Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

aeon.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 250 posts

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#171

Post by meshenna »

serpix wrote: post #100
Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I am starving, have no money for my interests, and yet have ambitions - and cannot find a fully fullfilling job, are you saying that I will not be able to go to a "bullshit job", because I will be under the impression that sitting at home meditating or looking at trees is more important than getting food through work? That to me sounds like laziness or victim complex, or a couple of other things, but really not…

Your problem starts with having a problem starving. All the rest of your suffering follows from there. If starving for a bit is not a problem then looking at trees is bliss. Laziness/victim complex is impossible unless there is a fundamental desire or conflict against just being in whatever there is. The hypersane/enlightened/realized whatever you call it have no problems whatsoever with what is happening and thus th…

Isn't that just run-of-the-mill stoicism?

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#172

Post by pcstl »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #166
pcstl wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like a true resident of the First World. When progress is so ubiquitous in your environment that it becomes invisible, it's easy to forget that people die of easily treatable diseases in places that don't have so much "technological progress", that people still starve because of a lack of "economic growth", and so on and so forth.

Actually not so much any more. So-called third world countries have moved decisively in the first-world direction for a century. Of course there's still rationed health care and narrow food choices. But easily-treatable diseases? Starvation? More rare by the year.

And that's exactly my point. We are making actual progress, we are changing people's lives for the better, but if you live in the first world, you won't feel that, as most of the Big Issues of human life have already been solved. The first world is currently struggling with Big Issues that are a level above that, such as global warming, which the average person doesn't feel impact their life so directly.

That is why technological progress and economic growth matter.

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#173

Post by sifar »

Luff wrote: post #158

Hypersane sounds a little smug, but it feels close to something. Like, there seems to be a difference between how smart a person is, and being [effective? rational? non-reactive? introspective?]. It feels like there's a spectrum of to which extent people are programmed by, and are reacting to, their environment. A spectrum that might be separate from how smart they are. Give them a text-book or an IQ-test and they'll…

May be the Unsane ? :). Seriously, there is already a name for it.

"The name that can be named is not the eternal name."

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#174

Post by pcstl »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #166
pcstl wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like a true resident of the First World. When progress is so ubiquitous in your environment that it becomes invisible, it's easy to forget that people die of easily treatable diseases in places that don't have so much "technological progress", that people still starve because of a lack of "economic growth", and so on and so forth.

Actually not so much any more. So-called third world countries have moved decisively in the first-world direction for a century. Of course there's still rationed health care and narrow food choices. But easily-treatable diseases? Starvation? More rare by the year.

Also, please do not condescend to me by saying stuff like "so-called third world countries". I live in a third world country and I will call third world countries what they are.

People suffer here under corrupt kleptocrats every day, and I will not have people try to deny that suffering by saying stuff like "so called third world countries", implying that the "third world" is actually doing great or something.

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#175

Post by waynecochran »

evultrole wrote: post #110
Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to operate on some other set of historical books and accounts than what is readily available.

That's an odd reply. Mark 4, Jesus basically says he doesn't want everyone to be saved so he's confusing on purpose. Matthew 15, he scolds Pharisees for not killing children like god commanded Matthew 21, he goes on an anger induced rampage in the temple Mark 11, Jesus killed a tree because he was mad that it didn't have fruit when it was out of season Do you think these things don't count?

Wow the level of dishonesty and misuse of any context is horrific here.

Mark 4: Jesus is quoting Isaiah who is speaking of a people who have the Scriptures and yet have continually ignored God and will eventually murder Him. God is under no compulsion to be clear with them. It is the sobering truth of Matthew 13:12.

Matthew 15 : I have no idea what you are talking about here.

Matthew 21: The house of God is being used to turn a profit and exploit the poor. Yeah -- that angers God.

Mark 11: You seriously can't see the bigger symbolism here? Are you really concerned about a tree?

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#176

Post by ltbarcly3 »

pcstl wrote: post #170

Based on this article, there is absolutely no way to distinguish "Hypersanity" from just plain old insanity. Rationality is systematized winning. Unless your actions are benefitting yourself in some significant way, you cannot be considered rational. However, you cannot determine a person's inner drivers from the outside. Therefore, you cannot tell, based purely on their actions, whether they are winning (where winni…

> Based on this article, there is absolutely no way to distinguish "Hypersanity" from just plain old insanity.

I don't see it this way at all. Plain old insanity can manifest as typical (or atypical) behavior combined with absurd, easily disprovable beliefs. Hypersanity as described leads to atypical behavior and worldview via a reasoned dismissal of widely accepted values, but nothing wrong on it's face or disprovable. For example, insanity is believing you are covered with spiders when you are not, hypersanity would be not feeling the need to disturb a harmless spider that is sitting on your nose.

> Rationality is systematized winning. Unless your actions are benefitting yourself in some significant way, you cannot be considered rational.

Now I see why you can't distinguish between insanity and hypersanity, you are conflating epistemology and ethics, and they just aren't the same thing. A 'true belief' is one which enables you to achieve some goal, but whether that goal is 'good' or desirable can only be determined when evaluated via some kind of ethical framework. For example, if I decide that the most important thing is to make sure the Canadian flag never touches the ground I will have a very different concept of what 'winning' is compared to someone who's goal is to make as much money as possible, and both of us will have a different concept of winning compared to someone who thinks the most important thing is to teach others that their widely held assumptions are not true or important, such as Diogenes.

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#177

Post by majewsky »

meshenna wrote: post #171
serpix wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your problem starts with having a problem starving. All the rest of your suffering follows from there. If starving for a bit is not a problem then looking at trees is bliss. Laziness/victim complex is impossible unless there is a fundamental desire or conflict against just being in whatever there is. The hypersane/enlightened/realized whatever you call it have no problems whatsoever with what is happening and thus th…

Isn't that just run-of-the-mill stoicism?

Sounds more like Buddhism to me ("all existence is suffering" and so on). Stoicism has you recognize that (to simplify dramatically) you cannot change other people, only yourself. Stoicism consequently places a large emphasis on getting your mind and body in order, so it probably would not argue for allowing yourself to starve.

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#178

Post by JoeAltmaier »

pcstl wrote: post #174
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually not so much any more. So-called third world countries have moved decisively in the first-world direction for a century. Of course there's still rationed health care and narrow food choices. But easily-treatable diseases? Starvation? More rare by the year.

Also, please do not condescend to me by saying stuff like "so-called third world countries". I live in a third world country and I will call third world countries what they are. People suffer here under corrupt kleptocrats every day, and I will not have people try to deny that suffering by saying stuff like "so called third world countries", implying that the "third world" is actually doing great or something.

No idea I was pushing your buttons. Sorry.

Actually I don't see where you did use that term?

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#179

Post by RHSeeger »

orwin wrote: post #113
xwdv wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, even if you realized all that to it's full extent, the fact is we don't get to choose how we live if we plan to live in our current world for very long. Imagine we lived in a violent brutal world where it was kill or be killed. Even if you realize that killing only brings you stress and unhappiness, you won't last very long if you stop doing it. As soon as you lay down your arms someone will come and bash your he…

Go visit back-to-landers hippies from the early 70s, they lived quasi of-grid for almost 50 years now, all play music everyday, some of them (the youngest) can still ride their horses everyday, and they eat whatever they grow. Poorest people in the US, poorest than some homeless, but they still live really well, and better than most i shall say. They chose how to live their dreams, did it for ~50 years and still ende…

That also means they don't get many of the benefits of modern society, I would think. What do they do when their child becomes a type 1 diabetic? Or goes into shock from an allergic reaction?

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#180

Post by pcstl »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #176
pcstl wrote: post #170

Based on this article, there is absolutely no way to distinguish "Hypersanity" from just plain old insanity. Rationality is systematized winning. Unless your actions are benefitting yourself in some significant way, you cannot be considered rational. However, you cannot determine a person's inner drivers from the outside. Therefore, you cannot tell, based purely on their actions, whether they are winning (where winni…

> Based on this article, there is absolutely no way to distinguish "Hypersanity" from just plain old insanity. I don't see it this way at all. Plain old insanity can manifest as typical (or atypical) behavior combined with absurd, easily disprovable beliefs. Hypersanity as described leads to atypical behavior and worldview via a reasoned dismissal of widely accepted values, but nothing wrong on it's face or disprovab…

The article mentions "conversing with beings which cannot be perceived by anyone but the person themselves" as a canonical example of hypersanity.

I find that pretty comparable to "believing you are covered with spiders when you are not".

>you are conflating epistemology and ethics

The interpretation that the idea of hypersanity refers only to ethics is due to you and you alone, as the article states nothing to that end, so please do not make claims about my thought process that amount to "you are wrong because you did not arrive at the same conclusion as me". It is not only disingenuous, but also arrogant and short-sighted.

Post reply on HN