TwiceHuman
9mo ago
Peoples reactions to Trump has nothing to do with Trump. I think it's the psychological side-effect from years of media propaganda against him. There's no things which exists in reality, which warrant a strong reaction against Trump. But if you look outside of reality, in various stories and subjective experiences and predictions, you can find reasons to feel strongly about Trump. If somebody claims that Trump is a psychopath, for instance, you may experience him as such, even if you would never have come up with that idea on your own if nobody had told you.
This forums is quite competent around politics, but I feel like psychology is more essential in understanding the world than any political theory is. It's like psychology and human nature is the "upstream" of everything, in the same way that one can spend tens of years in vain trying to make sense of women or dating, but then reading a few books on evolutionary psychogy and natural selection and have everything fall into place in a couple of days.
I've read that book, but I didn't understand this part as well as you have (I just assumed it was because I hadn't read Lacan, but maybe I just missed something) I do want to point out that the ledger is of course nonsense, but also that it's useful to create the concept, because it makes life into a meritocracy. That human beings manipulate reward systems (wireheading or goodhart's law) rather than just chasing the rewards like they're meant to, is a different problem.
It's not just hunger, suffering works the same. You're hungry until you eat, and you make yourself unhappy "until you reach that goal, after which you will deserve happiness". We're afraid of letting go of suffering though, because of the belief that we won't reach our goal if we do (or the belief that we might even forget about the goal (this is why using a calender can reduce ones anxiety by a lot)). The "wireheading" when it comes to suffering is avoidance, procrastinating, distracting ourselves from what we're meant to do. Another example is shame and guilt. It's "invented" in order to motivate certain behaviour. You can dismiss them as nonsense, but then you also lose the benefit they were created to bring (for instance, if we accept that we're just a product of our environments and thus not to blame for anything, then how do we convince eachother not to be criminals?)
TwiceHuman
10mo ago
I love being around people who are competent and developed, around such people you can just let cause and effect do its thing, without worrying about where you're heading. Is your point that a mentally healthy society cannot be properly controlled, which is why people in power are implementing changes which reduce the mental resilience of the population? Because if so, I do agree.
The assumption that people under the age of 18 don't have self-control
Oh, I don't believe that myself, I just agree with society that there's more people with self-control above 18 years of age than below. We are punishing capable people by designing society in a way which protects the lowest common denominator. But my point is that, while I'd like to give everyone more freedom, it would only result in a more hedonistic society. The sort of "rights" that people are after today just seems like the desire to indulge in harmful behaviour and to destroy oneself. Activists are trying to get rid of social judgement towards behaviour which is harmful (like being obese, having casual sex, or fetishism) but one is in a really bad state if one seeks agency for such reasons.
Yes, but that pipeline is ripe for abuse.
By the government? Sure. Our society isn't good enough that we can give somebody the authority to decide who gets to have freedom and who doesn't. By the way, I said as much freedom as one could handle, not as much as they needed :) Here's a quote by Taleb that I quite like: "I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist". I must agree with him that something goes wrong as a result of scaling. I've only experienced "rules aren't necessary" in smaller communities.
It requires a more temperate people to do this properly
Perhaps the sort of calm which is a result of confidence and competence? For I don't think being "temperate" is good on its own, if it means having no strong convictions, not caring much, and having weak emotions and drives. It has been said by Nietzsche, Jung and Jordan Peterson that one cannot be a good person if they can't be dangerous, and I can only agree with them.
Anyway, is this temperateness something we can cultivate in people? For it's my point that there's something fundamental in people which makes all the difference. Something that, if it turns out alright, everything will work out, and if it doesn't, then you need rules, and regulations, laws, and punishment, surveillance, micromanagement, and so on. My point is that improving society can only be done by improving people directly (from the inside, not outside), and that this kind of improvement is sufficient. People are the atoms of society, any "solutions" on the upper layers are wasted. Japan doesn't have less crime because they have better laws, but because they're Japanese. The Japanese are not a consequence of Japan, Japan is a consequence of the Japanese people. People, their characters, and their nature is the root of everything, and everything else is downstream from that and barely worth bothering with (at least, that's my current worldview). Please let me know if I misunderstood you along the way
TwiceHuman
10mo ago
I have a girlfriend already, I still like helping people. I don't want to see people procrastinate so much that it fucks up their future, so seeing a better outcome unfold is enough reward for me. It's like cleaning your house so that you can endure looking at it, except you're removing bad futures/possibilities, rather than trash
TwiceHuman
10mo ago
If all our pressure is of the negative kind, then it results in stress, hopelessness, depression, poor sleep, etc. Ideally, we find competition to be both fun and rewarding. Human beings are largely "anti-fragile", but some of us are more anti-fragile than others. I'm extremely harsh with myself, but I have a friend that I'm helping pass university, and I simply cannot help her by applying pressure, it only makes her weak, doubtful of herself, and prone to giving up.
You can cultivate anti-fragility in people, but it's hard to tell what it's made of exactly. Core beliefs, past successes, pride, hormones, masochism, strong drives? What kind of people play video games on hard mode and enjoy it, and how can we make sure that we get more of this type than of the victim-mentality type?
I know some people who broke because of stress, and it's unlikely they will ever be able to work again. Meanwhile, I'd put myself in danger if I did not push myself.
TwiceHuman
10mo ago
Would you agree if I said that these "harmful behaviours" all depend on the people who engage with them? The trade-off is actually what age limits achieve. Why can't children drink alcohol? Because children can't bear that much freedom, they'd likely destroy themselves. So before 18, drinking is a "harmful behaviour", and afterwards, it's not, under the assumption of course that people above the age of 18 have more self-control. I agree that, for society, more rules can be better, but I personally don't need nearly that many myself. So less libertarianism is only best under the assumption that everyone should live by the same rules. A more flexible "Every individual should have as much freedom as they can handle" opens up more more interesting possibilities. Finally, may I add that rules are of almost no importance? Same with police, laws, restrictions. These are just symptoms of deeper problems. If you need them in the first place, something has already gone wrong. Even if cocaine was legal, I would still avoid it. For a society, it's more important that its citizens don't want to do drugs, than it is for said society to ban drugs.
I agree that "over-policing" is a good idea now. It worked in El Salvador I believe. But why is it necessary in the first place? I think it's possible to cultivate people in such a way that you don't need rules. For example, I allow myself to be as immoral as I want, but I don't ever feel like doing anything bad, so the natural consequences of doing whatever I like is that I do what's right.
Perhaps, the need for rules is a sign of decline?
TwiceHuman
10mo ago
I'm mostly the same as you, almost no changes in my beliefs since my early teens, only evidence that I was correct all along. However, there's some classes of very unintuitive insights, like the following:
I was wrong about the value of freedom. It's still valuable to me, but I believe that many people are better off with less, and know I know that restriction helps creativity (writers block, analysis paralysis, indecisiveness, being lost in life etc) seem to be consequences of excess choices. Furthermore, excess freedom often lead people to ruin themselves.
Like Dag said, people who meditate aren't perfect. I think this is because people who meditate the most are those who need it the most. Those who go to psychiatrists also aren't the most mentally healthy, right? It's the opposite.
Suffering isn't really a bad thing. You're meant to act as if it's bad, but it's good for you (but only if you fight against it as if it weren't!).
I used to think that intelligence was the answer to everything. Raise the average IQ by 15 points, and we'd get 100 times more people like Hawkings, right? But now I don't look for friends in intellectual circles anymore, I'm having a much better time around people with IQs in the 115s. I've liked very few of the 145+ IQ people I've met.
I used to dislike vagueness, but now I love it. If you don't label things, you allow them to be what they are, and when you label things, you restrict them. Socially, this can work like magic, you can flirt with somebody, and they get to decide how seriously you were being when you said what you did.
I now consider information to have serious downsides. Knowing less is often better. I even avoid environments in which the legibility is too high. In Ribbonfarm terms, I stick to Warrens and avoid Plazas. I sometimes intentionally keep myself from understanding others, and (selectively) keep them from understanding things about me. Physical cash has a much lower legibility than credit cards, which is why I think it would be a terrible idea to get rid of it.
In the past I thought egoism was bad, now I think it's good. Gatekeeping is good too. Discrimination? Invaluable (choosing a romantic partner is like the ultimate discriminatory behaviour). I used to think I was a good person, but it turns out I was a coward. By the way, while I dislike Muslims, I believe that their lack of self-doubt is very much a sign of health. Human beings aren't mean to suffer from their conscience to the degree that we now do in the west. I'm inferior to Genghis Khan because I will never be as true to live as he was.
Anyway, the pattern here, which I likely didn't show very well, is "Sometimes the truth is the complete opposite of what's intuitive". When you take something to the extreme, it tends to flip onto the opposite extreme (like atheist scientists becoming religious), and I did this to myself in many areas
TwiceHuman
11mo ago
I'm not the person you just responded to, but
I personally don't interact with people who care about politics in a way which makes them hostile and prone to policing other peoples beliefs, behaviour and language. I avoid them like I avoid people who complain or brag all the time. Personally, I'd respond something like "I don't like talking about politics", "I'm not interested in that topic", or "I'm invested in other things". There's various things they could respond to that, but I think I have an answer for most things that civilized people could say. As for the rest - they're sufficiently unpleasant people that I can allow myself not to be polite to them.
I agree with everything that you wrote, but I also think that there's plently of evidence that the left is playing dirty. I give Trump about 30% of winning, because the entire game is rigged against him in a way which I consider fraud. In my view, this fraud is possible in the first place because democracy has been undermined.
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