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thomasThePaineEngine

Lightly Seared On The Reality Grill

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joined 2022 September 11 16:24:53 UTC
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thomasThePaineEngine


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Lightly Seared On The Reality Grill

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 11 16:24:53 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't know how you made that jump.




I made it from this argument: " It might take generations to melt them, but it is happening nonetheless, because the laws are the same, the economics are the same for everyone."


In other words, if everyone is influenced by the same economic and political forces, then everyone is being pushed toward the same set of outcomes. If you leave that process going for a while, then humans become grey uniform goo that settled into some local maximum, hence no "new" or "different" things can be made.




There are no ways to enforce these shared norms. Imagine you live in an imaginary, hypothetical world where heroin, or murder, or dumping your garbage from the balcony is legal and normal. You and a group of friends agree that this should change, and you "form a group" and "promise" not to do that. So what? Your kids are still hooked on heroin, there is still garbage on the streets, and there is still a chance of getting murdered, because there are others who didn't agree and defectors.




Ah, you see, I am not arguing for not enforcing norms, but for a minimal set of open norms that allow individuals to express themselves, whether it be owning guns, being gay, partaking of the shrooms, etc. But I'm afraid that it's easy to misconstrue this as a call for post-modern, "reality is subjective" free-for-all, but allow me the benefit for the doubt. I am against that.


I feel like we're talking about two side of freedom. You're talking about "freedom from" as in: freedom from rotting in thy neighbor's garbage, freedom from having your kids being sold heroin, etc. I'm talking about "freedom to": freedom to stick your penis into another man's asshole, freedom to inhale smoke containing nicotine or THC, freedom to worship whatever deity/ies you wish, etc. Would you agree that this is the case?


The way I see it, the latter form of freedom requires the first one. But, for the latter form to truly blossom, the first one must be kept to a minimum. So yes, murder, rape, harming children* and other unilateral infringements of individual freedom must be outlawed. Totally agreed here. But not much more than that. Otherwise, you would increasingly stifle human expression.


This is where I see the beauty of a place like NYC. A basic set of laws ensures that people are not murdered (at least frequently) and that the garbage is (more or less; recently, sadly, it's less) taken care of. But because there is not much more than that, people can live in any weird way they want to, whether it's being a drag queen or an ultra-conservative jew. This, I believe, is core to "globalist liberalism", and something that is well expressed in the Bill or Rights, which I'm not bringing up for its legal standing but for its spirit, the spirit of freedom of expression as long as that expression isn't about yelling fire in a crowded theater or stoning unbelievers.


So, going back to the example you gave, the one about the EU and gay rights in an Eastern European country, let's first take away the label of gay rights, because that's just the outer layer that's not important. It could be anything else like ethnicity or abortion stance, or whatever. We basically have two minorities, the one that is arguing that a norm against X should instituted as law, and one arguing that X should be permitted. This might be the crux of the matter: X does not damage the commons. It is not a unilateral infringement of others' rights. Thus, I am against instituting a ban on X and for allowing to people to segregate into cultural groups aligned with what they think about X.


Now, aside from that, which Eastern European country are you thinking of? I happen to be from that part of the world and a little bit of the various cultures that people it.


    

  • Children are a special case. They are human, but not fully so for many years since they need that much time to exercise and perfect their ability to reason and judge. So they cannot be treated as equal adults in society. But that leaves them to the mercy of their parents, some of which are far from adults themselves. How much should the state be allowed to here? I weakly lean toward "more", but I'm not sure if the benefits outweigh the costs of state mismanagement.
    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Seeking advice on whether to move to a new apartment
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Another way of looking at the problem is through opportunity cost: could you invest the money you saved into more important things? It could be index funds, or EA charities, or a trip to see a long missed friend.


Money could also be translated into time: is there something you'd rather do instead of moving and making the money you need to pay for the move + increased rent?


Something to meditate on perhaps.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 29, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It depends.


For fiction, I mostly don't. I mostly focus on the language, the plot, the characters, etc. If there's a particularly good line or segment, I'll copy it to my quote file in Obsidian.


For non-fiction, I collect fragments into Obsidian. For paper books, I use google lens for OCR and copy/paste into a dedicated Obsidian file. For ebooks, I highlight stuff in moonreader, then export it all when I'm done. I do a little bit of clean up using sed, then put everything into Obsidian.


Occasionally, I review my notes, bolding or highlighting+bolding fragments that seem the most valuable. (This is lightweight BASB). If something is sound tactical advice, I'll write down a little checklist at the top of the file. If a group of ideas seems extremely valuable, I'll write a short summary so that I can refresh my memory quickly whenever, even when I'm using my phone.


If I want something to become muscle memory, like vim commands, I make a few cards for anki. I started this just recently.


I've been doing the notetaking for about a year. It's proven very lightweight--I've probably spent maybe 2 hours total on cleaning/organizing/tagging--and it's proven useful for both writing as well as refreshing my memory about specific bits and pieces.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So for an article to gain top-shelf status it seems it has to use so many inside terms--and preferably inside terms that in turn require inside terms to understand--that only people on the inside could get, not the "normies".






So a "normie" article would just not cut it, regardless of useful the insight, especially if the insight is accesible by anyone (the plebs). I guess elitist is the word.




Can this be simply the case that what you're encountering is the intersection between novelty and community preferences?


For example:


    

  • 

    blog post that satisfies the community's preferences and offers novel insights = much liked.
    

    • 

  • 

    blog post that satisfies the community's preferences but offers no novel insights = mostly ignored.
    

    • 

  • 

    blog post that does not satsify the community's preferences but offers novel insights = sometimes ignored, some times disliked.
    

    • 

  • 

    blog post that does not satisfy the community's preferences and does not offer novel insights = disliked.
    

    • 



Let's take your idea about Karl Popper's falsifiability principle:


    

  • 

    if you post a description about it on LW, I would imagine it would mostly be ignored. It does not seem to satisfy LW preferences nor is it novel.
    

    • 

  • 

    if you post a description about it on themotte, I would imagine it would be read, but would garner few replies/upvotes. It falls into themotte preferences, but is not novel.
    

    • 

  • 

    if you post an interesting, novel take about it on LW, I would imagine it would mostly be ignored, although you have a chance to hook someone interested in this type of stuff.
    

    • 

  • 

    if you post an interesting, novel take about it on themotte, I would imagine you might get many replies and many upvotes.
    

    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 4, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How do you find the writing and style? From the bit about your husband it sounds engaging.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for December 9, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Solstice?


Not the San Diego one, but I'm going to a local rationalist solstice.


Last time, when I attended the ACX meetup, I met a ton of cool people and had some refreshing non-CW discussions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Stop that! It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But you do mimic those around you subconsciously all the time, both short term and long term.




I think this reduces the phenomenon that was described in the article. Perhaps I'm reading too deep into but, here's my take: you statement misses the "illness" part, which I take to mean something undesired, and the "remote" part.


Mimicking others wearing jeans around me doesn't harm me in any physical or sociological way. Plus, the impulse to wear jeans is immediate--real people around me wearing them seem happy and comfortable.


Fidget spinners were a fad. People were using them around me and I probably saw people using them on TV or youtube (the "remote" part). But they had no negative influence on my state. They also died out after a few weeks.


Youtube-Tourettes has propagated fully remotely via youtube. It also has negative consequences for the individuals, such as putting them in conflict with others around them, and the mechanism for the consequences seems to be that these individuals make it a part of their identity. None of jeans, pokemon, harry potter, or fidget spinners ever became a core part of someone's identity. Even hardcore fans of these fads have been mostly able to contain their fascination so that it doesn't interfere with their lives (work, school, community, family, etc.)




The whole point of the article was that they had plenty of agency. They did the tics more when it was convenient for them and less when it wasn't.




I don't think this is evidence for agency, because correlation doesn't imply causation. Humans are not rational creatures, especially adolescents, so I can quite easily entertain the idea that they tricked themselves into believing they had Tourettes to the point of losing agency over this. People who speak in tongues sincerely believe they have become vessels of God. I suspect they had previous beliefs that made it possible to wake up one day, have a funny feeling in their brain that caused them to babble a little bit, and completely miss the moment to make a decision because their faith allowed them to see only a single path forward: to claim they've become a vessel of God. Similarly, Youtube-Tourette's sufferers probably already had a bunch of agency-robbing views that made them certain they were afflicted with Tourette's.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 27, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks. It seems my main focus should be on building relationships very broadly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 27, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks, my morale is boosted knowing I'm not the only one trying to make headway in a situation like this.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At least a few local flavors of Catholicism that I've come to contact with (thinking Eastern Europe, specifically).


I've just become aware that in the Polish branch of the Catholic church, the part of the confession when you ask God for forgiveness differs from a few English versions I've sampled just now. It includes a piece that goes a little something like "(...) my fault, my fault, my great, great fault (...)". I think this describes the general spirit of describing man as forever tainted.


Edit: I just realized that something I thought as core to my knowledge about Christianity may very well not be true (https://www.themotte.org/post/193/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/35768?context=8#context) and may, instead, be a distortion of memory.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for November 9, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You make a good point.


I like to frame this in two ways: what's good for me and what's good for the other person.


To use the bad drive examples from OP, consider that it's not good for me to waste my mental energy on getting angry at some random bad driver. It's not worth to have a worse day because of that. But, it's also not good for that driver to not receive feedback of their mistake. So what I strive for is to notice my anger and express it, eg. honk at the driver, then carry on happily.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Those communities are often first or second generation, though. Little Italy is effectively dead, as are the Irish diaspora communities, and the only Jews who retain their culture have organized themselves as a micro-nation (the Hasids you mention). As your evidence for the patchwork of liberalism, you are looking at the insular communities that are recent arrivals to America, which have yet to be filtered by liberalism.




Are you arguing that culture should not change?




But look elsewhere in America, at the 3rd generations, whether Germans in the Midwest or Chinese in California, and there’s no such patchwork to be found. It’s all some pesticide-ridden GMO monoculture crop, planted and picked and served at a corporation.




Yes, 3rd generation children of Germans or Chinese immigrants are not like native Germans or Chinese, but that's kind of obvious, since they've become American. But, at the same time, they've impressed some of their culture upon the broader American culture. As for the monocolture GMO crop, either I don't understand it, or you're making an appeal to aesthetics. Just as an example, the amount of regional music that the US produces is staggering.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Can you give an example of this happening?


This is exactly what I'm arguing is not happening.


Disney and other popculture factory farms can produce a steady stream of easily digested drivel, but I cannot see it as something that would actually eat away real culture.




But once that's done, suddenly those are the only aspects of your culture that anyone knows about, and, arguably, are 'allowed' to care about. You've been very carefully and slowly hemmed in to a sanitized, corporatized, and, yes, homogenized version of your own history




Who is doing the "allowing"? Who is doing the "hemming in"?


I can somewhat see your point working in a world that's very top down, where there is one or a handful of extremely powerful actors that does the allowing and hemming in. But I don't think that describes our world. Even within a monolithic industry like Hollywood, there are multiple actors vying for dominance, which tends to produce variety instead of destroying it.


Yes, I have experienced the sadness of seeing my friends and colleagues willingly abandoning their own reason and plugging into the pre-made stream of drivel produced by giant media outlets. But I have also experienced the joy of meeting individuals happily having their own original thoughts. (It's why I love themotte and the larger rationalist sphere).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I see that too. But I don't see how that's different than the minds of my peers--including friends and family--turning trite and corrupted, say, 30 years ago, under the influence of bad movies, sports programming, alcohol, mid-life depression, etc.


I wonder if these new forms of mind-cracking are adding to the old ones or displacing them. I weakly predict they're displacing them, because submerging yourself in porn/games/online mob hate is cheaper and easier than getting smashed with cheap alcohol. And you can do it with thousands of others like you!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think there's a difference: I'm not very cautious about film reviews. If I don't like a film, I'll happily get on the bandwagon of those bashing it.


But when I'm evaluating ideas about how the world works, then I'm going to use a much higher standard. It's more uncomfortable, both because the issues are more complicated and more important, but it seems the struggle is worth it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks for sharing. I'll dig a bit into what happened in the early XX century.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I like how these questions make you think.


I'll put on my sci-fi hat and do some guessing:


    

  1. 

    The social norms will stay but will lose power. It's like having that one vegan friend that's into freecycling. Fun to invite sometimes, maybe even cook a meat- and dairy-free dish for, but they know that if they act up too much, they'll get axed from the social circle. It's like with all the boomers who thought they could keep the summer of love going forever, but instead grew up, got jobs, kids, mortgages and now just want stable living. Youngsters will roll their eyes when their parents will recount for the 12th time how they were fighting for racial justice--because youngsters will be well aware that, well, nothing really changed, so all this SJW stuff is just the same old crap you see in old movies.
    

    2. 

  2. 

    I would guess that we should see another woke cycle in 20 years. I'm basing this on my own fairly short timeframe of observation that only goes back to the early 90's, and a bunch of history I've learned, second hand, about the 70's and 80's. I don't think it can be stopped, though I hold onto some hope on that a great refragmentation is happening that will make purity-based movements like woke much less likely to spread. As for full inoculation against religious fervor, I suspect we're biologically programmed to engage in tribal behaviors whose symptoms include religious and political fervor, so we'd need a massive change to take place, something like artificial wombs or gay space communism, that would completely change the fabric of society to the point where tribal games would be severely punished. Short of that, I suspect it'll be some thousands of years before these genes are weakened enough to make this type of social behavior stop popping up like cockroaches in a bad NYC neighborhood.
    

    3. 



But what are your thoughts on these questions?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Is that a typo, or are you extending this commentary to things like lying flat and anti-work?




No! This is actually exactly what I'm talking about--if woke has become The Establishment, then youngsters' attacking the establishment is good, no?


Though, to add nuance, anti-work seems like a spinoff from woke, a tumor of it trying to eat itself, and not some healthy type of rebellion, but I'll take what I can get.




Assuming it's a typo, how do you see them rebelling?




Doing the opposite things they see their parents doing. Wearing dark clothing instead of happy pastel colors like in the 00's and '10s. Smoking or rather vaping, rather than sticking to ubercool health regimes. Watching gory movies. Understanding the the DEI stuff they hear at school is just the system trying to control them.


Of course, this may only describe a minority of gen z. Like the 90's crowd, most will go on to happily comply with any beliefs they're given. But this minority are the future mottizens.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And part of me wonders if I even know what real is any more.




Well damn. I have a Mood Cabinet too and have been struggling with this question for some time. It's gotten more relevant recently because I've discovered that I am somewhat unhappy with my life--I lack certain things such as enough meaningful human interaction (I get plenty of the meaningless stuff at work); and I find it harder and harder to focus on what I'm doing. The question I'm stuck on is "who/what is selecting the moods?"


I don't know. Much of it feels like a program put in place by early-20's me composed of things like "there's always time for exercise", "X, Y, and Z types of entertainment are heresy", "every job change should increase my salary min. 10%" and lots of ambitious and optimal stuff like that. And in the years since then, it feels like my life has been focused on optimizing everything within those constraints.


In many ways, it's proven successful. I have an extremely financially stable life. I've tried a bunch of fun things like traveling and sports. I've learned to go deep on certain things like literature. I've found a loving partner. But as I've mentioned before, I just discovered that there are areas of my life that essentially stopped changing since my early 20's, most of them orbiting around human relationships (my early 20's self was a misanthropic shithead). And this little crisis has forced me face the Director who selects my moods. It's a weird feeling. Like suddenly discovering you were merely a mask sitting on someone's face. You thought you had thought and adventures and relationships, but really, it was the mask having all these things.


On the brighter side, the mask doesn't seem that far from the Director. And the guy turned out to be pretty careful and empathetic. So it seems the path ahead is to recombine the two beings to be able to say, truly, "I am."


Anyhow.


My Cabinet is stocked somewhat similarly to yours. The main differences I see are that I rarely touch caffeine since it makes me hyperventilate. That, and I rely on a bunch of different consumables to calms down--l-theanine, ashwaghanda, valerian root, and cannabis (blunts or tincture).


Also, exercise is a big one for me. It gives me a unique mixture of calm energy that I can then use on productive work. Anything from a 5k run during lunch to doing a dozen pullups works wonders. That and some light stretching every day, especially in the evening, seems to give me a solid foundation to function that only requires minor adjustment w/ the consumables I mention above.


Edit: I forgot one: books. Reading a certain type of book puts me a mood that can last for days. Technical books for puzzle-solving mood. History books for writing. Epic sci-fi books for confidence, etc.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks for the thorough explanation.


I've recently become interested in measuring things, so finding related domains that I'm ignorant about is pretty helpful to keep following the thread.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 4, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks! I'll look into getting a paper copy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Technical question: why are you using log(monthly income)?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 27, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How to acclimate myself to working at a mid-sized corporation after working at small shops forever?


I recently joined as a software engineer a company whose employees number in the low thousands. I'm finding it hard to get used to it. Everything's pretty impersonal. Things move slowly--what would normally take me a week takes three instead--which extends feedback loops to a great extent. It's uncomfortable: I feel like I'm failing to deliver, even though my manager and onboarding buddy say I'm doing great.


(It's not completely a huge-boring corporation; my sense of contrast is likely tickled by it being a big change for me.)


A friend of mine recommended I think hard about what my manager's scoring function is and to optimize for that. (I would like stay with this gig for 2-4 years). He also recommended I read The Prince.


Has anyone else made this kind of move? Or, if someone here has spent considerable time at corporations, do you have any advice/reading material (preferably less theoretical and more practical)?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for November 23, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Seconding this.


You may also want to try to look at it as an experiment: a couple of weeks where you can really test how far you can optimize this particular human being. How far can you drive it? Grow its muscles? Strengthen its tendons? Find the optimal sleep/eat/workout plan?


This sort of curiosity got my 5k time from 30 minutes to 23 in the span of a month. It was also great fun--both mentally and physically.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Rationalists are too easily duped
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


but I as a rational skeptic do not assume it is unbroken.




And yet you assume you have access to other people's mental models.