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Wellness Wednesday for May 10, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Muted words:

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

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

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

I hope this is helpful!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That said, these are the accounts I follow:

Soren Iverson

@soren_iverson

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

prerat

@prerationalist

social media influencee

gaut

@0xgaut

@alongsidefi

— Tweets that won't put you to sleep

near

@nearcyan

somehow, I keep ending up in the AGI timeline

😈

@deepfates

conceptual artist

Jim Fan

@DrJimFan

@NVIDIA

AI Scientist.

@Stanford

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

@OpenAI

,

@GoogleAI

@goth

@goth600

ACCELERATE, THIS.

Ethan Mollick

@emollick

Professor

@Wharton

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

janus

@repligate

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

roon

@tszzl

spice must flow

ToughSF

@ToughSf

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

depths of wikipedia

@depthsofwiki

I am

@anniierau

and I also run

@internetdepths

!

James Miller

@JimDMiller

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

Fascinating

@fasc1nate

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

Stonetoss Comics

@stone_toss

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

@FlurksNFT

Rob Miles

@robertskmiles

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

Zero HP Lovecraft 🦅🐍

@0x49fa98

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

Flick

@Flick06484765

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

Alexander Kruel

@XiXiDu

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

KEITH BLAST

@keithjohnstack

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

Zvi Mowshowitz

@TheZvi

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

Stanford AI Lab

@StanfordAILab

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

DeepLearning.AI

@DeepLearningAI_

Gain the knowledge and skills for an AI career.

Bryan Caplan

@bryan_caplan

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

Scott Alexander

@slatestarcodex

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

Paul Graham

@paulg

Robin Hanson

@robinhanson

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

Google DeepMind

@DeepMind

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

Eliezer Yudkowsky

@ESYudkowsky

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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