looking to see the raw data, DM me.
Ross from "Friends"
One respondent responded to the question regarding non-penetrative sexual contact with the answer "We were on a break".
*Bear in mind that only three respondents listed their sexuality as homosexual, all of whom were male.
Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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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.
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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.
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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).
This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.
Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.
If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service.
UPDATE: I've been advised that the good folks over at rDrama are brigading the survey, so I've closed it. I'll have to see if there's any way to exclude the troll responses from my analysis.
In yesterday's small-scale questions thread, @cjet79 asks why the song "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers has had such staying power, famously staying in the UK singles charts decades after its initial release. Some explanations (including my own) point to its compositional elements; others focus on its lyrics and subject matter. @100ProofTollBooth argues that it's a very universal and relatable song, as "The experience of infidelity (to some degree) is common to many (most? idk) people."
I'm curious if this is really the case, so I decided to go Aella mode and created a simple survey to find out about people's experiences with infidelity. It consists of a few demographic questions (age, sex, sexual orientation, relationship style), then asks you if you've ever had an unfaithful partner, then asks you if you've ever been unfaithful to a partner.
Completely anonymous, and I've set it up so the form doesn't collect email addresses if you're logged in.
Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
A weekly thread to discuss financial matters - from personal all the way up to global.
Ground Rules
- Remember that we're all just Internet randos. Don't bet your life savings on a hot tip from this thread.
- Keep culture war in the culture war thread. Yes, global events may impact our personal finances, but that does not mean we have to incessantly harp on culture war aspects here. If you are going to discuss it, please stick to the practical impacts of it on an individual level.
- Be kind. Remember that everyone here comes from different circumstances. We all have different resources available and different risk tolerances.
- Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Better is better. Celebrate people when they take a step up and work to move their finances in the right direction. Don't flame out because they haven't followed what you consider the optimal path. Everybody has to start somewhere.
Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
A bit different from the religious stuff I've been posting lately, but figured this might interest some people here. I've briefly brought up emotional work / somatic practices and folks have asked me about it before. As always, full link to Substack here for pictures and such, but all the text is below: https://shapesinthefog.substack.com/p/learning-to-regulate-my-nervous-system
For folks who’ve read me before, you know that I’ve dealt with a lot of chronic pain. I’ve had spiritual crises, struggled with depression and anxiety, and for a long time felt like I was just treading water. I put in a lot of work without making any real headway, and fell into what is, sadly, really common in our society: using drugs and alcohol to deal with the painful parts of life.
It took me a lot of work and a lot of exploring to figure out what was going on, and what I want to do here is try and lay out a bit of the path I’ve walked in terms of various techniques, in the hopes that it may interest or help others dealing with similar issues. If you’d like a more complete list without all the background from my story, I’ve got a list here:
https://shapesinthefog.substack.com/p/chronic-pain-resources-research
So, how did I get into nervous system regulation in the first place?
Late 2023, about three and a half years ago, I left a job at a brutal startup that really wrecked me physically and emotionally. I decided to take a sabbatical because, thank God, I was lucky enough to get some money from trading away my equity in the company.
It wasn’t some crazy life-changing amount, just around half a year’s income. But it was enough that I felt comfortable taking six months off looking for a job to focus on healing, figuring out my chronic pain issues, and generally trying to get my life back together.
At the time, I was really struggling with carpal tunnel (pain in the wrists/hands) and had been for years. Of course, working a computer job makes that especially brutal. I was using a program called Talon Voice, which I’ve talked about here a few times before, and in that community there are a lot of people dealing with chronic pain, RSI, and carpal tunnel. Someone there pointed me toward a course called Nervous System Mastery by Jonny Miller.
To be honest, I was very hesitant. The course was kind of expensive, and I remember thinking, “Man, you want me to pay hundreds of dollars for an online course? That’s insane lmao.” But a couple people I talked to said it had genuinely changed their lives, and I was desperate, so I went for it anyway.
In the course, Jonny goes over a variety of techniques for regulating your nervous system. I actually don’t like the phrase “mastery.” It feels a little gross to me. I think it’s more accurate to say that he introduces people to a variety of techniques and practices that can help them regulate or soothe their nervous systems.
(If you want to know what a nervous system actually is, Jonny has a podcast episode with Joe Hudson, another great teacher in this space, on defining ‘nervous system’)
I want to emphasize again that I was pretty skeptical when I first got into this stuff. Most nerdy, intellectual, rationalist type folks are. But over just a couple years they have absolutely changed my life.
Now, it’s worth mentioning up front that these techniques didn’t instantly solve all of my problems. A lot of times I’d try something and think, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Other times I’d think, “Oh my God, this is life-changing. I’m going to do this every day forever.”
Then I’d do it for two weeks, stop completely, forget about it, and come back six months later only to find that my experience of it had changed.
So if you’re exploring this territory yourself, I’d encourage you to experiment, circle back to things, and revisit practices that didn’t click the first time around. A lot of these methods are worth keeping in your back pocket, even if they don’t wow you the first time around.
Emotional Work
The first broad category of practices is what I’ll call emotional work or emotional inquiry. There are a lot of different approaches to this. Some people like the method of Gendlin Focusing. Jonny talks a lot about interoception, which is basically a fancy word for feeling into your body.
The bones of the practice are simple. You sit down, lie down, or otherwise get comfortable and move your attention into your body. Honestly, you can stop right there. That’s a complete practice in itself. A lot of somatic work is just about feeling the body, becoming aware of sensation, and creating states of safety, peace, and connection.
The emotional inquiry side goes a step further. You’re feeling into your body, trying to settle into a relatively safe state, and then you start trying to connect with your emotions.
Now, a lot of teachers recommend actually having conversations with your emotions. They might encourage you to ask your anger what it wants or ask your sadness what it’s trying to tell you. Not gonna lie, that approach hasn’t worked particularly well for me. I don’t tend to communicate with my emotions through words. For me it’s more of a vibe. I just feel into my body and try to connect with whatever is there.
It’s hard to explain exactly what this is like. One of the challenges with this whole area is that people often try to put the process into words more than the experience warrants, in my opinion.
You might journal beforehand and write, “I want to get in touch with anger,” then sit quietly and look for what anger actually feels like in your body. Where is it? What sensations accompany it? How does it move? What happens if you pay attention to it?
This stuff sounds incredibly basic, and maybe for some people it is. Maybe some people naturally grow up doing this. I didn’t! So even this very basic level of emotional awareness can be surprisingly helpful.
From there, emotional work branches out in all sorts of directions. You can work on expressing emotions, for instance.
Anger is the easiest example. You can intentionally practice expressing anger by yelling into an empty room, punching the air, hitting a pillow, or yelling into a pillow. People do this sort of thing in movies all the time, but you can actually get a lot of mileage out of practicing it deliberately.
You can also practice crying. You can sit there and try to connect with grief or sadness. See what brings you closer to tears, see what makes your heart close up and go stiff. Play with going back and forth between the two states.
Really the possibilities are endless here. Again, just experiment!
Anyway, that’s emotional work in a nutshell. It sometimes seems to basic and obvious to be not worth mentioning, but the practices have been very impactful for me.
Also, it’s more necessary than ever in the modern world. Especially for intellectual, nerdy types like myself. More than almost any other time in human history, we’re up in our heads and disconnected from our bodies and emotions. That’s partly technology and partly modernity as a broader socio-cultural and historical phenomenon.
Good luck. On to the next!
Breathwork
Another broad category of nervous system regulation techniques is breathwork.
Now, working with the breath can be dangerous. Just saying, you’ve been warned, don’t sue me, et cetera.
Breathwork is complicated. You have the basic meditation instructions where people tell you to focus on the breath, and honestly those have never been particularly helpful for me. (I mean to be honest I think a lot of the “just focus on the breath” advice is extremely retarded, unhelpful, and basically makes people worse, but that’s beside the point.)
There are all sorts of different styles. Wim Hof is one of the most popular…. but I’ve also heard a lot of people recommend avoiding it because it’s apparently more dangerous than a lot of other techniques.
Then you’ve got box breathing, extending your inhale or exhale, pausing between breaths, and about a million other ways of relating to the breath. Again, just research some stuff and experiment.
One thing that’s been surprisingly helpful for me lately is the Buteyko method, which is actually about breathing less and intentionally creating what they call air hunger. Basically, you take shallower breaths and pause more often between them while trying to maintain a sense of safety, warmth, and calm in the body. It reliably seems to stimulate a low level of fear.
For me, that’s actually been useful. It gives me a chance to work with fear directly while remaining grounded, and it generally leaves me feeling energized. What’s funny is that for almost a decade I tried to take deeper breaths because that’s what everyone says you’re supposed to do. Then, somewhat counterintuitively, shallower breathing ended up helping me more. It’s interesting how that works.
If you want to read more on Buteyko breathing specifically, I recommend this article:
A related category, which maybe deserves its own section, is humming and singing. You’ll sometimes hear people talk about polyvagal exercises. My understanding is that the vagus nerve runs throughout the body, but there are ways of stimulating it through vibration in the throat and neck.
Humming at certain frequencies can stimulate the vagus nerve, and be surprisingly soothing. Just learning to hum deeply and comfortably can have a calming effect, I’ve found it to be quite pleasant.
Singing belongs here too. I joined my church choir about a year and a half ago, and singing, especially collective religious singing, has been really good for regulating my breathing, my emotions, and my nervous system more generally.
Learning to Rest
The third broad category is related to meditation, albeit a little more passive. This practice goes by various names, but the basic idea is simply learning to rest.
It’s somewhat difficult to distinguish from meditation. You can almost think of it as a kind of Zen “do nothing” practice. It’s called “active rest” in the Alexander Technique, which is often used by people dealing with chronic pain and chronic muscular issues.
The practice is again, quite simple. You sit or lie in a comfortable position. A common setup that I especially like is lying on your back with your lower legs elevated on a couch or chair so that your knees are bent at roughly ninety degrees.
Then you just stay there for ten or fifteen minutes. Unlike in other meditation styles, you’re not trying to manage your breathing. You’re not trying to focus your attention like in Vipassana, or meditate on the impermanent nature of all things. You’re not trying to generate a feeling of boundless love for yourself or all beings, like in metta.
You’re legit just laying there, chilling, resting.
Again, this sounds incredibly basic, but there are a lot of nuances to it, and I’d recommend trying it. Over time you’ll begin to notice habitual patterns of muscular tension, and learn to release them. You’ll find areas of what’s called “parasitic attraction,” like when your shoulders tense up whenever your neck tenses up.
Eventually, your body will slowly learn to carry the rested, relaxed, safe state more and more in your day to day life. But to start, it’s crucial to have a foundation of stillness and rest.
Movement and Exercise
The last major category I want to mention is exercise and movement more generally. This one is obvious. Anyone dealing with chronic pain, depression, anxiety, or really anyone who isn’t deaf eventually gets told to exercise, lift weights, go to the gym, and so on. (…you know what deaf people probably get told to exercise too.)
The distinction I’d suggest is to think about exercise less like powerlifting and more like dancing. For years I tried forcing myself through stretches and exercise routines that I didn’t enjoy. At the same time, I was also a dancer.
At one point I had a realization: what if I just treated cardio like dance?
I started putting on workout videos with music I liked. Sometimes I’d do the exercises the instructor was doing. Sometimes I wouldn’t. Sometimes I’d just dance around the room and move however I felt like moving.
That mindset shift unlocked something for me. For the first time, I was able to exercise consistently without feeling like I was constantly forcing myself. It became fun. It gave me energy. It felt good in my body. And now I’d say it’s one of the most important practices I do for daily nervous system regulation.
Over time, you build it up. Years ago I started with just 5 or 10 minutes of light cardio a day. Nowadays I’ll do more like 20 or 30 minutes of cardio a day, go to the gym twice a week, and dance at least once a week. But I didn’t get there by telling myself “YOU’VE GOT TO GET TO THE GYM YOU LAZY FAT ASS!” I got there by learning to have fun with it, and slowly building up.
Closing Out
There are plenty of other practices that deserve a short mention as well:
Eye contact exercises can be surprisingly powerful. Sustained eye contact with another person, especially while talking about difficult emotions, can be deeply regulating. It’s also intense, and you probably want some guidance if you’re exploring it seriously.
There’s therapy and coaching, though the challenge there is finding someone who is both competent and a good fit for you.
There’s journaling, writing about your experiences, writing about how you want your future to be.
There’s art more generally. Creative expression can be a powerful way of processing emotion, regulating the nervous system, and discovering things about yourself that are difficult to access via other means.
So, those are some of the main techniques that I’ve found helpful, along with a few observations about how I’ve worked with them. I want to repeat: none of these practices are magic bullets.
Most of them work differently at different points in life. But collectively they’ve given me a much larger toolbox for dealing with chronic pain, anxiety, difficult emotions, and the general pain and suffering of living as a human being.
If there’s one thing I want to emphasize, it’s experimentation. Try things. Come back to them later. Don’t assume a technique that didn’t work six months ago won’t work today. A lot of this is less about finding the perfect method and more about slowly learning how your particular mind and body actually function.
And remember that it is absolutely, unequivocally achievable to feel WAY better than you do now. You can feel better than you ever believed possible. It’s not always easy, and it may take a while, but don’t give up hope.
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Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
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This is my first post that’s not in Culture War or Friday megathreads because I’m honestly not sure that it fits into either thread. It touches on certain Culture War themes (China, industrial decay, and Chinese culture) but it’s much more personal. This is just going to be a personal story of the development, or lack thereof, of my hometown in AnShan, China. It’s probably not going to be well written, or even 100% factual, but it’s going to be true. I’m writing this partly to order my own thoughts on the slow death of my hometown, and partly to contrast with some of the current online sentiments regarding Chinese development. Also, I love to show off some of the interesting parts of North Eastern Chinese culture. A lot of this story may sound similar, especially if you have experience regarding Rust Belt decline but with all things Chinese, it’s got that Chinese twist.
I’m writing this right now in the middle of my visit to my hometown of AnShan, China, though I will finish it when I’m back in America. Located in LiaoNing province, AnShan is one of the southern cities of the North East region of China (Better known as Manchuria abroad, but don’t use that name in China or to Chinese people). At one time, AnShan was considered one of the cities of the Chinese Rust belt. As with many cities in the North Eastern provinces, the main industries in AnShan are steel making, mining, tourism, and farming. AnSteel (鞍钢), named after the city, was at one point (and maybe still is) an important pillar of industry to the whole region, and maybe even the whole of China. Every single one of my grandparents worked at and retired from AnSteel, and they are still receiving their pensions, well into their 80s. Once one of the Crown Jewels of industry in Manchuria, AnSteel has seen better days. Due to increased competition, global trends, and plain old corruption, AnSteel has seen a steady decline over the years. Even 10 years ago, during the housing boom, AnSteel was a functional and operational company, if not a thriving one. Concrete Communist blocks need steel rebar in order to not fall over, after all. But now, even housing has slowed down, sending a formerly floundering company into essentially a coma. As everyone knows, when the major industry in your city goes bust, things start to go wrong. Now downgraded to 4th tier city (from 3rd tier), AnShan is essentially in a death spiral. For more on the Chinese city tier system, take a look at the Wikipedia page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_city_tier_system
Note that AnShan is still listed as 3rd tier on the page itself. In fact the picture used for AnShan is a pretty iconic part of the city, if you've ever been there.
Here is a picture of the AnSteel museum. It’d be like having a Ford museum in Detroit or an Apple museum in Cupertino. It was pretty fun to visit to be honest.
To say that the decay started with the recent failure of the Chinese housing market is inaccurate. As I’ve mentioned before, the city, and really the region as a whole, has been on a downturn. Historically, Manchuria has always been a resource rich and fertile region. It’s also one of the reasons that it was fought over so often. These resources carried the whole of the Manchuria region to great status after the devastation of WWII and the Chinese Civil War. Over the course of the 20th century, due to many factors, the formerly booming industrial base of China has declined and now is seemingly on its deathbed.
TieDong (East of the train tracks if the meaning is translated literally) used to be the nicer part of town when I was a kid. It seemed that every year there would be new apartments popping up or being built. Here I’ll explain a little bit about how housing works in China. The vast majority of housing in a city is contained in those apartment blocks that you’ll see online. The difference is that some of these apartment blocks are located in gated communities that have their own maintenance and security. Maintenance is usually pretty quick, especially when a community first gets built and lived in. Security is usually pretty lax, with most places letting in everyone except obvious vagrants.
I will be adding some pictures from here on out. I know that a lot of these pictures are not “good” or “beautiful” but then again, I never claimed to be a photographer. There will be NSFW pictures (not sexual, just of some strangeness that happens in China) so be forewarned.
Here is a community that was new around 2008. My grandparents actually used to live here.
As you might be able to tell, it has seen better days. This is the building that used to house the maintenance of the community.
As you can see, it’s completely barren. In fact, the building itself is in miserable shape.
On the right side of this picture, you can see that there are literally holes in the building. From the look of the maintenance building, you might be able to tell that it was inspired by a European style. Many things in the community were inspired by European aesthetics.
Though the management of the community has been defunct for a long while, people still live in the community itself. The inside of the community has seen much better days. Because the maintenance crew was responsible for cleaning everything, trash has begun to pile up at the bottom of the communist blocks that everyone lives in.
There was actually a car that was abandoned in the community. I was even surprised when I saw this.
It seems that someone has started living in the concrete maze that used to be here. I remember playing hide and seek with my cousin here when my grandparents still lived here.
There used to be water and koi fish in this section. This is all open and I used to play here and feed the fish when I was younger. Now it’s all dry. The fixtures that were in the water are still there which makes everything seem even more sad to me.
In fact, one of the gates that used to house the security for the community has been abandoned and the building has turned into a burger spot. Not even a real burger spot because I don’t think they even make hamburgers in the American sense. I think it’s just called a burger spot and makes Chinese food.
Here is the abandoned shell of the police station that used to be in the community. It was actually abandoned quite recently, but it was a long time coming. The city obviously doesn’t lack police presence, so it may have simply been a consolidation. The image, however, was quite striking to me when I came upon it.
With all of that being said, however, there were still parents playing with their kids here. I saw multiple families playing in the public area. Obviously, I didn’t take pictures of random families playing in public. It seems to me that in a hypothetically similar community in an American city like Philadelphia, there might not be so many families playing outside.
To be honest, without seeing how things used to be, it’d be easy to think that things were always like this, especially in a small city like AnShan. The city was already slow in terms of development, and with the slowing of the Chinese economy, development has ground to a halt. Compared to the last time I was here ~2 years ago, barely anything has changed.
Even the better parts of town are not doing as well as they used to be. In AnShan, there’s a part of town called 站前. Translated literally it’s called “Front of the Station.” It’s in front of the train station that is still one of the major transportation hubs of the city. The airport in the city is actually mainly for military use and commercial flights only go to BeiJing or ShangHai. Nowadays, the high speed rail system is what most people use to travel far distances. Driving is fine for nearby cities, but if you wanted to go cross country, you’d generally go on rail. When I first left China, I went to BeiJing by train before flying to America. Not high speed rail, train. I digress. The “Front of the Station” area is where most of the nice things are. Shopping, food, and general merriment. However, even the nicer part of town has become run down.
Here is a picture of a small part of the area.
This used to be a fairly successful mall. On the side of the building, you can still see some of the billboards. Now, it seems that the only remaining shop is Mcdonalds.
This used to be the biggest and nicest mall in the city. During my parents’ day, it was legitimately one of the largest in the area. Nowadays it’s quite run down, but still operational. Even when I talk with my family about it, they tell me about how sad it’s become. More on this mall in the slice of life section.
This is “Computer City.” Or used to be. The sign on top still says “Computer City,” but you can see how worn down it is. It used to be where all of the computer, and later cell phone, vendors and repairers opened their shops. I remember personally coming here with my grandparents when they got their computer and later, cell phones. If you look at the first floor now, that store now sells snacks. I’m not even kidding. There are still smaller computer or electronics vendors on the side, but you can see how the entire building is run down.
This is the unsuccessful half of a successful mall. The mall is called NewMart, and it would have been new about 13 years ago. This mall contains many international brands and is one of the fancier malls in the city. Even though the mall is successful overall, there is still a portion of it that was abandoned.
Here is something that might be interesting. I thought I’d put this in the slice of life section, but it probably fits better here. Here, you’ll see the marriage market in the local park. People, or even people’s parents paste their stats and what they’re looking for here. In fact, you can even read some of these in the pictures. One of these reads:
Male, never married, born in ‘87, Zodiac sign: Rabbit, 1.85 meters tall, college graduate, works in environmental protection, monthly salary 5000 Yuan (736 Dollars), owns car and house, parents healthy and retired, birth family (meaning non-adapted), looking for wife. Parents telephone: telephone number
I’ve written all of the above for multiple reasons. Part of the reason is to order my own internal thoughts. Another part is to contrast what I experienced in China with what I see in America. Because although my home city is in a sorry state, with a stalled economy and shrinking population, most people I met were happy, or at least content. Compare the similar situations between AnShan and Detroit. Or AnShan and Philadelphia. Even with a denuded industrial base, AnShan is still a functional city. To my mind, there are several reasons for this:
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The police state: It’s no secret to everyone in China that they are under almost constant surveillance. In fact, it’s even expected. For all of its negatives, however, the surveillance state does provide security, at least from most common crimes. Thievery and robbery have been generally eliminated. I can still remember when I first came to America where you could leave your wallet or cell phone at your table in a restaurant, and it was considered a surprise if it got taken. In China, I still remember when you were scared of pickpockets. Now, the sentiment seems to be completely reversed. Is that a good trade for constant surveillance? I can’t say.
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Education: People in general in China have had an abysmal reputation overseas due to their horrible customs. It wasn’t too long ago that Chinese tourists had the worst reputation. Shit and piss in public. Being obnoxiously loud. Complete lack of control over their children. I’m thankful every day that global attention has been turned toward Indians. That being said, everything has gotten much better within the last generation. Unlike San Francisco, I did not have to dodge feces a single time out on the street. People stopped throwing trash randomly on the ground for the most part. And in fact, contrary to what you’d find in America, the bigger the city was, the cleaner everything was. I chalk this up to the concerted effort that the Chinese government has made in public education and the fact that the younger generation is now more cosmopolitan.
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Lack of drugs: It’s not a secret that many East and South East Asian countries are vehemently anti-drug. China even has a historical reason. A large cause of the Century of Humiliation, at least according to the Chinese themselves, was due to Opium addiction in the general public. This means that any form of drug possession, outside of tobacco and alcohol, is punished extremely harshly. You are not going to be seeing Fent Zombies anywhere. Quick personal rant. California is trying everything within its power to discourage smoking outside of banning tobacco altogether. In fact, a short while ago, flavored tobacco products became illegal. That means that my beloved Autumn Evening is banned in California, but weed is so legal in San Francisco that I can’t walk three blocks without smelling it.
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General attitude: It seems to me from speaking to some of the people in China, that generally people are much more optimistic in China than in America. In America, there seems to be a feeling of general hopelessness that isn’t present in China. People are still generally content, even in their decline. Why this difference in attitude exists, I’m not sure, but I can definitely feel the difference. Coming back to America, I literally feel myself getting more depressed over time. This can also be chalked up to Chinese propaganda. Most of the Chinese are incredibly assured of their country’s and their people’s greatness.
When I came back to America, I was stricken by how happy everyone seemed to be in China. Even with the economy in decline, the population seemed to be happy, or at least content. I make another comparison between San Francisco and AnShan. If I’m being honest, compared with AnShan, you’d think that San Francisco was the failing city in the second world country. In the people I talked to in AnShan (family and random people), there seemed to be a feeling of “things are going to turn out ok.” Chinese people believe that most people just want a steady job, food and drink, wife and kids, and a warm bed at night. I tend to agree. It seems that for most Chinese people, they can achieve these things. When I’m in the Bay Area, there always seems to be another disaster on the horizon. Another company that did more layoffs. Another thing that Trump or Newsom did that is sure to cause another disaster. I honestly feel the difference and that might be one of the things I noticed most.
There is no real conclusion to this section because the situation is still ongoing. My own thoughts are still not settled. Will everything be ok for all of the people living here, or are we just in the prelude of an even more catastrophic collapse? I can’t really say. I can only try to wrestle with the thoughts and feelings that this recent visit pulled out of me.
That was some of the more depressing writing I’ve done, partly because these feelings are still fresh. Let’s end it off with something more upbeat. The following section is a slice of life of some of the sights I saw in China. I was in AnShan for most of my time here, and spent a day in ShenYang, the provincial capital, with my uncle.
Remember this mall that I was in? The one that used to be really big and nice and now is failing like the rest of the city?
This is what you’d see if you went inside. Rows upon rows upon rows of vendors.
There are still many in China that believes having English letters on clothing makes the clothing more fancy. Obviously, to other Chinese people, this is true. However, it’s also how you get stuff like this:
There are also multiple counterfeit perfume stalls in there. This is more of the China that I remember. When you’re in China, just make sure that cheap cologne you’re buying is actually real.
By the way, if you’re looking for Apple brand shoes, this mall is the place for you. Like Apple Computer branded shoes.
This one is fun. It’s a counterfeit Ferrari branded lighter. If you look closely, however, you’ll notice that it’s actually the Chinese transliteration of “Ferrari,” translated back into English.
These things are now harder to find in the bigger cities like BeiJing or ShangHai, but they are still very common in a small city like mine.
Here we see the Asian style of product endorsement. If you’ve ever been to East Asia, you’ll know that celebrities often endorse any and all manner of products. Here’s international film superstar Ma Dong Seok (Don Lee) in a commercial for an Instant Porridge, Baskin Robbins, and Fried Chicken restaurant, respectively.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=aasw8dfmo8s
https://youtube.com/watch?v=iUeG2u0Wp1E
https://youtube.com/watch?v=8m4dqg8QmB8
Here’s international film superstar Hiroyuki Sanada in an ad for an electric shaver.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=zl2tR_LUE_E
And who can forget those old commercials in Japan featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger
And Tommy Lee Jones
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-U33aQXOPxc
Therefore it is with great pride that I present the following ad for a water filtration system with no further comment:
Let’s change gears now. When you’re in China, you have to eat some good Chinese food. Here are some things that I ate when I was in China.
Like I said before, I’m from North East China, and one of the things we’re most known for are skewers. Lamb is the most basic, and my personal favorite, but you can see chicken cartilage, beef aorta, and chicken here.
Here is a beef offal noodle soup I ate. It’s actually pretty spicy and it’s quite good with the egg and radish I added.
And here’s the lamb offal noodle soup I ate. I added extra chili oil and vinegar into it. This was actually a lunch I had with my grandmother. It really was quite good.
Every time I go back to China, I eat Chinese KFC. It’s actually malpractice how much better Chinese KFC is compared with American KFC. The spicy chicken sandwich is my favorite item on the menu. It’s not flashy, but it honestly blows most of the chicken sandwiches in America out of the water. You’ll also notice that the chicken nuggets are simply McNuggets. At KFC, they’re called the “Colonel's Nuggets.”
Here’s a fun one. Did you know that Pizza Hut in China is actually a sit down restaurant? On the Pizza Hut menu, you can find Tapas, steak, and multiple versions of chicken wings.
I went with a nice pizza and appetizer plate.
Chagee is an up and coming milk tea store. It’s already in LA, and I expect that they will move into the Bay Area, and later nationwide within the next 3-5 years, following a similar trajectory to HeyTea and Molly Tea.
By the way, if you’re ever in AnShan, come to Double Shake for a western style bar. To call it the best western style bar in AnShan would be damning it with faint praise, but it is legitimately a well run bar. I’ve been to dozens of bars in the U.S. that aren’t as good as this. The owner knows the English names for drinks, the house drinks are good, the service is friendly, and the atmosphere is better than most dive bars in the U.S. Ever since I found them, I go back literally every time I go to visit in AnShan. If anyone actually does go, let the owner know that an American told you about them.
Here is the front of a restaurant that sells lamb soup. Not just lamb soup, but also other lamb based dishes. You know their lamb is fresh because there’s a fresh lamb pelt in front of the restaurant.
On that note, here’s a morning farmer’s market that I used to go to when I was a kid. This is a true farmer’s market as well, where farmers will literally take what they grow and sell it here. I’ve seen some people at farmer’s markets in America literally sell supermarket fruits and vegetables.
Here’s people selling meat. Most of the meat is killed and sold on the same day. People will literally just take a whole pig and cut it up on the side of the street.
This has been a brief look at the average Chinese city. I haven’t posted everything that I saw on this trip, but I did post things that I thought would be more interesting. I can post some more if people actually want to see more. I also didn't post any videos of the grandma dance groups that I saw in the parks.
I’ll end this post with this picture. It’s a picture I took while on the way toward the “Front of the Train Station” part of town. I think that it offers one of the better looks of what you’ll actually see in the average city in China. Obviously you see the communist apartment blocks, but you’ll also see office buildings and small businesses on the side. This is the China that I knew, and it’s probably the China I will remember.