TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
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User ID: 616
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
The confounding factors seem to be infinite. This doesn't even bring sunlight exposure into the picture for example, which also has a large effect.
I can personally attest to the fact that it's difficult to force yourself to exercise when you have severe pain. However it doesn't help that so much of the medical establishment is incredibly scared of telling a chronic pain patient to be more active. Even physical therapists, chiropractors etc. told me I shouldn't 'push myself too hard' and to only do 30 minutes of light stretching a day.
You really do need to build up some sort of mental toughness to push through the pain. I'm afraid our traditional methods of healing people in those situations only make their condition worse.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Hmmm good point. I don't reject using force per-se, but I'm more inline with curiously_straight_CA that if you're going to use force, especially against the progressive leviathan, you had better be damn sure it works. 'If you come at the king, you'd best not miss' and all that. That's my more fundamental disagreement with this line of thinking.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Hah I have that same feeling. It's actually moved me from a lurker to a poster. I didn't realize that the Eye of Sauron over at Reddit had so effectively cowed me from posting.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Not sure if this is better for SQS but - What is the steelman argument against vegetarianism/veganism? I am especially interested in claims that aren't health-based, as I know quite a few very intelligent and well-sourced vegans who have thoroughly convinced me that most health based claims are false.
I'm not a vegetarian myself but I'm reasonably convinced that I should be one, it's more of a moral failing on my part that I eat meat, not a logical stance.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Absolutely agree here. Can you link to any studies or blogs that discuss this idea in depth? Already read Manufacturing Consent and some other older books on this.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Yeah so many people complained that the new site was a reason to leave TheMotte, from my perspective it was a reason to leave reddit altogether.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Anybody know if /u/self_made_human or other transhumanists made it over to the new site? I know it's a small part but the transhumanism discussion here has been one of my favorite aspects of the community.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Do you not think the two are related at all? The violence inherent in Islam is to me the most convincing reason the developed world keeps them at arms length, while still playing lip service to muslims in meaningless woke media.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Dropping their guard would theoretically be allowing Kiwifarms to continue to exist while they stealthily exit to another platform, and continue to keep up the same style of discourse that existed there pre-migration.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
If there was a way to prevent the slow withering of these communities, and turn it around to force the state to change, would that be more appealing to you than violence?
ETA: Not that I know of a mystical solution, but I think it is worth finding. Right now I'd tentatively agree that violence is at least a surefire way of getting what you want, if you have the skills to use it well.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
I certainly hope not. Although maybe a meme thread infrequently posted, say once a month/quarter, wouldn't be too terrible.
I definitely don't want to have the brilliant posters here wasting their times making memes.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Hmm I don't treat insects as particularly high in terms of moral worth, but I suppose that argument could work. However assuming we have vastly more efficient technology, which I think is necessary in order to find moral worth in insects, doesn't domestic animal production use something like an order of magnitude more energy that agriculture?
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
I definitely respect folks who are honest about their reasons. Do you not think animals have moral worth?
Again don't have a strong argument here I just intuitively think that killing animals for pleasure is wrong.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
This (1) post makes me think there should be research into a Dunbar's number for internet communities. Anyone know of interesting writing on the topic?
1 - https://old.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/l8id4/did_digg_make_us_the_dumb_how_have_reddit/
Looks like the war against advertising is continuing to fail, predictably. Google Chrome is now banning restricting ad blockers starting as early as next year. (1) I am not convinced this model of: create a free, ad-free service to get users --> slowly pull in ads for $$$ --> eventually become an ad-riddled hell is the best model. I often balk at paying for services up front, but if a service as essential as google is now bowing to the pressure, when will it end?
Advertising definitely has some uses in connecting buyers to sellers, and informing consumers about the market, but I'm convinced it's a bit of a 'tamed demon.' If we don't want to devolve into a horrid anarcho-capitalist future, we need to get serious about restricting what advertisers can do, and where they can advertise. I predict advertising will become far more ubiquitous with the rise of Dall-E and similar image producing AIs. The cost of creating extremely compelling, beautiful ads will plummet, and more and more of our daily visual space will become filled with non stop advertising.
On top of this, we have Meta and other tech oligarchs attempting to push us all into the Metaverse. I am no detractor of AR/VR, in fact I think utilized correctly it could solve many of our current problems. However if the Powers That Be take over the metaverse, we will soon have ads that engage all of our sense - not just vision and hearing.
Given how powerful advertising already is, can we really afford to let it run rampant in an age where we have such powerful technologies?
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
I'm in the same boat, but I hope to continue posting. I realized that I want to become a better writer, and even if your comments aren't the best you can improve them over time. Heck, I struggle to write well for productive reasons so I might as well hone my skills in a place that rewards good writing, and discusses topics I find interesting.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
It seems the media will care if the people at large view the culture as offensive enough. Some bait subs from rdrama have gotten the attention of admins with as few as ~60 people. https://tracingwoodgrains.substack.com/p/how-one-tight-knit-circle-of-internet
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Hah, same here. Once we have lab grown meat that's better than real meat we'll both be happy.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Ahh perfect - this is the type of answer I was looking for. I do find this compelling, although I hope we move into the direction of including animals in society in the future. Especially if or when we can figure out how to substantially increase their intelligence/sapience.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
I agree with your points actually, although not a fan of the pessimism about the sites future. Personally I believe many long time lurkers, like myself, will become posters now that the gaze of AEO is gone. I certainly hope the quality of comments and discourse remains around the same level, and I'm now galvanized to help achieve that.
You're right that I painted a far too rosy picture, I need practice anticipating arguments and I also need to think through this idea. I only became convinced recently and I'm still willing to toss it out if I find strong evidence against it. Part of why I'm posting it here.
My argument is more that a significant portion of chronic pain could be cured by incorporating this idea into treatment. To be clear, I know for a fact that many chronic pain illnesses have concrete causes, and are unfortunately much harder to fix.
Say there is a line between treatment styles of 'think your way out of the pain,' vs. 'all pain is caused by concrete factors that we know, and your mental attitude has no bearing'. Right now I think the line has move too far in favor of the latter, and we need to take a more diverse approach when treating chronic pain.
This will become increasingly relevant as more and more activity takes place on a computer, and we inevitably become even more sedentary than we are now. Figuring out the issue now could prevent a whole host of problems from cropping up in the future.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Social engineering and shaming of those who push against the idea of moving to VR. The same pipeline that has successfully changed so much of our culture into a progressive direction, in such a relatively short (historically speaking) amount of time.
The same cultural mechanics that forced us to segregate our online community three times.
For better or worse we are currently sitting on a giant cultural engine dedicated to transforming what it means to be human in a time scale of decades. When I say pushed, I mean pushed.
What will make me change my mind?
You may never change your mind. In my experience Mottizens are a rare breed of folk who care about standing up to these cultural machines. Most people however have less resistance or knowledge of these cultural shifts. Slowly more and more of human society, from day to day communication, economic activity, religious activity, etc will shift to a virtual space, and if you don't like it, you will be left behind.
Whether this happens in the next 50 years or 150 years, I believe we need to put serious shackles on advertising before it does.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Unfortunately I think sales will be sooner than most people think. The AI to automatically get rid of your accent in real time on a phone call already exists - from there you only need to be able to accurately feed phrases/words to the AI and it will be a better salesperson than most could hope to be. An AI also doesn't get discouraged, which from what I have seen is the #1 reason people leave sales.
I think music will be differentiated into different groups. People love concerts, and being able to physically play an instrument has always been, to my mind at least, much more impressive than being an artist. It's 'cooler' if you will, to play guitar than to wield a paintbrush.
Writing is, well, the writing is already on the wall. GPT-3 is incredible, and scaling shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. (1) I'm extremely confident that many lower-quality blogs are now entirely GPT-3, and instead of hiring ghostwriters, which is a shockingly common practice, writers will just use GPT-4 or 5 to offload their work. I'm neutral on whether or not this is a good thing.
Ironically I now think taxi drivers, who I once thought would be the first to go, will probably last pretty long. Mistakes are far costlier when driving than when creating a piece of art, or a piece of writing. One of the ways I view different jobs is how serious the immediate consequences are when you fail.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1yr ago
Good to hear that we have a large amount of folks already here, day two (one?) of the official move. Personally I'm a long-time lurker who didn't post out of a combination of fear of reddit admins/old health issues, and this move has changed my mind on posting. My favorite internet community facing an existential threat has given me enough motivation to get over the hump, so to speak.
I've seen a similar sentiment elsewhere already, and I like to think many quality posters who held back in the past for some reason will come in out of the cold and help us keep this place alive, and high quality.
Wow, you made some great connections in this comment. I've relatively recently changed my mind on the importance of mental frameworks or attitudes when it comes to physical/mental pain. I also lament the fact that so many mental health 'disorders' are now seen as impossible to fix, or a result of a way the brain is structured. I think it's mostly hogwash.
Your link to the placebo effect is also excellent. It is strange that people can study something like the placebo effect, know its real, and yet not truly make any effort to utilize it's effects. Seems like the proverbial $20 bill left on the ground with regards to modern medicine.
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