Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014)

#131

Post by dctoedt » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

r0b05 wrote: post #93

gwgundersen wrote: post #24

Ever since reading Bertrand Russell's "The Conquest of Happiness", I've thought a lot about the importance of being able to sit inside my own head. One quote that I wrote down: > A life too full of excitement is an exhausting life, in which continually stronger stimuli are needed to give the thrill that has come to be thought an essential part of pleasure. A person accustomed to too much excitement is like a person w…

This is a profound realisation that is usually preceded by experiencing the sickness and suffering that comes with unrestrained desire. How it takes over one's discriminating faculties until one becomes blind to everyday beauty. I cannot recommend meditation enough to train the mind to stay calm when desires want to run rampant. No mantras or music, just sit in silence and boredom. Thoughts will come and go and event…

How long did it take you to notice that meditation made a difference?

Re: Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014)

#132

Post by carapace » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 8:55 PM UTC

kwhitefoot wrote: post #107

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2002, on my way to work in I think Berkeley (definitely somewhere in the Bay Area), I noticed some beautiful echoes in the subway station, and I stopped walking, stood still, and listened. A staff member walked up and asked if I was okay. I said yes. Maybe I explained what I was doing, I don't remember. A few minutes later three paramedics appeared, forcibly strapped me to a gurney, and took me to a hospital. I pr…

Without more context and the ability to verify this I have to assume that you made it up. The event is too extreme to stand without corroboration; at least it would be where I live.

I was once crossing the Golden Gate Bridge on foot and about halfway across the view of the bay was so beautiful that I had to stop and drink it in. (Have you heard the phrase "arresting beauty" or "arrested by beauty"? That's how it was: I was captivated. It was just so beautiful!)

Anyway, after maybe ten minutes a bicycle police officer came up and started talking to me. It took me a moment to realize that he was sounding me out for emotional distress, checking to see if I was suicidal. I gave him my best smile (easy enough as I was still in the thrall of beauty) and reassured him emphatically that I was okay, and thanked him for doing his (IMO very important) job and apologized for making him come out and check on me (no good reason not to be extra nice in the circs, eh?) and went on my way.

I'm not blaming the OP for getting, uh, overbearing and unneeded help. I'm pointing out that our society has developed mechanisms to try to prevent suicide in the obvious places: GGB and BART (the "subway" in Berkeley.)

> The Golden Gate Bridge is the most used suicide site in the world.

> After years of debate and an estimated more than 1,500 deaths, suicide barriers, consisting of a stainless steel net extending 20 feet from the bridge and supported by structural steel 20 feet under the walkway, began to be installed in April 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Bridge#Suicides

Re: Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014)

#133

Post by colordrops » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

gwgundersen wrote: post #24

Ever since reading Bertrand Russell's "The Conquest of Happiness", I've thought a lot about the importance of being able to sit inside my own head. One quote that I wrote down: > A life too full of excitement is an exhausting life, in which continually stronger stimuli are needed to give the thrill that has come to be thought an essential part of pleasure. A person accustomed to too much excitement is like a person w…

Perhaps as you age this advice is great, and I find myself naturally trending towards it, but I wouldn't give up my past life full of titillations and jagged surprises for anything. It's been amazing so far.

Re: Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014)

#134

Post by failwhaleshark » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

Idleness is rust.

Re: Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014)

#135

Post by failwhaleshark » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

gwgundersen wrote: post #24

Ever since reading Bertrand Russell's "The Conquest of Happiness", I've thought a lot about the importance of being able to sit inside my own head. One quote that I wrote down: > A life too full of excitement is an exhausting life, in which continually stronger stimuli are needed to give the thrill that has come to be thought an essential part of pleasure. A person accustomed to too much excitement is like a person w…

I read that book also. I believe in both modalities.

I can go for days without human contact, code, "ideate" (sensory deprivation that leads to daydreaming, new product designs, and new writing ideas)... but I can't go indefinitely.

I also have ADHD and need lots of stimuli to get a rush. I don't "party hard," but I engage in copious adult activities, decadent cooking, have people over to listen to blast vinyl at annoy-the-neighbors volume and let loose like it's the last day on Earth, and extreme sports.

Your body may age, but never give up the joy of life. YOLADO (you only live and die once).

Re: Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014)

#136

Post by carapace » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

reidjs wrote: post #21

jonplackett wrote: post #15

This reminds me of a clip of Louis CK talking about losing the ability to just sit with your own thoughts and be really sad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c&t=53s Shame he turned out to be a sexual deviant because he said some interesting things.

I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss his entire act because of what he did. Watch his latest special to see his perspective. He’s not exactly Bill Cosby.

> I wouldn’t be so quick...

I was a big fan of Louis CK, it took me about five days to internalize what he did and decide that his career was over as far as I'm concerned. It broke my heart. The guy is a creep and I can't watch him anymore.

Compare and contrast with what happened to Paul Reubens. He was arrested for masturbating during a film at an adult movie theater. He didn't force people to watch him like Louis CK allegedly did. It took eight years for his career to revive, and he arguably never fully recovered.

> In July 1991, Reubens was arrested for indecent exposure in an adult theater in Sarasota, Florida. The arrest set off a chain reaction of national media attention that changed the general public's view of Reubens and Pee-wee.[3] The arrest postponed Reubens' involvement in major projects until 1999

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Reubens#1991_arrest_and_r...

Re: Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014)

#137

Post by dQw4w9WgXcQ » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #62

dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>substituting titillations for profound organic satisfactions, cleverness for wisdom, and jagged surprises for beauty... ...And porn for relationships and intimacy. If there's any modern ill that has exacerbated our inability to be comfortable with boredom (which is essentially inner loneliness) it's porn. It's an escape for loneliness and a terrible salve that leaves the intrinsic desires for intimacy and connection…

Meh. I've been watching porn since forever. My taste in porn has informed my real-life taste, and vice versa (in particular, I detest make-up / fakeness, both in porn and in real life). Still, I find real people infinitely more fulfilling and have always put effort into seeking real relationships, sexual and romantic. (I estimate porn is similar to gambling - some people's psychology makes them more susceptible to ad…

Meh. I've been going to bars since forever. I'm not like that guy over there who pounds a 12 pack every night and has no standards for what he funnels down his gullet. Despite my habitual usage and inability to refrain from the activity for any extended period of time, I estimate his psychology must make him the addict. For me it's a matter of refinement and my consciously-engaged frontal-lobe awareness of the fine hops and spirits that elevates me to a connoisseur of the boozy arts.

Re: Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014)

#138

Post by Spooky23 » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

beebeepka wrote: post #127

Spooky23 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s acceptable to have a position or opinion, civilly stated. Any of the common “vices” like gambling, porn, Skinner box games, some drugs are difficult for people to manage. That dopamine hit burns behavioral pathways into the brain and is tough to undo.

Apparently everyone is exactly the same and the only people whose lives haven't been ruined buy these vices, as you call them, are the ones who haven't tried them. I am done here

Not sure why you have a hang up about this.

I enjoy drinking alcohol and have no issues with it, but that doesn’t mean acknowledging that alcoholism is a thing is a problem or some judgemental act.

Re: Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014)

#139

Post by carapace » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

fighterpilot wrote: post #121

DangitBobby wrote: post #99

It is supremely uncomfortable inside some people's heads.

More generally, it is supremely uncomfortable inside some people's bodies . I don't just mean someone with physical pain. Anxiety, depression and other disorders are a whole-body experience.

I believe this is a wildly underappreciated fact: Most folks are miserable, and most of us don't realize it due to a kind of "fish don't notice water" effect.

> Under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. We have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. We have never seen a totally sane human being.

~Robert Anton Wilson

Re: Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014)

#140

Post by vorpalhex » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #101

vorpalhex wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using porn to fix loneliness is like using a screwdriver as a hammer. It's not the intent of the tool, nor can you be upset with the screwdriver for being a poor hammer. The issue lies with the maker, not the tool.

Many things are clearly harmful because they exploit weaknesses in the human psyche and the average person. There is a reason why obesity is high and rising, for example.

You can take two views of humans.

One is that they are to be managed - their food choices kept narrow to safe ones, dangerous things removed from their environment, and only safe and allowable futures enabled. Give them little locked down tablets that don't view porn, keep their food limited to acceptable options, don't let them read dangerous books.

The other view is that humans are free agents, and to treat them as less than an agent is to fundamentally deny their identity as such. That means giving them information but letting them make "bad choices" or "the wrong choice".

Freedom means being able to make bad choices.