281–288 of 288 posts
At age 20 or so, I read a quote in a book (on day trading, IIRC) that went something like: "Master your emotions, or they will master you." After thinking about it, I realized that despite identifying as a logical-thinking individual, I was nevertheless at the mercy of the more primitive parts of my brain. Sometimes totally, but pretty much all executive functions were influenced by it to a large degree. That might b…
"Mastering your emotions" if you mean, controlling your emotions, is not balanced or healthy. Mastering your emotions means listening to them as a critical feedback to your environment and then rationally controlling your response. Rational thought is complimentary to emotional thought. Rational thought is slow, reflexive, and highly focused. Emotional thought is affective; it is your mind telling you how something i…
Imagine a river. Controlling the river in the way you suggest is like throwing obstacles in the river trying to dam it.
But instead, imagine trying to redirect the river instead. You don't fight the flow, you just move it.
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Radicalism can also be a reaction to systems that claim to be perfect but unsurprisingly fail, on the other hand.
Yes of course, but those systems I think most people don't believe are perfect. Weirdly, it may take a kind of 'irrational populism' to nudge the needle a few points to just get 'basic change' which is a real paradox.
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I realise that a lot of people have anxiety issues, but to call it abuse is just stupid. They are genuinely people looking back on their life experience and giving advice.
I wouldn't call this abuse either but there is a huge huge gulf between "that was the best time of my life" and "this is the best time of your life. It's at best just extremely rude to tell someone about their own life and how they should feel about it.
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The last thing you wrote is something I indirectly think about quite a lot. Imagine a place (call it heaven if you want) where time and death don’t exist. What could you possibly care about?
> Imagine a place (call it heaven if you want) where time and death don’t exist. What could you possibly care about? Mathematics! plushpuffin ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27132468 ) mentions Greg Egan's Permutation city , and this sort of question is one of his main themes. In Diaspora , Egan explores many other possible answers; my favourite of the possible answers there, and I suspect also his, is that ev…
> Imagine a place (call it heaven if you want) where time and death don’t exist. What could you possibly care about?
Mathematics!
plushpuffin (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27132468) mentions Greg Egan's Permutation City, and this sort of question is one of his main themes. In Diaspora, Egan explores many other possible answers; my favourite of the possible answers there, and I suspect also his, is that eventually one would occupy oneself with mathematics in such a place.
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Actually I often wonder if people think about the extremity of their words. Absurd exaggeration is the norm. That's fine in the form of metaphor (though I still dislike "murder" and "rape" to describe the vagaries of competitive sports and business!) but it's something else when the words can have legal/moral/professional ramifications. Power gained by the previously-disempowered is rarely handled responsibly. But th…
That's a fair point and one I'm willing to accept, but this has been going on for at least half a decade if not longer. I guess at some point, the sort of meta-conversation you and I are having will have to be had.
And ultimately, there will be no reasoned conversation or balanced future. It will just happen, in fits and starts, and we will land in a new semi-stable state of imperfection. Until the next time.