Live data from Hacker News

The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

nytimes.com

31–40 of 62 posts

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#31
post #30

Forgive me for my ignorance, but shouldn't "Ulysses had himself tied to the mast" be " Odysseus had himself tied to the mast"? I haven't read Ulysses but I have read The Odyssey.

"Ulysses" is the Latin rendering of "Odysseus", so is sometimes used interchangeably.

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#32
I can't comment on willpower over everything, but if it is about working out / doing chores / getting to work, I have a hack for you:

Well.. it isn't really a hack, but something to remind yourself every fucking time that you're stalling. All you need is enough motivation to do it for 5 minutes. FIVE MINUTES!

Thats enough motivation to basically start an activity and forget about everything else in the process, and getting on with it. Just start doing it... FIVE MINUTES!!!

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#33
> (though not an indistinguishable beverage containing diet sweetener)

Really? Indistinguishable? This presumably doesn't invalidate their results, but a lot of people can distinguish the taste very well. This just seems like sloppiness on their part.

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#34
post #30

Forgive me for my ignorance, but shouldn't "Ulysses had himself tied to the mast" be " Odysseus had himself tied to the mast"? I haven't read Ulysses but I have read The Odyssey.

"Ulysses" is the Latin rendering of "Odysseus", so is sometimes used interchangeably.

Excellent! Thanks.

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#35
post #33

> (though not an indistinguishable beverage containing diet sweetener) Really? Indistinguishable? This presumably doesn't invalidate their results, but a lot of people can distinguish the taste very well. This just seems like sloppiness on their part.

Sloppy perhaps, but the point is still conveyed adequately. A diet beverage might not taste identical (Coca Cola Company acknowledges this, and in fact their diet products have a different flavour profile designed to better match the artificial sweeteners) but they certainly can be an adequate substitute when it comes to satisfying your brain's sugar cravings.

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#36
Willpower is not a resource, and glucose is not willpower fuel. See the following links:

http://www.epjournal.net/blog/2011/08/willpower-is-not-a-res... http://www.epjournal.net/blog/2011/08/glucose-is-not-willpow... http://www.epjournal.net/blog/2011/09/willpower-meets-the-co... http://whatblag.com/2011/08/04/poverty-and-willpower-as-reso...

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#37
Nonetheless, the very idea of self-­control has acquired a musty Victorian odor. - Rly? How about Eastern cultures who rely on self-control as a foundation for ages and ages? How about Art of War and other classic Chinese texts? How about The Book of Five Rings and other classics about mortal fights? What about Tibetan tradition which emphasizes self-control as a recruitment for self-transformation? Zen and other traditions based on Buddha's teachings? And, at last, what about Greek's 'Conquer yourself' maxim, which is the second most important one after 'Catch The Moment'? ^_^

It seems like modern journalist, same as modern hackers, are completely unaware, that all those self-help books, starting from Dale Carnegie's and Napoleon Hill's ones are mere compilations and oversimplifications of general western and some times eastern philosophy? But why, not everyone has a degree in Philosophy like the founder of this site. ^_^

The level of submissions and discussions on HN is somewhere below zero, after it became a huge mainstream site. Now being hacker is an ability to praise and admire some celebrities to silently down-vote people whom they can't appreciate or even understand.

Is there any new small community, with at least a little bit above mediocre level? ^_^

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#38
There is no free will. Here is what exists - you're born, and you surrender -freely- until you get your first 'NO' or encounter your first "failure" or your first "embarrassing" incident or some "trauma." Then you surrender at 98% instead of at 100%. That is called "life".

What you think of as "free will" is the choices imposed on you by the "clever" surrendering on your part, where you begin to see payoffs from surrendering - e.g. education, money, job, sex, marriage, etc. Everything else, you discard, e.g. do not surrender, thinking only a certain set of things matters enough to surrender to.

Then you find out, those things didn't make you happy either, and then you've had your share of sex, drugs, failures, successes, money, fun, vacations, meditations, jerking off, etc - and then you are "satiated" with all that shit... except you are still 'unhappy', and robbed of real free will.

So you NEVER have free will. The best approximation of FREE WILL is you are a passenger on an airplane flying at 600 mph, and you throw up this act for the audience on the plane of whom you've become by the time you're 35 and then complain, and make meaning of everything with your useless Ph.D..... and then you arrive at death, or the final test.

Real choice, self-control and free will come from surrendering 100% to everything there is. Since only one person in the last 2000 years has accomplished this fully, you are mostly grasping at straws when you think you have free will or self-control.

Get it through your head - you HAVE no free will to speak of. All you have is what's GIVEN to you. You can ASK for something to be given to you by the Source, and you get to choose that - whether it is given or not, you choose the outcome of what the Source delegates to your realm.

Having said this - one can REGAIN free will, much as you had when you were 4 and surrendered fully (to the Source), but it takes an act of the Source to give you that.

But before you can ask for the free will/self control to be given back to you, you have to give up the illusion that you have any semblance of free will/self-control to begin with. It's a bit of a conundrum, yes, but you have to CAPITULATE that you have ANY free will/self-control to speak of before you can regain it.

If you don't believe me, keep thinking you have free will/self-control and see how you feel the moment before you croak - still as unhappy as you were since the first "NO" you got.

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#39
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starving for hours and ignoring your body's warning signals? Whatever happened to "don't eat less, eat better" -- "don't reduce quantity, increase quality"? If you enjoy eating and don't enjoy the sounds made by a hungry stomach... you can munch down as many of those fresh veggies as you like and will feel all the better for it, while not gaining a pound. Something to consider. Not the same for fruits as they do cont…

I'm not saying it's the right way to do things. I don't think that starving myself is GOOD. A hungry stomach just doesn't bother me anymore , so I have to proactively think about food. That may seem nonsensical to you if you are still deeply in touch with your sense of hunger, but take me at my word. I didn't choose for it to be this way, I just didn't have much money for a while.

Actually it might be the right way to do things. Scientists have found that the most effective way to make monkeys live longer is by starving them their whole lives.

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#40
post #20

As far as food & overeating/unhealthy foods- I've learned you don't necessarily need self-control. You can stop caring instead. That's how I wound up after going hungry for months, and got used to it. It's frighteningly effective. Right now, the last meal I remember was about 20 hours ago, and the last meal before that was another 20-24 ago. My stomach is aching, but it doesn't bother me. Of course, this is not witho…

Starving for hours and ignoring your body's warning signals? Whatever happened to "don't eat less, eat better" -- "don't reduce quantity, increase quality"? If you enjoy eating and don't enjoy the sounds made by a hungry stomach... you can munch down as many of those fresh veggies as you like and will feel all the better for it, while not gaining a pound. Something to consider. Not the same for fruits as they do cont…

This is actually a common eating regime for Buddhist mmonks, who have been doing it by the millions for millenia, because the Buddha is believed to have eaten that way, and recommended it as conducive to health and longevity. I've done it a few times for about a month at a stretch each time. It is quite feasible.
Post reply on HN