hedberg10

A good critical comment teaches us something.

I feel as if I did that. Maybe my writing comes across way differently, maybe my comments are not as direct as they could be - but if that is already too upsetting for this crowd, you will never get any actual critical comments. You will never arrive at any traction, at any truth. Too bad, I expected more here. My error.

Case in point:

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says

Nobody replying to me did that. Amazing.

"Hit the moving target" while spaceship shakes about violently.

"Swipe up and hold to eject!" chirps Alexa as we plunge 200 feet in 2 seconds...

They don't do their part because they are not expected to. That is my problem with the "disease" label. That is my problem when talking about homelessness. That is my problem when talking about addiction.

And there are people who make a good living keeping it exactly this way, making bank in the wake of the moral outrage of the "helpers".

Fair point. My own character traits certainly color my viewpoints.

It removes the victim mindset.

My background is a recovering asshole, partially failing, aka the son in the article.

I have seen the homeless as people to be pitied and helped. Just weak people, down on their luck. So you help them, right?

I let a homeless man sleep in the hallway of my building. He took a shit in front of my door.

Now if I had seen the homeless as what they actually are, maybe weak, maybe helpless, but still people with agency who can be absolute assholes, that wouldn't have happened.

And I hate that this is overlooked. Maybe if the parents in the article wouldn't have fallen into this trap, their son would still be alive.

The assumption everyone downvoting seems to make is that I don't have compassion or as you do, I see them as "weak", "lazy" or "attention seeking" (notice how you are seeing them as that, not me).

I can have compassion and ask them to do their part. That actually solves the problem.

my cousin had been taken so young?

He wasn't taken. He took himself. Exercise: Everytime you remove agency, reintroduce it.

"I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you.

I know this is harsh. I know the societal memes and phrases are the warm place. A sigh, the Soma of "Nothing can be done" or "Somebody needs to do something!!" is not a solution but paralysis.

You can read it in the article: The parents did everything for the addict, he did nothing himself. It didn't work out now, did it? Never does.

(Not absolving the Sacklers of their guilt, that is a separate issue)

Novel? Ho, ho, how quaint. If you'd made a dent in the hard sciences by then, I'd be impressed.

You're welcome, friend.

Air travel is still great if you fly first class, which if I remember correctly, is exactly as expensive as air travel was in the good old days.

https://www.harvard.com/book/dying_for_a_paycheck_how_modern...

"Management" is a public health crisis like cancer, diabetes or heart disease. Nothing else and nothing more.

Anecdotal: In the Interview I found this in, Pfeffer cites a colleague who asked managers what books they read about their job: None. They were not reading at all.

You're right, it should have it's own name. It's much closer to drug use. Constantly context switching with high emotionality. "Dopamine streaming"?

It takes a lot longer to put out an inflammatory book and it's harder to actually write one, because it has to be a whole book, not just 3 paragraphs. There was a lot less data easily accessible, meaning you had to have instincts of a seasoned craftsman or luck. The medium itself really did help us out for a long time.

They are getting the size of walls now, so I'm ready to live out Fahrenheit 451.

Well, I'll have you know I graduated summa cum laude from Lemönade Ständ Universität, which is a very prestigious institution in Luxemburg, when I was 6.

Every company has a shrine to vital things that can not break under any circumstances. We have a holy Win7 Thinkpad.

Often there are gurus too and monks live in the caves next to the relics, trying to guard the sacred grounds and spreading the gospel.

Let's identify the problems here:

  Long work hours
  -which might or might not be bullshit

  Addicting novelty seeking
  -small dopamine hits 
  -and it's enablement
    -phones
    -never ending scrolling
    -being rich to have access

  Procrastination
  -mix of fear, uncertainty, belief it will be better at a 
  later time

Well now youre doing exactly what I described. You make my suggestions into a to do list and feel bad.

The point is to feel better. Thats the start of everything. Not "I have accomplished all tasks, now I can feel good".

Notice how I didnt even define what a "good" sleep pattern is and what you made of it, then proclaiming that to be unreachable, feeling worse. Maybe a good sleep schedule for you is to sleep during the day? Who cares. Its whatever makes you feel good. The second you judge yourself, you lose.

Have you heard 'State not story' (sometimes 'Story follows state')?

This comes from trauma therapy, specifically Polyvagal Theory. Patients have their life story and often think of it as the reason for their current problems, when in reality a huge portion of that might be their body, ie the state of their nervous system, informing a story they tell themselves, making mental illness an infinite loop.

So for self management: Get into a happy state and you'll be productive.

Body:

-sleep

-food

-water

-sun

-posture

-exercise

Mind:

-well basically "Learned Optimism" by Martin Seligman

My main point being: How we learn what hard work is (the Hollywood version), and how work needs to feel (Stress! Panic! No sleep! Hustle! Endless To Do lists!) is very wrong and gives you anxiety => puts your body into a bad state.

And if you are in the bad state and unproductive, people usually resort to "I'm not doing this right, I need to put me into the bad state harder!". See the endless tools you listed. The problem lies elsewhere.

“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.”

― D.H. Lawrence

There was a regular helicopter service on top of skyscrapers, like a bus. There isn't anymore, because things that go up, must come down.

"Urban" and "flying" will never happen.

I'm regularly astonished that we trust people with shopping carts, given how well they use them. Nobody is going to trust any density flying over our heads. Not even with auto pilot. Sorry Fifth Element fans.

Crazy it sold at all, really. Still overvalued.

The free money bubble sets your value horizon to weird levels.

I remember hard solutions being worth something, not bro apps. Now I'm actually not that grumpy. This happens in every industry, I wish everybody involved well (I regret calling it a bro app, I'm sure there is way more involved than I am seeing, but it fits here in terms of functionality), markets are fuzzy, I don't get to make the evaluations, prices don't reflect material value but market etc. - I'm just trying to figure out my INTJness and how people cannot see this coming.

"Genius.com is going to be the Internet Talmund" and a unicorn - what? Based on what?

WeWork/Fab.com etc. etc.

Fair enough

Does it still work If yes, it's not dead

Another point: This thinking cheapens learning. If you only learn, "what isn't dead", you stifle your curiosity and don't learn the whole picture of a thing.

I share your experiences with caffeine withdrawal.

I bought a really good Espresso machine. Quite fun, for me. Now I drink a really good cup on a sunday and then go a few days without even.

There is nothing that can touch it. Not the free coffee at work, which I now regard as insidious, or coffee places. They usually ruin the milk, if you hear an unpleasant sound while steaming, they are doing it wrong.

Also works with alcohol and food for me. We have too much of everything, hence why fasting is such a real life cheat code, but nothing of quality.

"Witchhunt? Only we do that."

It was. People aren't taught about the Venona Papers. I wonder why that is.

There was only one free seat and the quiet kid had to stand because the bullies wouldn't let him sit next to them. That counts as bullying in my book.

Bullying behavior exist also in the bullied: The quiet kid had to appease the bullies.

Train these roles often enough, both parties are on a set course for life.

I think what I mean is not even taking out frustrations. This behavior doesn't need an a priori frustration. That is the big issue.

I'm able to forgive a frustration. You cut me off, you have a bad day/parent in hospital - I'm able to live with that. That is in stoicism, radical acceptance etc. You do it just because - it's a different animal. "Just because" meaning, you take the power.

I'm finding it hard to discuss social hierarchies. They clearly exist. I suspect they have a much greater influence on many things, depression for example (seems to me like a "self own", making oneself lower in the hierarchy, maybe as a survival strategy, but coming with unintended consequences).

But people are unwilling to talk about it or get political very fast, because it seems to all hint to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Might_Is_Right.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assholes:_A_Theory

Today on the train I saw some bullies. Kids wouldn't let the quieter kid sit with them.

What I could see immediately in their eyes is the knowledge that they can just do that. There are no repercussions. There is nothing anybody can do. This works. The bully just lashing out because of his own issues is a myth. This is just how humans work and certain societies are able to mitigate the blow.

There is a social hierarchy, we reward those who enforce it and we respect those who create it - which is good (agency), even if they behave like assholes - which is bad.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but there are people who take what isn't theirs. Even just in the physical realm policing doesn't seem to work that well. There are just societies with more trust and thus less thievery.

What to do about our psychological world?

Maybe they are antennas? Maybe they are drones..